Forty-two Martyrs

CONCERNING THE HOLY FORTY-TWO MARTYRS,

Theodore Craterus the Protospatharius, Constantine the Drungarius, Callistus the Turmarcha, Aetius and Melissenus the Generals, and Theophilus the Patricians, Bassoes and Other Leaders of the Troops, Captured at Amorium and Killed in Syria.

AROUND THE YEAR 841.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Theodore Craterus Protospatharius, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Constantine Drungarius, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Callistus Turmarcha, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Aetius, General, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Melissenus, General, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Theophilus Patricius, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Bassoes, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

The Other Thirty-Five Leaders of the Troops, Martyrs, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria

Section I. The Sacred Veneration and Life of These Martyrs. The Time and Place of Martyrdom.

[1] Amorium was an ancient city, honored with an episcopal see, in Phrygia Salutaris, neighboring Galatia, to which it was later assigned, and was made the metropolis of New Galatia. In this city the glorious Martyrs were captured: whom the Greeks celebrate on March 6 with special veneration in the printed Menaia and in the Mazarin, Chiffletian, and other manuscripts, and in the manuscript Synaxarion of the Clermont College of the Society of Jesus in Paris, and in Maximus of Cythera in these words: These Martyrs are venerated by the Greeks on March 6. "On the sixth day of the month of March, the memory of the holy forty-two Martyrs — Theodore, Constantine, Callistus, Theophilus, Bassoes, and their companions — who contended at Amorium. These were among the chief men of the city of Amorium, who, when it was intercepted by the Agarenes during the reign of Theophilus, were led away captive because they were Tribunes and Generals of the armies, and sprung from the most noble lineage among the Romans. These neither from fear, nor from love of life, nor from weakness of spirit, nor afflicted by prolonged calamity, laid aside the faith they held in Christ: but with manly constancy of purpose and generous virtue of soul they resisted the tyrants. For they did not infect their souls with bodily afflictions, as with old brine: but all contended heroically, lest they betray the faith given to Christ. And so, filled with joy, they offered their necks to be cut by the sword." The same is read in the New Anthology, with only the number of Forty-two indicated, none of their names expressed. In the Menaia, among the odes and hymns, the same number is repeatedly expressed, and the five named in the eulogy are subsequently addressed by their own names, and Theodore is called "illustrious," Constantine "pious" and "led to martyrdom like a lamb," Callistus "excellent in divine meditations," and Theophilus "great and strong." Finally, the invincible spirit of all of these, as well as of all the others, is proclaimed amid the squalor of prolonged imprisonment.

[2] In the manuscript Greek Menologion, which was written by order of the Emperor Basil called Porphyrogenitus, at the following day, this eulogy is found: likewise on March 7 and perhaps March 8. "The contest of the holy Martyrs, who were captured at Amorium but killed in Syria. During the reign of Theophilus the Iconoclast, father of Michael (whose mother Theodora, having restored the images, celebrated orthodoxy), these holy Generals and Tribunes were wealthy and noble men: who at that time, when the Emir came from Syria with an infinite multitude into the eastern parts of the Roman Empire, were sent by the Emperor to defend the city of Amorium. But seeing the infinite multitude of the Saracens, they entered the fortress and bravely defended it. But God permitting it, so that transgressors might be chastised, the fortress was taken by force, and a multitude of citizens was slaughtered. The Generals themselves were captured, led away to Syria, confined in prison, and having suffered many squalors and miseries, were led out of prison and compelled by force to embrace their impostures. But constantly refusing, they received the sentence that they should be punished by beheading. And when Constantine had greatly encouraged his companions, he was beheaded with them." In the Menologion translated by Sirleto, they are referred to March 8, but on account of some transposition of events, which we have noted elsewhere as having occurred between these days, they should perhaps be moved back to March 6 or 7. In it, it is written thus: "On the same day, of the holy Martyrs who were detained at Amorium and suffered martyrdom in Syria — Theodore, Constantine, Theophilus, Basso, and their companions, numbering forty-two." Ferrarius in the General Catalogue describes that Menologion at March 8. Callistus is omitted in both: but the one called Basson or Bassion is he who in the Menaia above is named Bassoes (Βασσωή) or Basoes (Βασωή).

[3] The ancient Latins did not mention them in the sacred Calendars. Molanus in the Supplement to Usuard at March 6 writes the following: "Of the holy 42 Martyrs recently discovered at Ammorium." By the Latins on March 6. But what he means by "recent discovery" he does not explain. That they were killed on March 6 will be established below. Galesinius has the following: "In Greece, of the holy 42 Martyrs — Theodore, Constantine, Calixtus, Theophilus, and the rest — who, divinely found at Amorium, already most valiant champions of the faith, having completed an outstanding contest, adorned with bloody robes, enjoy eternal glory in heaven." From there they were transcribed into the later edition of the German Martyrology. No mention is made of Bassoes; for Callistus, Calixtus is written; and the martyrdom is attributed to Amorium, which is better reported as having taken place in Syria in today's Roman Martyrology in these words: "Likewise, the passion of the holy forty-two Martyrs, who, captured at Amorium and led to Syria, having completed an outstanding contest there, as victors received the palm of martyrdom."

[4] We found the Life and contest of these Martyrs, written long ago and hitherto unpublished, in Rome in three ancient manuscript Greek codices — namely, of the Vatican Library, The Life written in Greek by Euodius, of the Vallicellian Library of the Fathers of the Congregation of the Oratory, and of Cardinal Sforza — and we give it below in Latin translation. Leo Allatius mentions these Acts in his Diatribe on the Writings of the Simeons, page 113, in these words: "The splendid subject of the present feast" (Φαιδρὰ μὲν τῆς παρούσης ἑορτῆς ὑπόθεσις) — by Euodius. "The Martyrdom of the holy and glorious forty-two Martyrs of Christ" (Μαρτύριον τῶν ἁγίων καὶ ἐνδόξων τοῦ Χριστοῦ τεσσαράκοντα δύο Μαρτύρων). We ourselves also found Euodius to be the author of these Acts in the Sforza codex, and from the context itself we gather that the writer was a contemporary, who seems to have flourished under the Empress Saint Theodora and her son Michael, when the orthodox faith had been restored, as was said on February 11 in the Life of Saint Theodora. In the Acts below, at number 36, the place of martyrdom is described thus: Place of martyrdom. "When they came near the river Euphrates, for around it their great city Samara is situated" (ὅτε οὖν πλησίον ἦλθον τοῦ ποταμοῦ Εὐφράτου, περὶ αὐτὸν γὰρ τὸ Σάμαρα ἡ μεγάλη πόλις αὐτῶν κατοικεῖται). Perhaps where the ancients had Samosata — nor is Mount Taurus far from there, a certain promontory of which is called Samara by Orosius as cited by Ortelius in his Geographical Thesaurus: unless Zimara is understood, a city of Armenia on the Euphrates, and the whole region then understood by the name of Syria, which had been given to the Saracens before.

[5] Michael Balbus, a native of Amorium, after Leo the Armenian was butchered during the sacred rites on Christmas Day, Time of capture and martyrdom: seized the Empire in the year 820, and when he died in the year 829, his son Theophilus succeeded him, who died in the year 841 at its end or at the beginning of the following year, as was more fully treated in the Life of his wife Saint Theodora. George Elmacinus, in his Saracen History written in Arabic and rendered into Latin by Thomas Erpenius, book 2, chapter 9, mentions the war of Emperor Theophilus with the Caliph Mutasim, waged in the Arabic year 223, that is, of the Christian Era 838, in which he asserts that Zabatra was captured by Theophilus — called by others below Sozopetra and Zapetrum — and then that Ammoria, or Amorium, was occupied by Mutasim using catapults and ballistae, which rather occurred in some nearby year. Baronius at the year 841 treats of the slaughter of Theophilus, the capture of Amorium, and the contest of these Martyrs. But that they were confined in prison for a full seven years, the Acts state below at number 27, and other writers confirm. We therefore believe they were captured around the year 840, and afterwards completed their martyrdom in the year 847.

[6] There were various wars of Emperor Theophilus with the Saracens, Events related in other published and manuscript histories, which are reported by George Cedrenus, John Scylitza Curopalata, and John Zonaras, as also by Leo the Grammarian published together with the Chronography of Theophanes in the Louvre edition, to which in his Annotations François Combefis frequently cites a certain Continuator, from whom he sent us what was done under Theophilus: and he asserts that this author wrote under Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, son of Leo, and that he flourished nearly seventy years after the execution of these Martyrs. Combefis calls him the Vatican Continuator, because those records are preserved in the Vatican Library. The King of the Saracens in Cedrenus and the other writers already mentioned is called Amerumnes, Ameramnunes, and Amermumnes; by Elmacinus, Caliph Mutasim; and under him there were various generals and princes, called Protosymboloi: thus in the Acts at number 12 only Abesac is established, while in the Menologion of Emperor Basil the Emir, who is called Ameras by Cedrenus and others, Various princes of the Saracens, is the governor of Melitene in Armenia. In the Chronicle of Simeon the Logothete (whom the Theban Hippolytus, a contemporary, testifies to be that celebrated Metaphrastes himself — and also the author of the Chronicle, still extant in the Vatican Library, as Gesner says), Gudes is considered the chief general of the Agarenes. Likewise, in the earlier wars, Impraelus, the general of the Arabs, was in command. If however some other meaning underlies these names, we will gladly learn more: meanwhile we give the fragment from the aforesaid Chronicle of the Logothete,

supplied by the same Combefis, concerning the translation of the bodies of the Saints.

[7] Only two of the more illustrious Martyrs are enumerated in the Acts: Saint Theodore, a soldier who had been a priest, a eunuch, surnamed Craterus or "the Strong," holding the dignity of Protospatharius; and Saint Constantine the Drungarius, who alone is named in the Menologion of Emperor Basil. Seven Martyrs designated by their dignities. The word "drungus" is a barbarian term found in Vopiscus meaning a body of men. In the Emperor Leo's Tactica, drungarii and turmarchae are placed in charge of light vessels distributed by themes; thus the third Martyr is Callistus the Turmarcha, who together with two others was a Patrician; and similarly Theophilus, the fourth Martyr, is called a Patrician by Leo the Grammarian and the Logothete. These two add two generals, Melissenus and Aetius, the last of whom is also regarded as a Patrician and General of the Orientals: finally, Bassoes or Bassion or Basson is the one who is perhaps called Bubutzicus by Cedrenus and Boburzicus by Scylitza, and is designated below as the Prefect of the Couriers.

Section II. Events Narrated from Cedrenus, Leo the Grammarian, and Others.

[8] When Impraelus, the general of the Arabs, had undertaken expeditions against the Romans, Wars waged with varying fortune: Theophilus also led his forces out against him, relying on Manuel the Protostrator and Theophobos the Persian... When battle was joined and many had fallen on both sides, at length the cohorts of Theophilus gave way and yielded to the Agarenes; with Theophobos deceiving the enemy by a stratagem, the Emperor sought safety in flight... The following year Theophilus again led his forces against the Saracens, and engaging with them at Charsianum, he routed them and led away up to twenty-five thousand captives, and returned home in possession of a brilliant victory. Among the Saracen captives there was a certain man ready of hand and famous for the agility of his hands, known to the Domestic of the Schools and commended by his testimony — for he was both an excellent horseman and, using two spears while riding, quite skillfully unhorsed his adversaries. When therefore the Domestic, ordered to celebrate the triumph of his victory in the Circus, A Saracen fighting with a double spear, led this man before the rest, the Emperor, induced by his praises, ordered him to mount a horse and, taking two spears, to give a display of his skill and prowess before all. When this was done and the less experienced were delighted by the spectacle, Saint Theodore scorns him, Theodore, surnamed Craterus — the same who not long after became the chief of the company of the holy Forty-two Martyrs — standing closer to the Emperor, began to mock this Agarene and to affirm that nothing brave or terrible was being done by him. The Emperor took offense, and reproached Craterus as effeminate and unmanned, who could accomplish nothing of the sort. Craterus replied that he did not know how to use two spears: for he had not learned this, since there was no need for such trifles in war: trusting in the help of God, he would unhorse that man with a single spear. The Emperor, irritated by these words, swore by his own head that he would take Craterus's life unless he fulfilled in deed what he had boasted in words. And engaging him, he throws him headlong. And Theodore immediately mounted a horse and, taking up a spear, engaged the Saracen hand to hand and quickly threw him headlong from his horse. The Emperor was indeed put to shame, seeing the Saracen thrown down by a eunuch, yet both revering the man's valor and respecting his own courtiers, he addressed Craterus kindly and presented him with garments as a mark of honor. John Scylitza Curopalata and John Zonaras have the same account, but the translator of the former, Giovanni Battista Gabio, calls Theodore by the surname "the Strong" — who shortly after was placed in command of the company of the holy Forty-two Martyrs. But in the translator of Zonaras he is called Craterus Theodore, who shortly after was adorned with the crown of martyrdom, one of the number of the Forty-two Martyrs: where in the Greek Κράτερος Θεόδωρος is read, as the Continuator also has. But let us continue the rest from Cedrenus.

[9] At the beginning of spring, Theophilus again gathered his forces and moved against the Saracens... When battle was joined, the Ishmaelite side prevailed, and the Emperor, surrounded, nearly fell into the hands of the enemy... At the beginning of the following spring, the Agarenes and Theophilus, having each made an expedition to wage war against the other, returned home having accomplished nothing, each fearing the other... As spring of the following year approached, Theophilus set out with great forces against the Agarenes, and advancing far into Syria, laying waste and plundering everything in his path, he also stormed two cities and led away captives from them. Theophilus storms Sozopetra, the homeland of Amermumnes: He also stormed Sozopetra itself, the homeland of Amermumnes, despite the latter's much entreating by letter that he spare his homeland. Having accomplished these things, the Emperor returned to Constantinople. So much there; and Leo the Grammarian narrates the same events thus: "The Emperor departed with Manuel and the Senate against the Agarenes, and having occupied Zapetrum and Samosata — cities fortified by Amerumnes with an abundance of wealth and a strong wall — and having won a brilliant victory and become illustrious for his spoils, he returned." The Continuator of Theophanes says: "Sozopetra itself, which was the homeland of Ameramnunes, was also stormed: on account of which it happened that Theophilus was entreated by him through letters to withdraw from there."

[10] Amermumnes therefore, says Cedrenus, his spirit deeply wounded by the destruction of his homeland, Whose anger and forces he feared, assembled forces from everywhere — from Babylonia, Phoenicia, Palestine, Coelesyria, and even from farther Africa — commanding his soldiers that each should inscribe "Amorium" on his shield: by which he indicated that he intended to attack Amorium. All his forces assembled at Tarsus. Theophilus also made an expedition and reached Doryleum, which is a three days' journey from Amorium. There were then many who advised the Emperor to avoid the onslaught of the Saracens, rushing with a force greater than could be checked, and to transfer the inhabitants of Amorium elsewhere. But Theophilus, considering this disgraceful and unmanly, [He places Saints Aetius, Theodore, and others — later Martyrs — in charge of Amorium:] and judging it noble and brave to fortify the city and save it by the counsel of a vigorous general, sends Aetius, Patrician and General of the Orientals, with a force adequate to defeat the enemy; he also places in charge of the multitude those who shortly afterwards became Martyrs — Theodore Craterus, Theophilus, Bubutzicus, and the rest — who were chiefs not only of the army then sent, but also of the company of the Forty-two Martyrs. After the Prince of the Saracens came to Tarsus with his entire army, he deliberated with his advisors what should be done: and he judged that they should not proceed directly to Amorium, but should send his son with part of the army to test the Roman army. For he reasoned thus: if his son defeated the Emperor, the father too would undoubtedly win the victory; if things turned out otherwise, it would be better to remain quiet. He therefore sent his son, and with him the Emir who at that time governed Melitene, together with about ten thousand Turks, the entire Armenian army, and the General of Generals, who pitched camp at Dazymenum.

[11] Against this force Theophilus set out with an army composed of Persians and troops from the West and East — and it was by no means contemptible — and when he came to the place called Anzin, He surveys the enemy forces from a lookout, he decided to survey the multitude of the enemy before engaging in battle. And so, led by Manuel, the Domestic of the Schools, to the highest lookout, and viewing the enemy forces from there, he conjectured that they were more numerous than his own: while Manuel meanwhile warned him not to consider the numbers, but the harvest of spears on both sides. After Theophilus judged the enemy army to be stronger than his own, deliberation was held as to how he might attack it by stratagem. Manuel and Theophobos thought this should be done by night; the other generals urged that battle should be joined by day, and the Emperor agreed with them. With this opinion prevailing, at first light an extremely fierce battle was begun. He begins to win in battle: In this battle, while the Imperial cohorts fought bravely, the Ishmaelites took to flight. But as the Turks pressed on with constant use of arrows and drove the Romans back from pursuing the enemy, the fortune of battle changed. For the Roman legions, unable to withstand the force of Turkish arrows, abandoned the Emperor and fled: then he is overcome, while the commanders of the legions and the Persians allowed nothing of the sort on their part, but surrounded the Emperor and fought for him with the utmost force. And indeed the Emperor would then have been cut to pieces with his men, had not night fallen and a light rain slackened the strings of the Turkish bows: whereby the Romans, freed from the fear of arrows, had an opportunity to seek safety...

[12] Amermumnes, learning of the victory of his forces, Amorium is besieged: determined to delay no longer but to make for Amorium. Having therefore assembled his army and instructed his son to do the same, he set out. When they had joined forces, fortified their camp with a rampart, and surrounded Amorium with a deep trench, he began to attack with all his might; the Turks continually shooting arrows and the Saracens bringing up siege engines: And it is bravely defended: while the Romans who were inside defended the city courageously and promptly destroyed the machines. While the siege continued thus, with the enemy allowing no respite in the attack, meanwhile Theophilus, having barely escaped from flight, reached Doryleum and there awaited the outcome. And thinking he should test the mind of Amermumnes, he sent envoys with precious gifts and many promises, asking him to raise the siege. When they reached the Saracen camp and came before Amermumnes, they set forth what the Emperor had commanded. But he, burning with implacable anger over the destruction of his homeland, reproached the Emperor for cowardice, mocked and made sport of the embassy, detained the envoys in chains, and waited for the outcome — pressing the siege all the more vigorously: and dividing his army into many parts, he attacked the city in turns, hoping that with fresh and unexhausted forces constantly coming up to take their part in the assault, those inside, worn out by their labors, would surrender. Amorium is captured by treachery: But the townspeople defended themselves bravely, and nothing was accomplished by the assaults, and the city would by no means have been taken, had not the treachery of a certain Amorian intervened. This man, Baditzes by name, corrupted by gifts and having abjured the Christian religion on account of some dispute, had fallen to such rashness that he betrayed his homeland: and having secretly conferred with the Saracens, he warned them to attack the city from that side where he knew it was easier to scale the walls.

[13] When the city was stormed, what great slaughter was dealt and how many captives were taken cannot be expressed in words. For the Saracens, angered because they had lost many of their illustrious men during the siege, with no pity for those upon whom they fell, slaughtered the men, seized the women with their infants and children, The 42 Martyrs are led away as captives, and set fire to the finest buildings. In the end, this most beautiful city of the East perished in so short a space of time that nothing was left except ruins. The leaders of the cohorts were led away as captives — Callistus, Constantine, Theodore Craterus the Patricians, and with them very many others, distinguished by military commands and other supreme dignities. After Amorium was captured in this way, the Prince of the Saracens, as if exulting over his achievements and feasting proudly upon them, ordered the Emperor's envoys to inspect everything that had been done, and sent them back to their master as messengers of the disaster. The Emperor in turn sent them again to Amermumnes, asking that the illustrious men captured in the storming of the city, who were related to him by blood, and the remaining captives be returned to him, and promising twenty-four hundred-weights for their ransom. The Emperor striving in vain through envoys, The barbarian sent these back too with ignominy, saying he would be a fool if he returned the captives for so many hundred-weights, when he himself had spent a thousand hundred-weights in assembling his forces. When the envoys returned home without success, Theophilus, overwhelmed by the weight of the calamity, refused almost all food and drink, and only water pressed from snow

accepting, he fell into dysentery... Following this, utterly consumed by illness, he shortly after paid his debt to nature, having held the Empire for twelve years and three months. So far Cedrenus, and the same is read in Scylitza, as also, though abbreviated in places, in Zonaras. Leo the Grammarian, who is more ancient than these, narrates the final battle and the execution of the Martyrs thus in his Chronology:

[14] When the Emperor was proceeding to the palace of Bryae with his retinue, it was reported by the General of the Orientals that the Protosymbolus of the Saracens was advancing with an army to plunder toward Amorium. The Emperor, having made the customary distribution to the army and the nobles, hastened in a short time toward Cappadocia. Amermumnes, selecting eight thousand soldiers and appointing Sudes, a man most renowned among the Agarenes for valor and prudence, as general, sent him against the Emperor. When they engaged, the Emperor was defeated and fled, and returned in disgrace, barely escaping with his life. Amermumnes, accompanied by a great force, set out and besieged Amorium: and after various engagements he could not take it, as the citizens fought bravely and nobly against him. But a certain disciple of the philosopher Leo, dwelling in the fortress, signified to Amermumnes, who wished to withdraw, by some means of astrology: "If you maintain your position at the fortress for only two more days, you will take us." And so it happened. For it was betrayed by a certain man called Boiditzes and Manicophagus. They are beheaded. Very many renowned and not ignoble men were also captured and led away as captives to Syria: Theophilus the Patrician, and these Generals — Melissenus and Aetius, and Theodore Craterus the Protospatharius, and Callistus the Turmarcha, and *Cyrillus the Drungarius, and Bassoes, and certain leaders of the troops — who, driven by the Protosymbolus with tortures to deny the faith, refused to comply and were beheaded with the sword, having obtained eternal life in exchange for temporal.

* The Continuator: twenty-seven.

* Scylitza: Boburzicus.

* Scylitza: Diazimon.

* Others: Constantine.

ACTS OF THE MARTYRDOM

by the contemporary author Euodius,

From Three Greek Manuscripts.

Theodore Craterus Protospatharius, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Constantine Drungarius, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Callistus Turmarcha, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Aetius, General, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Melissenus, General, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Theophilus Patricius, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Bassoes, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

The Other Thirty-Five Leaders of the Troops, Martyrs, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria

PROLOGUE.

[1] Since the splendid theme of the present panegyric magnificently introduces the contest, victory, and reward of the Martyrs of Christ, it follows that it must also encompass the mournful tragedy: for it is not possible for us to reach the place where we may behold the seats of the Martyrs except by passing through it. Let no one, however, lose heart upon hearing this sad announcement: first because nothing unseemly, nothing incongruous will be heard about the proposed contest of these same men: and secondly because, as the Sacred Scriptures say: "If we were without discipline, we would be illegitimate and not sons." Heb. 12:8 If indeed it is fitting to call "discipline" the destruction of a most populous city, the slaughter of innumerable armies, and the common extermination of temples and sacred things, of priests and virgins alike. Calamities of the Church What? For this is by no means the end, as long as those threats — "I will make my arrows drunk with blood," etc. — have thus far, alas, being turned away from the wicked, been drawn out at length and have no conclusion.

[2] Unless perhaps someone may wisely distinguish the punishment of delay, and, dividing the diverse things of those who are tested among diverse categories, assign them accordingly: Deut. 32:42 so that for some, paternal correction may be found (for what son is there whom a father does not chastise?) — or a hard recompense relieving the weight and bitterness of those torments that await all on the other side, for whom kindly gentleness was not sufficient for instruction: but for others, if it is not painful to confess, it may be a demonstration of aversion and a manifest sign of reprobation — those who are moved neither by paternal corrections nor by manifold benefits and indulgence to perceive and choose what is beneficial for them.

[3] But although we fortify ourselves with these thoughts as much as possible, These are to be referred to the hidden judgments of God, lest we become entangled in the errors of ignorance, ingratitude, and imprudence: yet it is better to ascribe such things to the incomprehensible judgments of God: who also imposed silence through the Prophet upon His disciple Jeremiah, lamenting over the ruin of Jerusalem, saying: Jer. 45:4 "Behold, what I have built, I destroy: and what I have planted, I uproot: and do you seek joys for yourself?" For the rest, let us relate as briefly as possible, as is our custom, what preceded the contest of the Martyrs, so that the course of our narrative may proceed in a straight path.

CHAPTER I.

The Empire Harassed by the Saracens. Amorium Captured. The Leaders of the Troops Led Away into Captivity, All Others Slain.

[4] There was a time when the Roman Empire, established in orthodox doctrine and a right way of living according to the Apostolic traditions, had Generals and Masters of nations subject to it — He who undertook its protection having manifestly declared: Matt. 28:18 "All power is given to me in heaven and on earth" The Eutychian and Monothelite heresies — Jesus, I say, Christ, the only-begotten Son of God. But afterwards these persons perverted the understanding of sacred doctrines:^a the Emperor himself, like that Uzziah, entangled himself in the more sacred concerns of the Church of God and in Theology not to be approached by profane feet, confusing the natures and wills in the Theandric substance of Jesus Christ: and not even permitting that by either one of them that which is created should be said to be accomplished; judging the divine essence to be in need of something, and not to have anything more sublime and higher than all want: 2 Chron. 26:16 while the priests^b for the most part, and nearly all the bishops, adopted the opinions that pleased him.

[5] Then, when the very defender of the Empire, as if having suffered a singular injury, They are punished by the irruption of the Saracens: had resolved to withdraw from him and ceased to succor him — so that he would not more wantonly cling to his madness in blaspheming against Him, or even add something worse — a certain warning and occasion of perdition finally fell upon him. The race of the Ishmaelites,^c hitherto confined to the more remote interior of the desert and shackled by the bond of the divine word, was immediately released and set free, and devastated first the regions beyond Mesopotamia; then consumed Palestine, Egypt, and Africa, and the Roman armies, routed and destroyed, by the barbarian sword.

[6] Nevertheless, His most wise providence, When those were repressed, these too were repressed, intent on the salvation of men, "did not deal with us according to our sins," to speak with the Prophet, "nor repay us according to our iniquities": He did not allow the Empire to be utterly destroyed and delivered to final ruin; but confined the Ishmaelite race within certain boundaries within Cilicia and Syria. Ps. 103:10 Scarcely at last had our people brought themselves to think correctly about the divine economy of the Incarnation itself, when they obtained firm possession of the remaining regions beyond the aforesaid borders; but they were excluded from the glory of monarchy, God judging it right, as I think, that those who had held their true Lord in mockery should not be called absolute Masters.

[7] And affairs remained in this state for some time, until the Iconoclasts grew strong, until another heresy — not to say madness — arose in succession and irrationally rose up against the glory of Christ; indeed it utterly abjured Christ Himself, removing His image of the Incarnation from the midst, wishing to eliminate idols (as was pretended) assimilated to inanimate things of the Incarnation; but in reality counting the animate flesh of the divine Word among those same things, so that (if indeed it was truly doing this for that reason) it proceeded by exactly the same reasoning as those who taught that it was not lawful to contract marriage, because the act of marriage and of fornication was one and the same.

[8] This viper, fittingly called by a bestial name, was brought to us by the region of Isauria:^d under Leo the Isaurian, but indeed before the feet (so to speak) of divine vengeance there were signs — the revolutions and falls of heavenly stars to earth, continuous earthquakes, the finest and strongest structures of the ruling city destroyed: to which were added numerous and almost infinite slaughters, and premature deaths raging throughout the whole Empire. But when the more conspicuous plagues were inflicted especially upon the royal city, as against the root and cause of all evil existing therein, nowhere did any perception of them appear; instead, new increases of blasphemy were observed: for that soul, burning with hatred of Christ with all its might, even attacking the name of Theotokos, was striving to remove from the midst even the name of the Mother of God itself.

[9] But what retribution finally befell this one? The boundaries that had separated the Romans and the Ishmaelites were removed, and again, all the garrisons of our military forces throughout all of Cilicia having been driven out and expelled, therefore the Romans were defeated and Constantinople besieged, everything was occupied all the way to Cappadocia itself. In addition, the Royal City itself was surrounded by siege — not only by the Ishmaelites, but also by the Avars and the other nations of various languages, filling the entire Propontis and whatever regions lie within the straits of Abydos — and Constantinople was besieged for a full seven years.

[10] But indeed, not even after such great transgressions was the invincible tolerance of the Divinity diminished in the slightest: When the images were restored, peace was established, for God, who is truly exempt from passions, is alone so: but with Him patiently enduring his wicked servants, the image of His sacred Incarnation was again restored by pious bishops^e and emperors through a Synodal decree. And so that those who held power at that time might know without doubt that the greater and better part of the world had been devastated because of the insult inflicted upon Him, and that conversely, by reason of the piety shown toward Him, the whole world was sustained — even though a woman together with a boy held the scepters of the Roman Empire — that most powerful dynasty of barbarians nevertheless entered into conditions of peace with the Romans, with no other procuring this than the Son of God, honored according to the true and God-pleasing form of religion: so that from this, people might be more incited to piety.

[11] But he who^f resembled that impious one in morals as well as in name, returning to his vomit and entangled in the mire of the same heresy, And it is disturbed again under Leo the Armenian, indeed banished all the orthodox bishops into exile: and he ordered the sacred vestments and divine treasures, reduced to ashes, to be scattered through the public streets. Against this man, therefore, the rebellion of the tyrant Thomas was immediately stirred up, and the strength of Roman power was broken by civil war. And he indeed, spewing out his wretched soul in a bitter end upon the very throne, left behind in the Christian commonwealth his Christ-hating madness, until another held the empire — one called Theophilus, but not truly so,^g and Theophilus, who strove no less zealously than his predecessors not only to defend, but even to increase and promote their madness. And how many defeats he himself also suffered in war from the Ishmaelites, how many regions, cities, and islands were utterly devastated on account of the injury inflicted upon the image of Christ, it is impossible for us to narrate. It will suffice, therefore, to recall the one city in which the Saints were captured, and how it was overthrown.

[12] After these things, therefore, Abesac, that

Protosymbolus of the Ishmaelite nation (for so they call their Princes), coming with great power against the famous city of Amorium^h and within a total of thirteen days demolishing the walls with siege engines, Amorium is intercepted. he indeed took the city; but keeping alive the seven leaders of the Troops, he ordered the legions under them to be killed, and everything of men who had either a home or a refuge therein to be slaughtered. When he returned to his own territory, [The soldiers together with the people are slaughtered; the leaders of the Troops are consigned to prison,] he ordered the aforesaid military leaders to be consigned to dark and foul custody, bound with double and triple fetters and constrained by the pressure of stocks: and commanding them to be tortured rather than sustained with scant bread and water supplied even more sparingly, he placed guards and observers over them, lest anyone except the jailers should speak with them.

[13] Who, O Christ the King, who could accurately know the multitude of those tears, in which they are treated most harshly, of those inconsolable groans of those who endured such things for Your sake, except You alone? For they did not have as much water as they poured forth tears from their eyes: those who had once nourished many poor received not as much bread as the lice, mice, and whatever other creeping things there are under the earth took from their flesh. For a bed they had the ground; for bedding, fine and foul ash: and if at any time some cheap and contemptible rag was thrown upon them, their torment was increased by the noxious vermin nesting in it.

[14] To this was added such dense darkness that not even at midday itself could they properly discern one another's faces, unless perchance they sometimes used a fire-striker. They were allowed neither the use of a bath, nor the ability to cut their superfluous nails and hair. And so far were they from being permitted to warm themselves in the rays of the sun, that they were not allowed even to behold them at all. They begged their guards to allow some of them to go out to beg for alms: and if the guards sometimes agreed to their requests, ten soldiers followed the one released from bonds: and when he returned, that most miserable bread was torn apart and examined, and the most wretched little vessel was shaken out, lest perchance some treacherous writing might be hidden in them.

^a The Emperor Heraclius, a Monothelite, or certainly his grandson Constans, son of Constantine, also a Monothelite, can be understood here, whom Pope Saint Martin condemned together with the Monothelite error in the Roman Synod of the year 649.

^b Certainly the Patriarchs of Constantinople — Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul — as also the Antiochene Macarius, the Alexandrians Cyrus and Peter, and others, were Monothelites.

^c Mohammed obtained a place to dwell in the Empire from Heraclius in the year of Christ 628, and died in the year 631: whose successors gradually occupied the regions of the East and Africa. Consult Theophanes and other writers of those times.

^d Leo the Isaurian published his deadly edict against the veneration of images in the year 730; his son Constantine Copronymus and Leo, the latter's son, followed, infected with the same poison.

^e From the year of Christ 780, Constantine, the son of the last Leo, and his mother Irene ruled, under whom the former piety was restored together with the veneration of images, with Saint Tarasius created Patriarch of Constantinople in the year 784: under whom the Second Council of Nicaea was held, as all those matters were related in the Life of Saint Tarasius on February 25.

^f Leo the Armenian seized the Empire in the year 813; more will be said about him on March 13, in the Life of Saint Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, whom he sent into exile. Michael Balbus, a man of the same stamp, succeeded Leo; against whom Thomas rebelled, as Leo the Grammarian and others excellently report.

^g Theophilus began to reign in the year 829.

^h Around the year 840, as we said above.

CHAPTER II.

They Are Variously Solicited to Defect.

[15] As long as their former bodily strength remained to these most noble men, the barbarians held no conversation with them about religion: [They are tempted by the Protosymbolus, who under the appearance of consoling the captives] but when they saw them weakened and as if worn down, certain of those who were considered among them to be more skilled in false doctrines, and who pretended to display some humanity, came to the prison at the instigation of the Prince, and as if having persuaded the Prefects of the guards by much entreaty, finding it opened, they sat down to converse with the captives, and sometimes, having given silver, they also provided some garments: but then they did not hesitate to exhort them to abjure the faith of Christ: for that violent Prince did not value so highly having reduced that entire city, though great, though most wealthy, into his power, as if he could lead these Saints over to his religion: since he used to say that it was so much greater to carry off a victory over souls than over bodies, as the former surpass the latter in dignity. For to cast down bodies, without reaching the soul, is very easy even for wild beasts.

[16] When the Saints received their attack nobly and rejected the proposition made to them as an abominable crime, they said: urge defection from Christ, "Pride and arrogance do not become you: first give your minds to what we say, and if we do not counsel what is useful and beneficial for you, do not assent. Do you perhaps neglect your dearest children, your sweetest parents and spouses? Have you entirely put off that love implanted and necessary by nature, which even wild beasts revere? Do you despise the sweetest enjoyment of your goods, the company of kinsmen and friends, the willing service of most obedient households, honor from princes, glory to be bestowed upon you by subjects — or the ancestral customs in which you grew up? Who in such a case, and with such a lack of so many goods, would not devise some plan for salvation; and if only one presents itself, judge that this very one ought to be embraced?"

[17] "If all things flowed according to your wishes, there would be nothing for which you would renounce your own salvation: for no one of sound mind could regard this as the work of reason: at least a pretended one: but now, since no other counsel presents itself by which you can recover such great goods, what we suggest is indeed most full of humanity — that, dissembling for a while, you allow yourselves to be circumcised, and worshipping together with the Protosymbolus, be heaped with boundless goods by him: and again, through the occasion of war, it will be possible for you to return as fugitives to your religion and your people, or as victors after victory you will return, to the admiration of all." To which the noble servants of Christ replied: "If you yourselves had fallen into the same evils in which we are now held, but they are refuted, would you yourselves have been willing to do what you advise us?" "Indeed we would," they replied; "for what do we believe to be more necessary than life, and that free and quiet?" And they even confirmed their agreement to this by oath. "But we," the lovers of Christ immediately added, "will not accept the exhortation concerning the faith from those who profess themselves to be unstable in their own faith." Thus having spoken with one another, the latter returned in confusion with their mission unaccomplished to him by whom they had been sent, having suffered rather than accomplished what they intended.

[18] After some days that followed, others entered the custody in the same manner as the first had maintained, Others bewail their lot, as if to bestow alms upon the captives, and with feigned tears began to mourn over them — because, forsooth, through ignorance and unbelief they had incurred those punishments. "What great evils," they said, "are caused by not believing in the great Prophet Mohammed, among all who are ignorant of him! For are not these, whom we behold surrounded with heavy chains, all men of distinction, kinsmen of Emperors, and masters of others even in the art of war? Does not the strength of their bodies correspond to their genius? Did they not, by the mere display of arms, rouse even those who were ignorant of weapons to war? Was not a great number of defenders at hand for them? Indeed, more than seventy thousand armed men, from those Romans alone who had assembled, were delivered into the hand of our most faithful Protosymbolus. into which they have fallen. What rendered all that power ineffective except the rejection of that Prophet, in whom believing, his servants won this victory over them?"

[19] "But nothing surprising happened if, not having been taught by anyone what was beneficial for them, they did not recognize it, being human: for those who are found to have been ignorant of something are accustomed to obtain pardon." Likewise these thoughtless ones, changing their speech, said: "You" — for it is on your account that we say these things to one another — "passing from that narrow way on which the Son of Mary commands you to walk, while they despise the easy law of Mohammed: and being led into the broad way, spacious both in this and in the future world, which the great Prophet has proclaimed — call us blessed, as the best counselors and the authors of many advantages for you. What incredible thing does our Prophet teach when he says that God is powerful enough to fill the one who obeys Him with every pleasure both here and to establish him as an heir of paradise there? Is God in need of riches, or is He destitute of the enjoyment of other things?"

[20] "Depart from that unbelief of ignorant men, since it is altogether against reason that, as if God could not give pleasures both here and in the future: when God offers double gifts both here and there, you, as if you knew something more, should disdain them, as though you thought Him to be in need: and should wish to be dividers among His goods, not accepting when He gives, but when it seems good to you, despising His goodness out of excessive arrogance. Do not even you sometimes, when you offer something to your servants, if you see them procrastinating in accepting or refusing altogether, as though greatly injured by them, inflict blows in return for benefits? And if mortal men do this, will not the immortal God do so much more to you? Accept therefore the teaching of our Prophet of this kind, and being freed from present troubles, both living and dead enjoy the gifts of God set before you. For since God was exceedingly merciful, and saw that every man who wished to carry out in actual practice the hard and difficult law of Jesus would lose heart, He sent this His Prophet Mohammed, who would remove all its weight, would solve every difficulty; after all the delights and pleasures of the present life, promising also the joy that is there, and saving by faith alone those who obeyed him."

[21] When these wise men heard such ravings, whose madness the Saints refute, looking at one another with manly gravity, they softly smiled together, and wiping their eyes with their hands, they added that prophetic song: "The wicked have told me fables, but not like your law, O Lord: all your commandments are truth; the wicked have persecuted me, help me." Ps. 119:85 Then, turning to them, they said: "Do you truly believe this to be true and pleasing to God — this doctrine of being conquered in every concupiscence and iniquity by the appetites of depraved flesh, and of subjecting the reason that is in us as a slave to various pleasures; so that prudence cannot overcome them even in the slightest degree, and tame their resistance with the bit and bridle of temperance? What difference will there finally be between a man living thus and a brute animal? Such a law clearly bears the evident mark of being the work of one who

also wrote ravings about Solomon, saying that not God but some wild rooster had been the master of such great wisdom to him. Ps. 44:22 Then, continuing their discourse, they said: "We, O men, are disciples of those whose voices were heard addressing God: 'We have not departed from You: but for Your sake we are put to death all the day long: we are reckoned as sheep for the slaughter: nothing shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus — neither things present, nor things to come.'" Having heard this, they too returned rebuked to their Princes, no more instructed to think better.

[22] Some time passed meanwhile, when others arrived displaying a pretense equal to the former ones — those whom they call Gymnosophists: these too, having distributed alms to the captives, kissed them all and, having sat down, said: "What, The Gymnosophists argue from the progress of the Saracens, O prisoners, is impossible with God?" They replied: "Nothing — which is most befitting the divine nature." "If, therefore," they said, "all things are possible with God, let us see upon whom He bestows His power at this time — upon the Romans or the Ishmaelites? To whom has He given the richest and most famous lands for a possession — to you or to us? Whose armies does He Himself enlarge, and whose battle-lines are mowed down like hay? Is not God just? If He had not found us fulfilling His commandments, He would not so magnificently demonstrate His beneficence toward us: conversely, if He did not know you to have fallen into unbelief concerning the Prophet sent by Himself, He would by no means have given you over to be subjugated by us."

[23] The Saints replied: The Saints argue that Mohammed's law lacks the testimonies of the Prophets, "If you could be persuaded by the teachings of the holy Prophets, it would indeed be easy to convict this reasoning of yours of falsehood: could you indeed adduce a passage of theirs from Scripture inspired by God, since you do not approach this; and you adhere only to your master; and you reproach us for being afflicted because of unbelief concerning him? Come, answer us also when we ask. If two men are litigating over the possession of a single field, and one cries out without witnesses, insisting that the field should be adjudged to himself; while the other, without contention, brings many distinguished witnesses who say that the field should be given to him rather than to the other: whose possession, O Saracens, do you think that field will become?" "His, manifestly," they say, "who brings the most trustworthy witnesses." "Rightly," say the Saints; "so we therefore judge on equal terms between the Saracens' master and the only-begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ came, made man from a Virgin (as we have heard you yourselves often asserting), having with Him all the ancient and undoubtedly trustworthy Prophets foretelling His coming and dominion: furthermore, as you say, the great Mohammed was sent by God, bringing you a third law — ought not he too to have had two, or at least one, of the Prophets supporting him, to show that he was divinely sent?"

[24] When the lovers of Christ had produced this evident proof, That it is worthy of ridicule, one of them, surnamed Bassoes, replied very graciously: "The Prophet of the Saracens also has the most celebrated and truthful Isaiah foretelling about him, and if it would not be burdensome to these learned men, I would also adduce his very words." "By no means," they say; "for we know how to grant pardon to those who err out of nothing other than ignorance, even if perhaps with some injury to the Prophet." To whom he said: "Do you not say that the most recent and, as it were, the seal of all the Prophets is Mohammed?" "Truly," they say: "he alone is the true and first Prophet." To which the lover of Christ replied: "But Isaiah, whom you also acknowledge as a Prophet of God, says somewhere: 'The Lord will destroy the head and the tail from Israel,' which someone interpreting says: 'The head means the Prince who is a respecter of persons; the other means the Prophet who teaches iniquity: this, evidently, is the tail.' Is. 9:14 Do not be disturbed, I beg you: and they show how absurd are the things prescribed in it: is not this unjust to us — that your Prophet legislated that no one who has put away his wife out of hatred should go out again to take her back, unless she has first been married to another? For let us pass over the other absurdities of his prophecy and law: to me this certainly seems to be what that truthful Prophet Isaiah called the 'tail.'"

[25] "We too know how to philosophize," they say: "but if it has so pleased God, who are we to resist Him? Mohammed does not need the testimony of men, since he was appointed a prophet by God and received such laws from Him." The Christian replied: "Perhaps it was also bringing you a command from God that he prescribed the frequent marriages — or, to speak more truly — the furious madness toward women during the time of your fasts, and the continuing of lasciviousness and gluttony throughout all those nights until dawn?" "Most certainly," they say.

[26] But the Saints said: "There remains one of your arguments to be dissolved — the one drawn from military triumphs: Then they respond to the previously raised objections. since you wish to define religion by military successes. Do you perhaps not remember the past victories of the Persians, by which they subjugated nearly the whole world? Then that of the Greeks, by whom the Persians too were overcome? And after these succeeded the empire of the ancient Romans, encompassing the entire world. What then? Were those men worshippers of the true religion? Did they not all follow an idolatrous multitude of Gods, even to the point of madness? Whence then such great victory and power for them? Therefore it falls to the truly pious both to win victories from God from time to time, and also to be overcome most easily, when through ingratitude they offend God, the giver of victory, sinning without repentance: but He, to exact vengeance for the crimes they have committed, uses not virtuous people, but most wicked men. And this is what escapes you, and causes you to think yourselves pious, although you are by no means so. But let what has been said so far suffice: for we who are Christians by no means accept a master who lacks the agreement and testimony of the holy Prophets — not to say their adversary." Having said these things, these men returned to their Prince, reporting to him the steadfast spirit of those men in their religion: and the Saints, equally drenched in tears, gave thanks to God that they were Christians at all, and that they endured these hardships for His truth: and they supplicated and besought with great urgency that those who were held in the errors of the impious Mohammed be delivered from so foolish and irrational a devotion.

CHAPTER III.

The Final Contest of the Saints for the Faith.

[27] Confined in this manner for seven full years, carrying about a soul failing on account of the hardships of prison, After seven years of prison patiently endured, they did not cease night and day to meditate on the Psalms of David, nor did they relax the care of continuing their prayers both in common and privately: but they directed perpetual thanksgiving for all things to God; and especially for their own salvation, which they could not doubt was ordered by His manifold providence. For, purified through tribulation from the stains of past pleasures, and enlightened in spirit through the constancy of prayer and solitary quiet, they spoke thus to one another: "What shall we render to the Lord, who loves us so greatly and deems us worthy of the happiness of suffering for Him? For behold, the labors to be endured for virtue, from which we were far removed in the world and would not even willingly receive mention of them, we now endure in the seventh year without harm, He Himself entirely strengthening us: and would that it may also be permitted to say from the Testament: 'I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.'" Ps. 116:13

[28] Therefore, while the Saints persevered in such exercise and meditation, on the fifth day of the month of March, as the sun was already declining toward its setting, there came to the prison a certain former leader of our army, well known to the Saints, who is said to have been the betrayer of that great city, Boodes the apostate, an apostate from the Christian faith and an initiate of the Saracens, surnamed Boodes;^a and standing before the doors of the prison, he called out a certain man named Constantine,^b a learned man adorned with every virtue, the notary and fellow-captive of Constantine the Patrician: and he ordered him to approach alone through a certain opening; for he claimed he had certain secrets to report to him. When the most religious man was listening to him alone, Boodes said: "You know, most wise lord, what great love I have had for a long time to this day toward your lord, the Patrician Constantine: since therefore I have learned for certain He announces the decree of death and tempts the notary Constantine to defect, that the Protosymbolus has formed a plan to kill him tomorrow, unless perchance he consents to pray together with him, I have hurried to present to you my opinion, by which you might be saved from such a death. Therefore persuade him to attend the Saracen rites: and you do the same: but in spirit do by no means depart from the Christian faith, and the Lord will be propitious to you on account of the pressing necessity."

[29] But that true lover of Christ, forming a cross with his hand against the face of that impious man, said: "Depart from us, worker of iniquity." When the one beloved of God, the Patrician, entered the inner custody, he asked who had called him and for what reason? To whom the religious man, taking him aside in secret, reported the sentence of his death: but he suppressed the impious counsel of the other in silence, fearing lest the devil might perhaps gain some ground against him and trip him up with terrifying thoughts, as if only circumcision were what he was sentenced to. He courageously prepares himself for death. But the Martyr of Christ, immediately giving thanks to God, said: "The Lord's will be done." Then, drawing up a written testament through the hand of the most holy Constantine concerning his own affairs, he exhorted all his fellow-captives to stand by him in singing hymns to God throughout the whole night.

[30] When they had done this, early in the morning a certain leader arrived, The next morning they are led out of prison: with a terrifying display and a large escort of armed men, sent by the Protosymbolus: ordering the doors of the prison to be broken open, he commanded the leaders to come forth from their bonds. Forty-two men therefore came out from custody, and the door was immediately shut again at his command. Then he said to the Saints standing before him: "How many years do you think have passed while you have been confined here?" "Why do you ask a known fact?" they reply. "This is now the seventh year in all." "From so prolonged a captivity of so many years," the other adds, "you have certainly learned how great was the affection of humanity and compassion of the most faithful Protosymbolus toward you: They are tempted again: for the fury that was always armed against enemies did not carry him away to order your execution, which he could have done long ago: nor did it carry away the one who succeeded him in dignity. It was fitting therefore that, having experienced his gentleness and long-suffering, and seeing him demonstrate these toward captives, you should pray for him and love him with all your heart." To which the Saints replied: "Since indeed our law prescribes that we pray for our persecutors, we do so: but to love him in the way you describe is not permitted by our Prophet, who says to God: Ps. 139:21 'Because those who

hate You, O Lord, I hated.'"

[31] But the leader said: "How is it possible to pray for someone while hating him? You surely err when you say you pray for him." "Truly," say the Saints, "we said that: for we prayed for him before God, that He would infuse in him the true knowledge of Himself, in place of what he now falsely thinks he truly has: and if this had been done, we would have striven not only to love him but also to honor him greatly, according to the saying of our master: 'But to me Your friends, O God, are exceedingly honored.'" Ps. 139:17 The leader said to them: "This speech of yours pertains to our entire nation. Are the Roman Princes then so deranged as to think that so great a multitude and the power of a nation so grand and so strong could be gathered together without divine providence? For this necessarily follows, if we are hateful to God."

[32] The Saints said: "We do not say that: for we know that no one subsists who is destitute of divine providence, even though he has never heard the name of God — indeed, even though he shamelessly heaps continual insults upon Him: They show that God cannot be called the author of evil: but that your opinion about God is erroneous: for while confessing the name of God and the mighty works that should be present with Him — namely, that He is the creator of all things both visible and invisible — you mock Him by asserting Him to be the author of both evil and good, the creator of both truth and falsehood, of both equity and iniquity, of both justice and injustice, of both modesty and arrogance, of both gentleness and impudence, of both wisdom and luxury, and however many other contrary virtues and actions there are, that it is not necessary to enumerate them all here. If, therefore, it were possible for the things said about Him by you to be found true and subsisting, we would indeed rightly say that you had found the true knowledge of God: but if, as much as the deepest darkness is distant from the sun — and even more — the cause of evil is absent from that blessed essence, and what does not exist at all cannot appear with Him to whom alone it properly belongs to exist: how would you not be reproved, thinking that you have, but in reality by no means having, the true knowledge of God — the consequence of which is to hate God as He truly exists?"

[33] "What then," responds the leader, "do you say there is another God who is the effector of evil and sin, Nor that Christians believe in two Gods: which we see branded everywhere upon the whole world? So then there will be two Gods — one good, the other evil — and how could it be possible for the world to subsist with them fighting against each other?" The Saints replied: "We do not say there is a different God, distinct from Him who is good, who is the author of evil — far be it: but that a certain one of the Angels was found who, by the spontaneous choice of his free will, busied himself with what was by no means useful to him and contrary to good things, and through love of these proceeded first to hatred of God, But that the author of sin is called the devil, and then also of men: and thus finally it was permitted him to exercise the testing of our free will, and to try whether we incline it toward God, or rather comply with his suggestions. You therefore, drawn by him into error, have attributed his evil deeds to God who is subject to no passions and is altogether immutable." And yet the leader adds: "The Prophet Mohammed teaches that the omnipotent God is the author of every human action, whether evil or good." The Saints said: "It seems, therefore, that he fashioned within himself another God, such as the Greeks called the Agathodaemon, and delivered him to you for worship — one who neither exists nor ever will exist. But we know and confess the true God, proclaimed in the old law by the holy Prophets, and in the evangelical law by the Apostles of Christ — the author, namely, of good things only: and we acknowledge no other God."

[34] They steadfastly confess Christ, The leader said to them: "Do you not wish, therefore, to worship today with the most faithful Protosymbolus? For it is for this reason that I have been sent to you: and I know that there are some among you who desire to obtain that happiness — whom, when those who refuse see them immediately glorified on that account, they will bewail their own unhappiness and imprudent stubbornness." To which the Saints all with one voice agreed to answer: "We pray the one true God that not only the Protosymbolus, but also you, and the entire nation of the Saracens, may withdraw from the impious error of Mohammed, and render worship and adoration to God alone, proclaimed through the Prophets and Apostles of Christ: and may it not befall us to pass from light to darkness of our own will."

[35] "See to it," said the leader, "what you say, lest you repent: for this stubbornness of yours will not be dismissed as if through negligence, without great punishments." But the Saints said: "We commend our souls to God, who is immortal and truthful, and in Him we trust that to our very last breath, the faith which we have in Him must not be denied by us." To whom he said again: And they reject the promises made to them: "The orphanhood of your children and the widowhood of your spouses will be cast against you on the day of judgment: because they are today deprived of all of you, inasmuch as you refuse to worship according to the will of the Prince. For the greatest Protosymbolus could command your boy Emperor to send them all here safe and sound: but even now, if you are willing to convert and have received and confessed the Prophet Mohammed, you will, as I said, shortly see all your family members, whom it will be most joyful for you to recognize. For a woman now rules Romania, and she will not be able to contradict the command of the great Protosymbolus. And do not be anxious about wealth and possessions: for the tributes of Egypt, which the most devoted friend of his own, the Protosymbolus, will provide for you for one year, will be sufficient to enrich your posterity down to the tenth generation." Then, as if from one mouth, the Saints exclaimed: "Anathema upon Mohammed and upon all who confess him as a Prophet."

[36] Immediately therefore the leader ordered them to be seized by armed soldiers, And so they are dragged away to execution, their hands bound behind their backs, and dragged like lambs to the place of slaughter. At this sight, an infinite multitude of Saracens and Christians began to run together to the spectacle of the coming execution. And they had already approached nearer to the river Euphrates (for around it their great city Samara is situated), when the leader, calling one of the Saints — Theodore by name, but surnamed Craterus, that is, "the Strong" — said to him: "You who were once a cleric, Theodore, from priest to soldier, and of the Order which the Christians call sacerdotal; since you cast aside so great a rank, and put on the spear and military arms, becoming guilty of human blood — why do you now contend by dissembling to appear a Christian, being conscious that you have long since abjured the Christian religion? Ought you not rather to defect to the teaching of the Prophet and Apostle Mohammed, and from him obtain help and salvation? The crime of apostasy to be washed away by martyrdom, You, I say, who have no hope of confidence with Christ, having been previously denied by your own voluntary desertion." "Indeed," replied the noble Martyr of Christ, "for this very reason all the more must I now pour out my blood for His faith and love, so that the good one may grant me pardon for those things which I have committed against Him. Does not your own runaway slave, who then returns and fights to the death for your sake, obtain remission of his former desertion and ingratitude on account of his later fidelity?" "Then," replies the leader, "let your will be fulfilled; I have proposed what was beneficial for you."

[37] When the Ethiopian executioners were sharpening their swords, and some here and there were hurling them high and catching them again, He encourages Constantine, this Craterus, most dear to God, being anxious for the Patrician, lest a feeling of faintheartedness might steal upon him at the sight of the slaughter of his friends — since he stood nearest to him — said: "Come, my lord, since you surpass us all both in the eminence of your dignity and in the adornment of your virtues, you must also be the first of us all, and be the first to receive the crown of martyrdom from the heavenly King, Christ Jesus: just as you were honored with gifts bestowed before all others by the earthly Emperor." When the Patrician heard this most holy argument from him, he said to him: "Rather, you go first and do this with great fortitude of spirit, and you will have me and all who are with me following."

[38] No more was needed for one hastening to the crown. Having therefore made his prayer, And he precedes the rest in death, commending his soul to God, he approached the executioner and with a ready spirit underwent a glorious death. After him the rest of the Saints also, in order, each according to his former rank, as if they were vying with one another in due honor to approach a royal table, concluded their lives with a noble death: none of them displaying any appearance either of dread or of hesitation; so much so that the leader himself was astounded at their approach to death joined with singular confidence.

^a Above in Cedrenus and others, as also below, he is called Baditzes.

^b Whether Constantine the Notary was joined to the Martyrs of whom we treat, we cannot determine. His virtue and constancy are praised.

EPILOGUE

[39] The Martyrs crowned with a triple crown, This was the Saints' manner of contending for Christ; such was their most blessed end out of love for Him: to which the beginning was given by military expeditions, and the thousandfold calamities occasioned by them, of men fighting against the impious and defending the Church of God and, according to the prescription of the Gospel, laying down their lives for their brethren. These were the chief leaders of those blessed men we have described, crowned with the crown of a triple victory: for they were neither led astray from the right way by the Imperial heresy, which attacked Christ through the elimination of His image; they took up arms for the salvation of their homeland; and they cheerfully accepted death for Christ.

[40] Rivals of the Forty of Sebastea, These were once the equals of every most noble man, and were glorious both in flesh and in spirit: these, similar in both number and honor to those great and ancient forty Martyrs of Christ, mystically declared through the very number of two by which they exceeded them that this sacred number of forty would be similar and equal to theirs, and would be a second one: since they themselves also perished on the same days of the Lenten fast; so that they had all things in common with them — the time, the faith, the death, and the crowns. Their unshaken faith strengthened many in Christ: of whom it recalled some who were already straying, confirmed others who were wavering; and even preserved the still-intact from harm. The allurements of pleasures did not carry them away; the prolonged endurance of miseries in prison did not dissolve the intensity of the love by which they were borne toward Christ; barbarian ferocity and insolence did not terrify their manly spirit.

[41] Victory over the devil, Nor could the enemy and deceiver of souls trip them up, although he had set in motion every kind of deception against them — promising riches and power: setting before them abundance of possessions, servants, and a thousand things comfortable to the body: heaping up fears, threats, straits, reproaches, and the enticements of persuasive words. And this not by now attacking the athletes of Christ, now withdrawing from them, but in such a way that he never ceased during nearly that entire period of seven years to persecute and harass

them, so that they might fall away from the love of Christ: but in all things and through all things, they repulsed the enemy, vanquished and broken by the strength of Christ's Martyrs, by no means sparing their own bodies; because they fought for the salvation of the soul alone.

[42] Gain from captivity, They turned the hardships of most difficult captivity into an occasion of profitable trade and of acquiring the kingdom of heaven: and the very way by which most are led to perdition was for them the entrance to the path leading to salvation and sovereignty. They too can say with the Apostle: 2 Tim. 4:7 "We have fought the good fight, we have finished the course, we have kept the faith; henceforth there are laid up for us the crowns of righteousness, which the just Judge will give us in that day: and not to us only, but also to all who fight for Him and strive to add something to the sacrifice which He offered for us."

[43] Triumph over the barbarians, O pure and perfect sacrifice! O chosen victims! O offerings acceptable to God! A rational oblation, a holocaust of sweetest odor, a sacrifice of praise, bringing true glory to Christ! Through you the prostrated pride of the barbarians clearly recognized how much stronger are a few soldiers of Christ than an infinite multitude of the impious: and that neither abundance of power or piety gave them this confidence against the Christians, but the abundance of our sins; since a few who were pleasing to God most easily triumphed over them, and having won a victory which they considered greater than that which is won over bodies, they deployed all kinds of goods like siege engines to circumvent you, He congratulates them, but were by no means able to prevail.

[44] Through you the Imperial city is adorned. Of you all who hold positions of dignity or who have been admitted to the Senate boast. When Christians offer their prayers in wars to you, they also experience you as helpers. You who once shared in our sufferings and knew how miserable and uncertain a life we lead, how much confusion and harshness are found in it — And he petitions their intercession. be also outstanding intercessors for us before Christ, for whom you contended; praying at the same time for the salvation of our souls and bodies, in Christ our Lord Himself, with whom be to the Father and the Holy Spirit glory, honor, and adoration now and always and forever and ever. Amen.

FIRST APPENDIX

The Martyrdom of These Saints.

From the Manuscript Chronicle of the Continuator of Theophanes.

Theodore Craterus Protospatharius, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Constantine Drungarius, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Callistus Turmarcha, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Aetius, General, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Melissenus, General, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Theophilus Patricius, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Bassoes, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

The Other Thirty-Five Leaders of the Troops, Martyrs, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria

As time went on, Amorium bravely defended, when many on both sides — both attackers and defenders — had fallen, and the Agarenes, making no progress, had much abated their arrogance, at length the entire multitude of the people, numbering up to seventy thousand after the destruction, fell by the sword: for it was not possible to escape the exterminating sword of divine vengeance, on account of the sins by which they had provoked the divine majesty, compounded by the crime of heresy. The affair was conducted in this manner. Among those whose spirit and faith had failed, there was a certain wretch named Baditzes: this man, when the barbarians were already about to depart and return to their own territory in shame, by letters sent with an arrow, said: "What? Betrayed by Baditzes, Having endured so much, will you withdraw empty-handed, exhausted by fruitless labor? Come, approach those towers where you see a stone palm above and a marble lion on the outside; meet me there, one who knows your situation thoroughly and will provide excellently for it. Since the fortifications are weaker there, you will easily reduce those inside into your power, and you will judge me worthy of great honor." They came, therefore, as they had been commanded, and entering by stealth, they began to cut down and slaughter whomever they encountered. There was no one who escaped death: It is captured and destroyed. all fell, with streams of blood flowing everywhere. Thus Amorium was destroyed, and the citizens, betrayed by the cruel hands of the impious, were most cruelly slain, with only those left alive who were sent to Baghdad — the leaders of the troops and the stronger men, among whom the forty-nine Martyrs are to be counted: all the rest were consumed by the enemy's sword. For not even by a second embassy could Theophilus succeed in getting the enemy to allow them to be ransomed for two hundred hundred-weights, and the captive people to be freed from the enemies' hands: requesting, if that were denied, The leaders demanded back in vain, at least those who were related to him by blood and had been sent there as a garrison. But the tyrant, elated and puffed up with immoderate insolence, sent back both the first and second envoys in mockery, adding the insult of words, saying: "Do you wish to buy for so few hundred-weights what has cost us up to a thousand, spent freely and for honor's sake?" Theophilus, shaken in spirit by these words, Emperor Theophilus dies, and as if seized by some boiling fire, found it necessary to use the refreshment of water drawn from snow, which itself even seemed lukewarm from the intense heat of his heart: whence it happened that he contracted the disease of dysentery from such drinking, and by that very disease migrated from this life, even unwillingly.

[2] The Agarene, having returned to his own region, locked the captive leaders in stocks in a dark prison, They are led away captive: ordering them to endure life there on scant water and bread: and they were kept bound in such darkness that even at full midday not even the smallest ray of light shone upon them, and they could not recognize one another except by the sound of the voice, excluded from the company of all people except the guards, as if they were living in a vast wilderness. In these miseries they persevered for a full seven years: until on the fifth day of the month of March, the one who had betrayed Amorium and abjured Christ — Boiditzes — came to the prison, calling out Constantine, a man nurtured in the studies of wisdom, who was the Patrician's secretary and keeper of records; having first declared that no one of those inside could be made aware of the secrets he had come to communicate. When Constantine declared that no one was present, he said: "Come now, They are solicited to apostasy by Baditzes: most dear and sweet soul; for you know what ardent love I have been joined to you from the beginning. Come, I say, and together with the Patrician, be willing tomorrow to pray with the Protosymbolus and attend his rites, lest you miserably perish, pierced by swords and spears: for since this matter is as dear to his heart as anything can be, I thought it fitting to make it known to you as a faithful friend: and to urge that by outwardly complying with him to some extent, you adhere inwardly in faith to God who searches hearts: and do not fall from the hope of eternal life by sinning."

[3] But he, not easily softened or deceived, replied with steadfast spirit: And they devoutly prepare themselves for death, "Away from me, worker of iniquity; away, far away!" And saying this, he rushed away and called the Patrician aside, and of what had been said to him he clearly announced nothing, fearing lest some thought of faintheartedness might creep upon the disturbed man; but he explained only this one thing — that sentence of death had been passed against them for the morrow. The Patrician gave thanks to God at this; and when he had arranged his affairs, he roused all those present through Constantine to continue hymns throughout that whole night. To be undergone at last in the seventh year: When morning came, a certain tribune approached with a terrifying appearance and ordered the leaders alone to come out: and forty-two men came forth, and when he had ordered the prison to be immediately shut, he said: "What year of your captivity is this?" And he foolishly babbled many other things, wishing to induce them to consent to his impiety. They replied that this was indeed the seventh year: but to the rest of his discourse, seeking their response with noble and brave spirit from the divine scriptures, they were sentenced to the punishment of death.

[4] When they came to the Euphrates (for beside it their city Samara was built and stood), the most wicked man addressed Theodore Craterus, Theodore questioned by name, to see if he could perhaps draw him by fear of death to abjure the faith. "And you, Theodore," he said, "with what confidence of soul do you hope to approach God through death, whose salutary commandments, as you are wont to call them, you by no means loved? For you neither returned from the clerical Order, in which you were once enrolled, to that state; nor do you have hands clean of blood, which you again defiled with manifold contamination and uncleanness in wars." Theodore, without any hesitation, replied: "For that very reason I also hasten to pour out my own blood, He spurns the offer of life, that making it a bath for my sins and a price of redemption, I may deserve to be rewarded with His kingdom. And indeed, if one of your servants who ran away and then returned were to serve you thenceforth with a service pleasing to you, I do not think he would find you ungrateful, being excluded from pardon."

[5] Then, like an Olympian champion, entering the arena of the contest, and turning to the Patrician Constantine, as if to drive away a creeping dread and fear, he said: "Come, O soldier of Christ, you to whom in life it fell to be the first of us all before the earthly King: be the first also to receive the crown of martyrdom. And he encourages the others. But to you," replied Constantine, "as one noble and brave, that prerogative is owed: and therefore, delivering yourself first to death, you will have me following." Therefore, encouraging and exhorting one another, they proceeded to martyrdom to be concluded by death, in the order of the dignities each had held in the world; all admiring the remarkable readiness and eagerness of their spirit.

APPENDIX II.

The Martyrdom and Burial of the Same Saints.

From the Manuscript Chronicle of Simeon the Logothete.

Theodore Craterus Protospatharius, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Constantine Drungarius, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Callistus Turmarcha, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Aetius, General, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Melissenus, General, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Theophilus Patricius, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

Bassoes, Martyr, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria (Saint)

The Other Thirty-Five Leaders of the Troops, Martyrs, captured at Amorium, killed in Syria

When the Saracens advanced against Amorium, the Emperor immediately fled all the way to Cappadocia. After the Emperor was defeated and Amorium captured, Amermumnes then selected fifty thousand men and, placing over them Gudes, the most celebrated general among the Agarenes, sent them against the Emperor; and when battle was joined, the Emperor was defeated and fled, and returned with great disgrace, barely saving his life. The Saracens then, surrounding Amorium and making many assaults, and seeing the city constantly defended by those within, were thinking of withdrawal: but a certain disciple of Leo the Philosopher, being in the fortress, advised them that if they persevered for two days, they would win the victory, as indeed happened. For the city was betrayed to them by Baditzes and Manicophanes: With the barbarian refusing the ransom for the leaders, and the most renowned men were captured — Theophilus the Patrician and army commander, Melissenus and Aetius and

Theodore the Protospatharius and eunuch Craterus, Callistus the Turmarcha, Constantine the Drungarius, and Bassoes the Prefect of the Couriers, together with some leaders of the troops: whom the Emperor, wishing to ransom, sent envoys to Amermumnes with two hundred hundred-weights; to whom the latter was by no means persuaded and replied that even if he promised a thousand hundred-weights for the sake of ransoming the captives, he would not free even a single one of them all.

Led away therefore as captives to Syria, they suffered much violence not only from the Protosymbolus, After seven years of imprisonment they are beheaded: but also from Baditzes, worn down by seven years of custody: but since they could by no means be induced to deny Christ, they were finally struck with the sword, loving eternal life above temporal; and after one day they were cast into the river. Then indeed something utterly remarkable happened: that each head, after amputation, was reunited to its body and grew together, and just as the souls were received into the same place of paradise, so too the bodies obtained a common burial from the faithful. After they were killed, And after them Baditzes the traitor, the Protosymbolus ordered Baditzes also to be beheaded, saying that even if he was a true Christian, he ought not to have apostatized. When this was done and his body was cast into the current together with the aforesaid Saints, it was found outside their heap; and his head, far from it, was by no means reunited to his body, as had happened for the Saints who were likewise rolled into the river: and while the bodies of all the Saints were carried straight to the opposite bank in the sight of the people, this one man's body was torn apart, mangled, and devoured by crocodiles.

CONCERNING SAINT CORPREUS, OR CARBREUS, BISHOP OF CLONMACNOISE IN IRELAND,

IN THE YEAR 899.

Corpreus, or Carbreus, Bishop in Ireland (Saint)

[1] Clonmacnoise was in the borders of Western Meath, as Colgan attests; and in it Corpreus, or Corbreus, surnamed Crom, celebrated with outstanding praise for sanctity, was appointed to the place of the Bishop Moeldarius, Saint Corbreus, Bishop, who died, as the Irish annals report, in the year 886. Colgan reasonably thinks that some Acts and a Life of his exist: for the illustrious testimonies about him adduced by Colgan from native hagiologies argue this, which we shall not hesitate to transcribe from him. The first is taken from the Martyrology of Donegal, as he names it: because it was recently compiled in the Donegal convent by the Irish Franciscans, about which he himself writes much in the preface to volume 1 on the Saints of Ireland. The words of this Martyrology at this 6th day of March are as follows:

[2] "Corpreus, surnamed Crooked, Bishop of Clonmacnoise, head of the religion of nearly all Ireland in his time. The soul of King Malachy appearing, He is the one to whom the spirit of Malachy, son of Moelruanacius, King of Ireland, appeared. For when one day after Vespers he was alone at prayer in his church, someone appeared to him in human and very black form, and stood before him. The Bishop asked him and in the power of God commanded him to declare who he was. He answered that he was King Malachy, son of Moelruanacius; and he explained to him what great torments of punishment he was suffering, and for what reasons he and his Confessor were suffering such torments in Purgatory. The Bishop turned to the other Priests of his Church, and it was agreed among them that, with a fast proclaimed, the Bishop should intercede with the divine majesty for the King, and the Priests for his priestly Confessor, for their liberation from the punishments. They did so according to the agreement, remaining in prayers for half a year."

[3] "After half a year, the King appeared to the Bishop while he was fervently praying, [He requests a year's prayers for himself and his Confessor to be freed from purgatory,] bearing a form that was shining on one half and black on the other, as before: and he gave thanks to the Bishop, by whose merits he had been freed to such an extent; and he asked him to continue his prayers for the remaining part of the year, and thus he would be completely freed. The Bishop consented: and when the year was completed, the King again appeared to him in beautiful and resplendent form: and he rendered due thanks to the holy Bishop for the benefits bestowed: and he related that he would soon fly to heaven on that very day, and that the Priest would follow the next day. When the Bishop asked why they would not ascend together, he replied that the reason for his earlier liberation had been the excellence of the prayer and merits of his intercessor compared with the merits and prayers of the twelve Priests who were interceding for his Confessor." So much there, which deserve all the more credit with us because they are reported more fully and exactly by the ancient Scholiast of the Festilogy of Aengus, or the author of the supplement to the same Festilogy: from which Colgan copied the following:

[4] "There was at Clonmacnoise an outstanding Bishop, who was called Corpreus the Crooked; In a black form, and he was the head of Religion among nearly all the Irish in his time. It happened, when he was at prayer in his church after Vespers, that he saw someone appearing in a very black form and standing before him; and in such a shape that a bright circle encircled his neck, and he was clothed in a single tunic lacking one sleeve. The holy man said to him: 'Who are you? I do not know you.' He replied: 'I am a spirit.' 'What,' said the Bishop, 'has so blackened you?' 'The multitude of my sins,' he said, 'and the severity of my punishments.' 'Were prayers poured out for you?' said the Bishop. 'And did you have spiritual friends from the clergy while you lived?' 'It has profited me more,' he said, 'that I was buried at Clonmacnoise than what they did for me: for I shall appear on the day of judgment according to the intercession of Saint Kieran.'"

[5] "'It is wretched,' said the Bishop, 'if you did not have And in a garment indicating few alms, some spiritual director, and did not perform good works at his judgment.' 'I had,' said the spirit, 'a certain spiritual director, namely a Priest of the Clergy of Clonmacnoise: nor however did I render him many services, except that I had a golden ring made, which I gave to him. But what good did this do, when I am now tortured with great torments? Woe to the man who puts on flesh and does not have a spiritual director, and does not do good works in life.' 'What is the point of this?' said the Bishop. 'Did you have the means to perform good works?' 'Oh! Woe, woe to me,' he said, 'Lord Bishop. I am Malachy, grandson of Dunchad through his son Moelruanacius, King of Ireland; who did not lack the means for doing good.' 'Oh, the miseries!' said the Bishop. 'What is happening to the Priest who was your Confessor, and have the alms given done any good?' 'He himself,' said the King, 'is tortured with immense torments, and the ring which I gave him, like a single circle of fire, encircles his neck; he cannot, alas, help me; indeed he himself is in a worse state.'"

[6] "'Why then do you also,' said the Bishop, 'have Namely, of a ring and a single tunic, that very bright circle around your neck?' 'This,' he said, 'is the reward and pledge of the ring I gave to the Priest.' 'But why are you clothed in such a tunic?' The King replied: 'On a certain occasion, some scholars of this Church came to me, supplicating that I provide clothing to cover the nakedness of a certain poor and half-naked student whom they presented. But I (since I did not have at hand anything else from which to help) commanded the Queen to see that a certain precious tunic of mine be given to him: and this is the reason for my tunic-like covering. But what was the reason for this apparition of yours?' said the holy man. The King answered: 'When a little before I was being tortured in the air among demons flagellating me on every side, the sound of the psalmody of your Lordships praising the Lord was heard, by which, terrified and scattered here and there through the air, the demons were put to flight. For the evil spirits cannot stay in any place, whether on earth or in the air, where they hear your psalmodies.'"

[7] The Saint refuses the treasure offered by him, "After these conversations the King said: 'O woe, woe to me, I must now return to those same torturers: but I would store up for you some reward for this small refreshment, if it pleased you to accept it.' 'How?' said the holy man. 'On a certain occasion,' he said, 'when I had attacked Dublin to engage in battle with the Norse enemies, among the spoils I received a hundred ounces of gold and a thousand of silver; which I hid, concealed in a certain place underground, in the presence of one of my servants, whom I afterwards had killed lest he reveal or carry off that treasure. But those moneys, with no one surviving who knows of them, lie there to this day: I will point out the place to you, and dispose of the money as you please.' 'I declare,' said the holy man, 'that I will not accept more from one whom a lesser almsgiving, which he bestowed in life, did not profit; and therefore I absolutely renounce your treasures.' Then that spirit leaped away wailing and saying: 'Woe, woe to him who does not do good works while the time for doing good is granted.'"

[8] "After this the holy man assembled the Priests of his Church, who were twelve in number: and he narrated to them the series of this deplorable case, [And he undertakes to pray for the King himself, and his Priests under him for his Confessor,] and asked whether they were willing to cooperate with prayers and intercession, so that the King and his Confessor might be freed from such great torments. They answered that the Bishop should undertake to free the King, and the Priests the fellow-priest, from the punishments. It was so concluded; and prayers and fasts were proclaimed by them to that end. After they had persevered in these for half a year, the King again appeared to the Bishop, bearing a form that was white and splendid on one half, and black and dark on the other. And when the holy man asked him in what state he now found himself, he replied that things were indeed going better; but that he was still tortured with such torments that, at the summit of a certain tree, above the dreadful height of the abyss below, he was tormented without rest or intermission amid the blasts and cold of the winds: and it was a wonder that there was anyone among those who were assigned to undergo punishments in the next life, however small, who did not think himself tortured in hell." Having said these things, he vanished.

[9] "The holy man continued in the proclaimed fasts and prayers until the end of the year: He appears to his benefactor, now freed, and when the year had thus passed, while he was alone and devoted to prayer in the same place, the same spirit appeared to him for the third time in a bright and beautiful form: and thinking it to be the aforesaid King who appeared thus, he asked him in what state he then was. He replied that he was in an excellent state; and that he would soon ascend to heaven in white and shining form; and that his Priest Confessor would follow him on the very next day. And when the man of God asked why he would not rather go in company, he replied that the excellence of his merits and prayers compared with the merits and prayers of the Priests interceding for his Confessor had been the cause of his earlier release. Then the King, giving thanks and blessing him, flew to heaven before his eyes."

[10] "Our Annals also report," says Colgan, continuing these accounts, The Connaughtmen, on account of the injury inflicted upon him, "a certain vengeance divinely taken upon the army of the Connaughtmen, who rashly inflicted violence upon the sacred place over which this holy Bishop had presided; which is rightly judged to be attributed equally to the merits of both himself and Saint Kieran: for the Connaughtmen in the year eight hundred and ninety-four invaded the borders of Western Meath with a strong force: nor did the soldiers refrain from plundering and pillaging, until they finally invaded a certain island of Lough Ree, called Inis-Angin, in which, together with the sacred shrines of Saint Kieran, there were then Saint Corpreus the Bishop and the Clergy of the Church of Clonmacnoise: in whose sight they slaughtered some, Are punished with a great defeat: with no reverence for the holy Bishop or the sacred relics. But with God avenging the injury done to His own and the sacrilege committed, the same army on the same day suffered a great defeat and was routed at the town of Athlone."

[11] "The man of God, renowned for merits and virtues, in the year of restored salvation eight hundred and ninety-nine, gave up his spirit to heaven on the sixth day of March, His veneration proved from the Calendars, on which day his birthday is celebrated in the church of Clonmacnoise, as the domestic Festilogies record" — namely (for thus far Colgan) the Tamlacht Martyrology, in which no one younger than Saint Corbreus is found named; whence its antiquity is established, and therefore its great authority in the present matter; since it can be believed to have been written not many years after the death of Saint Corbreus, or at least in the tenth century. Likewise the Martyrologies of Marian Gorman and Cathal Maguire: from which and from the eulogies related, it seems sufficiently certain that one in whose life such illustrious things were reported was not left without public veneration among a people quite liberal in decreeing it.

[12] The age of King Malachy, As for King Malachy: he died in the year 860 according to the Four Masters, in the Annals at the same year, and in the Catalogue of the Kings of Ireland, where they write about him thus: "Malachy the First, son of Moelruanacius, son of Dunchad, etc., after having reigned sixteen years, died in the year 860." In the native Irish tongue he is called Moeleachlainn, and Giraldus Cambrensis in the Topography of Ireland, distinction 3, chapter 40, erroneously calls him O'Maclachelin and King of Meath. For he was King of Meath when he arranged for Turgesius, the Norwegian chieftain and the first disturber of both the Irish Church and the commonwealth, to be removed, before he assumed the kingdom of Ireland in the year 845. The killing of Turgesius the Norwegian. The Four Masters in the Annals refer the death of Turgesius to the year 843: whom they report was not cut down with knives by certain youths, as Giraldus relates, but captured and drowned in Lough Owel, as the most wicked tyrant, the subverter of public peace, the burner of hundreds of churches, the slayer of several thousands of Priests and Clerics, and an insatiable devourer of Christian blood, deserved.

CONCERNING SAINT CADROE, ABBOT OF METZ IN LORRAINE,

IN THE YEAR 988.

Preliminary Commentary.

Cadroe, Abbot of Metz on the Moselle (Saint)

Section I. The Acts of Saint Cadroe, and the Walciodorensian Prelature before his acceptance of the Monastery of Saint Clement.

[1] We know from Flodoard that the Synod of Duisburg was convened in the year nine hundred and twenty-seven, against those who, having attacked their Bishop Benno in ambush, had castrated and blinded him with sacrilegious brutality, Albero, Bishop of Metz, in the year 927, so that he might be less fit for conducting the pontificate; which two years earlier he had been compelled to accept, having left the Alps in which he had led an eremitical life: after the Synod had struck all the authors of so execrable a crime with the thunderbolt of a deserved excommunication, in place of Benno it appointed as Bishop Albero, "a nobleman," says Flodoard, referring his beginnings to the following year. And indeed he was noble by the distinction of his illustrious lineage, being the brother of Frederick, Duke of Lorraine: but far nobler by the virtues worthy of that rank, of which he gave an outstanding specimen in the very first year of his administration, restoring the rigor of ancient discipline and monastic observance to the monastery of Gorze, most celebrated in the entire diocese; concerning whose reform we treated at length from the Life of Saint Guibert, on February 27, Section 2, before the Acts of Blessed John, And then other monasteries, in the same place after Abbot Agenold. Nor did he accomplish less elsewhere afterwards, and especially in the sight of the city itself, from which it was barely half a mile distant — another monastery, whose administration is read to have been entrusted to Saint Cadroe, and whose beginnings are related in this manner by the Sainte-Marthe Brothers in volume 4 of Christian Gaul, page 267.

[2] And then the most ancient monastery of Saint Clement, "The tradition is that Saint Clement, Bishop and Apostle of Metz, erected an oratory there under the invocation of the Prince of the Apostles, which in the course of time became so celebrated that it served as the mausoleum of the first bishops of the same see: and Urbicius of Metz erected a more august basilica under the patronage of Saint Felix: whence it comes about that in old documents the name of the Abbey was manifold: for it was called both the monastery of the Basilicas, and from the oratory of Saint Clement and the church of Saint Felix built above it, sometimes Saint Felix and Saint Clement; but now it is simply inscribed as Saint Clement." (Namely after a new one arose within the city through the work of John Gerardini around the end of the previous century, which barely extended beyond halfway, when Charles V besieged Metz as Emperor, the former monastery had been destroyed, and the monks were forced to seek a domicile within the city.) "When secular Canons had served in it for a long time, He reduces it to regular observance in the year 938, they were ejected from that sanctuary on account of their intemperate morals, and Bishop Adalbero I, distinguished by the brilliance of his achievements, restorer of Saint Clement's, having brought monks from the Abbey of Luxeuil, around the year 938, with the basilica, cloister, and other regular buildings — consumed by age — changed and adorned to a more spacious structure, introduced the cenobites of the new congregation into this place."

[3] So much from them: they then append a catalogue of Abbots, accurately compiled by a certain ascetic of that monastery from charters and parchments, Saint Cadroe is placed in charge of this, and communicated by Pierre de Crochets, Prior of Saint Arnulf: from the same man, now Prior of Saint Clement, or else from another of the same surname and family, those documents were procured for us in this ninth year after the publication of Christian Gaul — the year of restored salvation 1665 — which we shall produce below. In this catalogue the first Abbot established is Cadroe or Cadroetus, a Scot by nation, summoned from Luxeuil on account of his piety; and his Life is said to be found in the Legenda, which states he flourished at Luxeuil with Otbert and Maximinus as companions around the year 929. We have, by the kindness of Dom Romuald Hancart, Prior of the monastery of Andain (Saint-Hubert in the Ardennes), from the manuscript parchments of that place, the Life of that Saint, written approximately twenty years after the death of the Saint by the monk Reimann, or Ousmann (for the copies vary), to the venerable Father in Christ Immo — approximately, I say, twenty years after his death: for the author prefaces by saying that he was commanded to describe something of the deeds of the blessed man Kaddroe, Whose Life, written shortly after his death, we give, as if he had been familiar with that man, though he knows nothing of his deeds except by hearsay: by which words he would seem to have sufficiently indicated that his age was such that he could have been familiar with the blessed man; unless this same thing were more clearly established from the prelature of Abbot Immo: for whether he was Immo, Abbot of Gorze, who is named with this title in a charter of Emperor Henry around the year 1006, in the Sainte-Marthes; or another of the same name from Walciodorus, who is written to have held the prelature from the year 990, each is known to have closely approached the year of Saint Cadroe's death: the latter especially, being the immediate successor of Saint Forannan, as we shall say.

[4] We also have from the monastery of Saint Clement at Metz itself the beginning of those same Acts, transmitted to us, From which it is clear he was summoned from Walciodorus, divided into nine readings (which were customarily read on the feast day): so that we can by no means conceive what that Legenda is which brings Cadroe from Luxeuil, a companion of Otbert and Maximinus, and indeed around the year 930: at which time Cadroe had not yet even thought of leaving his homeland. For no mention is made of the monastery of Luxeuil in these entire Acts; but as soon as Cadroe crossed to Gaul, he is said to have gone to Péronne, to the tomb of Saint Fursey, to consult about the place where he should serve God, and was directed by him to the matron Hersendis, who showed him a place in the Forest of Thérasche sacred to Saint Michael: where he lived with his companions under the obedience of Maccalan, who was one of them, until, touched by a desire for the monastic religious life, Macalan was sent to Gorze to Agenald, and Cadroe to Fleury to Erkembald: having been formed by their instruction and recalled by Hersendis, Maccalan was commonly ordered to preside over both the Michaelite and Walciodorensian monasteries, while Cadroe was to hold the office of Provost at Walciodorus under the aforesaid Abbot; who, finding the double charge not suitable for himself, released Cadroe from his obedience, and compelled him to govern the Walciodorensians with full authority: which he did, until he was retained at Metz by Adalbero and accepted the Abbacy of Saint Clement, with another Prelate substituted for him at Walciodorus.

Section II. The Age of Saint Cadroe. Whether He Succeeded Saint Forannan at Walciodorus?

[5] And he died in the year 988, Thus far the Acts collected in summary, which, in order to be arranged in true chronological order, it will be useful to determine in what year Cadroe departed from this life. This we can establish as the year of the common Era 988. For in that year Emperor Otto II, as Dithmar attests near the end of book 3, held an assembly of Italian princes at Verona, and setting out for Rome a few days later, having left his venerable mother in the city of Pavia, he fell gravely ill and died on December 7: so that it is credible that in February of this very year, the Empress Adelaide, heading for Italy in the company of her son, arrived at Neheristein on the bank of the river Rhine, whence sending envoys to Metz, she asked the man of God Kaddroe to come to her out of charity. He came: he stayed four days and two with the Empress, and on his return, seized by illness, the veteran old man, after the seventieth year of his life and the thirtieth of his pilgrimage, A decade after Saint Macalan: (the Sainte-Marthes, agreeing with us on the year of Christ, say incorrectly the 79th of his life and the 32nd of his rule) put off mortality, having survived by a full decade his companion and Abbot Saint Macalan; at whose death the twelve-year appendix attached to the chronicle of Flodoard, by one who was then living, concludes with these words: "In the year 978 the man of the Lord, Maccallin, an Irishman by nation, on the vigil of Saint Vincent the Levite and Martyr, left the transitory life which he held in contempt, and happily began to live with the Lord, whom he had served unceasingly while he still lived: the aforesaid Abbot rests buried in body in the church of the Blessed Archangel Michael, whose abbey, while he remained bodily in this world, he governed with pious moderation."

[6] We treated of Saint Maccallin or Maccalan on January 21: and since in the catalogues of the Abbots of Walciodorus, Cadroe and then Maccalan were written as having succeeded Saint Forannan, we left undecided And that neither succeeded Saint Forannan, whether credence should be given to this so ancient writer

against the Walciodorensian Chronicle, compiled and extended beyond the year 50 of the thirteenth century; in which he is written to have died in the year of the Lord's Incarnation nine hundred and ninety: and the same Cadroe is said to have been from the group of twelve companions of Saint Forannan, who in the year of the Lord's Incarnation nine hundred and sixty-three, leaving his own land, [In the year 963, first brought there, twenty-three years after the founding of Walciodorus,] entered the monastery of this dwelling — as is read there: and much earlier, when it had been written: "In the year nine hundred and forty-four, the ninth of Otto I, the foundations of the church were laid, and everything completed in beautiful workmanship in the space of three years," shortly after it is added: "In that time, when a period of twenty-three years had passed, Forannan came from the regions of Scotland, admonished by an angelic command."

[7] While we now consider these things again, we can neither persuade ourselves Whence the contrary error in the Walciodorensian Chronicle? that the interval of twenty-three years between Forannan's arrival and the beginnings of the monastery is fictitious; nor can we believe Colgan, when he promises to show on April 30 that Forannan was the leader of the expedition by which Cadroe and Maccalan came to Lorraine, in the year, as he establishes, 946. What then? We shall give credence to the Walciodorensian Chronicle in what concerns the origin of the monastery and its principal patron and, as it were, first Abbot: but we shall say that the error concerning Cadroe and Maccalan arose from the fact that they had from ancient tradition that the aforesaid Saints had also once been Abbots of their monastery; and since they did not have sufficiently verified Acts or dates for them, nor knew anything distinctly about those who had governed before Forannan, they believed that all the successors of Forannan had been companions of his pilgrimage: and concerning the earlier time they wrote thus: "Moreover, when the church was established under the authority of the Roman Majesty, the aforesaid Count Eilbert received from the same Roman King the gift of investiture of that place and the abbey, and... held it for twenty-three years." Then, after the passing of Blessed Forannan, they added the following about Blessed Cadroe:

[8] "Blessed Forannan, therefore, who was the first to apply the norm of regular discipline in governing the same Walciodorensian monastery with his companions; The Saint's eulogy from the same source, after his passing, from the same group of twelve companions, the ruler of justice and lover of holy conduct, Blessed Cadroe, was placed in charge of the same Walciodorensian Church. He, wishing to follow in all things the teachings of his predecessor of blessed memory, meditated on the law of divine exercise. Therefore, elevated there, he obtained the rule of rigor and rectitude, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation nine hundred and eightieth" (in the more recent manuscript is added "second," and so also the Life of Forannan, written a hundred and seventy years after his death). "He, however, on account of the authority of his holiness, And his veneration at Metz, the excellence of his well-ordered conduct, and the moderation of his prudent discretion (lest his light be hidden under a bushel; but that the Church, illuminated by the ray of his splendor, might be enlarged by the amplification of his teaching), was regularly appointed Abbot of the Church of Blessed Felix at Metz, and by the assent of all pertaining thereto was legitimately constituted lord of that house. Hence therefore the grace of heavenly generosity shows what manner of man he was, which, pouring forth its mercy abundantly, so filled him with manifold distinctions, that from the great benefits of miracles which the Lord's piety manifested through him in His working, a not inconsiderable volume is preserved in the church of Blessed Felix and among the Walciodorensians. For there in the church of Blessed Felix, in veneration of his dignity, an altar was built by the elders, where the day of his deposition is solemnly celebrated each year."

[9] "And so at the beginning of its establishment or constitution, the Walchiodorensian Church is known to have had such governors of souls, And the times of governance at Walciodorus confused, through whose patronage not only those present, but also succeeding posterity, is mercifully enlightened; and through their intercession the hope of the wretched is continually revived, remission of sins is granted; consolation of the sick, restoration of the weak, and a harbor for the shipwrecked is found before the clemency of the Creator and Reformer. Therefore this man, distinguished by holiness in all things, about to receive the reward of the heavenly gift, having laid down the burden of the flesh, put off mortality and in the year of the Lord's Incarnation nine hundred and ninety-eighth" (he meant to write eighty-eighth) "migrated to Christ; where, as we piously believe, he enjoys everlasting life with the most blessed spirits of the heavenly court. Then from the same company of noble companions of the Lord Forannan there arose a man of praiseworthy life named Macalan... and because he merited this by the testimony of his life, also in the basilica of Blessed Michael at the same time he undertook the governance of souls and the care of all pertaining thereto, and is honored with the name of Abbot... and in the year nine hundred and ninety he passed from this world in the basilica of Blessed Michael... Meanwhile from the community of the Walchiodorensian Church, the Lord Immo is appointed as successor and is placed in charge of the same churches... who, laying down the weight of the flesh, happily migrated from this world in the year of the Lord's Incarnation nine hundred and ninety-five, and the fourth of his rule."

[10] So far the Chronicle: it is then silent about the years in which, after Godfrey was expelled, The successors of Forannan, Theoderic was appointed as successor, and, removed from the living, gave place to Erembert, who was taken by the common law of mortality around the year 1033: which to us is a clear argument that the author, mistrusting his own chronology on account of the inserted Cadroe and Macalan, deliberately concealed how many years the three successors sat: whence we hardly doubt that Immo immediately succeeded Blessed Forannan, and that not four but fourteen years of governance should be attributed to him: Whether the Abbey of Saint Michael belonged to these? but whether he had any right over the monastery of Saint Michael we rightly doubt. Certainly no mention of it as connected with Walciodorus is made in that entire chronicle, while the difficulties arising from a similar connection with the Hastierians are touched upon at length and frequently: indeed, we gather from volumes 2 and 4 of Christian Gaul that they always had different Abbots (except for that brief period in which Macalan presided over both in common, and that long before Forannan's time): where from the cartulary of Saint Peter the Living of Sens, Leothericus, Bishop of Laon, who died in the year 1052, is found to have bequeathed five altars to Amalric, Abbot of Saint Michael in Thérasche: so that this Amalric must have held the fourth or fifth place after Maccalan; whose subsequent Abbot-successors down to the year 1286 are enumerated in order in the aforesaid volume 4. Where also from an old manuscript cartulary, Radulf, Bishop of Laon, is read in the year 945 to have publicly endorsed the restoration of the chapel which, built in the forest of Thérasche for Saint Michael the Archangel but overturned by the injury of time, the liberality of the matron Hersendis had rebuilt.

[11] Let this year be compared with the thirty-second year before the year 988, in which Cadroe died, In the year 945 Macalan and Cadroe arrived, (for since the author of the Life, content with a full and round number, passes over the excess of the smaller number, we can accept it from the Sainte-Marthes, and assign to the pilgrimage in general what they write were years of governance), and we shall find that Saint Cadroe was directed to Hersendis with his companions at the same time that Hersendis restored the said chapel; which foundation was followed in the same year by the Walciodorensian foundation through her husband Eilbert, who it is by no means credible, in the secular habit (which he maintained until death) and the conjugal life (which he is nowhere read to have relinquished), arrogated to himself the authority of Abbot over the monks gathered at Walciodorus; nor that the author of the Chronicle meant to signify this: but only that he had care of them as patron and founder: just as also of those whom he established in the other six monasteries erected and endowed by himself and his wife. If however monks were introduced there from the very beginning, and not clerics or pious men serving God in another manner: just as in the first and principal of the said monasteries — the monastery of Saint Michael, I mean — Saint Maccalan and his companions were established: whom we rightly judge to have been merely Clerics up to that point (otherwise they would not so easily have exchanged the Rule of Saint Columba the Abbot for the Benedictine one), and to have remained there thus for some time, To preside at Walciodorus before Forannan, until the desire for monastic perfection seized them, for which Macalan was sent to Gorze and Cadroe to Fleury to learn — the former to Agenold, the latter to Erkembald: each of whom is known to have barely lived to the year 962. But at that time Forannan had not yet arrived, and yet Cadroe had long since been transferred to Metz; for the Sainte-Marthes prove from an original document that in the year 955 he received the church of Saint Andrew with its rights as a gift: indeed, scarcely had Forannan arrived there when Adalbero put off this mortal life, after thirty-five years from his promotion, as these Acts have it, and more precisely the Chronicle of Saint Trudo, in whose monastery he is recorded to have died and been buried in the year 964 of that century, on February 23; whence no mention of him is made in the deeds of Saint Forannan, but only of Theoderic: whereas the principal part of the Acts of Saint Cadroe belongs to the pontificate of Adalbero.

Section III. The Prelature of Saint Cadroe at Metz, and His Veneration.

[12] Therefore we grant the living Cadroe three or four years at Saint Michael after he arrived there: He is called to the Abbey of Metz, and one or two for monastic training, so that around the year 950 of that century he and Maccalan began to attend to both monasteries, forming them in the discipline they had learned: and Maccalan indeed transferred Walciodorus entirely to Cadroe in that very year or the one immediately following, who was thence summoned to Metz in the fifty-fourth or fifty-fifth year, bringing some with him from Walciodorus, as you have at number 20, and appointing over those who remained a Father according to their will: who, although he afterwards deviated from the path of rectitude, it mattered little to him. For this place was being divinely prepared for Blessed Forannan, who would apply to it the norm of regular discipline, whence (passing over others who, crossing to other places, had established nothing durable in perpetuity) he would deserve to be called the first founder of the place: just as Cadroe is reckoned the first among the Abbots of Saint Clement, although Adalbero had already summoned some monks there from Luxeuil beforehand, and perhaps also an Abbot, if it is true that Adalbero restored this monastery, as the Sainte-Marthes say, in the year 938 — sixteen or more years before the summons of Cadroe: yet this we shall not easily believe, until it is proved by firmer testimony, since our Acts, on the contrary, testify that Kaddroe accepted as a charge the place renowned for the bodies and relics of many Saints, but by then already reduced to nothing, overcome by the prayers of those requesting.

[13] Concerning the bodies of the holy Bishops Victor, both Leontii, Where his and other relics are, and Sperus buried there, and discovered in the year 1142, from a most ancient and autograph parchment which is preserved together with the relics, we shall treat on June 22, on which day Saint Aprincia is venerated, disinterred together with the aforesaid and enclosed in the same shrine: a copy of which parchment was sent to us by Father Alexander Wiltheim, who traveled from Luxembourg to Metz to advance the hoped-for documents about Saint Cadroe; he wrote that he venerated his complete head there; which is exhibited separately in a separate case through transparent glass to the view of those who come:

the rest of his relics are preserved in a common reliquary with others, made of gilded copper with metallic pigments inlaid in the old manner; a fuller description of which we shall give on the said day in June. There is now, however, no altar dedicated to Saint Cadroe in the new church: Feast on March 6, yet they write that his feast is solemnly celebrated in it each year on March 6: which is announced in the reading of the Martyrology at Prime in these words: "At Metz, at the basilicas, the birthday of Saint Cadroe the Abbot": whence Baldwin Willot transferred him into his Belgian Hagiologium, not without errors; the chief of which is that he says he advanced from the Abbey of Saint Felix to govern Walciodorus. On the same day a summary of his Life, having seen and cited the Acts which we produce, is found in Bartholomew Fisen among the Flowers of the Church of Liège: yet in such a way that, adhering to the Walciodorensian chronicle, he makes him the successor of Saint Forannan: which error he does not dare to correct even in the eulogy of Maccalan on April 30; although he confesses that the Life of Kadroe expressly asserts something different, and that the reckoning of events and times stands with it. A memorial in the chartulary, There remains a memorial of the same Saint in two documents found among the charters of the monastery: one of Otto III, around the year 991, in these words: "And we grant such protection and guardianship as our father of good memory, Otto, the most invincible Caesar, in the time of the Abbot Cadroe of holy memory, deigned to concede to the aforesaid monastery": the other of Pope Calixtus II, around the year 1123, who at the request of Abbot Adelo, takes the monastery under the guardianship and defense of the Apostolic See, and decrees that it remain in the same liberty in which it was established in the time of Emperor Otto by Bishop Adalbero the First, at the petition of Abbot Cadroe.

[14] After Cadroe's death, the governance of this monastery was taken up by Abbot Fingenius, His successor Fingenius, an Irishman by nationality, say the Sainte-Marthes; whom the fact that the care of three monasteries at once was entrusted to him shows to have been a religious man of great authority among princes. For in the year 992, Adalbero, the second of that name as Bishop, committed to Fingenius the monastery of Saint Symphorian, which he had raised from the foundations on a most pleasant hill to the south, next to the city walls; and around the end of that same century the Abbey of Saint-Vannes in the suburb of Verdun was added to this. The reason for Adalbero's erecting the first monastery under the invocation of Saint Symphorian seems to have been not only the ancient celebrity of the place, ennobled by the burial of four Bishops of Metz — Papulus, Goericus, Godo, and Felix II — before it was destroyed by barbarian incursion; but also the desire for monastic peace and quiet, for which the separation of the foreign Scots or Irish from the native Lorrainers, Also Abbot of Saint Symphorian of the Irish, who had hitherto lived mixed together in Saint Felix's, could be believed to be of no small benefit: for this seems to be the sole reason why in the diploma of Otto III, by which this foundation is confirmed, it is provided in such express words: "that the first Abbot, named Fingenius, an Irishman by nationality, whom the aforesaid Bishop has now appointed there, and his successors, shall have Irish monks, as long as this can be so." That Fingenius was not appointed first Abbot of Saint Symphorian in such a way as to yield the former place to another is evident from the fact that he was honorably buried there, having died in the year 1002 with a reputation for sanctity, and is recorded in the necrology of Saint Clement at October 15. After his death, each place had its own separate Abbots, whom the Sainte-Marthes enumerate: among whom you will perhaps not unreasonably wonder that no name henceforth occurs that is Irish: whence you may suspect that not long after his death, the Irish, imbued with institutions different from the Benedictine, ceased to flock there.

Section IV. What Was Saint Cadroe's Homeland: Who Was the Author of the Life?

[15] Here indeed, since Maccalan is called Irish, Fingenius Irish, and the monks Irish, Under which name also the Scottish Albanians, a vast field opens up for the Irish to rise up against the present-day Scots: whom we indeed favor against the ravings of Dempster and authors like him, yet we love the truth more than their disputes: nor do we see how the form of speech just mentioned prejudices either party, each wishing to claim Cadroe for themselves: for just as in this age, when the Scottish kingdom in Britain, having extinguished the Picts, prevailed, whenever the name of Scot or Scotland is heard, no one conceives of Ireland or an Irishman unless he is versed in history and has become accustomed to distinguishing times and appellations: so formerly neither the Franks, the Germans, nor the Italians, to whom in the beginning the only Scotland known was the same as Ireland (as we shall show on March 17 in the Acts of Saint Patrick), sufficiently distinguished the Albanian Scots from the Irish: especially since even the Albanian Scots at that time still boasted of their Irish origin; and had not yet been taught to disdain their ancient homeland in favor of the new one, in which the Picts still held the greater part.

[16] About Maccalan, however — whether he was a Scot or an Irishman — since no argument appears for the Scots, Saint Cadroe is not proved to have been Irish, we do not wish to dispute by conjectures; and much less about Fingenius, whom Colgan gratuitously said came here as a companion of Saint Cadroe on a pious pilgrimage: for Maccalan could have come from Ireland with Cadroe for the sake of teaching the Scots, and Fingenius could have left his homeland at any other time. As for Cadroe, Colgan adduces nothing by which he can disprove the evident authority of what is said here: among which, however, we do not wish to count the fact that at the tomb of Saint Columban (by which name the most famous Saint Columbanus or Columba, Abbot and author of the monastic institute among both Scots, and through them propagated also in Gaul, Germany, and Italy, buried on the island of Iona, is renowned) — that at this tomb, I say, Cadroe is said to have been obtained by his parents' prayers, and handed over to the old man Bean for learning the first rudiments of piety and letters, and that his foster-parents and his own parents lived not far from there, can be proved from number 6 of the Life. We do not wish, I say, to take all these things for the Scots: because besides this Columban there were many in Ireland, and his bones had perhaps already been translated to Down at that time, and buried in the same tomb with Saints Patrick and Brigid: But sent to Ireland for the sake of studies, although the devotion of pilgrims did not therefore cease to visit the island of Iona reverently in his name. But with this matter left open, as I said, we are compelled to deny Cadroe to Ireland; because at number 8 it is reported that as a youth he was sent to Ireland and shut up in the mill of learning at Armagh by the old man under whose instruction he had grown up; and thence returning, having crossed the sea, he came back to his same instructor Bean — which things cannot be true unless you conceive of Ireland as separated by the sea from the region that was Cadroe's homeland; or imagine Ireland to be different from itself.

[17] Which, returning thence, he taught the Scots, But what of what follows? "And throughout all Scotland he faithfully distributed to his fellow-servants the wheat of wisdom entrusted to him." I confess I would understand Ireland by the name of Scotland, according to the usage of earlier centuries, unless it were clear from the context that the author, wherever Scots were, conceived of Scotland, as was then beginning to be done by most people: for "although the Scots," he says, "have many thousands of tutors, they have not many fathers; for in the disciplines of the arts this man begot them" — will the Irish wish this, although we confess it is said with exaggeration, to be understood of their Ireland? In which as many monasteries as there were, so many schools of sciences and letters were counted, to which pupils flocked from all sides — from England, Wales, and Scotland: so much so that at that time Ireland seemed to be the public university of the British Isles. But our author says more, when he gives the reason why he attributes to Cadroe the glory of erudition, even profane, brought to the Scots: for, he says, "from the time" — that is, before the time — "of his coming, no one of the wise had crossed the sea, but they still lived in Ireland." This indeed goes beyond the truth; but nevertheless it avails to show that Cadroe is to be praised for this — that from Ireland, where he had studied, he crossed the sea to impart to the Scots the wisdom which had hitherto seemed to dwell in Ireland alone. The homeland of Cadroe was therefore either the new Scotland, or the island of Iona near it — the seat of Saint Columba, Apostle of the Scottish Albanians: and the arena and field for unfolding his teaching, and from which he made his crossing to us, was principally that region which the Scots, sprung from Ireland, held in Britain, and therefore by no means rejecting the name of Irish and Hibernians; especially among foreign nations, among which that name was held in the highest esteem for wisdom and sanctity; while that of the Scots, as distinct from them, was held in little.

[18] Since, however, under that name a new monastery near Metz had been granted to them, Drawing their descent from Ireland, and Scots brought from everywhere were most well known throughout the entire diocese, the author of this Life thought it worthwhile to borrow the origin and antiquity of the nation from someone who called himself skilled in Irish antiquity; and to preface these Acts with that entire fabric of fables (which someone had thrust forward as true history more confidently than learnedly): how unfortunately this turned out for him will be shown by the fact that there are almost as many errors as there are proper names, and most grave errors not only against historical truth but also against topography; on account of which and the interspersed fables, we have preferred to expunge that entire excursus, lest it cause nausea in our reader and create prejudice against the better part of this Life, which we believe to be otherwise most worthy of acceptance: it is enough that these things are read as printed in Colgan, who laboriously tried to excuse the deficiencies, explain the obscurities, and correct the errors.

[19] From whom he crossed by land journey to Wales, Colgan, when collecting all the arguments by which the Albanian Scots seemed to be able to prove that Kadroe was either born among them, or at least crossed from them to here, could have not passed over in silence one very effective argument for this purpose from the very description of the journey at numbers 13 and 14: where the Scottish King, seeing that he accomplished nothing by dissuading and entreating, prevailed upon his subjects to let the Saint go, providing the aid of clothing and horses; "who by the guidance of the King himself came to the land of the Cumbrians, where King Douenald presided over that people, a kinsman of the man." Thence he was conducted to York, and afterwards to London, and was summoned to Windecastra to King Edmund: and through the Archbishop of Canterbury he was led to the port from which he was to set sail — he who had hitherto traveled by land; and indeed from modern Scotland (for from the old one the journey would have had to be made by ship) to Wales on horses furnished by the people and the King. Since all these things cohere in such a way that, Having left his parents among them, as far as the force of the text is concerned, the same region from which Cadroe departed was also the dwelling-place of his parents, who are themselves said to have approached their son to deprecate his departure: and since not only on the island of Iona but in many other places of modern Scotland, Saint Columban had churches dedicated in his name: it could very easily have happened that our author interpreted the terminus of the Saint's votive pilgrimage as his tomb, from his own imagination, and not

from the faithful account of those who knew the matter more exactly; or that, having been obtained at the tomb on the island of Iona, he was brought by his parents, who lived nearby, to a church or monastery named after the same Saint within Scotland.

[20] Nor is there, as Colgan thinks, no weight at all in the fact that the King was Constantine III of Scotland, but rather the greatest; Under King Malcolm, while in Constantine O'Neill (whose son Aidus, the future King of Oileach, is said to have been killed in the year 1009 in the Irish Annals) there is little support for the opposing view. For the latter neither reigned in Ulster, and it could be asked whether he was even born at this time in question: the former, although he is said by William of Malmesbury, book 12, chapter 6, to have fallen in that battle which the Westminster chronicler and others say was fought in the year of grace 937 by Aethelstan, King of the English, against Anlaf the Dane — nevertheless nothing else would follow from this than that the Lotharingian author did not have so clear a knowledge of the chronology of the Scottish Kings, or rather that he who dictated these things to the author took Constantine for Malcolm. But since no mention of this Malcolm is made in English writers before the year 945: and except for the Malmesbury chronicler, so unskilled in Northumbrian affairs that we have proved on this day, page 445, that twelve Kings of that nation were passed over by him, And with Constantine then likely still alive: all the ancients are silent about Constantine being killed in the battle: while the Scots, following John Mair, History of Britain, book 3, chapter 2, say that Constantine, defeated in battle and having shamefully lost the Welsh lands which the Scots had held since the days of Gregory, who died in the year 893 according to Leslie, for fifty-four years, afterwards returned to Scotland, held the royal scepter for four years; and finally, having become a religious at Saint Andrews, remained there for five years until his death. Since, I say, the Scots say these things, and Colgan does not deny them, it appears that he has far too carelessly made his calculations, by which he established that Constantine died in the year of Christ 943, when by this reckoning he lived until 946: and even after laying down his kingdom, a King could still be called such by a foreign writer.

[21] Certainly it is far more plausible that Cadroe was escorted to Wales by a King who was already a monk than by Malcolm, who then held the kingdom as a young man. In the time of Domnall, King of Cumbria. "Moreover, King Douenald then presided over that people, a kinsman of Cadroe." Behold another argument for the Scots, not unobserved by Colgan; but who tries to obscure it by the frequent intermarriages he invents between the Scoto-Britons and the Irish, all the more because no King of Cumbria of this name is found at that time. But if Colgan did not find him, we find him in the Westminster chronicler, writing thus at the year 946: "In the same year Edmund stripped all Cumbria of its wealth, and having deprived the two sons of Dummail, King of that province, of the light of their eyes, he granted that kingdom to Malcolm, King of the Scots, to be held from him." It is well known, even to those who have only read Colgan, that the names Douenald, Domnald, and Domnall are one and the same among the Irish and the Scots.

[22] It remains for us to say something about the author of the Life which is to be given next. And first it seems certain that he should be addressed by the name Reimann, as our copy has, or Ousmann: The Acts were written by a contemporary monk, for so Colgan reads in his copy, transcribed in the hand of the Abbot himself, Dom Nicolas Fason. For although in the prologue it reads "to Immo, from Rei- or Ousmann," so that it might seem almost a surname: yet since the use of surnames in that century was nonexistent or very slight (as is evident in all catalogues of Abbots and Bishops, whence even today they do not use them in their official writings), and since the customary formula of letters at that time, after the name of the person to whom one writes, presents the name of the writer: we do not doubt that through the carelessness of copyists the oblique case was written instead of the nominative. Moreover, by the indication of the Germanic name, the author is recognized to have been neither a Scot nor an Irishman, but one of the native monks: and not from the monasteries of Saints Clement or Symphorian; for otherwise he would not have needed to excuse himself that, being little familiar with the holy man, he could recount only things heard. From this very excuse, however, we gather that he was not only a contemporary of the Saint (which the age of Immo, to whom it is inscribed, sufficiently proves), but was living in such a place And in a nearby place, where he was thought either to have known the Saint more intimately, or could have had from nearby the documents necessary for writing such a work.

[23] Wherefore we think he lived in one or the other of two monasteries — namely, of Saints Vincent or Arnulf — closest to the city of Metz and therefore to the monastery of Saint Clement itself: for in these, under the care of Bishops Theoderic and Adalbero, studies of both virtue and letters flourished equally, as is evident from the fact that John, Abbot of Saint Arnulf, at this same time wrote the Life of Saint Glodesindis, and the Acts of Blessed John, Abbot of Gorze, who bore the same name as himself — if he did not complete them, he at least left them perfected in the first three parts, prevented by death. Although indeed, as we said, there were at this time two Immos — one Abbot of Gorze, the other of Walciodorus — and there was great familiarity between Cadroe and Blessed John of Gorze, as is evident from this Life at number 24: we nevertheless believe it was rather the Walciodorensian's concern At the request of Immo of Walciodorus, that these Acts be written; both because Cadroe presided over Walciodorus for some years before Forannan came there (of whom, however, it is remarkable that no mention is ever made), and also because the Walciodorensian Chronicle makes this probable, where it says of the miracles which the Lord deigned to work through Blessed Cadroe, a not inconsiderable volume is preserved in the Church of Blessed Felix and among the Walciodorensians; which volume is either this very Life which we produce, or rather a compilation of miracles performed after his death: and if the Walciodorensians took care to have a copy of this, they ought to have been much more concerned to have the Life of their sometime Abbot.

LIFE

by Reimann, or Ousmann

From the Hubertine Manuscript.

Cadroe, Abbot of Metz on the Moselle (Saint)

BHL Number: 1494

By Reimann.

DEDICATION OF THE WORK

To the venerable Father in Christ, Immo^a ... Every good in the supreme good.

[1] When I pledged to obey you, Father, you imposed upon me something which, unless I had promised to do anything whatsoever, I would rightly have refused: for you commanded me to describe something of the deeds of the blessed man Kaddroe, as if I had either attained some mastery of learning, or had been so familiar with that man; whereas neither does talent suffice me, nor do I know anything of his deeds except what I have heard. To this is added that you compel me, a rustic, to make words among rhetoricians: the subject matter, which will be profitable to some, will offend many by the crudeness of its style. But since you promised to keep the document between us, I obeyed as best I could. If, however, it should fall into the hands of some, the subject matter will excuse the style, which, even among rivals — should there happen to be any — will be entirely free of envy, since I myself would receive in a good spirit if someone should improve and augment it. For the rest, let no one blame us too much regarding the situation of the islands and the names of the regions, lest by pointing out the ignorance of another, he show his own foolishness; let him rather read the histories, so that he may recognize that we have said true things.^b Fare you well, blessed Father, here and forever.

^a Colgan: "to Immonius Ousmannus."

^b Namely, about to describe the fabulous origins of the Scots, he believed he had to preface these things: we have cut away that appendage from here; let whoever wishes read it in Colgan.

PROLOGUE.

[2] God's piety showed itself to men, The piety of Almighty God, knowing that human nature ceaselessly yearns for transient things, in order that it might at last be able to aspire to things that endure, at the appointed time, by right of incomprehensible and eternal counsel, appeared with grace, instructing us: that, denying impiety and worldly desires, we might live soberly and justly and piously, and, having dispelled the darkness of ancient error, enter the gates of life with exultation. Tit. 2:12 And lest anyone in the desert of this exile, seeking the homeland, should falter, He said: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you." Matt. 11:28 And lest you seek an unknown path, He said: "I am the way." But what reward awaits the traveler, He showed, saying: "If anyone enters through me, He proposed His Saints as an example, he will be saved." John 10:9 Therefore, the promiser of this covenant, in order to animate toward the hope of life the sharers of our frailty and mortality, roused to the path of salvation, wished to continually set before the weakness of the infirm a mirror of example: of whom many, instructing very many in righteousness by their word, now shine like stars for perpetual eternities: very many, by the example of their deeds, have brought others to the harbor of blessedness, and have labored in the house of God, who everywhere meets as a cheerful rewarder those who toil for Him, each as he was able.

[3] Repeatedly, new ones in the succession of ages: But since the sluggishness of our present age — in which charity has grown cold from the abundance of iniquity — has become so torpid that it not only does not collaborate or attend to those who labor, but does not even take care to examine the deeds of those who formerly labored in the vineyard of our householder, which were written down for our consolation; the unfailing generosity of God always finds those whom it may bring forth: so that, if we neglect the reading of the former, we may be aroused by the sight of the present. Whose monument of good works, even if it has few imitators, it is fitting that it should have writers: because the hand of the Lord will not be too weak to add some thereby at some time to His service, the reward of eternal recompense being safe for those who persist in this: which many desiring, for our advancement — upon whom the ends of the ages have come — transmitting not only things seen but things heard, have offered in the house of God gold, silver, and precious stones: and we, who have barely attained goats' hair, they have brought to this point, that, if we are slow to follow those who should be imitated — as if a blind man wished to point out the way — we may dare to describe someone who ought and can be imitated; and if we are not worthy enough, we may at some time provide material for the pen to those who are willing and able.

CHAPTER I.

The Birth and Education of Saint Cadroe.

[4] There was therefore a man of royal blood, endowed with extraordinary wealth, named Fochertach,^a who obtained a wife similar to himself in riches and nobility, named Bania, In which Cadroe, of noble lineage, who in the flower of her youth had borne sons from a former husband, but after being joined to this one, remained barren: whence after many supplications to the Saints, which she had brought to the most pious ears of Almighty God, she visited with her husband the merits of Blessed Columban;^b and she was not disappointed in her wish. For when they had spent the night at his tomb with fasting and prayers, they had barely fallen asleep when they both saw themselves, each holding lighted candles. While they joyfully observed these, they suddenly marveled that they were compacted into a single light: and behold, a man of resplendent appearance appeared: "Your tears, O woman, Promised by Saint Columban, have stained my garment, and before the face of God

your prayers have stood, and He who granted Samuel to the praying Anna, and gave conception to Rebecca at the petition of Jacob, has commanded that you conceive and bear a son named Kaddroe, a future light of the Church, who according to the virtue of his name will ascend as an invincible warrior^c in the camps of the Lord, setting himself as a wall against the adversary, ready to stand in battle for the house of Israel." Awakened therefore from sleep, they congratulated each other with thanksgiving on the vision, and not uncertain of the promised mercy, they returned home with exultation; that they would receive such an offspring became a common joy.

[5] Meanwhile the woman conceived and bore a son, to whom according to the Lord's command she gave the name Kaddroe. The fame of the newborn boy had filled the neighboring nations; as is the custom of the country, a noble crowd rushed in, diverse in sex and age, each one eager to raise the boy.^d The mother therefore, He is entrusted to a divinely designated nurse, guarding against the enmities of so many nobles — that is, of those making requests — replied that she could not withhold him from whomever God should command him to be given. She happened to have lain down on her couch, when amid such throngs sleep crept upon her, and barely gently diffused through her limbs, it caused her to see as it were a hawk circling around the house, and, all others being set aside, settling upon the head of a certain matron. Awakened then, she narrates to those standing around what she had seen. Then indeed, by the common counsel of all, the child is handed over to the matron for nursing: and taken into the woman's house, he was weaned. His father, already perceiving in his tender nature his future industriousness, was trying to raise him in secular affairs.

[6] Now the boy had a kinsman^e named Bean, Then to his kinsman Bean, who asked for him, who from his earliest age rejoiced in the service of Christ, vigilant in prayers, intent on alms, a guardian of himself: who, if it were possible, wishing to draw all to Christ, turned to God and devoted himself with all his prayers for the boy's salvation. Soon the most merciful divinity was present, and addressing the old man in a vision, commanded that the boy be demanded back from his father for schooling. The old man obeyed and approached the man about the matter. The father refused and laughed at the old man as if he were deluded. But commanded again to repeat the matter, he revisited the boy's father, disclosed the commands, and insisted that the boy must be returned to Him who had given him. Then the man resented being importunately harassed by the man about what he did not wish to be demanded back — that the old man erred in judgment — that he could not part with a son generated for him in the old age of his mother through a promise — the staff of his parents' old age — whom so great a family awaited as their Lord.

[7] And so, when the old man withdrew without success, the Lord visited the boy's mother, and she conceived again and bore a son named Mattadan:^f and the Lord further admonished the old man: "Go," He said, "say to the boy's father: Come, man, And compelling the unwilling father to this, I demand from you the boy, commanded by God, who has substituted another in his place: and if he refuses, tell him that the wrath of divine punishment threatens." Without delay, he approached the man to address him about the matter; and to the one refusing: "Yield," he said, "lest the severity of heavenly vengeance assail you as you resist. And if you ascribe to me that I say this unbidden from my own mind: as a sign of the anger threatening you, the horse which is your best one dies." Marvelous swiftness: the words were still turning on the lips of the old man when the stable boy announced the death of the horse. Hearing this, terror seized the man and he stood rigid, He is committed to him for instruction, and warmth left his bones: at length, however, weeping and unwilling, going with the mother to the tomb of Blessed Columban, offering the child to God who was asking for him, he handed him over to the aforesaid old man to be raised. The old man therefore took charge of the boy and instructed him in the Divine Law as best he could. Already infancy had passed, and approaching adolescence, he surpassed his contemporaries by the keenness of his sharp mind.

[8] Meanwhile certain persons driven by a pestilent spirit were devastating the former foster-parents of the child; who, unable to resist, approached the young man About to avenge the injury done to his foster-parents, and laid open the complaint of their misery: for it is the custom of the country that if anyone raises a nobleman's child, he thereafter seeks his help in all things, no less than from the parents. To inflame the young man to their aid, they said: "When we raised you, if we had taken sheep or horses, nourished by their milk and better able by horses' carriage to avoid the fury of enemies, we would not be succumbing to plunder and devastation in your presence." Bean happened to be absent when the young man, moved to action, seized his arms and, calling out to his companions, determined to pursue the enemies. And already they stood at the bank of the flooding river, across which the enemies were, He rushes to arms, and the use of boats was being sought; and one of the number of his companions, a Cleric by order, appointed as the young man's guardian, reported this to the old man when he returned. Then indeed, clapping his hands and dissolving into tears: "A fine guardian," he said, "I left you for the young man."

[9] When the other offered the excuse that he had not been able to restrain him, Bean said: "Break off the delay; and compel him to wait for me." But when the other said the young man would absolutely not desist from his undertaking, the old man, producing the Gospel he was accustomed to use, said: "Take this; Bean stops him, and adjure him to wait for me." The Cleric preceded, bearing the old man's commands with the sign, and, although the young man was weeping and protesting, he compelled him to stand on the bank. Bean followed, and inquired the cause of the young man's anger: the latter related the matter and said it was impossible for him to allow the suffering of his foster-parents to remain unavenged. But the old man soothed his fierce spirits: and when he would not yield, the old man said: "Regarding this, then, seek the will of Him to whom you pledged faith: and, so that you may know, he opens the book which he had received from him, and seized upon the first verse he found." It was: "If anyone takes what is yours, do not demand it back." But since this did not satisfy him, he turned the page again and encountered a passage contrary to the young man's intent, which was: "All who take the sword will perish by the sword." And restrains him by showing him the Gospel, And when he turned it a third time, he met: "Wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you asked me; should you not therefore also have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I also had mercy on you?" Luke 6:30 Matt. 26:52 And since he could not contradict these, Matt. 18:32 he returned in peace with the man of God, and devoted himself more attentively to reading and prayer.

[10] On a certain day, the old man had placed his weary limbs on his little bed, and Kaddroe was resting with his companions not far away, And admonished by a vision, when the Virgin appeared to the man of God, the brightness of her face surpassing the brightness of the sun; so aged that you would not think her of our time, although she appeared young, clad in a sevenfold garment into which was woven everything that can be said and thought: whom the old man, marveling, asked who and whence she was. Then she said: "I am Wisdom, who dwell in counsels and am present among learned thoughts, and I have come to take this young man for myself." Prov. 8:12 The vision had vanished from the eyes of the beholder, and the young man is seized with a love of learning: you would have thought he would die unless he were handed over to secular studies. The man of God understood what he had seen, and having prepared what was necessary for the journey and the schools, he sent the youth to Ireland,^g who shut himself up at Armagh in the mill of learning, not afraid to seek worldly letters after divine doctrines, He sends him to Ireland for the sake of studies, so that, more brightly polished by these, he could more expertly produce and examine what he had once learned; since he read that Plato, the philosopher of the nations, summoned by the fame of Jeremiah, had gone to Egypt, and having compared words with the same Prophet, had discovered the one God above all, whom he had previously not known.

[11] He is therefore instructed, and far surpassing his contemporaries and fellow-students, he traversed every corner of the gymnasium of wisdom under her own guidance.^h What more? Whatever the Poet sang and the orator said, whatever the Philosopher thought — he experienced: nothing escaped him; whatever has been investigated by anyone through number, measure, and weight, touch and hearing, he absorbed; finally, the hidden courses and paths of the stars he designated with the pen more skillfully than Egino, than whom I know not whether anyone more distinguished exists in the hierarchy of heaven: and thus instructed, having crossed the sea again, he returned to Bean; The Scots receive him as master upon his return, and throughout all Scotland he faithfully distributed to his fellow-servants the wheat of wisdom entrusted to him: for although the Scots have many thousands of tutors, they have not many fathers: for in the disciplines of the arts this man begot them. Whence, because his lips have instructed many, affliction will not be joined to him: for from the time of his coming, no wise man had crossed the sea, but they still dwelt in Ireland. The old man rejoiced that the young man was making progress, and that in all he attempted, he had no equal.

^a In Colgan's copy Foitheach, in ours Fochereach: the Rheims manuscript is more correct: for Colgan shows, although he had not seen it, that the name thus written was familiar to the ancient Scots, and therefore ought to have been written thus.

^b The cult of Saint Columban The chief bearer of this name is the Apostle of the Scots and Picts, buried on the island of Iona or Hy: Saint Blathmac, who brought his body back there and concealed it, suffered martyrdom in the year 823: but how long it remained hidden under thick turf, as Walafrid Strabo writes, is uncertain. Colgan thinks it was translated to Down before Cadroe was conceived: which however would not prevent the tomb from being in veneration: or even a particle of relics or at least a cult in some church of Albanian Scotland, to which the mother might have resorted for prayer, and which is here somewhat inaccurately called a tomb.

^c "Cath" means "battle" for the Irish, and "roe" signifies the place of contest, says Colgan, and he would prefer "Cathoer" which sounds like "warrior." Otto III wrote Cadroelem, some write Cadroetus: in these Acts always Kadroe.

^d The custom of entrusting children to foster-parents He who describes Irish customs in Camden, I. Good, testifies that it still obtains among them today that it is a reproach to raise one's own children: but they eagerly vie for the care of others' children, especially of the nobler sort, even coming from a distance: and they devote themselves to this with such zeal that the foster-children afterwards value their nurses and foster-fathers more than their parents: and the customs that flourish today in Ireland must all have long flourished also among the Albanian Scots descended from Ireland.

^e Perhaps an uncle: for he was much advanced in age, whence he is called "old man" a little below: yet he cannot have been extremely aged, since he was still alive when Cadroe had passed his fortieth year. Colgan says seven or eight Beans are enrolled in Irish calendars: and confesses that on January 1 he had not written a single word about the Bean who, famous in the time of Patrick, is honored even now with a celebrated cult in Ulster, and appears to have his chief feast on December 16, as he himself teaches on February 11 in the notes to the Life of Saint Canoc: he refers the reader to the Kalends of January, as if he had there treated at length of the other Saints of that name. But whence does he assume that Bean, Cadroe's instructor, was enrolled among the Saints, or was an Irishman?

^f That this name was frequent among the Ulster nobility, from which the Albanian Scots trace their descent, is proved by what Colgan heaps up on this passage: but it contributes very little to his purpose, since both Scots had in common, as in language and origin, so also in names, for a long time.

and origin, so also names were common for a long time.

^g Unless Colgan shows us some Ireland outside of Ireland, he will not extricate himself from this passage: just as neither from the following, where it is said that he brought the studies of letters to Scotland, having crossed the sea again — studies which had hitherto contained themselves within Ireland. Armagh, moreover, is the metropolis of Ireland, established by Saint Patrick.

^h There is much rhetorical amplification in these things: and in what follows, where he describes the Scots as destitute of all cultivation of letters in Albany up to that time, let the reader recognize and pardon the hyperbolic exaggeration.

CHAPTER II.

Admonished by a Divine Oracle, He Leaves His Homeland and Takes the Monastic Habit at Fleury.

[12] Meanwhile time was passing, and the man of God prayed that the Lord might direct the young man into the way of salvation: Bean is taught by a heavenly vision, nor was the mercy of God distant, which always hears those who invoke it in truth. When, wearied by the vigils of one of the nights, after the hymns he had placed his limbs on his bed, as sleep had often begun pleasantly in the morning, sleep stole upon the old man: he had neither fully fallen asleep nor was he fully awake, but, caught up into a certain ecstasy, he saw a gathering of great men taking place; and marveling at them, he hoped they would do something great. Then one of them, more reverend than the rest, said: "It is fitting to augment the service of the eternal King, ordained from the ages, and you," he said to the rest, Cadroe destined for the religious soldiery "are to enroll from among these young men who rest here certain ones who must leap before the Emperor — He who 'comes leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills' has directed them: and He commands this one who looks upon us to show them what they must leap over." Bean is therefore led, and he sees three caverns dug in the earth, of which the first and second were of no small size, the third of immense depth with excessive horror and immense breadth: the farther bank of this was full of splendor and joy.

[13] The old man does not hesitate to inquire what these things meant; and the answer was that these young men must leap over them, if they wished to have the Emperor's favor. But to the old man, fearing danger for Kaddroe, that magnificent man said: "Do not fear: for they will leap, though unequally; Destined to be trained abroad, but this one for whom you most fear will precede more happily." "And lest you think the command vain, attend to what the caverns signify. The first therefore is the voluntary renunciation of possessions, the second the leaving of one's homeland, the third the practice of monastic life. And the farther bank of that exultation is the attainment of everlasting life." The vision therefore disappeared, and the old man is roused from his bed. Not many days had passed when the Lord Himself said to Kaddroe: "Go forth from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house, and come into the land which I shall show you, and I will make you a leader of my people, and I will raise you above the height of the clouds, and I will feed you to inherit Jacob, your father."

[14] The young man, awakened, is seized with a love of pilgrimage, and leaving all things, he enters upon the path of pilgrimage. Who, in his undertaken resolution of pilgrimage, Rumor had spread the news, and sorrow and mourning invaded all, rich and poor alike. Every age and every condition came running, and as if the ruin and devastation of all Scotland were approaching, a tearful acclamation arose from all: "Why do you abandon us, Father, or to whom do you leave the fruit of your labor? Why has it pleased you to go abroad, when we are all strangers before God, and we lament (as you teach) that our sojourn in Cedar is prolonged? Look, we beseech you, at the fruit you can produce by teaching so many, and those to whom it is necessary to impart the help of knowledge. Do you not attend, in the vision of John, to what the eternal word of the Father warns you? 'Let him who hears say: Come.'" Rev. 22:17 Moved therefore by these tears, he lingered there for a while, and then rose up within himself. After many prayers, confirmed in his purpose. Nearby flowed a stream of very strong current, beside which, as often happens, the mass of a certain tree had grown up. Therefore at night, with God alone as his witness, going thither, having stripped off his garments, in the utmost horror of cold he cast himself into the river, and lest he be carried headlong by the force of the current, he held with his hand a rope which he had tied around the tree; and he remained there as long as it took to complete from the one hundred and eighteenth to the one hundred and thirty-third psalm.^b

[15] Meanwhile, as winter was passing, the seas grew calm, and he set out again on the path of his proposed pilgrimage. Then indeed sorrow and mourning again seized the entire region; and as all came running, the King who presided over the country, Constantine^c by name, came running to detain the man. Part of the journey already completed, Kaddroe had entered the church of Blessed Brigid^d to pray, when a noble and common crowd, summoned from various parts, filled the church: all with one voice asking that he not abandon the homeland. And yielding to no one's entreaty, Turning to them, he replied to the King and all only this: "I shall not desert you, since wherever I shall be, I shall have your memory." Then the clamor of the people was raised, and placing the relics of the Saints before him, they begged him to yield to their adjuration. But he said: "If you have brought the relics of the Saints for this purpose, that you might restrain me from my intended resolution, ask their intercession together with me, that they may deign to show whether I have undertaken the way of salvation: for Christ, Not even to his parents' when He proposed His rewards to those leaving father and mother, brothers and sisters, made no mention of your counsel. Also to Abraham, because obedient to God he went out from his land and from his father's house, it was accounted for righteousness." It being therefore in vain for the King to labor with the people and to promise the greatest things while he would not yield, his parents, moved and swelling with reproach, said: "If we cannot prevail by prayers, we will restrain him with iron chains and prison." "This," he said, "is in your power; but as long as I am in chains, I will neither drink nor eat."

[16] By chance a certain Abbot, named Mailedarius,^e had come with the King; who, being a man of equitable counsel, said: "If we cannot turn this man from his intended resolution, let each of us, as he can, provide assistance for the journey, He is equipped for the journey by the King and the people, that we may be able to be sharers in the reward of his labors." Then all, vying with one another, providing gifts of gold and silver, clothing and horses,^f dismissed him with the blessing of God, and by the guidance of the King himself, he came to the land of the Cumbrians. King Douenald presided over that people, and because he was a kinsman of the man, he met him with all joy, and keeping him with himself for some time, conducted him to the city of Loida,^g which is the border of the Norsemen^h and the Cumbrians; and there he was received by a certain nobleman Gunderic, Through Cumbria, by whom he was brought to King Erichus in the city of York:^i the King had a wife who was a kinswoman of the lord Kaddroe himself. Departing thence, he sought the city of London,^k and was received and stayed with a certain old man named Hegfrid.

[17] At night, through carelessness, the city itself caught fire, and with the greater part already consumed, He comes to London, the victorious flame was licking what remained. Then indeed God wished to declare what merit Kaddroe had with Him. He was asked by the old man to help the perishing city by praying; and trusting in the Lord, running between the fire and what remained, he turned to the Lord and said: "Everything that exists serves You, Lord: command therefore the terrors of the raging flames to cease." He said this briefly, and raising his hand, he commanded the fire to go back. You could see the flame, He quenches a sudden fire in the city, as if twisted back by the force of the wind, gradually dying by fading away. Thus, with all rejoicing, the city was delivered. These are Your works, O God, who, glorious in Your virtues, for the glory of Your name — You who once commanded the fire that had broken out against the murmuring people to be swallowed up at the prayer of Moses — now through Your servant Kaddroe freed the city from the flames.

[18] The fame then flew abroad, and filling the entire region, reached even the King, who was in the city of Winchester,^l About to set sail, he is driven back by a storm, Edmund by name. He immediately asked the man to come to him, having summoned him, and asking him to be with him for some time, delighted by his conversation, he had him escorted through the Archbishop of that city, named Otto, to the port called Limen.^m There therefore, having boarded ships and heading for the open sea, they were called back to shore by a rising wind: and trying the sea again, they were returned to the shore almost with shipwreck. Do you think, Reader and Hearer, that God does not wish this man to cross the sea? Did not Paul, sailing to Rome for his crown, barely escape shipwreck, winter, and famine?

[19] With all troubled, sorrow seized Kaddroe; and night rushing in had closed the day, and he forced his limbs, worn out by grief and fasting, into bed. He is ordered to send away his nephew. A man standing beside him therefore addressed him thus: "All these who are with you will not be able to cross the sea, lest they cause you trouble on the way of God which you have entered. Persuade therefore your nephew and some others to return with him; and then, having crossed the sea, the farther shore will receive you joyfully." Rising therefore, he related the vision to his companions, and ordered the said young man, having given him transport and provisions, Having crossed, he visits the tomb of Saint Fursey, to return: and so, casting off, with full sails they reached the port of Boulogne, and traveling by land they came to the Monastery of Péronne:^n and there the lord Kaddroe implored the mercy of the Lord and the merits of Blessed Fursey, that he might show him a place to dwell. When night came, Blessed Fursey appeared to him in a vision. When he inquired who he was, he declared his name: he revealed that he had come because he had been invoked by him, and commanded him to change his location. Not far away was a matron named Hersendis,^o renowned for nobility and wealth, He is received by Hersendis at Saint Michael's, full of the ardor of holy devotion. And because she was childless, if she found any men of holy pilgrimage, she planned to receive them and do good to them for the sake of the Lord Savior.

[20] Therefore, having heard of the arrival of the pilgrims, she was immediately present, begging and urging them to deign to come to her. When they said they were seeking a place prepared for them by God apart from the world, where they could serve the Lord by living from the labor of their own hands, she joyfully showed them a place in the forest of Thérasche, sacred in the name of Blessed Michael.^p When they found it suitable to their wishes, He subjects himself to his companion Saint Macalan, and remained there after the matron had enlarged the church and built houses, by common counsel — for they were thirteen — they decided to choose the lord Kaddroe as their Lord and Father. Since he could by no means be compelled to this, joining others with him, they made Macalan,^q a man of the highest goodness and his companion in pilgrimage, their ruler. And living there thus for a long time, they were nourished by the benefactions of the aforesaid matron. Meanwhile, as the desire for devotion grew, they began to aspire to the monastic Religious life. Whence by the will of God, He takes the monastic habit at Fleury, that lady directed Macalan to Gorze, namely to the training of the venerable Agenald; but Kaddroe to Fleury, where Erkembald, a man of great religiousness, presided. Both therefore having attained what they desired, Macalan made his profession as a monk under Father Agenald: and Kaddroe

on the day of the conversion of the Apostle Paul, at Fleury, before the lord Erkembald, put on the habit and mind of a monk.

^a He had already passed, namely, the 40th year of his age.

^b On this custom of singing psalms in cold waters, see what will be said on March 17 in the Acts of Saint Patrick.

^c John Mair writes that this man became a monk at Saint Andrews in the year 941 and lived there for five years: therefore it was not he but Malcolm who presided over the country; which should be pardoned in a foreign writer.

^d Not that Brigid whom the Irish venerate as born and buried among them, who flourished in the age of Saint Patrick: but she Saint Brigid of Abernethy who, much younger than the former, was a kinswoman of Granerd, King of the Picts, lived at the end of the seventh century, and is buried and venerated in Scotland at Abernethy; whence Andreopolis (Saint Andrews) is barely fifteen miles distant, where Constantine is said to have been a monk. See what we said in Section 7 of the Acts of the first Brigid on February 1.

^e Colgan finds two Malodarii, of whom one is named on July 16, the other on October 25, in the Irish Martyrologies: that either one is meant here, he himself does not dare to assert, nor would we dare to believe him if he did.

^f Douenald, Domnald, or Domnal is one and the same name: the Westminster chronicler mentions this King at the year 946, and calls him Dummail.

^g Camden, in the borders of Northumbria beyond the Pictish wall, at the northern bank of the Tripall river, marks a vast forest, "the forest of Lowes," which we seem to be able to interpret as "the forest of Loyda," and to believe that the name remained to the place from a city, once celebrated but now extinct.

^h There is no reason to suspect that it should have been written "of the Northumbrians"; although it could so have been written: for it is established that at that time the Danes (whom Irish writers everywhere call Norsemen) held Northumbria: with whom the English Kings waged many and frequent wars: thus Malmesbury wrote "the borders of Normandy and Britain."

^i More correctly Evoracum, or Eboracum, the Archiepiscopal see of northern England. Erichus, King of Northumbria Malmesbury calls Erichus "Iricius," book 2, chapter 7, whom Colgan wants the Northumbrians to have made King after Edmund expelled their two Kings Analasus and Reginald in the year 945, for which he cites Roger of Hoveden as a witness; but the latter writes that this rebellion was raised under Edred, Edmund's successor, between the years 947 and 955 — which, however, does not prevent his being called King by anticipation, since he could have had a princely residence and jurisdiction at York under the rule of his predecessors: he was subsequently the last of the Northumbrian Kings.

^k Otherwise Longdonia, now London, the royal city, extending along a long stretch of the bank of the Thames: whence the name was also made; as if you were to say "the long city": for "dun" formerly, "town" today, is "city," and in compounds nearly "ton," with which ending there is scarcely any more frequent in England.

^l Today Winchester, otherwise Wintonia, not Wigornia (as Colgan incorrectly says), for that is Worcester. Both, however, are west of London — Worcester indeed declining toward the north, at a distance of nearly seventy miles; Winchestria toward the south, about fifty miles distant; beyond which, at twenty-four miles, is Wilcestria or Wiltonia, from whose city — not, however, from the bishopric of Winchester — Odo was promoted to the Archbishopric of Canterbury: he who is here said to have escorted Saint Cadroe to the sea, perhaps accompanying the King's court; Odo, Archbishop of Canterbury which seems to be the reason why the author here wrote Otto as the Archbishop of this city, which otherwise had its own Bishop distinct from Odo. Made Archbishop by Aethelstan around the year 947, he shone with wonderful sanctity in that See for twenty years, as will be seen from his Life to be given on July 4: meanwhile see Malmesbury, book 1 on the deeds of the English Pontiffs, chapter 1.

^m "Once a most celebrated port," says Camden, "until the sands cast up by the sea blocked it: The port of Limen to be reached from London at thirty miles distance, but from Dorouernia or Canterbury only eight: it is λίμην in Ptolemy, Portus Lemanis in Antoninus and the author of the Imperial Notitia; to whose convenience the former Westhythe owed its growth; then after it was destroyed, Hythe, still an honorable town: and from here the crossing to Belgian Gaul was most convenient."

^n Today Péronne, a border town of Picardy on the river Somme, about fifty miles distant from the port of Boulogne: so that, if you except the excursion to Winchester to the King, the Saint kept the most direct route from Scotland to the borders of Hainaut, and the writer is found to have followed the most accurate information in this part as well: Saint Fursey is venerated on January 16, where see what we said.

^o In the Walciodorensian Chronicle she is called Herinsindis everywhere, wife of Count Eilbert, and foundress together with him of many churches in Thérasche.

^p In the diocese of Laon, on the bank of the river Oise, above Hirson. The Sainte-Marthes cite the diploma of this place, restored by Hersendis, at the year 945: so that the pilgrims arrived at an entirely opportune time, whom we believe to have departed from Scotland in this or the preceding year.

^q He is called Maccalinus by Flodoard, and is venerated on January 21, where we treated of him.

CHAPTER III.

The Walciodorensian and Metzian Prelature: Various Miracles.

[21] When the time had therefore elapsed, the oft-mentioned matron sent to Gorze,^a praying with all affection the lord Agenald Made Provost of Walciodorus, that Macalan might be able to return to the place once chosen: and having returned, he governed the place he had received. The place was above the river Meuse, called by the ancient name Walciodorus.^b Summoning him thither, he established the monastic order, and appointed the lord Kaddroe, Soon Abbot, brought back from Fleury and resisting with every effort, as Provost. Not many days had passed when Macalan saw that the care of both places exceeded his strength, and joining the petition of many to his own salutary counsel, he begged the lord Kaddroe not to refuse to accept the title of Father in the place of Walciodorus. The man was struck with violent amazement and, resisting beyond what can be believed, refused. But as they persisted, lest through humility he cause scandal to the brethren, and with Otto,^c then King and later Emperor, compelling him, he barely consented to accept the title of Abbot.

[22] The fame of his holy conduct therefore, spreading far and wide, He receives many into the monastery, invited many to the contest of the Holy Rule. Many rejoiced to reach the harbor of the monastery from the shipwreck of the world: among whom a nobleman named Girerus, fleeing to Christ, had laid aside the belt of military service and, having professed as a monk, served in the monastery. It is the custom of monks to serve one another devoutly under charity: whence this man with his companion had been ordered to labor in the kitchen duty. He heals a wounded hand by a miracle, When he gladly accepted this, in order to do some work, he seized a knife that lay nearby, and immediately, with a spirit of wickedness intervening, he struck his own hand and bloodied it with a serious wound. Running therefore and prostrating himself at the feet of Father Kaddroe, he showed his bloody hand and indicated the injury he had done. The Father, having compassion on him, and making the sign of the Cross over the site of the wound, ordered him to go back to the duty assigned. And departing with a blessing, as the pain receded, he was suddenly amazed to find his hand restored to its former health; and returning, he gave thanks for the health obtained: but the enemy of vainglory commanded him not to tell anyone.

[23] Moreover, the aforesaid matron, burning with holy desire, besides the places we have mentioned, had raised from its foundations a certain place called Buccileum,^d Received in the Buccilian convent, in honor of Blessed Peter, and had gathered there a choir of Virgins for the service of God; among whom a spirit of error had seized one and was tormenting her. Like a wild beast therefore she was seized and thrown into chains. This provided the occasion for Father Kaddroe to visit the place: they met him with joy, and received and venerated the Father, and among other things they disclosed the misfortune of the Sister, and begged him to help the captive. Hearing this, he was deeply grieved and seized the shield of faith against the ancient enemy. Meanwhile, as the sun was setting, the day drew to a close, and a bed was prepared for him to rest in a house next to the church by the handmaids of God. While the old man was resting, by wise counsel the wretched woman was brought and placed in that house. He liberates a nun possessed by a demon. The wicked spirit, grieving at being placed where it did not wish, had filled the cell with shrieking through the girl's mouth; when Father Kaddroe, roused and disturbed by the commotion, rebuking the spirit, said: "Depart, deadly one, depart, and cease to torment the creature of God." Wonderful to tell! The man of God had barely completed his words when the impure spirit, giving a roar, was expelled through the foul parts of the body by a flow of the belly, and filled the cell with an intolerable stench. "What is this, accursed devil — you who would exalt your throne above the stars of heaven — who do not dare to endure a man speaking upon the earth, a worm and future ashes? It has rightly befallen you, that you who boasted that man, deceived by your counsel, was exiled from his homeland, are yourself cast out from your seized dwellings by pilgrims through the power of the word."

[24] By Bishop Adalbero, Rumor therefore had carried his name everywhere, and all nations spoke of the man's virtues. Adalbero, a noble Bishop, nobly governed the noble See of Metz: and when fame brought him many things from various parts, it also brought the name of this man; and as he was a lover of religious men, he summoned the venerable men Agenald^e and Ansteus to himself, inquired about the man, and asked how he might reach him. The already mentioned venerable men, having learned of the desire of the Lord Bishop, often spoke with the man of God about it. It was a solemn day on which the festive memorial of the Blessed Martyr Gorgonius was being celebrated, and with peoples flowing together from everywhere, the man of God Kaddroe himself had also come. Finding therefore the opportunity, they set forth the Bishop's wish to him and, prostrating their prayers before him, they requested that he deign to remain with them. He is placed in charge of the monastery of Metz. But who would not love the earthly company of those who had already merited eternal dignity in the heavenly camps? Overcome therefore by the prayers of the supplicants, he consented and accepted as a charge the place situated not far from the city of Metz, renowned for the bodies and relics of many Saints, but by then already reduced to nothing.

[25] And because, as we have already said, he had taken on the care of souls, he brought some with him from Walciodorus, and appointed over those who had remained a Father according to their will: who, although he afterwards deviated from the path of rectitude,^f it did not matter much to him: for the Lord, when He spoke through Ezekiel about the wicked who are not converted, said: "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; you shall hear the word from my mouth, and you shall announce it to them from me. Ezek. 3:17 But if you have announced it to the wicked one, and he is not converted from his wicked way, he indeed shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul." He therefore attended to the care of the place he had received, and labored as he could to raise it from ruins and ashes. And restores the place. He was visited daily by the citizens, men came running with women: to whom, as he was diffused in the Lord's charity, he strove to impart

the words of life and the counsel of souls. For who came to him sorrowful and did not return joyful? Who did not benefit from the sweetness of his goodness? The choirs of Clerics, Monks, and Virgins honored, venerated, and loved him as a Father. For when any one of them stumbled on the way of salvation, was he not burned with the pain of compassion? How great was his solicitude for those in danger, and his care for the sick? You would think he was affected by another's loss, while he rejoiced with the joy of others as if it were his own.

[26] Meanwhile it happened that he visited Walciodorus, and as time passed, the annual day of Blessed Gorgonius^g the Martyr was returning, While on a journey, and that he might be able to attend, he was making his way back with Wultmarus,^h Abbot of the monastery of Ghent, and Aledranus,^i Abbot of the monastery of Gembloux. And they were already passing the castle of Briey, and they were urging that they eat earlier than the old man was accustomed to: and when the man of God would not agree, they happened to be traversing a pleasant place watered with plants and streams. "If," they said, "we leave here fasting, we shall fast longer for want of water." The man of God, turning to them, said: "Brothers, it is written: Eccl. 10:16 'Woe to the land whose King is a child, and whose princes eat in the morning.' Water here and everywhere is in the hand of God, who has promised that nothing will be lacking to those who fear Him." They consented unwillingly and went on fasting for a while.

[27] To relieve his companions' thirst, he draws forth a spring. The hour of refreshment had arrived, and they had entered a part of a certain meadow: then the holy man, with his cheerful countenance, said: "Behold, Lords and Brothers, a place suited to our needs." And when they complained that they had no use of water, the man, knowing how to trust, said: "Do not despair; the hand of the Lord is powerful to give water to His servants — He who in the wilderness commanded the dry and waterless rock to flow with water for the complaining people." Nearby lay a grassy turf, which the man of the Lord approached and ordered to be dug around and lifted up. And as those present obeyed and pulled up the turf, water followed. But when the aforesaid men, sitting below, were waiting for the Saint of the Lord and did not know what he had done — and were already at the point of washing their hands and whatever else was needed with wine — disturbed by the murmur of a stream flowing down to them, they marveled at the abundance of water. This spring, remaining to this very day, testifies to what merit Kaddroe has with God. Returning therefore to his companions, when they praised the deed in amazement, he said: "The clemency of God Almighty has sent this water for your charity, that we may know that Christian poverty is always rich." Having therefore taken their meal, they completed the journey they had begun.

[28] Moreover, the business of the place entrusted to him required that he visit the County^k and speak with Frederick,^l then Duke: He leans his staff upon a ray of sun: when the man of God was sought and found in the designated place, Frederick rose with all humility to meet the servant of God as he came. And with the holy man returning the greeting most courteously, as they rushed into mutual embraces, the man of God, thinking one of his own people was following him, stretched the staff he was carrying in his hand behind him: but since there was no one to receive it, a ray of the sun was shining through the window, as often happens,^m which indeed received and supported the falling staff like some solid element, so that you could see the very elements willing to serve Kaddroe. But what wonder if creatures serve a friend of God, when the seeds of the earth nourish His enemies — seeds which the rain coming from heaven had nourished. From the oft-mentioned place of Walciodorus he was also traveling to Metz,^n and had ordered a young man whom he himself had raised to accompany him. He heals an injured eye. When this young man, almost at the midpoint of the journey, began to suffer a serious pain in his eye, with the sign of the Cross made over him by the Saint, he was soon well and rejoiced that the pain had fled.

[29] The same young man was also shaken by fevers, and after nearly a whole year, He drives away a fever, his entire body already wasted by the force of adverse health, he was struggling. The fever had left nothing to the wretch except the appearance of a man; his flesh consumed, his skin adhered to his bones. Meanwhile the holy man, as he was always entirely flowing with the bowels of mercy in the Lord, having compassion on the young man, happened to order him to sit beside him, and was holding a cup with a drink in his hand; from which, having drunk some, he extended the rest to the young man and commanded him to drink securely in the name of the Lord; and as soon as the sick man drank the potion, the fevers were put to flight, and he was restored to health, and is still a witness of the clemency shown in him. Also Lazarus,^o a monk of Scottish origin, lived with the man of God in the monastery. This man, touched by a most grievous misfortune, was tending toward his end: He prolongs the life of a dying man. on a certain day, when he was burning with the excessive heat of fever, with the pain returning to his heart, placed at his last breath, he despaired of escaping not merely the vicinity but the very presence of death. When the holy man hastened to him, he found him lying on the ground; he asked what ailed him. The other replied as best he could that he was near death; the Saint, handling him with his hands and fortifying him with the sign of the Cross, commanded him to rest a little in his bed. Without delay the sick man recovered, and having received his strength, he rose to his feet whole before the faces of those marveling, and showed how near the ears of the most benign Jesus were to the prayers of Kaddroe. For, as Scripture says: "He will do the will of those who fear Him, and He will hear their supplication." Ps. 145:19 For what did this man do but the will of God: for whom Christ was always on his lips, and peace always in his heart?

^a See what we said about this place on February 27, in the Life of Blessed John of Gorze: with whom our Cadroe was on intimate terms.

^b Commonly Waulsort on the Meuse, one Belgian mile above Dinant: and distant from the monastery of Saint Michael by seven Belgian miles, or twenty thousand paces — a fair day's journey.

^c Otto the First, crowned King at Aachen in 931, Emperor at Rome by John XII in 962, died 973.

^d Concerning the erection of this monastery, much is treated in the Walciodorensian Chronicle, and it is said to be two miles distant from Saint Michael: The monastery of Bucilly it is on the northern bank of the river nearest to the river Oise to the south, mingling with it between Vervins and La Capelle.

^e We showed that Agenald died in the year of Christ 962 or immediately before, in the Acts of Blessed John of Gorze, number 25. The Sainte-Marthes in volume 4 show that Ansteus, created Abbot of Saint Arnulf from being a monk of Gorze in the year 944, died in 960.

^f In the Walciodorensian Chronicle, Godfrey is listed after Immo, taken from the Church of Saint Remigius at Rheims, and finally expelled by his own monks for his insolence; nor is it reported how long he held the Abbey: one might suspect that he too was wrongly placed among the successors of Forannan, since some such person succeeded Cadroe either as Abbot or as Vicar: but we do not wish to dwell on conjectures based solely on prejudice.

^g He is venerated on September 9, having suffered at Rome with Saint Dorotheus. Saint Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz, translated his body thence to Gorze Saint Gorgonius the Martyr in the year 765; as Bishop Milo writes in his work on the passion, translation, and miracles of Saint Gorgonius, addressed to Immo, Abbot of Gorze, which we shall give in its time. See what we said about Saint Chrodegang on this day.

^h In the manuscript Chronicle of the Abbots of Ghent, or Saint Bavo, he is written as Womarus: succeeding Abbot Hugo in the year 955, he is said to have died in the year 982, on August 27.

^i Commonly Gembloux: Gemmelaus in the diploma of Otto in the year 946, in Miraeus in the Notitia of the Churches of Belgium, chapter 56: by which are confirmed the things which Saint Wibert or Gilbert had donated to the brothers gathered there by himself in the year 922, with Erluin established as Abbot. About this, Sigebert, a monk from the same place, writes in his Chronicle at the year 958: "Erluin, first Abbot of Gembloux, is deprived of the light of his eyes." Erluin, Aledranus, Alwin, Heriward, successive Abbots of Gembloux. Then at the year 987: "Tortured by a long martyrdom in long blindness, he dies." Whence Colgan, thinking Aledranus and Erluin were one and the same person, infers that these things happened before the year 958, since it is not probable that a blind man would wish to make a journey on foot: but if he had considered that a blind man could not have been useful for governing a monastery, and the example of Benno mentioned by us at the beginning, and the dissimilarity of names having nothing in common, he would rather have inferred the contrary — that Aledranus was substituted for Erluin, who voluntarily abdicated: and to prevent us from doubting this, there is Alwin, mentioned in the Sainte-Marthes as Abbot of this monastery and reformer of Lobbes, who died in the year 986, while Erluin was still alive: whom it is strange that the same Sainte-Marthes passed over, and put in his place Gilbert, indeed the founder, but not the Abbot — rather a monk in the monastery of Gorze: where he died in the year 962 and is venerated on May 23. Alwin was succeeded by his brother Heriward until the year 989.

^k Walciodorus is in the borders of Hainaut: Metz is closer to the Duchy of Luxembourg, then still a County: Colgan, however, prefers Bar on account of the following.

^l Frederick the Count, whom Archbishop Bruno of Cologne, brother of Otto the Great, placed in charge in his stead over the Lorrainers recalled to obedience in the year 959: who was thenceforth called Duke, and built Bar in the territory of Toul. The beginnings of the County of Bar. But we rightly doubt whether at the time these things were written, the title of County was yet attached to it: and much more whether it was already so celebrated that it could be understood simply by the name of "County," when perhaps the name of Bar did not yet exist, since it was derived from the fortress which around the year 970 was begun to be built, against the Bishop's will, as a "bar" or barrier against the French. To the Bishop, however, Frederick, by the decision of Otto the Great, handed over two abbeys in a condition of mutual exchange for the seizure of his property... so that he might peacefully possess what he had presumed for himself: thus the booklet on the successors of Saint Hildulf.

^m A similar miracle we gave in the Life of Saint Deicola on January 18, number 20.

^n From this frequent journeying to Walciodorus, we know that the care of this place was not laid down by Saint Cadroe until the arrival of Saint Forannan: especially since the one whom he had placed in charge in his own stead had deviated from rectitude: for that this did not long precede the arrival of Forannan is proved by the age of the Count raised by the Saint, namely after he returned from Fleury: which easily indicates a cohabitation of twelve or fifteen years.

^o In Colgan's copy Lassarus, a name familiar and frequent among the Scots, even among the Saints of that nation.

CHAPTER IV.

Other Miracles. Death. Burial.

[30] It is not necessary to praise the humility in him, for which he has already obtained the grace of God. To Blessed John of Gorze when ill, We commit to no discourse how great his sobriety was, because the pen has succumbed, overcome by the subject matter. The sparseness of his frugality will perhaps have few imitators. His patience was beyond human measure. Moreover, charity, which according to the Apostle is the bond of perfection, so shone in him that unless you have seen it, you would not believe it. But to say something of this by way of example: John, Abbot of the Gorzian monastery, a pillar in the temple of God (whose death, as someone has said, "the Carthaginian lions mourned, and the mountains, the wild beasts, and the forests proclaim"), with a severe bodily indisposition

was seized and lay in bed: and because he was a man of indescribable abstinence, with dry foods as was his custom when healthy, he was tormenting his weak limbs, driven by his spirit. Father Kaddroe, having heard this, He persuades him by his own example to eat meat, led by charity, had come to Gorze, and without the man's knowledge, had ordered a dish of meat to be prepared — something that could restore him to the children of the Church — and when the hour of refreshment came, a table was set before them. When John shuddered to touch the food that was brought, Kaddroe, knowing that charity does not seek its own things — he who had long ago resolved out of love of frugality not to touch even an egg — took the meat and ate it. When the man of God, John, saw this, no longer able to resist his command, he refreshed his weak limbs until he recovered. What then? Did not Kaddroe serve the charity of Christ in this too? Thence, having returned to his monastery, he took up again the shield of rigorous abstinence against spiritual wickedness.

[31] There is a place at Metz sacred by the name of Blessed Peter,^a in which a multitude of Virgins serves the Lord as best they can. Over these presided a Mother named Helvidis,^b almost incomparable in all her conduct and way of life from the very cradle. Under her blessed care, He expels a demon by the sign of the Cross, there was a certain Lady vexed by a hidden infestation of a demon, who, wherever it seized her, was dashed to the ground, grinding her teeth and foaming, and withered away. Against this infestation of the wicked spirit, therefore, the aforesaid Mother of those Sisters invited the help of Blessed Kaddroe. Who, prepared to give himself to everyone asking, went to the place with the Lord Udo, who had then come to him. But when the spirit of error in the Virgin could not be restrained, that physician, trusting in God, approached the bed of the sufferer with that companion of his, in the name of the Cross. And because that kind of enemy cannot be cast out except by fasting and prayer, when Kaddroe saw him armed with fasting and prayers, the spirit went out from the handmaid of God with a groan and did not attempt to return to her again.

[32] Adalbero, the Bishop of most renowned sanctity, after the course of thirty-five years,^c having completed the course of his administration, had departed to the heavenly abodes; and Theoderic,^d a man of Imperial lineage and singular talent, acceded to the episcopal See by the common acclamation of all, as he had already been called by God by name:^e Dear to Bishop Theoderic, who, that he might surpass the nobility of his blood by the integrity of his morals, although occupied with the affairs of the world (for he could not otherwise provide for so great a city), had turned the intention of his mind toward the memorials of the Saints and toward building and restoring places: wherefore he transferred from wherever he could the bodies and relics of Saints into his diocese. He loved the conversations of the servants of God and cherished their company. Whence, out of love of God and of the lord Kaddroe, who had loved him uniquely, he increased the place of Blessed Felix^f with the benefits and estates He obtains much for his monastery, which those who serve Christ there use to this very day, and he venerated the blessed man himself as if he were a Father, and summoning him frequently to himself — because he knew the man had the spirit of counsel — he listened to him, and committed himself more attentively to the prayers of his charity, which he had proved by the testimony of such great virtues to be pleasing to God.

[33] Of these we would have thought we had already offered enough, were it not that we wished to avoid scandalizing the curious, who place sanctity in the estimation of virtues. Nor indeed would there be lacking something about this man whereby they could be satisfied, but we speak of a few out of many, lest we be charged with wearying the Reader. Charity compelled this man of God He frees his hostess from anxiety about preparing supper, to visit the aforesaid Mother of Virgins, who was staying at the place called Corruptala: when he had arrived unexpectedly, and the aforesaid handmaid of God said she had less readily available meat for the use of the men who had come with so great a man, and the man of God found her distressed about this, he called her to himself and said: "Be strengthened in the Lord and in the power of His virtue; and confess to Him who opens His hand and fills every living thing with blessing: for He can give what is lacking to us who trust in Him — He who once satisfied the complaining house of Jacob in the desert with the flesh of quails." With the words of the holy man, a dog, chasing a doe, knocked it down from the cliff adjacent to the monastery, and thus with its legs broken, it rendered service for the use of the man of God, and freed the handmaid of God from her present distress.

[34] Therefore, resplendent with these and such virtues, and daily desiring to be dissolved and to be with Christ, Called to the Empress Adelaide, he heard from the Lord that the day of his death would not be far off. Meanwhile the Empress Adelaide,^g mother of the invincible Emperor Otto, inflamed with holy desire — as she loved with sincere love all whom she knew to be friends of Religion, so also this blessed man. Setting out therefore for Italy, she had arrived at a place situated on the bank of the river Rhine, called Neheristein.^h Whence, sending envoys to Metz, she begged the man of God Kaddroe to come to her out of charity. Approached repeatedly by the envoys, and compelled by the Lord Bishop Deoderic, although he was not unaware of the end of his days, out of charity — which indeed suffers all things — he did not refuse to set out; considering that he would achieve a good end to his life if he were found serving charity. While on the road, he called some brothers who were accompanying him and announced that his dissolution was imminent: He predicts his own death. and when heavy sorrow seized them, because they would lose all counsel, he consoled them saying: "The Angel of Great Counsel will not desert you, Brothers, unless you perhaps abandon Him. Receive the commandments of God with all eagerness, fulfill them in deed, and He will direct you in the way of eternal salvation. For the rest, my poor little body — if there is any place among you for my prayers — carry it back to the monastery and there commit it to burial: but if the Empress should attempt to detain me for some time, I beseech you, oppose it: for if it should happen that I depart from the bonds of the flesh in her presence, let your charity know that my poor little body will be deprived of burial in the monastery. For the rest, after my departure, if you wish to act with counsel, there are among you men of good counsel, whom you should always consult: and do not forget Mother Helvidis, because according to the littleness of my judgment, I have never found her equal in that sex. Greet the Lord Bishop and the rest of our friends from me, and for the love of Christ, entreat them to help my poor soul before God."

[35] He hastens to return. Meanwhile he came to the Empress: who, when she heard the man was arriving, ran to meet him with immense joy, and received and greeted him courteously. The man of God, when he addressed the Empress, said: "You know, Lady, why I have come here?" And when she replied: "Father, you have come out of love of charity," the man of God, with his cheerful countenance, added: "While charity indeed compelled me here, necessity itself also commanded me to come to seek permission to leave: but what that permission meant, he indeed knew, but the Empress by no means perceived." When he had spent four days or more with the Empress, and the woman of holy devotion did not wish to let him go, but insisted with her own prayers and those of the Bishops present that he remain with her for some time, he turned to his Brothers: Detained by the Empress, "Come, Brothers, act — and since the dissolution of my poor body is near, make haste to depart: do not yield to prayers, if you wish to carry my body back to the monastery." Four days had already passed, and the Empress insisted that he remain with her for two more days. He therefore consented, although unwillingly, and completed the two days as he had been asked. There was great joy that they had prevailed upon the man of God to stay this long. The hour of dinner had come, and the magnates of the realm with the Empress were reclining at the feast. While during the meal a great fire was kindled there, lest any danger might occur from the blaze, many had gone up to the roof and ceiling of the house.

[36] But behold, one man, having incautiously leaned on the floor above, slipped and fell to the ground, where the height of the structure was so great that he could not only have broken his legs, He cures a man who fell from a height, but could have been dashed to pieces over his whole body. The Empress therefore calmed the resulting tumult, and ordered the man to be carried into the house where Kaddroe was lodging. Brought in therefore and signed by the man of God, when he received a drink from him, he was restored to the most perfect health. Talk spread among the courtiers, and the name of the man of God was borne on the lips of all. When the man of God learned of this and bore it with displeasure, he could barely obtain that no one should speak further about it. And when the two days were completed and he wished to return to the monastery, and had already departed some distance with the Empress's leave, he was suddenly seized by a fever and soon deprived of his bodily strength. Calling the Brothers together, he commanded them to hasten the journey, so that if possible he might reach the monastery alive. He dies on the journey. But by the command of God, who has appointed the end of man which can by no means be passed, already a veteran old man, after the seventieth year of his life and the thirtieth year of his pilgrimage, putting off mortality, he entered the heavenly Capitol, to be crowned perpetually by the rewarder of his labors.

[37] He is laid out, as is the custom, on a bier; and I know not what circumstance had turned his body to the side: a certain Brother who was nearby had lain down, weary, and the Saint appearing to him said: "Brother, He appears after death, why do you not attend to how negligently I am placed in my bed?" Awakened, the Brother searched and found the body lying as we described: he corrected it as he had been asked. The Brothers, that is, his companions on the journey, full of sorrow, directed a lamentable message to the city. It cannot be believed what sorrow seized the entire city: they came out in rivalry to meet the body; an innumerable multitude from the city, towns, villages, and fields rushed forth: one was the voice of those mourning and lamenting together. And although they knew that this man was not to be mourned, who after the long contests of this life had entered into the joy of his Lord, nevertheless the memory of his goodness wrung from them the expression of lamentation. While being carried to Metz, he heals a man with fever. From the place, however, where the blessed man had passed, as the Brothers who were carrying the body went out, a certain man who had been suffering from a prolonged fever approached; and as soon as he touched the coffin, in the sight of the people, he departed well. He is meanwhile conveyed to Metz, and is received by an immense — though mourning — multitude of Clerics, monks, virgins, and common people, who had assembled from all the neighboring places, and conducted to the place of burial with the greatest display — I do not say of a funeral, but of a triumph — he was buried in the church of Blessed Felix, and lives with Christ forever and ever. Amen.

^a Founded in the seventh century by Saint Balderic, over which first his sister Saint Bova presided, then Saint Doda, her niece; about whom see April 24. The Sainte-Marthes say it was restored under the Rule of Saint Benedict by Adalbero, Bishop of Metz. Helvidis, Abbess of Saint Peter's, Metz

^b We doubt whether the Sainte-Marthes found the names of the Abbesses who followed Doda collected anywhere in the order in which they produce them: they seem to have arranged them by their own judgment, adding the day of death as found in the necrology of the place. Among these is Helvidis, who died on January 17, number thirteen in the Sainte-Marthes' order and assigned to the year 1160: but the order and year must be changed, if she is the same person treated here, which we entirely believe.

in the Sainte-Marthes' order, number thirteen, and assigned to the year 1160: but the order and year must be changed, if she is the same person treated here, which we entirely believe.

^c In the year 964, as we said in the commentary, number 11; and Claude Robert writes the same in Christian Gaul, whence it seems to be attributed to a typographical error that in his work Adalbero is read to have sat for 32 years.

^d The son of Duke Frederick from Beatrice, sister of Hugh Capet, says Claude Robert from Rosier, chapter 58. More certain is what Sigebert says at the year 964 — that he was a cousin of Emperor Otto, namely the Great.

^e Theoderic, Bishop of Metz This man, as it is read, examining the first letters of the names of all the Bishops of Metz, which an Angel of the Lord is said to have given to Saint Clement, and noting that some were annotated in gold, others in a baser metal, according to the quality of their merits: when he saw that the letter of his own name was marked in silver, he is said to have declared that he would do such great good during his episcopate that the very letter of his name would deservedly be annotated in gold: the beginning of which good intention he showed in the monastery of Saint Vincent the Martyr and Levite, founded on the island of that very city. So Sigebert: from which it appears why he is said to have been called by God by his name. He sat for 20 years.

^f The Sainte-Marthes understand Felix of Nola, a Presbyter; Colgan more correctly judges him to be a Bishop of Metz, Saint Felix, Bishop of Metz whose feast day recurs on February 21, where we said from Meurissius that his body was entombed in Saint Clement's, and that his arm still remains there, after his body was translated to Saxony by Saint Emperor Henry.

^g Colgan invented her as the daughter of King Edward of England, sister of Aethelstan and Edmund, also Kings of England, The lineage of the Empress Adelaide deceived by an ambiguous passage in Malmesbury, book 2, chapter 5, who speaks thus: "The brother sent Ethilda to Hugh; the same brother sent Edgitha and Elgisa to Henry, Emperor of the Germans; of whom the second he placed with his son Otto: the other with a certain Duke near the Alps." He worries, however, lest Malmesbury transposed the names, so that Ethilda is the one Henry gave to his son Otto, not Algisa. But he torments himself in vain, because that name is closer to Adelaide: for it is certain from the Chronicle of the Abbot of Ursberg that Adelaide was the daughter of Rudolf, King of Burgundy, and of Lady Queen Bertha, daughter of Burchard, Duke of Alemannia, whom, after Rudolf's death, King Hugh took in marriage, and joined his daughter to his son Lothair; Adelaide, left a widow by him, was afflicted in many ways by Berengar, who had expelled Hugo and obtained the kingdom of Italy, fearing the virtue of her singular prudence, so that he might either extinguish or at least obscure the glory of so great a splendor... "And since the virtue of the aforesaid Queen was not hidden from Otto, he determined under a pretended journey to proceed to Rome; and when he entered Lombardy... having faithfully sought the Queen's love, he joined her to himself in marriage, and with her obtained Pavia, which is the seat of the kingdom... and from her were born the firstborn Henry, the second Bruno, the third designated by the majesty of his father's name, whom even then the whole world hoped would be lord after his father: also a daughter distinguished by her holy mother's name." But what of Edgitha? The Ursberg chronicler calls her Edid, Edgitha, the first wife of Otto who, "born of the English race, was distinguished no less for holy religion than for royal power: she held the partnership of the kingdom for ten years, died in the eleventh, lived in Saxony for nineteen years, left a son named Liudolf and a daughter Liudgard, and was buried in the city of Magdeburg" — that is, ten years before Otto went to Italy to seek Adelaide, which Flodoard writes was done in the year 951.

^h If he was summoned from Metz to where the Rhine flows nearest to Lorraine, this place would be situated between Mainz and Speyer.

CONCERNING BLESSED OLDEGAR, ARCHBISHOP OF TARRAGONA AND BISHOP OF BARCELONA IN SPAIN.

IN THE YEAR 1137.

Oldegar, Archbishop of Tarragona and Bishop of Barcelona in Spain (Blessed)

[1] Barcelona, the capital of the County of the same name in Hither Spain, venerates with distinguished worship Oldegar, or Ollegar, its former Bishop, and everywhere addresses him with the religious appellation of Saint: Called a Saint, and we find the Roman Pontiff Clement VIII himself (the very one who repressed by a useful constitution the excessive facility of certain persons in usurping the title of Blessed or Saint) using the same appellation in granting a certain Benefice, "established and founded in the chapel of Saint Ollegar built in the church of Barcelona," on February 9, 1604. For the same Pontiff had declared that it was not his intention to innovate anything concerning those who from time immemorial, as they say, are called Saints or Blessed. More indeed about the veneration of this Saint or Blessed would necessarily have to be prefaced by us, if we did not treat of that matter more explicitly in the very text of the Life, which we present as compiled from the public monuments of the city and church of Barcelona: as they are suggested to us by Friar Francisco Diago, in the history of the Counts of Barcelona published in Spanish in 1603, and Friar Jacobo Rebullosa, in the Life of this blessed Bishop, similarly composed in the Spanish language and printed in 1609; both writers of the Order of Preachers. Various authors of the Life. At the same time these were writing, Friar Antonio Domenec, similarly of the Order of Preachers, brought to light the General History of the Saints of Catalonia, namely in the year 1602; and in it he has the Life of the same Blessed man composed by himself; which, with certain things cut out or changed, Don Juan Tamayo Salazar rendered into Latin in his Spanish Martyrology. Philip Ferrari, in the General Catalogue of Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, having mentioned this holy man at the sixth day of March, then adds the following in his notes: "Antonio Juan Garcia, Canon of Barcelona, published the Life in 1617, in which innumerable miracles are narrated, and although he is not honored with an Ecclesiastical Office, he is called a Saint and an altar is dedicated to him." We have not yet had the opportunity to see that Life: we believe the more recent miracles are of the kind that we shall see below were collected by public authority in the year 1602 through Miguel Boldo, Canon of the Cathedral Church: concerning which, once duly examined, we think that a Commentary composed to be offered at the Roman Curia for the promotion of Canonization still survives; but neither has it come into our hands, nor the ancient summary of the Life and miracles which a certain anonymous Canon of Girona wrote in Latin about, it seems, nearly four hundred years ago, and which exists, as Diago and Rebullosa attest, in the Archive of the Chapter of Barcelona in an ancient manuscript Legendary, which Domenec also seems to mention.

LIFE

Collected from the Public Monuments of the City and Church of Barcelona.

Oldegar, Archbishop of Tarragona and Bishop of Barcelona in Spain (Blessed)

FROM VARIOUS SOURCES

CHAPTER I.

The Birth of Blessed Oldegar, First a Canon of Barcelona, Then Prior of Saint Adrian.

[1] At the time when Raymond Berenguer, Born in Catalonia, the first of that name as Count of Barcelona, the terror of the Spanish Moors, was illustrating by the glory of his arms those regions which Ptolemy assigned to the Lacetani, Laetani, and Castellani, and which the usage of later centuries distinguished by the name of Catalonia — not from the Goths or Cats and Alans (as Volaterranus and Beatus Rhenanus fabricate) but from the above-mentioned Castellani — a great distinction came to this Province from the birth of Blessed Oldegar, whose Life we give here. His father bore the same name Oldegar, his mother was Guilla, His father was Secretary to the Counts of Barcelona, both of Gothic blood, unless the Gothic form of the names deceives. And that his father was in the secret service of his lords the Counts of Barcelona, and therefore a man of principal authority in the commonwealth, the authors gather from the formula of an oath, inscribed on a very ancient parchment and preserved in the general Archive of the entire Province,^a whose tenor is as follows: "I, Ollegar, son of the woman Guidenel,^b swear to you, my lord Count Raymond, son of the Countess Sancia,^c and to the Lady Countess Almodi,^d your daughter, who was the daughter of Countess Amelia, that from this hour forward^e I will be faithful to you without any trick^f or evil design or deception concerning your life and concerning all the limbs which you hold in your bodies; and concerning that honor which you have today, and which you shall henceforth acquire, God willing; and I will not speak those words^g which you shall say to me and shall command me to conceal, to any man or woman of my knowledge, if you do not release me of your own free will. By the Lord and these holy things."

[2] This formula of swearing, which of the innumerable ones which Diago asserts he saw is the only one containing a promise of keeping secrets — And called Oldegar by his father's own name, if it pertains to the father of the Blessed man (about which he himself and others do not doubt) — not only proves this dignity of his with the title of Chancellor or Secretary; but further proves against Rebullosa that Oldegar is a proper name, not a family name taken from some domain or possession: for who, in rendering the oath of fidelity, would use any name other than his own, or has ever done so? Wherefore we believe that the place in the parish of Santa Eulalia de Provençana in the territory of Barcelona, called Olleguer (which in Catalan means Oldegar), did not give its name to its lord, but received it from him: nor does the name of Bernard Oldegar found elsewhere^h prove anything to the contrary: since from the sole series of the Counts of Barcelona alone it is manifestly clear that the second name is either the father's, or (if the son bore the same name as the father) the grandfather's; and that it was not the custom in those times for it to pass to posterity as a family name. Thus the successor of the above-named Count, the homonymous Raymond, has his surname from his grandfather Berenguer with the addition of "the Younger": but his brother Berenguer, in whom the grandfather's repeated name revived as his own, is simply surnamed Raymond from his father.

[3] Around the year 1061. Diago confesses that the year in which Blessed Oldegar came into this light is nowhere found expressed: but if what he says rests on firm foundations — that he died in the seventy-sixth year of his age, in the year of the Christian Era one thousand one hundred and thirty-seven — it evidently follows that the year one thousand and sixty-one from the birth of Christ was his birth year. Now, since no testimony of any ancient document is cited for this age, I strongly suspect He is offered to the Church of Saint Eulalia as a Canon that this author, following what seemed probable to him, defined it thus after establishing that the fifteenth year had been completed by Oldegar when his parents offered him to God and Saint Eulalia, together with estates, concerning which^i this instrument of the year one thousand and seventy-six exists:

"In the name of Christ, I, Ollegar, and my wife Guilia, are donors to the Lord God and the Canonry of Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, and we donate^k one piece of land with a vineyard situated in the County^l of Ausona, in the territory of the castle of Manresa^m and of Villalonga, in the place called Saint Ermengaud. With a dowry It is bounded moreover

the aforesaid land with the vineyard on the east side at the road; on the south and west side in the allodial land of Guitard Miro and Berengarius Bonifilius; on the north side in the allodial land of Argemundus: whatever these aforesaid boundaries enclose and delimit, we donate to the Lord God and to the aforesaid Canonry firmly and deliberately. This was done on the ninth day before the Kalends of June, in the sixteenth year of the reign of King Philip.

[4] according to the custom of that time: And indeed it is highly probable that these estates, offered to the church together with the boy himself, a church grievously afflicted and in need from a recent Saracen invasion (in the manner that in certain poorer convents of nuns none is admitted without a dowry established by the parents), as is confirmed both by a similar donation instrument drawn up in the twentieth year of Philip the Second ^o, on the fourth day before the Ides of June, by which the parents of Peter de Centellas offered him to the same church, he who after forty-three years of his Canonry in that same Church would become Bishop; and also, as regards the age of the one offered, by that constitution by which at last in the year one thousand three hundred and fifty-four, with the consent of Bishop Peter de Planela and the entire Chapter, it was decreed that no one younger than eighteen years should thenceforth be admitted to the Canonry.

Nevertheless, that he was not so much a boy as not to have entered the years of puberty, and was close to the age that Diagus assigns, is proved by the dignity of Provost, and made Provost with which he was invested in the thirty-fourth year of King Philip ^p, as is clear from the donation of a certain estate ^q on the seventeenth day of July, signed with these words: The mark of Ollegarius the Provost, who received this donation and conveyance from the donor, and at her command wrote and confirmed it, on the day and year stated above. How great this dignity was, and what sort of men it customarily held, is shown by the election of his predecessor Raymond, who in the year one thousand one hundred and seven was raised from Provost to Bishop of Barcelona; so that it seems quite remarkable if St. Oldegarius held that office for scarcely four years past the age of thirty.

[5] He is ordained a Priest. Nor is it less remarkable that he held that rank of honor while not yet a Priest; for this seems to be gathered from another subscription of the following year, ^r in which he describes himself as Priest and Provost; whereas before taking up the Provostship, in the twenty-ninth year ^s of King Philip, he had merely appended: The mark of Ollegarius the Deacon. For in those times it was rare among beneficed clergy for one not to dread the obligation of perpetual continence attached to this grade, or even not to have a wife legitimately taken under certain conditions: thus Diagus judges that Guislabertus, later Bishop of Barcelona, lived in marriage while he was a Canon; and it is certain that his wife Guilia and son Miro were alive even after he had been elevated to the Episcopate, as shown by the establishment of a certain fief ^t constituted with their consent and that of the Chapter. What training Olligarius received from his excellent parents, how attentive a boyhood he passed in the principles of the liberal arts and virtues, what great progress he made in both as a youth enrolled in the College of Canons — it is better to leave to the reader to judge from the holiness of the rest of his life, than to wish to pursue it in one's own words, and those merely general, without any ancient testimony to guide the way. The Canon of Gerona, who long ago briefly wrote his Life in Latin, commends a singular chastity in the young man, from which Rebullosa transcribed the following about him: In his youthful age the holy young man chose the narrow and holy way; under the Rule of Blessed Augustine, the regular habit and life: which seems to have happened on the occasion that I now begin to relate.

[6] Bertrand, Bishop of Barcelona. When Berengarius, Bishop of Barcelona, had departed this life, Bertrand was appointed in his place; the sole or chief reason for summoning him from Saint-Ruf — the foremost monastery of the Canonical Order in Provence — could have been the man's proven virtue, and the zeal of the Counts of Barcelona, who desired to see the vigor of canonical discipline (which in that eleventh century was so happily reflourishing throughout all the provinces of the Christian world, under the particular institute of the Lateran Congregation and the profession of the Augustinian Rule) revived in their own dominions as well through the election of such a Pastor: which election must be placed before the year one thousand and eighty-nine; since in the twenty-ninth year of King Philip, on the Kalends of February, he accepted and signed the donation of his Archdeacon Bernard William, who transferred to the Church of Barcelona the third part of the castle of Montaniola with its tithes ^u; to which our Blessed subscribed his name, claiming for himself only the title of Deacon, as we observed a little above.

Whether Bertrand had been, or from Abbot of Saint-Ruf? before he was appointed to govern the Episcopate, Abbot of Saint-Ruf, our authors say: but if this is true (for they adduce no ancient testimony) he had as successor in the government of that monastery Arberius, to whom (listed among the San-Marthans in volume 4 of Gallia Christiana) as the first in order of known Abbots, there exists a Brief of Urban II, dated at Tricastrum in the year one thousand and ninety-six; by which various privileges are granted to that monastery, pertaining to its immunity and good governance. Moreover, the aforesaid Bertrand did not sluggishly carry out what could be expected of him: for among the Canons of his Church, most of whom he is likely to have found lacking in Sacred Orders, he strove to kindle the love of receiving the Priesthood: and that he might more easily obtain this, he without difficulty led the Provost, who would go before the rest by example, where he wished. He also looked about for a place He institutes Regular Canons in the church of St. Adrian in which to gather those who pursued a more religious life, and to train them in the institutes to which he himself had adhered in Gaul: and he found one suited to his purpose; namely, the most ancient church of St. Adrian, annexed to the possessions of the Cathedral of Barcelona through Bishop Adeodatus together with the first-fruits and tithes already from the year one thousand and thirteen, situated at a distance of two leagues from the city toward the northeast, across the river Besos on the way along the sea coast to Badalona. Into this church, therefore, he introduced Regular Canons; subordinated indeed to the Chapter of Barcelona by reason of the possession received from it, but subject as regards the discipline of the monastic Order to the Abbot of Saint-Ruf: to whom we must say that Blessed Ollegarius quickly joined himself, where Oldegarius served as Prior of whom the ancient author of his Life writes: that he held the Priorate of St. Adrian for very many years: and thence coming to the Church of Saint-Ruf, he was elected Abbot.

[7] Because all authors unanimously place this last event in the year one thousand one hundred and eight, the question is asked how many years he must be left in the Priorate, so that the words of that ancient text retain their truth; Rebullosa considers that ten years are not sufficient, nor scarcely twelve; and he inclines to maintain that in the same year he was consecrated Priest (which was the ninety-sixth of the eleventh century, and the last of Bishop Bertrand's life), by the same hands by which he had been anointed Priest, he was also clothed in the monastic habit; and a short time later, having professed his religious vows, he was placed over the new flock with the title of Prior. Whether all these things can be suitably conceived as having happened before Bertrand's death in that brief period, over some years. the prudent reader will judge: it is nothing new to us to detect in authors nearly contemporary certain slight errors of this kind concerning the early and more obscure period of those Saints whose Lives they write, and to pardon them when detected; and it would seem sufficient if Ollegarius were shown to have been placed over that sacred community in the last years of that century; for this, at a minimum, is established from the drafting of a certain census contract, drawn up in the thirty-ninth year of King Philip ^x on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of December, which reads as follows: The mark of Ollegarius, Priest and servant of St. Adrian: which formula is thereafter seen in many writings of this kind.

^a From document C number 395, says Diagus, who inspected it.

^b It was customary among the Catalan nobility to use the father's name in the second place, or if the father bore the same name, the grandfather's or great-grandfather's; as we shall see below: but from what source the practice arose in public instruments of expressing the mother's name while omitting the father's, we leave for another to divine; an example of this practice may be seen in Diagus book 2, chapter 56, where Berengarius, Bishop of Barcelona, writes himself the son of Countess Isabella.

^c Daughter of Sancho, Count of Castile, and first wife of Count Berengarius, who was afterward joined in a second marriage to Guisla.

^d This was the second wife of Raymond, after Isabella, Countess of Carcassonne, mother of Count William of Toulouse from a prior marriage.

^e This is an idiom for what we say in Latin in posterum henceforth; it corresponds syllable for syllable to the expression still used among the French, d'ors-en-avant.

^f That is, fraud: whence engannar, to deceive.

^g That is, words: parola in Italian, Parole in French, Palabra in Spanish.

^h In the History of the Counts of Barcelona: book 3, chapter 70, folio 134, says Rebullosa in chapter 2: and thus indicates a different work from the one we have under the same title by the author Diago, whose third and last book consists of only 26 chapters, and yet numbers 318 folios.

^i Book 4 of the Antiquities of the Cathedral of Barcelona: folio 99.

^k That is, a part; in French piece, Italian pezzo, Spanish pedaço.

^l Today Osona, whose capital city is Vich: whence in Latin the Bishops are called Ausonenses, whom Spanish writers at this time commonly call Vicenses.

^m Today called Manresa, in earlier centuries Minoresa, on the river Rubricatum, commonly called Lobrego, a famous city, eighty thousand paces distant from Barcelona, later made illustrious by the beginnings and sacred exercises of our Holy Father Ignatius.

^n Thus they used to call the boundaries of lands, which join front to front as it were; now that word has changed its meaning; and in French Affronter, Spanish Affrontar, Italian Affrontare, means to attack insultingly.

^o Of the common era 1199.

^p Of Christ 1094.

^q In the Parish of St. Peter of Vila-major, made to the Chapter by a certain Trudgard; which donation is found in book 3 of the Antiquities, folio 97.

^r Which was the 35th of King Philip, when on the ninth day before the Ides of July he subscribed to the donation by which the Baron Tudisclus with his wife transferred certain fields of theirs into the rights of the Chapter, in the parish of Badalona: as is found in book 2 of the Antiquities, folio 131.

^s Of Christ 1089, 15 June, in that instrument by which Count Berengarius Raymond pledged to Gerald Alemanni de Cervellon for seven thousand Valentian ducats the castle of Santa Perpetua del Penades, which instrument itself exists in the original in the Archive of the Chapter of Barcelona.

^t Namely, the tower of Miralpex in favor of Arnald Arlumini, as Diagus reports from the Episcopology of Tarrasa, book 2, chapter 36, where he also mentions the donation by which the same Bishop in the year 1058 transferred to his daughter Ermesenda, married to Raymond Renard, half of the Castle of Cabrera, which he saw in the Royal Archive, book 1 of Fiefs, folio 348.

^u Of Christ 1089, and it is found in book 3 of the Antiquities, folio 92, says Diagus.

^x Of Christ 1099; the same testifies that he saw the original itself in the Archive of the Chapter: moreover, that census was established by Raymond, Oldegarius's successor in the Provostship and predecessor in the Episcopate, with the consent of Bishop Folcus and the Chapter.

CHAPTER II.

He becomes Abbot of Saint-Ruf in Gaul, then Bishop of Barcelona.

[8] He increases the monastery's resources The new house of St. Adrian was growing

daily in spiritual growth, since the religious exhortations of their Prior, animated by the example of his life, were readily followed by all: nor was it less enriched by the acquisition of temporal goods; although of that monastery only the Church, now converted into a parish, survives. But the liberality of Count Raymond, the Third of that name, was especially notable, who on the second day before the Nones of August, in the forty-fourth year of King Philip ^a, donated to the Canons of St. Adrian the tithes of all the produce accruing to him from ships of every kind, both greater and lesser.

And we believe that it was through the merits of the holy man's favor that he was promoted to the abbacy of Saint-Ruf: and is elected Abbot of Saint-Ruf, for the reason that Rebullosa fabricates regarding the Council celebrated by Paschal II at Troyes in the year one thousand one hundred and seven, from which he says Apostolic visitors were sent in every direction, and from among whom he would have us believe that St. Ollegarius was one, for the reformation of that Abbey; that reason, I say, lacking all authority, we cannot accept. Raymond, however, then had great authority in Provence; for at that time, Almodi having died — of whose life there is certainty only up to the sixth year of the twelfth century ^b — he had taken a third wife, Dulcia, the daughter and heir of Gilbert, Count of Provence, in whose domain the aforesaid monastery of Saint-Ruf was situated.

[9] Diagus and Rebullosa pretend that this monastery is between Maguelone and Montpellier, commonly called Monspellier, not in Occitania, in the ancient Roman Province or Gallia Narbonensis indeed: but in that part which now, having relinquished the name of Province on this side of the Rhone, is called Languedoc or Occitania: they pretend, I say: for that which existed as a monastery of Saint-Ruf at or near Montpellier was first founded around the middle of the fourteenth century by Angelicus Grimaldi de Brisac, Bishop of Avignon and afterward Cardinal: who gave it this name, and at the same time gave the aforesaid authors an occasion for error, derived from the head of the entire congregation, the most ancient monastery of Saint-Ruf, which in the first beginnings of the reflourishing Canonical Order in the eleventh century, but in Provence near Avignon; from an origin hitherto obscure, suddenly rose to the greatest fame, extending its branches from sea to sea, so that very many monasteries were propagated from it not only through Gaul, but through Spain and Italy as well, to be administered through a Prior subject to the Abbot of Saint-Ruf: of which many perished, like that of St. Adrian mentioned above, while others grew into illustrious Abbeys. Moreover, from a twofold rescript of Urban II it is clear that the mother-house was outside the walls of Avignon, where originally there had been a small and crumbling church of St. Rufus, a disciple of the Apostles, venerable for the sacred relics of his body; and it remained there until the time of the Albigensians; then indeed, destroyed by their fury, it moved to Valencia, in the year 1210; and again demolished by the Huguenots, it migrated from the suburb into the city, in the year 1562.

Whether Bertrand, the one mentioned above as Bishop of Barcelona, was ever Abbot of this monastery, I strongly doubt: if however he came from Provence, I would readily believe he was from the said congregation of Saint-Ruf; and perhaps that very man who, promoted to the Cathedral of Maguelone in the year 1078, was two years later deposed as having been simoniacally intruded, with Godfrey succeeding him: who immediately arranged that his Canons should bind themselves by a vow of religion, whereas before that his predecessor Arnaldus had persuaded them to abstain from incestuous marriages. ^c

[10] successor of Adelbert Now after Alberius, the Abbot of Saint-Ruf mentioned above, and after Adelbert too had departed this life around this time (Lebert is what John Columbi calls him, in his Noctes Blancalandanae, investigating the origins of the Canons of Saint-Ruf), to whom the twofold rescript of Urban II is addressed; or, if that Adelbert or Lebert did not live so long, after the death of his unknown successor, one need not ask what reason the Prior of St. Adrian had for going there: since the house of St. Adrian was immediately subject to the monastery of Saint-Ruf, and therefore had the right of suffrage in conferring the election of the Abbot. Elected canonically then was Blessed Oldegarius, or (as the same name can be written in various ways according to dialectal variation) Aldegerius: whom I think is incorrectly called Adelgerius in volume 4 of Gallia Christiana, for he cannot be a different person from the Oldegarius to whom there exists a diploma of Paschal II, confirming privileges and possessions, and enumerating among them the Churches of St. Peter and St. Mary of Egara, of St. Julian of Terrassa with their possessions, dependents, and churches established through them, which Raymond, Bishop of Barcelona, granted, he arranges for the monastery's goods and privileges to be confirmed at Rome. together with his own former patrimony and other possessions, which, says Paschal, have been bestowed on You and the Clerics living with you, together with the estates and churches of St. Adrian, excepting the demesne lands of the Bishop of Barcelona. We also confirm to you the possession which Raymond of noble memory, the Count, gave you in the region of Tripoli, together with the church of Saint-Ruf, which he built there. These things, written on the fourth day before the Ides of January of the year 1115 (when Oldegarius was without doubt still Abbot of Saint-Ruf) it has pleased us to adduce more fully, so that it might be clear what the connection of the people of Barcelona was with the monastery of Saint-Ruf: and how much it owes to its Ollegarius, through whose authority with the aforesaid Raymond it was undoubtedly brought about that the house of St. Adrian, and within it the monastery of Saint-Ruf itself, was increased with possessions as ample as those reported there. The San-Marthans consider that the Abbot to whom the said bull of Paschal is addressed also in the year 1116 was present at Brignoles in Provence as a witness to the settlement made concerning the castle of Soliers between the monks of Marseilles: Did he subscribe to the treaty of Brignoles? which indeed is quite plausible: but not entirely certain. For if the letter of Paschal to Oldegarius, still Abbot of Saint-Ruf, given in the same year on the twenty-third day of May, was executed that same summer or autumn; one might suspect that the aforesaid settlement was made after Oldegarius had been taken away to Barcelona, and thus pertains to the Abbot newly elected in his place, and if you suppose his name was Adelgerius, there is reason to judge that an occasion was given for that error by which Adelgerius was substituted for Oldegarius in the transcript of that diploma which we have discussed.

[11] Succession of Bishops of Barcelona. Meanwhile, while Ollegarius thus provided for the monasteries of SS. Adrian and Rufus in this manner: when Bishop Bertrand, as we saw, passed to the next world at the beginning of the year one thousand and ninety-six, Folcus was appointed in his place that same year, ^d from a Viscount of Cardona according to some, certainly from a family of Viscounts. Folcus was followed by Berengarius, Abbot of St. Cucuphas, advanced in age, who in the year one thousand one hundred, the second of his Episcopate, obtained from the people of Barcelona the tithes of lands and produce in perpetuity, to relieve the poverty of his Church: when he died in the seventh year of that same Episcopate, the votes of the electors agreed on Raymond Guillen; that very man, namely, upon whom Blessed Ollegarius, about to become a monk, had resigned the dignity of the Provostship, and to whom two years earlier the above-named Pope Paschal, in the second year of his Pontificate, ^e had directed the bull by which he confirmed to the Chapter of Barcelona whatever offerings of Bishops and the faithful of Christ had been made; When Raymond Guillen was killed by the Moors in Majorca, and provided that the Canons should not be multiplied beyond the number of forty. I suspect that this Raymond was the brother of Bernard Guillen, Count of Besalú, led by the coincidence of the paternal name and the time: ^f he was certainly a man of noble birth, who, when Raymond set out against the Moors who held the Balearic Islands, showed himself the author and companion of the sacred war with a great company of Ecclesiastics, having pledged certain goods of his own right for that cause, and in which he also gloriously laid down his life, slain by the Moors, who defended themselves vigorously on the island of Majorca, in the year one thousand one hundred and fourteen. The Bishop's death was followed by the siege of the city of Barcelona: which the Count, returning from the expedition he had undertaken, not only lifted on the third day after it had begun, but also dealt a very great defeat to the Moors: and not content with that victory, and supported by the aid of the Pisans and Genoese, he crossed again the following year to the Balearics, and having taken the city of Majorca, returned with immense booty and glory, having freed innumerable Christians from cruel servitude.

[12] Oldegarius is elected, The military campaign having gone as desired, Raymond also took care to provide for Ecclesiastical affairs through the promotion of Blessed Ollegarius, who happened at that time to be present in Barcelona: when he learned what had been done, being a man of singular humility, he began to think of flight; and soon putting his thought into effect, he boarded a ship at first cock-crow with a few companions, and sailed swiftly to Provence, retreating into his monastery of Saint-Ruf as a most secure refuge. The Clergy and people felt this grievously, as was fitting; and the most pious Count, as is right to believe, felt that flight most gravely of all: and so, moved by zeal for the defense of religion, having crossed to Italy for the purpose of seeking aid, he went to the feet of Pope Paschal II through his legates, and is recalled from flight by Pontifical command. the chief of whom were the Bishops of Nice and Antibes, and was commended by a special Brief from the same Pope for his outstanding zeal for the Christian cause, and received as his legate the Cardinal Boso, to arrange both other matters according to the Count's desire, and also by the authority of the Pontifical mandate to provide for the Church of Barcelona, lest it long lack its desired Pastor. The Pontifical Brief, which we have mentioned, is presented by Diagus and Rebullosa: but in it you will find not a single word about either Boso or Blessed Ollegarius. Therefore, passing over that Brief as having little bearing on our subject, I come to the letter directed to Blessed Ollegarius himself: for it contains a remarkable commendation, both of his virtues and of his past life, and of the election itself, through which he was chosen by the Clergy, by God, for the governance of the Church of Barcelona: and we take it from Tamayo, who first produced it in his Spanish Martyrology, from a very ancient manuscript Codex containing the ancient laws of Catalonia.

[13] Paschal, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God, to his beloved brother Oldegarius, Abbot of Saint-Ruf, Bishop-elect of Barcelona, Letter of Paschal II greeting and the Apostolic benediction.

Since the care of the Pastoral office demands, and the vigor of equity and the order of reason require, that those things which are sought from us, if they are just and honorable, be brought to their due effect. Therefore know that from the letters of our most dear son Raymond, Count of the people of Barcelona, and from the representations of that Church and people, we have learned that you, who have not buried in the earth with the unprofitable servant the gift of knowledge committed to you by the Master of the house as a talent for trading, but having been assumed to Pastoral solicitude, thus fulfilling the work of a Rector according to the Apostle, have striven to honor your ministry and to preside with Abbatial solicitude; so that, as we believe, you may truly say with the Prophet: Upon the watchtower of the Lord I stand continually by day, His person, and upon my watch I stand all through the nights, showing yourself so faithful over a few things that you deserve to be set over many: which the beloved sons, the Canons of the Church of Barcelona, prudently considering, when after their Bishop of good memory had been taken from this light, they had held a deliberation

about the divine appointment of a Pontiff, at length, by the working of Him who makes both one, with the desires of Clergy and people concurring, they elected you as their Bishop and Pastor by unanimous consent. Isaiah 21:8. When you learned of this, fleeing to your Abbey, you disappointed the expectations of all, so that you seem to resist the Holy Spirit and to refuse to put your hand to the plough. Wherefore they have caused us to be humbly and urgently entreated, that we should deign to compel you by Apostolic exhortation to undertake the burden of this office, through whose watchful circumspection and circumspect watchfulness they believe many advantages will come to their Church.

[14] and approving the election, We therefore, who now know them to be unanimous and concordant in the aforesaid election and petition, inclining to their prayers, have judged their petition should be admitted, and absolving you from the governance of the Monastery of Saint-Ruf, have deemed their election worthy of approval. And therefore we command and direct your fraternity by Apostolic writings, that you receive the call made concerning you, lest you seem to resist the divine disposition, and proceed to the aforesaid Church of Barcelona; striving to bestow upon it such diligent Pastoral care, that its condition, according to its expectation and ours, may be increased both temporally and spiritually through the foresight of your solicitude: so that you, just as from rank to rank, so from virtue to virtue, may be seen to advance. But if, which God forbid, you should refuse to impart obedience to this page of our precept, we command by Apostolic writings our Venerable brother Boso, Cardinal Priest of the Holy Roman Church, whom we are sending as Apostolic Legate to the regions of Spain, and commanding obedience: directing him that, after a warning has been given, with appeal set aside, and notwithstanding any letters obtained from the Apostolic See prejudicial to truth and reason, he should not cease to compel you by Ecclesiastical censure, until you obey, to assume the governance of the aforesaid Church of Barcelona, to which we know you to have been elected; according to the form which we have given to him enclosed under our mandate. Commanding the Chapter, Clergy, and people of Barcelona, that they should humbly attend to you as to their Bishop, and show you the obedience and reverence both due and devout. Given at Trastevere, by the hand of John, Cardinal Deacon of the Holy Roman Church and Librarian, on the tenth day before the Kalends of June, the ninth Indiction, of the Incarnation of the Lord 1116. In the seventeenth year of the Pontificate of the Lord Paschal II. I, Paschal, Bishop of the Catholic Church.

[15] When the Count received these letters through the Legate Boso at Pisa (where he had halted for fear of the Emperor Henry IV, rampaging through Italy with arms hostile to the Pontiff, which Oldegarius obeys, and personally hostile to the Count himself, because he was proceeding to possess Provence by marital right without having sought his assent) he departed promptly from Italy with the Legate, and meeting the Abbot of Saint-Ruf, he informed him of the Pontifical will, and arranged for him, who after this dared not resist, to be consecrated Bishop. All more recent authors say this was done at Maguelone: was it because they believed the monastery of Saint-Ruf, he is consecrated. Whether at Maguelone? of which Oldegarius was Abbot, was there? Maguelone is an island and city lying off the Occitan shore in sight of Montpellier, to which Bishop Arnaldus, after restoring the church which had been destroyed by the Saracen occupiers in the eighth century, restored the Cathedral that had been taken away from Sustantion, around the year one thousand and sixty: and the Bishops of Maguelone remained there until the thirty-sixth year of the previous century, when the more convenient and healthier site of Montpellier received them. But whether Maguelone ever belonged to Provence after the Roman period, as Spanish writers presume, we strongly doubt. For Gilbert, Count, who held Provence with a very ample domain, after his death the territory was immediately divided into two parts, and although he also held the western bank of the Rhone, outside the Count's domains? nevertheless he is nowhere recorded as having had dominion over the Occitan coast: but that was the jurisdiction of the Viscounts of Narbonne, of whom Aimeric III then held power. Maguelone however was subject to the Bishop alone in temporal as well as spiritual matters: Montpellier ^g had as its lord William, who later, about to set out against the Moors, having made his testament, ceded the whole of it to the Church, whose ancient allodium it was.

Wherefore, if Oldegarius was found by the Count and the Legate near Maguelone, and there, as stated, was consecrated: I would suspect that the blessed man did not consider himself sufficiently safe in the monastery of Saint-Ruf: and therefore fled to the Canons of Maguelone, who had embraced the same regular institutes, and were situated outside the Count's domain, yet so placed that while hiding among them, he would be separated from his flock of Saint-Ruf by the smallest possible distance. Moreover, from the eighth year of the twelfth century onward, the Bishop of Maguelone was Galterus, and he held the See, as the San-Marthans record, for a full twenty years, and he ceded the Church of St. Brice to Regular Canons: wherefore it would follow from the common opinion that he contributed his ministry to the consecration of Oldegarius.

[16] Now, when Ollegarius arrived at Barcelona, at once he began to administer the Episcopal office that he had so unwillingly undertaken with such vigor and strength He felicitously governs the Church of Barcelona, that when he heard that the Abbot of St. Cucuphas (whose monastery, dedicated to St. Eulalia, he had near the very gate of Barcelona, enriched with the possessions of many churches) was arrogating certain things to himself and his own that were contrary to Episcopal right and religious discipline, he brought suit against him, and when judgment was rendered by Berengarius, Bishop of Gerona, and Raymond, Bishop of Vic, in the cloister of the Church of Gerona before the Cardinal and Apostolic Legate Boso, he was restored to possession of the church of Castellar, and it was decreed that henceforth there should be no baptismal font in the church of St. Cucuphas, nor should the Abbot appoint Clerics in his churches without the consent of the Bishop, nor remove those who had been established with him; and that monks who were living solitarily in the said churches should be recalled to the monastery. ^h The Canon of Gerona, the author of the Life, encompassed the remaining virtues of Blessed Ollegarius in a few words: He was, he says, a guardian and master of perpetual chastity: likewise the Word of the Lord was the key to his mouth: for in the word of the Lord he opened his mouth and closed it.

^a Of Christ 1104; that privilege still exists in the Archive of the monastery of St. Mary of Terrassa, of the same Order, written in Latin, which Diagus presents in Spanish, and from which, naming Raymond's wife Countess Maria Rodriguez, he shows that those who, passing over this first wife, acknowledge only two wives of Raymond, Almodi and Dulcia, are in error: the same can also be established from the marriage contract between Bernard Guillen, Count of Besalú, and the daughter of Raymond and the same Maria Roderick, which Diagus treats in book 2, chapter 87.

^b So says Diagus, chapter 85, from a donation made to her and her future children (of whom she had none) by her husband the Count on 1 November, concerning which Diagus writes in chapter 86: from this, moreover, the Provincial historians are shown to have erred, when without any certain foundation they conjectured that Raymond's third marriage was contracted and celebrated in the year 980, or 90, or more precisely 92.

^c See on these matters Gallia Christiana, Volume 3.

^d As is clear from the consecration of the church of St. Martin de Sorbed, of the diocese of Egara, performed by this Folcus on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of May; on which see Diagus, chapter 81, book 2.

^e 27 January. Diagus treats of it in chapter 83; and greatly errs when he would make the second year of Pope Paschal our Era 1104, which was only 1101, for Pope Paschal II was created in the year 1099, on the twelfth of August.

^f For the Council of Besalú is recorded as having been celebrated in the year 1077; under the favor of the said Bernard and the auspices of Gregory VII, as is found in Diagus, chapter 71, book 2. Moreover, Bernard lived until the year 1111, when dying without any offspring, by force of the pact entered into two years earlier, he left his father-in-law Count Raymond of Barcelona as heir of his County. And note here that among Catalans, Guillen is commonly written for what others write Guilielmus or Guilermus, and we write Wilhelmus. Diagus always uses the name Guillen, but Rebullosa uses Guillerm.

^g This, however, would need to be read, if anywhere, in the partition of the inheritance left by Gilbert: on which see what will be said below at number 34.

^h Diagus affirms that the instrument of the sentence then rendered is preserved in the archive of the Chapter, book 1 of the Antiquities, folio 204.

CHAPTER III.

He is made Archbishop of Tarragona, then Apostolic Legate.

[17] The Archbishopric of Tarragona, Blessed Oldegarius was still in the first year of his newly assumed Episcopate when it happened that Berengarius, the pastor of the Church of Ausona, or as authors commonly call it, Vic, departed from this world. He had held the Metropolitan dignity with the title of Archbishop of Tarragona, already from the times of Pope John and Count Borrell, annexed to the Bishopric of Ausona, in the person of Otto, then Bishop, united to the Bishopric of Ausona, when recovery of the city of Tarragona, long since seized by the Moors, was despaired of: the bull of this union Diagus has ^a in book 2, chapter 19, dated in the month of January, Indiction 14: which since it falls equally in the Pontificate of both John XIII and John XV, it remains uncertain whether it pertains to the year nine hundred and seventy-one, commended to Bernard of Toledo, or to the eighty-sixth, and each position has its own advocates. Nevertheless, Urban II had raised some hope of restoring Tarragona when he ordered Archbishop Bernard of Toledo to desist from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to return to his homeland, imperiled by the incursions of the Moors, his vow being commuted into the restoration of the city and empire of Tarragona ^b: upon which foundation Castilian writers build the lawsuit they bring against the Catalans; as if Bernard had not only attempted to accomplish what had been committed to him, but having actually restored the city, had celebrated a Synod there, as is in the Chronicle of Julian at the year 609.

[18] But as to why we should not be moved at all by the authority of this Julian, whether genuine or spurious, we have given the reason in our Prolegomena to February, chapter 4, and from the documents to be produced presently, it will be clearer than the noonday light that the glory of the restored Tarragona is due entirely to our Ollegarius, and that what Domeneccus and after him Tamayo fabricate under the third day of April has no verisimilitude: namely, that Tarragona, within a few years of its first restoration by Bernard, was again captured and devastated by the Moors. In what year and by what battles, with the Moors driven far away, Count Raymond recovered not the city itself, the city recovered from the Moors, but the city's ruins, no monuments indicate; we suspect, however, that it probably happened after the siege of Barcelona was lifted with an immense slaughter of the barbarians: for animated by that victory he immediately began to think of besieging Tortosa, as Paschal II commemorates in his Brief ^c: but the passage to Tortosa, unless Tarragona, which lies midway between it and Barcelona, were first secured, could in no way be safe. Add that the right of naming the Archbishop could not otherwise belong to the Count, except insofar as the place that could have its own Bishop was already under his jurisdiction: nor could Gelasius, in the bull to be produced below, without injury to the Bishop of Ausona, have transferred the power and primacy of the Church of Tarragona from the successors of the aforesaid Otto to the Bishop of Barcelona, contrary to the express Constitution of John.

By what reasoning, moreover, the Count Raymond transferred the entire right of the city and territory,

civil and ecclesiastical, to Ollegarius and the future Archbishops of Tarragona after him, so that it may be more clearly understood, we shall subjoin the very instrument of the donation, which is lacking in Diagus, from Rebullosa, for the benefit of the reader who is interested in antiquities of this kind. by Count Raymond:

[19] Raymond, by the grace of God, Marquis of Barcelona and the Spains, Count of Besalú and Provence, to his Beloved Venerable Bishop of Barcelona, Oldegarius, and to his successors in perpetuity.

Since the divine clemency has deigned to honor and exalt me according to its good pleasure, to the honor of God himself and the Holy Church and the Prince of the Apostles Peter, I give and by this writing of donation convey to the Church of the See of Tarragona, which was long ago founded in honor of Blessed Thecla the Virgin, ^d and to you, Bishop Oldegarius, and to your successors the Pontiffs who shall govern that same church under obedience to the Apostolic See, Blessed Oldegarius is given the city itself of Tarragona, which for many long years remained in destruction and desolation, without a cultivator or inhabitant. ^e I convey it to you, moreover, with its boundaries and appurtenances, to be restored, held, and freely possessed: so that the aforesaid Church of Tarragona may have and possess its own rulers, and all these things in perpetuity, and without disturbance from any person.

[20] I also give you and your successors the freedom of gathering from wherever you can people, to be possessed with full right; of whatever dignity or middling station, to inhabit that land, and of ruling and judging them to the honor of God and the advantage of that city; and of building and arranging as shall seem best to you: and whoever, of whatever office they may be, shall come there or dwell there by sea or land, let them live freely, and let them have and possess their goods; and let them be judged and compelled, where there is need, according to the laws, customs, and constitutions which you shall have established there. Otherwise let them not be compelled or judged by any person. I reserve for myself a demesne ^f and palace there, according to your counsel and arrangement, and the inhabitants of Tarragona, as opportunity requires without detriment to the city, shall help me to keep my peace, and to wage war ^g; so that I too may help them as my faithful friends.

[21] All these things are bounded on the east side by the boundary of Tamarit ^h and Monte-olivo, and its boundaries are defined. as one descends to the sea, and ascends along the water of Aiano up to the mountains ^i, and it passes on the northern side along the base of the mountains as far as the Engolador de Cabra and reaches as far as the Embocum itself, and ascends along the very summits of the mountains of Carbonaria, just as those waters ^k begin to flow toward the south: and on the western side these boundaries pass through Monte Rubeo and through the hill of Balaguer as far as the sea: on the southern side the boundary is the sea itself, which is common to the inhabitants of that land for use and fishing. Whatever is enclosed by these boundaries, I convey to the Church of Tarragona itself and to you, with all liberty, to be held and possessed, with every increase and improvement which, God granting, you and your successors or anyone under your direction shall have made there. But if any person of whatever sex or condition shall attempt to come against this donation and institution of our liberty, let them in no way prevail: but let them first suffer the loss of all their goods, and segregated from the body of the Church, let them incur the wrath of God, the just judge. These things were done in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand one hundred and seventeen, on the tenth day before the Kalends of February.

[22] Oldegarius having set out for Italy, These things having been duly accomplished, the Blessed man, eager to restore ecclesiastical dignity and not to increase his own, set out on a journey to Rome, and was confirmed as Archbishop by Gelasius II (who in those most turbulent times for the Church had been created Pontiff in the eighteenth year of the twelfth century, in the month of January, to replace Paschal II, who three days earlier, that is, on the twenty-second of January, had been called from this life to the next), and was given the Pallium on the twenty-first day of the month of March, at Gaeta: where the Pope had retreated, fleeing the arms of the Emperor Henry, who had violently entered the city. The Bull of this confirmation exists in the Royal Archive at Barcelona, ^l from which Rebullosa copied it word for word. It reads as follows:

[23] Gelasius II confirms the Archbishopric, Gelasius, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God, to his Venerable Brother Oldegarius, Bishop of Barcelona, greeting and the Apostolic benediction.

That the Church of the city of Tarragona was once an illustrious Metropolis, both the writings of old and the records of provincial divisions declare; toward whose restoration our predecessors are known to have labored greatly, whence even in our own times the Pallium was given by our predecessor, Pope Urban of holy memory, to Berengarius, Bishop of Ausona. And we therefore, wholly intent on the restoration of the same city, you, most dear Brother Oldegarius, Bishop of Barcelona, we constitute Bishop of that Church, and we concede to you the Pallium itself from the generosity of the Apostolic See; with this provision indeed and confidence, that according to the capacity given you by the Lord, with the diocese of Tortosa added, you should strive in every way to restore that city and Church to the honor and glory of the Lord our God. Indeed, if the divine clemency should restore Tortosa ^m to the Christian people, we grant it as a suburban parish to the metropolis of Tarragona; until, God providing, the Church of Tarragona shall receive the strength of its own standing, whereupon Tortosa itself shall obtain its own pastor. Moreover, the city of Tarragona with its boundaries, just as it was conveyed by the illustrious Count Raymond of Barcelona through your hands to the Church of Tarragona and confirmed by the liberty of his writing, we confirm to you and to your successors, the Metropolitans of that same See, in perpetuity by the page of the present decree. To you, therefore, and to your legitimate successors to be established in that same Cathedral, and through you to the Church of Tarragona, we reaffirm the Province of Tarragona itself; so that in it you should henceforth both ordain suffragan Bishops, and celebrate Councils according to canonical form, and provide all things according to Metropolitan governance with the Lord's bounty; saving in all things the authority and reverence of the Apostolic See.

[24] and concedes the Pallium: its use Let your Fraternity know that you have obtained the use of the Pallium within the Church only for the sacred solemnities of Masses, on these days, namely: the Nativity of the Lord, the Circumcision, the Epiphany, the Lord's Supper, Holy Saturday, the Resurrection of the Lord, the Ascension, Pentecost; on the solemnities of the Blessed Mother of God, the Virgin Mary; on the birthdays of Blessed John the Baptist and of all the Apostles; on the Feast of Blessed Thecla and of Blessed Fructuosus ^n the Martyr; at the consecrations of churches and of Bishops, or at ordinations of Clerics, and on the anniversary day of your consecration, of which Pallium we wish you in all things to assert the character: for the honor of this vestment is humility and justice. Therefore let your Fraternity make haste to show itself humble toward those near at hand; and its signification. in adversities, when they come, upright with justice; never accepting any person's face against the truth, never putting forward any person's face speaking for the truth, compassionate toward the weak, rejoicing with the well-disposed, accounting the losses of others as your own, piously severe against vices, soothing the souls of hearers in fostering virtues, in anger holding judgment without anger, in tranquility not abandoning the censure of just severity. This, dearest Brother, is the dignity of the Pallium you have received; which if you diligently observe, what you have shown yourself to have received outwardly, you will have inwardly. May the Holy Trinity preserve your Fraternity safe for long times.

I, Gelasius, Bishop of the Catholic Church.

The mark † of my hand ^o (God in his holy place.)

I, Crescentius, ^p Bishop of Sabina, etc.

At Gaeta, by the hand ^q of Chrysogonus, Cardinal of the Roman Church, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of April. Indiction 11, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1118, in the first year of the Pontificate of the Lord Pope Gelasius II.

[25] Returning to his Church, the blessed man did not delay in bringing his well-conceived plans to execution: The Saint is sent to the Lateran Council: but a long stay in Spain was prevented by the summoning of the Lateran Ecumenical Council; whose principal purpose being the defense of the possession of the Holy Land by the common arms of Christian Princes against the Saracens; the Count of Barcelona believed that the authority of Blessed Oldegarius would be of no small value, so that he too, fighting against the same enemies in Spain, might be provided with timely assistance through the Apostolic See; and with how happy a result he accomplished that mission can be seen from the tenor of the following bull. ^r

[26] Calixtus, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God. To all Bishops, he returns with the power of Legate a latere, Kings, Counts, Princes, and other faithful of God, greeting and the Apostolic benediction. The solicitude of the Pastoral office committed to us by God demands that with all vigilance and circumspection we feed the Lord's flock: for by what calamities and by what deaths of the sons of God the Church of the Spains is continually crushed through the oppression of the Pagans, we believe is hidden from none of you. Wherefore, as if God, whose embassy we bear, were exhorting through us, we admonish your devotion, and with the prayers at our disposal we urge you as most dear ones, that you should by no means cease from the defense of the brethren and the liberation of the Churches. For to all who steadfastly serve in this expedition, we graciously grant the same remission of sins which we made to the defenders of the Eastern Church, by Apostolic authority and the power divinely granted to us. But those who have for this cause placed the sign of the Cross on their garments, to preach the Cross against the Moors: if from this Easter to the next they shall not have striven to fulfill their vow, we henceforth exclude from the bosom of holy Church, until they make satisfaction. But since we are unable to visit your army in person, as we would desire, we have taken care to delegate our most dear brother Oldegarius, Archbishop of Tarragona, for this purpose from our Side, especially committing our office to him in this matter, so that by his counsel and arrangement what is to be corrected may be corrected, and what is to be confirmed may, with the Lord's cooperation, be confirmed; and if any doubtful matters shall arise in that same army, they may be resolved by his experience. We therefore commend him more earnestly to your devotion: asking that he may find in you that charity which compels us to commit him to you. May the almighty Lord, by the merits of his blessed Apostles, guard us in his mercy, and grant us to attain a glorious victory over the enemies of Christians and a happy consummation. Given at the Lateran, on the fourth day before the Nones of April.

[27] which Raymond happily subdues. That the propitious prayer of the common parent of all Christians was not in vain, the outcome of the war declared: Tortosa, against which the Count was leading his forces as the Legate was returning, yielded into the hands of the victor: and Lleida soon followed, on the fourteenth day of November, surrendered on those conditions which can be seen in Diagus. ^s All of which is known to have been done in the thirteenth year of Louis the Fat, which was the one thousand one hundred and twentieth of the Christian era: in which same year that the Blessed man was present in Barcelona is evident from a certain pacification concluded by him on the tenth day before the Kalends of September between the Canons of Barcelona and Berengarius William, the original document of which in the archive of the Church Diagus asserts he has seen. It was not enough for the holy man to have visited the threshold of the Apostles twice, Ollegarius sets out for Jerusalem. unless

he also visited the sacred places of Palestine, which had not long before begun to be freed from the tyranny of the Saracens by the arms of Christians; and sought beyond the sea nourishment for his piety and virtue. With what great sense of joy the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Guarimundus, received him, and how great was the joy of Bernard of Antioch, and also of the Bishop of Tripoli, Diagus and Rebullosa recount to us from their own imagination, rather than from any ancient writer's account; to whom Domeneccus is added: who, together with Diago, defers this pilgrimage to after the return from the Council of Clermont. Rebullosa places it a decade earlier, before the year one thousand one hundred and twenty-three: neither has any foundation that would lend any weight of probability to either opinion.

^a From the Royal Archive, says he, from the cabinet inscribed Tarragona, number 134, folio 36.

^b So we have from a letter of Paschal II to the Clergy and laity in the kingdom of Castile, given on the eighth day before the Kalends of April, in which he complains that, disobedient to the commands of the Apostolic See, they were deserting their own regions on the pretext of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. See that letter in Tamayo under April 3.

^c We discussed that Brief above at number 12.

^d Relics of St. Thecla. James II, King of Aragon, in letters sent in the year 1319 to the King of Armenia, requesting some part from the body of the holy Virgin for the metropolitan Church, writes that more than twelve hundred years had elapsed since the Church at Tarragona was founded under the invocation of this illustrious Martyr; in which the translation of the Arm then obtained is solemnly celebrated on the nineteenth day of May, the very day on which Tamayo has those letters.

^e If Tarragona had been restored by Bernard about twenty years earlier, the Count could not have been ignorant of this, or have failed to recall the recent destruction.

^f Since Caligula, having assumed the diadem, wished to be called Lord, and Domitian was fond of that title, the Caesars were called Lords, Demesne lands. and their property began to be called Dominica, as is evident from the Code. Hence the name Dominicaturae remained in the Spains for certain rights which the supreme Lord of the region was accustomed to reserve for himself over lands whose useful ownership he otherwise transferred to others.

^g War. A word common to Spaniards, Guerra, bellum. Italians, and French, introduced by the Goths, Lombards, and Franks, who shared essentially the same language: and the root Wæren (which means to repel force by force) indicates that those nations wished to mitigate the atrocity of the thing by such a name, which would remind those bearing arms that they should be wielded with no other motive than that of just defense. Not so our Teutons: but rather, considering what war really is rather than what it ought to be, from kryghen to seize, to take, they named it krygh.

^h These two villages, of which Tamarit is closest to the sea, about five thousand paces from Tarragona on the nearer bank of the river which flows east past the city, commonly called the Caya; while this water of Ayano perhaps has the first letter lost in Rebullosa.

^i I believe these mountains to be those which are noted in Geographic tables at a distance of about twenty thousand paces from Tarragona; in which, moreover, you will find no trace of the names that follow: of which Engolador and Embocum, according to the etymology of the words, appear to be places distinguished by the mouth of some river.

^k He means those which flow toward the river Ebro; from whose confluence, descending in a straight line southward to the sea, a small district occurs, commonly called Coll de Balaguer, twenty-five thousand paces distant from Tarragona.

^l In the cabinet Tarragona, number 134, folio 39.

^m Commonly Tortosa, in some documents also Tortuosa, on the eastern bank of the river Ebro, sixty thousand paces from Tarragona.

^n He is honored on the twenty-first of January, and was Bishop and illustrious Martyr of Tarragona itself.

^o In Onuphrius Panvinius, who had seen no original diploma of this Pontiff, this sign is absent.

^p Elected by Paschal II, he is found to have subscribed to diplomas until the times of Callixtus II, says Ughelli in Sacra Italia, volume 1; and he is called the Younger in respect of his predecessor; between whom and himself an intermediary Cynthius is commonly placed: but Ughelli justly suspects him to be the same as the younger Crescentius: for now he is found as Crescentius, now as Cynthius, but with the addition: alias Crescentius. Also subscribing to this diploma were: Senno, Archbishop of Capua, who died on the thirteenth day before the Kalends of December of this very year: he attended the Council of Vercelli, as did the aforesaid Cynthius, about whom more can be seen in Ughelli. He writes of himself in a diploma of the year 1113 as Legate of the Apostolic See and the Pope's Vicar in the Principality of Capua. Lambert, Bishop of Ostia, later Pope Honorius II, of Bologna, from the family de Fagnano. Peter, Cardinal Bishop of Porto, the Pope's Vicar in the City: in his time Calixtus II joined the Bishopric of Santa Rufina to the Bishopric of Porto. Hugh, Cardinal Priest of the title of the Apostles, a Pisan Viscount, says Ciacconius, indicating his country and family, where he enumerates him among those who attended the creation of Gelasius. Peter, Cardinal Priest of the title of St. Susanna: he perhaps the one whom Gelasius created Cardinal at Gaeta in his place, surnamed Rufus: as Ciacconius witnesses, but conceals his title.

^q Priest of the title of St. Cyriacus in Thermis, he also subscribed to another Bull of the same Pope given at Avignon in the year 1118, as found in Ciacconius.

^r Diagus says he copied it from the Archive of the Cathedral of Barcelona, book 1 of the Antiquities, folio 22.

^s Book 2, chapter 104.

CHAPTER IV.

He defends the rights of the Church of Barcelona: He appoints a Prince for himself at Tarragona.

[28] He defends the rights of his Church He who at the very beginning of his Episcopate had not hesitated to bring the gravest lawsuit against the Abbot of St. Cucuphas to defend the rights of the Church, made it sufficiently clear that he would respect no person if they had attempted anything against it. This strength of spirit in him is shown by the Acts of the following years, recorded in public instruments. And first indeed Peter Raymond, against Peter Raymond, a man powerful in his diocese and injurious to the Church in many ways, who also had long been holding one of the Canons, a Priest, confined in an unjust prison, he at last so subdued, joining the rigor of justice to his long-suffering patience, that the man, repenting of his deed, not only released the prisoner, but in compensation for the injury added and transferred to the Church the Praetorship (commonly called the Bailiwick) of Mollet, ^a by an instrument drawn up on the matter on the eighteenth day before the Kalends of January in the year one thousand one hundred and twenty-three.

[29] Sacchetus and Humbertus, Likewise Sacchetus and Humbertus, brothers by birth, who unjustly usurped the tithes of the Church of St. John ^b of Senatus, owed to the Chapter of Barcelona, he compelled by Ecclesiastical censures to restore them, on the third day before the Nones of July of the following year. Likewise from the hands of Arnald William, Arnald William, in the twenty-fifth year of the same century, on the seventh day before the Ides of November, he recovered the tithes of the Church of St. Saturninus ^c of Sabadell. Indeed, not fearing at all to attack even more illustrious figures when the matter required it, he kept the Viscount of Cardona, Bernard, excluded from Ecclesiastical communion, the Viscount of Cardona. until he fulfilled the last will of his grandfather, who had bequeathed three churches of his right to the Chapter of Barcelona; as he finally did on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of February of the year 1134. ^d With the same rigor he restrained Arnald Bernard, father of Berengarius of Castel-vell, from continuing to hold certain pastures of the Church ^e by unjust usurpation: Arnald Bernard. and against his son, lest he presume to do the same, the Chapter prevailed on the sixth day before the Nones of July in the year 1160, with Peter, Bishop of Zaragoza, ^f chosen as arbiter and judge of the case. What wonder? When from the Count Raymond himself he had obtained, and Count Raymond himself that he should cease to usurp the tithes from the money coined at Barcelona, and from ships arriving (which King Louis, son of the Emperor Charles the Bald, ^g had given for the use of the church, in favor of Bishop Fridolinus), however honest the pretext of the very great expenses made and to be made in the sacred war against the Moors, as is clear from the instrument drawn up on the seventh day before the Ides of July of the year 1130.

[30] who before death joined the Templars It was assuredly not difficult to persuade the most pious Count of what was fair; who in this very year, seized by a fatal illness, offered himself to the Order of the Templars, along with the town and castle of ^h Grañena, his vows having been solemnly professed into the hands of Hugh Rigaldus, a professed member of that Order. And when he understood he was dying, he wished to be carried to the Hospital of the Holy Cross, to expire there. What faithful service Blessed Ollegarius rendered him in this final act, can be gathered from the sentence which the son and successor of the deceased, Raymond, in the year immediately following his father's death, at Oldegarius's urging he abolishes an unjust tax. rendered on the eleventh day before the Kalends of June against the Vicar Terracinus, in favor of the bakers requesting to be relieved of the tax which Raymond the Third had imposed on grain sold and assigned to that Vicar; whose words are these: ^i It did not seem to him to be just that he should return them (certain measures of grain, ^k that is, or rather the right to exact them) to him: both because his father Raymond Berengarius had recently imposed them by violence on the said Flechans; and in the illness in which he died, under the grave threat which the Archbishop made to him on this account, he repented of this violence, and ordered that this exaction should no longer be made in that city: and also because that Vicar well knew of this violence, when he received them in compensation for that fief of ^l Terrassa.

[31] A strong and constant defender of justice, therefore, Oldegarius showed himself everywhere: The Dean and Chapter are reconciled: yet far more pleasing to him was to compose amicably those disputes which he could not all avoid: which he demonstrated in practice when he settled the controversy, long agitated between the Chapter of Barcelona and its Dean, Arnald Hermengaud, concerning the chaplaincy of St. Mary de la Mar (which the Dean said was his own and annexed to the Deanery, while the Chapter denied it), in such a way that the Dean should possess it during his lifetime, and afterward the Chapter should be free to dispose of it at will. The sentence was signed by Berengarius, Bishop of Gerona, who wrote himself as Bishop in the customary manner: but the Archbishop, obeying his own humility, expressed nothing other than: Ollegarius, unworthy minister of the Church of Tarragona. ^m

[32] An assembly is called And in order that a faithful minister might more effectively provide for the immunity of that Church and the public peace, when the wars being somewhat quieted gave leisure and opportunity to arrange the political order (for the Saracen rulers of the cities ^n of Tortosa, Lleida, Fraga, and Zaragoza had submitted to Count Raymond), he invited the Count to summon an assembly at Barcelona, in which the state of the Republic might be reformed, and the excesses of secular persons against Ecclesiastical rights might be corrected. The Count agreed to the Prelate's proposal, and to the assembly that was convened came Raymond, Bishop of Ausona, and Bernard, Bishop of Gerona, Abbots, Counts, Nobles, in which ecclesiastical immunity is provided for, and Commissioners of the cities of the Principality, over all of whom Oldegarius presided: where after various arguments of contention, on the tenth day of March, in the Year of the Lord 1126, it was concluded: That henceforth no one should presume to violate Churches within a circuit of thirty paces. That no one should in any way harass the persons or goods of Ecclesiastical persons. That the Count and his son, with the consent of the Barons, should freely and without dispute restore to the Archbishop and the Bishops of the Principality all churches with their rights, cemeteries, and possessions. Likewise a form was established by which the Churches might receive tithes without

fraud to them, and without peril to the contributors.

[33] in the year 1125. These and many other things publicly useful were established there through the efforts of Blessed Oldegarius, in the year, as we said, twenty-sixth of the current century: for although in the volume of the Antiquities of Barcelona, which is in the possession of the Chapter, and contains all the above-mentioned matters, ^o the fifteenth year is expressly written: this is nevertheless a copyist's error, omitting one digit, as is clear from the title of Archbishop of Tarragona, not yet conferred on Blessed Oldegarius in that fifteenth year, but expressed in the Acts of the Assembly, as Diagus observed: moreover, the year which the careless scribe, according to the practice of his age of reckoning the year from Easter to Easter in those parts, should have written as the twenty-fifth, now nearly completed, is the twenty-sixth for those wishing to begin the year from the Kalends of January.

[34] Peace established between Alfonso of Toledo and Raymond of Barcelona: How great a contribution these measures made to establishing common tranquility, it is easy for the prudent to estimate: yet I wonder whether the peace established between the Counts Alfonso of Toledo and Raymond of Barcelona through the division of Provence was not of even greater value. Their wives were, the latter Dulcia, the former Faydida, of Gilbert, Count of Provence, if not daughters, at least heirs (that Dulcia was a daughter is proved by many public instruments, which Anthony de Rufi says he has seen, even though he rightly doubts whether she was born of Tiburga: the facts themselves compel us to acknowledge Faydida as co-heir on whatever grounds). When Gilbert died, therefore, around the year of Christ one thousand one hundred and twelve, the aforesaid Counts held the common inheritance jointly for some time; and when disputes arose (as usually happens) over the undivided rights on each side, the matter was heading toward arms and bloody war, had not angels of peace intervened, through whose agency it was agreed that under the name of the County of Provence, Raymond should hold whatever lies from the Alps to the furthest reach of the Rhone, from the river Durance to the Mediterranean Sea, together with half of Avignon and certain other towns beyond the Durance for half shares, while the rest on both banks of the Rhone should remain to the Toledan. The instrument of the agreement is presented by William Catel in his history of the Counts of Toulouse, and subscribing to it in the second place after the Counts is Raymond the Sacristan; whom, because I find him the only Cleric on the part of the Count of Barcelona, I can scarcely doubt represented the person of his Archbishop at that assembly, and that Oldegarius bore a great part of the cares in this business. Certainly in the thirty-fourth year of the same century he himself went to Zaragoza, the dispute over the kingdom of Aragon, on the testimony of Zurita, to settle, if possible, the controversy that had arisen between Alfonso, King of Castile, and Ramiro the Monk over the right of succession to the kingdom of Aragon, after Alfonso, brother of Ramiro, had died without children. But what he was unable immediately to obtain in another's house at home, he had quickly and happily dispatched in his own country in the year one thousand one hundred and twenty-seventh, and the disputes between the Genoese and Raymond settled. having removed the offenses on account of which Raymond had forbidden the Catalans and Provençals all commerce with the Genoese: as is clear from that treaty, the instrument of which is still preserved in the Royal Archive, ^p signed on the eighteenth day of November.

[35] Oldegarius appoints Robert Aquillon Now the holy Prelate had been cherishing for a full ten years the care of restoring Tarragona, and pressing forward (as far as his resources and the public business we have seen permitted) the work that had been begun: but the magnitude of so great an undertaking was proceeding more slowly than the wishes of all, and especially his own, since the barbarians who held the neighboring lands were raiding, and leaving nothing safe in the entire territory of Tarragona. To the Archbishop, surveying everything around him, it seemed most advisable to provide the Church with a Patron and the city with a Lord, who would defend both with arms and strength, and would look after its temporal advantages as his own. Hence he cast his eyes on Robert Aquillon, otherwise called Bordet, a noble and wealthy Knight, with whom he came to an agreement in the following form. ^q

[36] Ollegarius, by God's condescension steward of the metropolitan see of Tarragona, to all the faithful in Christ. We desire to make known to the notice of all; Tarragona, formerly given to him, how the illustrious Count and Marquis of Barcelona and Provence, Raymond, out of love of God, gave and conveyed by the writing of his liberty, to God and to the Church of Tarragona, which is the head of the Churches of all Hither Spain, and to us and our successors, the city of Tarragona, to be restored, and freely held, and possessed, and disposed of at our good pleasure; as can more fully be known from the writing which he made for us. So too the Roman Pontiffs of good memory, Gelasius and Calixtus, by their kindness in granting us the metropolitan dignity, have nevertheless confirmed that same concession of the Count by their own writings. Wherefore we, trusting in the divine clemency, applying ourselves to the restoration of that city, to the honor of God and his Church, with the counsel and favor of the aforesaid Count Raymond, and of the suffragan Bishops and of our Nobles, at the particular urging of the Lord Raymond, Bishop of Ausona, [we] appoint you, Reverend as Prince; man and valiant Knight, faithful by homage and oath to that same Church, most dear Robert, Prince of that city. You, I say, have exposed yourself to all these things, that you may always serve God and his Church there, and exercise your military service in defense of Christendom; wherefore, to the honor of God and of the Church of Tarragona [and] of our and our successors' fidelity, we give and convey to you that city with its territory, as it is delimited in the charter of the aforesaid Count, to be restored, held, and possessed; and for your successors, that you may arrange and rule and judge the people who shall come there, with the fear of God and justice, according to the laws and good customs which we shall have established there by common counsel. We also give you ^r the tolls, levies, and customs which belong to the Prince, both from land and from sea.

[37] But to you and your successors, to whom after you we shall have granted this honor to be held, the supreme right being reserved: there shall be no license to give or alienate these things to any foreign power; nor to anyone who is not as faithful and solid a man of our Church as you are. We retain, moreover, for our portion and our demesne, all Churches and Ecclesiastical rights and Ecclesiastical persons and our households, and those of Clerics or monks, and all who shall inhabit Ecclesiastical estates, and all who shall dwell in Ecclesiastical houses or possessions. So that over all these things no Prince or lay person of lesser rank should presume to judge, exact, or compel, or arrange anything at any time without our command. In all things, also, which we grant to you as Prince, we retain all tithes both from land and from sea, namely of houses and villages, castles and ^s fortifications, which are there or will be, and of other possessions; also tithes of the produce of the land and of animals and of fish, and from booty and ^t cavalcades and from all revenues which shall accrue to you as Prince through our donation of that Principality.

[38] for which Robert swears fealty: On account of all these benefits which your generosity grants me, I also, Robert, your faithful man, covenant with God and the Church of Tarragona and with you, Lord Ollegarius the Archbishop, that from this day forward I shall be your faithful man, without any deceit concerning your person and all the honor which that Church has today, and which you ought to have, and specifically those things which you retain in the gift that you make me; and concerning all Ecclesiastical rights and entitlements which pertain to you or ought to pertain. I also covenant with you that according to my power and judgment I shall strive to restore that city, and to defend it and all your honor; and to ^u wage war against all men who shall try to take away or diminish the rights and privileges of the Church and your own, or those of that city; and to observe justice, as you have established above. If therefore on the morrow any person, Ecclesiastical or secular, shall presume to come against this page of your donation and our agreement, let that person pay the other party, to whom injury was attempted, thirty pounds of gold, and afterward let this page retain its force. This was done in the year of the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand one hundred and twenty-eight, on the day before the Ides of March.

Ollegarius, Archbishop of Tarragona, signed.

The mark † of Robert the Prince, signed.

Raymond, by the grace of God, Bishop of Ausona.

The mark of Arnald, Priest and Dean.

[39] I, Robert, Prince of Tarragona, swear to you, my Lord Ollegarius, Archbishop of that same city, that from this day forward I shall be your faithful ^x and steadfast man, and for you and your Church, and I shall do and fulfill all the agreements which I have covenanted with you, as they are written between me and you, by faith without deceit. And if perchance, which God forbid, I should fail in these through carelessness, within thirty days from the time I shall have been warned, I shall make satisfaction to you. By these four holy Gospels.

Armed with this authority, Robert, and promotes the restoration of the city. says Tamayo from Domeneccus, immediately set about repairing the walls, strengthening the citizens, distributing the fields, repelling the enemy, protecting the boundaries: whose succession extended only to William de Aguillon, his son: because when this man with sacrilegious hand had killed the most holy Hugo de Cervellon, Archbishop of Tarragona, ^y he was excommunicated ^z by Pope Alexander III, and deprived of the Principality of the city, and afterward perished miserably.

^a It is found in the archive of the Cathedral, book 4 of the Antiquities, folio 145. That Praetorship is moreover in the Vallès, fifteen thousand paces from Barcelona toward the north.

^b It appears to be at a distance of five thousand paces to the south of the city.

^c Sabadel in Geographic tables: it is to the north of the city, twenty thousand paces distant.

^d This is established from book 3 of the said Antiquities, folio 46.

^e Given as a gift by Geribert Girald: as is found in book 1 of the Antiquities, folio 200.

^f With the assessors Bernard Marcuz and Peter the Sacristan of Ausona: who in their sentence, scarcely thirteen years after his death, piously address Oldegarius as Blessed.

^g Some ignorantly believe Louis the Pious, the son of Charlemagne, to be the author of these and other privileges; Diagus refutes them in book 2, chapter 10.

^h Situated on a certain hill a few thousand paces from the river Ebro: forty thousand paces from Tortosa toward the northeast: see the instrument of Profession and donation from the Royal Archive in Rebullosa, chapter 23.

^i From book 1 of Fiefs, folio 388, in the Royal Archive.

^k Diagus in book 2, chapter 114, calls the kind of measure imposed on the bakers Megiras.

^l A village in the Vallès, at roughly the halfway point of the journey between Barcelona and Manresa, in maps called Granolles; on the river commonly called Besos, which the ancients called Betulo, and the author of the Life of Scipio ascribed to Plutarch calls Besula; while to Florianus it is Beses, and to Varrarius Besons, says Ortelius in his Thesaurus.

^m These things from Diagus, book 2, chapter 106.

^n All strong cities, today Tortosa, Lleida, Fraga, Zaragoza: of which the first and last are on the river Ebro, the other two on the Segre and Cinca flowing into the Ebro.

^o Book 1, folio 105.

^p In the cabinet inscribed Girona,

folder E, number 390, says Diagus in book 2, chapter 109, where he briefly and clearly explains the course of that controversy and pacification.

^q In Rebullosa, chapter 22, from the Royal Archive. Diagus adds that it is contained in the cabinet Tarragona, number 134, folio 6.

^r Tolls, levies, and customs Rebullosa, rendering this instrument in Spanish, translates: las Calonias, peages y vsages; from which it appears that choloneas in the text is written erroneously: for Calonia is a Catalan word of nearly obsolete usage, as are the others, signifying a certain kind of tax, but what kind I find no one who clearly explains. Peage is said to be a census paid per person, or (to express the propriety of the Spanish word) per breast: for as our heads are counted, so their breasts are counted. Meanwhile in the formula of oath offered by the Toulouse magistrate to St. Peter of Castel-nouo, the first inquisitor of heretical depravity and preacher against the Albigensians, produced for his life under March 5, it has "liberties or customs or usages." In Vossius On Vices of Speech, book 2, chapter 11: Leodes, Lidos, Lidas, men and women subject to the dominion of another. Cholonia moreover, why should it not be that servitude which we call of the glebe, by which farmers, as if affixed to the soil, are reckoned as one thing with the land, otherwise free, except that they cannot migrate elsewhere against the will of their lords?

^s That is, a fortification; today the Spanish say fortalezas, the Italians fortezze, the French forteresses. Fortification, Cavalcade.

^t It seems that the booty acquired through military raids, whether on foot or horseback, was to be tithed. The Spanish, Italians, and French call a Cavalcade the equestrian procession which accompanies Princes or their legates entering some city, or going to a public assembly, as an honor guard.

^u That is, to wage war.

^x We commonly call a Vassal one who is bound by an oath of fidelity to some prince.

^y Aided by his other brothers, says Domeneccus in the Life of this Hugo, whom he says was killed on the twenty-second of April, in the year 1171, after he had governed his Church for eight years, nine months, and twenty days: and Zurita notes that in the same year and for the same reason St. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, was killed in England.

^z King Alfonso of Aragon, the son of Raymond Berengarius IV, is said to have undertaken the execution of the sentence, having been requested by the Pope through a legate sent for this purpose.

CHAPTER V.

The zeal of Blessed Oldegarius, his holy death, and the miracles that followed.

[40] Oldegarius, freed from the cares of defending and restoring the city, Returning from the Council of Clermont. was able more conveniently to devote himself to building that magnificent temple which Tarragona still possesses today, dedicated as the principal church to St. Thecla, Proto-Martyr and chief Patroness of the city: in the further embellishment of which to the highest splendor, the efforts and resources of succeeding Bishops would be expended. And since his resources alone were not equal to completing so great a work, having set out in the year one thousand one hundred and thirty for Gaul, to the Council of Clermont summoned by Innocent II, he brought back from there two Bulls directed to all his Suffragans, by which it would be established that, according to the Pontifical will, a certain part of the annual revenues of each Bishopric was to be reserved for that purpose, besides the alms which collectors appointed for that purpose would gather from the entire Province. ^a

[41] Moreover, it is especially worthy of observation that from all he devotes himself to the restoration of the Metropolitan Church, of Spain, besides Oldegarius, no other Bishop was present at the Council of Clermont just mentioned; the summary of which, hitherto unpublished, Diagus testifies he has seen in both archives, the Royal and the Capitular, in book 2, chapter 118. For all of Spain was adhering to the schism of Peter Leonis, under the false name of Anacletus II, and it is easy to believe that Count Raymond favored his party all the more earnestly, the closer the blood relationship by which he was connected to Roger, King of Sicily, created by the Antipope, being a nephew of Robert Guiscard through his brother Roger: of which Robert, Raymond was a grandson through his daughter Mahalta: yet so great was the constancy of the Bishop, and so great was the reverence of the Count for his Bishop, that while the rest remained at home, he alone did not hesitate to cross into Gaul to acknowledge the legitimate Pontiff; nor is the Count found to have shown by any sign that this liberty displeased him.

[42] That the Archbishop, having returned from the Council, put much effort into the restoration not only of the metropolitan church of Tarragona, and of others: but also of various churches throughout the Province which the Moors had partly destroyed and partly profaned, the Spanish writers say: and indeed Domeneccus writes that he has seen and read the public acts concerning the churches of St. Andrew of Palomar, St. Cyprian of Aqualonga, and of Sabadell, consecrated by him. It is certain that so industrious a Prelate of charity was by no means idle whenever the occasion demanded or necessity required: nor could all things either be recorded in the Acts, or if recorded, be preserved for the knowledge of posterity. He provides for the hospital of Barcelona: But what we find decreed by him in the year one thousand one hundred and thirty-three in favor of the public hospital, concerning the household goods of dying Clerics to be transferred for the use of the poor, it is not fair to pass over: thus therefore he decreed: ^b Let it be known to all, that I, Ollegarius, by the grace of God Archbishop of Tarragona and Bishop of Barcelona, together with the entire convent of that same See, give to God and to the Hospital of the poor, which is near the See, all the beds with the linens of deceased Clerics, whoever they may be, excepting silken cloths that may be there: in such manner that neither I nor any person should dare to reclaim this in any way. If anyone should dare to break this gift of our munificence, let them be excommunicated as a killer of the poor. This was done on the sixth day before the Kalends of April, in the twenty-fifth year of King Louis.

[45] He introduces the Order of the Templars: Knowing moreover how great a protection for the Christian cause against the ferocity of the barbarian enemies was placed in the new Order of the Templars; he was not content merely to have stimulated in Raymond the Third so favorable a disposition toward it that he had himself enrolled in it before his death: but he took care to foster a similar affection in the son. So that he would not delay in acquiring a similar protection against the Moors for himself, he immediately applied his mind to founding a monastery for them, for which he requested from the Master ^c of the Order that at least ten Religious be granted him, and in the year one thousand one hundred and thirty-four, on the third day before the Nones of January, he handed over Barberà, ^d a very well-fortified castle on the borders of the barbarians, to Arnald Bedoz and Hugh Rigaldus, with the consent of the chief magnates: whose names Diagus lists. And so that the Archbishop might further promote this matter, so auspiciously begun, he convened leading men of both orders, and in consultation with them on this business, on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of May of the same year, he issued an outstanding constitution in favor of those who, enlisted in this sacred militia and possessing nothing of their own, would consecrate their life to the service of God and the defense of the faith; with many censures added against those who would presume to inflict any harm on them: to which constitution ^e he himself subscribed his name in the first place, and then the Count; who also bequeathed all his military equipment after his death from that point on to the Templars, and bound himself to pay them a certain annual sum of money. ^f These were the beginnings from which the greatest expansion of the Order followed through Aragon and Catalonia; after the same Order had ceded to Raymond the kingdom of Aragon, bequeathed to it by Alfonso on his deathbed: on which matters Diagus may be consulted, book 2, chapter 144 and following.

[46] At the November Synod assembled At last it pleased God, the supreme Judge of the contest, to crown the innumerable and continuous labors of the blessed Prelate, borne for the peace of the Christian people and the defense of the faith, with that virtue which, as the Apostle James testifies, has a perfect work: I mean patience, for the exercise of which a most grave and most frequent (so writes the ancient author of the Life) infirmity provided abundant and copious material, by which although his bodily strength was failing, he nevertheless relaxed nothing of his constancy of spirit: but willed that the diocesan Synod, to be held as customary in the month of November, should be convened; in which with a wondrous fervor of spirit throughout the entire three days the Synod lasted, he discoursed on many things concerning the state of the Church, concerning pastoral care, concerning religion, faith, and Christian works, concerning the Priestly office, concerning obedience and the Holy Spirit (in almost these words the Canon of Gerona encompasses the Acts of the Synod), and finally, having steadfastly predicted that this was the last to be held in his presence; he predicts his own death; he begged with tears for the prayers of all who had assembled for the approaching time of his departure: struck by this announcement, they accompanied the Holy Prelate, the Synod being dismissed, as he returned to his palace, with much groaning: where they laid him in his bed and, fortified by his paternal blessing, each returned to their own Churches. James 1:4

[47] From that point the disease grew graver and graver day by day, and gradually brought him to the extremity of life: wherefore disposing of whatever temporal goods might still remain to him, he made to the Chapter of the Church of Barcelona two donations of certain estates; one of which was situated in the parish of Mollet: while ill, he makes certain pious bequests; concerning which an instrument exists ^g drawn up in the twenty-ninth year of King Louis, on the twelfth day of February; to which he subscribed in these words: The mark of Ollegarius the Archbishop, who, detained by a most grievous illness, confirm and approve this gift point by point in the presence of the Canons. The other was in Graniola, and signing the relinquishment of it ^h on the thirteenth of February, he calls that same illness excessive. It had been the custom of the Holy Archbishop to convene a twofold Synod each year from the entire diocese of Barcelona; the first at the beginning of Lent, the second in the month of November: and having held the latter the previous year, in which he had announced what we heard concerning the approaching end of his life, the prediction was fulfilled this year: for those Abbots, Priests, and Clerics who had assembled in the first week of Lent he dies after the Lenten Synod is concluded. held their meetings without their Bishop; and in the presence of these same men, Ollegarius, after he had been duly prepared by the last Sacraments of the Church for the appointed combat, and had imparted his blessing to all, amid the tears and sighs of his children, rendered his blessed spirit to God, on the day before the Nones of March, the sun setting together with his temporal life.

[48] in the year 1137 Diagus asserts that the year when these things occurred was the thirty-seventh of the twelfth century, and the instruments signed by the Saint in his final illness attest to this: nonetheless Rebullosa challenges Diago and confidently pronounces that the year was only the thirty-sixth: asserting that Diago erroneously counted the years of King Louis: but deceived himself by an erroneous calculation, he also led Tamayo into error: which would not have happened to either of them if they had paid attention to the first week of Lent, in which both place the death of the Blessed. For in the thirty-seventh year, when Easter fell on the eleventh day of April, Ash Wednesday falls on the twenty-fourth of February: and thus the sixth of March coincides with the Saturday of the first week of Lent; whereas in the preceding Leap Year, 6 March when Easter consecrated the twenty-second day of March, the Ashes were to be blessed on the fifth day of February, and therefore the sixth day of March fell on the Friday after the fourth Sunday of the Lenten fast. Concerning the years of King Louis it is likewise established that they are to be reckoned from the exequies of his father Philip, celebrated on the first of August, in the eighth year of the twelfth century,

from which the twenty-ninth is the one in the 29th year of King Louis. which we call the thirty-seventh. Nor do I see what Rebullosa could have been considering when he calculated the years of this King; unless perhaps he happened upon certain diplomas drawn up between the beginning of January and Easter (from which the French, and the Catalans following the French, began their years), and consequently combining the twenty-ninth year of Louis, for example, with the year one thousand one hundred and thirty-six of the Christian era.

[49] But I return to Blessed Oldegarius, whose body, deceased from this mortal life, and is buried near the Chapter room; while his spirit enters into possession of heavenly glory, was honorably placed in a tomb, in the cloister of Barcelona (these are the words of the ancient author) and buried with the deepest feeling of the Clergy and people: buried, I say (lest anyone suspect a marble chest less suited to a decaying body), for the most ancient manuscript concerning matters pertaining to the Church of Barcelona, discovered around the beginning of this seventeenth century by the Bishop of Barcelona, John Dima Lorisius, expressly asserts this, as Diagus writes. The same is made most plausible by the custom of those times, in which even those bodies which by the wish of the dying were to be placed in monuments magnificently constructed during their lifetimes, were first buried in the earth until, the flesh having decomposed, bare bones remained: as Diagus says he has found from the originals of many old testaments, and begins to shine with miracles, and also from the small dimensions of such chests, by no means proportionate to receiving an intact body.

[50] Not long did the most benign God, who abundantly glorifies those who glorify him, delay in manifesting the glory of his Saint to men: but immediately after the obsequies had been solemnly performed, he began to work very many miracles through the intercession of his merits: of which as many as I have found in authentic codices and writings, I shall enumerate here, says Domeneccus. Speech restored to a mute woman, A woman deprived of the use of her tongue was present when the holy Bishop was being buried: standing before his tomb, with groaning of heart and tears of eyes, she began to entreat him that this faculty might be restored to her: others standing about likewise petitioned on her behalf, and so great was the efficacy of their prayers that she immediately broke forth into words, the first of which were: St. Ollegarius, pray for me.

[51] A certain warship of Barcelona, having reached the maritime parts of the Spanish Moors, and a Barcelonese warship, had inflicted grave damage on them, plundering their houses, killing many, and carrying not a few into slavery; and already laden with spoils it was sailing home in triumph. Roused by the report of this great calamity, ^i the pirates of Almería, ^k Dénia, and Valencia fitted out a numerous fleet, by which pursuing with the greatest speed those who were departing, they ceased not to follow them day or night. At length, late one evening, weary with toil and forced by want of fresh water, they put into the nearest port, ^l and having posted watches at bow and stern, fell asleep, unaware of the danger from the enemy that threatened; who indeed was about to be borne into that same port a short while later, to overwhelm them unawares. But the faithful Patron of the people of Barcelona was present, and appearing to the ship's captain in his sleep, he commanded them to depart from there at once; the Moorish ships were not far away. He, waking and seeing no one, thought it a vain dream, and fell asleep again. freed from the enemy. Therefore, when the barbarians were already close at hand, Ollegarius appeared again, and carried swiftly from prow to stern, where the captain lay, he roused all from sleep: Flee, he cried out, depart immediately: behold the Moors rushing upon you. And not only did the captain hear him giving such warnings; but he saw him clothed in a white rochet, holding a staff in his hand, as had been his custom. All arose, cut the anchor cables, and retracing their course, found the mouth of that port blocked by hostile vessels. It remained for them to implore the aid of God and of Blessed Ollegarius: they implored it, and found their strength for rowing increasing, while the enemy's strength was failing: and the Moors, astonished by such swift flight rather than course, returned empty-handed to their own, and told far and wide (as was afterward heard from Christian captives) that the Barcelonese had escaped safely by the help of God and of Blessed Oldegarius, whom they had invoked; and they, having returned to their homeland with their spoils safe and sound, hung a wax ship as a votive offering at the sepulcher of their liberator.

[52] Three Christians from the region called Panadés ^m, Three captives freed from their chains: taken captive to Valencia by the Moors, were being afflicted in a dire prison with various sufferings, and especially with hunger: one of them was a Priest ordained by Blessed Oldegarius himself, at whose urging, when they had all commended themselves to the merits of the Holy Prelate, they saw him present before them, breaking the chains by which they were bound: and without delay, going forth from the dungeon under his guidance, they took the path of flight shown to them by him as he disappeared, and soon boarding a ship found on the shore which was sailing for Barcelona, they completed the journey and hung at the monument of the Blessed the very shackles which they had brought, miraculously loosened from them in prison.

[53] A noble Matron from the same territory, ill for many years, a sick woman cured: after much money fruitlessly spent on physicians and medicines, invoked the patronage of Blessed Oldegarius: and she who had gone to bed ill the night before, rose the next day healthy, to the astonishment of all, and in the company of her sons and many knights visited the sepulcher of the Saint, giving thanks to God and his servant, and bringing a precious tapestry to be spread over his sacred Relics.

[54] two blind men given sight: A certain poor man, and moreover paralyzed in the lower part of his body, lay entirely deprived of the use of his feet: when he kept vigil in that cloister, in which we said the body of the Blessed was buried, before the doors of the Chapter room he caught sight of a venerable old man, clothed in white and equipped with a rather long staff; who called out to him to rise, once and twice. And he indeed said he could not: yet within half an hour he arose healthy, and perceiving that he was walking with firm steps, joyfully recounted to the wondering people the vision that had been offered to him, and the grace that had followed it. On the same day another blind man: Wretched me, he said, who for so long a time, hoping for consolation through Oldegarius's intercession, have hitherto obtained none — by what sin of mine have I deserved this? A certain one of the Clerics heard him lamenting: Why do you not rather, he said, trust in God, and cleanse your soul with a sincere confession? The blind man obeyed, and received his sight the following night.

[55] a dead woman restored to life: Another woman from the district of Panadés was tormented by so intense a pain of the bowels that she had given up all hope of life; indeed, having lost the power of speech, life itself had ceased to be felt in the dying woman by the pulse of the throbbing artery. And so, when she was considered dead by all: Why, said someone, do we not pray to God and Blessed Oldegarius, to restore her power of speech so that she may confess her sins? Others replied that it was now too late; that she was completely lifeless: they did, nevertheless, what was urged, and the next morning, with many standing by the bed of the woman they considered dead, and expecting nothing less than what happened, speech was restored to the sick woman. They, collecting their wits from their astonishment, asked what had happened to her, what she had seen: then she herself narrated how, having been led to a most pleasant place, she had beheld St. Oldegarius, prostrate on his knees before a most beautiful man, beseeching him to deign to call her back to life, for whom so many were praying: and when that man had graciously assented to his petitions, she had returned to life, as they could see. And straightway, to the amazement of all, the woman recovered, and came to Barcelona to give thanks for so remarkable a benefit received.

A certain Knight ^n from the Vallès had come to Barcelona to visit the tomb of Blessed Ollegarius, as the very history of the blessed man relates: a runaway slave brought back: while he was absorbed in prayer, his household slave, thinking the master's absence his own liberty, took to flight: the holy Prelate appeared to the fugitive, and commanding him in vain to return home, he took away his sight when the man persisted in his once-adopted intention: the wretch promised to return, if he would receive his sight: he received it and returned. But shortly afterward, repenting of what he had done, he fled again, and again was brought back in like manner. Meanwhile the master arrived from the city, and was turning over in his mind which way to order his fugitive sought: but the slave soon appeared, loaded with a bundle of firewood, and reported in order what had happened to him the second time.

[56] another similar case. Near Barcelona there was a poor widow, who somehow sustained the life of herself and her children by the labor of the single slave she possessed, who earned wages: while she was pouring forth her prayers near the sepulcher of the Blessed, the aforesaid slave stole away. The woman returned, found her slave absent, and could not find him despite diligent searching. Therefore, at a loss for what to do, she returned to the place from which she had come; and falling asleep there from grief of heart, she beheld the Blessed himself standing by her, advising her that the fugitive was to be sought in the Count's bakery. She went, searched, and found him hidden among piles of wood with another companion in flight; and gave thanks to God and his Saint for finding the sole support of her fortunes.

[57] A certain poor man, also paralyzed in the lower part of his body, A paralytic, lay entirely deprived of the use of his feet: when he was keeping vigil in that cloister, in which we said the body of the Blessed was buried, before the doors of the Chapter room he caught sight of a venerable old man, clothed in white, equipped with a rather long staff; who called out to him to rise, once and twice. And he indeed said he could not: yet within half an hour he arose healthy, and perceiving that he was walking with firm steps, joyfully recounted to the wondering people the vision offered to him, and the grace that had followed it. A certain blind man also, brought by his parents to the same place, after much insistence in prayer, and a blind man, healed by the Saint. rejoiced that the faculty of sight had been restored to him through the merits of St. Oldegarius. When Rebullosa had set forth these things more fully, he concludes chapter 42 thus: The Canon of Gerona alone left us these accounts in his writing for our memory; he professes, however, that there are many other things besides, which it is known God wonderfully wrought through the intercession of this his servant: Indeed many, he says (as is found in Diagus), and other signs God did through the merit of St. Oldegarius.

^a So says Rebullosa, chapter 24. But he nowhere indicates where those bulls can be found: Diagus makes no mention of them at all, wherefore I suspect they do not survive.

^b From book 1 of the Antiquities, folio 285.

^c Robert was a Burgundian by birth.

^d On maps, Mas de Barberans, at an equal distance of ten thousand paces from Tortosa and from the river Cenia, which divides the kingdom of Valencia from Catalonia. The same castle had been handed over to the same Order two years earlier for his own part by Ermengaud, Count of Urgell, with the consent of those magnates whom the same Diagus lists.

^e It is found in the Royal Archive in the book of the Templars, folio 88.

^f Twenty Morabetins each year, says Diagus. A small sum indeed in the present time, since thirty-four Maravedís (as they are called) of Spain constitute only five French asses or sous, that is, one Spanish real.

^g In book 2 of the Antiquities, folio 196.

^h In book 3 of the Antiquities, folio 37; Graniola is moreover a town six thousand paces farther from Barcelona than the village of Mollet, mentioned above, called Granolles on maps; on the river commonly called Besos, which the ancients called Betulo, the author of the Life of Scipio ascribed to Plutarch calls Besula; while to Florianus it is Beses, and to Varrarius Besons, says Ortelius in his Thesaurus.

^i Almería, called Portus Magnus by Ptolemy, the first port to the east of Hispania Baetica near the promontory of Charidemus, commonly called Cabo de Gata, in the kingdom of Granada.

^k Dénia, formerly: it has now given its name to the promontory which the ancients call Dianium or Artemisium, and some also call Ferraria; but the inhabitants of these times call it Cabo Martín, in the kingdom of Valencia; whose capital Valencia is on the western bank of the river Duria, today called Guadalaviar. Dénia, moreover, was known already before Ptolemy, and assigned to the Contestani in Hispania Tarraconensis.

^l I do not know from where Tamayo, rendering the text of Domeneccus into Latin not in the best faith, indeed substituting a narrative different in many places, dreams of Ancona here, which we know of none on this coast of Spain; but in Italy, of course, a most famous one.

^m This is a district of the diocese of Barcelona beyond the river Llobregat.

^n The Vallès is another portion of the same diocese, looking toward the north.

CHAPTER VI.

Various translations of the body, and the efforts of the people of Barcelona for the Canonization of Blessed Oldegarius.

[58] The veneration of the Clergy and people of Barcelona toward the Blessed, increased by such prodigies, The body is raised from the earth: could not long tolerate that his venerable body should lie hidden in a common burial with the multitude: it was therefore decreed that the sacred Relics should be taken from the earth, and to this end a marble chest was made, the same one that is seen to this day, though not sealed with the same cover; which, together with the holy corpse, entirely free from all corruption (whence there arose in the people no small admiration mixed with joy), was placed near the Chapter room, as we believe; and immediately a designation was made for a chapel to be built in his honor: a chapel is designated: toward the construction of which, as citizens and Clergy competed with generous alms, the liberality of one Bertrand de Castellet, a leading knight, who gave as a gift two Moorish slaves that had come to him from the plunder of Tortosa, ^a has come to our knowledge: because it was included in the legitimate terms of his own testament, which that man had drawn up in the seventh year of Louis the Younger ^b on the eighth day before the Kalends of May.

[59] As the zeal for honoring Blessed Oldegarius continued to grow with ever new increases, in the nineteenth ^c and twentieth years of the same Louis VII, King of France, perpetual revenues were established for maintaining a revenue is established for the lamp. the lamps that burned at the tomb of the Saint; and for that purpose, from the generosity of the Bishop of Barcelona, Lord William de Torroja, ^d with the Chapter's consent, half of the tithes customarily received from a certain estate situated along the road called Mulnera ^e was designated: and Peter de Sentmenat added the fourth part of the tithes of the same estate, which he possessed by his own right. At the same time, Berengarius de Llobregat bequeathed by testament a hundred-weight of oil to be expended in honor of the blessed Pontiff. Custody of the chapel assigned to whom: And indeed that chapel dedicated to him already had a warden specially assigned to its custody, and he was one of the Beneficiaries or Canons, until the year one thousand two hundred and forty-one, when that care was transferred to the Hebdomadaries or Domeros, with whom it remained for one hundred and seven years. For in the forty-eighth year of the fourteenth century the matter was brought to litigation, and both Vicars General of Lord Michael de Riçoma, then Bishop, ^f William Turrella ^g and Raymond Romeus transferred the administration of that sacristy with the title of Procurator to a certain Canon. Thus that office devolved upon Peter de Bramona, who died in the eighty-first year of the aforesaid century. Then Bishop Lord Peter de Planella, ^h and all the Canons assembled at the sound of the bell in the Episcopal palace, as had been the old custom, judged it more fitting that those who had charge of the minor sacristy of that church should also preside over this same shrine: which has been observed to this day.

[60] Translation of the year 1180: In the year immediately preceding, namely one thousand one hundred and eighty, the second translation of the sacred body had been made to a new chapel of the Cathedral Church, on the third day before the Nones of November, falling on a Sunday: as the Notary and Chief Clerk of the Court of Barcelona, Michael Paul Faldellus, left written in the Diary of that same Court: it was done, as he says, with a solemn procession, which, going out through the square of the bridlemakers, proceeded through the square then called after the apothecaries or spicers, now after the booksellers, and the square of St. James, and turned its way along the new baths; and thus through the square which the common people call the new one, returned to the place from which it had set out, with an immense throng of wax tapers giving light.

[61] Not a few years flowed by after this until the third translation, made on the occasion of another, by which the body of St. Severus, ^i Bishop and Martyr, was translated through King Martin and Bishop Lord John Hermengaud from the church of St. Cucuphas in the Vallès to the Cathedral of Barcelona, another, in the year 1405: on the third day before the Nones of August of the year one thousand four hundred and five. For then people began again to think about a new translation of Blessed Oldegarius; and this plan was promoted the following year to the point that a stone of the purest marble was fashioned with a rare and remarkable art, displaying the sculpted image of the Saint: with which stone the marble chest is still covered today, concerning whose renovation I find nothing done: nor indeed was there need, since it was considered at that time, and still is, sufficiently beautiful. Which renovation, I find, cost fifty florins ^k (says Diagus, from whom we transcribe this entire chapter) in the account books of income and expenditure of the lesser sacristy: in which same book it is recorded that a green tapestry from King Martin, adornment of the tomb: and another black one from the city of Barcelona, were donated to grace this translation: and moreover it is recorded therein what the installation of the small bell cost, by which the signal is given for the morning sacrifice to be celebrated in honor of the Saint, on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of August, in the year 1406.

[62] By this last translation, in which the Sacred Body was not brought outside the church, it was carried to the chapel nearest to that of St. Severus, where to this day above his tomb is seen the image of a crucifix; the miracle of the incorrupt body. occupying the place of another panel which displayed the image of St. Onuphrius, Hermit and Confessor. The tomb, moreover, is elevated above the altar, set back a small space from the wall; which space is occupied by a small enclosure, within which are admitted those who, led by pious curiosity, desire to enjoy the sight of the body, to this day perfectly intact, except that the flesh has slightly fallen away from the face: which, that I might write more certainly and from personal examination, says the same Diagus who writes the rest; I was granted the privilege of inspecting and touching the very flesh without any intervening veil or grating, and touching one of the thighs, I found it no less pliable than that of a recent corpse; marveling moreover that all his parts from head to feet continue so firmly connected to one another, that when one part is moved, the whole body follows: which also in the year preceding the one in which I write, namely the second of the seventeenth century, Bishop Lord Alfonso Coloma ^l discovered by his own experiment, when he dressed the venerable relic in new and more precious vestments, not having stripped it of the former ones (in which not the least trace of corruption appears to this day): for when he raised the holy head to place the Pontifical miter upon it, he felt the rest of the cadaver move in like manner.

[63] One hundred and forty-four years had elapsed from the death of the most blessed Bishop, during which the Church of Barcelona, content to honor its most holy Father with private, In the year 1281. as I may say, veneration, had thought nothing of that more august recognition which is wont to be accorded to Saints who, after their cause has been duly and rigorously examined, are enrolled by the Roman Pontiff in the catalogue of Saints, and are thereby rendered publicly honorable to the entire Christian world. But when, for obtaining the Canonization of Blessed Raymond de Peñafort, in the fourth year after his happy passing, such great efforts had been made that the King of Aragon, Peter the Third of that name, had arranged for a Provincial Council to be celebrated at Tarragona; a just religious scruple and fear entered the minds of all, lest they seem ungrateful toward their Archbishop, who had been translated to heavenly glory one hundred and thirty-eight years before Raymond, and had been declaring the efficacy of his intercession by so many prodigies and benefits after death, just as he had heaped great and various benefits upon his diocese while living. And so the same King Peter directed a double letter to Pope Martin, Peter, King of Aragon, indicating his immense zeal with which he embraced this business: of which the first reads as follows. ^m

[64] To the Most Holy Father and Lord, reverend above all others, Martin, by divine providence Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman Church, from Pope Martin Peter, by the same grace King of Aragon, recommendation and reverence due and devout.

If we did not certify your holy Paternity of the exhibition of graces and the largesse of benefits conferred upon Us and Our People, we fear that the Lord Jesus Christ (from whom all good things proceed) would repel Us, as those unmindful of his benefits, from his holy and pious memory, as ingrates. Wherefore we wish Your Holiness not to be unaware that there was a certain Man, named Oldegarius, a native of the land subject to our jurisdiction, ^n who formerly presided as Bishop over the city of Barcelona, and as Metropolitan over the Church of Tarragona, who so devoutly lived among those subject to him in both capacities, and so ruled and taught them, that we firmly believe the Lord Jesus Christ, according as it appears through manifest signs, asks for the Canonization of Blessed Oldegarius. has mercifully placed him on high among his Saints according to his worthy merits. For at his invocation and the devout proclamation of the people, those sick with various and diverse infirmities are wholly freed, as appears through various kinds of miracles, attested by witnesses confirmed by public Notaries according to the order of law. We therefore humbly and devoutly beseech Your Holiness, that of your accustomed benign clemency you may deign to place on earth the said Blessed Oldegarius in the number of the Saints, since it is our firm faith, as we have said, that the Lord Jesus Christ has ordained him in the heavenly throne among the ranks of the Saints. For these and other matters to be proposed on our behalf, we send to the feet of Your Holiness our beloved Bernard de Olorda, Doctor of Decrees, who will explain verbally to Your Holiness many things relevant to this business on Our behalf. Given at Barcelona, on the Kalends of March, in the Year of the Lord 1280. not 1280. Lest this year be suspected of error by one who considers that Pope Martin, the second of this name, was not placed on the Chair of St. Peter until the year 1281, on the twenty-second of February; it is necessary to recall what I remember teaching above, that for the French and Catalans of that time the beginning of the year was customarily reckoned not from the Kalends of January but from Easter, which, in the year in which Martin was consecrated, fell on the very Ides of April; and the preceding Kalends of March, by that reckoning, still belonged to the eightieth year of the thirteenth century: so that the following letter was given in the same year as the first, with only an interval of nine and a half months.

[65] Another letter of the same subject, To the Most Holy Father and Lord, reverend above all others, Martin, by divine providence Supreme Pontiff of the Holy Roman Church, Peter, by the same grace King of Aragon, recommendation and reverence due and devout.

Among the cares which we bear for the commonwealth, it has been close to Our heart always to increase with due devotion the worship of divine things: especially in those matters which accumulate the glory of God, the honor of the Kingdom, and for Us the joys of Our subjects. Indeed the matter of the Reverend Father of happy memory, Blessed Oldegarius, provides a more abundant day of praise and thanksgiving ^o that increases in heaven, and on earth Mother Church, whose nursling, fed ^p and nourished at her breasts, most grateful and most devoted spouse, translated by a glorious assumption from her bosom to the Father of all, the true God, the more happily, the more joyfully she glories. Oldegarius's merits, For this Venerable Man, presiding over the Churches of Tarragona and Barcelona at one and the same time, by Apostolic mandate, as a son of obedience, governing them among barbarous nations from of old, with wonderfully useful discretion; carrying about the arms of light more devoutly, and shining with a wondrous splendor of virtues, with faith leading, justice attending, and perseverance following, fighting in the battle line of Christ, relying more on his leadership and grace, dedicating himself entirely to the divine service, he illumined them to the very dissolution of his body, leaving them in a prosperous state: through whose merits, the Lord, wonderful in holiness on high, and the worker of wonders on earth, has deigned to glorify his Saint with immense prodigies of signs and to display his virtues more brilliantly to all. and miracles set forth. For how many images of human persons, of feet and hands and other parts of the human body, with likenesses expressed in wax, are daily placed by the faithful before his venerable sepulcher; and how greatly his privileged holiness avails with God for those who are detained by grave and diverse infirmities and perils and other necessities both on land and sea; and how great and of what kind are the miracles wrought through him — if we are bound to explain them one by one, truly we are overwhelmed: since the abundance of laudable things exceeds and surpasses the copious flow of narration, as the evidence of the facts attests. We moreover exult all the more abundantly in the merits of so great a Patron, and we congratulate the rejoicing Roman ^q Church, that the places subject to us are pre-eminent with so great a Patron, by whose pious intervening suffrage, prosperity may follow in temporal affairs, and the promised joys come in heavenly ones. Taught therefore by such proofs of faith, and moved by such examples of virtues (an inquiry into life and miracles having been first conducted), we have thought it right to beseech Your Blessedness, that toward the sacred canonization of this Saint, long desired by an innumerable multitude of Clergy and People (if it please you), the Apostolic authority may deign to proceed as fervently as efficaciously, enrolling him in the catalogue of Saints; so that the faithful may commonly honor and venerate on earth this true zealot of the faith, whom the Lord, full of virtues, endowed with grace, renowned for miracles, has displayed as notable and worthy of imitation to all. Given at Xàtiva, on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of January, in the Year of the Lord 1281.

[66] Hence an immense expectation of a near Canonization, Following these petitions of Peter to Martin, the canonization of St. Oldegarius was doubtless expected soon by the people of Barcelona, which was the reason that the faithful of that city commonly provided in their last wills for Chapels to be built, Anniversaries to be established, and Ecclesiastical Offices to be designated, specifically decreed for the time of canonization. Preeminent among these was the final piety of James of St. Eugenia, a Canon of Barcelona and Sacristan of Majorca; who in his testament, which he drew up through the hand of Nicolaus de Samares, public Notary, on the day before the Ides of July, in the year 1282, after instituting a perpetual chaplaincy in the Cathedral church, in which a Priest would continually offer the sacrifice of the Mass for his own soul and those of his parents, and would assist at the Canonical Hours to be chanted in that church, Sacred anniversaries decreed for him. he expressly provided thus: I will and command that, if ever it shall happen that an altar is erected to Blessed Oldegarius in the Cathedral of Barcelona, the said Priest shall perpetually offer sacrifice at it: but in the meantime, while that is being done, let him do so at some other altar, according to the command of the Bishop and Chapter of Barcelona. Then he adds: I further institute four anniversaries to be celebrated perpetually in the said church, of which one shall be in honor of Blessed Oldegarius, on the very day of his happy death: but if any altar shall be consecrated to him, let the said anniversary be transferred to his feast day: and on the same day let there be distributed to each Canon and beneficed Cleric four coins by reason of that festivity. ^r From which it is manifestly clear how certainly the people of Barcelona expected his Canonization to be near at hand. Meanwhile Peter is excommunicated on account of Sicily; But these things, so well begun, were not completely overturned, but at least turned minds elsewhere, by the grave stirrings of wrath between the King and the Pontiff, so that there was leisure and opportunity to attend to warlike cares rather than sacred ordinances. For the King of Aragon, in the year 1282, after the French throughout the entire island had been slain by the Sicilian conspiracy, having entered the same with a fleet, and having been saluted as the legitimate heir of the kingdom on account of Constance, daughter of Manfred, his wife, had incurred the most grave indignation of Pope Martin; who, being a Frenchman by nation, ardently favored Charles, brother of St. Louis, King of France, whom his predecessors Urban IV and Clement, likewise IV, had established as King of both Sicilies, and entirely wished to see him restored. ^s

[67] And so, since Peter was held bound by the bond of excommunication from him, But the veneration of Blessed Oldegarius is in no way diminished. the promotion of the business of Canonization indeed ceased, but not the veneration and invocation of the blessed Bishop, which I gather increased together with the miracles, from the account books of the sacristy of Barcelona for the years one thousand three hundred and eighty-seven, eighty-eight, and eighty-nine: in which mention is made of four beams purchased for the purpose of supporting, by means of one hundred and fifty decorated pegs fixed into them, the hanging votive offerings of wax or other material, signifying benefits sought or received. Indeed from time immemorial the immense veneration of the people of Barcelona toward this their Bishop is proved by two other arguments as well: first, that not only is he commonly called Saint by everyone in whatever discourse, but is also invoked in litanies of prayer as a Saint: St. Oldegarius, pray for us, as can be seen in ancient forms of the Litany, both handwritten on parchment and printed on paper: second, that on those feasts which the Church celebrates with a double rite, the Priest, after incensing the main altar, on which the Venerable Sacrament of the Eucharist is kept hidden, proceeds to the chapel and sepulcher of the holy Prelate, to venerate that also with the smoke of burning incense.

^a In the year 1149, 31 December, Raymond Berengarius the Fourth of that name, Count of Barcelona, and also King of Aragon through the cession of the Templars, had brought Tortosa into his power.

^b Of Christ 1143.

^c Of the common era 1156 and 1157.

^d He was elected in the year 1144; then in the year 1161, promoted to the Archbishopric of Tarragona, vacant by the death of Hugo de Cervellon; he received as successor in the See of Barcelona Bernard de Berga.

^e So we have from book 1 of the Antiquities, folio 199, in Diagus.

^f Appointed two years earlier from the Cathedral of Ausona, died in the year 1361.

^g He is said to have later become the successor of the aforesaid Michael, according to Diago, from Provost of Barcelona and Bishop of Huesca, appointed by Innocent VI: and in the year 1369, transferred to the See of Tortosa, his successor at Barcelona was Berengarius de Eril.

^h Successor of Berengarius, who died after two years of the Episcopate; he died in the year 1385.

^i The first Bishop of Barcelona: he is honored on the sixth of November. Diagus treats of this translation in book 3, chapter 20.

^k An immense sum of money in those times.

^l Designated by Philip II, King of Spain, in the year 1599.

^m From the Royal Archive, the register of this King and year 1281, folio 102.

^n Hence is refuted the author of the catalogue of Bishops of Tarragona prefixed to the collection of Councils of Tarragona published in the year 1593: where it is written that Oldegarius was a Frenchman by nation.

^o That is, it increases.

^p That is, increased, or nourished: perhaps augmentatum should be read.

^q That is, we signify with joy.

^r That testament is contained in the Archive of the Chapter, in place 10 of testaments, number 22, and in the book of Endowments of the Cathedral Church, folio 199.

^s Diagus erred, and Tamayo rashly following him, when he wrote that Charles was invested with the kingdom of Sicily by Martin: and that this was the cause of the disputes with Peter: for Urban offered the kingdom of both Sicilies to Charles against the tyrant Manfred in the year 1263, and Clement delivered it at Rome in the Lateran church in 1265, on the fourth day before the Kalends of July.

CHAPTER VII.

The business of Canonization is resumed, and more recent miracles are collected.

[68] Meanwhile the care for the once-set-aside business had lain completely dormant, and had fallen as it were from all minds in oblivion; Again the Canonization is considered, until at last, at the happy beginning of this seventeenth century, through the solemn enrollment of St. Raymond de Peñafort among the Blessed; ^a the spirits of the people of Barcelona once more grew ardent for pressing the same cause: so that the sepulcher was visited by an unusual number of those flocking to it, and candles and votive offerings were multiplied in the chapel, which called down new benefits from heaven. And so in the second year of the present century, on the third day before the Ides of January: and by a decree of the Chapter, Considering that the Lords of the Chapter and Canons (these are the very words of the decree as found in Rebullosa, chapter 47) that the body of Blessed Ollegarius, Archbishop of the Holy Church of Tarragona, and also Bishop of the present Church of Barcelona, remains guarded and preserved, sincere and whole, with great reverence and propriety, in a certain tomb of marble stone made with wonderful art, within the said present church, and in a chapel built under his invocation: to which chapel indeed a very great number of the faithful of Christ, of both the male and the female sex, has recourse, on account of the great miracles and prodigies which day by day, through the prayers and devotion of the faithful of Christ, who in their labors, necessities, and infirmities have recourse to him, by the working of divine clemency come forth and appear in the light: and what is remarkable, the devotion to him grows and increases day by day, not only among the citizens and inhabitants of the present city of Barcelona, but also among very many others, whether outsiders or those dwelling beyond the said present city of Barcelona. A procurator is appointed; Desiring therefore that the said Lords of the Chapter and Canons should not allow so great a treasure to remain hidden, and that the said miracles and such prodigious things should be established, and that a true inquiry concerning them should be taken, so that all the aforesaid things may be commended to eternal memory; and thus the Canonization of the same may be urged upon the Holy Apostolic See with greater devotion, fervor, and affection, and may attain its due and desired end and effect: which Canonization indeed both the citizens and inhabitants of the said present city and many other faithful of Christ desire with great devotion and ardor of spirit to be accomplished. Wherefore and otherwise the said Lords of the Chapter and Canons, of certain knowledge and freely, have constituted and appointed as their procurator, syndic, and agent, or rather that of

the said Most Reverend and Distinguished Chapter, the Reverend Lord Michael John Boldo, their Canon, etc.

[69] who collects more recent miracles: Michael undertook the office thus imposed with great alacrity of spirit, and within a few days presented a petition to the Bishop comprising twenty-four articles; around which he requested that lawful proceedings be conducted: and immediately Peter Pla, the same Bishop's Vicar General and Official and Doctor of both Laws, a Canon of the aforesaid Church, was deputed by the Bishop for the summoning and hearing of witnesses and the due examination of each: and thus on the fourth day of the beginning of February, the informative process was begun, and the recent miracles of Blessed Oldegarius, which were contained in the aforesaid twenty-four articles, were lawfully examined: of which Rebullosa reports a few, in the order in which they were proved, and we render them from him in Latin.

[70] In the year 1601, Paul Julià, a little boy of two years, among these, a dead infant raised to life; while playfully chasing a household servant, fell through a certain window through which light was transmitted from an upper room to a lower one, by an unhappy accident; and those who had run up at the sound of the falling child believed him to be completely dead, or at least near death without hope of life. The father and mother of the infant rushed to the scene: the mother received the pitiable corpse in her lap; the father, whose name was Anthony Julià, and who had a great devotion toward St. Oldegarius, being accustomed to visit his sepulcher more frequently, raised his eyes and hands to heaven, and said: O St. Ollegarius, be present in so pressing a need; and soon, as if secure of the benefit obtained, with the fullest faith he approached his son, and called him by name once, again, and a third time. At the first call the boy lay motionless, at the second, sighing, he turned his neck toward the one calling him; at the third, finally, leaping from his mother's arms, he ran on his own feet to embrace his father, aided by no one. Those present then carefully examined the boy, and found in him absolutely no sign of injury. All therefore having given themselves over to praises of God and acts of thanksgiving, the parents took care that a painting witnessing the miracle should be affixed in the chapel of the blessed man, together with a set number of sacrifices to be celebrated there.

[71] That these things were so was established by sworn witnesses in the year 1602, on the ninth day of February: and at the same time it was discovered by similar witnesses as certain, how the aforesaid Anthony, the same man's father miraculously aided, on the very night that had followed the miraculous rescue of his son, had felt himself overwhelmed by so vehement a faintness of spirit and pressure of the constricted chest, that despairing of human remedies, he believed that to be his last hour, unless the same Ollegarius who had come to the son's aid should come to his from heaven: wherefore he commands his wife, as best he can, to order the household servants to be roused from their beds, to come, and kneeling down to invoke St. Oldegarius. She obeys, and so do they: and soon the revered Saint appeared to the sick man in pontifical attire, equipped with miter and staff: at whose presence the deadly anguish was driven away; and sweat breaking forth from his entire body left the man restored to his former health, and so vigorous that the very next morning he flew to the tomb, to give thanks for the double benefit.

[72] There was at that time no more frequent conversation in Barcelona than about the miracles of Blessed Oldegarius, a dying infant girl restored to health, whence on the day before the Nones of October confidence was born in the physicians, who were despairing of the life of Anna Maria Lopez, a girl of two years seized by a pestilential fever, to encourage the parents to implore divine aid for their daughter through the merits of St. Ollegarius: they obeyed those who counseled useful things, and made a vow to present their daughter, as if raised from the dead, at the monument of the blessed Prelate in a funeral winding-sheet, which they would leave affixed to the wall of the chapel with a commemorative tablet: and so great a change in health followed the vow thus made, that within very few days complete health compelled them to discharge their obligation; as was confirmed on the eleventh day of February of the year following the miraculous cure, which was the second of the century, by the testimony of many witnesses.

[73] Still more wonderful is what was presented and received on the thirteenth day of the said month and year; an old man fallen from a ladder into a well having been wrought in the similarly preceding year, on the nineteenth day of the month of October. John Branes, a merchant and citizen of Barcelona, an octogenarian, had gone out into his garden to take the evening air after supper; and intending to pick pomegranates from a taller tree, he had set up a ladder twelve palms high, and placed it directly beside the mouth of a well that was there, firmly set, as he thought. He was already holding the topmost rungs: when a rather sturdy branch, which he was striving to pull toward him for plucking the fruit, overturned the ladder and dislodged the unsteady old man from his footing, and hurled him headlong: his head was first driven violently into an earthenware jug which happened to be standing on the rim of the well, so that shattering it, his head itself was wounded with a serious injury; and then the rest of his body was dragged into water more than thirteen palms deep. At the very moment when the ladder was overturning, the thought occurred to him to invoke the now universally known aid of St. Oldegarius. Wondrous to tell, from the very bottom of the well he was presently raised to its surface, freed from drowning; where he found a rope of esparto grass in his hand, and with it sustained himself for a while, until to his cries for the Virgin Mary and Blessed Oldegarius and his neighbors — if any might chance to hear — the latter were present with bodily assistance, though not before three quarters of an hour had elapsed, by invisible help: surveying everything around them, nothing more expedient occurred to them than to lower into the water the very ladder from which he had fallen: standing upon which, he undertook to pass a rope that was handed down to him around himself under his armpits, so as to be extracted from the well: when this had been done as desired, everyone marveled at how an octogenarian's strength had sufficed for so long and difficult an effort: drawn out, he was sound in the rest of his body, and was shortly cured of the head wound by the customary arts of the physicians; and he prescribed that certain votive sacrifices be offered in the chapel of the Blessed, with an added painting that would present the course of events to the eyes of the beholders.

[74] a difficult childbirth eased Antiga Viñadera, wearied for many days by the pains of a difficult labor, had reached on the twenty-fifth day of the month of November the very last extremity both of her strength and of her life, but having conceived great confidence in the Saint, with equal insistence of petition she begged those present to bring her some dust from the sepulcher of the Blessed: what was brought she immediately mixed into a drink, and from that draught she felt herself so relieved that, soon delivered of her child without difficulty, she congratulated herself on being freed from all danger. With equal ease the newly born female infant, who in the judgment of all was destined to be a victim of death, after the name of Oldegarius began to be invoked for her also, within a quarter of an hour appeared so healthy and vigorous, as if she had suffered no adversity: and so this event too was recorded among the other prodigious ones on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of March of the same year as the rest.

[75] seven cancerous sores suddenly healed. Maria Lampisia, a married woman living in the vicinity of the city of Barcelona, had seven foul cancerous sores that so afflicted her ulcerated shin that she could by no means move from her place without the aid of another: a certain friend who had come on a visit heard her complaining in womanly fashion about her pains, for which the physicians could find no remedy; and he advised her to have recourse to heavenly medicine, if earthly medicine failed. She heeded him: and from that day she began to invoke the Saint, to supply at least as much strength as would be necessary for her to reach his tomb in whatever way possible: when she had prolonged these prayers for four full days, on the eighth day of December at last, carried rather than led there in the arms of her people, when she had completed certain of her prayers, she suddenly began to use her legs with strength, and returned to the far end of the Cathedral Church so strong that she henceforth needed no assistance to complete the vow she had made of visiting the sepulcher with daily devotion for the space of an entire year.

[76] A new decree of the Chapter. And these things, until others see the light, concerning what was accomplished in this very century in which we live regarding the wonders of St. Oldegarius, will suffice for the present: for the collection of which, since the greatest diligence was being employed, and caution in examining the process, in the year 1606 the college of Canons, convened again, commanded Michael John Boldo, John Casont, and Raphael Riera, Canons selected from their number, to consider together with the Bishop by what means the pious wishes of the entire city and territory for their Prelate might be brought to maturity. But whether anything further was done I have found nowhere: for the Life which we mentioned at the beginning, printed at Barcelona in the year one thousand six hundred and seventeen, is not at hand.

^a This was done by Clement VIII, concerning which see what is said under the seventh of January, on which day he is honored.

ON BLESSED SOLLICITUS OF THE ORDER OF THE CROSS-BEARERS IN PICENUM.

Sollicitus of the Order of the Cross-bearers in Picenum (Bl.)

Matilica, a town of ancient name, mentioned in Frontinus among the Colonies, is situated in Picenum above the river Aesis on the slopes of the Apennines, between Fabriano and Septempeda, now called San Severino. Pliny, from this town, in book 3, chapter 14, names the inhabitants Matilicates. Near this city, says Ferrarius in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, Blessed Sollicitus, who flourished in holiness of life among the Cross-bearers, has his veneration. A sacred building has been erected in his name among the Maticilicates, and on this day Francis Maurolycus makes mention of him. So says Ferrarius from the Tables of the Brethren of the Cross-bearers. He notes that at what time he lived and what his homeland was, although he inquired more than once from the aforesaid Religious, he was nevertheless able to report nothing else but that he is honored at Matelica and in their monasteries. The same Ferrarius in the General Catalogue: At Matelica in Picenum, he says, of Blessed Sollicitus, Confessor, of the Order of the Cross-bearers. And he cites in his Notes Maurolycus and Felicius, and the Tables of the Brethren of the Cross-bearers, who venerate him with Ecclesiastical Office in their own church. We have the double Venetian edition of Maurolycus, and the Urbinian edition of Felicius, but in both without mention of Blessed Sollicitus. Meanwhile Silvester Marulus or Maurolycus, in book 1 of the Ocean of Religious Orders, page 51, asserts that these words are read in the Martyrology of Francis Maurolycus: On the same day, of St. Sollicitus, Confessor, of the Order of the Cross-bearers. Concerning the most ancient origin, progress, and reformation of the Order of Cross-bearers, Paul Morigia treats in his History of Religious Orders, chapter 31. Bishop Brautius in his Poetic Martyrology published this distich on Blessed Sollicitus:

Sollicitus to bear the Cross, he bore it on high, And exalting it above, he lightened his burden.