Maurice the Hungarian

ON BLESSED MAURICE THE HUNGARIAN, OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS, AT GYOR, IN THE YEAR 1336

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

[1] The Order of Preachers, in the last year of its most holy Patriarch Dominic, which was the year of Christ 1221, assembled at the General Chapter at Bologna, having decreed that two new Provinces, namely the Hungarian and the English, should be added to the former six Provinces already furnished with many convents; In the Hungarian province decreed under St. Dominic, soon dispatched evangelical workers to both, and favored by happy successes in both places, in a short time filled many convents with a levy of recruits enrolled in the new militia: who, carried forward by their own swift progress, quickly equaled the virtues of the veterans, and left behind them most choice offspring for many centuries; until in England heretical fury, and in Hungary heresy joined with the violence of the Turks, exterminated them. And in Hungary the founder of the Order, Blessed Paul, from a Doctor of Laws at Bologna a disciple of St. Dominic, the convent of Gyor is erected, is believed by Sigismund Ferrarius, who treated the affairs of the Order in Hungary in eight books, to have first founded the convent of Gyor, an Episcopal city, and the principal bulwark of the Christian regions under the Emperor against the hereditary enemy.

[2] But since Bernard Guidonis, enumerating thirty-five convents of this Province in his manuscript Chronicle at the year 1363, was it the first? in the kingdom of Hungary itself or Pannonia (for Slavonia and Dalmatia also fall under the Hungarian Provincial) assigns ten convents, so that the one at Gyor holds fifth place among them; while in other lists, not observing that threefold division, it holds only sixth place, because of the interposition of the name of Zagreb in Slavonia: and since no other basis for this order appears than the very succession of foundations, to one asserting that the one at Gyor was the first, we cannot so easily grant belief as we can assent to one demonstrating it; since the city of Lauriensis (which Theodoricus of Apoldia mentions in Book 8, Chapter 1 of the Life of St. Dominic, and from which he leads the Brethren departing, because they did not yet have a place there, into Pannonia) must be sought outside Pannonia and is different from Gyor or Jaurinum. But where is it situated? how different from the city of Lauriensis or rather Lauriacensis With various people holding various opinions, whom you may see in Ferrarius on pages 32 and 33, Maluenda is very far from the truth when, from the Laurium of Apollonius at the mouths of the river Ister, he fabricates a Laurium for himself in Histria. But if we consider the situation of the regions, for those going from Italy to Pannonia through Noricum the route was most convenient: where Lauriacum presented itself, formerly the metropolis of Noricum and Pannonia after the destruction of Sirmium, commonly called Lorch; from which one descends most easily down the Danube into Hungary. Therefore Theodoricus may have written Lauriensis for Laureacensis: just as the author of the Life of St. Margaret of Hungary, on the twenty-seventh of January, wrote Lauriensis for Iauriensis, by an easy confusion of such closely neighboring letters and words.

In that city on the Raab, It is meanwhile certain that Gyor is to the writers of the Middle Ages and to the lists of Bishoprics and catalogues of Convents the same city which the Hungarians call Gyor, and which those now writing in Latin call Jaurinum, and in German Raab, from the river Arrabo flowing past the city, and there so mingling itself with the Danube that the city, protected by the multiple course of waters drawn before it, seems almost impregnable. But such an abundance of waters could not prevent that in the year 1566, now destroyed, by a fire ignited through the carelessness of a soldier, all the sacred and profane buildings burned down except the Cathedral: and that twenty-eight years after these events the Turks took possession of the same city. By one or other or both of these disasters it came about that the inhabitants cannot even now designate the place where the convent of the Preachers stood: whence neither can the sacred relics of Blessed Maurice be sought, who was formerly honored there with a religious and proper cult of the Blessed, Maurice was venerated as Blessed, as the Index to the Martyrology of the Order testifies with this brief eulogy: Brother Maurice the Hungarian, born of the most noble blood of Kings, having lived most holily with his wife for three years, by mutual consent she entered a monastery of consecrated Virgins, and he entered the religious Order of Preachers, and made such progress in the virtues that, illustrious for miracles, he is venerated as Blessed in Hungary.

[4] illustrious for miracles, And indeed that the miracles, written down together, were brought to the General Chapter at Ferrara in the year 1494, Michael Pius has after the compendium of the Life, taken from Leander Alberti and others: which we would wish were still to be found. But that they were illustrious and many is sufficiently indicated by the author of the Life: anonymous indeed, but deemed worthy by Ambrose Taëgius to be transcribed word for word, in his first book On the Notable Things of the Order of Preachers from folio 382, from which we have taken it: and at the same time the time of death is noted, in the year 1336, died in the year 1336 the fourth day of the week after Passion Sunday, in the month of March. The day of the month had been lost: but in that year, when Easter fell on the thirty-first of March, the Dominical letter being F, it could have been no other than the twentieth; which, supplying that gap, we have noted. In the copy which Antonius Flaminius used (rendering this Life in a more polished style, to be dedicated to Count Andrea Bentivolo, and to be inserted in the work of the aforementioned Leander) there must have been a greater gap: since he says: In what year of his age or of Christ's advent he departed from this life, I have not found recorded in the sources: this one thing is certain, at about the age of 55. that he died in the month of March, a few days before the Sunday of the Resurrection, in the convent of Gyor.

[5] Moreover, one who lived only thirty years in the Order, as the Acts have it, and only three in matrimony, it is probable that he was at about the midpoint of age between sixty and fifty. was he of royal stock? That he was of royal blood, after Flaminius wrote this from these Acts and others followed him, Ferrarius did not think he should doubt: but since it manifestly appears that this author uses the name of King improperly; inasmuch as he calls Nicolaus, son of Georgius, the father of Bishop Nicolaus and of Andreas, King of Hungary: and since from the Instrument soon to be presented it is established that the father of Maurice, Demetrius, was called the Ban of Hungary, that is, the supreme Commander of the army, which was the first dignity after the Palatine or Viceroy, as Ferrarius teaches: we suspect that some transcriber, offended by the barbarism of the word, wrote King in place of Ban; for it is well known that there was never any King of Hungary named Nicolaus, nor indeed any other in the fourteenth century to whom the manner of death narrated below at number 11 would apply.

[6] Moreover, Ferrarius confesses that he had the aforesaid Instrument from the Archive of the Banffy family, received through the kindness of Father Jacobus Nemethi of our Society, and it is as follows: The Chapter of the Church of Gyor, He testifies here that he gave to his kinsman, to all the faithful of Christ, present as well as future, who shall inspect the present letters, greeting and eternal salvation in the Lord. We wish it to come to the notice of all by the tenor of these presents, that a religious man beloved of God, Brother Maurice, son of the late Demetrius the Ban, of the Chak family of blessed memory, of the Order of Friars Preachers of the Convent of Gyor, having appeared in person before us, confessed that he had given, donated, and conferred certain hereditary possessions of his, namely Kamar and Golumbuk, situated in the County of Zala, certain hereditary possessions, to Count Nicolaus, son of Stephanus of the Peck family, his near kinsman, in the manner in which he himself and his parents are known to have possessed them from the donation of Ladislaus, by the grace of God the most serene King of Hungary (as we have seen more fully contained in the privileged letters of the same), with all profits and appurtenances whatsoever by whatever name they are called, to be possessed, held, and had perpetually, peacefully, and quietly by heirs through heirs, with the consent and admission of his aforesaid Order: and he affirmed that the letters also or Instruments, which his Ancestors held from King Ladislaus, by means of which he himself and his parents possessed those properties, had been assigned into the hands of the aforesaid Count. In memory and perpetual confirmation of which matter we have granted the present letters, fortified with the protection of our authentic seal. In the year of the Lord 1331. Masters: Brictius Provost, Matthias Lector, Georgius Cantor, and Petrus Custos, and the other Brothers of our Church being present.

[7] The first Ladislaus, who is also a Saint, began to reign in the year 1080: the first, as it seems: after whom through interrupted successions there were three others of the same name, all senior to Maurice: the second from the year 1172, the third from 1204, the fourth from 1278: but the reign of this last, as it was too close to the very lifetime of Blessed Maurice, so the reigns of the other two, being of only half a year each, can seem too brief for such donations; and therefore the author of these donations should be considered to be St. Ladislaus, a long-reigning and most liberal King, to be commemorated on the twenty-seventh of June. Moreover, the County of Zala is nearest to Styria, and in it is Lake Balaton, whose waters are carried by a channel into the river Drava, which passes by a village today called Kumar according to maps; the name of the other is nowhere expressed, nor anything that tends that way. Moreover, just as Maurice had formerly ceded these possessions to Count Nicolaus with the consent of the Order (presumably when, freed from prison, he was restored to his Order, others he transferred to Nicolaus, perhaps a Ban. before he departed for Italy) so he may have ceded other estates to this other Nicolaus, perhaps the successor of his father Demetrius in the dignity of Ban, and connected by a similar affinity of blood; which estates he was not so much reclaiming as requesting from them some subsidy for relieving the poverty of the nuns of his Order, and he met with a refusal, to be punished by a swift death within five months.

[8] The brother of Blessed Maurice, as Michael Pius writes from Ambrose Taëgius and Hieronymus Borsellus, was Brother Char or Carus: He had a brother named Carus, who devoted the flower of his virginity to God from his earliest age, and guarded it unimpaired and flourishing (as was confirmed by the faithful testimony of his Confessors) until his death. He lived most holily in every way, humble, meek, patient, fervent in spirit, and constant in prayer: and thus adorned with virtues he put off this mortality at Gyor, buried with solemn pomp in a prominent place in the church of his Order near the high altar. The year and age are not added: yet from this, that his relatives strove with such great effort to persuade Maurice to marry, as the sole

heir of most ample possessions, one may easily gather that Carus had professed the religious Order while his father was still living. The Chak family, from which Blessed Maurice and his brother were born, is even in these times far distinguished and magnificent in Hungary, and abounding in men outstanding for piety, fortitude, lineage from the Chak family. prudence, fidelity, and every virtue; as Sigismundus Ferrarius aforesaid testifies: concluding with these words Part 2, Book 1, Chapter 24; which, like the preceding five, is entirely about Blessed Maurice. ^a

^a It remains, since having changed the old division, we have substituted marginal numbers for chapter titles, Division of chapters, as it is in the manuscript. that we prefix their series in our manner; so that those who wish to reprint these Acts separately may be free to introduce whatever division shall be more convenient.

Chapter I. On his wondrous nativity foretold by the blessed Mother of God, Mary.

II. On his progress in infancy and boyhood.

III. On his reverence toward religious persons, and his devotion to the Lives of the Saints.

IV. On the fact that he was compelled to take a wife, and entered the religion of the Preachers with her.

V. On his progress in religion and his continuous and devout prayer.

VI. On his abstinence in food and drink.

VII. On his poverty, and the vileness which he always observed in clothing.

VIII. On the perfection of the life of the same Blessed Maurice.

IX. On the fact that he miraculously left the house with the doors closed and entered the church.

X. On the fact that the devil tried to disturb him while he was praying.

XI. On the fact that he was distinguished by the spirit of prophecy, and foretold the death of the King of Hungary.

XII. On the water blessed by him, by which he restored a sick Brother to health.

XIII. On his happy passing, and his corpse, which at the elevation of the Body of Christ opened its eyes, and on the wonderful odor which issued from his body.

XIV. On the various visions and revelations divinely made at his passing.

XV. On the miracles divinely performed after his death.

LIFE

From the Manuscript of Ambrose Taëgius.

CHAPTER I.

The pious adolescence of Maurice, foretold before his birth, and his entry into religion.

[1] Blessed Maurice, born of the illustrious stock of the Kings of Hungary, His mother, fearing a difficult childbirth, when his mother had carried him in her womb for four months, was seized by a continuous fever: and when she was now near delivery, and greatly feared a fatal outcome, a certain Lady appeared to her in her sleep, clothed in the brightest garment, saying: Do not, daughter, fear approaching death on account of your childbirth: for you shall bear a son, and when you are approaching delivery, then keep this prognostic sign indicated to you by me, and with the finger of your right hand mark your breast with the sign of the holy Cross, and you shall say these words and this prayer: Remember, encouraged by the Blessed Virgin, O Virgin, Mother of Christ, that day and that most holy hour, when you brought forth the only-begotten Son of the eternal Father, eternally begotten of Him, proceeding temporally from your holy womb: and recall those words which the Angel Gabriel spoke to you, when you conceived the only-begotten Son of the eternal Father in your womb, and bore salvation for the whole world. And when you have repeated these holy words many times, and with your finger have marked your breast with the seal of the holy Cross, know that you shall escape the imminent death which you dread: for I am that blessed Virgin, the Mother of Christ the Savior of all, who have appeared to you, & she understands the future sanctity of her son: foretelling that the son to come forth from your womb will be beloved and acceptable to God and men: for the hand of the Lord shall always be with him. Wondrous indeed and astonishing was this nativity, which not an Angel or Archangel announces, but the Lady of the world, the Queen of heaven, and the Mother of God.

[2] Meanwhile, after the boy was born, he began to suffer from continuous fevers until his third year; so that already from his mother's womb he might begin to do that penance who, having struggled with fever for three years, which he was to keep until death. After three years he recovered, and at the age of five was given to a teacher to be instructed in letters. But when after ten years he had advanced beyond many of his contemporaries, the boy began to separate himself from the pleasures of the world. When he was free from the study of letters, begins to study letters, entirely serious: he did not occupy himself in the games and haunts of boys: but either devoted himself to prayer or conversed with religious persons coming to his house about the lives of the Saints. The prudent boy thought about how the Saints had reached the homeland of eternal life through labors and penance. How often he held conversation with religious men about the observances of the regular life, and how silence is observed among them, and in which places: and likewise he inquired diligently about the remaining institutions. Sometimes in the castle or in the palace of his father, gathering himself with his companion boys into some secret place, among his peers he imitates the customs of religious: making a kind of chapel out of curtains, he celebrated Mass with them, assigning to each his own rank: after the sacred rites he gave them food as they sat in order and kept silence, as he himself had taught them: and so all the things that are observed in cloisters he devoutly observed with the said boys. From this he himself with the others was being led and disposed by God, like formless matter, toward the substantial forms of the regular life.

[3] It happened on a certain occasion that a certain devout and venerable Brother of the Order of Preachers arrived at the castle of ^a Ungodeum: conversing more devoutly with one of these, and when the boy Maurice heard that he was in the lodging, he went to see and greet him, and having made three prostrations before him, he besought him with tears and asked that he would commend him in his prayers to God and His Saints. And when the Brother saw such discretion and such humility and devotion in the boy, he approached him and raised him from the ground. But when he had risen, he refused to sit beside him on the bench, judging himself unworthy to sit with such a devout man: but he sat at his feet, desiring to hear the word of God, he is wonderfully moved by hearing the Life of St. Alexius. which has the power to refresh the soul: and, as was his manner, he begged him to recite something edifying for him from the Lives of the Fathers or of the Brethren. And the Brother, perceiving the boy's devotion, recited the Life of St. ^b Alexius the Confessor, which he had never heard. And while the Brother recited it in order, and he himself listened devoutly, the boy Maurice began to weep to such a degree that he could in no way restrain himself from tears. Whence from that hour he conceived in his heart the intention of entering Religion, as he himself afterwards confessed with his own lips.

[4] But when Maurice, his parents being dead, most earnestly desired to enter religion, he was counseled by his relatives and friends He is compelled to marry by his relatives: not to abandon so great a patrimony altogether; especially because he had no one to whom he could or should leave it: but rather to marry some noble maiden, the daughter or sister of some great prince. But Maurice, seeing that he could not escape, took a wife, the daughter of a certain Palatine. And when they had remained in marriage for three years or thereabouts, seeking and requesting the habit of religion by common counsel and consent, he enters religion with his wife, they entered the Order of Preachers on the island of the Danube at Buda, leaving their entire patrimony to the world, and totally renouncing its pomps. When his father-in-law, who was called the Great ^c Homo-Deus ^d the Palatine, heard this, he asked Master Ladislaus, ^e the son of Vernebei, Judge of Buda, to strip the said Brother Maurice of his habit, he is violently extracted: and place him together with his wife on their own estates: but if he refused, to afflict him so much in prison until he should, willingly or unwillingly, lay aside the habit; and so be compelled to return to his former state, at least through punishment. And when this was done, then restored to the Order, and Brother Maurice was detained in the custody of a most strong tower at Buda, he never wished to lay aside the habit of the Order; and though guarded for nearly half a year, yet being unable to turn his soul from his holy purpose, they allowed him to return as a perfect Religious to his former cloister, restoring him to his Order. And since the Brethren, on account of the importunity of his relatives, could not keep him in Hungary, they brought him to Bologna, where the body of Blessed Dominic shines gloriously with miracles, and commending him to the Brethren of the said Bolognese convent, they left him there. He is sent to Bologna. And when he had lived devoutly and humbly in the said convent for three years or thereabouts, and had already attained every perfect and holy state of the Order, the Brethren of Hungary, recalling him, brought him back with honor to the Province of Hungary.

^a Leander has Ungo-deum castle.

^b He is venerated on the seventeenth of July.

^c To the same Leander, Amedeus.

^d This is the first dignity after the King in Hungary: its authority is nearly equal to the royal.

^e Leander calls him Ladislaus Vernebeus.

CHAPTER II.

The Religious Virtues of Blessed Maurice.

[5] Concerning the life of the same Brother Maurice, his fervent Regular observance, and his continuous prayer, He excels in the remarkable zeal of prayer, if we wish to say a few things briefly, we shall find that in our times this man was a mirror of all religious and monks among all those keeping the regular life. For he was constant in prayer; in the church, in the cloister, on the road, in lodging, and finally in every place by day and night, a most diligent observer in those things that pertain to religion. Saying the Canonical Hours with the greatest devotion and attention, he most diligently observed the rubrics of the Order. The psalmody and all particular prayers which he said daily out of devotion, if he did not complete them during the day, he completed them at night while keeping vigil. Sleeping on straw, he mortified his body with the harshest disciplines: by the rigor of penance, after the disciplines humbly prostrating himself, he begged pardon from the Lord with tears and groaning for himself and for sinners. Rising first of all for Matins, he roused the others: willingly serving the Sacristan, he himself rang the bells; with his companion he prepared the altars on solemnities, devotion toward sacred things, arranging them with curtains and other ornaments; guarding the venerable Body of the Lord with great diligence, taking care that a lamp should always remain lit before it; lest the oil should run out, he himself was mindful to procure it. Every day he prayed the entire psalter; five times a week he completed the Office of the Dead; the seven Psalms with the Litanies, the fifteen gradual psalms with other private prayers he devoutly said to God every day.

[6] For nearly thirty-two years, during which he served in the Order, abstinence from foods, he did not eat meat, except for the reason of a serious illness, unless compelled by a precept from a Prelate. Broth ^a from meat, which he could licitly consume, he would not take when he could have other food. On

Fridays he did not use dairy products: but always fasting he ate legumes. The fasts of the Order he observed so strictly, as if they had been commanded under precept. His ^b pittance he reserved for the poor with the permission of the Prelate. If no poor were present at the gate of the convent, he diligently had it sent through a servant of the house to their homes. He would not drink a measure of drink beyond the customary one: outside the hour of meals, unless the greatest necessity pressed, he would by no means take drink.

[7] His garments, as those who saw them report, were very poor, poverty of clothing, nor did he bestow any care upon them: he never wore a costly or notable garment. If at any time he received a costly garment from a Prelate or from friends, carrying it with thanksgiving to his cell, when he saw one of the Brethren in need and poorly dressed, he gave it to him, taking the other's old or cheap one for himself. When asked by the Brethren why he did this, he brought forward that saying of Job: Skin for skin, and all that a man has he will give for his soul. Job 2:4. If on occasion one of the Brethren was unwilling to accept such a garment, charity toward others, he lay on his knees before his feet for so long until he accepted it. Also with the permission of the Prelate he distributed to the poor the garments given to him. In winter, even in times of great cold, he went about so poorly clothed that he seemed about to die of cold. His torn garments he mended himself, and repaired them from waistcloths discarded by others. He recalled to mind the poverty of Our Lord Jesus Christ; who, though He was rich, for our sake became poor. The harshest hair shirt he was accustomed to wear always against his skin day and night: so that not only by cold, fasting, and abstinence from food and drink was he wasted, but also by the hair shirt he compelled the flesh to serve the spirit.

[8] He had the greatest humility, he avoided anger, he fled indignation. gentleness of spirit, If at any time he saw or heard someone saying jesting or frivolous things, smiling he prudently turned aside, and giving place he passed by dissimulating. Brothers or laymen quarreling he threw himself between, and brought to concord. If he saw any who were troubled, he consoled them with words and examples, both of the Saints and of Our Lord Jesus Christ: so that few were those who did not carry away from his words a singular consolation. He was wonderfully compassionate toward the sick, rendering them services as much as he could.

[9] Many miracles accompanied his life: for when one night, having been received as a guest in the house of a certain man called Benedictus in a certain village which was called ^c Vachis, situated near the Danube, his zeal for nocturnal prayer proved even by miracles: he went with his companion to the village church for the purpose of praying. The said Benedictus, rising after his first sleep, because he had a great opinion of the sanctity of the holy man, wished to see whether the holy man had risen to pray. But when he perceived that he was not in the room; lighting a lamp he went about the entire house, and not finding him he went to the door of the house: which, finding most firmly shut, [when, having left the house with the doors closed, he was found in the closed church,] as he had fastened it with a key in the evening; more astonished still, opening it, he went to the village church, and there found the holy man praying. In the morning he asked the Priest whether he had left the church unlocked in the evening, or had given the key to anyone: who replied that he had not: indeed that the key was with him in a secret place, where it was always kept by him after locking up. All things therefore having been prudently examined, it was found that the man of God, Brother Maurice, left the house of his host with the doors closed, and entered the church, and the lamps of that church were divinely lit. For the aforesaid Benedictus the host, through the cracks of the church doors, saw all the lights of the church lit: even though the Priest himself said that no light had been left in the church.

[10] On a certain occasion, while Blessed Maurice was praying in the church before cockcrow, & he restrained a demon trying to disturb him. the evil spirit tried to disturb him: for it happened that a certain man who had been cruelly killed was being kept on the preceding day in a bier in the church of the Friars Preachers of the convent of ^d Pest, where the holy man was passing the night in prayer. But while the blessed man persevered in prayer, by the light of the lamp he saw the cadaver of the dead man raise itself up and seemingly wish to leave the bier. Then the man of God, strengthened by faith and hope, having first made the sign of the Cross, went to the bier, saying: Whoever you are, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I command you to be still, and presume no longer to molest me. And he who had seemed to rise lay still, and having been covered with a cloth by the holy man, the illusion ceased. The blessed man himself related this to a certain Brother, to show how great an effort the evil spirit puts forth to impede those who pray.

^a Thus the Italians call primarily the boiling of meat, and then any other kind of brothy liquid.

^b The word is well known throughout all the Gauls and Germanies among monks, often with various usage: for to some it signifies the ordinary allowance, to others what is occasionally served on more solemn days beyond the ordinary for feasting: some restrict the word to the dish or to the drink brought to table at or above the customary amount Pittance. for each one. Vossius on the vices of language cites Matthew Paris and Caesarius, in the latter of whom he also finds it written pictantia: and both use it for a course offered out of special mercy either to one or to all beyond the daily fare: whence Vossius derives the etymology from piety: but in truth it seems simply to be derived from the Saxon putt or pitten, to place, so that it is its verbal noun, just as from quijten, to absolve, comes quitancia, absolution of a debt: which those who think is derived from quietando rather produce a homophone between words of different languages than show the true origin.

^c In the County of Novigrad, called Vatz by the Hungarians, Watzen and Woezen by the Germans, and Baccia by others: recovered by the Imperialists in the year 1603, the Turks again claimed it in 1621 against the faith of treaties: it is twice as near to Novigrad as it is to Pest.

^d On the nearer bank of the Danube, opposite Buda, where general chapters of the Order are recorded as having been held in the year 1273, being one of the older convents of that province.

CHAPTER III.

The Sanctity of Blessed Maurice Attested by Miracles in Life and after Death.

[11] That the holy man was distinguished by the spirit of prophecy is known from his own words. When he himself with the Prior of Gyor had visited King ^a Nicholas son of George, to ask that from the possessions which he had left behind when entering religion, [When Nicholas refused to return anything from the goods left to him by the Blessed One,] he might give some to the monastery on the island of the Danube of ^b St. Mary, for the support of the Sisters dwelling there; and the King himself said that he was unwilling to give anything, he said: On account of your hardness you shall die this year, and another shall give. Then the King said: If the possessions had pleased you, you would not have abandoned them: now, however, since you are a wretched monk, possessions are not fitting for you: and because they did not please you, and they please me, I do not intend to return any to you. To whom the holy man said: It pleases God Most High that within half a year you shall possess neither those possessions nor any others. Having said this, he departed. Whence not long after these things, within five months the King fell into a grave illness, during which, while he was suffering, having summoned his sons, Bishop Nicholas of ^c Carur and Andrew, he said: I want you to know that I shall shortly die and shall not rise again from this bed: I have the certainty of this matter because Brother Maurice said so, and almost as if pronouncing an anathema he added: Before half a year you shall die, he predicts death within half a year: and another shall receive your kingdom. Therefore know that he is a Saint, and had the spirit of prophecy. I therefore ask you to freely grant the tribute he asks, or the possessions for the monastery of those Ladies, as he himself requests. When therefore the King was dead, the tribute was paid by his sons, as the man of God had requested.

[12] The venerable man of life, Brother Paul of Cracow, a Lector, related that while he was at a Provincial Chapter, on the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, he restores health to a sick Brother, and was being burned by a most acute fever, and indeed the fevers were continually increasing, and he was suffering great thirst; he called Brother Maurice, who was ministering to him out of charity, saying: Brother Maurice, I ask you to bring me water from the well: for like the rich man I am tormented in this flame. The holy man therefore rising and quickly fulfilling the command, brought a bucket of water: to whom the sick man, not ignorant of his sanctity and power, said: This water, I beg you, Brother, bless: blessing water for drinking. for I believe that, sanctified by your blessing, I shall obtain liberation from this burning. Therefore, the blessing having been made and the water taken, the sick man recovered, and all the feverish heat ceased.

[13] The body of the deceased, On the day and hour on which Blessed Maurice died, signs and miracles were not wanting. He died on the ^d twentieth day of the month of March, the fourth day of the week after Passion Sunday, in the year of the Lord 1336; with a multitude of people flocking to see him. For while his body lay on the bier in the middle of the church, Lord Bishop Nicolaus of Gyor celebrated Mass at the high altar for his soul and obsequies: and while the Body of the Lord was being elevated in the Mass, as is the custom, opens his eyes during the elevation at Mass. the dead body of Blessed Maurice opened its eyes, with the entire multitude of those who had assembled to see the holy body looking on. Likewise at the elevation of the Chalice he did the same. But after the elevation of the Chalice, he closed his eyes again. So great also was the odor that emanated from his sacred body while it still lay on the bier, that it comforted the entire multitude of those who were present: for all said that they had never before perceived such an odor.

[14] Brother Benedict, Subprior of the Brethren of the Convent of Gyor, on the day before the death of Blessed Maurice, His death becomes known to the absent Subprior through a vision: having gone to Buda to the Provincial, had such a vision on the night of the death of the same Blessed Maurice. For it seemed to him that a multitude of Friars Preachers were in the refectory of the Convent of Gyor at table, and that Brother Maurice alone was without his cappa. When he related this to the Brethren in the morning, the Provincial Prior said: Either Brother Maurice has recovered, or he has died. The said Subprior, returning to the Convent of Gyor, found that he had already departed. The Provincial Prior of Hungary related he appears to the Provincial in white garments: that when after Matins he was praying in the church of the Brethren, Brother Maurice appeared to him in the whitest garments: and when he had asked him whether he was dead, he replied: I am dead to the world, and I live for God: know however that after ^e death I escaped a great danger, but by the mercy of God I was delivered: having said this, he disappeared. Let the Brethren consider here attentively, because if so great a

man suffered danger in death, what shall those suffer who pass through the things that pertain to their profession superficially and touch them lightly?

[15] A certain man who had lost the light of his eyes, taking some earth from the tomb of Brother Maurice, he is distinguished by miracles. and rubbing his eyes with it, received his sight. Many other miracles also were performed by divine power through the merits of the holy man at his invocation, which are omitted for the sake of brevity. If anyone wishes to see them, let him go to the place where his sacred body rests venerably, namely in the convent of Gyor in the province of Hungary.

^a Bzovius, by omitting the name, does not escape the difficulty, as has been shown: therefore understand a Viceroy, that is, a Palatine or Ban.

^b Now St. Margaret's, from her whose life we gave on the twenty-seventh of January.

^c Perhaps of Trogir in Slavonia: for this name is utterly unknown everywhere.

^d The day of the month, which was lacking in the manuscript, we have supplied.

^e Leander has "dying."