Casimir

ON ST. CASIMIR, SON OF THE KING OF POLAND, ELECTED KING OF HUNGARY, YEAR 1484.

Historical Preliminary Commentary.

Casimir, son of the King of Poland, elected King of Hungary (St.)

Section I. The illustrious lineage, parents, six brothers, and seven sisters of St. Casimir; the dignity of each in detail.

[1] About two hundred years ago, the kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were illuminated by the splendor of royal virtues, but especially of Christian piety, by Casimir, son of Casimir III, grandson of Jagiello, the most valiant Prince, Parents of St. Casimir: who was the first among the Grand Dukes of Lithuania to embrace the religion of Christ, adopted as King by the Poles, called Vladislaus, whose daughter-in-law, St. Casimir's mother, was Elisabeth of Austria, daughter of Emperor Albert II and King of Hungary and Bohemia. Here, before we bring forward the eulogies of those who were close to his age from the authors, we shall present a brief sketch of his life from the booklet which Albert Wijuk Kojalowicz of the Society of Jesus, Doctor of Sacred Theology and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Vilnius, published in the year 1650, A sketch of his Life; inscribed with this title: Miscellanea of matters pertaining to the Ecclesiastical State in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. On the very next page of this work he writes the following about Casimir:

[2] St. Casimir, son of Casimir III, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, grandson of Jagiello: devoted to virtue from childhood, he gave himself entirely to God, after he had been elected King of Hungary and was excluded from that kingdom. For when his brother Vladislaus succeeded to that kingdom, he himself, striving to seize by force the kingdom of heaven, piety, which he had once undertaken to seek, occupied the summit of his vows with great steps... Turning to accumulate the revenues of virtue and all holiness, he preserved his chastity intact: that he might consecrate his learning to the praises of the Blessed Virgin, especially toward the Mother of God; he celebrated her in most elegant verses; a copy of which he ordered to be placed with him in his tomb. By the austerity of his life and his zeal for Divine honor, he was admirable while alive: after death, miracles after death, he surpassed many Saints in the grace of miracles. He died at Vilnius in 1484, Canonization, on March 4. He was enrolled in the number of the Saints by Leo X in the year 1521. Then, at the instance of Sigismund III, King of Poland, his feast was established by Clement VIII to be celebrated with greater ceremonies. In the year 1606 a booklet was published containing the miracles which occurred at his tomb. When in the year * 1604 his tomb was being restored, his body found incorrupt after 120 years, he was found with body and garments incorrupt: on which same occasion was also discovered the Hymn to the Blessed Virgin (it begins thus: Omni die dic Mariae mea laudes anima) placed under his right temple. In the year 1636, on August 14, under Vladislaus IV, King of Poland, in the presence of His Majesty himself, together with his Most Serene sister Anna, translation in the year 1636. the body of the aforesaid Saint was translated, in a most solemn procession through the city, to the most magnificent chapel built by Sigismund III. So writes he. But what he reports, that Vladislaus, his brother, succeeded to the kingdom of Hungary after St. Casimir was excluded, this happened nearly twenty years later, after Matthias Corvinus died, and six years after Casimir himself had died, as we shall relate in detail below.

[3] Here, however, it will be worthwhile to review the entire progeny of Casimir III and Elisabeth of Austria, that is, the brothers and sisters of the Saint, so that what may perhaps need to be said about them below in passing may appear more clearly. Martin Cromer enumerates them in the funeral oration of Sigismund I, and more briefly Jodocus Ludovicus Decius in volume 2 of Polish Affairs, page 289, in this order: 5 brothers and 7 sisters, 1. Vladislaus, born in the year 1456. 2. Hedwig, the following year. 3. Casimir, 1458. 4. John Albert, 1460. 5. Alexander, 1461. 6. Sophia, 1464. 7. Elisabeth, 1465. 8. Sigismund, 1467. 9. Frederick, 1468. 10. Elisabeth, 1472. 11. Anna, 1476. 12. Barbara, 1478. 13. Elisabeth. Of these, Cromer says: Two of Casimir's daughters died prematurely. Hedwig was joined in marriage to George, Duke of Bavaria; Sophia to Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg; Anna to Boguslaw of the Pomeranians; their husbands: Barbara to George of the Saxons; and Elisabeth (after the father's death) to Frederick of the Legnicenses and Bregenses, Dukes: and they linked nearly all of Germany with us through the alliances and kinships of illustrious men and women, which it would be very tedious to enumerate.

[4] Of the sons, the eldest, Vladislaus, in the year 1471, after the death of the heretic George of Podiebrad, Vladislaus, his brother, elected King of Bohemia, was elected King of Bohemia; while Matthias, King of Hungary, vainly sought the same crown: against whom, in that same year, many Hungarian Nobles and Bishops, conspiring, sent envoys and asked that Casimir, brother of the same Vladislaus, be given to them as King by their father Casimir. And indeed he was given to them, he himself was elected King of Hungary in 1471, but was soon deserted; but was immediately deserted by them, as we shall presently relate. Which was the reason that when, in the year 1478, the same Hungarians promised through a secret embassy once again to defect from Matthias, King Casimir gave them no certain answer, having already, as Cromer writes in book 29, experienced the doubtful and fickle loyalty of that nation. In the year 1484, as we shall relate below, Duke Casimir, consumed by wasting disease, died. dead in 1484. His brother Frederick, in the year 1488, was made Bishop of Cracow with his father's assistance.

[5] In the year 1490, Matthias, King of Hungary, was struck down by apoplexy, a vigorous man but of a restless and deceitful nature. Vladislaus also made King of Hungary in 1490, Some Nobles chose as his successor Vladislaus, King of Bohemia; others John Albert, his brother, whom many victories over the enemy, gained under the auspices of their father Casimir, commended. Both flew to Hungary with an army. But peace quickly prevailed. For the Hungarians did not wish, as Cromer writes, to commit the kingdom to the doubtful hazard of Mars; but Casimir, inflamed with the desire to advance John Albert, and goaded also by anger against his other son, as too greedy and ungrateful toward him, urged him to war, promising strong forces of his own people and also the aid of the Tartars. defeating his rival, his brother John Albert: But these came too late. John Albert, although he had scarcely four thousand fighting men, the rest having dispersed, engaged with his brother's army of eighteen thousand, more bravely than successfully: for having lost two horses in the heat of battle, and a third being gravely wounded in the belly, he barely escaped at last. But Vladislaus, informed of the outcome of the battle by his men, openly showed that he rejoiced more at his brother's safety than at his own victory: and sending envoys to him, made peace with him.

[6] The father Casimir, in the year 1492, having duly received the most holy mysteries of the Christian religion, breathed his last in the month of June, who succeeds his father Casimir in 1492: as the same writer reports. Three sons aspired to the scepter: John Albert, Alexander, and Sigismund. John Albert prevailed, elected on August 27, 1492. The following year, after the death of Zbigniew, Archbishop of Gniezno, he obtained from Pope Alexander VI that his brother Frederick, by whom he had been chiefly assisted in gaining the kingdom, should be appointed as successor while also retaining the Bishopric of Cracow, and he was co-opted into the College of Cardinals in September 1493. John Albert died in the year 1501, on June 17; who, although he lived unmarried, did not however imitate the continence of his brother St. Casimir. Alexander succeeded him with the assent of the Senate, whom the Lithuanians had chosen as their Grand Duke after the death of their father Casimir: to him in 1501 succeeded his brother Alexander, having been summoned to the royal crown upon his brother's death, in the year 1501, on December 12, he was anointed and crowned at Cracow by his brother Frederick in a solemn ceremony. His wife Helena, daughter of the Duke of the Muscovites, came from Lithuania to Cracow in February following: whose wife, because addicted to the Greek schism, yet, says Cromer and others, the crown was not placed upon her after the custom of Queens, because she was devoted to the schism of the Greeks and abhorred the practice of the Roman and Catholic Church. Jodocus Ludovicus Decius appends this epiphonema: was not anointed and crowned. With such ardor, he says, the matter of the faith was guarded by the Poles at that time.

[7] Cardinal Frederick died in the year 1503, on March 14, in character far unlike his brother Casimir. After the death of their mother Elisabeth in 1505, a pious woman, But their mother, Queen Elisabeth, a woman of outstanding piety and munificence toward divine worship, closed the last day of her life on July 30, 1505, at Cracow, where she was buried in the church of the Holy Cross, which, as Cromer says, she had built from its foundations while living and had magnificently adorned with every furnishing suited to divine worship, Alexander dies in 1506, and had endowed with revenues and a house for eight priests and a ninth minister. In the following year, on August 19, King Alexander also died and was buried at Vilnius beside his brother Casimir. Sigismund succeeds, died 1548. Sigismund succeeded, born in the year 1467, on January 1: elected King in 1506, December 8; crowned in 1507,

January 24: died in 1548, April 1.

[8] Thus four of Casimir's brothers were Kings: So much for what has been briefly indicated about St. Casimir's parents, brothers, and sisters, which may shed light on his history. His grandfather was Jagiello Vladislaus, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland: his uncle Vladislaus, King of Poland and Hungary: of his brothers, four were Kings: Vladislaus of Bohemia and Hungary; John Albert of Poland (elected also to Hungary, he himself was also elected King. with almost the same fate as Casimir); Alexander; and Sigismund I.

* rather 1604.

Section II. By whom were the Life and miracles of St. Casimir written? Whence are they published here?

[9] The Life of St. Casimir was written by Zacharias Ferrerius of Vicenza, Bishop of Guardia, Zacharias Ferrerius wrote the Life of St. Casimir, Domestic Prelate and Referendary of Pope Leo X, and Nuncio and Orator throughout the entire kingdom of Poland (as he himself professes below) and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Muscovy, and all and each of the lands subject to the same kingdom and Duchies, mediately or immediately, or otherwise in whatever manner; with the full power of a Legate a latere and of the Major Penitentiary of the City. The principal cause of the Legation was to reconcile peace between Sigismund I, King of Poland, and Albert of Brandenburg, Grand Master of Prussia, his sister's son: which peace, however, did not succeed at all. At that time, to the same Bishop, and as he himself writes, to the most observant Fathers, John, Archbishop of Gniezno, Primate of Poland and Legate by birth; and also Peter, Bishop of Przemysl and Vice-Chancellor of the Kingdom of Poland, the province was entrusted of investigating the deeds and miracles of that same Duke Casimir. This duty indeed, he says, after careful examination with other Bishops, we discharged and carried out with every faithful effort and most exquisite diligence, so that among the almost innumerable miracles which those who were present and witnessed them, handled them with their hands and experienced them in themselves, recounted to us under oath, and those whom we selected as more distinguished and more trustworthy among others to give testimony; having heard eyewitnesses and serious witnesses: only those, omitting the superfluous, which seemed singular and sufficient to prove his sanctity, did we describe and record. Given at Vilnius, on the 9th of the Kalends of December, in the year of salvation 1520, in the eighth year of our Most Holy Lord Leo, by Divine Providence Pope X. Then these words were appended: There were three Bishops at the side of the Most Illustrious Lord Zacharias, Legate a latere: John of Vilnius, John of Chernihiv, James of Caffa, Latin Bishops. The miracles and witnesses were examined. Chernihiv, or Kiev, is a city of further Volhynia on the Dnieper, under the Archbishopric of Lviv, in Polish territory. Caffa, also called Theodosia, is in the Tauric Chersonese on the Black Sea, formerly a colony of the Genoese.

[10] Whence we received it. That Life was published in print at Torun in the year 1521, and sought by us for many years, with the help of various learned men from Poland being implored: and at last we recently obtained it through the kindness of the Reverend Fathers of the Society of Jesus, John Rywocki, who was twice Provincial Superior of the Lithuanian Province, and Paul Francis Parisi, whose learned commentary on St. Boniface, or Boleslaus Buczlawski, son of a Slavic or Polish King, Archbishop and Apostle of the Russians and Martyr, is in our hands, to be presented on June 19, on which day his name is inscribed in the Roman Calendar.

[11] He also wrote an Office and Mass about him, These men, therefore, having at last obtained a copy of the Life published by Zacharias, had it copied and sent it to us: and along with it the Ecclesiastical Office and Mass composed by the same Bishop Zacharias, to be recited on the feast of St. Casimir, in which, besides proper antiphons for each psalm and Responsories for the Lessons, there are four Sapphic hymns, for first Vespers, Matins, Lauds, and second Vespers, and in the Mass before the Gospel a Sequence, as it is called, composed in iambic dimeter verses. and Hymns in them, And the same author perhaps composed more such hymns: for our Possevinus in his Apparatus Sacer reports nothing else about the writings of the same Zacharias Ferrerius than that he composed Hymns, whose use Pope Clement VII approved in his time, and which afterward appeared in Rome in the year 1549 from Ludovicus of Vicenza. The book from which this Office and Mass of St. Casimir was copied exists in the library of the Rawa College of the Society of Jesus in Poland, attached to a book inscribed Compendious Description of the City of Jerusalem, printed in antique typeface in quarto.

[12] Gregory Swiecicius expanded that Life and added miracles, That Life of St. Casimir, not unskillfully interpolated by Gregory Swiecicius, Canon of the Cathedral Church of Vilnius, was again committed to the press in the year 1604, with a second part added containing the miracles and other honors of the Saint, which is twice the size of the first. This Life of St. Casimir was published by Cardinal Bellarmine in chapter 10 of book 3 on the Office of a Christian Prince, faithfully transcribed from good Authors, as he professes, by the Venerable man Gregory Swieciski, Canon of the Cathedral Church of Vilnius. But the latter part, which pertains to the miracles alone, he omitted; which however, he says, which Bellarmine published from him, without the miracles; can easily be obtained from its Author by those who wish to know them. Abraham Bzovius also omitted the same, who inserted the same Life in the eighteenth volume of his Ecclesiastical Annals at the year 1484, number 27, from the book of Bellarmine on the Office of a Christian Prince, published eight years earlier, which he cited, we give the Miracles, with the Life as written by Ferrerius. and expressed the title and ending and the whole Life in his very words. We received Swiecicius's edition from Friedrich Schembek of our Society, a learned and pious man and one wonderfully zealous in promoting the veneration of the Saints, many years ago. The first part, however, that is, the Life itself of St. Casimir, as it was written by Zacharias Ferrerius, since it scarcely exists anywhere, we shall give: and then we shall append the second part from Swiecicius.

[13] Peter Skarga of the Society of Jesus, a Pole, a man of outstanding learning and zeal for souls, which he poured forth to his extreme old age both in delivering sermons from the pulpit and in writing books, to the greatest benefit of souls; Another was written in Polish by Peter Skarga. in the Bibliotheca of our Philip Alegambe, is reported to have published the Life of St. Casimir. While I search for it, I learned that it exists only in Polish, in the first (I believe) volume of his works, which contains Select Lives of the Saints arranged for each day of the year, with Documents suited to forming morals: which volume is reported to have been reprinted eight times during his lifetime. From this a serious man translated the Life of St. Casimir into Latin and sent it to us, if it could be of any use for our project. We shall cite it below as the matter requires: for to give it in full, when a fuller and more ancient one is available, is pointless.

[14] Matthias of Miechow, physician and astrologer and Canon of the Church of Cracow, in his Chronicles of the Poles, which he brought down to the year of Christ 1504, Matthias of Miechow praises his sanctity and miracles, in book 4, chapter 64, enumerating the offspring of Casimir and Elisabeth, mentions St. Casimir thus: But Casimir, the second-born, suffocated by consumption, rests entombed at Vilnius: and, as is reported, he shines with miracles on account of the holiness of his life. When, moreover, the Miechow author had completed the books we mentioned with much labor, he handed them to Jodocus Ludovicus Decius, whom he had already known to be devoted to the kingdom of Poland by affection: who, having first submitted them to censors, willingly received them and ordered them to be printed at his own expense, by the authority of King Sigismund I. Then he published three books composed by himself, in which he chiefly encompassed those things which had been omitted by the Miechow author but seemed not unpleasant to know: and more fully Jodocus Ludovicus Decius, in the first book, what was done from the beginning of the kingdom up to Jagiello; in the second, up to Sigismund; in the last, from his beginning up to the year 1516. And about St. Casimir he writes thus in book 2: Now the pen proceeds to Duke Casimir. This Prince, adorned with all virtues, cherished nothing more in life than justice, equity, and continence; he guarded the gift of virginity even unto death. Moreover, he so conducted himself in all things that while he lived it was apparent, and when he was taken away it was confirmed by the most famous miracles. He died in Lithuania, buried at Vilnius, in the year of salvation 1483, departing to God in February (rather 1484 in March, as others have it); he was enrolled in the number of the Blessed, and has been famous for many miracles down to our own age. A truly outstanding ornament of this illustrious family, since it is enriched in any case by an abundance of Princes and Heroes, there are not lacking from it those who, before God Almighty, either out of the duty of fraternal charity or out of zeal for their fatherland, protect its interests.

[15] Martin Cromer, successor of Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius in the Bishopric of Warmia, in the Funeral Oration of Sigismund I, King of Poland, speaking of his brothers, writes thus: Indeed Casimir, a most chaste and most religious young man, and Martin Cromer, Bishop of Warmia. died a premature death in Lithuania, not without a celebrated reputation for sanctity, which many miracles performed at his tomb confirmed. The same writer, in book 29 of Polish Affairs, having mentioned the miracles which were said to have been performed at the tomb of Simon of Lipnica, of the Order of Friars Minor but of the Bernardine sodality, as he himself puts it, adds these words: Which indeed is affirmed about Casimir also, son of King Casimir, not only by constant report, but also by certain and weighty testimonies: who followed this Simon within the turning of a year, consumed by wasting disease at Vilnius, and buried in the basilica of that city by his father with solemn pomp, himself also famous for the reputation of sanctity. Moreover, he is reported to have lived so chastely and continently that when physicians advised sexual intercourse if he wished to be healthy, he preferred to suffer death rather than transgress the law of Christian piety.

[16] and John Herburt of Fulstein. John Herburt of Fulstein, a Senator of the kingdom of Poland (the same, I believe, whom Starovolski in his century of Polish Writers, section 21, calls John Herbort and says was Castellan of Sanok, raised to Senatorial dignity by King Augustus) — this Herburt, therefore, published Chronicles, or a compendious description of Polish history, as is said in Gesner's Bibliotheca, printed at Basel in 1571 in quarto at the Oporin press. Those Chronicles I have not seen, but I received from a learned friend that in them, in book 16, chapter 10, the testimony we have already cited about St. Casimir from Cromer's book 29 appears in identical words, and this epiphonema is added: So attentive was he to eternal blessedness, having learned even from a single Hungarian war how deceptive and vain is the felicity of this world.

Section III. The marriage of St. Casimir's parents. His birth: honorable education: instruction by John Dlugosz, or Longinus, a pious and praised man.

[17] Rightly was the marriage of Casimir III, King of Poland, with Elisabeth of Austria called auspicious and fortunate, [The marriage of Casimir III and Elisabeth, auspicious, agreed upon in 1453, one of the envoys being John Longinus,] both because the spouses loved each other with a vehement and constant affection, and because they were blessed with such a numerous and distinguished progeny. And indeed that marriage had been wisely and in a Christian manner contracted, through the efforts of serious and holy men: Zbigniew, Bishop of Cracow and Cardinal, and also adorned with the authority of a Legate a latere by Pope Nicholas V; and also John Dlugosz, or Longinus, and finally Blessed John of Capistrano. Thus the author of the Life of Longinus writes: He was also a colleague in the embassy which was sent from the King to Wroclaw for the purpose of contracting the marriage with the Most Illustrious Elisabeth, daughter of the Most Serene Albert, King of the Romans, Hungary, and Bohemia. In which embassy, though Longinus performed many things worthy of praise, this was especially to be commended, in the presence of Blessed John of Capistrano, that by his prayers and persuasions he induced John of Capistrano, a man venerable for his religion and sanctity, to come into the kingdom of Poland, and brought it about that the province was illuminated by his miracles. Matthias of Miechow, in book 4, chapter 59, narrates this in the following manner: In the year 1453, Casimir, King of Poland, and Ladislaus, King of Hungary, through their ambassadors, sanctioned and confirmed in writing, in the city of Wroclaw, the marriage between the aforesaid Most Serene Lord Casimir and the Most Illustrious Elisabeth, daughter of Albert, former King of Hungary, Bohemia, and the Romans. and preaching: Concerning which John of Capistrano, in the town hall of Wroclaw, on the Monday after the Assumption of Mary, delivered an eloquent oration, whose theme was: This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

[18] The same author then writes, toward the end of the said chapter, that in the following year, on February 10, a Sunday, the feast of St. Scholastica, when they were to be joined in marriage and Elisabeth was to be anointed and crowned as Queen, a dispute arose among the Barons, celebrated on February 10, 1454. whether Zbigniew, Cardinal and Bishop of Cracow, or John Sprowski, Archbishop of Gniezno, should perform the betrothal and marriage. John of Capistrano, of the Order of Friars Minor, was called in as a Legate of the Apostolic See: who, having prostrated himself with great humility and obtained permission to perform the betrothal from the Cardinal, could not properly carry out the betrothal, because he was ignorant of the Polish and German languages. blessed by Cardinal Zbigniew, with the Archbishop of Gniezno celebrating: Cardinal Zbigniew, therefore, who knew both languages, performed the marriage: and the Archbishop of Gniezno celebrated the Mass of the Holy Spirit, with haste, because evening was approaching; and anointed and crowned the aforesaid Elisabeth as Queen.

[19] Moreover, that Queen, as we reported in Section 1 from Jodocus Ludovicus Decius, brought St. Casimir into the world by her third birth in the year 1458, on October 3. Gregory Swiecicius writes: Born at Cracow on the 3rd of the Nones of October, that is, the fifth day of the month, and adds these things: Which day was made illustrious St. Casimir born on October 3, 1458, both by the victory which his father Casimir won, a notable one in Prussia over the Teutonic Knights, capturing by storm the fortress of Papowo; and by the embassy of George Podiebrad, King of Bohemia, earnestly seeking the rights of friendship and freely offering the insignia of the Bohemian kingdom to the same Casimir, King of Poland. What this writer refers to as adding to the celebrity of that day, Zacharias the Legate did not touch upon by so much as a word, wisely indeed. For since he had been sent chiefly to establish peace between the Grand Master of Prussia and King Sigismund, as we said in Section 2, he ought not to have commemorated what might seem calculated to exacerbate their feelings toward one another. Nor was the friendship with the heretical tyrant of Bohemia, Girzik of Podiebrad, as the Miechow author calls him, so honorable to King Casimir that it somewhat deserved to be commended here by a Legate of the Apostolic See. About the education of Casimir and his brothers, Cromer reports the following in the funeral oration of Sigismund: And he, from his earliest childhood, together with his other brothers, holily educated by his mother, was holily and temperately raised by his most honorable and most religious mother, and instructed by preceptors, learned, good, serious, and pious men, in virtue first of all and piety and divine worship. Of these Preceptors of the royal offspring, the chief was John Longinus, taught letters, as were his brothers, by John Longinus, whom we mentioned before. About him the writer of his Life, whom Starovolski in Section 22 indicates to have been Felix Herbort, reports the following: When he had entirely resolved to free himself from the cares of human affairs and to spend the rest of his life in quiet, devoting himself to divine worship; he was summoned by the King to the care and instruction of his children. reluctantly induced to do this; Which duty he long refused to undertake: at last, when not only the King but also the leading men of the kingdom pressed him with many reasons urging him to this task, especially the argument that he could do nothing more acceptable to Almighty God than to take charge of those whom He had willed to be born to rule over nations; nothing more opportune or useful to the Republic than to well educate those who were to preside in it; he was compelled to yield his opinion and to take on the burden. but so successfully that they always wished to be with him. And so he presided over them for several years, with such dexterity of intellect that, contrary to the nature of things, the boys not unwillingly and gladly learned the things that were taught to them, and preferred to be constantly with him, spurning childish games. From which it came about that he quickly so instructed them that they were dear and venerable to all, and became widely celebrated: not only to the Poles and Lithuanians, but also to other foreign peoples, no less for their character and virtues than for their royal birth.

[20] For, as the same author writes, when the fame had already long spread among all the neighboring Princes of whom Vladislaus was elected King of Bohemia: about the character, admirable genius, and also the education of the illustrious offspring of the King of Poland, the Bohemians sought the firstborn as their King, as their legitimate heir. Cromer in book 29 reports that Vladislaus was proclaimed King by the Bohemians in the year 1471: and that envoys were selected from among the leading men, to fetch him from Poland at the earliest opportunity; because Matthias, King of Hungary, having suffered a rebuff, was harassing the Bohemians and Moravians with every kind of cruelty. Therefore Vladislaus, having received from his father seven thousand cavalry and two thousand infantry, departed from Cracow on July 25, accompanied by several Bishops and Palatines and by his teacher John Dlugosz: and he was escorted by his father himself for a journey of two days.

[21] But it was no small trouble for that same father to induce Dlugosz to undertake that journey; which is thus recorded in the Life of Dlugosz himself: When the father had consented to the wishes of the Bohemians, he could never be persuaded to send his son to accept the kingdom without Longinus. Which task Longinus refused to undertake for many reasons: but especially because Bohemia was under interdict for all Catholics. But when the King at last said with tears welling up, whom Longinus accompanied, compelled by the father's piety. that the young man had two parents, himself first, who had begotten him, and Longinus himself, who had educated and instructed him; it would be cruel and inhuman indeed if, torn as it were from both at the same time, he were sent to unknown nations: that he himself, if it were permitted, was ready to go with his son; but since the condition of the kingdom did not allow this, it seemed fitting that Longinus should fill the role of both parents: and especially be at hand for the young man, when he needed to be instructed in the novelty of affairs. Overcome, therefore, both by the father's piety and by the son's necessity, he undertook the duty, and accompanied him on his way to Prague, and was there as long as the crown and the other royal insignia were conferred upon him. Then, having settled affairs as the conditions of the times permitted, he returned to the care of the remaining children.

[22] But after his return from Bohemia, as the same author writes, [having returned, he is brought by a grave illness into the utmost danger of life:] he was afflicted by a most dangerous illness, both because of his already infirm age and because of the magnitude and gravity of the illness. For having contracted the affliction of kidney stones in Bohemia, on account of the effect of the sulphurous waters, and having been miserably tortured by it there, upon his return he immediately began to be vexed by the same cause. The burning fever of a daily recurrence was also added to the pains of the stone, even to the despair of the physicians and intensely extreme. Wherefore, despairing of his life, he not only wrote but also executed his will, distributing the other things which he bequeathed, but especially his most copious and excellent collection of books... And shortly after: Moreover, since the report of his death was as persistent as that of his life, very many good people, who had the Republic at heart, came most frequently to visit him: they lamented everywhere that, not without the greatest inconvenience to all good men, but especially to the Republic, such a man was being taken from their midst. often visited by the grieving King, But beyond all others, grief descended more deeply into the King's mind, since he understood that he was being deprived of a man of the greatest integrity, by whose counsel he had managed many things in good order; and that his children were being orphaned of a second parent, as it were. And therefore, anxious about his health, he frequently came to visit him, and sometimes sent his sons, so that at least the affection with which he cherished their divine character and virtues and by his sons: might cast some desire of surviving still further into a mind now thinking only of death. From whose zeal and piety, the care and diligence of Stanko, he recovers. a most excellent physician, were also increased, so that beyond the hope of all he restored him to health. These things seem to have happened at the very time when St. Casimir was called to assume the governance of the kingdom of Hungary.

[23] But after his return from Bohemia, as the same author adds, since Longinus's entire thought was that he might at some time live for himself, he never wished to accept any dignities or offices whatsoever that could change him from his purpose. he refuses the chief offices of the Republic, And for this reason, when the King spontaneously offered him the office of Treasurer, and sometimes of Vice-Chancellor, he stubbornly refused; although many of his close associates urged him to accept, lest he seem either faint-hearted or ungrateful to the King. Some even said he was little concerned for the Republic, because he would not undertake those duties for the public welfare which no one else would administer more honestly or more usefully. He also refused the Bishopric of Prague, when he was there for the King's coronation: yet he asserted he would accept it on this condition, that the Bohemians should be united with the Roman Church. But when the Bohemians refused, and the Bishopric: he too spurned the proffered condition, declaring that the burden of a Bishop was well enough known to him, since he had spent twenty-four years with a Bishop: and he could by no reasoning be induced to accept any other Bishopric: to what extent was he prepared to accept the Bishopric of Prague? he would have consented to accept that of Prague, not to become a Bishop, but to revive that dead Bishopric and unite and reconcile it to the Roman Church: for he was of such religious devotion that he could easily have spent even his life for the advancement of the Church. Having returned, moreover, to Poland and relieved of the illness we mentioned,

he again devoted himself to educating the remaining children of King Casimir for about eight years: for he departed this life in the year 1480, he dies on May 29, 1480, on the 4th of the Kalends of June. But especially, I believe, he consoled the younger Casimir upon his return from the Hungarian expedition and formed him with fitting counsel in Christian and truly royal philosophy.

[24] The death of Longinus, together with a concise recapitulation both of the adversities he endured and of the labors afterward undertaken for the Republic, and the rewards of his fidelity and industry with which he was honored by the King, is thus narrated by Cromer in book 29 at the year 1480: Nor did anything worthy of note occur at that time in Poland, peace having been established round about, formerly designated Archbishop of Lviv: except that John Dlugosz, Canon of Cracow, not long before designated Archbishop of Lviv, ceased to live and to write his Polish annals at the same time, a nobleman of the Wieniawa clan, endowed with the greatest virtue and constancy, of noble birth, with learning and eloquence (for those times) not common, and with singular industry and dexterity in managing affairs. On account of which qualities, although he had gravely offended King Casimir by too eagerly supporting the cause of the Zbigniew and then again of the Jacobus Sienninski factions, so that he was stripped of the revenues of his benefices, contemptuously expelled from Cracow by the agents of the Prefect, tried by adversities, and, having been proscribed, was in danger of his life; nevertheless, afterward the same King made great use of his services in carrying out embassies of the greatest importance and dignity, honored by the King. and in educating his children: whence, enriched, he left notable monuments of his generosity and piety.

[25] The tutor offered to the children of King Casimir after Longinus was Philip Callimachus, After him the King's sons are taught by Philip Callimachus, about whom Cromer writes in book 30: He was a Tuscan by birth, an orator and poet not inelegant, and endowed with a keen intellect, active for some time in the service of Pope Pius II. Then when Paul II, successor of Pius, ordered the arrest of Pomponius Laetus, Platina, and certain other learned men, friends of Callimachus, a fugitive from Italy: whether because they held wrong views on religion or because they were said to have conspired against him; Callimachus, while Casimir still reigned, fled to Poland and served as tutor to the royal sons. Pope Pius II died in the year 1464, on the 19th of the Kalends of September: but Paul II, who succeeded a few days later, died in 1471 on July 26, and Sixtus IV replaced him on August 9. But it does not seem that Callimachus was Vladislaus's tutor, but not Vladislaus, nor Casimir, since Longinus was compelled, after being long and much entreated, to accompany him to Bohemia as a second father, as already related. Nor do we think Casimir studied under Callimachus, who most beautifully expressed the piety and other virtues of Longinus, received not so much by word of mouth as drawn from his examples: as will be seen by anyone who compares the lives of both, master and disciple. What then of Callimachus? When he had insinuated himself into the familiarity of John Albert, the younger brother, but especially John Albert, too powerful under that King, died in 1496 says Cromer, he had very great influence with him by his favor and counsel: to such a degree that when the latter became King, magistracies and honors were conferred at the discretion of Callimachus, and almost all public and private affairs of the King were managed. By which conduct Callimachus drew upon himself enormous envy among the Poles. He died at last in the year 1496, whose death, says the same Cromer, Bishop of Warmia, was not unwelcome to the Poles. But what was the sentiment of all good people at the death of Longinus! How different from his brother, shaped by the discipline of Callimachus, was Casimir!

Section IV. St. Casimir, called to the kingdom of Hungary, undertakes an expedition there with unhappy result.

[26] These things which had befallen Vladislaus, raised by the votes of the Bohemians to that kingdom, when the Nobles of Hungary — who had long been alienated in spirit from their King Matthias Corvinus, or Hunyadi — learned of them, they too began to look toward the Polish house and to hope for relief from the same Casimir, son of Jagiello, brother of their King Vladislaus, who had perished at Varna in the year 1444: especially when the outstanding and generous character of his second-born son Casimir was being praised, — Vladislaus having been given as King to the Bohemians scarcely thirty months before the younger one — and the intellect already splendidly cultivated not only in Christian discipline the Hungarians conspire against their King Matthias, but also in arts worthy of a Prince, they demanded him as their King by forming a coalition. How the matter was conducted, Cromer briefly relates. They sent, he says, envoys also to Casimir, asking that his other son Casimir be given to them as King, and they choose St. Casimir, because they could no longer endure the tyranny of Matthias. If Casimir did not do this, they would seek aid from the Turks. They promised to furnish the costs of war. having promised much: Nor did Casimir spurn their requests, and he sent his son Casimir with a not inconsiderable army, under the command of Peter Dunin, Casimir the father agrees, into Hungary: and also assigned some Palatines and Castellans, whom the same Cromer enumerates, and certain other distinguished men, as companions to him: and he ordered Paul Jasenius, who was returning from Bohemia, where he had escorted Vladislaus, to proceed directly from Moravia into Hungary and join forces with Casimir.

[27] But Matthias, informed in good time of these plans of his Nobles, gathered whatever forces he had in Moravia and Silesia into Hungary: the Hungarians break their word: some of the leading men who had been alienated from him, he won back partly by the terror of his army, partly by immense promises. The rest, following them, while Casimir moved and came more slowly, also began to waver and, as is the custom of that nation, to change their loyalty. And so the arriving Casimir, having passed through part of Hungary, established his camp at Nitra, which was in the territory of the Archbishop of Esztergom. And not a single one of the Hungarian Nobles came to him during all that time, except the Bishop of Pecs, who also immediately withdrew to Esztergom, whence he had come. Matthias with 16,000 confronts Casimir, But Matthias, who had sixteen thousand men in his army near Buda, meeting the approaching Casimir, encamped at a distance of three miles from him. Yet he did not offer the Poles an opportunity for battle, because he suspected the loyalty alike of the Hungarians and of the Poles, nor does he dare to fight. of whom there was no small number in his camp: and in the peasants, who were the greatest part of the army, he placed little confidence.

[28] While time was thus wasted on both sides, Tilemann Schlecht came to Casimir, the King of the Poles, Sixtus IV urges peace: a Canon of Cologne, Cubiculary and Nuncio of Sixtus, the Fourth of that name, Supreme Pontiff, who had succeeded Paul II after the latter's death. He urged the King to make peace with the Hungarian. This was either because the Pontiff wished to look after Matthias's interests, lest he lose his kingdom; or because he was displeased that he was being diverted from the Turkish war... King Casimir, however, did not show himself difficult to the Pontiff in this matter, the King of Poland assents: and was allowing the leading men of both sides to arbitrate the peace; knowing that his son's affairs in Hungary did not correspond to his hopes and the promises of the Hungarian Nobles. And with this response he dismissed Tilemann, and as he was setting out for Hungary assigned John Vantropia, Canon of Cracow, with the same instructions for his son and the Hungarian Nobles, as his companion. Meanwhile, while these things were happening, the mercenary soldiers, who were mostly foreigners, began to slip away from the camp of the younger Casimir stationed at Nitra, because of unpaid wages. [his son, as the soldiers desert, returns to Poland by the counsel of the Dukes, having left 4,000 at Nitra] Moved by their departure, the leading men of the army persuaded Casimir that, leaving Jasenius with four thousand men as a garrison at Nitra, he should withdraw with the remaining forces to safety before he was besieged by the enemy, who was reported to be approaching with reinforced troops. Which retreat indeed was very like a headlong flight.

[29] At last, with some time intervening, he writes the following at the beginning of the year 1472: The younger Casimir... finding no place to set his foot securely, withdrew to Poland: he is ordered not to come to Cracow: and, ordered by his father to halt at Dobczyce, three miles from Cracow, he remained there for a while in a kind of retirement, shunning the light and the sight of men out of shame for the disgrace he had suffered; and so as not to exacerbate by his presence his father's grief, which the latter had drunk most bitterly. Jasenius, however, those left at Nitra depart, trusting in a truce, did not himself remain long at Nitra either; during the period of the truce which he had agreed upon with Matthias for fifteen days, having left only three hundred soldiers in the garrison of the fortress, he departed from there. which Matthias breaks. Matthias, having violated the truce, pursued him, yet did not dare to attack him as he marched cautiously and was ready for the combat of battle, with a mind firmly resolved to die honorably rather than flee disgracefully or surrender himself.

[30] Antonius Bonfini, in book 3 of decade 4 of Hungarian Affairs, narrates this expedition of Blessed Casimir somewhat more at length than Cromer, and reports these causes of their defection from King Matthias, written to the King of Poland by the conspirators: That the Hungarians, seized by a certain rash piety, had chosen Corvinus as King, a man born not of royal but of humble stock: that he had burst from kingdom into tyranny; and since he was by no means born of royal blood, What had his subjects previously complained about Matthias? he could not maintain the royal Majesty and sanctity: that he had begun to rage not only against others but against his own from the beginning: that he had thrown his uncle, who had refused the kingdom offered to him and had made his nephew King, into prison, and indeed condemned him to death: that now moreover he had begun to use violence against his father's friends, who had so greatly honored him and had never deserted him in any dangers: that he had usurped the sacred censorship, raged against Priests, seized the revenues of Bishops, confused divine and human law alike, and followed caprice instead of reason. Therefore the kingdom of Hungary, unjustly given to Matthias, ought equally to be taken away: they should have recourse to the house of Poland as was customary: and finally they begged that he would send his son Casimir, recently elected King, and that he might receive the kingdom offered to him. Whether all these arguments are founded in truth I do not discuss; still less whether they could have given a probable cause for dire sedition against a Prince.

[31] I do not think, however, that it was any sin of the holy young man that he thus accepted the kingdom offered by rebels, St. Casimir did not sin in accepting the kingdom thus offered; especially since his father was the author of the act: but the latter cannot be entirely absolved of the charge of rashness, since he ought to have thoroughly known by long experience the character of the Hungarians: unless indeed both father and, much more, son believed that those insane threats about calling in the Turks for assistance were sincerely made, [he is to be praised that he was judged suitable for this by the Hungarians, his father, and Matthias himself:] and judged that even so the proffered scepter ought rather to be accepted than that the most noble kingdom should be involved in that fatal ruin. Otherwise it was no small praise for the younger Casimir that he was demanded as King by those Hungarian Nobles, not yet

fifteen years old: unless perhaps they aimed at this so that he would more readily allow himself to be governed by their counsels; for what chiefly seems to have turned them against Matthias was that, as Bonfini testifies, having now become his own master, what did the rebels aim at in choosing him? he had begun to assert himself from the counsels of the nobles to whom he had hitherto been subject: he used his own, not another's judgment and counsel: he would refute their opinions if they at any time advised something too freely: he wished to seem to do everything by himself. That too, as the same writer suggests, they trusted, that by his forces, which his father from Poland would join to him, they would eject the Corvinus they had rejected. Yet the son's outstanding character had already made him seem to the father fit to preside over that fierce nation, supported by the counsel of faithful Dukes whom he assigned to him. Nor did Matthias himself entirely disagree, not daring for that reason to offer him an opportunity for battle.

[32] But about his withdrawal from Hungary, the same Bonfini narrates (doubtless beholden to Corvinus, at whose urging he is said to have undertaken writing the history) things different from what we reported from Cromer, what do the Hungarian writers say about his withdrawal? namely that Casimir with his men was besieged by him at Nitra, and when supplies were cut off and he threatened them with dire famine, he honestly confessed that he had been summoned by the treachery of the Hungarians, and through intermediaries secretly negotiated and obtained permission to depart in the dead of night and return safely to Poland; and affirmed by an oath that he would never henceforth make war on that kingdom. A few days later, having escaped with 700 cavalry by agreement, he withdrew to Poland in forced marches. As for the army what about the companions? that had remained, requesting through daily intermediaries the power to depart safely, he says that dismissal was given on this condition, that they should inflict no harm on the kingdom and do nothing hostile on their march. But when they had sworn to observe this and were making plunder in the villages and fields everywhere, at the King's command they were badly treated by the peasants and stripped of what they had seized, and some even of their lives. Thus the stigma of perfidy which the Poles affix to Corvinus, consistent with his character; the same the Hungarians throw back upon the Poles themselves.

Section V. Did St. Casimir reject the offered kingdom of Hungary?

[33] Certain more recent Polish writers do not touch upon this expedition of St. Casimir to take the kingdom of Hungary by so much as a word, such as our Peter Skarga in his Life. Others dispatch it very briefly, like Albert Wijuk Kojalowicz above in Section 1. Bartholomew Cieszynski, certain Poles barely touch the matter by a word: Chancellor of the Diocese of Vilnius and Parish Priest of the town of Kaunas, a learned and pious man, in a Panegyric, or votive tablet offered to the holy Prince Casimir, Patron of Lithuania, in which his life, death, and triumph are described in the same meter in which he himself once honored the Most Holy Virgin; others report that he refused the kingdom: reports that he rejected the offered kingdom of Hungary thus:

A crown gleaming with gems, And the Hungarian scepter, With envoys sent away, He despised, as poison. And what wonder, that Casimir, Who offered himself to heaven, Spurned and despised these? He preferred true things to false.

[34] In the same vein, most elegantly, writes our John Rywocki in the Panegyric which he delivered in the Triumph of St. Casimir in the year 1636 and afterward published in print. That does not, however, agree with the Polish and Hungarian writers in thinking that Hungary at that time lacked a King. Otherwise, that we may excerpt somewhat more from that Panegyric, the keenness and polish of the writing warrant it. Thus he writes: When I arrived at that point, I thought I should first turn to the Royal honor, the Poles themselves wished him to be their King: which the appropriate exercise of power rightly claims for itself. For so great already was the Lord Casimir that under his father's protection he was worthy of empire. He had also excited the hearts of all to the desire that, although they would not wish the pious ways and good fortune of the best King to be absent from their governance, yet their wishes would run ahead to the son and would crown him with their esteem. And thus, under the living fortune and desire of his Father, he received the judgment of the supreme dignity, and within the desired glory of his father's presence he was the King of hearts.

[35] The same opinion took hold of neighboring peoples. No one who, from the marks of his divine soul and the demonstration of his by no means idle character, the Hungarians' demands were rejected by him; did not anticipate a life worthy of the highest summit: yet Hungary surpassed the rest in its suffrage and, daring to lay open the field for such great virtues, seized the opportunity of a vacant throne for the glory of the Lord Casimir. A most ample embassy sent in his name displayed the common voice of the Senate, the wishes of the equestrian order, the suppliant hands of the peoples, by which they sought a Son from the Father, a Prince from the Republic, from Casimir the care of empire. Then not much later: But he withdrew his hand from ambition, because he considered that under that precious burden his piety might become cheapened. His mind, attentive to the care of his salvation, since it sought every opportunity of nobler service and perceived with keen sight the customs of divine imitation, and for what reasons? thinking it enough to have been born to kingdoms, consecrated his dignity to heavenly hope. And then: Therefore he preferred not even to console the petitioning Hungary's efforts with a show of condescension, rather than to confound with an unlike step the first footsteps of his progress in good, or to pursue them. So the envoys were forced to depart, more concerned that they had not obtained so great a virtue for their throne than that they had not obtained the governance of their nation. He, made more secure by not admitting the principate, rejoiced that by a single refusal he had condemned all the force of fortunate things and that "Not to have wished" had sufficed him for victory. To others he seemed to have attained something very great, in that the envoys had carried away with them, not without grief, the esteem of a mind worthy of empire: he considered himself most fortunate in that he had received an exalted position as material for contempt.

[36] Some perhaps drew to that conclusion what Ferrerius wrote in chapter 3, number 10: Although he was of the most penetrating judgment and most prudent, most averse to ambition, and his opinion greatly benefited the Republic; yet the domination of human eminence he neither sought nor ever wished to accept when offered by his father; fearing lest his mind be wounded by the goads of riches, which our Lord Jesus Christ called thorns, or be contaminated by contact with earthly things. Which Swiecicius expressed somewhat more briefly: Although for these and other reasons he was judged most apt for administering the kingdom, he not only did not seek it but most constantly rejected it even when offered by his parent and other nobles of the realm. But from this it does not follow that he was not invited to take the governance of the kingdom of Hungary and sent with an army by his father: but rather that in the kingdom of Poland itself, or the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, he was unwilling to undertake a share of the public administration when the Father offered it he also refused the governance even under his father: and the Princes wished it. And perhaps some sense of the unhappily conducted affair in Hungary confirmed his mind in that resolution of rejecting dignities. Yet it scarcely seems doubtful that if a longer life had been granted him, the Bishops and other Nobles and the entire equestrian order would have chosen him as his Father's successor, who surpassed his other brothers, as in age, so in gravity of character, zeal for the public good, and especially for the orthodox religion, and greatness of mind, though by no means precipitous: and that even his Father, before departing this life, would have recommended this to the Senators.

[37] Thomas Horzecki, a Ruthenian of the Society of Jesus, whom Alegambe also mentions in his Bibliotheca, published at Vilnius in the year 1639 from the Academic press the Eulogies of the Jagiellon Kings of Poland, His eulogy by Thomas Porzecki, Hungary, and Bohemia: among which he also rightly placed that of St. Casimir, not only because, having been called to the scepter of Hungary, who rightly numbers him among the Kings, he repudiated it, as he believes; but because he was truly invited by the Hungarians, went there with an army, occupied some part of the kingdom with garrisons; but by the perfidy of those who had summoned him, departed thence shortly after. Yet the elegance of his eulogy merits that it be recited here in full, since it skillfully sets forth the other honors of that Saint. Thus it reads: The Holy Casimir. Why should he not adorn the Annals of Kings? praising him for having scorned the offered kingdom, whom both a higher Majesty has received on heaven's throne to be adored by the peoples, and a great soul has shown how much he towered above Kings; when he refused to go under the coronation gold which Hungary had bestowed upon him. You would have seen the order of ambition confused, when those who gave were the ones seeking; he to whom the ambition pertained was refusing the kingdom; indeed giving, when he did not accept what was offered. The lofty soul that could trample scepters easily reached heaven. Others don a purple robe to foster their pleasures; he with royal garb directed his arms toward the storming of heaven. The hands which he withdrew from ambition, he armed with pious cruelty against himself. heaven by penance The temple, which he knew to be the armory of heaven, he visited not only by day but also by night, surrounded by the mere horror of darkness alone; and piety he has captured, so that sometimes the hands of the watchmen, keeping guard before the doors, would recognize him from the miracle of his patience alone. Nothing was lacking in his countenance for the impression of majesty, nothing for the pleasantness of joy. A mind royal in all things, and mindful of public welfare in meditation on heavenly things, shone forth. That by the firmest bond of religion he might bind together the hearts of the citizens, he obtained from his Father a law by which he might extinguish with the slow passage of time the obstinate spirits of the dissenting sect; he endeavored to convert schismatics, while he forbade their shrines, once collapsed from age, to rise again for the conspiracy of errors. An effective remedy for so great an evil, prompt and without detriment to clemency. Thus he tempered kindness toward others with severity, so as to direct the entire force of harsh conflict against himself. Illness and death (when there was no hope in physicians) brought it about that, conqueror of heaven, of himself, of nature, and of death, he should enter. He found something to conquer even after death, when, as the elements hastened to do his bidding, now he led an army through the hitherto impassable eddies of a river, now riding upon a triumphal cloud he sent victory down from on high to the Lithuanians. he bestowed victory over them on his people after his death. So much does it matter to have poured out one's spirit in victory; that when the victorious soul has begun eternity, there is no end to the victories.

[38] More briefly, but no less elegantly, the same author crafts a eulogy for him in verse; in which this passage is not so openly at variance with the historians contemporary with the Saint:

In vain the Hungarians offer to a great head A crown lesser than his merits: The great court of heaven seeks you as King, and An orbit loftier than this world.

And from that point, the same Author invokes him against the heretical Swedes, against the hereditary enemies of the Catholic Polish and Lithuanian nation, he implores his protection and aid thus:

Hence, should the North Wind stir up Broken storms again, or the hostile Baltic Rage with its surge, and carry back Wars on its vast keels;

Or the Gelonian, ever doubtful of peace, Plot wars with furtive daring, the Muscovites, Or the terrible Bosphorus rush against us With all its arms;

Holy one, cast not empty clouds: the Turks, Let the hearts hostile to the Poles Feel an angry Power, and the just Wrath of the thunderbolt.

But that we may end this discussion of whether St. Casimir accepted or repudiated the kingdom of Hungary, we think we should stand by the authority of Bartholomew Patrocci, a distinguished writer of Polish affairs. He published a book in Polish, inscribed the Royal Garden, It must be admitted that he went to Hungary; or on the customs of Heroes, as Simon Starovolski says,

in which book, on folio 1522, about St. Casimir he has this: Elected King of Hungary, he returned home again; he died in his youth, having led a holy life. and that he returned.

Section VI. The Hymn of St. Casimir, his burial, the magnificent Translation of 1636.

[39] By what master he learned letters, we indicated above. What progress he made in them, you will read in the Life written by Zacharias Ferrerius, chapter 1, number 4. When therefore, he says, still a boy, having been given to the best preceptors by his parents to be instructed in excellent morals and good letters, The specimen of St. Casimir's learning is the Hymn, Omni die. he had so greatly profited at that tender age as to be an object of no small admiration to all; he so spent his boyhood and adolescence in all virtues and the disciplines of the liberal arts, that he always grew both in age and in wisdom. And then in chapter 2, number 5, he adduces this specimen of his pious learning, or rather of his learned piety: He also burned, he says, with incredible devotion toward the Mother of God: whom the pious adolescent, in an excellent oration composed by himself in heptameters (so I think it should be read, the reason for which I shall indicate in the Annotations to the Life) (which we have seen, enclosing in a beautiful arrangement almost all the mysteries of the Lord's Incarnation) daily greeted and praised with constant hymns. The subject matter of that pious hymn is explained in the Life of the Saint cited above by our Peter Skarga, and he seems to suggest that more such poems were composed by him: With the greatest pleasure, he says, he was carried into the contemplation of the deeds and excellences of the Divine Mother, and into the most tender piety toward her: he wrote Rhythms and poems in her honor, and with that wise and heavenly philosophy he delighted his heart.

[40] This Hymn the Saint seems to have wished to be placed in the same tomb with himself, and indeed under his head. For certainly (as we reported above in Section 1, number 2, from Albert Kojalowicz), when in the year 1604 his tomb was being restored, That hymn was placed within the tomb under the head, or above the breast: he was found with body and garments incorrupt: on which same occasion was also discovered the Hymn to the Blessed Virgin (which begins thus: Omni die dic Mariae mea laudes anima) placed under his right temple. The Rev. Father John Rywocki, already several times cited, wrote to us some years ago that it was found above the breast of the Saint in the tomb, and so some prayer books, in which it is printed, have it. It is also sung in churches as an outstanding incentive to piety toward the Virgin Mother of God. And just as in various Catholic territories of Germany certain prayers or odes are customarily sung by the scholastic youth during the time of the Sacrifice, suitable for the praise of the Divinity and for exciting a sense of piety in the minds of the singers and listeners; so in the kingdom of Poland they usually sing this hymn of their national Saint and Patron. The same hymn, or prayer, even before it was discovered in the tomb of the Saint sixty years ago when his sepulcher was opened, was nevertheless already in the hands of pious people. For, as Swiecicius writes, through a certain Brother Christophorus Zlotinkowski, in the year 1499, from the codices of the holy Casimir (as the same Brother there testifies) it was copied onto a public tablet and found at the tomb.

[41] Here there comes to my mind that writing or tablet which is narrated by the most approved Acts of St. Agatha, Virgin and Martyr, as the sacred tablet at the head of St. Agatha to have been placed within the sepulcher at her head, on February 5, question 3, number 13. For certainly what it displayed inscribed — A holy mind, spontaneous honor to God, and the liberation of the fatherland — the same the Hymn of St. Casimir, either placed under his head in the tomb or laid upon his breast, seems in a certain way to suggest to those who piously recite it: A holy mind, contemplating the glories of the Great Mother; Spontaneous honor offered to God by virginity so holily guarded; and the Liberation of the fatherland, since Lithuania, his homeland, has experienced more than once the devastation which the impious were already inflicting, repulsed by the invocation of this Saint's aid: which same things all who revolve with equal devotion, every day or as often as it is opportune, the Hymn composed by him, may rightly hope for.

[42] And indeed, that a certain distinguished Angel, attending the burial of the Virgin Agatha with a numerous retinue of others, placed that tablet within the tomb, is recorded; and perhaps, as that one, by Angels, who knows whether the Angels did not either inspire St. Casimir with the thought of ordering that heavenly canticle to be placed with him in the tomb, or themselves placed it there? Certainly Cieszynski, Chancellor of the Diocese of Vilnius, praised by us before, in the Panegyric which he composed for the holy Casimir, acknowledges the services of Angels at the funeral of the same Saint, writing thus:

Away with lamentation: give songs, And lilies to the tomb: Chaste flowers and fragrances Shall be in one heap. Behold the heavenly, Angelic Army from on high, who honored the funeral, For this funeral, a welcome gift, Aroused to accompany it. Remove lamentation, hear songs, See how many flowers upon the tomb They strew, how many fragrances they give, As his true emulators.

[43] With other honors, both from God and from mortals also, was the Saintly Prince's tomb graced. Albert Kojalowicz, enumerating places in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania famous for the grace of miracles, first places the tomb of the holy Casimir at the Cathedral Church of St. Stanislaus at Vilnius. buried in the chapel of the royal sepulture: And immediately he has these words: He had first been buried in the chapel of the Royal sepulture, where now is the Wolowicz chapel, not far from the place where, before the doors of the church, prostrate on the ground, praying at night, he was discovered by the watchmen, while he lived. From there he was translated to the chapel called Gassoldian, or Chodkiewicz; until in another place there should be constructed, at Royal expense, a chapel comparable to the most magnificent mausoleums, then a most magnificent one of its own was built, built of precious marble, begun by Sigismund III and for the greater part completed, finished by Vladislaus IV. Into which Mausoleum, preceded by a solemn procession through the more celebrated streets of the city, with the King, the Senate of both Orders, the Clergy of all Lithuania, of both the Greek and Latin rite, and the Apostolic Nuncio Mario Philonardo, accompanying, it was brought on August 14, 1636. to which he was translated on August 14, 1636. The miracles by which after death his tomb was made famous are contained in a booklet published in the year 1606. Moreover, this grace of Miracles endures at the tomb even in this present time, as is evident from the various votive offerings which are customarily hung there day by day as evidence of benefits received.

[44] The poem which was inscribed on the earlier tomb, and is found in Swiecicius, seems to have been composed by Zacharias Ferrerius. For in the copy which we received from Lithuania, after the Life written from the year 1520, the Epitaph immediately follows, which we shall now give; and then: Of the same Zacharias, Bishop of Guardia. Then the Ecclesiastical Office, which we said above was put together by him; so plainly that it is manifest that what precedes and what follows is from the pen of the same man. Epitaph on the former tomb. Thus it reads:

Here lies Casimir, of royal descent, Noble in lineage, and famed for the lofty lineage of his virtues. He gave himself to God, having scorned riches and transient things, And rejoices, destined to live forever in Heaven. He departed from human affairs in the first flower of youth. Whoever is oppressed by adverse health, as soon as He makes his vow at the tomb, is healed of every disease.

The last two verses are thus rendered by Swiecicius:

Whoever is oppressed by adverse health, let him make His vow at the tomb; he shall immediately be healed of every disease.

[45] With what magnificence the body of St. Casimir was translated to that new and ample marble chapel built in the basilica of Vilnius, our John Rywocki set forth with no less majesty of style in the book which he entitled thus: The Triumph which the Most Serene and Unconquered Vladislaus IV, King of Poland and Sweden, The Translation celebrated in a Panegyric by John Rywocki. exhibited to the holy Prince Casimir by a magnificent and pious conveyance to the august Mausoleum of Paternal Generosity, in the year 1636, August 14, at Vilnius; represented in a Panegyric and dedicated to the Most Serene Princes of Poland and Sweden, John Casimir and Charles Ferdinand, Brothers, by Father John Rywocki of the Society of Jesus. I would judge that Panegyric most worthy to be inserted here in its entirety for the increased veneration of the same Saint, were it not that we must take care lest our work swell to excessive size. Yet I shall pluck a few morsels which were passed over above by Albert Kojalowicz.

[46] The holy Prince therefore, enclosed in a precious casket, while borne aloft by the most distinguished Clergy, amid joyful applause The casket of the Saint carried widely about, and the triumphal acclamations of the Academy, was led through the long tracts of the streets; nothing could be wished for that piety had not contributed to his veneration, or liberality to the majesty of the occasion. through streets adorned with precious tapestries, Thus everywhere a devout splendor had settled upon the erected arches and buildings, so that the new face of the city augmented its own daylight by the unusual adornment. Tapestries illuminated with woven gold were hung before the doors... You would have said that the ornaments of different lands had come together in one place, so that by a contest of art and cost they might multiply the delight, and with manifold decoration might venerate the passing Divine youth.

[47] and paintings of the Saint himself, But why do I relate these joys of buildings that almost seemed to exult? There was another material for the procession, far more beautiful... the image of the holy Casimir himself, remarkable for his deeds. Who did not receive from the laborious work of the brush his likeness, pleasing in countenance, modest in bearing, illustrious in fortune, to display it before the pleasant vestibule of their house? Whose palace was not occupied by his image, which by its purple would proclaim the Prince, by its lilies the Virgin, by its rays the Saint? and of his miracles: Now even the miracles themselves lived in many pictures, with a likeness so suited to truth that art obeyed the feelings, and the learned placement of colors animated the panels with certain pious sentiments. After many miracles have been enumerated, which were elegantly expressed in colors and viewed, the Author adds: Nor was it fitting for the Saintly Prince to be adorned otherwise than that from himself, as from the richest theater, the celebrity of the triumph should be drawn. his hymn resounding everywhere: It is the way of the vain to enjoy honors begged from elsewhere: the full extend a solemn display from themselves. Thence it was also that, although everywhere a great and varied applause arose, no voices were more gladly received than those which he himself composed in honor of the August Virgin. Or whether anything could be sweeter than a song, about which it is doubtful whether it received more sweetness from that most pure breast than piety? To which can ears more beautifully be attuned than where the grace of words at intervals encounters itself in equal measure, as if a vocal image, reflected at the end, were singing harmoniously? Where with a brief pause it suspends the equality of its cadence, so that the delay may more pleasantly converge in a similar manner? Where the learned eloquence limps in alternating verses, and the varied gait of the feet, now with a diminished step, now with an equal one, makes the pleasure of praying more delightful? While every sentence, as if produced from a lathe, came more polished to the harmony of voices, and the oration, tasted ever more often in a circle, returned with pious sentiments, the mind melted in the listening.

[48] Among the Nobles who especially added to the splendor of the procession, accompanied by illustrious men, besides Mario Philonardo, Archbishop of Avignon, Apostolic Nuncio, mentioned also by Kojalowicz;

here the author specifically names Abraham Woyna, Bishop of Vilnius, and Casimir Sapieha, Notary of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Nor does he omit the night that followed, amid torches and joyfulness, unmindful of the darkness: nor the display of fireworks launched into the sky. Finally, he rightly exaggerates that pious and generous deed of Vladislaus IV, who, having decreed that the Triumphal procession be held for St. Casimir and desiring it to be as numerous and splendid as possible, yet seemed to be absolutely prevented from attending it himself by a chance illness of the feet: but he found a way, and by the King himself, although ill in his feet, so that the unconquerable fortitude which he had so often used bravely against enemies, he would holily use against himself; and, carried in a carriage, he would accompany that triumph of his Saint and truly greatest Uncle; and would more powerfully inflame, by his truly Royal example, the ready devotion of all the Orders already inclined toward the Saint's veneration. Then the Author addresses the King: Although you made yourself a companion of the sacred procession, we recognized you as Prince, and indeed with doubled authority. For your Father's piety, noble in the first inception of this work, shone forth in you simultaneously, and so supplied the ancient longings that no one believed that the Father, already restored to heaven, was absent, when one beheld you. There is added the fact that you took care that no one should miss Queen Constance as a partner in this magnificent labor amid so great an abundance of spectacle. For you wished to appear in that same theater of outstanding virtues your August sister, Anna Catharina Constance, who by the steadfast miracle of her integrity would represent the Mother received among the blessed. and by his sister Anna Constance, And indeed she sounded ample enough for so great a name, and made it so that in her flourishing character a modest maturity of virtue could be discerned. He finally augurs what effect the virtue of these royal persons will have: Lest anyone, he says, a bad guardian of his labors, should lock up his wealth with cupidity and prefer to guard what he has collected as an inheritance of avarice rather than to display it for the glory of the divine Power; the munificence of Sigismund III will confront him. Lest the presumption of some dignity withdraw itself from sacred duties, Vladislaus IV will convict him with a bodily weakness powerful for piety. who offered a golden lamp, a gift prepared by her mother: And so that every necessity may perpetually hasten to that place in constant concourse, a golden lamp, a splendid gift of Queen Constance, suspended by the virginal hand of her Daughter before the altar, will give light.

[49] So much the Panegyric of Rywocki about the Translation of St. Casimir to that Mausoleum of his, whose (as the same writer says) every age will marvel at the cost and splendor. Bartholomew Cieszynski writes about the tomb thus:

A sumptuous, precious Chapel is built; And a sepulcher (oh, how beautiful!) Is seen, of gold.

On the very day of that solemn Translation, Matthias Casimir Sarbiewski of our Society spoke in Latin before King Vladislaus, other things written then about that translation. in a great concourse of people, and committed that oration to print. There was also published at that time the entire apparatus of the procession. But we have not yet been able to see either the one or the other.

[50] Moreover, the Relics of the Saintly Prince were afterward translated from that magnificent Mausoleum to another place, so that they might be withdrawn from the fury of the Muscovites, The body of the Saint carried elsewhere for fear of the Muscovites. who had occupied the city of Vilnius. Whether or not they have been restored to their place, we have not yet heard. This alone we have learned, that even after the city was recovered from the Muscovites, that sacred treasure was not immediately brought forth. From there they wrote two years ago that neither had the Bishop of Vilnius entered his See, nor had the Palatine and Generalissimo of the Lithuanian army, Sapieha, solemnly entered the City, because the relics of St. Casimir had not yet been brought in.

Section VII. Temples dedicated to St. Casimir. For what purpose especially is his patronage invoked?

[51] The city of Vilnius has another temple dedicated to the name of St. Casimir and adorned with some of his Relics. For there exists, as the writer of the Sacred Miscellanea of Lithuania, A temple of St. Casimir at Vilnius already often cited, relates, a Professed House of the Society of Jesus, begun through the munificence of various benefactors, completed by the foundation of Charles Ferdinand, Prince of Poland, Bishop of Plock and Wroclaw. That House has a temple erected under the name of St. Casimir: to which the Bishop of Vilnius, most illustrious in birth and piety, George Tyszkiewicz, donated some Relics of the Saint, with Relics, a truly outstanding gift. Then, when a certain Neapolitan sodality of noble young men, which had chosen this Saintly Prince in secular purple as their Patron, earnestly begged that he share some of his relics with them; and having none at hand, from those which he had given to us he cut off a particle, namely a finger joint, and sent it to Naples, together with a testimony written on parchment. a particle of which was sent to Naples, to a certain sodality of nobles: That Sodality is established in the church of St. George Major (as they call it), a most ancient church, and as an old tradition of the city has it, built by the authority and at the expense of Constantine the Great; but in the time of Pope Paul V and of Decius Carafa, Archbishop of Naples and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, committed to the Congregation of secular Priests who are called the Pious Workers of Christian Doctrine. In their church was established a Sodality which has a chapel, sufficiently ample and elegant, dedicated to St. Casimir, to which they also set up a wooden statue, not very large, but entirely gilded, into whose breast they inserted the said relic received from Vilnius.

[52] At Kaunas, a city of Lithuania at the confluence of the rivers Nemunas and Vilnia in the Palatinate of Trakai, a temple likewise at Kaunas: at the Convent of the Dominican Fathers there is a Church of St. Casimir. A chapel is dedicated to the same Saint, adorned with Indulgences, at Rozana, which is a town of the Palatinate of Vilnius. About one mile from Polotsk there is a place, as Kojalowicz writes, a chapel at Rozana with Indulgences: at which the army of the Poles and Lithuanians, under the commanders Gastold and John Boratyński, around the year 1518, consisting of only two thousand men and besieged by sixty thousand Muscovites, was visited by the holy Casimir, who, appearing to the endangered soldiers, himself on horseback leading the way, showed them a ford through the Dvina and led them across. a temple at the Dvina river. The memory of this benefit was renewed by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus of the Polotsk college in the year 1642, by building a church there, and it is preserved through the years by processions held at stated times from the city to that church. where a ford was shown to the Poles, That college was founded for the Society by the glorious King Stephen Bathory. But the aid which the Lithuanian forces experienced from the Saint was not brought to those who were besieged by a numerous Muscovite army and already in danger, by showing a ford through the Dvina as if for flight: but when they could not cross the river to attack the Muscovites who were intent on besieging the fortress of Polotsk, the Saint, invoked by them, showed the ford, and was the first to cross it, repeatedly urging them to follow. They, having intrepidly crossed the river, made an assault upon the enemies who were so much superior in strength, the Muscovites besieging Polotsk were defeated: forced them to turn their backs and lift the siege, and slew many of them, and led away no fewer into captivity; as Gregory Swiecicius writes. Skarga also writes that Casimir extended to the Poles and Lithuanians a glorious victory over the Muscovites at the city of Polotsk: for with a modest force the numerous army was routed and put to flight, when the Saint made himself visible and showed a ford through the river Dvina passable by large ships and led the way against the enemy. A notable mention of this church is made below in the third Apparition of St. Casimir. Warsaw, An altar of the Saint at Warsaw, which is the principal city of the Duchy of Masovia among the Poles, has a Professed House of the Society of Jesus, in whose church a marble altar has been built to St. Casimir. Many altars dedicated to his name are seen in towns and villages throughout the whole kingdom. and many more elsewhere.

[53] In various cities of Belgium, a skillfully painted image of the Saint is seen for the adornment of Churches and the encouragement of piety. Certain Congregations or sodalities also have chosen him as their Patron. I bring forward one from the vicinity: at Mechelen, in the college of the Society of Jesus, among the many groups of Sodalists of the Blessed Virgin Mary, distinguished by various grades and ages, one is erected under the title of the Nativity of the same Mother of God, in which young men of more mature age are enrolled: who have chosen St. Casimir as their secondary Patron, because he led a celibate life in such a way as to adorn it with singular devotion toward the Blessed Virgin Veneration in Belgium. and the Passion of Christ, and with other virtues which particularly befit that state of life. Besides a distinguished painting of him hung in the hall of the Sodality, before which, whenever meetings are held, a candle placed on a skillfully made candlestick burns. Medals were struck at the beginning, marked with the Saint's image; to say nothing of other images of him, engraved on copper and printed on paper and parchment. They celebrate the anniversary solemnity on the Sunday which follows the Saint's feast day, on which day a plenary Indulgence has been obtained from the Supreme Pontiff.

[54] There seem to be three principal reasons why both private persons and entire congregations, and even cities, adopt St. Casimir as their Patron. St. Casimir is invoked for the protection of chastity, The first is that he may be a protection for guarding chastity, he who preferred to die rather than not preserve his virginity inviolate, and who daily venerated the Queen of Virgins, the Mother of God, with ardent devotion, in that most sweet heptameter ode, Omni die dic Mariae mea laudes anima. The second, because when pestilence was raging, many remained immune from the plague through his aid. Bartholomew Cieszynski professes this about himself in the Panegyric, which he offered to the holy Prince Casimir, Patron of Lithuania, against the plague, for the benefit of his life preserved from the recent contagion in the year 1630. To which he appends this Quatrain. A HUMBLE VOW TO THE HOLY CASIMIR.

The sky, angered, is squalid with gloomy rust, And hostile death hurls its lethal torches. Alas, how great a grief overwhelms mortal hearts! As fragile life hangs upon its own disasters! Deaths multiply and funerals in the lands of our fathers, When every hour counts its dense slaughter. To your healing altars, Casimir, we hasten: For new life blossoms at your tomb.

For his body is untouched by decay and worm, and his intercession calms the contagion of pestilence. George Tyszkiewicz, then Bishop of Methone, Auxiliary, Suffragan, and Administrator of the Bishopric of Vilnius, and later in 1634 raised to the Bishopric of Samogitia, and finally in 1649 to that of Vilnius, in the Approbation of that Panegyric, given January 9, 1631, calls it a pious and elegant little work, composed from a vow; and out of devotion of the people, he permits it to be committed to the press.

[55] Why he is invoked in battles, especially against enemies of the orthodox religion, is sufficiently clear from what has been partly said before, in war, as against the schismatic Muscovites, partly from what will be said below from Ferrerius and Swiecicius. And besides this, that battle which was waged in our memory at Khotin against the most proud tyrant of the Turks, Osman, was happily concluded with heavenly aid, by the patronage of St. Casimir, as Cieszynski indicates in the third part of his Panegyric, with these verses:

And the swollen Turks, soon timid, Rush against us: and against the Turks in the battle of Khotin. We unharmed, they slain, They sacrifice their leader to Orcus.

The Patron stands for the altars, He accomplishes more with prayers Than we with bloody instruments, We and our Leaders.

In the margin he explains these things thus: The Turks were repulsed from the borders of the kingdom, and their Emperor Osman was strangled by his own men for the affair badly managed. But James Sobieski, an illustrious man, in the history of that war nowhere openly testifies that the aid of St. Casimir was implored in the Polish army, let alone obtained: although he does not omit what pertains to inculcating Christian piety. Thus toward the end of book one, when he had related the proud response given by Usaim, namely that the peace which the Poles were seeking lay in arms; in the danger, hitherto unexperienced, hanging over the necks of the entire Republic, and announced by trumpet through the camps, the soldiers, he says, were encouraged in familiar conversations by the Dukes, that the sole hope flourished and certain salvation was hoped for in Divine aid and Polish valor. Then in book 3 he records that the greatest Turkish assault happened on the day consecrated in honor of St. Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia, formerly joined to the Poles by nation and language, and the ancient Patron, and, in this last crisis, the Tutelary Saint, as we piously believe. I can scarcely persuade myself that Casimir too, the domestic Patron, was not also invoked by the pious Poles and Lithuanians. And finally, so that it may be understood how momentous that victory was, Pope Gregory XV, he says, on the 6th of the Ides of October, on which Osman, sated with his disgrace, withdrew, declared that day a feast day and sacred with public processions for the entire kingdom of Poland.

[56] About ten years ago, certain other prodigies occurred around Polotsk, in 1654 he appeared three times and terrified the Muscovites. namely three Apparitions of St. Casimir presented to Szeremet, Generalissimo of the Muscovite army, when in the year 1654 he had burst into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with hostile standards. A nobleman, Paul Wodeysza, a man of gravity, more than fifty years old, conspicuous in age and seriousness of character, before the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord George Tyszkiewicz, Bishop of Vilnius, under oath affirmed that these things, which are set out below, were heard by him when they were narrated by Szeremet, the Muscovite army's Commander and Palatine of Polotsk, in the presence of many others, who still reside at Polotsk. The Most Reverend Bishop judged these things to be of such authority that he ordered them to be printed at the Academic press at Vilnius in the year 1655, and a concluding clause to be added in these words: I attest that this was thus sworn from the mandate of the Most Illustrious local Ordinary,

Section VIII. The veneration decreed to St. Casimir by the Apostolic See.

[57] It remains for us to indicate what honors the Most Holy Apostolic See decreed to the holy Casimir, and to recite the public documents drawn up concerning his body, found free of all corruption after one hundred and twenty years and more from burial. First, therefore, Pope Leo X, Supreme Pontiff, in the year 1520, the canonization of St. Casimir was made in 1521, through Zacharias Ferrerius, Bishop of Guardia, his Apostolic Nuncio to Sigismund I, King of Poland, and several Polish Bishops, caused his Acts and miracles to be legitimately investigated, as can be seen in the narrative of Ferrerius himself and of Gregory Swiecicius. Which, as the latter writes, having been diligently reviewed, examined, and at last approved the following year in the most august assembly of the Purple Fathers, he enrolled the holy Casimir in the number of the Saints. Which Rywocki elegantly explains in his manner: Leo XI, astonished by the miracle of his life and works, proclaimed him worthy of divine authority, to whose Sanctity the whole world should rise: to whom it should be lawful for all to pay vows: from whom dangers might beg for immunity; the doubtful hazard of war, for success; the whole tempest of worse fortune, for fair weather.

Then Clement VIII (who had previously been Cardinal Hippolytus Aldobrandini, sent to Poland as Legate a latere by Sixtus V), granted that throughout the entire kingdom of Poland, and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and all other provinces subject to their dominion, he should be honored and celebrated by all publicly and privately, in 1602, Office and Mass granted to be celebrated by the Poles; with the rite of a Double Office, in the year 1602, as Swiecicius attests, who also recites the Apostolic Brief concerning the celebration of that feast day, which reads thus: Pope Clement VIII. For the perpetual remembrance of the matter. Those things which pertain to increasing the veneration of the Saints in whom God is worthy of praise, we willingly grant, especially when the pious wishes of Kings and other faithful of Christ demand it, and we see it otherwise to be salutary in the Lord. Bowing therefore to the supplications humbly presented to us on behalf of our dearest son in Christ, Sigismund III, the illustrious King of Poland and Sweden, at the request of Sigismund III. and in accordance with the recommendation of our Venerable Brothers the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, deputed over sacred rites and ceremonies; We by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents, grant and indulge that in the entire Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and all Provinces subject to them, the feast day of St. Casimir the Confessor, of the Royal Jagiellon stock of the Kings of Poland, who was enrolled in the number of the Saints by our predecessor of happy memory, Pope Leo X, may be celebrated by all secular and regular clergy, both publicly in churches and privately, under the double rite, according to the Rubrics of the Roman Breviary, with the prayers and proper lessons written below, examined and approved by the same Cardinals of the Congregation of Sacred Rites. Notwithstanding Apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and the fact that this feast day is not inscribed in the Calendar and Roman Breviary, and any other contrary things whatsoever.

[59] Then followed the Triumph of St. Casimir, which the same Swiecicius narrates above in chapter 5, celebrated in May 1604. Triumph in the year 1604. And finally in the month of August of the same year, the body of the holy Confessor was found incorrupt. Upon which Cieszynski piously and gracefully played in his heptameter poem, part 3, in several stanzas, The finding of the incorrupt body, August 16, 1604. in one of which his memory failed him, writing that the body was found after so many centuries elapsed, without any stain of damage; whereas from the first burial, which occurred in the year 1484, to 1604, only 120 years, 7 months, and some days had intervened.

[60] Moreover, the Testimony authentic of the body found free from all corruption, Swiecicius recites as follows: By the commission and mandate of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord Lord Benedict Woyna, Authentic instrument of the Finding. by the grace of God and the Apostolic See, Bishop of Vilnius. In the presence of me, the undersigned public Notary, and the witnesses below, the Reverend Lord Gregory Swiecicki, Master of Arts and Philosophy, Canon of the Cathedral Church of Vilnius, opened the monument of St. Casimir the Confessor, Patron of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, situated in the aforesaid Cathedral Church. The body of the holy Confessor, after one hundred and twenty-two years since it was known to have been interred, The body and garment found intact together with the garment of red damask silk with which it was covered and wrapped, was found whole and solid, with a fragrance of wonderful sweetness, wafting through the whole church, abundantly refreshing all the Priests as well as the laity who were at that time attending Divine services in the aforesaid church. In which the wonderful divine power shines forth, which in a damp place a damp place, (so that from the excessive humidity the vault of the monument was so corrupted that it could be dissolved almost by the bare hands of the workmen), over so many years, deigned to preserve His Saint in a most sweet fragrance. During the three days in which the sepulcher of the holy Confessor was being prepared for the proper honor and greater reverence of the sacred Relics, the temple suffused with a sweet fragrance from there for three days and in the days following, most mortals, frequenting the sacred building out of devotion, perceived the same fragrance. Three young men by name, John Pauli, Stanislaus Beywid, both of Vilnius, and James son of Gregory of Grodno, students of the Cathedral School of Vilnius, touching their breast, in good faith and conscience, acknowledged that at midnight of the day on which the Saint's sepulcher was opened, light seen at the tomb by night. they, astonished, beheld a great and unusual brightness, shining at the sepulcher of Blessed Casimir and pouring itself through the windows of the chapel; so much so that even for joy they tearfully recited the Lord's Prayer on bended knees; they asserted that they also saw the same splendor on the following night. With the same faith and conscience, the honest Peter Peregrinus, from the Lombard city of Soveria, and Stephen, son of Simon, from the royal estate of Rakoneciszki, both masons, to whom the task of opening the sepulcher had been entrusted, acknowledged that they perceived the very same fragrance at this latter opening that they had perceived a year and a half before, when opening the sepulcher by the mandate of the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord, the local Ordinary. These things were done at Vilnius, on Monday, the sixteenth day of August, in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and four, in the second Indiction, in the thirteenth year of the Pontificate of the Most Holy Lord, our Lord Clement, by Divine Providence Pope VIII: In the presence around such an act of the Most Reverend Lords John Ryszkowski, Archdeacon, and Nicholas Jasienski, Cantor, Prelates of the aforesaid Cathedral Church, and also the Honorable men Nicholas Korzeniewski, Parish Priest of Niemenczyna, a public Notary by sacred Apostolic authority, and Albert Pniewski, Vice-Custodian of the same Cathedral Church, trustworthy witnesses, specially requested and required for the premises. And because I, Martin Kwaszowski, a public Notary by sacred Apostolic authority and of the Venerable Chapter of Vilnius, the Acts, was present at the aforesaid opening of the sepulcher, its preparation, recognition, or attestation, and at all and each of the premises, while they were thus (as is preferred) being transacted and done, together with the aforesaid witnesses; and I saw, heard, perceived, and myself inspected all these things being so done; therefore I drew up this present public instrument therefrom, and issued and wrote and subscribed this copy, and affixed my customary Notarial seal, having been requested and required.

[61] Moreover, what was established for the kingdom of Poland and the annexed provinces by the authority of Clement VIII, the Office of St. Casimir, was afterward approved by Paul V for the common use of the whole Church, Paul V ordered him to be honored everywhere under the semi-double rite: and the Sacred Congregation of Rites judged that it should be inserted in the Breviary under the semi-double rite. So Gavanti, Commentary on the Rubrics of the Breviary, section 7, chapter 5, number 4, and Barbosa, Collection of Apostolic Decisions, 135. Abraham Bzovius likewise testifies, Ecclesiastical Annals, volume 18, at the year 1484, number 26, that Paul V, at the intercession of King Sigismund III and also of Eustace Wolowicz, Bishop of Vilnius, present and managing affairs at Rome, granted that the formulas of the Mass and Divine Office should be inserted in the Roman Missal and Breviary, and be recited by all in the universal Church; on account of the wonderful deeds both in life and in death and after death.

[62] in Lithuania and Russia he is honored with an octave. Finally, George Tyszkiewicz, Bishop of Vilnius, obtained from the Supreme Pontiff, as was written to me from Warsaw by a serious and knowledgeable man in the year 1659, that the feast of St. Casimir should be celebrated with an Octave throughout the entire kingdom: which

solemnity, however, is observed only in Lithuania and Russia: for other Bishops of the kingdom do not make use of the granted faculty.

THE LIFE OF ST. CASIMIR

by Zacharias Ferrerius

Bishop of Guardia, Apostolic Nuncio.

Casimir, son of the King of Poland, elected King of Hungary (St.)

By Zacharias Ferrerius.

CHAPTER I.

The lineage of St. Casimir, his brothers, his pursuit of letters.

[1] In the name of the Holy and undivided Trinity, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Zacharias, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See, Bishop of Guardia, Domestic Prelate and Referendary of the Most Holy Father in Christ and our Lord, the Lord Leo, by Divine Providence Pope X, and Nuncio and Orator throughout the entire Kingdom of Poland, and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Muscovy, and all and each of the lands subject to the same kingdom and Duchies, mediately or immediately, or in any other manner whatsoever, with the full power of a Legate a latere and of the Major Penitentiary of the City, and special Commissioner for the matters written below, to all and each who profess the Christian religion, greeting and eternal happiness.

[2] a The immense and incomprehensible wisdom of God, dwelling in counsel and presiding over learned thoughts, whose is equity, whose also are prudence and fortitude; through whom Kings reign, Princes command, and lawgivers decree just things, The Church is always illuminated by Saints, so tempers all things by its unerring providence, so moderates all things, that it is never wanting in timely help and generosity to any age, any nation, any order, at any time whatsoever: as a stream of immense water and as a river Dioryx, watering the garden of plants and penetrating all the lower parts of the earth. Ecclus. 24:40 It is this which, in the former age before the written law, provided Patriarchs; after the law and before grace, Prophets; after grace, for the nascent Church, Apostles and Evangelists; for the adolescent Church, Martyrs; for the Church growing into a stronger age, most holy Pontiffs, Doctors, and interpreters; but for the Church declining toward the end of the ages, most often Confessors, distinguished men, who in various places and regions of the world might assist the human race, as Tutelary patrons, in living well and happily and in obtaining perpetual felicity; with its unfailing goodness it provided.

[3] For when Lithuania, or rather Litaliania, a vast and noble province of Sarmatia among the Bastarnae; The grandfather of St. Casimir, Jagiello, which very many Italians b once, declining to the party of Pompey the Great, had long before illustrated with colonies and the name: under c Pope Urban VI, the Supreme Pontiff, and Vladislaus Jagiello, Grand Duke of the Lithuanians or Litalianians, in the year of salvation one thousand three hundred and eighty-d six, had received the faith of Christ; and the same Vladislaus, baptized at the sacred font and crowned as King of the Sarmatians or Poles; e Vitold, otherwise Alexander, and then Sigismund, his brothers, having obtained the title of Christianity, successively ruled the Lithuanians; the Almighty Father of mercies and God of all consolation, in order that this new planting of the true religion might grow all the higher, and like a tree planted beside the courses of the waters, bear more abundant fruit in its season, deigned to visit and to water it with the shower of heavenly grace, in his servant Casimir, of distinguished stock from the Kings of Poland and Dukes of Lithuania. For Vladislaus Jagiello himself, from Sophia, his f third wife, begot g two sons, Vladislaus and Casimir, the father of this same Casimir. grandmother, father, uncle, Vladislaus gained the kingdoms of Hungary and Poland. But Casimir, after the death of his brother Vladislaus, raised to the kingdom of Poland, like a Wondrous House, or a wonderful one, according to the Latin etymology of his name, mother, from Elisabeth, daughter of Albert, Duke of Austria, and then King of Hungary and Bohemia, and finally King of the Romans, his wife, as from an excellent tree produced excellent fruits: Vladislaus, King of Bohemia and then of Hungary; five brothers: Casimir, of whom we treat; John Albert, Alexander, and Sigismund, Kings of Poland; and also Frederick, h Deacon Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church of St. Lucy in Septem Soliis, afterward Archbishop of Gniezno; six children, conspicuous for Christian piety; like six golden reeds (if it be permitted to say so) proceeding from the golden candlestick of the Lord's tabernacle, prefiguring the Catholic Church.

[4] he himself despises earthly things, But Casimir, the second among them, as if a carbuncle among the most beautiful gems, inspired by divine love, perceiving that he had no abiding city here, sought the one to come, not made by hand, in heaven, and, treasuring up for himself treasures where neither rust nor moth destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal, he despised the glory of this passing world, and not going after gold, nor hoping in treasures of money, though among the rich he was rich, and among powerful princes he was himself a Prince, he could have transgressed; yet he did not transgress, nor did he do evil. When therefore, still a i boy, given to the best tutors by his parents to be instructed in excellent morals and good letters, rightly imbued with letters and good morals he had so profited at that tender age as to be no small object of admiration to all; he so spent his boyhood and adolescence in all virtues and the disciplines of the liberal arts, that he always grew both in age and wisdom, and the spirit of the Lord was in him. and the fear of God The fear of the Lord, the beginning of true wisdom, was so great in him that he deemed even the smallest fault a most grievous crime; and judged it necessary not only to decline from evil but also to do good.

CHAPTER II.

The mortification of St. Casimir, his piety, abstinence, zeal for the Faith, Hope, charity toward God and men.

[5] Moreover, when he had reached that flower of adolescence during which that class of men is most accustomed to indulge in pleasure, He carefully cultivates Chastity: he so restrained all his senses, and his mind and body itself, with the bridle of continence from every stain, that he was regarded not only by adolescents but also by graver men as a mirror of all purity and chastity. Although he was in the houses of Kings, he was not clothed in soft garments: but sometimes wearing a more hidden hairshirt next to the skin, he puts on a hairshirt: and avoiding the softness of the bed as much as he could, secretly, as a foment of sin, he very often rested upon the bare ground: he sleeps on the ground: and although innocent and almost entirely free of all sin, yet with such great ardor of compunction, and in constant compassionate meditation on our Savior Jesus Christ's assumption of the form of a servant for the salvation of the human race, he meditates on the Passion of Christ: and His agony and death, was he affected; that he washed his bed each night and watered his couch with his tears. He burned also with incredible devotion toward the Mother of God: he piously honors the Blessed Virgin. whom the pious adolescent, in an excellent oration composed by himself in a heptameters (which we have seen, enclosing in a beautiful arrangement almost all the mysteries of the Lord's Incarnation), daily greeted and praised with constant hymns.

[6] Why should I relate with what diligence he was intent upon divine prayers, divine praises, he diligently attends sacred services, and Ecclesiastical ceremonies: whose life was always spent more in the church than in the Royal court? He was indeed accustomed, in the silence of the middle of the night, frequently to visit holy places and sacred buildings, b often with no one accompanying him: and the thresholds of those whose doors were not open (as usually happens) during the nighttime, even at night he prays long before the doors of churches: he at least venerated, kissing the doors: at which the watchmen of the city and nocturnal scouts frequently found him praying for a long time. c In the morning of the day, entering churches every day, he was present at all the Divine sacrifices, until the doors of the temple were closed, so diligent, so devout, and elevated above himself in a wondrous manner, and with his mind raised toward God; forgetful of food and drink. that d as if forgetful of himself and entirely rapt in Divine love, he seemed to be. He very frequently let pass the hour for taking food and refreshing the body; being scarcely brought from the church to his meal by the repeated messages and commands of his parents. Most sparing in food and drink, and constantly devoted to fasts and abstinence, he had set before himself that Apostolic saying: For the kingdom of God is not food and drink. Rom. 14:17

[8] Rare in speech, mild and modest; he spoke of nothing other than God, moderate in words: than Divine precepts, than excellent virtues, than salutary admonitions and instructions. Who ever heard him secretly detracting his neighbor, or uttering an idle or vain word? He kindly corrected those who sinned, and embraced the corrected with wonderful humanity. severe with the contumacious: But men of inexorable and obstinate spirit he rebuked with sharp severity: of whom he both ordered many to be eliminated from his household, and made every effort to have them expelled from the Royal court.

[8] His religion toward God, his faith toward Christ, his veneration toward the Holy Roman Church, the Mistress of the world, were so great in him; that the Ruthenians, who, entangled in various errors, having made a schism in our Redeemer's seamless tunic, did not at all obey the Holy Apostolic See,

He obtains from the King that schismatics may not restore their temples: and whose numbers throughout Lithuania itself are the greatest, he pursued with such holy hatred; that he would persuade the King of Poland, his father, now opportunely, now importunately, that their ancient temples or churches falling from age, to which the superstitious gathered while opposing Catholic unity, should be prohibited from being restored by public e edict: which he also at some time obtained by his persistence. His hope of future goods and eternal happiness was perpetual: wherefore he considered the sufferings of this present time not worthy to be compared f to the future glory which will be revealed in us. he renounces pleasures. Wherefore, having completely renounced bodily pleasures, he chastised his body with the Apostle and reduced it to servitude; lest the flesh should at some time rise up against the spirit. 1 Cor. 9:27

[9] Moreover, his almost incredible charity, not feigned indeed but sincere; with which he burned toward Almighty God by that divine Spirit, was so diffused in his heart, so overflowed, and from his inmost breast so flowed outward to his neighbor; that nothing was more delightful to him, nothing more desired, than not only to distribute his own possessions, but also to give and bestow himself entirely upon the poor of Christ, he wonderfully assists the afflicted; pilgrims, the infirm, captives, and afflicted people. To widows, orphans, and the oppressed, he was not only a protector, not only a guardian, but also a father and son and brother. Here indeed it would be necessary to weave a long history, if the individual works of supreme love and affection which flourished in him toward God and men were to be recounted. We run through these things in a brief narrative and a shorter compendium, which we received in a long discourse from distinguished and most trustworthy men who had long and constant association with him: a great part of which can easily be seen in the miracles collected by us around him. Just as charity is the bond of perfection and the end of the Divine precept; upon which both the laws and the prophets hang; so Casimir, the royal and holy youth, though he breathed the fragrance of all distinguished virtues, like the good odor of Christ; yet charity, as if the casket of all perfumes, he breathed and exhaled with a certain wonderful sweetness in every direction. reconsidering the charity of God toward us: This, as the foremost and most excellent Queen of the other virtues, which he uniquely loved, he had chosen for himself: which alone could cause the Son of God to descend from the highest heaven for the salvation of the human race, to empty Himself, to assume our flesh, and to undergo death. That God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son for the world, he pondered day and night with the most ardent affection.

CHAPTER III.

The zeal of St. Casimir for Justice, Prudence, Temperance, Fortitude, Virginity preferred to health and life: holy death.

[10] How greatly he cultivated justice, how much he embraced temperance; with what prudence he was endowed, and with what fortitude and constancy of mind he was supported, especially at that freer age He impresses Justice upon his father: at which headlong men, prone by their very nature to evil, are accustomed to be, can scarcely be said, scarcely imagined. He daily urged justice upon his Father in the governance of the kingdom and the subject peoples. And if sometimes through negligence (as is wont to happen) or human weakness, something was neglected in the government, he by no means omitted modestly reproving the King. The causes of the poor and wretched he defended and embraced as much as his own: on account of which he was called by the people the Defender of the Poor. he is called Defender of the Poor. Nor, although he was the son of a King and exalted by the greatness of his blood, did he show himself difficult to anyone however humble and lowly, easy toward the humble, either in conversation or in speech. But revolving in his mind that God, who dwells on high, looks upon the lowly in heaven and on earth, and raises up the needy from the earth and lifts the poor from the mire; among the meek and poor in spirit, whose is the kingdom of heaven, rather than among the illustrious and powerful of this world, he always wished to be counted. For although he was of the most penetrating judgment and most prudent, he shuns earthly power. and his opinion greatly benefited the Republic; the domination of human eminence he neither sought nor ever wished to accept when offered by his father: fearing lest his mind be wounded by the goads of riches, which our Lord Jesus Christ called thorns, or be contaminated by contact with earthly things.

[11] He exercised temperance in all things, being neither too elated by prosperity nor too saddened by adversity. But of the constancy and fortitude of his mind, omitting very many things, I shall relate only that which produces the greater proofs of virtue. For the struggle of the flesh has overcome more, the enticements of lust have prostrated more, than bodily tortures and atrocious torments have been able to break or bend. He always guarded his Virginity, But the illustrious youth Casimir, to whose mind virginity was so espoused that carnal marriage could nowhere be persuaded upon him, whether by his parents or by his friends; neither flesh nor blood, nor blandishments, nor any sensual enticements could ever infect him or move him from his firm resolve of chastity. For that he lived a virgin to the very end and closed his last day a virgin, all those who were of his chamber and privy to his counsels, the greatest and best men, of whom some still survive, and who had known his way of life intimately and thoroughly, affirm and attest.

[12] Which, although it is more than sufficiently clear from many evident arguments, we have most plainly ascertained from this above all, that he chose to die rather than be defiled. and he preferred to die rather than to violate it; For when, in the midst of his most flourishing youth, he had fallen into a certain chronic disease, for which the physicians judged that no other remedy could be found except sexual intercourse with a young woman; and when his parents and many of his relatives most earnestly urged, begged, and demanded that he permit a most beautiful maiden, whom they had selected from among many, to lie in the same bed and go to her embraces and union for the sake of preserving his life; he most wisely (as he always used to do) responded that he would rather lose this temporal and momentary life than be deprived of the eternal and unfading one in heaven: and he rebuked them all for not being ashamed to suggest something illicit to him. And when they still more and more exhorted him what did he answer to those who urged this? to take thought for his flourishing youth and his life and health, and even importuned him with insistent prayers, the members of his household; he replied that he knew no other health and life than Christ the Lord: with whom he desired to be dissolved, and to whom he already perceived that by that will he would shortly depart: which indeed happened thus.

[13] For as the disease grew worse and he began to be deprived of his natural strength, fortified with the Ecclesiastical Sacraments, like certain spiritual arms against the powers of the air and the rulers of these darknesses, amid constant prayers a and holy conversations, with Priests and religious men standing by, Fortified with the Sacraments, he dies piously that b most pure soul, beloved of Christ (as he had c foretold), released on the third day from the bond of the flesh, he rendered to Almighty God. He died at Vellia, or Vilnius, the principal city of Lithuania, or Litaliania, d in the town of Grodno, March 4, 1484, in the town of Grodno, in the year from the Virginal and saving birth one thousand four hundred and eighty-four, e on the fourth of March, at the break of dawn; and in the last year of Pope Sixtus IV. He lived f twenty-three years and six months: and was buried, with all weeping, at the castle where the Episcopal See of Vilnius is situated, buried at Vilnius. in the church of St. Stanislaus, Martyr and Bishop, under the chapel of the nourishing Mother of God, Mary, g to whom he had devoted both his entire mind and his most chaste body.

b Swiecicius:

At that same time, many most trustworthy people saw his soul, free from every stain of sin, being carried to heaven by blessed spirits, surrounded by a most brilliant light.

CHAPTER IV.

The appearance of St. Casimir. Miracles after death.

[14] Moreover, the pious young man and servant of God, Casimir, was of moderate stature, What was his living appearance? having hair of weasel-brown or dark color, with somewhat dark eyes and an even nose, of tempered ruddiness, with an elegant, handsome, and venerable face; so that what he was within could be judged from his very countenance. Handsome indeed in appearance, but far more beautiful in divine religion, adorned with angelic morals: whose mind and royal breast nothing foul, nothing base, nothing obscene had ever touched. Which was clearly demonstrated after his death.

[15] For the Almighty Creator, to show with what loftiness of merits and sublimity of virtues Casimir was great in His sight, deigned immediately from his tomb to make manifest so many and such great signs and miracles, and reveals them more each day; that no one should hesitate that he enjoys eternal happiness with Christ in heaven. For those who labor without hope of human aid from incurable diseases and the most grievous afflictions, very many miracles occur at his tomb. the deaf, mute, lame, withered, and blind, as soon as they devote themselves to his mausoleum, recover hearing, speech, movement, sight, and their former health; and (what is far more admirable and almost incredible) the dead are restored to life, and other astounding miracles occur daily.

[16] Among which, that most rare event in earlier centuries and unheard of in our age, occurred in the previous year. For when the Duke of the Muscovites, Basil, entangled in Ruthenian errors, having gathered an army of about sixty thousand horsemen from the greatest of the schismatics, had suddenly invaded the borders of Lithuania; when an army of 60,000 Muscovites invaded Lithuania, the unprepared Dukes of the Poles and Lithuanians, with what forces they might meet the enemy, since none were available, with what military force, since it was far away, they should trust to resist, they were completely ignorant. Their dear wives, sweet children, paternal homes, towns, and most delightful estates, they began to mourn as if already lost, and all Lithuania as if exposed to devastation. For no hope of defending themselves and their possessions remained: only death, or a captivity more cruel than death, was awaited. What should they do? Where should they turn, struck with such great fear? Their innate and magnanimous nobility, with which those most famous Dukes were endowed, brought it about that, even if they perceived that they could not only be conquered but swallowed up by the enemy, they would not yield to the enemy; nor would they take to flight; but having collected those whom they could, about two thousand from domestics, retainers, and tenants, [the Lithuanians believed this had happened because of their neglect of St. Casimir's canonization,] they would stand firm in war. Indeed, as pious and devoted to Christ, they perceived that since God is our refuge and strength and helper in tribulations, if He were invoked from the heart, He could not fail them in their need; and they believed that this calamity had befallen them because they had not expended the promised effort to have the holy Casimir, shining with innumerable miracles (as they had often together resolved), enrolled in the catalog of Saints by the Apostolic See.

[17] Wherefore they humbly implored help from on high, and taking refuge in the intercessions of Blessed Casimir himself, they prayed with one mind and one voice thus: Holy Casimir, they invoke him and vow to pursue his canonization: whom we trust to be the special protector of our race and the Patron of this fatherland before Almighty God; look upon this our affliction and sorrow: let not our enemies, unclean, schismatic, and alien from the true rite and bosom of Holy Mother Church, have dominion over us. You are our hope, you are our defense. Have mercy, therefore, on the fatherland imploring your aid, in which you were both born and educated. Have mercy on the nation from which you draw your origin and which you have enriched with your most holy bones and most glorious relics. Do not forsake us, destitute of all human hope and all consolation. For He is powerful, through whom the Most High daily works so many and such great wonders. And if according to the faith and supreme devotion which we bear toward you, you favor the prayers of your people; that the Supreme Pontiff may enroll you among the Saints for the splendor of the Christian religion and the exaltation of your nation, we shall labor with all zeal and shall justly accomplish it.

[18] When these words had been said, a certain sensible vigor of mind, a certain alacrity of spirit so divinely seized them that, although they had learned from Scythian scouts that the Muscovites exceeded sixty thousand in their number of cavalry, soon strengthened from heaven, and from the open places where the same Muscovites had taken up position and encamped, it so appeared and could be seen from afar; and the Lithuanian Princes could then gather together only two thousand men (as we said): yet fearing nothing, they resolved to leap upon the enemy. Trusting therefore in God and the patronage of the holy Casimir, revolving in their minds that saying of David: For some trust in chariots and some in horses; with only 2,000 they rush upon the Muscovites, but we will call upon the name of our God: with one mind and one charge they burst upon the Muscovites, to engage in a single battle. Ps. 19:8 (A wondrous thing!) Such great fear, such great trembling and horror invaded those numerous and heavily armed cavalry forces of the Muscovites; that as if they were dreading an innumerable and most powerful army rushing upon them from behind, they turned themselves headlong to flight. The Lithuanians, armed with the breastplate of faith, pursued, slaughtered, despoiled, and captured them: and fulfilled was that saying of Deuteronomy: One pursued a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight; because the Lord God sold them, and the Lord shut them in. 32:30 But though this is wonderful and rout them, (being done not by any chance, but by divine power), yet far more wonderful is it that, with very many Muscovites routed, killed, and led into captivity from the very small wedge of Lithuanians, as we said, and rich spoils gained: scarcely one of the Lithuanians was either captured or killed. For our Savior and God Christ showed that what He had promised His recruits in the Gospel was supported by stable truth: with scarcely one of their own lost: That not a hair of their heads would perish.

[19] Struck therefore by this divine benefit, the Dukes and Lords of Lithuania earnestly besought the Most Serene King of Poland, Sigismund, the surviving brother of the holy Casimir, who is also their Grand Duke, that he should intercede with the Holy Apostolic See, with them Sigismund the King, Casimir's brother, asks the Pope to canonize him: and urge, that the same Casimir be enrolled without further delay in the number of the holy Confessors. Luke 21:18 Which the most religious King, having obtained by frequent letters and distinguished ambassadors from the Most Blessed Pope Leo X, the Supreme Pontiff, entrusted the province of investigating the deeds and miracles of the same holy Casimir to the most observant Fathers, John, Archbishop of Gniezno, Primate of Poland and Legate by birth; and also Peter, then Bishop of Przemysl and now of Poznan, and Vice-Chancellor of the Kingdom of Poland; and lastly to us, setting out from the City to the same King in Poland and Prussia by Apostolic mandate; among other urgent business, by whom this author with other Bishops was commanded to examine the miracles. which duty we discharged and carried out with all faithful effort and most exquisite diligence; so that among the almost innumerable miracles which those who were present and witnessed them, handled them with their hands and experienced them in themselves, recounted to us under oath, and those whom we selected as more distinguished and more trustworthy among others to give testimony; only those, omitting the superfluous, which seemed singular and sufficient to prove his sanctity, did we describe and record.

[20] Given at Vilnius, on the 9th of the Kalends of December, in the year of salvation 1520, in the eighth year of the same Most Holy Lord, our Lord Leo, by Divine Providence Pope X. There were three Bishops at the side of the Most Illustrious Lord Zacharias, Bishop and Legate a Latere: John of Vilnius, John of Chernihiv, James of Caffa, Latin Bishops. The miracles and witnesses were examined.

MIRACLES OF ST. CASIMIR

by Gregory Swiecicius.

Casimir, son of the King of Poland, elected King of Hungary (St.)

By Gregory Swiecicius.

CHAPTER I.

The Poles' twofold victory over the Muscovites by the aid of St. Casimir: his canonization.

[1] Although indeed no one existed, even at that time Very many miracles of St. Casimir after death: when Casimir enjoyed the use of this light, who doubted his integrity of life, innocence, and holiness; yet after his death it is incredible to say how greatly his virtue and holiness of life were illuminated by prodigies by the most faithful Arbiter and Rewarder of all the pious, God Himself. To such a degree that it would be very difficult to count the number of those who, drawn by the fame of wonderful things, brought themselves to his most sacred tomb for the sake of recovering their health, and recovered what they desired. For here it was frequently possible to see not only the use of the eyes restored to the blind, of the ears to the deaf, of the tongue to the mute, of the feet to the lame; but, what is more wonderful, to some whom the ultimate evil, death, had deprived of life and sensation, both the good of life and sensation were restored, as if by right of return, through the aid of the holy Casimir.

[2] For there was a girl at Vilnius, named Ursula, who, while her parents were still alive, died. The death of their daughter struck them so hard and grievously that,

almost alienated from their senses, beyond the common custom of mortals, they thought more about restoring their daughter's life than about performing the funeral rites for the dead girl. In which business, what should they do? A dead girl restored to life by his aid. Where should they turn? Since no human force or industry sufficed for this matter, they turned to the Divine: and as soon as the memory of the holy Casimir entered their mind, both seemed to breathe a little. What more? They make a vow; they approach the sacred shrine where Casimir rested; they fill everything with grief and tears; they strike the stars with clamor and prayers: they repeat the name and power of Casimir, implore his aid; they demand the restoration of their dead daughter's breath. Casimir heard those praying, looked upon the tears and faith of the pious parents, and divinely restored the dead girl both to life and to the grieving parents.

[3] I add in this place also another miracle which, though inferior in wonder to this, is nonetheless relevant for demonstrating Casimir's sanctity. Polotsk besieged by the Muscovites, For in the year one thousand five hundred and eighteen, the Duke of the Muscovites, unexpectedly and with our people thinking nothing of it, began to assault the a fortress of Polotsk with considerable forces. At which time, with the illustrious King Sigismund I b of Poland occupied with many other weighty matters, his soldiers readily available were very few indeed. The most excellent King therefore dispatched only two thousand men, under the commanders Gastold and c John Boratyński, the Poles, 2,000, invoke St. Casimir, against the enemy, a hastily assembled band rather than an army. They departed, relying more on divine than human strength, especially dedicating their vows and prayers to the holy Casimir (whom the fame of miracles had made most celebrated), and committing the doubtful outcome of battle to him. After many prayers poured out to him, they experienced his benign power. For on that expedition, having completed a march of many days, they reached the river Dvina, and finding no ford, who shows them a ford in the swift river, they all halted on the bank: and while they were excessively anxious about the crossing, behold, a certain young man clothed in white, handsome and imposing in form, riding a white horse, presented himself to their sight; and he bade them all be of good courage and commanded them to follow him as their guide. Having said this, immediately putting spurs to the horse on which he sat, he was the first to leap into the river, and showing the ford, having crossed the river without any difficulty, he arrived safely at the other bank before the eyes of all the rest. At which sight, the Polish soldiers, astonished at the novelty of the thing, remained fixed in the same tracks for a long time; nor did they move from the spot until he repeated his admonition that they should fearlessly follow him as their guide. then he disappears: And at last, perceiving that the matter was being guided by heaven, full of faith and confidence, they committed themselves in throngs to the danger of the most rapid river, where he pointed the way, and crossed unharmed. When the Dukes and the Royal cavalry beheld this, and the young man meanwhile had withdrawn from their sight, they all cried out, Casimir, Casimir! and each one for himself, with suppliant prayers, wished for the same one, whom they had as the guide of their journey, to be also the promoter and favorer of the impending battle. Nor did the prayers of the pious soldiers fall in vain. For when at the first signal they made their charge against the enemies so greatly superior in strength, with his aid they rout the Muscovites with great slaughter: they forced them to turn their backs and even unwillingly to lift the siege, and slew many of them, and led away no fewer Muscovites into captivity. Having gained the victory, the Poles acknowledged the divine aid, sang the solemn hymn Te Deum laudamus, extolled the power of Casimir, the King promises to pursue his canonization. and sent a written account of the divinely accomplished affair, together with the Muscovite captives, to the King. Which so moved the King that he not only immediately betook himself to a sacred church for the purpose of giving thanks to God and Casimir, but also promised that he would undertake serious consideration of having Casimir enrolled in the number of the Saints.

[4] But what happened? The Muscovites again devastate Lithuania in the following year: Perhaps because this was pursued less diligently, behold, in the following year, the Muscovite, made more savage and ferocious by the previous defeat, led a huge army into Lithuania itself, and laid everything waste far and wide with fire and sword, without any prior declaration of war. By which very dangerous whirlwind and unexpected storm the Lithuanians were so struck that neither counsel nor aid was at hand. While the hostile sword was removing some from the midst, devouring flame depriving others of life and breath, and the cruel barbarity and barbarous cruelty of the enemy was leading others, badly mistreated first, into the most wretched captivity. Having observed these things, some among the Lithuanian nobility, pitying the disaster of their fatherland, gathered as many as they could at that difficult time and incited one another to take up arms and to defend their paternal homes and hearths even at the risk of their lives. Lithuanian nobles, 2,000, And indeed the small number of their own and the multitude of the enemy somewhat delayed some at the beginning: but when they recalled that in the previous year, with the holy Casimir as their leader, they had experienced divine aid at Polotsk, trusting in his patronage, they all implored his aid: they acknowledged that they had been too slow in promoting his honor; they begged pardon for the fault; they pledged that if he would come to their assistance at this time, they would diligently promote his veneration and heavenly honor before the Apostolic See. Nor did their vows fall in vain: with St. Casimir invoked, for such a sudden ardor for battle seized the minds of all that no one thought it rash to pit two thousand (for that many of the Lithuanian nobles had gathered) against sixty thousand of the enemy. And so the signal for battle was given: the Lithuanians, repeatedly invoking the power of God and the holy Casimir, entered the fight. Without delay: as soon as our men rushed upon the enemy, Casimir was present, and having become their commander and general-in-chief, and leading them, he was seen aloft in the air, in the same appearance of face and body as in the previous year. The Lithuanians, joyful under such a leader, pressed and urged the enemy, fiercely cutting them down. they slaughter them, Nor did the opposing side long sustain the divine force and power of the Lithuanian Patron: without losing one of their own. but when an immense terror had invaded the enemy, they turned to flight and gave their backs to the victorious Lithuanians; having lost many thousands of their own; but of our men, by God's favor, not one lost.

[5] When the most pious King learned of these things, and saw that so prodigious a victory was attributed to Casimir alone after God by all who had been involved in the affair, Sigismund I petitions the Pontiff for his canonization: he did not in the least hesitate to attribute also to the favor and patronage of the same St. Casimir the other victories which he had won at the same time in various other places, everywhere with a small number of soldiers. Wherefore, in thanksgiving, after the divine service had been performed with solemn rite in the church, the most excellent King, without any delay, sent an embassy to the Roman Pontiff; and strove by every means that he should undertake the care of enrolling Casimir in the number of the Saints. after everything had been legitimately examined, The Pontiff was not unwilling to grant the most just requests of the Most Catholic King, and he entrusted the matter to the Apostolic Nuncio sent to Poland, and to the Archbishop of Gniezno, John, and Peter, Bishop of Poznan and Pro-Chancellor of the Kingdom. They diligently investigated all the wonderful works accomplished at the nod of the holy Casimir, established them with trustworthy witnesses, in 1521 he is canonized: and thus established, transmitted them to the Supreme Pontiff Leo X in the year one thousand five hundred and twenty. Which, the following year, having been diligently reviewed, examined, and at last approved in the most august assembly of the Purple Fathers, the Pontiff enrolled the holy Casimir in the number of the Saints. Whom then Pope Clement VIII, [in 1602, the Office of the Double rite is permitted to be celebrated by the Poles.] throughout the whole kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and all other provinces subject to their dominion, granted to be honored and celebrated by all publicly and privately with the rite of a Double Office, in the year one thousand six hundred and two; as may be seen more fully in the Apostolic Brief authentically drawn up on this matter. But before we set forth that document, we must proceed further in the series of miracles, so that the Lord may appear truly wonderful in the holy Casimir from the enumeration of many.

CHAPTER II.

Various diseases healed through the invocation of St. Casimir.

[6] The Most Noble Lady Anna Teczyńska, daughter of the Count of Teczyn, A grave and prolonged headache immediately healed by a vow made to him: wife of the Duke of Slutsk, being already a widow, in the year one thousand five hundred and eighty, was tormented for the space of nearly one year by a most severe headache; and found no relief in many medicines sought. A certain pious woman suggested to her the holy Casimir as her physician. She obeyed that salutary counsel, and immediately imploring his aid, she vowed to the tomb of the Saint a silver head of the size of her own, which was then gravely afflicted. She had scarcely completed her vow with words, and the Saint had already banished all pains: and had restored both bodily and mental serenity, to the admiration of all, in the briefest time. Mindful of so great a benefit, the Lady put all her effort into fulfilling her vow as well and as generously as possible.

[7] The same Lady, when after some years she had passed to a second marriage with the Palatine of Vilnius and had a daughter Elizabeth from him; likewise a fatal illness, the girl was seized by a disease: which growing worse, she was lamented as being at her last day and nearly breathing her last: but a vow to be fulfilled at the relics of Blessed Casimir restored the girl, already on the point of death, to her former health; and she still continues well, wonderfully devoted to that same Saint. The most pious mother offered at the tomb, out of gratitude and remembrance, a wax statue of the size of her daughter.

[8] Since we embrace with greater love those whose help and good will we have perceived in difficult times, likewise a great pain in the breasts, and do not allow our mind to be diverted from them in any direction, to such a degree had the merits of the holy Casimir bound this most noble Lady that she deemed him a singular refuge granted for her calamities. Nor was she deceived in her opinion: for once again, she was tormented by a pain in her breasts far more severe than the headache had ever been, so much so that they seemed almost to have withered away: when she implored the accustomed aid of the kind Physician by making a vow, and, freed from all torment, she joyfully perceived that she was restored to her former health. A memorial of this event is engraved on a silver tablet and hung at the tomb of the holy Casimir.

[9] The Noble Lady Barbara, daughter of Leo N., reason restored and headache healed, also frequently experienced the aid of this Saint. In the year 1598, much afflicted by a grave and prolonged headache, she was at last deprived of her reason as well. Her husband, the Noble Christopher Wolski, overcome by conjugal love, therefore humbly brought her to the sacred tomb of the holy Casimir (for he had vowed this) and persisted in prayers, that he might deserve to obtain what he wished and what was in the interest of his dearest wife. The Saint

turned his ears to her prayers, and in that same hour, with the use of reason restored, he dispelled the pain. She now survives and proclaims with the highest praises that she recovered her health by his merits.

[10] She proclaims also another miracle, accomplished through the Saint's work in the year 1603, at the estate of Bocki belonging to the illustrious Lord Andrew Sapieha: for when a very large wooden house, where they were then staying, happened to catch fire, and the flame immediately enveloped the roof on every side; and it could not be checked by human strength, since every approach was cut off; a fire extinguished. she addressed the Saint in these words: Holy Casimir, great Patron and remover of my dangers, help us. Immediately the one who while alive had extinguished the fire of lust in his body, even when stripped of his body, suppressed the balls of flame, and having placed reins upon the fire, the house remained intact.

[11] Also once while she was traveling, a most beloved horse, because it was outstanding, was seized by a sudden illness and fell, A horse freed from sudden illness, and lay almost dead. But when the Saint's aid was invoked, as if spurred by spurs, it sprang up and completed its course nimbly and safely without any trouble. Very many similar examples of divine benefits conferred upon her through the invocation of the same Saint, she used to relate, which brevity forbids.

[12] a fever healed, Also noteworthy in this regard is what the Lord Nicholas Jasiński, Prelate of Vilnius and Royal Secretary, obtained in the year 1600. Seized at Warsaw by a hot and most violent fever, and also abandoned by every counsel of physicians, he implored the aid of the holy Casimir: at whose assent he recovered his former health sooner than expected. He celebrates this benefit even now with a tablet bearing the Saint's image, placed at the tomb.

[13] And there is also another thing which the same Prelate celebrated as having come to him from the same Saint. a plague of animals driven away, In the year 1603, so virulent a contagion was raging that even cattle were everywhere being killed by the pestilential disease: and indeed on the estate of the same Lord, called Reple, of eighty head scarcely ten survived, and those were lying prostrate, about to die at any moment. Gravely disturbed by such a loss, he burst out in these words: St. Casimir, by your intercession bring it about that this remainder be preserved: from these, the best one will go to your honor. That the vow was pleasing to the Saint the outcome proved: for immediately the contagion was driven away and they were preserved thereafter. The Prelate, moreover, discharged the faith pledged by his vow by offering a silver lamp at the tomb.

[14] And since we are on the subject of that estate, we shall reveal how in the same year, in the month of October, epilepsy cured. a certain Matthias, one of the domestic servants of the said Prelate, there merited to obtain grace. He had been afflicted from his birth until about the fiftieth year of his age, every month, by epilepsy: and then indeed, in the presence of a certain Priest, seized by the disease, he was most violently dashed to the ground and lay for a long time shaking with foaming mouth. Moved by his misery, the Priest prayed to the holy Casimir for the afflicted man: and obtained so much by his faith on behalf of another that he immediately rose healthy, and even now, still surviving, no longer suffers that great evil.

CHAPTER III.

The ready aid of St. Casimir in the dangers of travel.

[15] To these three is added a fourth, somewhat greater, which he narrates as having happened to him on his way to Rome. One suffocated by waters is restored to life, The river Niemen, swollen by winter snows, had to be crossed near an estate called Bolecie. While the ferrymen were pushing the boats against the current, one of them, exerting himself vigorously above the rest and especially resisting the rush of the most rapid river, had his pole break. But he, with the weight of his body tilting forward, was carried headlong and the wretched man was submerged in the depths: by which accident the others were terrified, as if deprived of strength, they stood astonished, while the boats, in midstream and carried by the current, drifted most dangerously without a helmsman. Then the aforesaid Lord Nicholas Jasiński, as if aroused by the voice of one encouraging him, cried out: St. Casimir, come to the aid of those shipwrecked: return alive the one who, plunged into the waters, is suffocating. And so, after a long interval of both time and distance, as if guided by a hand, he was brought safe and sound to the boats, whom they had greatly mourned as having perished. That this miracle was accomplished by the holy Casimir, his own account showed: for he said he had been both defended from the waters and drawn to the boats by a certain person holding his right hand. Gregory Swiecicius, Canon of Vilnius, and two other noble youths, attendants of the same Prelate, had been present, and they afterward proclaimed the common benefit to all.

[16] Indeed, the same Lord Gregory Swiecicius himself also happened to experience something of this kind. For among very many other benefits, he also amply testified that this too was conferred upon him by God Almighty through the intercession of the holy Casimir. In the year 1603, when, the canonization of the Saint having been happily completed to his satisfaction, he was returning from Rome to his homeland; in the first days of June, between the cities of Vicenza and Pontevico in Venetian territory, the careless driver happened (while the said Canon, the Lord John Rudomina, and the Lord Nicholas Lubomierski, nobles, were going ahead on the road) to overturn the cart, loaded with a considerable quantity of goods, from a very high cliff above a river flowing below: A cart on a steep cliff, hanging by one wheel clinging to it, where for the space of nearly one hour, held by only one of the front wheels, it hung suspended, as if miraculously, and could not be raised by human strength, since no access existed. Contained in that vehicle were the blessed Banner, the Office of the holy Casimir printed at Rome, and many other images, the Authentic document of the same Saint, and indeed all the business of the entire expedition. And although the Canon bore the accident gravely and was gravely terrified, the driver himself, John Baptist of Padua, with his companion, was so terrified and agitated by the imminent loss of everything from the most present danger that they cursed the day of their birth, and, throwing themselves on the ground, howled like wolves in their groaning. But that Divine providence had caused these things to happen so that the Saint might declare, by bringing aid, that his honor was dear to him, can be gathered not obscurely. For the Canon, totally anxious about so great a treasure, together with his companions seized the surer aid that presented and offered itself. Turning therefore to the holy Casimir, he silently prayed thus: With St. Casimir invoked, Holy Casimir, I have often experienced your aid in labors, anguish, pains, temptations, and afflictions; I have embraced and venerate you as my Patron, faithful defender, singular preserver: come now to my aid in affliction, remove the danger to your honor: remember your consecrated Banner. Will you cause your honor to vanish among rocks and rivers? Your most sweet fatherland will be grieved, Vilnius will mourn, Sigismund III, Monarch of Poland, that author and supporter of your honor, will be tormented. Come to the aid of the afflicted, remove the danger, grant a prosperous journey. So he prayed and awaited aid. But behold, a young man in Italian dress, miraculously restored to the road by an unknown youth, clothed in white, appeared on those very high mountains and rocks, as if he had been making his way there; and as soon as he reached the stranded vehicle, neither asked nor requested by anyone, he voluntarily went under the cart, and without saying a word to those present, with wonderful skill, he himself clinging to the steep cliff, restored it upright with all its contents safe to the ground: and again, silent, with all astonished, he continued on his way. After half a stadium, who afterward could not be found. turning back to them, he said these words in Italian: Farewell: I commend myself to your favor. The same Canon reports moreover that before those words, his mind was so struck with a kind of wonder that he could neither form any conjecture about the man nor speak to him: also all who were present, when they recovered their senses, said with one voice that not a man but someone from heaven had come to their aid. He was believed to be the Saint. Therefore they should hasten with quick step toward him and give him the greatest thanks. But in vain: even though most diligently sought, he was seen no more: and the Canon's servant Christopher Wielowski, who had gone ahead two stadia and more, had not been present at the danger, and most firmly affirmed that on that very narrow road no one had passed him: nor was any other road or path found by which he could have slipped away; on the left, a most steep precipice threatened into the most rapid river; on the right, an overhanging rock blocked all ascent. Who here would not believe them, as they report, to have been afflicted with the most grave sorrow? It was painful not to have been able to speak to so great a benefactor, who had brought a more abundant harvest of consolation and happiness. But just as the eyes of the disciples going to Emmaus were held, so that they might not recognize the Lord; so the minds of these men were bound, and though they beheld the one present, they did not recognize him.

CHAPTER IV.

Many ailments of health driven away through St. Casimir.

[17] But the greatest impetus to the increase of his glory is added by what we shall now relate. In the year 1603, a certain Priest, a beneficiary of the Parish Church of Vilnius, an upright and religious man, was punishing his servant rather severely for a certain offense: and so, chastising him with a leather belt, by chance the buckle struck the pupil of his eye and tore it out, and gradually, as a quantity of humor dripped out, within two days the entire eye dried up. The Priest was gravely terrified by this accident, Sight restored to someone. and nothing was lacking in diligence in seeking the services of surgeons, but the evil was far too great to be corrected by art. He therefore determined that the last resort should be the aid of the renowned Confessor, and, having made a vow, he brought the youth, deprived of his eye, to the altar, and, himself offering sacrifice to God, fortified him with the heavenly banquet: he had scarcely offered the sacrifice three times in fulfillment of his vow, and the youth perfectly recovered his sight.

[18] Also in the same year 1603 at Vilnius, with the plague (which we mentioned above) raging more violently toward the Nones of November, when the flame of that calamity had fallen upon the cloister of the Friars Minor of the Regular Observance of St. Francis, and had consumed eighteen professed members of that Order, besides nine others who had been serving in that same monastery; it was not extinguished until the aid of the holy Casimir was implored by hope and vows. The Superior of the monastery, therefore, after many tears, vigils, and prayers, devoted himself and all those committed to his care entirely to St. Casimir. From which time the fierce pestilence, having laid aside all its savagery, from that convent neither gave anyone to death some freed from the plague. nor brought anyone to sickness. Wherefore, to the greater glory of God and to the enhancement of the honor of the Patron St. Casimir, the same Superior, grateful for the extraordinary benefit conferred upon him and his own, fulfilling his vows and those of his community at the sacred relics of the same Saint, hung a plaque with an engraved testimony of the event, in the year of salvation 1604, on January 8.

[19] And because within these four years we have received many other miracles of this Saint from the reports of most trustworthy people, lest prolixity breed disgust, only certain ones are to be briefly touched upon. Of these, therefore, we shall make mention here only of those who confessed with their own mouths that the holy Casimir was the remover of their ailments, and who hung silver or painted tablets, evidence of miracles, at his tomb out of grateful feeling. In the year 1600 indeed, the Most Reverend Lord Nicholas Pac, Suffragan of Vilnius, was relieved of a most severe headache. Those freed from headache, fever, fatal illness, etc. The son of the Magnificent Lord Albert Rakowski, Castellan of Vilnius, who, afflicted by a prolonged disease, lay close to death, was rescued from danger and restored to his former health. The Lord Gaspar Ostrowski was freed from fever; the Lord Paul Malyszewicz, Parish Priest of Widsy, was freed from a grave disease of the chest.

[20] Of the same, but far more severe fever (for which no arts of physicians could bring relief), the Generous and Noble Lord Peter Pac, Captain of Mścisław, likewise others freed from most severe fever, and Hieronymus Jabłko, a citizen of Vilnius, merited the cure through the intercessions of the holy Casimir in the year 1602.

[21] In the year 1603, the Lord Albert Jarciewski was freed from paralysis, paralysis, the Lady Sophia Włodzińska, Katharina Kierinowska, Elisabeth Karwacka, and Anna Gudzieiowska were freed from contagious and nearly incurable fevers.

[22] In the year 1604, the Lord John Gęsiorowski, Justina Ostrowska, other diseases. and Antonius Maffo, when they had commended their children, worn out with pains, to the protection of the holy Casimir, obtained through his intercession life and perfect health for them from God.

[23] In which category, the Noble Lady Piasecka, Captain's wife of Gieranoński, proclaims the remarkable benefit of the holy Casimir in the healing of her son. For the son, deprived of all his senses, was already breathing his last. The mother, because she loved him dearly, burning with grief, fell on her knees and, with tears flowing abundantly, implored the aid of the holy Casimir: another already breathing his last, suddenly restored to health. to her supplication she added a vow, placing much hope in the kindness of the blessed Confessor. And her hope by no means deceived her: a wondrous thing, suddenly the sick man, as if reviving, opened his eyes, and with his breath now flowing more freely, gave signs of the health he had obtained. Nor did the mother delay in fulfilling her pledged faith; she undertook a pilgrimage of devotion with her son, and having eagerly and earnestly given thanks to God and the holy Casimir at his tomb, they joyfully fulfilled their vows.

[24] A certain Peter, a cobbler of Vilnius, fifteen years before, had lost first his right eye, and then, after eight years had passed, his left eye as well: but during these three lustra, he had diligently frequented the tomb of the holy Casimir with both prayers and offerings, trusting that by his merits one eye would be restored to him. sight restored after many years to an old man. But the long-deferred grace God Almighty at last produced: for on the very day when his blessed banner was carried in solemn procession to the tomb of the Saint, almost worn out by old age, he received sight in his right eye: which miracle he confessed before many most trustworthy men.

[25] The same Saint also declared that crown of the Blessed, We are the good odor of Christ, was granted to him by God in this present time as in his life. For in the month of August, which was the fourth from his Triumph, on the sixteenth day, when his sacred body was being placed with the greatest reverence by the Reverend Lord Gregory Swiecicius, Canon of Vilnius, an unusual fragrance at the tomb of the Saint, into a new tomb, he consecrated the new lodging with a new miracle: those standing by were first gently wafted with a most sweet breeze; then a wonderful fragrance was more widely diffused, and a radiance. and continued for three days afterward. And also on the night of that same day, the place sacred to the Saint was seen to be entered by an unusual radiance through the windows, and to have entirely clothed both it and the tomb; whence it was manifestly proven that he was surrounded by the glory of the Saints. But you will find these things narrated more fully below in the Authentic documents.

[26] Moreover, here three more remarkable miracles are not to be omitted, which happened at the very time when these things were being committed to print. The Noble Lady Tryznina, wife of the Sub-Chamberlain of Słonim, sister of the Magnificent Lord Paul Sapieha, was held by a most severe fever; which in a short time had so weakened her body that she barely drew breath and life, and many said that her health was despaired of. Therefore a heavy grief had pervaded all, and with spirits collapsed they stood around the bed of the dying woman, to comfort the one who was scarcely breathing with their presence. Meanwhile, as nature was failing, some cried out that divine aid should be sought: they recalled the merits of the holy Casimir, they urged her to bind herself by a vow to him. But she, having found the aid of the holy Casimir proven on other occasions, invoked him and added a vow to her prayers, that if she should regain her health, she would visit his sacred relics. a dying woman, having made a vow, soon recovers. Once the vow was conceived, the pains subsided, vigor returned to her limbs, sleep with peaceful rest succeeded: and at dawn, to the greater admiration and joy of all, safe and sound she proclaimed the benefit of the Saint, and fulfilled her vow at the earliest opportunity.

[27] The second is much more admirable. A certain woman, having suffered the wretched servitude of an incubus for twenty-two years, had in vain applied all remedies, both human and divine; for neither by the use of prayers, fasts, voluntary vexation of the body, nor finally of the Sacraments, could she be freed from the malignant spirit. But when she had revealed that calamity to a certain Priest of the Society of Jesus, he advised her to take refuge in the aid and patronage of the holy Casimir. A wonderful thing: when the enemy of the human race returned to his accustomed arena of wickedness, as the woman cried out to the holy Casimir, he fled with great fury and with a crash at the door, and thereafter was no longer troublesome to her.

[28] The third follows, different in kind, equal in clarity. A certain woman was so severely afflicted by erysipelas (as they call it) in her foot another freed from an incubus demon. that she was by no means able to walk by herself. Therefore, lest the disease spread further, according to the opinion of the surgeons, the foot had to be amputated. But it happened conveniently that the same Priest of the Society of Jesus was brought to hear her confession of sins, another healed of erysipelas. who, having consoled the sick woman and spoken much about the power and aid of St. Casimir, encouraged her to bind herself by a religious vow to St. Casimir: it would come about that things would turn out better than she hoped. Nor did the prediction deceive her: as soon as she made the vow, she was relieved of the pain in her foot.

CHAPTER V.

The Triumph of St. Casimir in the year 1604. His protection against heretics.

[29] Here, finally, kind reader, I think certain things should be added as a crowning touch, which are indeed most worthy of narration, and by which the canonization of the Saint was made more illustrious. First, that most worthy of admiration presents itself. When on the 7th of the Ides of May the Banner, the emblem of the holiness of the holy Casimir, An auspice for the extirpation of heresy by the aid of St. Casimir. brought from Rome, besides an infinite multitude of the common people, in a great attendance of Clergy, Religious, Magnates, men most celebrated in opinion and fame, was being carried in magnificent array and triumph to his tomb; a Stork (for that bird was identified after various indications and conjectures) detained by no nearness of prey or nest, gently beating the air with its wings, hovered over the city for almost the entire time, as if in congratulation. This greatly moved the people, and as their eyes were held by the frequent and prolonged circles of the bird flying around, they interpreted it with an almost prophetic spirit: It will extirpate heresy, they said (noting the bird from its function). For just as the stork lies in ambush for serpents and purges gardens and meadows of them, so they augured that by the aid of the holy Casimir the hydras of heresies would be purged from this province. There were also others who interpreted it as meaning that the tongueless bird signified that the heretics who railed against the holy Casimir ought to be tongueless. But we do not contend that this or that was signified, but we fear to affirm absolutely that so unusual a spectacle portended nothing.

[30] Another follows, but the more desired, so much the more evident and open miracle. The celestial spheres had assumed a sad and grave expression for mortals; they had assumed it and had not put it off for many days, whether nature so willed or the guilt of mortals so required; and it was not so much the vehemence and quantity of the rains as the length of time that was a cause of wonder, during which nearly the whole Ocean seemed to have flowed down. Meanwhile the day set apart for the triumph of the holy Casimir was at hand: On the day of the Triumph of St. Casimir, unexpected fair weather at Vilnius, but a grave sorrow troubled the leading men, who greatly feared that the inclemency of the sky would disrupt the honor which they had so greatly procured for the Saint, with almost the entire Duchy, Clergy, and Magnates summoned, and trophies erected. But the clemency of the Saint promoted such pious endeavors of both natives and visitors: for he wished to be present at the common joy, those whom he knew had come for his sake. Night followed day, nocturnal rain followed the daytime rain; hopes waver, human counsels fail. But the holy Casimir showed a placated dawn, stirred up the collapsed spirits; the bright morning dawned, the golden sun displayed its rosy light to the world, broke through, scattered, and put to flight the clouds: and so for the entire day, Vilnius alone (for outside the city for some stadia everything was filled with rain) enjoyed such clemency of sky until evening not elsewhere. that they thought even that benignity of the air alone, granted from heaven, could suffice to heap upon the Saint every praise.

[31] Among the great and distinguished men who conducted the Triumph for the holy Casimir, there is also numbered the Illustrious and Magnificent Lord John Charles Chodkiewicz, Count of Siklow and Myss and Bychow, Senator of the Kingdom of Poland, Captain of Samogitia, who, about to fight against Charles of Södermanland, happily inaugurated his military command first of all from the invocation of God Almighty and then of the holy Casimir, and descended to the camp with no other sword than one consecrated at the Saint's altar. With a sword blessed at the altar of St. Casimir, the heretical enemy repulsed. That sword indeed the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Father and Lord in Christ, Benedict Woyna, Bishop of Vilnius, inaugurated with the words duly pronounced. And since the Divine service was then being performed, after the reception of the Most August Body of the Lord, the Bishop himself, with tears welling up, handed the sword as a gift of God to the Magnate who had thrown himself at the step of the altar, again and again insisting that, trusting in the aid and patronage of the holy Casimir, he should descend securely into battle, to rout the rebels of the Most Excellent King and the enemies of the fatherland. 2 Chron. 15:16. This greatly inflamed his spirit against the enemy and drew sweet tears from the entire surrounding multitude. And so it happened that when the signal for battle was given, at the a fortress of Kokenhausen, trusting more in the aid of the holy Casimir than in his armor, having cast off his iron covering, and moreover with his right arm bared to the elbow, he was the first to rush against the enemy. Nor did the Saint's protection fail him as he fought most fiercely: for with that sword he averted all the enemy blows from himself, and having wrought great slaughter among the enemy, he was received safe and sound by his own men.

[32] In this same year 1604, using the same good fortune, with a not large force of soldiers, he won a notable victory at b White Stone in Livonia, another victory over them. with more than three thousand of the rebels slain and twenty-one banners captured, six cannons, and one petard: may the Lord of Hosts continue to prosper him fighting his battles, all good people pray.

APPARITIONS OF ST. CASIMIR

occurring in the year 1654,

published by the authority of the Bishop of Vilnius.

Casimir, son of the King of Poland, elected King of Hungary (St.)

The nobleman a Wodeysza, a serious man, more than fifty years old, before the Most Illustrious and Most Reverend Lord George Tyszkiewicz, Bishop of Vilnius, The Apparitions were attested, swore and affirmed these things, which are set forth below, to have been heard by him when they were narrated by Szeremet, the commander and Palatine of the Muscovite army at Polotsk, in the presence of many others, who still reside at Polotsk. The Most Reverend Bishop considered these to be of such authority that he ordered them to be printed at the Academic press of Vilnius in the year 1655, and a closing clause to be added in these words: I attest that this was so sworn from the mandate of the Most Illustrious local Ordinary,

Martin Wsciśliński, Doctor of Sacred Theology and of Canon and Civil Law, published. Apostolic Protonotary, Chancellor and Universal Auditor in the Diocese of Vilnius. The title of this document states that these Visions were confirmed by the oath of several people.

First Apparition. The aforementioned Szeremet b was leading enormous Muscovite forces toward Polotsk (a most ample city which gave its name to the Palatinate of Polotsk), not without fear that perhaps some sudden sortie of the inhabitants might oppose arms to his advancing troops. Having therefore arranged his cohorts in order, he halted for a while before the outskirts of the city, intending to explore how much security there was in an attack and how much spirit and strength was in the citizens. When a young man of exceptional beauty, mounted on a white horse and himself dressed in white clothes, St. Casimir reproves the perfidy of the Muscovites: rode up very close to the entire watching army; and having greeted Szeremet, he addressed him in these words: What is this madness of your Grand Duke and of all of you, that with no regard for treaties and oaths, you infest our territories with war and violate your sworn word? Know that a drowning in their own blood, similar to this he threatens vengeance: which you now behold with your eyes of the fleeing populace in the Dvina river, hangs over your Duke and over you yourselves. Szeremet, thinking these bold spirits were those of some daring fellow from among the people of Polotsk, ordered the youth to be seized: but he, to the astonishment of all, vanished. Stunned by this vision, the enemy hesitated for a long time as to what should be done, until at last, having been informed that there was no one to resist, c he entered the city.

Second Apparition. Having occupied Polotsk and the fortress, Szeremet established his headquarters in the college of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, and gave orders that the church should immediately be demolished for the construction of fortifications. [he more gravely threatens one who is destroying the church of the Society for the fortification of a rampart:] Already the soldiers, having removed the roof, were diligently working on demolishing the walls, when around midday Szeremet heard himself being roused and warned by a sharp voice: Is it right, Szeremet, to destroy buildings erected for divine worship? Unless you desist, God will immediately destroy you and your house. Terrified, he rushed to the window, and seeing the same young man in white garments whom he had beheld before, he asked his bodyguards what person they saw standing before him threateningly. They said there was no one. He then summoned the citizens and inquired about the miracle-working Saints and Tutelary Patrons of Poland and Lithuania. He was told that the holy Martyr and Bishop d Josaphat was venerated as the principal Patron of Polotsk. Szeremet added that this was not unknown to him: Szeremet understands that it is St. Casimir, but that the matter required someone else. Meanwhile, having learned from others that the singular Protector of Lithuania was the holy Prince Casimir, he readily agreed: Our writers too, he said, report that he was always formidable to us whenever Lithuania was in danger; nor do I doubt that he was the one I saw even now. Nevertheless, when he called back the soldiers from the demolition of the church, he indicated that he was forbidden by the holy Bishop e Nicholas, and he desists. who is honored with exquisite devotion at Mozhaisk in Muscovy.

Third Apparition. When the Muscovites were now acting with impunity at Polotsk, part of them led their horses to the bank of the Dvina for pasture. This place, situated a league and a half from the city, the holy Casimir had already made illustrious by a celebrated miracle, when he led Gastold and Boratyński, who had only two thousand soldiers in their army, against the most numerous Muscovite forces, having shown them the ford and going before them. Lest the memory of this deed and f the victory that followed should perish, the same Saint drives horses out of a church the Fathers of the Society of Jesus had erected g a church in that place, and the people commemorated the benefit by annual processions. The place then seemed convenient both for protecting the horses from the heat of the sun and for getting the guards a midday nap. But the holy Casimir did not endure the injury done to a place consecrated to him. For appearing in a similar form, and those who guarded them, beaten, he not only drove the horses away from there but also chastised the guards with a twisted rope, and sent them back to Szeremet with the marks of the blows, and with this admonition: God, offended by the sins of our nation, will at last allow Himself to be appeased: but extermination hangs over you, and the necessity of seeking safety beyond h the Volga.

THE HYMN OR DAILY PRAYER OF ST. CASIMIR

to the Blessed Virgin Mary, found in his tomb.

Casimir, son of the King of Poland, elected King of Hungary (St.)

Every day tell Mary, my soul, her praises: Her feasts, her deeds, celebrate most splendidly. Contemplate and admire her loftiness: Call her the blessed mother, call her the blessed virgin. Honor her, that from the mass of sins she may free you: Call upon her, lest the storm of vices overwhelm you. This person bestowed upon us heavenly gifts: This Queen illuminated us with divine grace. My tongue, speak the triumphs of the virgin who bore a child: Who transfers the inflicted curse in a wondrous manner. Without end, speak to the Queen of the world songs of praise: Always proclaim her blessings, always praise her. Let all my senses resound her glory, Celebrate frequently the memory of so blessed a Virgin. No one certainly exists of such eloquent speech As to produce hymns worthy of her excellence. Let all praise the Mother of God, the Virgin, for whom they rejoice: Let no one pretend to attain her loftiness. No one shall say how great it is permitted, praising her merits: All created things are subject to her dominion. But it is necessary, what is known to benefit pious minds, That I apply myself and devote myself to her praises. Although I know that no one can worthily praise Mary; Yet he is vain and foolish who is silent about her. Whose life, learned, a discipline of heaven, Has destroyed the arguments and fabrications of heretics. Her virtues, like flowers, adorn the Church; Her actions and words bestow wonderful grace. The sin of Eve had closed the threshold of paradise for us: She, by believing and obeying, opens the gates of heaven. Because of Eve, man received a cruel sentence: Through Mary he has a way that leads to his homeland. She is to be loved and praised by all especially: It is fitting to venerate and pray to her constantly. I beseech her, whom I know to be able to do all things, That she may uproot and repel what is harmful to us. May she herself grant that I do what her Son commands; And when the life of the flesh is ended, may I joyfully behold Him. O glory and honor of all women, Whom we know to be approved and exalted above all things. Gracious one, hear those whom you see insisting on your praise. Cleanse the guilty and make them worthy of heavenly blessings. Rod of Jesse, hope of the oppressed mind and its refreshment; Glory of the world, light of the deep, Sanctuary of the Lord; Form of life, norm of morals, fullness of grace; Temple of God and example of all justice. Hail, Virgin, through whom the gates of heaven lie open to the wretched: Whom the deceit of the old serpent neither bent nor enticed. Glorious and beautiful daughter of King David, Whom the King who rules and created all things chose. Radiant gem, fresh rose, lily of chastity, Who leads the chaste choir to the joys of heaven. Grant the faculty of action and speech, That I may set forth the praises of your merits vigorously. I wish above all that you give me memory, That I may fittingly and frequently sing your glory. Although I know my lips to be mute and polluted; Yet one must presume, not be silent, about your glory. Rejoice, Virgin, because you are worthy of praise and reward: You who have become the occasion of liberty for the condemned. Ever pure and fruitful, you the Virgin who bore a child. Nourishing mother, like a palm, green and fruitful. By whose flower or fragrance we desire to be refreshed: By its fruit we trust to be freed from grief. Beautiful entirely, without the stain of any blemish, Make us clean and joyful to praise you diligently. O blessed one, through whom new joys are given to the world, And the heavenly kingdoms are opened by certain faith. Through whom the joyful world shines with true light, Having been covered by the darkness of ancient shadows. Now the powerful are needy, as you once said, And the needy become full, as you had prophesied. Through you the devious paths of wicked morals are now abandoned, The traces of perverse doctrines have been driven out. You have taught us to spurn the luxury and flux of the world; To seek God, to wear down the flesh, to resist vices. To direct the course of the mind upward with the zeal of piety; To afflict the body, to curb its impulses for the heavenly reward. You bore within the enclosure of your chaste womb the Lord, The Redeemer; restore us to our former honor. Made a mother, yet untouched, you bore a son; The King of Kings, and the Creator of all things. Blessed one, through whom the cunning of death is conquered, To those destitute of the hope of salvation, pardon is given. Blessed is the unconquered King, whose mother you are believed to be, Who, the Creator, born of you, is the salvation of our race. Restorer, consoler of the despairing soul: From the pressure that is coming upon the wicked, redeem us. Pray for me, that I may enjoy everlasting rest; Lest I, wretched, be overwhelmed by the torments of the burning lake. What I seek, what I sigh for, heal my wounds; And give to my mind, which beseeches you, the gifts of your graces. That I may be chaste and modest, sweet, gentle, sober, Pious, upright, circumspect, ignorant of enmity; Learned and fortified with divine utterances, And blessed and adorned with sacred exercises; Constant, serious and pleasant, kind, lovable, Simple, pure and mature, courteous and affable; Prudent in heart, eager in speech to tell the truth; Unwilling to do evil, always worshipping God with pious work. Be the protectress and helper of the Christian people: Grant peace, lest the troubles of the world disturb us. Saving star of the sea, hail, worthy of praises; You who surpass many stars and luminaries. With your sweet prayer support and refresh your suppliants: Whatever burdens and corrupts our minds, remove. Rejoice, Virgin, that from the deceit of the devil you free us: While in true and sincere flesh you bear God. Inviolate and enriched with heavenly offspring: Made with child, yet not deprived of the flower of chastity. For what you were, you remain, while untouched you give birth: Handling and nursing Him through whom you had been made. Be present now to me in my sorrow, giving perpetual joy: Grant, I pray, to one too greatly injured, the desired remedy. Commend me to blessed Christ, your Son: That I may not fall, but may escape the shipwreck of the world. Make me gentle, drive away strife, restrain wantonness; Against sin give protection and constancy of mind.

Let neither the cupidity of the world bind me nor weary me, Which darkens and hardens the minds subject to it. Let never anger, never dire pride conquer me; Which is frequently the occasion of many evils. Pray to God that He may preserve my heart with His grace, Lest the ancient enemy sow weeds. Grant your relief and protection to them constantly, Who celebrate your feasts or your deeds cheerfully. Amen.