ON SAINT BENEDICT, ARCHBISHOP OF MILAN.
AROUND THE YEAR 735.
CommentaryBenedict, Archbishop of Milan in Italy (Saint)
[1] The Milanese Missal, printed in the year 1560 after the manner of the most holy Lord and Pontiff Ambrose, records in the Calendar prefixed to it, at the eleventh day of March, the memory of Saint Benedict, Bishop and Confessor, whom Galesin afterward inscribed in his Martyrology in these words: "At Milan, of Saint Benedict the Bishop, who, having piously administered the Church of Milan according to the will of God, illustrious for his miracles, Name in the Martyrologies. and flourishing throughout all Italy for the praise of his virtues, rested in the Lord." In the second edition of the German Martyrology of Canisius, the cult of Saint Benedict, Bishop of Milan, is noted: which is also done in the Roman Martyrology. Paul the Deacon provides an illustrious testimony concerning him in book 6, chapter 29, of the Deeds of the Lombards: "Then also," namely in the time of King Aripert, testimony of Paul the Deacon "Benedict, Archbishop of Milan, came to Rome and pleaded the case for the Church of Pavia. But he was defeated, because from ancient times the Bishops of Pavia had been consecrated by the Roman Church." "This same venerable Archbishop Benedict was a man of outstanding holiness, whose reputation for good repute blazed throughout all Italy."
[2] His predecessor in the See of Milan was Saint Mansuetus, who died after the year 680, on the nineteenth of February, where we treated of him. other deeds. "After Mansuetus," says Ughelli in volume 4 of his Italia Sacra, "Saint Benedict Crispus of Milan was promoted, illustrious both for his learning and his holiness." A serious lawsuit before the Roman Pontiff engaged this most vigorous defender of his jurisdiction. For when he contended that the Bishop of Pavia was subject to the Milanese throne; and the latter, on the contrary, strove to prove that he belonged directly to the authority of the Roman Pontiff by ancient right, the more favorable outcome of the case fell to the Bishop of Pavia. Benedict, having lost the case, returned to Milan, where he built a monastery of Saint Benedict, which at this time serves as a dwelling and enclosure of modesty for penitent women... He himself composed the epitaph of Codoald, King of the Anglo-Saxons, who, having abjured idolatry, had converted to Christ, and having been washed in the sacred font by Pope Sergius, and dying shortly after, was buried at Saint Peter's with such an epitaph. For the rest, Benedict was removed from the living in the forty-third year of his pontificate, or, as others wish, the forty-seventh, on the fifth day before the Ides of March in the year 735, and was buried in the Ambrosian basilica and enrolled among the Saints. Concerning King Cadoald or Caedwalla, Alford discusses everything at length in his Anglo-Saxon Annals at the year of Christ 687, in which he died on the twentieth of April, and on that day he was inscribed in the English Martyrology. Meanwhile, the epitaph which Saint Benedict, Bishop of Milan, composed for this King may be read in the same Alford, Baronius, and many others. Concerning Saint Benedict, nearly the same things which we have given are found in the Tables of the Archbishops of the Church of Milan, from the decree of the Fourth Provincial Council held under Saint Charles Borromeo, by Francesco Besuzzi, Giovanni de Deis, and other writers of the Pontifical History of the city of Milan, and with them Ferrarius in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, who notes that Benedict is not celebrated with an Ecclesiastical Office. Brautius, Bishop of Sarsina, in his Poetical Martyrology honors him with this eulogy:
"Here was Benedict, a Bishop in deeds and in name, Who died an old man after the greatest beneficences."