ON BL. ROGER, BISHOP OF ORLÉANS, THEN OF LIMOGES, AND AT LAST ARCHBISHOP OF BOURGES
IN THE YEAR 1368.
Preliminary Commentary.
Roger, Bishop of Orléans, then of Limoges, afterwards Archbishop of Bourges (Blessed)
[1] Roger is set down as the seventy-ninth Bishop of the Church of Bourges in Gaul by Antoine de Mouchy, Demochares, of Ressons, in the book On the divine Sacrifice of the Mass, chapter 24, and likewise by Jean Chenu in the Chronology of the Archbishops of Bourges, by Claude Robert in Gallia Christiana, what number Roger was among the Archbishops of Bourges and by an anonymous monk of the monastery of St. Sulpice in the suburb of Bourges, who collected the history of the Prelates of the same city a hundred and twenty years ago, lately published by our Philippe Labbe in volume 2 of the New Library of Manuscripts. But the Sainte-Marthe brothers make him only the seventy-seventh, some of his predecessors whom others had inserted in their catalogues having been passed over.
[2] The same Sainte-Marthe brothers, with Claude Robert, call him absolutely Blessed Roger: called Blessed and Saint, Chenu and the monk of Bourges and Demochares, Saint. I do not indeed think that public sacred honors, such as are customarily paid to the Saints, were decreed to him by the Church: but that the appellation of Blessed or Saint was bestowed on him by the concordant piety of the peoples, on account of the very many miracles which were done through his patronage: for which reason, as the same author writes, citizens and country people were wont to flock in troops to his tomb, famous for miracles, and to offer fleeces and other gifts at it. We shall give his Life here from the same author. Charles de La Saussaye also recites it, honored with gifts: but somewhat shortened here and there, in book 12 of the Annals of Orléans, from manuscript monuments of the Church of Bourges and of the monastery of Les Ternes of the Order of the Celestines of St. Peter in the Marche. Chenu and the Sainte-Marthe brothers also have a long eulogy of him: from whom we shall copy some things, especially in the Notes.
[3] In the epitaph, which is recited below in the Life, he is reported to have died in the year 1367 in prima feria Marci on the first feria of Mark: which La Saussaye and Chenu so interpret as that he died on the feast of St. Mark the Evangelist, which in that year fell on Quasimodo Sunday. But what writer speaks so as to mark the first feria, or the second or third, of James, of Lawrence, or of another Saint, when he wishes to indicate that something was done on the feast of one of the said Saints which was celebrated on a Sunday, a second or a third feria? What of the fact that perhaps, even on the authority of Chenu himself, Blessed Roger cannot be said to have died on St. Mark's day, he seems to have died in 1368, or the 25th of April, of that year? For he cites his testament, communicated to him by the Prior of the monastery of Les Ternes, and made on the 24th of February 1367. If that was written according to the custom of that age, by which the French began the year not from the Kalends of January but from Easter, he cannot be thought to have died on the octave day of Easter of the same year, that is, ten whole months before he made his testament. Whence we rather conclude that that testament was written in the month of February of the year 1368, and that his death followed on the Kalends of the month of March, which in the epitaph are called prima feria Marci, or of March: for thus both those months, as also the preceding January, March 1: and the first 17 days of April, according to the said reckoning, were still part of the year 1367. Claude Robert, moreover, confirms our conjecture about the Kalends of March. For although he doubts whether prima Marci feria designates the 25th day of April, or the first Sunday, or the first day, of March; yet he testifies that his anniversary is wont to be celebrated on the Kalends themselves, and on the day before and the day after. But why should this be done on another day than that on which he departed this life, or was buried?
[4] he wrote on Law: In the testament which we have already cited, as Chenu reports, and after him Robert and the Sainte-Marthe brothers, Blessed Roger testifies that, when he was publicly teaching the science of sacred and civil Law at Orléans, he wrote a Treatise on Actions: whether it exists anywhere we have not found out.
[5] La Saussaye recites a decree of the Parlement of Paris passed in the year 1322, by which an old privilege was restored and confirmed to the Bishop of Orléans, of releasing prisoners on the day on which he first enters the city. In it it is expressly said to have been found he recovered the privilege of freeing prisoners on entering the city of Orléans: "that it had been customary from of old that the Provost of Orléans for the time being, at the joyous arrival of each new Bishop of Orléans, is bound to bring all the prisoners and captives who at that time are held for any offense whatever in the prisons and jails of the King at Orléans to the gate of Burgundy in the presence of the said Bishop, and there to deliver them to the said Bishop, so that the same Bishop may free the said prisoners and enjoin salutary penances on them, as it shall seem to him expedient. Likewise that the said Provost is bound to take an oath there to the said Bishop in a certain form, especially that the same Provost has not hidden any of the said prisoners, nor dispatched them sooner by condemning, executing, or absolving them, from the time he knew of his future arrival, or otherwise committed fraud to the end that they could not be delivered to the said Bishop." That Blessed Roger obtained this privilege, and the other things narrated in that decree, to be restored to him by the judgment of the Parlement, the same La Saussaye writes, for he had then entered upon the Episcopate: and acts certainly exist of the year 1323. he made the feast of the Conception of the Holy Virgin illustrious: And in the following year 1324, La Saussaye reports from his acts that he distinguished the annual feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary with the lighting of similar feasts, at the procurement of Jacques Flotte, Cantor of Orléans.
[6] Besides the sacred buildings which Roger undertook in the province of the Limousin, namely a Hospital and the monastery of Les Ternes, he was as it were a second founder, as the Sainte-Marthe brothers write, of the monastery of Vierzon. Vierzon is a town of the diocese of Bourges, which Papirius Masson, in the description of Gaul by rivers, testifies is also called Virsana in a certain royal instrument. he endowed the monastery of Vierzon: There is a monastery there of the Benedictine Order, dedicated to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, as Claude Robert writes, founded in the ninth century by Blessed Rodulphus, Archbishop of Bourges (of whom we shall treat at the 21st of June), but restored five hundred years later by Blessed Roger and more richly endowed.
[7] The same holy Prelate, in the year 1345, on the 21st day of June, raised and translated from the place where it had first been laid the body of St. Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, whose twofold Life we published at the Kalends of January: as he himself testifies in the diploma which we gave there from the Library of Cluny, he raised the body of St. Odilo, in these words: "Roger, by Divine permission Archbishop of Bourges, to all the faithful of Christ eternal salvation in the Lord. Know that, by the leave and mandate of the most holy Father in Christ, our Lord, the Lord Clement the Sixth, by the worthy providence of God Pope, We, together with the Reverend Fathers in Christ, the Lords Bishops of Capitulium, of the Augustinians, and of Saulon, of the order of Preachers, and very many Abbots, Prelates and ecclesiastical persons summoned for this, and gathered together in the church of Souvigny, of the Order of Cluny, of the diocese of Clermont, have solemnly raised the venerable body of the kindly Confessor Blessed Odilo from the place in which it had until now lain buried there, according to the form, ordinance and manner of the sacrosanct Roman Church handed down to us: and we saw and touched with our own hands, held and handled the head and other limbs of the body of the same holy Confessor, and placed and laid them up in a casket honorably and fittingly."
[8] In which words the most religious Prelate declares his reverence toward the Supreme Pontiff, without whose order that elevation, visitation and transposition of the sacred relics
What means, in autumn, winter and summer, this perennial Greenness of the flowers which the sacred garden holds? Do lilies so white breathe from heaven? Or is the earth watered by the waters of Paradise? Epigrams. It is altogether so. When holy Rosendo touched this earth, The earth was brought back into another Paradise. Nor is that enough. The garden shone like heaven, Which the Angelic hands of the same man tended.
To the garden.
into another reliquary, he had approached, nor had he departed from the mandate by even a nail's breadth in the entire manner of conducting the affair. For by what counsel and piety he was impelled to do this, great reverence toward the Supreme Pontiff, he afterward signifies thus: For we, having weighed the merits of this holy Confessor, which devoutly led and drew us to his elevation, desiring with all our strength to exercise the increase of praise and honor of the same, so that he might be adorned and also venerated with fitting honors and praises by the faithful of Christ; and also so that the aforementioned church might be more willingly visited and also frequented by the same faithful of Christ for the sake of devotion, etc. piety toward the Saint himself: Given... on the 21st day of June, in the year of the Lord 1345. We gave the complete diploma after the Life of St. Odilo on January 1, page 77.
[9] Claude Robert also writes that Blessed Roger was present at the elevation of the body of St. Maiolus, and from him the Sammarthani: whether also of St. Maiolus? of which fact neither Jean Chenut of Bourges nor Charles Saussay, who diligently examined the records of Bourges, made mention. There do exist indeed in the Cluniac Library two Bulls in which mention is made of the translation of St. Maiolus the Abbot, the former of Clement IV, the other of Honorius IV; but Clement IV died a hundred years before Blessed Roger, namely in 1268, Honorius IV in the year 1287. Of St. Maiolus we shall treat on the 11th of May.
Roger, Bishop of Orléans, then of Limoges, afterwards Archbishop of Bourges (Blessed)
[1] The seventy-ninth to preside was a St. ROGER, a man pre-eminent and chosen above all, endowed with the grace of pure humility, illustrious for innocence, wonderful also for holiness of life. He was, then, b a Limousin by country, drawing his origin from the Castle of Les Ternes. Blessed Roger, born of a noble house in the Limousin, His father was called c Geoffrey, surnamed Fortis d, a most noble man, Lord of the said castle. He, of his most noble wife, the sister of the most reverend Father in Christ and Lord, the Lord William e de la Chapelle-Taillefer, Bishop of Toulouse and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, begot three sons, namely Odinet, Denis and Roger. Further, when the same Geoffrey, a man truly more illustrious by the proofs of his virtues than by nobility itself, was nearly a hundred and twenty years old, leaving the tribulations of the present world, to come to the endless day of perpetual happiness, he departed from the body. After whose death the aforesaid Odinet, the first-born, a knight strong in might among the rest and famous for greatness of spirit, undertook the care of governing the house. And Denis, since he too was conspicuous for much uprightness, not long afterwards completed early, in the priestly order, the course of a praiseworthy life.
[2] he is instructed in letters: But the said Cardinal, seeing that Roger had a disposition born for virtue and the Muses, took care that the so noble mind of the boy should be imbued with the liberal disciplines in the most flourishing Academy of Orléans. he teaches the science of Law at Orléans: Where, when he had grown up most abundantly in good morals and the sciences, being placed in the first seats in the theatre of letters, he turned out a most famous Professor of both Laws. And already from that time he deserved to ascend to Ecclesiastical dignities, through various degrees of dignities, his aforesaid uncle procuring it. And first he was made Archpriest f of Dauuracum in Normandy, then Dean of the Church of Bourges, he becomes at length Archbishop of Bourges: afterwards Bishop of Orléans, then likewise Bishop of Limoges; and at the last Archbishop of Bourges.
[3] And by what means he deserved to be advanced to the summit of the Episcopal dignity does not seem to be passed over. Indeed, when all the Clergy and the whole people of the city of Orléans had come together to the Church on the appointed day for substituting a new Prelate, Blessed Roger too was present among them. He, seeing that very many were of so headlong and so pernicious a mind recommending himself in jest for the Bishopric of Orléans, that, not shrinking from aspiring to the sacrosanct See and dignity, they not only thrust themselves forward but (as we hear is done now, alas!) forced themselves in violently, said jestingly, as is said, to one of the Canons as he was entering the Chapter: "And I indeed should wish that the Lords electors would remember me for this matter." Then the Canon, a man skilled in facetious wit, carried the matter, as it was, to the assembly. Wherefore, all nodding in jest that the same Roger should become Pontiff, presently the president of the Chapter, who had long since had his outstanding faith, notable learning and exceptional prudence well tried, inspired by the divine Spirit rose, and standing in the midst of those assembled said candidly: "Men, Brothers, heaven and earth are certainly my witnesses he is elected in earnest by the votes of all: that today you have unanimously elected and asked that the Lord Roger be appointed your Prelate. And I too, according to your judgment, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, pronounce that he ought to be made the high priest of this city: as being a man of Angelic countenance, endowed with holiness and distinguished for heavenly wisdom. Finally, you must be most fully persuaded that it will have seemed so to the Holy Spirit, whom you will not be able to resist without great sin." So, while he was thus speaking, all the Canons by divine will unanimously elected St. Roger himself as Bishop.
[4] He, however, when he perceived that the lot of the election was going to fall upon him, he tries to beg off the burden, terrified both by the greatness of the burden and by the weakness, as he himself thought, of his strength, protesting affirmed that when he had asked for that office he had by no means spoken seriously: and that they were deceived by a false opinion who thought so small a man would be a fit Pontiff. But, to use a common proverb, the vote of the many won. And while he rightly perceived that the votes of the whole people too agreed upon his person, in vain: he was scarcely at length persuaded to allow himself to be anointed with the oil of consecration and clothed with the pontifical mitre. And indeed it is established that he was advanced to that dignity not by human industry but rather by heavenly clemency. Whence in this I cannot sufficiently wonder at the inscrutable counsel of the Divinity, which wished to make its Saint wonderful even by so pleasant and so witty an occasion, preventing him with the blessings of its sweetness.
[5] For the rest, it has seemed to me worth while and necessary not only to write the cause and manner of his advancement, but also to bring forth into the light and the view of all, at least in part, his wonderful way of life; thinking that from a relation of this kind very great praise will accrue to this venerable Prelate, and some edification to the reader. He, then, from youth wholly despising the love of fleeting things, as always before, had tirelessly pursued chastity and sobriety, which was as praiseworthy in a young man as it was rare, and whatever serves to adorn the mind both with sciences and with virtues. Who also, after obtaining the honor of the Pontificate, so especially as Bishop, so emulated his predecessors in deeds that his virtues were proclaimed by a fame celebrated through the world just as by a most clear trumpet. Among which, countless as they were, these were received with the singular applause of all: he flourishes in the virtues proper to his rank: namely, that, breathing continually a certain wonderful ardor of piety, he showed to all, gently and placidly, by salutary teaching, the way of eternal happiness: that he omitted nothing of whatever he could bring for counsel to his subjects: that he received all with such singular benevolence and with such incredible sweetness of humanity that he drew even his adversaries (if he had any) by a certain force of grace, and was venerated by them: that he never refused to the petitions of the afflicted the solace he could apply: that he was so notable for hospitality that his house always lay open to pilgrims and the poor: that, having compassion more especially on the naked, he was wont most liberally to relieve their want.
[6] Why say more? Finally, if anyone is commendable by the name of sobriety, he chastises the appetite of gluttony in a wonderful manner (if true): this man most of all. For he was most sparing of food and drink. Whence I shall not omit to add briefly in this place what I have received as spread by a report persisting to this age of mine, although I judge it hardly worthy of sincere belief. g It is said, indeed, that once, when the same Pontiff Roger, passing by chance near a certain cook-shop, had been delighted by the smell of a fresh pasty, he, having had the pasty itself secretly brought to him at his order, still bubbling, placed it on his head like a cap, punishing in himself even a slight suggestion of gluttony by so cruel a burning. Wherefore it is easily seen to what an eminence of more perfect life the holy man had climbed, who (as we have said) did not let even a slight appetite of nature go unpunished, but wished to condemn it with so great severity.
[7] Meanwhile the said Odinet, his brother, departing from the living, left an only son, named John, a youth truly flourishing brightly with most refined and purest morals, and by his own outstanding disposition (had he not been snatched away by a swift death) promising great things to everyone. made heir of his brothers and nephew, For while he was studying philosophy at Paris, and one day, for the sake of passing the time, was walking with his companions beside the bank of the Seine, falling by chance into the river, at once choked by the violence of the waters, he breathed out his spirit. When he had thus lamentably perished, St. Roger, alone peacefully possessing the whole succession of the paternal inheritance, at once, so that he might truly sing with the Psalmist, "My house shall be called a house of Prayer," he founds a monastery in his homeland, decided to build a monastery at Les Ternes, the place of his birth. Is. 56:7 That he might bring it to effect more conveniently, having given up the Bishopric of Orléans, he transferred himself to govern the h Church of Limoges. made Bishop of Limoges. Further, he so ordered the whole building of the same monastery that he set the high altar of the sacred church in the very place in which his mother had brought him forth, and consecrated it with his own hand. And it is to be known that at that same time the order of the Celestines, sprouting by the wonderful favor of God, was wonderfully producing men most upright both in learning and in great virtues. and he established Celestines there, Its founder was the Lord i Peter of Morrone, who was afterwards called Celestine V, Supreme Pontiff, a man most illustrious among others both for the integrity of sacred religion and for innocence of life devoted to their founder St. Peter of Morrone: and for notable holiness. Since, then, Roger in his youth had deserved to know well and see him while he was leading a celibate life among men, bearing a singular devotion toward him and his Order, he wished none but men of that Order, notable for religion, to inhabit his monastery of Les Ternes.
[8] elsewhere he founds a hospital: Meanwhile, when by the providing clemency of God the same man had been appointed Primate of the Aquitanians at Bourges, he also founded a hospital in k the Marche: so that, as long as the need of pilgrims and the poor was liberally relieved in that place for the love of God from the revenues (which he assigned there by a solemn donation), his justice (as is sung in the Psalm) might remain for ever and ever. Ps. 111:3 O most worthy Pontiff, to be honored with every kind of praise! For whom in truth it was not enough to relieve mercifully the want of the poor of Christ in his own times only, unless he had also provided with pious solicitude for the need of the wretched far into future generations. O would that, after his pattern,
by a monk of Bourges, published by Philippe Labbe of the Society of Jesus.
LIFE
very many Bishops would contend, on whom especially depends the discipline of the whole commonwealth! If that were done indeed, Christ would reign in us, and under His banners the world would enjoy a happy tranquility.
[9] But the most holy Pontiff Roger, since he was one of the best and chosen pastors, Having been made Archbishop, he strives to root out vices: concerning whom the Lord says through the Prophet Jeremiah: I will give you Pastors after my own heart, and they shall feed you with knowledge and doctrine; no less by doctrine than by example, he strove most vigilantly to cleanse the Church of Bourges from all the tares of vices or heresies (which were corrupting the most joyful harvest of sincere piety). Jer. 3:15 Nevertheless, there were not lacking some sons of darkness who, whereas they should have composed their lives according to the most brilliant model of the holy conduct of so great a Bishop, not only made little account of his salutary admonitions; the wicked spurn his admonitions: but even (which is the height of madness), more inflamed against one another by contentions, jealousy, envy, pride, enmities, and hatreds, they greatly afflicted the holy man himself.
De Ternis natus Rogerius intumulatus, Noster Prælatus iacet intus bene gratus, Ter C, mille dabis, sex X septem numerabis. His epitaph. In prima feria (quem suscipe Virgo Maria) Marci migrauit, quia caste semper amauit. [Roger, born at Les Ternes, here entombed, our Prelate, well-pleasing, lies within; you will give thrice C and a thousand, you will count six X and seven. On the first feria of Mark (receive him, Virgin Mary) he departed, because he always loved chastely.]
[12] He sat for twenty-four years and six months, from the year 1343 to the year 1367, how long he sat, while there presided at Rome o Clement VI, Innocent VI and Urban V; while there reigned as Emperors [p] Louis of Bavaria and Charles IV; and as Kings in France [q] Philip VI, John I and Charles V; under what living Princes. and while at Bourges [r] John, the Great Duke, was happily and strenuously ruling; who in the same year in which St. Roger departed to Christ, having given to the Chapter of Bourges six-score pounds of perpetual revenue amortized, founded that Mass which is said every day at Dawn, at the ringing of one great bell, with Note, at the altar of Mary, the holy Mother of God, behind the altar of [s] Blessed William in the same Church of Bourges: and who built the sacred church of the Palace at great expense, as will be said more accurately by us a little later. The See is vacant for six months.
Annotationsp. Louis of Bavaria having died in the year 1347, Charles IV, designated Caesar against him in the previous year, then administered the empire until the 29th of November, 1378.
q. Philip VI from the 1st of February 1328 until the 22nd of August 1350. John from then until the 3rd of April 1364, then Charles V to 1380.
r. He was the son of John I and the brother of Charles V, Kings of France; praised in the History of Bourges of Jean Chaumeau de Lassay.
s. The Life of this St. William, or Guiliermus, we gave on the 10th of January.