ON S. FERDINAND OF ARAGON,
BISHOP OF CALATIA IN CAMPANIA.
PERHAPS THE 13TH CENTURY.
COMMENTARY OF JOANNES BOLLAND.
On his ancient cult, his age, and his Acts more recently collected.
Ferdinand of Aragon, Bishop of Calatia in Campania of Italy (S.)
BY J. Boll.
Calatia is a most ancient city of Campania, situated on this side of the river Volturnus, now commonly called Cajazza and Cajazzum, by the Italians Cajazzo; adorned with an Episcopal throne, of Calatia, or Cajazzo, and indeed (if Georgius Braunius is to be credited, for we have not surveyed its sacred monuments) from the very cradles of the Christian religion. So he, in tome 5 of the Theater of Cities. Calatia was, in the very first times of the growing Church, distinguished with the title of a Bishopric, as appears from the public records, made from as early as the year of human salvation 300, where mention is had of the Bishopric of Calatia.
[2] Then the same Braunius recounts two holy Prelates of its Church, of whom one is S. Ferdinand. There were, he says, among the Bishops of that city two holy men, two holy Bishops, Stephen and Ferdinand, renowned for piety and miracles; S. Ferdinand, namely, and S. Stephen. Ferdinand, who long before Stephen ruled that Church, is handed down to have been a Spaniard of the royal stock of Aragon, in what time he flourished is unknown: his body is preserved in a temple dedicated to his name, in the town of Albiniano of the diocese of Calatia. Each of them long since obtains public cult. For Paulus Filomarinus, of the Congregation of Regular Clerics, Bishop of Calatia, published the ancient Offices of SS. Stephen and Ferdinand of Aragon, Bishops and Patrons of the Church of Calatia: in whose preface to the Clergy and people of Cajazzo, and its diocese, and likewise venerated from antiquity as Patrons. he proclaims these things: This our Church is, God being the author, adorned with two Bishops, and admirable Patrons, conspicuous for sanctity of life, namely the holy Stephen and Ferdinand of Aragon: who as two lamps were placed by God upon this candlestick, that to posterity, by the light of holy deeds, they might leave examples of their perfect life, and demonstrate the true way of heaven.
[3] What Braunius says, that long before Stephen Ferdinand presided over that Church, is by no means proved by many. When S. Ferdinand lived, is uncertain: S. Stephen died, as we shall say at his Life on the 29th of October, in the year of Christ 1022, having sat 44 years. Concerning S. Ferdinand, our Antonius Beatillus, renowned for sanctity of life and writings, once communicated to us these things received from Calatia: The other Patron of the city is the divine Ferdinand, sprung of the royal progeny of Aragon, as is established through many writings in the Episcopal archive of Calatia. he is believed to have been a Spaniard, He died on the 27th day of the month of June, but in what time he lived, is unknown. He is believed to have come from Spain in the time of S. Dominic of Guzman, together with him. Nor is mention found of him, except only from the year 1343 in the time of John the Bishop, and of Roger the Bishop in the year 1365.
[4] The same Beatillus admonished us, that thence seems to have flowed the conjecture of those who make him equal to S. Dominic, that in his age lived Ferdinand King of Spain, called Saint. There will perhaps be one who suspects that this our Bishop once came into Italy, an exile from Africa, where first the usurped name is read of Ferrandus, or Ferdinand. And indeed very many, while the Vandals were ruling in Africa, and afterward also, came into Italy, Bishops and other Clerics of all grades. To one asking why then he is said to have been a Spaniard and indeed an Aragonian, on account of the name, he will answer, that in the later centuries the name of Ferdinand was familiar to the Spaniards almost alone, therefore he was held to be a Spaniard: and when the Calatians had narrated this to King Alfonso, he, rejoicing at this occasion of binding the people to himself, of his own accord pronounced that he was sprung from his own family, and the judgment of King Alfonso, as we shall say below from the sheets of Michael the Monk; and rendered this grace to the hospitable city, that he who there had been adopted into the possession of the most ample kingdom, should himself adopt him into his own kindred, about to draw greater splendor from that adoption than he would give.
[5] But because this can seem alien from the gravity of a most wise King, I should prefer (since in an obscure matter it is permitted to divine) that he sprang from some family, and indeed from the family of the Kings of Aragon, joined to the stock of the Kings of Aragon by some title of affinity. As there were, and are even now in that kingdom, several families, which besides the ancestral name of their forefathers claim for themselves the surname of Aragon, received from the mother, sometimes from a sisterhood only, or from a person joined to them by any other bond of affinity. So in the recognition of the Sanctuary of Capua Michael the Monk records, that when the granddaughter of Ferdinand I the King, through his firstborn Alphonsus, had married Honoratus Cajetanus Count of Fondi, the King made for the same Honoratus a privilege, that he himself, his sons, grandsons, and all his posterity should be and be called of the house of Aragon: or to another Italian family joined to them by affinity, nay he also recites a special privilege conferred on Jordan Cajetanus, Archbishop of Capua, brother of Honoratus, in which the same King Ferdinand thus addresses him: By the very right we are moved and led, and admitted into the communion of the name. that we should both adorn thyself and thy excellent virtues with honors, and illustrate them with titles. And although our will intends to confer more ample and more distinguished things upon thyself; yet we for the present admit, ascribe, and number thee, the same Reverend Jordan, whom by the bond of affinity we before bound to ourselves through our granddaughter from our most illustrious and most dear firstborn and Vicar General Alphonso of Aragon, for the greater declaration of our love, although thou art by thyself sufficiently noble and illustrious, by the tenor of these presents, of our certain knowledge, and by our own proper motion of mind, thy merits indeed demanding this, into our family and into the House of Aragon: willing that henceforth and for the future thou be and be called of the house and lineage of Aragon, and in all acts, titles, business, and things to be conducted and done thou be inscribed and called "of Aragon," and that of the same our house and family thy surname be and be called.
[6] Let it suffice to have thus far divined concerning the nation and family of S. Ferdinand. The burial of S. Ferdinand, Concerning his burial the following were had in the cited little sketch of Beatillus: He was buried in the basilica of the kindly Virgin at Cornello, near the land of Albiniano, of the diocese of Calatia. On whose sepulcher these words are read:
This is my rest forever and ever. Here will I dwell, for I have chosen it. the epitaph, Rejoice with gladness, O city of Calatia, Be glad, expelling vices, O diocesan people. For with a precious gift ye are adorned, And with the sacred funeral of Ferdinand ye are endowed. To which the sick come together, without health, And the healed return with joyfulness.
[7] Philip Ferrarius testifies in his Notes at the 27th of June, the Acts, that the Life of S. Ferdinand was written by Maurice the Sicilian of the Order of Minims. This we have not yet seen; nor do we think that author attained much more than what the most diligent Michael the Monk, Canon of Capua, could dig up from the vicinity; from whose adversaria, the treatise which we shall subjoin, his nephew through his sister, Silvester Ajossa, a Presbyter of Capua, a man most humane and likewise most studious of amplifying the honor of the Saints, transmitted to us. He himself went to the place, and inquired whether any Acts were extant, nor did he find others than those which Ferrarius hands down in the cited Notes: the church. There is extant a church dedicated to him by the river Volturnus, which we saw, while we were going from Calatia to Allifae. But in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy he has these things: Ferdinand, by nation a Spaniard, as the name itself testifies, when he had come into Italy, and had betaken himself into Calatia a city of Campania, attained such praise of doctrine and sanctity, that, the Bishop of Calatia having died, he was substituted to him. Renowned for many miracles the miracles in his life he fell asleep at Albiniano a town of the diocese of Calatia on the 5th before the Kalends of July: and there was honorably entombed. Where also, and at his sepulcher. on account of his signs of virtues upon the sick, he has great veneration. There is extant a country church dedicated to him near the aforesaid town.
[8] The Natalis. He is venerated with an anniversary celebration on the 27th of June, as we have already related from Ferrarius: and his name is extant in an old Calendar made about the year 1300, which Michael the Monk exhibits, but which is indicated as afterward written by another hand, a little note † being added. His ancient Office of that day, published in type by the Bishop of Calatia, it pleases to subjoin; the Office. by excerpting those things which are proper to the Saint, in which his patronage against fevers and other kinds of diseases is commended. At the Magnificat, the Antiphon: The Lord clothed B. Ferdinand with strength with the virtue of comeliness: He confirmed him; and he shall not be moved forever. The Prayer, Thy Majesty, O Lord.
D. P.
[9] Thus far Bollandus, perhaps in the very year 1658, in which he had received the above-praised little treatise from Capua, by a letter transmitted either to Ajossa himself or to P. Beatillus, The more ancient name Fredenandus. or even to both. I find nothing to add, not even in Ughelli; whose tome VI, two years after these things were written by Bollandus, first appeared: I will therefore say here only that concerning the name and its etymology I have discoursed much in §2 of the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of S. Ferdinand the King: to which I should now wish to be added, that two centuries before the holy King, the first King of Castile and Leon of that name wrote himself, not Ferdinandus, but Fredenandus, in his diplomas; one of which, from Ambrose Morales, who followed the autograph charter, I exhibited on the preceding day in the Appendix to the Acts of S. Pelagius the Martyr, number 7: which diploma is read as given in the Era 61 after the thousandth, that is in the year of Christ 1023. But this, from the old Frankish and Teutonic dialect, in which "Frede" is peace, would signify "the hand of Peace" or "one bearing Peace in the hands"; but referred to the old Gothic, it would make not so Christian a sense, but would denote ferocity, praised among the Goths still gentile, from the same root probably, whence the Teutonic tongue has the adjective "Vreeden," cruel, with the vowel lengthened.
HISTORICAL SCHOLION
From the Adversaria of Michael the Monk.
Ferdinand of Aragon, Bishop of Calatia in Campania of Italy (S.)
[1] For Ferdinand the King staying with them Ferdinand was not only by nation a Spaniard, but drew his origin from the ancient and royal family of Aragon. The Calatians narrate, that King Alphonsus the First, once staying at Calatia, asserted, that S. Ferdinand sprang from Aragon and from his own kindred; and on account of devotion to the same received for himself from the Cathedral church a dish and a pitcher, which the Saint himself while living was said to have used, but made compensation to the church. This is confirmed from a certain supplication, found in the archive of the Church of Calatia, made about the year 1507, of which these are the words.
[2] Catholic King, Ferdinand of Aragon, to your renowned and Catholic Highness it is humbly supplicated, the Calatians supplicate, and reverently set forth, on the part of the venerable church of S. Ferrandus, existing in the territory of the castle of Albiniano, in which lies the glorified body of S. Ferdinand of Aragon, distinguished with innumerable and most brilliant miracles: since it is that nowhere else is found a glorified body of the name of your Highness, and this divine Ferdinand is sprung from the ancient and royal family of Aragon; for restoring the church of the synonymous and kindred Saint. the sole protection of your Highness is implored, that the temple of the said D. Ferrandus, which is falling and now threatens ruin, you would deign to permit to be commended to it, and as a faithful one of Christ to provide, that from the fruits of that same church, which is now of the table of the Bishopric, it be remitted and segregated from the Bishopric, and that a monastery be constituted in it: from which the same S. Ferrandus may exist as the perpetual defender of your Highness, and almighty God may preserve the same according to your wish through infinite ages of ages. Amen.
[3] The Responsories of the proper Office But when he came into Italy and received the Bishopric, we are ignorant, but D. Octavianus Melchicis, Archpriest of Formicola, who learnedly wrote concerning the Antiquities of Calatia, shows with sufficient probability that S. Ferdinand sat after the times of S. Stephen. This Saint is venerated in the Church of Calatia with an Office from the Common of Confessor Pontiffs, but with a proper Prayer and Responsories. Responsory I thus supplicates: Kindly Father Ferrandus, worthy Prelate to be venerated, with devout prayers we supplicate thee, that by thy pious intervention we may be freed from the pestilent burden of burning fevers … and grant that we may attain the wished-for health. Responsory II has nothing particular, his many miracles testify. as neither VI, VII, and IX. Responsory III thus addresses him. Confessor of Christ, Ferrandus, end of the fever-sick, and their last remedy; the wished-for health and medicine of the infirm, refuge of all who are ill, pray for us, who devoutly celebrate thy solemnity. Responsory IV affirms, that in the Basilica of the kindly Virgin at Cornello the most sacred and venerable body of the Bishop, lying in a certain boarded cave, speaks and says; This is my rest forever and ever; here will I dwell, for I have chosen it. Responsory V is congratulatory, Rejoice with gladness, O city of Calatia, be glad, expelling vices, O diocesan people; for with a precious gift ye are adorned, and with the sacred funeral of Ferrandus ye are endowed. Responsory VIII, finally, Truly wonderful, it says, is God, who makest B. Ferrandus the Bishop flash with constant miracles: to his sepulcher the sick come and are healed.
[4] But Cornello was a place, otherwise Combolterra, a noble fief of the Church of Calatia; The Body translated in the year 1620, but the church which was there called of S. Mary, began afterward to be called of S. Ferrandus, as the Instruments of the year 1347, 67, and 97 testify. The place of the sepulcher, made by the course of time, was less seemly: wherefore in the year 1620, Paulus Filomarinus the Bishop translated the body on the 9th day of August to the high altar of that same church, yet brought some Relics, with a solemn and devout procession, into the city, and deposited them in the altar of S. Stephen: but the teeth he left outside, which on his feast might be shown to the people.
[5] wine miraculously poured out, A marvel is not to be passed over, which we recall to have been done by our Saint in our time. The tribune of the church of S. Ferrandus threatened ruin: the faithful out of their devotion wished to repair it: the hired workmen brought thither a cask of wine, and placed it upon the sepulcher. Marvelous to see! From the joinings of the boards the wine began to flow abundantly. Forthwith the vessel is removed, that it might be seen where the flaw was. But behold, it being removed, the wine stood still. The workmen marvel the more; and as if wishing to test the virtue of the Saint, they replace the vessel in the first spot. Behold something more marvelous. The wooden hoops, which bound the cask, immediately burst, and the wine is poured out. The Saint willed that reverence be had to the place of his burial.