Peter Regalado

ON BLESSED PETER REGALADO, OF THE ORDER OF FRIARS MINOR OF THE OBSERVANCE, AT AGUILERA IN OLD CASTILE.

YEAR 1456

Peter Regalado, of the Order of Friars Minor of the Observance, at Aguilera in Old Castile (Blessed)

[1] The noble town of Aranda in Old Castile derives its surname from the Duero, on whose northern bank it rests, and at nearly an equal distance of about twelve leagues in whichever direction of the compass the inhabitants might turn, looking out upon one major city of that kingdom; having near Aranda del Duero: Osma or Uxama to the East, Segovia to the South, Valladolid or Pincia to the West, and Burgos or Auca to the North. Adjacent to this Aranda del Duero lies the village of Aguilera, and to the village a monastery of Friars Minor, of those who now bear the name of the Observance; but before they joined the Observants, the convent of Aguilera: known only by the name of Minors of St. Francis, they had undertaken to maintain, beyond the Observance of the Rule of the same Saint, an even greater austerity of life recommended by the Seraphic Father in his last testament, leading a nearly eremitical life; which all those who dwell there and in other convents designated for the voluntary recollection of longer or shorter duration still lead to this day.

[2] The governance of these after Father Peter of Villacreces, the first reviver of such strict discipline, unknown until then to Spain, was assumed upon the master's death by the choicest disciple of the same Villacreces, this Blessed was their Vicar: Blessed Peter Regalado, with the title of Vicar: concerning whose Life, virtues, and miracles, Father Anthony Daza, Provincial Minister of the Province of the Conception (formed from the union of the Villacrecian and Santoyan families), and also general Chronographer of his Order, spared us the labor; for in the year 1627, by the Valladolid press of Juan Lasso de las Peñas, he published a booklet in the Spanish language on these matters, and inscribed it The Excellences of the City of Valladolid. This booklet therefore, omitting the preambles whose life was written in Spanish by Daza: that properly concern Valladolid as Peter's homeland, we considered it sufficient to render into Latin: inasmuch as the Judges and Commissioners appointed by the Apostolic See for the reception of testimony and miracles were content with it. Certainly the Auditors of the Rota, examining the Processes and presenting their judgment on the canonization of Peter to Pope Urban VIII in the year 1630, adduce no other Life in testimony than this one.

[3] collected from authentic manuscripts: It was moreover collected from older manuscripts and public documents preserved in the archive of Aguilera: among which there is also a double Life of this Blessed, one by Brother Andrew de la Costa, the longer; the shorter perhaps by Brother Jerome Roman of the Order of St. Augustine, both contemporaries of the Blessed himself: which Lives therefore, and especially the first, written in that simple and ancient style, we would have wished to have, if we had believed it possible at so great a distance of places, and without very great and uncertain trouble, to obtain it from that convent. There is also preserved there an authentic book of miracles, itself worthy of being required word for word, were it not that, being written in Spanish like the aforesaid Lives, it created a lesser desire for itself. We append to the Life to be given by us that part of the Roman Report we give it with part of the Roman Report: which seemed more conducive to proving a legitimate and ancient cult: for we have often learned ourselves and warned the reader that we cannot safely trust the Franciscan Martyrology of Arthur du Monstier alone. But now, relying on such foundations, we do not hesitate to bring forth from it the eulogy, which is found composed in these words:

[4] At Aguilera, not far from Aranda del Duero, a town of the diocese of Osma, of Blessed Peter de la Regalada, Confessor: who, being one of the chief Founders of the Regular Observance among the Spanish, shone forth with so many virtues and merits that both in life he was endowed with the spirit of prophecy, and in death he was illustrated by nearly innumerable miracles.

[5] and we demonstrate that it pertains to March 30: So he says, and rightly: but at the last day of March: in which, we cannot agree with Marietta, who cites and follows the Ecclesiastical History of the Saints of Spain, book 17, chapter 21; and others who wrote the thirtieth day, charging them with error in his annotations. For to say nothing of the manuscript Life, whose authority ought to be greater, and other arguments which Deza alleges below; Marietta himself is the indicator of his own error, when he refers the day of Tuesday to the last of March in the year 1456, which could only have been the penultimate, since with the Dominical letter C, Solar cycle 9, Lunar cycle 13, Easter fell on March 28. From which is evident both the refutation of Marietta and Arthur, and the understanding of the ancient Inscription carved on his tomb thirty-six years after the death of Blessed Peter, when it says that he put an end to the labors of the flesh on the second day of the Resurrection of the Lord, 1456: it is evident, I say, that the second day, counted exclusively from Easter itself, was the Tuesday of the Paschal week, namely the day of Tuesday, as is expressly stated in the miracles at number 75.

LIFE

From the Spanish of Father Anthony Daza.

FROM THE SPANISH OF ANTHONY DAZA.

CHAPTER I.

The homeland and birth of Blessed Peter: the beginnings of the reform and the Convent of Aguilera under Peter of Villacreces.

[1] The homeland and parents of our Blessed were set forth by Brother Lopez de Salazar y Salinas, Founder of the monasteries of the Custody of St. Mary Minor, born of noble parents: and his companion and friend for fifty years, concluding a certain apology to be offered to the Royal Council in these words: With greater rigor the Holy Villacrecian master trained me and my holy companion Brother Peter de Costanilla, son of Peter Regalado and Lady Mary de Costanilla, inhabitants of the city of Valladolid. The same things are confirmed from the manuscript Life, which together with the aforesaid apology is preserved in the convent of Aguilera, composed in a simple style, as the genius of that age allowed, by Brother Andrew de la Costa, with this beginning: The holy Brother Peter Regalado, who is also surnamed de Costanilla and Vallisoletano, was the legitimate son of Peter Regalado, from the noble and ancient family of the Regalados, and of Lady Mary de Costanilla: whose Christian character and virtues were so great, called partly Regalado and partly de Costanilla by them: and their generosity in distributing alms so liberal, that, though they abounded in temporal fortunes, they seemed not lords but procurators and dispensers of them. Their homeland was Valladolid, and their fathers, grandfathers, and all ancestors were descended in undoubted line from the ancient Christians, ever since the Catholic faith was first brought into Spain, etc.

[2] Similar things may be read in an ancient manuscript taken from the concordant deposition of twenty-three witnesses, on September 15 of the year 1562: from his homeland he is called Vallisoletano: all of whom were from the elders of Castro Mocho, and each had passed the seventieth or eightieth year of their age. Finally, in an ancient tablet hung on the tomb of the Blessed himself, the same testifies, and it is held for certain, that he was born in the street called Costanilla, in the house now called that of the Octave; and reborn through holy baptism in the parish of St. Savior. He had from the same parents a sister called Isabella: who in the aforesaid town of Castro Mocho married the Bachelor Orejon, and bore him three sons and as many daughters, from whom an honorable posterity remains to this day. Peter himself is called Regalado by some, de Costanilla by others: but he himself, content from the humble usage of religious families to be named only from his homeland, called himself nothing other than Vallisoletano: as is clear from an instrument of a certain appeal to Pope Nicholas V made in the year 1453 and preserved in the archive of the aforesaid convent: nor do I find him called otherwise in the Bulls of the Prelates of his time, as many as make mention of him.

In those times there flourished Brother Peter Vallisoletano, son of the Regalada woman: who is said to have performed many miracles in life and after death. He is called the son of the Regalada woman, because his widowed mother retained this name from her prematurely deceased husband, and the boy could hardly have known his father by reason of age, and therefore owes his entire upbringing to his mother alone. Yet usage prevailed, after the father's death, that he should be called simply by the paternal surname Regalado: which was perpetually observed by those who compiled the informations collected for his beatification. When his pious mother, accustomed to the frequent use of the Sacraments, brought the boy with her to the convent of St. Francis, he receives the Franciscan habit: to be offered to the Lord after the pattern of Samuel, the thought was divinely put into his mind to request the habit there, and he obtained it, and after completing his probation he professed, in the fourteenth year of his age, which the Canons at that time still permitted.

[4] While Peter was there and made outstanding progress in the spirit, a new light began to rise upon the world through those who proposed to restore the observance of the Franciscan rule, Villacreces desirous of restoring the Observance: extinguished by Papal dispensations, and to hold to the summit of Evangelical perfection, withdrawing to solitudes and forests, far from the convents from which poverty had been excluded: whom the Council of Basel called Observants, taking their name from the situation. The first reviver of this movement in Spain was the blessed Father Peter de Villacreces, brother of Don Juan de Villacreces, Bishop of Burgos, by birth a Vallisoletano, as they say, and there (unless my conjecture deceives me) he professed the Franciscan Order, a man of outstanding learning and holiness, and on that account most dear to Kings and Princes. Who, desiring the original poverty of St. Francis to be observed without any dispensations, first expressed in himself what he wished to see perfected in others, and with the permission of his Superiors withdrew into a certain cave, for twenty years he inhabits a cave as a solitary: remote from human use among the mountains, near a village called San Pedro de Arlanza, in the territory of the town of Covarrubias.

[5] Here he spent fully twenty years, becoming a rare example of penance and abstinence, then the hermitage of Salceda: and with incessant prayers and tears begging God for the reformation of the Order: but going forth entirely different from what he had been when he entered, retaining nothing of a man except the outward form, being in all other respects spirit, and burning with an incredible desire to share with Brothers the incomparable treasures which he rejoiced to have found and discovered in that retreat, he diligently sought a place in which, with others also gathered together, he might join the eremitical life to the conventual and found the regular Observance in its original purity. There offered itself to him opportunely the hermitage of Our Lady of Salceda, between Peñalver and the town of Tendilla, in the district of Alcarria, recently founded by certain Knights of St. John; who, divinely inspired, willingly ceded the place to Villacreces, about to begin his reformation with the permission of the Minister General. It is not known how long the holy man lived there: it is only certain that the Conventual Fathers of Toledo added this hermitage to the Custody of Toledo, whether already abandoned by Peter or to be abandoned for that very reason.

[6] But God did not abandon his servant, nor did he frustrate such holy efforts of his with failure, then a place marked by heavenly light near Aguilera: but provided him with another place near Aguilera, a town between Aranda and Roa of the diocese of Osma, right where a few days earlier the inhabitants had seen at night very many luminaries and heavenly fires, and thinking the area, full of brush, was being cleared by fire, they considered it a miracle and an indication that God was destining that place for some hidden purpose. They therefore reported to the Bishop, who, after a preliminary examination, found the matter to be certain, and at his own expense built a hermitage on that very spot which the heavenly splendors had marked by illuminating it, where a church was also later built, and now stands the chapel of the distinguished reliquary of the Dukes of Peñaranda. Then the Bishop he obtains it from the Bishop of Osma: placed there a Cleric of exemplary life and holy conduct, adding also a companion to assist the one offering the sacrifice. The fame of the new miracle immediately reached the ears of Father Villacreces: who, seeing how well suited the solitude of the place was to his purpose, asked for it from the Bishop, who was, as they say, his kinsman, and without difficulty obtained it for himself.

[7] Meanwhile, while he was negotiating this business, before taking possession of the hermitage, he arrived at the convent of St. Francis at Valladolid with a companion, and at Valladolid he gained Regalado as a companion: and was an object of wonder to all: for whom the sight of Friars Minor, barefoot and most poorly clad, was novel, such as they had never seen since the times of St. Francis. The fruit of this spectacle was greater among the Brothers: for there were among them those who lacked only an example to put into practice the love of holy poverty which God had infused into their hearts together with knowledge of the rule. Such above all was Peter Regalado, who had recently professed his religious vows, and was reflecting on how great an obligation he had taken upon himself in being enrolled among the sons of St. Francis; after he learned from others the manner of living that Villacreces maintained, and that he had the faculty from the General to recruit companions who voluntarily offered themselves for the hermitages he was about to found; he received him as an Angel from heaven destined for his salvation, and with many tears most humbly asked to be admitted into his discipline.

[8] The holy man acceded to the pious wishes of the most pious young man, and took him with him to the hermitage of Aguilera, where the two good hermits were waiting for him: he clothes the hermits found there with the habit: who immediately deferring obedience to him, received the habit of the order from his hands, and then professed their vows among them. Whether this was done by prearrangement, there is no history that reports: this we know, that Villacreces, leaving Peter there with the two novices already mentioned, returned to the Bishop, and reported to him everything as it had been done: who greatly approved the deed, and sending him back to his hermitage, enlarged the dwelling place somewhat, so that it might be suitable for twelve Brothers, content with a narrow space: for Villacreces did not wish more than twelve to live in the hermitages he founded. He also had three cells fitted in the very choir, more like tombs than bedrooms, in which those might dwell for whom the desire to live so close to the holy place had made those narrow quarters desirable.

[9] This was done in the year fourteen hundred and four: the name of the church that had first been given because of the miracle of the luminaries was retained, in the year 1404: so that it should be called the House of God; but among the common people the name of Aguilera prevailed, taken from the village next to which it stood. The church was consecrated by the Bishop much later, in the year fourteen hundred and thirty-seven, on the most auspicious feast of St. Francis, at the request of St. Regalado, then Vicar of the hermitages. This House of God was therefore from its very beginning a hidden theater of such severe penance and the beginning of such a holy reformation, to which men were to be gathered who went barefoot, but even more estranged in affection from every appearance of worldliness; who were to tread upon ground full of the bodies of Saints: which when those who were digging the earth for burying religious people came upon, they found them intact and fragrant: but replacing the earth, they covered them again, lest the matter becoming public should stir up a multitude that would inconvenience the quiet of the Brothers.

[10] Here St. Regalado, putting off the old Adam, put on the new Francis; where also Regalado at the age of 15 professes the observance: having dismissed his shoes and the conventual habit, content with a poor sack: here he made a new Profession between the hands of his blessed Master: here, ordained a Priest, he offered his first sacrifice: here he grew in age and holiness: here finally he terminated the days of his mortal life with a happy end. From which it is clear that Gonzaga erred most gravely, part 1 page 9, asserting that the convent of Salceda was founded by St. Regalado and Blessed Villacreces: since when the latter went to Aguilera with his companion, in the fourth year of the fifteenth century as stated, he was recently professed and had not yet passed the fourteenth year of his age. But Gonzaga himself admits, and it can be proved from the chronicles of the Order, that the convent of Salceda was erected in the year thirteen hundred and sixty-six, that is, twenty-four years before Regalado was born.

[11] In this House of God, moreover (for it did not bear that name in vain), many men illustrious for holiness and religion thereafter flourished: among whom, after the very Founders, the blessed Brother Lopez de Salazar y Salinas deserves to be mentioned first, and afterwards many lived there distinguished for holiness: of whom some mention is made in this book, who was the Founder of the Custody of St. Mary Minor, which is now the holy Province of Burgos, and a disciple of Blessed Villacreces and companion of St. Regalado, a most learned man, a notable zealot for the reformation, and so holy in his conduct as his own Life, written by various authors, declares. No less than he was Brother Alfonso Vallisoletano, the immediate successor of St. Regalado in the vicariate, to whom he was also related by blood and most similar in virtue. Brother Anthony de Aguilera and Brother Juan de Castro among the first Vicars of this convent also deserve no small mention, as does Brother Philip de Santander, a contemporary of St. Regalado, a man of much prayer and penance: Brother Anthony de Cornaga of the same period, and Brother Andrew de la Costa, who wrote the Life of St. Regalado, as it is preserved handwritten in the archive of the convent, who is known to have been a religious man of outstanding holiness, and furthermore an eminent Theologian and Grammarian, and a preacher of Apostolic zeal: who, to benefit others also by writing, compiled Cases of Conscience into a Summa.

[12] and of outstanding dignity: To the commendation of the same convent it contributes that the Kings of Spain drew distinguished men from it for their service, and that men praiseworthy on many counts presided over it as Guardians: namely, Brother Buenaventura de Santiváñez, equal in virtue to the first founders: who was later General Commissary for Spain, and Confessor to Lady Anne, Queen of Spain, united to Philip II: Brother Andrew de Soto, likewise Confessor to the Most Serene Infanta of Spain and Princess of the Low Countries, and there in Belgium General Commissary of the Order. Brother Francis Barroso, a religious man of much prayer and penance, and of such abstinence that until about the age of seventy he ate nothing but bread, water, and a few raw herbs, and that only once a day; he died in the convent of St. Francis at Olmedo, leaving behind a great reputation for holiness. Brother Andrew Velasco, General Commissary of the Indies, Confessor to the Most Serene Infantes and to the Prince of Spain. Brother Francis Ramirez, who after visiting many provinces barefoot as Visitor with great profit of example, finally governed this province with the title of Provincial. And finally he who lives today, Brother Francis

Fernandez, Confessor to Lady Anne of Austria, Queen of France. The rest who enriched the same convent with the examples of their virtues and the remains of their bodies, I pass over: because it would be lengthy to enumerate them all.

CHAPTER II.

The foundation of the hermitage of La Aguilera: Observance of the Rule: constitutions written.

[13] The hermitage of La Aguilera is founded in the year 1415: Having spent eleven years in the hermitage of Aguilera with his blessed Master, St. Regalado, imitating the Angels in the assiduity of prayer and contemplation, and the Seraphic Father Francis in humility and the rigor of penance, in the year 1415 went forth with his same master to found the hermitage of El Abrojo, in a certain garden of Diego de Villacreces, a kinsman, it may be believed, of the Blessed himself, who gave it to him on account of the obligations which he acknowledged owing to him, and so that he and his Brothers might pray for him, on the condition that once an oratory and other suitable buildings had been erected there, neither Villacreces himself, nor the Superiors or other Brothers could sell or alienate the place by any means whatever. If, however (God forbid) either the Brothers themselves should at any time abandon the place, or it should be taken from the power of the same Brothers by any other circumstance, he wished its administration to reside with the Council of Laguna in the meantime, until the same Brothers should wish and be able to return there, with no right left to anyone of introducing another religious order. All of which was transacted and signed at Laguna in the said year before the Notary Diego Perez.

[14] The poverty of the first inhabitants of this place was so great in the utmost poverty: that when there was no book for singing the sacred offices, Villacreces would say to his religious: If they could not sing the Mass, let them weep over it, as exiles from their homeland. And when the oil was lacking that would give light before the most holy Sacrament: Let poverty, he would say, shine there, more sweetly fragrant than any balsam. When the church of this holy convent was consecrated, and it is called Scala Coeli: it obtained the name of Scala Coeli (Ladder of Heaven), to express the office and purpose of those dwelling there, so that just as in the mystical ladder of the Patriarch Jacob there were angels ascending and descending, so here there should never be lacking those who ascend to heaven through contemplation and descend to earth through charity for the benefit and salvation of their neighbors. Much about this place and the holy men buried there would doubtless have to be said by us, had not, on April 8, 1624, the Monday after Easter, two hours before midnight, by the hidden judgment of God, together with the adjoining Royal Palace, the convent burned the same was destroyed by fire in 1624: in a fire so violent that the very stones were reduced to ashes: whose loss, however, was less than that of many important manuscripts and documents, which I had deposited there as if in a place most secure from all danger, when I departed for Rome in obedience to a command.

[15] This disaster afflicted the entire surrounding region, and from everywhere great numbers of people of every age, sex, and condition came running to help, if there had been any room for it, with the persistent wind fanning the flames: which, while they held all things as conquerors, only the Venerable Sacrament and the image of the Blessed Virgin were saved: yet they could never penetrate to the most holy Sacrament and the image of the Immaculate Conception, although they had burst into the chapel nine times, nor could they even blacken the walls of the sacred building with soot. And here the admirable affection of all toward the afflicted shone forth, with alms contributed in competition, by which within two years a new convent was raised from the foundations, with the King himself above all others contributing six thousand ducats. Indeed he was following the examples of his predecessors, who had been piously devoted to this place ever since the time of the most glorious Emperor Charles V, restored by royal generosity: accustomed to retire here during the days of Holy Week, where, lest he inconvenience the tranquility of the religious, he had built a magnificent palace beside the convent. The same, wishing to restrain the excessive greed of certain conquerors of Mexico, sent to New Spain with the title of Protector of the Indians the Guardian of this convent, who was afterwards made Archbishop there and departed from life with a reputation for holiness and miracles.

[16] In the same convent, for many years as subject and Superior, lived Brother Bernardino de Arévalo, an outstanding Theologian and preacher of the divine word, but so zealous for humility that, renouncing the Archbishopric of Toledo, many illustrious men flourished there: he merited many delights from heaven, to whose full enjoyment he passed from the convent of St. Francis at Valladolid. Not less than he in learning or holiness was Alphonsus de Spina, author of the book entitled Fortalitium Fidei, also divinely ennobled by prodigious works, and of wonderful efficacy in preaching. There also lived Brother Juan Merino, to whom angels ministered more than once as he offered sacrifice. Brother Juan de Calahorra, who merited the grace of working miracles by great fervor of prayer and the practice of afflicting his body. Brother Diego Enriquez, son of the Admiral of Castile and a close relative of Ferdinand the Catholic. There too Brother Bartholomew de Cabrera, the brother of the Countess of Modica, married to the Admiral Lord Luis, shone forth in humility and poverty.

[17] The Guardians who particularly distinguished this convent are: Brother García de Castello, companion of blessed Brother Bernardino de Arévalo, a man of great prayer, learning, and merit; Brother Francisco de Herrera, and the Guardians of that convent were: author of a Manual on the Rule of the Minors; Brother Juan Enriquez, a close kinsman of the Admiral of Castile, honored in life with many revelations, and the day before his death made more certain of his salvation by divine warning, not without the fame and praise of miracles wrought through him, and of the abdicated bishopric of Calahorra; Brother Andrew de la Iglesia, Confessor to the Most Serene Infantas, daughters of King Philip II; Brother Peter de Castro, surviving to this day in Belgium, as Confessor to the Most Serene Archduchess there; Brother Sebastian de Salazar, Provincial Minister of this province, whom God took from the convent of St. Francis at Soria three months after his election in the year 1623, about to depart to the heavens without the experience of purgatory, as became known through a trustworthy revelation. Among the lay Brothers who dwelt there, Brothers Juan del Campo and Lawrence were renowned for miracles, as well as Brother Juan Bautista, an ecstatic man, always absorbed in the exercise of continual contemplation, unless commanded by the precept of obedience to return to his senses. also certain holy laypeople: Moreover, two illustrious Martyrs stayed there for some days, one at Cairo in Egypt, the other in Japan, and Martyrs: Brothers Juan de Zuazo and Francisco de la Parrilla, who from this place entered the arena of glorious combat.

[18] But let us return to the holy Founders, to whom it seemed too little to have founded the said two convents Villacreces departs for the Council of Constance: in such holiness and observance of the poverty prescribed by the Rule, unless they also provided for them laws by which it would remain safe and stable. And so Villacreces, although broken by old age and penances, leaving St. Regalado at El Abrojo, went to the Council of Constance, where, when the schism which had vexed the Church for forty years was extinguished and Martin V was created on November 3 of the year 1417, he brought back from him two Bulls, suitable for establishing his reformation in the hermitages of Aguilera and El Abrojo: by which it is ordered that in the said hermitages the Constitutions be observed which St. Francis made for the convent of St. Mary of the Angels near Assisi (which is the principal point of the entire reformation), through the observance of which, as the Bishops of Porto, Mantua, and Sinigaglia noted, Villacreces especially wished his followers to be distinguished from the other Brothers of the Franciscan Order; and the sum of all is reduced to the poverty of buildings, the recollection and perpetual silence of the Brothers, as well as abstinence from meat, as is more fully reported in book 2 of the Conformities, fruit 18.

[19] The same Bulls provide that the said two hermitages may have a church, bells, and workshops, just as the other convents of the Order; that in each only twelve Brothers may dwell (for thus Blessed Villacreces had established, and obtains confirmation for the two hermitages: but after his death St. Regalado obtained a dispensation in this matter); that the same Brothers must live solitary, enclosed in their cells, and may not leave them or change their place unless for the sake of some great and evident usefulness; that no one may enter their enclosures, even if a Brother of the same Order, except the Minister General, the Provincial, or their companions, and the local Lords themselves; that the faculty of leaving one's cell or admitting anyone into it should not be granted except for the most just cause and approved by the greater part of the convent; that the houses themselves and the Brothers remaining in them enjoy all the privileges of the Order by the same right as other convents; and that finally, after the death of Father Villacreces, the hermits of Aguilera together with the other three of El Abrojo may elect another Superior, who should govern them with the title of Vicar and with the same authority over those Brothers of his that belongs to Provincial Ministers in their Provinces. The House of Aguilera, moreover, should always be considered and be the head of the entire Vicariate.

[20] Not content with these Apostolic constitutions, those holy religious men, to which he adds constitutions concerning: for the greater firmness of the same, conceived others under this title: Memorial of the active and contemplative offices of the Friars Minor, which could be called a Mirror of Religious for the doctrine it contains, of which I shall here weave some compendium, with the ancient words simply rendered from the Spanish, so that the fervor of the religious of that time might be better known, and the spirit in which this province was founded. First, we assign six hours within the day and night to sleep, the divine office: and seven hours to the common performance of the Divine Office, but eight on greater feasts. And so that this may be done more becomingly and better, we have Clerics ordained for this purpose, who never leave the house, according to what St. Francis prescribed. Furthermore, we have an hour and a half designated for mental prayer to be done in common: and if anyone desires a longer time for praying to God and lamenting his sins, he shall not lack the faculty through his Superior, when he is asked and judges it will be useful. sacred furnishings: We use vestments of wool, diverse in color according to the diversity of the seasons, and of white and clean linen, backed with cloth made of the same material, without gold, silver, silk, or any other costly workmanship or ornament. Nor do we accept other things donated under the name of alms, lest under that pretext we open the door to opulence entering our houses.

[21] We have glass cruets, bronze thuribles; and the cross which we carry in procession is made of wood, abstinence from meat: so that it may have a greater resemblance to the true cross of our Lord. We wish chalices to be of silver, but small, flat, clean, and only two in each house. We maintain a perpetual abstinence from meat, in order to observe the constitution of the General Chapters celebrated at Paris and Lyons, and those which were enacted under the General Bonaventure: and to imitate more closely St. Francis and the first Fathers of our religion, who were not accustomed to eat meat: and this observance greatly helps us both for interior recollection

and the external custody of chastity and poverty. and wine: We do not drink wine: we do not accept funerals of outsiders nor any temporal benefits from the deceased: we do not store up wheat or wine in August for the needs of the entire year.

[22] We fast from the feast of All Saints until Easter: and if meanwhile God provides fish for the Brothers, they are given to them on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. On Friday during Lent we fast on bread and water: fasts: but the days of Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday on fruits, greens, and legumes. On Sunday we break the fast, each with a piece of bread at supper. Condiments, garlic, and pepper do not belong to the perfect life. A piece of bread of whatever kind distributed at the door, whether white or black, hard or soft, dry or fresh, ought to be of equal value to a Friar Minor: but cooked foods should be simple, namely legumes and greens: so that oil and herring are counted as great delicacies. Our ordinary foods are bread, a dish of greens, herrings or sardines, and one or two of these are given to each if available: or a small portion of fresh fish, if God provides it: if not, we have patience.

[23] In the times when we do not fast, we eat milk, cheese, eggs, one or two for each, sometimes even three when they are available. ordinary fare: At supper nothing is brought that has been set on the fire, except bread and cheese. The drink in summer is clear water, in winter water boiled with fennel. All go barefoot and are clothed in coarser cloth, such as the common people use, at a price of four or five maravedis per yard, as it commonly sells at Aranda. The church should be suitable for fostering devotion, small, and well built. The Most Holy Sacrament should always be kept in a more preciously adorned and more honorable place. The house, cells, and workshops should be made of wood shaped only by the axe, without moldings and carvings: the walls should be built of earth and bristles, as should the walls of the gardens; and if stones are used, they should be rough, and joined with good clay, not with lime or any other elaborate material. And so it will be provided that the houses, the construction of buildings: though poor, will yet be firm and keep out the cold, and the Brothers will not need to repair them every day, with a loss of time that should be given to prayer.

[24] We observe the enclosure which St. Francis established for his hermitages and for the convent of St. Mary of the Angels, enclosure: as Martin V granted us by his bull. For the attainment of humility of heart, we are accustomed to make a confession of faults whenever we leave the choir, or enter the house from outside, and to accept penance for our offenses, more often and willingly stripping ourselves to receive the discipline. We also beg alms through the refectory, and on that day we eat nothing else but what the Brothers have left over as superfluous to them. No one who seeks preferments, preaching, confessions, or sacred Orders do we advance, but rather we remove those who strive to procure such offices. humility: In seating at table we are all equal, nor do we recognize there any distinction of greater or lesser: just as we do not in the discipline performed on various nights, the collecting or carrying home of firewood, and all other labors whatsoever. Excepted, however, are the sick and elderly, and the comforts of the sick: especially those who have reached their sixtieth year: whom we regard as being in the infirmary, and when their need is manifest, we excuse them from fasts and permit them to use meat and wine and poor or esparto-grass sandals.

CHAPTER III.

The life and death of Peter de Santoyo: the history of the reform introduced by him.

[25] There were in the holy convent of Aguilera the illustrious men Villacreces and Regalado, Peter de Santoyo: when God brought to them another man similar to both in name and virtue, Father Brother Peter de Santoyo, who gave the beginning of the name of Regular Observance in Spain. These three Peters were the foundational and solid rocks, upon whose firmness and holiness God founded the holy Province of the Conception. God drew that blessed Father, born in Santoyo, one of the nine Campanian towns, to himself with so vehement an impulse that on the very day he was about to sing his first Mass, before he approached the altar or bade farewell to his invited friends, he fled to the convent of St. Francis de Castro Xeriz, where having taken the habit and afterwards professed his religious vows, since he desired to observe the rule of St. Francis wholly and without dispensations or revenues, and one night was deep in prayer in the convent of Valladolid, he was admonished by a divine revelation to reduce his life to the pure observance of the rule and to help with the reformation of the Order. Strengthened therefore by this divine invitation and desiring to obey it, he professed the Observance at Aguilera: he immediately betook himself to the convent of Aguilera, and there, bound to a new profession under the discipline of Villacreces, having duly pronounced the same, he set out on foot, and indeed barefoot, to the Holy Land, visiting the holy places of Jerusalem with many tears.

[25] Gonzaga therefore also erred here when he said that Peter de Santoyo contributed his collaborative effort to the founding of the convents of Salceda, Aguilera, and El Abrojo together with Blessed Villacreces. under the discipline of Villacreces: For as was said above about St. Regalado, Peter de Santoyo was not yet born when, thirty-eight years before the founding of the convent of Aguilera, the blessed man began to reside at Salceda: and in the year 1415, when the founding of El Abrojo is noted, Peter de Santoyo was not in Spain, but in the preceding year he had departed for the Council of Basel. Gonzaga himself seems tacitly to have acknowledged this error of his, since when treating of each convent in particular, he nowhere mentions this Father. With similar carelessness he attributes to him the foundation of the Custody of St. Mary Minor in the Province of Burgos, and another of convents established in the lands of the Count of Haro. For, not to say that he himself perhaps was never there, it is certain that the founder of the said convents and the custody was the blessed Brother Lopez de Salazar y Salinas, as Gonzaga himself attests where he treats of the convent of St. Mary Minor in the Province of Burgos.

[27] While our pilgrim piously and devoutly visited the sacred places of the Holy Land, he visits from the Holy Land: the Lord clothed him with that zeal and fervor of spirit needed for undertaking the reformation of the Order: and so, instructed and burning with the desire to fulfill the divine will, he went to Rome, and there communicated his plans with St. Bernardino of Siena: from whom he received much light and very useful advice for obtaining the intended reformation: at Rome he obtains the power to introduce the reformation throughout Spain: and returning thence with bulls and Pontifical letters obtained for that purpose, so that he might found poor convents and also bring others already founded back to the observance and purity of the Rule, he came to Spain, and in a solitary place half a league from his native town of Santoyo he founded the convent of Our Lady of Grace at Villa-Silos and having founded the Santoyan convent in the year 1409: in the year 1409, in such poverty and observance of the rules that Father Lopez, who at that time administered the holy Communion to him, says that he surpassed his master Villacreces in the rigor of penances and the total nakedness of poverty.

[28] In this place the holy man remained until he learned that the Council of Constance had been convoked: thinking that he should make use of this opportunity to achieve his desired end, he went there, and brought back from the Fathers of the Council a Bull in favor of the poor reformed convents, and furnished with new Bulls at Constance: with the faculty of founding new ones and reforming those already founded, and of receiving novices and Brothers who would voluntarily embrace the reformation. Furnished with this faculty, he began to reform some of the old convents, although he suffered the greatest difficulties on that account and suffered them for the rest of his life: all of which he regarded with equanimity, strengthened by the love of God, and not retreating a hair's breadth, he strenuously continued the work he had begun, aided by several leading men, ecclesiastical and secular, whose hearts God moved, and through them the heart of King John II to lend him their support: and through his intercession Bulls were obtained from Popes Martin V and Eugene IV, giving Peter the same power as we said had been given by the Council, for the kingdoms of the said Lord John.

[29] He had already founded the convent of Our Lady of Grace at Villa-Silos, but then by the force of the new Bulls, he erects more reformed convents: he founded another, called Our Lady of Consolation, in the territory of Calahorra near the village called de las Ribas, in such poverty as the surviving walls, constructed of clay and bristles and plastered with lime, manifest to our own times: and I myself also saw the roofs in some places woven from brambles and thorns. In the same poverty the convent of Our Lady of Hope at Val de Escopez was founded by him, about one league distant from Medina de Rioseco; and the convent of Our Lady of Mercy near the town commonly called Paredes de Nava. but he reforms old ones: Furthermore, he introduced the reformation into many old convents: the first among which was the convent of St. Francis of Valladolid, from which the restoration of regular observance spread to many other convents of the Spanish and Indian provinces. And there, among the greatest labors, he ended the days of his life, destined to rest eternally, having received the Sacraments amid his own and the bystanders' copious tears, also distinguished by many miracles, on account of which his body was transferred and placed in a stone monument he died on April 6, 1431: raised above the ground next to the main altar: above which monument his statue carved in stone is seen, with an inscription indicating that he departed this life on the sixth day of April of the year 1431.

[30] Those two reformations, however, the Santoyan and the Villacrecian, the difference between the Villacrecian and Santoyan reformation: which some ignorantly confuse, were very different: for Blessed Villacreces first began his reformation in the convent of Salceda, which did not spread beyond it, but was extinguished when he moved away and left the place to the Conventuals, who, as has been said, annexed it to the Custody of Toledo. Then, as it were on a second occasion, he began the reformation together with St. Regalado in the convent of Aguilera, whence both of them together extended it to El Abrojo, later augmented with various convents by the disciples of both, as we shall see below. But the blessed Father Peter de Santoyo began his reformation a few years after the foundation of Aguilera, which, once spread out, was of the foremost and most lasting fruit throughout all Spain. And its author was not Villacreces, as others would have it, but this blessed Father, as the words of the blessed Father Lopez de Salazar y Salinas, a contemporary of Santoyo himself and educated under the discipline of Villacreces, will clearly prove, in the response which he gave to the Council of King Henry IV, to the fifteen articles which the Observant Fathers opposed to the Villacrecian hermitages. The words

his from the ancient Castellan are of this kind:

[31] You ask, Fathers, why we are not under your

jurisdiction, and under the Vicars General or Provincial

of your Observance: and the distinction of both from the Observants: why likewise we do not join with you

and be called equally Brothers of the Observance.

To this article I respond that this does not happen for several reasons. First, because the first reformer in this province of Castile was, as you know, that distinguished Father and Master, Fr. Peter of Villacreces, most celebrated for his virtue and learning, and this by joining the claustral and eremitic life, and by fleeing convents built in cities and towns themselves, although Benedict XIII had given him ample authority to reform them. He himself moreover many times impressed upon the holy Brother Peter of Costanilla and the rest of his disciples, that we should never depart from those narrow confines in which he was leaving us, nor should we allow ourselves to be aggregated to the Observants, who were beginning to flourish, now that nearly forty years had already passed. Indeed Fr. Peter of Santoyo himself for the same reason for many years refused to join the said Observants, until they submitted themselves to his governance, until they submitted themselves to Peter of Santoyo: with the support of the Lords Peter Manriquez, President, Lord Gutierre the Archbishop, the elder Admiral, and the Count of Benavente. He never, however, presumed to exercise any jurisdiction over the houses founded by our said master. Wherefore, since from that time when he himself founded us at Aguilera, we have not passed hitherto into another's jurisdiction, nor did the Father who begot us ever consent to this, nor have we to this day assumed the name of the Observants or had it attributed to us by the common people; but simply we are called and are Friars Minor of St. Francis from the discipline of Villacreces, just as you are and are called Observant Brothers founded by Fr. Peter of Santoyo, although he too lived at Aguilera for one year under Villacreces: for these reasons, I say, and because we are prior to you, established before your observance was born, it is not fitting for us to pass to your jurisdiction or to consent to those who wish to bring this about by force.

[32] It is clear therefore from what has been said that the reforms we have mentioned were distinct: but because both were reduced to unity, and at length the Observants and the Villacrecians coalesced into one province: and from them was born the Province of Santoyo, which they call the Province of the Conception, the first in the Order under the title of the Observance: and because its founders, although they gave the beginning to the reform by different paths, which flourishes so remarkably in Spain, the institution of the Observance is attributed equally to all three: so speak the historians of the Order, especially the three Bishops, of Porto, Senigallia, and Mantua: of whom the last, namely Francis Gonzaga, concerning the origin of the Seraphic religion, part 1, folio 10, speaks indiscriminately of Villacreces, Regalado, and Santoyo in this manner: These are the first authors and distinguished founders of the Regular Observance among the Spaniards. Then at folio 98, composing a catalogue of the Blessed, he says thus: Blessed Peter of Regalada, a Spaniard, a man of wondrous sanctity and author of the Regular Observance among the Spaniards, distinguished for his virtues, rested most holily: while of Villacreces he only says that he was the master of the former, and of Santoyo, that he was most zealous for evangelical poverty.

* Peter de Luna

CHAPTER IV

The virtues and death of Villacreces: the vicariate of Regalado: the growth and finally the union of the reformed, with the establishment of the Province of the Conception.

[33] Villacreces was a mirror of rare penance and abstinence, Villacreces distinguished for his virtues: and for a full twenty years intent first on reforming himself rather than others in that cave of which we have spoken, then with great courage, zeal, prudence, and piety undertaking the work committed to him by God, he always shone forth in the virtue of humility. He was indeed a distinguished preacher and had been created Doctor of Sacred Theology at the University of Salamanca: yet very frequently he sighed and grieved that he had unworthily received that degree, and would say that he would be happier if he were a poor old woman with charity and the love of God and neighbor than if he knew all the theology of Augustine and Scotus. How much more, he would say, has the little that I learned weeping within the darkness of my cell profited me, than the much to which I devoted my studies at Salamanca, Toulouse, and Paris!

His miracles, life, and glorious death were written in summary (as I believe) by St. Regalado, and prefixed as a prologue to the constitutions: which, although they are composed in very few words, convey sufficient knowledge of his extraordinary sanctity, and for the veneration of their author deserve to be rendered into Latin as simply as possible from his very own words.

[34] Here begins the memorial of the active and contemplative offices of the Friars Minor according to the teaching of the blessed Father and famous Master and most useful preacher, around 60 years of age: Fr. Peter of Villacreces of blessed memory, first Reformer of the Order of St. Francis in the Province of Castile: who lived in this world for about sixty years, and served God most perfectly in religion for approximately forty-six years. He built three hermitages, namely Salsedan near Penalver, the House of God near Aguilera, and the Ladder of Heaven in the garden of Abrojo, and ended his holy life at a certain Provincial Chapter in the monastery of St. Francis of Penafiel: which when he entered sound and well, he said to his companions at the very doorway: This is my rest forever and ever. And so, falling ill at the very beginning of the Chapter, before he gave up his soul, receiving the most holy Sacrament, he gave thanks to God with the most tender affection for the great and many benefits by which he acknowledged himself to have been heaped in this life; and especially that He had granted him to preserve his virginity unblemished.

[35] He was a most bitter enemy of gluttony and a perfect imitator of St. Francis, following his footsteps in the rigor of abstinence and penance, died in the year of Christ 1422, shines with miracles: in the loftiness of prayer and contemplation, and in zeal for eremitic and solitary recollection, in the observance of enclosure and silence, in total poverty, humility, and good example, training his disciples to the most perfect obedience, innocence, and abnegation of one's own will: and so he led many by the hand to heaven, to which he also sent his own spirit when the reading of the Chapter was concluded in the year of the Lord 1422: whom all the Fathers of the Chapter followed, intoning in a loud voice, We praise thee, O God. And he began immediately to shine with miracles, and remained in all his limbs so comely and flexible that each one could be bent in any direction at will. In such a state the holy body remained for a full three days exposed for the veneration of all in the church; whence, as many people reported many benefits, a great throng of people assembled to see him and to carry away relics if they could. Among these a certain person, striving to cut off and carry away his right hand, felt his own seized by a violent spasm, and publicly confessed the crime he had planned. In life also he performed various works beyond the powers of nature. He was then buried and placed in an elevated position against the wall, and thence translated to a new vault, built of lime and cut stones, where he rests in peace in an alabaster sepulcher.

[36] After the death of Blessed Villacreces, the Brothers of both hermitages gathered to elect a successor to so holy a Father according to the Bull of Martin V; in his place Regalado is elected Vicar by the Aguilera and Abrojo communities: and considering the prudence and other virtues of the holy Brother Peter Regalado, since like the sun among the stars he shone forth among them all, they elected him their Vicar. He certainly showed himself worthy of such an election: for he was pious and merciful toward the weak and humble, strong and severe against the rebellious and contumacious, whom he said deserved punishment for that vice more than for any other offense whatsoever. He governed his subjects by the best example: never traveling except on foot and indeed barefoot, fasting continually, preserving and defending the hermitages against those who were violently attempting to subject them to their own jurisdiction: and for this reason he endured great injuries and persecutions, with such equanimity that it truly appeared to come from the Spirit of God. For both he and his blessed master had so much trouble in protecting the two poor hermitages they had founded, that they could not be effectively solicitous about spreading the discipline.

[37] But what they did not do by themselves during their life, they did through their successors after death: who after his death were greatly increased: when other convents were gradually joined to those two, all of which together obtained the name of the Aguilera family, with such growth that Pope Pius V ordered it to be a Custody on its own, under the name of the House of God of Aguilera and the Ladder of Heaven of Abrojo, by a bull dated the 14th of March of the year 1481, still to be found in the archive of that same convent: which others, expressing it in summary and naming it the Custody of Abrojo, gave Gonzaga occasion to think that the convent of Abrojo had obtained the title of Custody by itself, while that of Aguilera had been incorporated into the Custody of Palencia, they form their own Custody: both far from the truth: for those two convents remained joined, until they were equally incorporated into the Province of the Conception: as is clear from various Bulls of the Supreme Pontiffs, and patent letters of the Generals and Provincials, as well as from the instrument of concord entered into between the said hermitages and the convent of St. Francis of Valladolid. For indeed from the very beginning the Aguilera community presided over the Abrojo community and over the entire Custody named after it, which also had under it these convents: St. Francis of Aranda, St. Dominic of Silos, Our Lady of the Twentieth, St. Bernardine of Herrera, Corpus Christi and St. Francis of Soria, St. Louis of Gormaz, St. Francis of Almazan, St. Francis of Atienza, St. Stephen of Gormaz.

[38] But at the same pace as the number of convents and religious grew, the Santoyans however also a Province: rivalry and discord also grew between this Custody and the Province of Santoyo (which is the ordinary fruit of division, however much it may be cloaked by the appearance of greater sanctity and reform), until it pleased God that, all the convents being joined into one, the Province of the Conception should be formed: to which, before the Santoyans were united with the Villacrecians, the name of the Cismontane Custody belonged, because it was on this side of the mountains separating Old and New Castile; and it had such great and happy growth that in certain constitutions made by a Chapter celebrated in the convent of St. Francis of Ayllon in the year 1450, all these were numbered under it: St. Francis of Valladolid, by the number of convents: Palencia, Segovia, Medina del Campo, Arevalo, Olmedo, Cuellar, Penafiel; St. Dominic of Silos (although this later yielded to the Custody of the House of God by certain agreements), and Palenzuela, St. Mary of Graces of the town of Silos near the town of Santoyo, St. Mary of Consolation near Ribas, St. Mary of Mercy near Paredes de Nava, St. Mary of the Hope of the Valley of Escopez near Rioseco, St. Mary de la Hoz near Sepulveda, St. Mary of Izarosila in Biscay near the town of Bermeo, St. Mary of Abaldo

near Bilbao, St. Sebastian of Barrieta, St. Sebastian

of Ano, St. Mary of Hibernalo, St. Andrew of Muga,

Murcia, Lorca, Orihuela, Belmonte, and St. Mary of

Murcia.

[39] Then, a few days after those constitutions were drawn up and the aforesaid number begun, [and by the fruit of the observance also transmitted into other provinces, most renowned:] the Custody of St. Mary of the Minors of the Province of Burgos joined itself to this Custody with all its convents, as is evident from the Bull of Pius II, dated in the year 1459 on the 17th of April, which is in the Archive of Valladolid. The Brothers of this same Custody reformed the convents of St. Francis of Salamanca, Benavente, Coruna, Zamora, and Cabeza de Alba: and so great was the number of those receiving the reform that, since this one Custody could not govern them all on account of the distance of the places, Custodies of Observants were formed from them, and to this day they remain principal Provinces. After which, Sixtus IV, learning by certain report of the remarkable holiness and multitude of convents of this Custody, raised it to the title of Province in the year 1477 on the 19th of November, giving it the name of Santoyo in honor of its holy Founder, which was the first of all those that bear the name of the Observance: and the original Bull exists in the aforesaid convent.

[40] In this state that Province remained until the year 1518 when on the 16th of July, by a Chapter celebrated at Lyon in France, the Custody of the House of God of Aguilera and the Ladder of Heaven of Abrojo was joined to it, which in the year 1518, with the Villacrecians added: and from both together was made one Province under the title of the Conception of Our Lady: under whose protection and heaven-sent growth, it advanced in the number and sanctity of illustrious and eminent persons: for nearly all the most praiseworthy men whom we reviewed in the preceding chapters existed after the union was made, so that such fruits are to be attributed chiefly to this union. The instrument of this union with the decree of the General Chapter of Lyon, signed by two Ministers General, the Province of the Conception was formed: of whom one was Fr. Christopher of Forli, already then a Cardinal and departing from office, the other Fr. Francis of Licheto entering upon the Ministry: and another Brief of Clement VII, dated in the year 1525 on the 5th of July, confirmatory of the same union; together with the authentic instruments of obedience tendered by the aforesaid houses of the Villacrecians to the Provincial of the Conception, are preserved in the Archive of St. Francis of Valladolid.

[41] Moreover, the reasons that moved Blessed Villacreces not to wish for this union, just as we now do not know them, so we believe they were proper to those times, and just as well, for the great public good: but have now entirely ceased: since experience teaches that this union was an extraordinary work of divine goodness, for communicating many goods to both sides, of which they had previously been destitute: and above all for substituting peace and concord for quarrels and rivalries, and this so perfectly that now there is contention only in charity and zeal for observing the rule and attaining greater perfection. To this end, for the establishment of recollection, the convents of Abrojo, Aguilera, Villasila, Valdescopez, and Calahorra were commonly designated: and to these three others were later added, and by the fervor of recollection: namely Our Lady of the Conception near Villalbina, Our Lady of the Angels near Castromocho, and St. Francis of Lerma. Now this designation of convents destined for recollection was a truly divine invention for reviving in the Order the spirit of the first Fathers and the perfect imitation of St. Francis.

[42] Those who voluntarily withdraw to these convents, as they do so under no compulsion of necessity, for whose particular exercise certain convents were selected: so with great ardor they devote themselves to the exercises of penance, mortification, silence, and enclosure. When, however, they are prevented by age or infirmity from persisting in such rigor of life, they are sent back without any mark of disgrace to the other convents of this Province, in which the discipline is thoroughly religious but less harsh; and these are within cities and towns, while those others of the Recollects are almost within solitudes, and thus more suitable for observing the Franciscan rule to the letter, according to the declarations of Nicholas III and Clement V. Here therefore perpetual enclosure and silence prevail, nor does anyone speak to another without the permission of the Superior: the clothing of all is of rough cloth, the feet bare and supported by wooden soles: they devote three hours and three quarters to mental prayer, in the highest rigor of the rule they are frequented by those who wish it: which is done by all assembled together, and by the younger ones even more at length: they fast for the greater part of the year, and very frequently on bread and water: during Lent they scourge themselves daily, but at other times three times a week: the younger ones, however, with their master twice on any day. They have about seven hours each day occupied in most devoutly reciting the Divine Office. They receive nothing under the name of stipends for Masses, but apply everything in common for their benefactors. Without any distinction, superiors and subjects wipe, sweep, wash, and whatever else that is lowly and humble occurs among the duties of the convent, they commonly perform with no one excepted: which, since they are works of obedience and voluntary abjection, contribute much to the accumulation of other virtues.

CHAPTER V.

The virtues of Blessed Peter Regalado, declared by miracles performed during his life.

[43] The virtues and miracles of the Saints are the tongues by which God manifests to the world the sanctity hidden within: the rare virtues of Blessed Regalado: and those which He works through this Saint are so many and so prodigious that from this alone it sufficiently appears that the Lord wills that the Apostolic See be implored for the canonization of this His servant. The splendor of his virtues is equal, and indeed flourishing from his earliest childhood: for devoted to the divine service from his tenderest years, he always preserved himself a virgin: he frequently suffered raptures and ecstasies: and it not rarely happened that others saw him, while placed in prayer, raised into the air, and surrounded by such splendor that those who beheld it from afar believed the convent of Abrojo to be on fire and came running to lend their hands and labor to suppress the blaze. The same thing happened to him in the convent of Aguilera, and more than once the inhabitants of the town, which is called Gumiel de Mercado and is half a league distant, came running, thinking everything at Aguilera was ablaze. To these was added the gift of frequent and copious tears, for the wiping of which he always carried about with him in his sleeve a handkerchief kept ready.

[44] He lived always most devoted to poverty, mortification, and humility: observance of nine Lents: even in extreme old age walking with bare feet: when sick he used the poorest sandals, which are preserved to this day with his other relics. For many years he observed the nine fasts of St. Francis (they call them Lents): the first from the feast of All Saints until the Nativity of the Lord, by the prescription of the rule in honor of so great a mystery; the second from the second day of the Christmas feast until the feast of the Epiphany. The third is called that of the Blessed, because St. Francis imparted his blessing to those who would observe it from the day of the Epiphany for the following forty days, after the example of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The fourth is common to the whole Church, from Ash Wednesday until Easter. The fifth, from the third Easter feast until Pentecost, serves those preparing their soul for the coming Holy Spirit. The sixth, from the third day of this feast in honor of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, is kept until their feast. From then until the Assumption of Our Lady follows the seventh, to be observed in honor of the Most Blessed Virgin: to which, after five days, on the 20th of August, the eighth succeeds until the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, instituted for honoring all the Angels: and from the day after the said feast until the solemnity of All Saints, the last, likewise dedicated to venerating them. To these add many days throughout the year which the holy man had prescribed for himself by particular devotion to be spent on bread and water: using for his ordinary food bread and legumes, fish rarely, wine never, when he was in health. He had forbidden himself supper in perpetuity except on Sunday, when in its honor he broke his fast with a double morsel of bread.

[45] constancy amid persecutions: Nor was there lacking in this Saint that tolerance of evils which so pleases God, concerning which Fr. Lopez wrote thus to their authors: The adversities, attacks, temptations, condemnations, annoyances, and injuries which your predecessors directed for a full forty years against the saint who raised me, my master, and my companion Fr. Peter of Castanilla, a good and holy man; and against me and these poor houses: then what you in your times have plotted against us, you yourselves well know. In all these things we have this one consolation, that since all must shortly die, God, St. Francis, and the truth will never die. From these and other words, to be gathered here and there through the letters of the Generals and Provincials directed to the Saint himself and preserved in the Archive of Aguilera, to the same effect, it is sufficiently known that the Saint was never free from such things, as long as he governed those two hermitages of his as Vicar. The ancient manuscript book of his life asserts that he always endured many and grievous persecutions with equal patience. I pass to the miracles.

[46] Lord Sancho de Rojas, Bishop, governed the Church of Palencia, he who was later Archbishop of Toledo: Regalado heals a cripple: his cousin was Diego Gomez de Sandoval, deformed and crippled from birth, so much so that, propped on two crutches, he was forced to use them for moving himself, and could take food only by another's hand; because his hands, being curved and scabby, were utterly useless to him. The Bishop therefore, seeing how great things God was working through His servant, decided to bring his cousin to him. The Saint commanded the sick man, having confessed his sins, to receive holy Communion, which he himself also conferred upon him, after he had sacramentally absolved him as he so wished. When the sacrifice under which these things were done was finished, a cold sweat broke out from the sick man's whole body, accompanied by most intense pains, which made him most like one dead: but shortly the power of the Most High was revealed: for soon, in the presence of all, he cast aside his crutches, and rising up sound and beside himself with joy, he leaped about in exultation. The Bishop gave thanks to God and His Saint, and for the devotion with which he was affected toward him, requested his habit, and having obtained it, stored it to be preserved in the majorat of the Denia family. This miracle was so celebrated that it is found approved in two official investigations, and Queen Isabella the Catholic wished it carved on the alabaster sepulcher, to which his sacred body was translated.

[47] Another no less memorable event befell the same holy Father as he was traveling from Aguilera to Abrojo, [he knows by miracle that the habit of the Order was given to one buried in a white shroud:] which demonstrated his faith, hope, and prophetic spirit to all the people in a place called Lower Quintanilla. Here a young man approached him, humbly and devoutly requesting the habit, so that the Saint, moved and deferring his wishes until his return, commanded him meanwhile to consider himself a Brother, enrolled in the Order and under his obedience from that very moment in time. On his return, however,

he learned that the young man had died, and said to his relatives: He is a Brother of my Order. But they replied: He wished to be, but he never put on the habit. To whom the Saint, knowing how pleasing to God his will had been, said: Open his sepulcher and you will find him clothed in the habit. They went, opened it, and in place of the burial linen in which they had recently wrapped and buried him, they found a Franciscan garment, and marveled equally at the grace of his good will and the sanctity of him who penetrated with the eyes of his mind into the hidden places of the earth.

[48] in one hour he covers 14 leagues: The degree in which he possessed the theological virtues is also shown by the following examples. He was Vicar of both hermitages at once, and although on account of his old age he would have had an easy excuse if, when traveling from one place to the other, he used a humble beast for the journey, he nevertheless refused, relying on a certain faith that if he did on his part whatever he could to fulfill the ministry of the office incumbent upon him, God would supply the necessary strength: and so it frequently happened that on some Friday, after dismissing the Chapter in the morning, departing from Aguilera, he would be present at Abrojo by the same forenoon, within the space of one hour, to convoke a Chapter there likewise, having covered in that brief space, fasting and unshod, a journey of fourteen leagues. unharmed he is released by a raging bull: On another occasion, laden with a basket, he went from Abrojo to Valladolid, when it chanced that bull-fights were being held, and one of the bulls, bursting from the arena and full of the rage which the spears driven in on all sides provoked, took flight along the road by which the Saint was coming, and was already about to thrust its horns, when he raised his eyes to heaven, and gently inclining the staff he held in his hand upon the neck of the bull, said: Go on, little ox: and at that very word it stopped, and passing by to the side, withdrew, inflicting no harm on him or his companion.

[49] So much did this blessed Father trust in God in his necessities, he crosses the Duero on his spread-out cloak: that if some work of piety presented itself in the villages near Abrojo across the river Duero, when a boat was lacking, he would spread his cloak upon the waters, and mounting upon it marked with the Sign of the Cross, he was carried across more swiftly than otherwise, the cloak always keeping a straight course, and not wetted by the waters however violently they surged into waves. And this was very well known throughout that entire region, and the memory is preserved faithfully by the inhabitants, handed down to posterity by those who themselves saw it. The hope of the reward which God has promised to His servants made him strong for such rigor of penances and such labors as he endured from the beginning of the reform he undertook, until his happy death, for a full fifty-six years.

[50] In charity, which is the sum of all virtues, he was so fervent and always so inflamed with love of God and neighbor, as the works of piety bestowed upon his neighbor for the love of God show, whom wherever he found in need of help, he immediately poured out the bowels of mercy he bestowed great charity upon the poor: and relieved his calamity. Therefore, if perchance he came upon a poor sick man on the road, he took him up and brought him to the convent, and washed his feet with his own hands and pressed them with kisses of the most tender affection, as one who was ministering to God Himself. He had the greatest compassion for lepers and kissed their sores; sometimes even licking their pus, and by this means imparting health to various ones.

[51] Indeed even as an old man, infirm and near death, he completed barefoot a journey of forty-four leagues, he communicates wondrous things to Fr. Lopez: going and returning from Aguilera to St. Anthony above Ficoneda, to give certain counsels to Fr. Lopez de Salazar y Salinas: which, dictated in the very words of the dying man to the Brothers and Sisters of the monasteries he had founded, I have believed should be expressed here: I notify all of you, sons and daughters, and declare for certain, that that holy man, my companion, Fr. Peter of Costanilla, revealed to me in this very cell such terrible things for my astonishment and confirmation, which I had not known before, that it is a great sorrow to me that I cannot relate them in this my testament, on account of the excessive confusion that would fall upon certain persons still living, if I were to disclose them. But firmly I assure you, for his and others' confirmation: that while he was still living, before his death he came himself to this cell, and treated with me concerning such spiritual matters, most necessary for the good of souls and of religion: and among them he again recalled that very thing which he had earlier revealed for my and your confirmation; that we should not go backward in poverty and humility, but advance in virtues, nourished by that very food of strict abstinence and profound humiliation, by which I and he were brought up. And a little further on he speaks thus to the nuns: Believe me, Daughters, it is impossible that in such familiarities you should escape the snares prepared for you, however thick the walls may be between you. Concerning which matter the Saint most expressly warned me, commanding that you should beware of familiarity with a certain person and others like him. These words seem to signify a miraculous apparition rather than an ordinary visit.

[52] God moreover made manifest how pleasing to His majesty was that charity of the Saint inclined toward the poor, by which he poured out into their bosom whatever he could. carrying pieces of bread and meat to a poor woman: For when he was serving as porter in the convent of Abrojo, a certain poor and widowed old woman from a place called Laguna came there and was supported by him with her three children. And so when on a certain day some officials had dined in the convent, eating meat, he hastily gathered into his bosom some portions of cooked beef with bread from the refectory, and went off to the gate, about to gladden the wretched woman with this spoil. But behold, he meets the Vicar, and hears from him: Brother Peter, you seem very busy: what is that you are carrying? He, somewhat flustered (for he knew that all eyes were fixed on him, because he was said to be draining the convent) said: I am carrying some roses here for a poor woman suffering great need. when caught, he displays roses for them: But it was not then the season for roses. Therefore in the presence of the Brothers standing by, the Vicar said: Uncover them: for I wish to see. Here, full of confusion and shame, he opens his bosom, and obedient to the command, says: Here they are: and suddenly the pieces of bread were seen turned into white roses, and the meat into red ones, both by the Vicar himself and by the rest who were present. The Vicar moreover, marveling that he saw them so fresh, and suspecting what had happened, replied: Go, Father, in the name of the Lord, and give them to her who is waiting: and not only those, but whatever else you see fit: for this is communicated to us by God.

CHAPTER VI.

The prophetic spirit and death of Blessed Regalado: certain benefits of healing that followed it.

[53] This Saint had a spirit divinely illumined and was distinguished by the gift of prophecy, he knows, though absent, of the body of a drowned woman coming: of which the following cases, few out of many, will give a specimen. On a certain night, intent with the Brothers on the Matins psalmody in the convent of Abrojo, he learned from God that, downstream in the Duero, which washes the garden of the convent, there was descending the body of a woman who, as was commonly believed, had perished by voluntary death through desperation; but whose soul was most pleasing to God: who therefore wished her body also to be honored with ecclesiastical burial. Wherefore, when Matins were finished, he assembled the Brothers; and having ordered ministers to be vested in sacred vestments and to carry the Cross with holy water, he led them to the bank; and that it was worthy of burial: and having drawn the body from the waters, he buried it with honor. The Bishop of Porto considers that this woman was saved, because after she had leaped into the water, repenting of the deed, with great and true contrition she expiated this and all her other crimes before she was suffocated. Fr. Jerome Roman, he who published a book on the commonwealth of the world, in a certain manuscript treatise on the life of this Saint sent to the convent of Aguilera, suspects that she had thrown herself down to protect her chastity.

[54] food lacking for dinner: In the same convent, when Regalado was acting as Vicar and the signal had been given for assembling at table, the prefect of the refectory approached the Saint and informed him that there was neither bread nor anything else at home to set before those who were to dine. He replied: Since the signal had already been given, let the Brothers obey: for God would provide. No sooner said than done: the customary formula of blessing was already being recited, divinely obtained: when, at a knock at the door, the porter went and found a mule loaded with bread and other provisions, not knowing who had brought it: and without delay he carried everything to the refectory, and returning thence to give the mule also its fodder, he found neither it nor any trace of it: wherefore the outcome was attributed to a miracle.

[55] In the year 1456, at the beginning of Lent, our Saint fell ill: to one desiring a quail: in which final illness he was honored by many prodigies. He suffered a most troublesome aversion to food, and therefore when asked by the physician whether he seemed to be touched by a craving for anything, he said: I would eat a quail, if one were at hand. The physician left, and before the gate of the convent, about to mount his horse, he saw a quail, so weary and exhausted by the pursuing hawk, one voluntarily lets itself be caught: that he was able to catch it without any difficulty, and most joyfully brought it to the holy invalid. But he, taking it gently in his hand and smoothing its much-ruffled feathers, said: Sweetest little bird: God delivered you from the talons of your enemy, and shall you now die in my hands? By no means: go and praise Him who created and freed you; and so, throwing it into the air, he let it fly away.

[56] fortified with the Viaticum: Meanwhile, feeling that death was approaching, he received the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist with incredible affection of piety, and with many tears having asked his subjects for pardon of his faults and errors, he besought them to grant him for his burial a poor garment and a place for the love of God. They wished consequently to fortify him with Extreme Unction: but he, for whom future things were as present, ordered that the Bishop of Palencia be awaited, whom God had stirred to perform this last office for him: which was declared to have been divinely foretold by the Bishop's arrival itself. There are some who wish this to have been Sancho de Rojas; anointed by the Bishop of Palencia: but it is established that he departed this life in the year 1422: wherefore it must be said that Lord Peter of Castile, nephew of King Peter, did this. Queen Isabella moreover judged this prophecy worthy of being carved on his sepulcher: and so it is now seen there, and having received the Unction in the presence of the Bishop, in the company of his Brothers and Sons, he rendered his soul to the Creator, while with eyes raised to heaven he uttered that last word: Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. and died on March 30: The day was not the last of March, according to the chronicles of our Order: but the thirtieth, as the ancient manuscript Life itself and the Bishop of Mantua, Gonzaga, testify, and this is confirmed by the ancient writing about his miracles. He died in about the sixty-sixth year of his age, and was buried in the common burial place of the Brothers in the convent of Aguilera.

[57] Of the miracles done after his death, such as

are rightly required for the canonization of anyone, soon miracles began to shine forth: the one found in the legitimately taken investigation is not indeed the first, but worthy of being commemorated in first place. It happened that a beggar coming to the convent, when nothing was left for the porter, asked for alms; the porter therefore denying that anything was available, the beggar went straight to the sepulcher and, prostrating himself on his knees before it, said: O holy man, if you were living today, I would not be sent away from here without consolation to die of hunger. A wondrous thing! The sepulcher opened, and the Saint extending his hand from it offered bread to the needy man: who, having received it, was immediately a herald of the miracle before all.

The other prodigies that were done at his invocation are so numerous of which 46 were approved: that within the first six months after his death, one hundred and twenty-eight were verified by those who came to the sepulcher to give thanks: of which forty-six, duly examined and approved, are preserved in the Archive of the convent of Aguilera, as is evident from the already mentioned investigations, and they are the following.

[58] On the Thursday next after the Saint's death, which was the first of April, 1 April: a lame woman is healed: Catherine Sanchez de Soto, accustomed to support the weakness of her limbs with axillary crutches for walking, and suffering great pains besides, in a place called Fuente Lesendo, when she heard the multitude of miracles which, having begun on the very day of death, rumor was already spreading; she invoked his merits, and casting aside her crutches found herself well: wherefore she afterwards came to the sepulcher to give thanks, and when the matter was examined, it was found to be exactly as she had said. Since moreover the number of those who were requesting some relic of his was very great, on the 14th a sweet odor exhales from the opened sepulcher: the Vicar, wearied by importunate entreaties and having nothing more that he wished to give, in the silence of midnight ordered the sepulcher to be opened as secretly as possible, and some earth from it with some fragments of the burial habit to be brought to him. Which when the Brothers attempted, they were prevented from digging out the earth further, on account of the incredible fragrance of an odor emanating from it, which struck them with religious awe lest they proceed without notifying the Vicar of the whole matter: but he too, perceiving the same most sweet odor in his cell, before he was notified he came running, and judged that it proceeded from the body itself. This happened on the fourteenth day after his death, and the thirteenth of the month.

[59] About the same time, in a place called Gumiel de Izan, touched by the plague and already anointed and given up for dead, lay Agnes, a woman dying of plague recovers: daughter of Francis Gonzalez the surgeon, a resident there: who, seeing all other hope removed, asked her father to bring to her the bandage which, a few days before, he had used when bleeding the Saint of Aguilera: which as soon as she placed it upon herself, she suddenly lost her speech, and meanwhile, with much sweat breaking forth, she was shortly after well again, as if risen from death. Joanna, a blind woman, daughter of Ferdinand Gonzalez, another, given up from pain in the side: a resident of Roa, had lost her speech from pain in the side, and lay given up by all; when some part of the Saint's garments was applied to her: and recovering at once the ability to speak and to see, she also congratulated herself that the pain in her side was driven away, and a most troublesome hiccup removed, being in every respect well.

[60] Garcia Alfonso, son of Bartholomew Alfonso, a resident of Torre Cremada, lay sick for seven months with not one illness only, and had already lost the power of hearing and speaking. 1 April: a seven-month invalid is healed: He was however carried by his parents to Aguilera in the month of April, not long after the death of the Saint: and visiting his sepulcher, he was completely restored, and returning home on the last day of the month, he was received by the inhabitants who poured out to meet him with great congratulation. On the Saturday which was the first day of May, Martin, a resident of Ventosilla, came to the sepulcher of the Saint, another, sick for 22 years, on 1 May: having spent twenty-two years in most grievous pains: from which he felt himself entirely freed at the very entrance of the church of Aguilera, when he had commended himself to the merits of the Saint. On the second day of the same month, from the territory of Sepulveda, Peter Martinez, a native of Toroyuela, 2 May: an eight-year disability: came, debilitated for eight years, and having prayed, left his crutches at the sepulcher.

[61] On the fifth day of the said month, on the Vigil of the Ascension, there came thither a cleric of Atienza, 5th: a cleric of Atienza: Peter Garcia by name, very ill and full of pains: who, spending that night in prayer before the sepulcher, when morning came, took upon himself the habit of the Saint, and at the same time received full health, and left there the crutch he had been using to support his walking. 27 May: two lame persons: Thursday the twenty-seventh of the same month was made memorable by a double miracle in Diego Ruiz of Penalver, lame for ten years, and Benedict Sanchez of Santa Maria de Riaza, lame for three years: who at the said sepulcher recovered their health. On Tuesday, the first of June, a great multitude of people flocked to visit the sepulcher, 1 June: four others: and from among them were miraculously healed Catherine Sanchez, wife of John Fernandez Moreno, deprived of the use of one hand for a decade; and Andrew Fernandez; Leonora, wife of Peter Garcia, and Mary, wife of Roderick Sanchez, all natives of the village of Tudela on the Duero, all lame; and they carried back their health.

[62] on the 2nd: a boy destroyed as if by elephantiasis: On the second of the month, a Wednesday, Alfonso de Costina came to the convent of Aguilera from the town called Villa Muriel, with his son Roderick, a six-year-old boy: who, being there on the feast of Corpus Christi in the church, and making various unseemly gestures before the venerable Sacrament, fell from the steps of the altar with such force that, having lost his speech, he was taken for dead. Then his stomach began to convulse, and everything was violently evacuated through his mouth: and so he was carried to his father's house, with great sorrow to Alfonso, who at the same age had lost another son by a similar accident. But lest he leave anything untried, he made a vow to carry his son to the sepulcher of the Saint, with an equal weight of wax, if he recovered. He, however, not only did not recover, but immediately after the paternal vow, becoming colder than ice, raised from death after the vow made by the father: he expired on Thursday evening. Soon the dead boy's face was covered, and two members of the Confraternity designated for this purpose were called to keep vigil over the deceased. On the following day the funeral was prepared, but the boy had no need of it, rising suddenly alive and well at the second hour after sunrise through the merits of that glorious Saint, to whom his father had commended him, and the father did not delay in fulfilling the vow with his son.

[63] On the same day two women arrived from the town of Cuellar, one named Catherine Martinez, on the 3rd: a lame woman is healed: wife of John Lopez, lame for six years; the other the wife of Peter Velasquez the Notary, tormented by quartan fever for three years: because both, and one with fever: on the very day on which they had vowed to visit the sepulcher of the Saint, had recovered their health. On Friday, the fourth of the same month, Michael de Monte, a Frenchman, arrived there: 4th: a lame man: who, having been lame for twenty years, proved that he had recovered the ability to walk by running nimbly through the church itself. Then also John of Aguilera, a resident of Berlanga, and a broken hand: whose hand, broken beyond remedy when he fell from a tower six years before, remained unhealed, when he prayed at the sepulcher, felt his fingers being extended: and immediately drawing a sword from its scabbard, which he had not been able to do before, he brandished it weeping for joy and uttering cries testifying to the miracle.

CHAPTER VII.

The remaining miracles of Blessed Regalado legitimately received and approved.

[64] Alfonso Fernandez, a cleric of Aranda, on Saturday falling on the fifth day of June, 5 June: a paralytic is healed: came to the sepulcher, seeking a cure for his paralysis, which had rendered his whole body useless for eight months: and feeling that he had received it between the twelfth and first afternoon hour, he began immediately to exclaim for joy that he was thoroughly healed by the grace of God and the Saint, and having left his crutch there, he ascended and descended the steps of the church many times, so that no one might doubt the miracle. After this, on the next and Sunday day, there came Joanna, wife of Lope de Salzedo, 6th: ulcerous wounds of the leg: a resident of the place called Pinar de Yuso: who, having carried inveterate sores on her leg for three years and suffering immense torments from them, was so healed at the sepulcher that before she set foot outside the church, she rejoiced not only that the pains were removed, but also that the sores were healed. On Wednesday the ninth of June, 9th: one with ailing feet: a certain horseman from Penafiel, John de Cuellar by name, praying before the sepulcher, felt himself healed of the pains which badly afflicted his feet: and he who had come lame, leaving his crutch there, ran nimbly through the church, and climbing upon and descending from certain benches, and repeatedly leaping for joy and striking the ground with those feet which formerly shunned all contact.

[65] On the fourteenth, a Monday, four miracles were performed at the sepulcher of the holy man in the presence of many witnesses named and sworn in the investigation: 14th: a crippled woman is healed: and the first, which had more marvel than the rest, God showed in Joanna Garcia, daughter of Mario Diez, of Palencia; whose face paralysis had foully distorted, and heaped great pains upon her arm and leg, and had so contracted her hand that from the first day of the illness it could never be opened. Her most afflicted mother, because all remedies were vain, when she had heard of the miracles done through the intercession of the holy man, turned her vows to him and promised to bring her daughter to the sepulcher for a nine-day devotion to him: and while the mother and daughter did this, full health was restored to the latter, and having given thanks to God they returned to Palencia. But this joy was not lasting for them, for upon entering their house the same infirmity returned: and the mother, remembering that the novena had not been completed as she had vowed, hurried back, and having fulfilled the vow suffered nothing similar. And on the same day, from various infirmities, miraculous health was obtained by and four sick persons: John de Media-villa, from Tudela on the Duero; Marina, wife of John Zapatero, from Pinel de Suso; Mary Alvarez, wife of Diego Labrador; and John, son of Peter Dominguez, from the town of Tiedra.

[66] Eight days later, that is on the twenty-first of the month, John de Tome, 21st: one with disease of the whole body: an Italian from the state of Milan, suffering from arthritis since boyhood, and for the last five years enduring assaults of the most acute pains so violent that, falling to the ground, he would cast forth foam from his mouth, sometimes five or six times in a single day; moreover deprived of the use of his right arm and carrying a withered hand, when he found no

remedy for so many simultaneous ailments, and learned of the miracles performed through the intercession of the Saint, he came by vow to his sepulcher offering a wax image; and before he left the church he received full health. another receives the use of her arm: On the same day Catherine, daughter of Peter Martin of Roa, visiting the sepulcher of the Saint, was healed of a five-year infirmity and received the use of her right arm.

[67] On Saturday the twenty-sixth of June, God worked two great miracles in favor of two women visiting the same sepulcher; 26 June: two women are healed: of whom one, Mary Ramos, wife of Roderick Alfonso of Torre Cremada, suffered fainting spells and many infirmities with such aversion to food that in a full three days she would scarcely eat one morsel at a time; and with pains so violent that she would not rarely lose all use of her senses and would emit much blood through her nostrils. After she had commended herself to the Saint, in the church itself she fell into such a fainting spell that she was believed dead by all present: but after half an hour she returned not only to her senses but to full health. The other, Joanna, daughter of John Herrador, of the same origin, was so deformedly contracted that with her arms twisted behind her back and her fingers hooked and distorted, she could neither eat by herself nor do anything else of necessity, and in the presence of many bystanders she was most perfectly healed there.

[68] The Saint of Aguilera was distinguished by three miracles on the twenty-eighth of June. 28th: a girl troubled by diabolical specters: The first happened to a certain girl, Mary de Olivera by name, daughter of Peter Alvarez, a knight, and Lady Mary de Olivera, natives of a place called Fuentalvilla del Pinar, which is a village in the territory of Cuellar. When she was sound and robust, on the first Monday in Lent a pain of the chest had attacked her so great that seven men could scarcely suffice to hold her. For twelve days this affliction lasted, and then indeed it ceased: but after two months it returned much more violently than before, and she was deprived of the use of all her senses; when somewhat restored, she would say that a woman dressed in black appeared to her, whose face she could not see, but whose fingers were full of precious rings; who urged her to come with her, promising great riches and honors. When the girl rejected these offers, although ignorant who was making them, it soon appeared to be a demon, who left the wretch mute, deaf, blind, and deformedly contracted. To the sepulcher therefore of the one whose miracles she had already learned of through spreading fame, she resolved to go, and immediately felt herself to be better, and having recovered her speech, she asked her parents to be taken to Aguilera. setting out with her family to the sepulcher of the Blessed: The demon could not hear these things and remain quiet: therefore, envious of the Saint, he again displayed himself visibly to the girl, and forbade her to go to that Brother, who was worthless and could do nothing: and if she went, he threatened to suffocate them all in the river, thrown from the bridge by which they would cross. But fearing none of this, she replied that God could do more than the devil, and since he had declared himself to be such, let him be gone to perdition, for she, whether he wished it or not, would go to Aguilera. From that time she did not see the devil, except when they came to a place called Luganilla, she is freed: where appearing again, he made the girl mute and contracted in both hands; and so she remained until they arrived at the bank of the Duero, at the place called Nava de Roa, there to be submerged by the demon, if God permitted: but with Him and His Saint protecting them, they arrived safely at Aguilera, and the demon was seen no more by the girl, who had been the cause of all her infirmities.

[69] On the same day, Toribia Sanchez came to the tomb of the Saint, daughter of Ferdinand Sanchez of Castromocho, a blind woman is illuminated: blind in both eyes: when the habit of the Saint himself was placed upon her head, she began to suffer severe pain in her eyes: but the pain, removed together with the garment, left her seeing well and sound. a deaf woman receives hearing: The third miracle of this same day was experienced by Sancia Hernandez, wife of Alfonso Hernandez of the town of Roa: who, infirm for two years and entirely deaf and tormented by many pains, received most complete health at the sepulcher of the Saint.

After these events, on the sixteenth of July, a Friday, 16 July: twisted arms are straightened: there arrived Catherine Martinez, wife of Gomez Nunez de la Figuera, a resident of the town of Ayllon, bringing a certain son of hers deprived of the use of his arms: who, at the touch of the aforesaid garment, immediately extended what had been twisted, and remained fully free from this and the other infirmities he was suffering.

[70] On the eighth day of August, falling on a Sunday, there came Catherine, daughter of John de Portillo, a notary and citizen of Cuellar, contracted from birth and so weak in the arms likewise 8 August: that they were of no use to her; as were her hands, with fingers curved into hooks, useless for everything; so that, more like a monster than a human being, she could move herself only by crawling whenever she had to change her position: and she appeared free from all these afflictions by visiting the oft-mentioned sepulcher. On the same day there came, carrying a votive offering of wax, a certain servant of the Archbishop of Toledo, Louis de Jaramillo by name, and an ailing mule is cured: a native of Yevenes: fulfilling a vow by which he had bound himself on the road, when his mule was failing him, stricken with illness: from which, as soon as the vow was made, it had been healed, and it sufficed for a journey of fifty leagues, covering thirty and forty leagues each day.

[71] On the twentieth of August, a Friday, there were healed at the sepulcher of the Saint: John Hernandez of Madrigal, a native of the village of Yuan Romano in the territory of Arevalo, 20 August: various persons are healed: completely bent and contracted; the wife of John of Madrigal, from the town of the same name, contracted and confined to bed for eight months; and Mary Gonzalez, also contracted for many years. On the same day there came to the sepulcher Peter de la Calleja, son of Martin de la Calleja, a native of Haro, given up by the physicians on account of continual fevers and other infirmities. When in such a crisis they placed upon his head a particle of earth received from the sepulcher of the Saint, and the mother of the sick man devoted herself for her son, vowing to go barefoot to Aguilera and offer a burial shroud there if he recovered; 7 September: two crippled women: he immediately recovered, and all ascribed his miraculous health to the merits of the Saint. On the vigil moreover of the Marian feast which is celebrated in September, the seventh day of the said month, being a Tuesday, a woman from a certain village of Medina del Campo called Braojos came, Joanna Perez by name, wife of Peter Hernandez, her arms afflicted and her legs contracted for twenty years; and after she had been carried by others' hands to the sepulcher, she returned thence on her own feet, sound, and with joy, by frequently descending and ascending the stairs before the church, she confirmed the miracle, to the wonder of those present. Another woman from the same place, suffering the same affliction, was similarly restored in the same manner and on the same day.

[72] On the following Sunday, the twelfth of the month, God willed that among the many gathered at the sepulcher of the Saint, one especially should be consoled by its visitation. the woman whose son the Saint had healed: John Lopez, a canon of Burgos, son of Roderick de Villaverde and Isabella Rodriguez de Murcia, of the same city, had fallen into a continuous and dangerous fever: and his mother, fearing death for her son, commended him to the Saint of Aguilera: and immediately he who had hitherto suffered from an immense aversion to food received an appetite for eating, and felt himself free from all fever. This matter so increased the pious woman's devotion toward the Saint that in all her needs she would have recourse to him, and indeed also carried back his assistance. It happened therefore that when she was at Medina del Campo and lame, a violent fever with immense torment in her left arm came upon her: in which state it seemed to her, awakened at night, that she saw the Saint entering her chamber, accompanied by two religious of the same Order; and such was the splendor of the apparition, appearing in September, he restores her health: that in a place otherwise dark she distinctly recognized the face, stature, habit, and gait of him whom she had never seen before. Asking whether he was the Father of Aguilera, she heard that he was. He, remaining there for about half an hour, at last touched her shoulder with his hand, and leaving her notably relieved, he disappeared. Then she immediately resolved to approach the sepulcher in veneration, and from there returned on her own feet, without the support of crutches, in perfect health.

[73] On the same day, from Torre de Caballeros, a village in the territory of Segovia, Catherine de Velasco arrived, her hands afflicted and her feet lame for ten years: and she was healed at the sepulcher, when the garment of the Saint was placed upon her. On the fourteenth of December, a Tuesday, Francis, son of Martin Figuero, a native of Gumiel de Izan, another crippled woman likewise healed: was killed by an unlucky fall: and being brought back dead to his father, the shock of grief and sorrow, seizing him in equal measure, compelled him, falling on his knees to the ground, to cry out these words, which all who were present heard: O Saint resting in the monastery of Aguilera, 14 December: a dead man raised: give me back this son alive, and I will crawl on bended knees from here to your sepulcher. And as he said this, the boy returned to life, and being asked whether anything hurt him, he said: Nothing at all: wherefore the father crawled to Aguilera as he had vowed.

CHAPTER VIII.

Other miracles, but mostly taken outside the form of law.

[74] The Brothers could no longer endure the disturbance which the frequency of the people flocking to the sepulcher and of the miracles performed there was bringing. In the month of April of the year 1456 those healed are noted: And so, after they had taken care to receive according to the form of law those forty-six miracles which we have related, weary of the laborious inquisition, they thenceforth omitted that process and were content to receive what was reported in a book kept for this purpose by the Sacristan: but neither did they persevere in doing this for long: for after six months, they took no further care to record anything in writing. What was noted, however, I transcribe from the aforesaid book with as much brevity as I can. Of these, the following were recorded in the month of April of the year 1456.

[75] On the same day on which the glorious Saint departed this life, there came to Torre Cremada a certain Roderick de Rabe by name, who had then been in the convent of Aguilera and narrated many things that had happened at the death of the blessed man, to the admiration of his listeners. a feverish boy: Simon de Mazuelo, a resident of Condemuño, heard these things, and remembering his son, whom he had left at home suffering from a continuous fever for seven months, he inwardly vowed to bring him, if he recovered, to the sepulcher of the Saint. After this, on the following day he set out on the road home; and when he arrived and asked how his son was doing, the answer was that he had been free of fevers since the evening of Tuesday; and was now as well as if he had never been sick. The father therefore recognized that it had been the very day and hour at which he had invoked the Saint for his son, and acknowledging himself

bound by the vow, he did not delay in coming with his son to Aguilera to fulfill it.

[76] Ferdinand Garcia, a resident of Fuente Besendo, had a son gravely ill with fevers, from which both his face and flesh had swollen excessively, another taken for dead: and for a space of three hours he was believed dead: but when the father vowed a journey to the sepulcher for the boy's restoration, the spirit returned to the boy, and he was carried to the monastery by his father, who gratefully recounted what had happened. A certain woman named Antonia, residing in Villalba, finding no effective remedy for her sick son, after many were tried in vain, said: I commend you to God and St. Francis and that holy Brother of his from Aguilera. a third, contracted: Then spending one night praying in his chapel, in the morning she found her son perfectly healed, and his legs, which he had before been curved and contracted, loosened. In the castle of Rai-Diaz there was a girl deprived of the use of her hands and mute for four years; who could neither close her mouth, and mute: nor move her tongue, nor keep her saliva from flowing down her chin onto her chest. Her mother, however, hearing of the many miracles reported about the Saint, brought her daughter to his sepulcher, and there remained the whole night. When morning came, the daughter began to move her tongue and swallow her saliva, and on her way home, having progressed about half a league on her journey, she was also able to close her mouth and speak: wherefore the mother held it a religious duty to go back immediately to the convent, to give thanks to God and His Saint and to make the matter public.

[77] Michael Bermejo, a native of the village of Ynera in the territory of Caracena, received full health, sight, and the ability to walk at the sepulcher of the Saint, blind and lame: and left his crutches there. A woman of Portillo, laboring for a full eight days in unsuccessful effort in childbirth, at the touch of the cord of the holy man, which is preserved in the convent of Abrojo, immediately gave birth and was well. two women in childbirth helped: The same benefit was received by the wife of Hernando Vasquez, a notary of Coruna, who had struggled for thirty full days with the same labor pains. Andrew Gomez of Aguilera, infirm from birth; Peter Beltran, a resident of the town of Guzman, suffering from continuous fever with headache; three sick persons: and Ferdinand Martinez of Santiniano, suffering for five years many pains in a contracted and miserably bent body, visited the sepulcher of the Saint and returned home well.

[78] In the month of May of the same year, John de la Parra, of Sinoga, lost his speech from a fall, and requesting paper and ink, committed to writing that they should carry him to Aguilera to the Saint, and named two of his friends as executors of his testament: In May those healed are found: a mute: he was, however, unable to write anything further, being immediately deprived of the use of all his senses. Carried therefore where he wished, and clothed in the habit of the Saint himself, he immediately found himself well and began to cry out: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: for I am healed by the merits of this blessed Father, and this before many who were keeping vigil at his sepulcher. Garcia de Roa, a servant of the Bishop of Osma, from wounds inflicted by a knife in a certain brawl, was healed at the same sepulcher: and feeling that his hand, which was badly wounded, was somehow burning, and one wounded by a knife: he loosened the bandages and found the wounds closed and the finger, whose tendons had been severed, properly healed: which miracle, together with the following, is found confirmed by legitimate attestation.

[78] On the same day there was healed Martin Ruiz de Turegano, the parish priest of Ninovera in the diocese of Segovia, who for five years from a sudden shock had suffered such palpitation of the heart and tremor of the legs likewise a priest unable to celebrate Mass: that he could not celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass. He had spent much money on physicians, and to find them had made a journey covering more than five hundred leagues, and found no remedy, until on the fifteenth of May he vowed that he would go to the Saint's sepulcher: and as soon as he vowed, he was well, and on the next day, a Sunday, he stood at the altar. A woman who had been mad for fifteen years, brought by force to the church of Aguilera, as soon as she was touched with the habit of the holy man, returning to a sound mind, wished to confess her sins to one of the Brothers. two deranged women: Another woman from Torre Gabinda, having fallen from stairs, saw a black and horrible specter, and at the sight of it lost her mind, crying out thenceforth and screaming that she was being carried by demons from cliff to cliff through mountains and valleys: and so she was alienated from all recognition of her family, so that she did not even recognize her own husband. But he, having commended her to the Saint of Aguilera, brought her to his sepulcher and led her home sound of mind.

[79] Lady Joanna, wife of Michael Sanchez; and Berengaria Alvarez, wife of John of Salamanca, infirm in their legs; several lame persons: and a woman of Padilla who was lame, and another from the town of Ayllon who was also bent over, and Lady Mary, wife of Alfonso Fernandez of Pineda, along with John Alfonso of Hortezuela, a village in the territory of Berlanga, and the son of Peter Bravo of Turegano, with John Ramirez of Pinel de Yuso, and several others, all lame, and some of them for many years, visiting the sepulcher of the Saint, obtained unimpeded ability to walk. A merchant of Valladolid, Andrew by name, son of Peter Hernandez, by the touch of some relic of this Saint recovered from a continuous fever and pain in the side. By the same remedy there recovered Joanna de Castrillejo, and feverish persons: daughter of Cales de Castrillejo, deaf for five years; Joanna Lopez of Haro, suffering from double quartan fever; Mary, wife of Sancho Gonzalez, from the same place, who in the fifth month of pregnancy had emitted such a quantity of blood that she was judged near death; and the daughter of Diego Lopez, notary of Valladolid, sick with plague and violent fever; and finally a merchant of Valladolid suffering from pleurisy and fever: and all indeed at the sepulcher of the Saint.

[80] In the month of June of the aforesaid year, these moreover were taken down in writing. Peter, son of Andrew Gonzalez of Mota del Cuervo, deaf and mute from birth, In June likewise various lame persons healed: received the use of ears and tongue at the same sepulcher. Peter, son of Teresa and John Gonzalez, lame, contracted, and bent for six years; John de Gonzalo from the same place, paralytic; Peter Gonzalez of Medina del Campo, lame; a cleric of Ercina, poisoned; a boy of Dueñas, limping on one foot; Diego Quiroga, born in Santo Domingo de la Calzada, leprous for three years; a man from Hinojosa de la Sierra, weak in his feet; Michael Sanchez from the town of Santo Domingo, leprous and lame; a certain cleric of Prejano, debilitated for eight years; and the daughter of Alfonso the Lame of Baños, having one finger as large as her whole arm along with many other infirmities; and finally John Fernandez de la Sierra, supported by crutches on account of weakness of his limbs: visiting the sepulcher of the Saint, all obtained health.

[81] John Alfonso de Ayladas had a son who came to the last extremity, eating nothing for three days and destitute of the use of his tongue: and variously sick persons: the father vowed with him to visit the sepulcher of the Saint and bring a certain weight of wax, and as soon as he had wished, the boy recovered. The leg of the Licentiate Andrew Lopez of Burgos, touched by plague, was adjudged to death, so that arrangements were already being made for the funeral: but when the father made a vow for her to visit the sepulcher together, she immediately recovered. The daughter of Mary de Tortoles, of San Pedro de Yedra, falling from a mulberry tree, struck her head so that a finger could be inserted into the gaping gash; and she too recovered at her mother's vow: but as a memorial of the event, the trace of the wound was always preserved. A woman of Burgos, having had one of her breasts so ulcerated for six years that a fist could fill the space eaten by the flesh, was healed when the garment of the Saint was applied to her, and by the same remedy another certain debilitated woman recovered.

[82] In the month of July of the same year, Catherine, daughter of Alfonso Pan-y-Agua of Mota, weak for five years; a certain girl from Yanguas, blind in one eye; And likewise in July: Stephen Fernandez of Medina del Campo, suffering for twenty years, besides weakness of the legs, many pains in the body; and another resident of the same place, his companion; John Rodriguez, lame in one foot; the son of Ferdinand Azofran, nearly blind; Michael Perez, a cleric of Cervera, limping on one side, and his feet and hands so affected by arthritis that he had been unable to use them for a full two years; Giles de Cantalapiedra, weak for eight years and supporting his steps with crutches; a woman of Toro, wife of Roderick de Grado, likewise weak; Peter Rodriguez of Pozuelo, deaf and daily losing his senses from a hidden infirmity; and Mark Fernandez de Cuellar of Portillo, suffering from quartan fever for two years: all merited to obtain the benefit of health at the sepulcher of the Saint.

[83] In the month of September of the same year, the daughter of Martin Garcia of Ultana, who lay weak in bed; Andrew Fernandez Cornejo, from the same place, and September: crippled and weak; a woman of Aranda, a servant of the judge of Curiel, with a badly affected breast; the son of John de Morales of Aguilera, wasting away with loss of the ability to eat; and three other boys of the same town, namely the son of Anthony de Covarrubias, feverish, and two sons of Anthony Gomez, variously ill: likewise Francis, a notary of Curiel, weak in one foot; two women and the same number of men, deprived of the use of their hands; Catherine Gutierrez, a widow of Tudela, blind: all found a remedy for their infirmities at the sepulcher of the Saint.

[84] The son of Peter Carpenter of Gumiel, with a broken arm bone; and a certain religious, Brother Mark by name, suffering many pains in the leg; and Isabella Fernandez of Portillo, deaf and with great torment of the side carrying some dangerous growth: invoking the aid of the same Saint, they felt relief. Lady Catherine, a matron of foremost rank in Fuente Lesendo, was so weak in both legs that she could not advance a step except with the greatest pain and the support of crutches; when she heard of the multitude of miracles which God was working through His Saint, she devoutly commended herself to him, and within a short time felt such vigor that within three days she could walk without crutches; and visiting his sepulcher, she left them there permanently, being well.

CHAPTER IX.

The translation of the incorrupt body to a marble mausoleum.

[85] For a full thirty-six years the body of St. Regalado lay in that humble sepulcher of his, the solemn translation of the incorrupt body: honored meanwhile by infinite miracles from God, visited by Kings and Prelates and peoples, flocking in throngs. And indeed there were times when even Kings were compelled to have recourse to such an asylum of common miseries. For when King Ferdinand had recovered the city of Granada from the Moors, Queen Isabella, leaving him there, hurried to Aguilera to arrange the translation of the sacred body: which was performed with the most solemn rite and a remarkable procession through those fields, with an innumerable multitude of people concurring, and the neighboring Bishops and Prelates with the Clergy, and monks with their crosses and insignia. The matter was accomplished on the fifteenth of May of the year 1492, in the year 1492, May 15, before the Queen: and the holy body was placed

in the main chapel on the Gospel side: where it is now seen on high in an alabaster sepulcher, which the Countess of Haro had constructed by order of the Queen, representing many of his miracles and the Saint encircled by a shining diadem: for from that time he began to be called a Saint and to be depicted by painters surrounded by that splendor: unless we rather refer the beginning of this to the very day of his death, when vows began to be made and votive offerings brought to him.

[86] The body, drawn from the damp place in which it had lain, who carries the severed right hand: appeared to the astonishment of all whole and incorrupt; and not only this, but also soft and flexible and fragrant with a celestial odor, which diffused itself throughout the entire monastery and neighboring fields. The Queen, moved by such wonder of things, and wishing to present a specimen of this prodigy to her royal husband, ordered one hand to be cut off, to the King: from which and from the arm itself the freshest blood, as from a living body, flowed for some time; which was caught in linens and cloths, left in the convent of Aguilera and reverently preserved as a memorial of this prodigy, together with the two middle fingers: which are preserved intact even now, certainly not so consumed that the bones, flesh, sinews, and membranes cannot be very well distinguished. Not only the devotion of the common people but also of Kings and ecclesiastical and secular Princes grew through these miracles: among whom several Archbishops and Bishops, as well as two Apostolic Nuncios, hurried from Aranda, where they were attending the ailing King, to Aguilera to adore the sacred body. Philip III visits it: And afterwards King Philip III of blessed memory and Queen Margaret of Austria his wife, with their son the now-reigning King Philip IV, came several times to Aguilera to visit it.

[87] when Philip IV, the son of Philip, was given up by the physicians: The year was 1610 when in the town of Aranda our same Lord King Philip IV lay dangerously ill with fever, then still Prince of Spain: and the matter had come to this, with the physicians' remedies being of no avail and the relics of Saints being brought from everywhere to no effect, that Doctor Valle, the royal chief physician, secretly told two noblemen who inquired about the health of the Prince, that he was dying. On this occasion two noblemen were sent to Aguilera to request the sacred fingers of Regalado, as if Queen Isabella had left them there for such a use. They set forth their commission to Fr. Peter de Borgia, the Guardian, who was coming from the choir after the recitation of Matins; through the fingers of Blessed Regalado brought from Aguilera: who immediately set out on the road with the relics: and on arriving at Aranda the next morning and entering the room where the Prince was, at sunrise he was met by the Countess of Altamira, the nurse of the Prince, who said: Now, Father Guardian, let us put the power of your relics to the test, in proportion to the immense desire with which the Prince has been expecting them. For he who for many days could take no sleep, at the very moment when you entered here, fell asleep. Therefore let your Fatherhood remain here, until he awakes and the efficacious fingers of St. Regalado can be applied: which was afterwards done, with great joy of the Prince himself and confidence of recovering his health.

[88] After these things the physician entered, the one who the day before had said that the Prince's life was over, health restored: and when he had felt the pulse of the artery, he said: Blessed be God, for the matter has so manifestly changed for the better that we can say the Prince has been raised from the dead. Thenceforth the sacred relics were applied twice daily to the sick man, until the Prince was found in every respect sound and safe through the merits of the Holy Father. Wishing to show himself grateful for this benefit, the King was moved to petition for the Canonization: the King his father wrote letters to Pope Paul V and to the Cardinals Borghese, Pamphili, and Lanfranco of the Holy Roman Church, as well as to his Ambassador in Rome, in which he requested a solemn Beatification. But because the Order, conscious of its own poverty, did not dare to comply with the King's pious desire, those letters remained in the archive of the convent, as pledges of the royal will, until the Divine Majesty itself should move to undertake effectually the desired business, and not desist before it should see its holy benefactor enrolled in the catalogue of the Blessed.

REPORT FOR THE CANONIZATION

by the Auditors of the Rota TO OUR MOST HOLY LORD URBAN VIII.

Peter Regalado of the Order of Friars Minor of the Observance, of Aguilera in Old Castile (Blessed).

BY THE AUDITORS OF THE ROTA.

[1] The Church, Most Holy Father, which God chose for Himself as a sister and spouse in second nuptials, is a garden, but an enclosed one; the cause is proposed: it has fountains, but sealed: lest the furtive enticements of pleasures, or the poisonous contagion of impurity, insinuate themselves. This garden has drawn from the fountain of the Franciscan Religion fruitful streams for as long as it retained the first marks of sincerity and purity, which that Seraphic Father had placed at its entrance against sin. But when in recent centuries the frailty of human nature left this fountain of living water unconsigned and unguarded, and dug for itself broken cisterns that cannot hold water; behold, the fountain was troubled by the foot and the vein was corrupted, and its rivers and rains were turned into blood, lest the garden of the Church should drink. Yet the garden did not long thirst for the Franciscan fountain, when the piety of certain men replenished it by recalling the streams of the ancient discipline, among whom the servant of God Fr. Peter Regalado among the Spaniards led forth abroad the rivers of this same fountain, and in the streets divided the waters restored to their original purity and cleansed and healed of every leaven of filth; so that in them there would be no more death or barrenness, but all things to which this torrent, overflowing in the fountain of earlier wisdom, might come would live. This man, therefore, so well deserving of the garden of the Church, which you rightly close and open, Most Holy Father, we present at your feet; that just as he poured out waters for the thirsting Church, and filled the panting and afflicted soul of the divine spouse with a most sweet drink, so may he himself become as a watered garden, and as a fountain of waters that never fails, to the glory of the Church Militant. For rightly the sanctity of so distinguished a man demands this, divided into three parts: which shines forth not so much with the adornments of virtues as with the splendors of miracles, as is manifestly clear from the sequence of this report, which we shall reduce to three principal headings. For in the first we shall treat of the Virtues, which are absolutely necessary in one to be canonized, since the excellence of life and the foundation of all sanctity consist in them. In the second we shall set forth those arguments which contribute most to the proof of that same sanctity, namely the fame of sanctity itself; the veneration of the sepulcher and relics; and finally the miracles, equally necessary for advancing to Canonization... In the third and last, we shall treat of the validity of the Processes and the legitimate examination of the witnesses.

[2] the first is omitted here: We omit the first part of the report: since it adds nothing to what we have already seen set forth in the life in a more historical order, beyond theological examination and citations of witnesses, such as may be read in all reports of this kind: which, as the style of the Roman Curia now has it, briefly prefaces something about virtues in general, then proceeds in order to the three theological and four cardinal virtues, finally adding the gifts of the Holy Spirit, if there were any illustrious ones in the servant of God under discussion, as the gift of prophecy in Regalado remains manifest enough from what was said in the Life, and need not be idly repeated here. To the second part of their report, however, the auditors of the Rota proceed in this manner.

§ I On the fame and common opinion of sanctity, and the veneration of the sepulcher and relics of Regalado.

[3] Hitherto, Most Holy Father, we have proved the sanctity of Regalado by the singular witness of his virtues; now we shall set forth those arguments which contribute most to the general proof of his sanctity itself; in the second the fame of sanctity is proved: namely the fame and common opinion of sanctity, which just as it had accompanied Regalado while living, so it followed him when dead with even greater growth... This fame and common opinion of sanctity, therefore, we clearly discern both from the witnesses examined in the process and from what is found outside the process in writers and historians. And as far as concerns the witnesses, from their depositions it is evident that the servant of God Regalado, having happily traversed the span of human life, after receiving the Sacraments of the Church, rested most holily in the Lord in the convent of Aguilera, from the deposition of sworn witnesses: and on account of the fame of his sanctity aroused among all the people, all who had flowed together from various parts sought to obtain some part of his garments as relics. This fame and common opinion endured with constant perpetuity in those regions, so that never was a similar devotion of the faithful toward another Saint seen, as the second witness deposes, and the third confirms, saying that the servant of God Regalado was reputed and now is reputed a Saint, and is venerated today also by all the faithful as Blessed and Saint. And not only in the city of Osma, but in the entire kingdom of Castile and other adjacent provinces, among all the faithful of both sexes, both ecclesiastics and seculars of all states and orders whatsoever, this servant of God has commonly, openly, and publicly, both living and dead, in the continuous succession of about one hundred and eighty years, been reputed and is now reputed most adorned with all virtues; and moreover has been held and is today held in the greatest reputation of sanctity. This fame indeed remains abundantly proved, since the witnesses depose concerning the opinion of the entire people, although for this effect the deposition concerning the greater part of the people would suffice... And although these witnesses, as also all others, in the entire course of their examination mostly depose from hearsay from trustworthy persons and from their elders, who reported that they had heard the same from their ancestors, and jointly from the inspection and reading of books and writings, and likewise from ancient traditions, from what is certain, public, notorious, and from the public and undoubted voice and common reputation; nevertheless, since we are dealing with ancient matters far exceeding the memory of the living, namely more than one hundred and fifty years since the death of this servant of God, they prove well: since ancient deeds are proved by witnesses deposing from public voice and fame... As for what concerns writers and historians, to whom credence must be given... as was confirmed in other Reports on Saints, when we are dealing with an ancient fact, from the agreement of historians: and credence was given from ancient times to writers and historians of this kind; since hence it is evidently clear that this fame of sanctity, not contained only in the minds and souls of men, has also acquired for itself a domicile in writings, more enduring in the duration of immortality and more ample in the growth of glory; therefore, setting aside those who wrote the Life of Regalado ex professo (namely Fr. Antonio Daza and others, whose manuscripts are preserved at the aforesaid convent of Aguilera), we shall here append the words of others testifying to the sanctity of Regalado, translated however into Latin,

whom we have judged to be credible, both because we are dealing with ancient matters and because their quality conciliates sufficient credence for them, especially since their authority is employed only as supporting evidence.

[4] From Fr. Mark of Lisbon, Bishop of Porto, in the Chronicles of the Friars Minor, namely of Mark of Lisbon: Book 1, Chapter X. Fr. Peter Regalado, or the Valladolitan, had as his master Fr. Peter de Villacreces; he devoted himself chiefly to prayer and contemplation from his earliest youth; several times in the house of Aguilera, over which he presided, and in the convent of Abrojo, fourteen leagues distant, he held Chapter on the same morning. Endowed with the spirit of prophecy, on a certain night while he was present in the choir of Abrojo at Matins, he knew that the body of a drowned woman was descending the river Duero, and going together with the Brothers to the river, he ordered her to be drawn out and buried in a sacred place, and after the funeral rites had been performed, he signified that she had repented of her sins before being drowned and that her penance had been accepted by God. Passing through the town of Quintanilla, he pledged to admit on his return a certain man who eagerly requested the habit of the religion; but on returning, when he found the man dead, he ordered the sepulcher opened, asserting that the deceased belonged to him, and when the sepulcher was opened they found him clothed in the habit of the religious, though they had buried him clothed in secular garments. The same, Book III, Chapter LXI: In the convent of Aguilera, Fr. Peter Regalado departed this life to the Lord on Tuesday, in the year 1456. How pleasing his life was to God, the greatest miracles testify, which followed in the fifth month after his death; of which very many were described by the hand of a public notary and approved by authentic witnesses; which documents are preserved in the aforesaid convent. He restored to health forty-six crippled and debilitated persons, six who were at the last extremity of life, two pairs of deaf-mutes; five blind, three paralytics, two suffering from epilepsy, four deaf, three contorted; he freed two from leprosy, one from gout, another from hectic fever; miracles of Regalado enumerated: he healed three crushed by collapse; removed tremor of the hands and head from three; brought help to three in difficult labor; freed four from quartan fever, five from ailments of the legs and arms, and vindicated two women from infirmity of the chest. One woman crippled in the hand and mute, another possessed by a demon, another demented; two men from languor of the kidneys, two infants from inborn deformity; and fourteen other persons of various kinds he freed from various diseases. He performed many other miracles that were not recorded. But on the fourteenth day after his death a truly remarkable thing occurred, as a public document held at that same convent attests. The Vicar of that same convent of Aguilera, in order to satisfy the devout of the servant of God, ordered two Brothers to open his sepulcher and take some relics both from the habit and from the body: and when they began to bring up the earth, they perceived a most sweet odor, which increased the nearer they approached to the holy body. The Vicar, moreover, summoned by the Brothers to perceive the precious odor, asserted that he had already sensed it from his room, and those two Brothers perceived the same fragrance for many days afterward as well. The Vicar, however, when he had brought the relics to his own room, was kept from sleep by the great force of the odor. When moreover that holy body had been translated by order of Queen Isabella the Catholic to a tomb very skillfully crafted, in which it still rests, it was found entirely whole and incorrupt: and then when, by order of the aforesaid Queen, four fingers had been amputated from the said body, blood so fresh flowed as if it had come from a living body. Of which fingers the Queen had one, another was placed in the location where the body had previously been deposited, the other two remained in the sacristy of Aguilera; of which one was afterwards carried to St. Francis of Madrid and is displayed in the sacristy.

[6] From the book entitled Mirror of the Minors, or Firmament of the Three Orders, of certain more ancient writers: Part 1, folio 32. Other men excelling in knowledge and sanctity flourished at the same time, such as Fr. Peter of Regalada, of blessed memory, who shone with innumerable miracles in life and after death. He was the special Father, patron, and builder of the family of the House of God, and was honorably buried in the same House of God. From the Chronicles of King John II of Castile, Chapter XXXII, folio 330. Fr. Peter de Villacreces was a great preacher and of most proven life; Blessed Peter the Valladolitan followed him, who is reported to have performed great miracles both living and dead, some of which were witnessed by Henry Manriquez, Bishop of Jaca, afterwards Archbishop of Siguenza, a most distinguished and trustworthy Prelate. From the manuscript chronicles of Marian of Florence, kept in the Library of the Friars Minor of the Stricter Observance, at St. Isidore in Rome: Fr. Peter of Regalada flourished in knowledge and sanctity also at this time (1450) in the said Province of the Conception, who shone with innumerable miracles in life and after death. He was the special Father, patron, and builder of the family of the House of God, and was honorably buried in the same House of God. From Fr. Peter Rodulph of Tossignano in the Seraphic History, Book II, title concerning the Regular Observance of the new family among foreign nations, folio 154 on the reverse: And Fr. Peter Villacreces was aided by the subsidiary labor of Fr. Peter of Regalada of Valladolid, not unlike him either in name or in fact; both full of the spirit of God. From Peter de Salazar in the Chronicles of the Province of Castile of the Order of St. Francis, Book III, Chapter XII, folio 157: Fr. Peter de Villacreces likewise had companions, and they greatly assisted him in the reform of the Observance, Fr. Peter of Regalada and Fr. Peter of Santoyo, distinguished for sanctity and virtues.

[6] From Fr. Francis Gonzaga, On the Origin of the Seraphic Religion, Part 1, folio 9. Having then found (Fr. Peter Villacreces) a man wholly like himself and entirely after his own heart, namely a man of the highest religion, Father Fr. Peter of Regalada the Valladolitan (who was also endowed with the prophetic spirit), he formed him in his own manners and most pious desires, of Francis Gonzaga: and was supremely aided by his labor, etc. That great Father, therefore, after he had most sweetly arranged all things according to the faculty given to him, committing his neophyte flock to his successor and dearest disciple, namely Father Peter the Valladolitan, in the Minorite Convent which is called in the Spanish language Penafiel, he closed the last day of his life, etc. The same, in the said Part 1, in the Catalogue of the Blessed of the Seraphic Order, folio 99: Blessed Peter of Regalada, a Spaniard, a man of wondrous sanctity and author of the Regular Observance among the Spaniards, distinguished for his virtues, rested most holily. The same, in Part 3, Conv. 17, folio 869: Just as Blessed Father Peter Villacreces renders Penafiel illustrious, and Blessed Peter of Santoyo renders Valladolid illustrious by their funerals, so also Blessed Father Peter of Regalada (of whom the author of the chronicles of our Order makes mention in the third part of his work, and we have made mention in the Province of Castile) supremely commends the present convent by his death. For as soon as he closed his last day on the 30th of March, in the year of the Lord 1456, he began to shine with miracles. For he restored to full health forty-six persons of both sexes who were completely contracted, three paralytics; likewise two lepers, and very many others gravely ill with fevers: moreover he obtained from God the most great, the bestower of all good things, hearing for the deaf, speech for the mute, sight for the blind, and straightening for the lame, through his merits. Furthermore, while still clothed in mortal flesh, when he was acting as Vicar of the preceding and present houses (of which one is distant from the other by forty or more miles), he held Chapter for the Brothers of each place within one hour, according to the religious custom, and several times, spreading his cloak upon the river Duero, he transferred himself from one bank to the other. His body, finally, after it had lain for some years in the common sarcophagus of the Brothers, was translated from there to an alabaster sepulcher, crafted at the expense of the most Serene Isabella, Queen of Spain: where it is held in the greatest veneration, both by seculars and by the Brothers, and almost innumerable miracles have occurred there, and continue to occur even today.

[7] From Peter Gonzalez in the History of Monte Celio of the Blessed Virgin of the Willow, Book II, Chapter VI. and of Peter Gonzalez: Human frailty, although circumscribed by the limits of life, having attained a higher agility and participating in celestial glory, insinuating its faith by miracles performed for the benefit of others, opens with an eloquent testimony indeed that the holy Brother Peter Regalado followed the footsteps of Christ, etc. And below: Wherefore the acclaim and piety of the faithful contemplated him as endowed by heaven with three gifts: the virtue by which he restored the crippled, the lame, and the contracted to walking, and the admirable life and prayers by which he healed the sick: the spirit of Prophecy, by which he foresaw future things, as when, going out together with the Brothers from the convent of Abrojo after Matins had been recited, he went to the bank of the river Duero, to receive the body of a woman drowned out of desperation; asserting that she had repented while she was throwing herself down, and therefore, by the impulse of divine mercy, should be buried, etc. And below: At Quintanilla indeed a young man to whom Regalado had promised the habit of Religion, having died before him, when claimed by Regalado as his own, was found clothed in the religious habit upon opening of the sepulcher. And below: Finally, so that it might be clear to all that austerity, endurance, and humility had made this Saint the companion of angelic nature in the swiftness of his journeys, when he was acting as Vicar at Aguilera, he obtained from God, as His minister, to supply the distance of places in a brief interval, and to fulfill the duty of his imposed office, etc. And below: After his happy death he performed innumerable miracles, healing the blind and the mute, and as Gonzaga says, he granted hearing to the deaf, speech to the mute, sight to the blind, and straightening to the lame. Today his holy body rests in an alabaster sepulcher built for him by Queen Isabella in the convent of Aguilera; in which it daily shines with new miracles, for the increase of devotion, the honor of the Religion, and the glory of the divine Majesty. Thus far they: whence it cannot be denied that from all the aforesaid there results a full proof of the fame of sanctity, which the remissorial judges also attest at the end of the Process, folio 408, asserting that the servant of God Regalado is commonly held to be a Saint.

[8] from the frequency of those visiting the sepulcher: After the virtues and the common opinion of men, the next argument for the proof of the sanctity of Regalado is furnished to us by the veneration, with which men attest by outward expression the opinion of sanctity inwardly conceived from his virtues; which veneration toward this servant of God is found to be remarkable. For not only at his death did a great number of people flock from various parts at the fame of his sanctity, but to his glorious sepulcher on earth the greatest number of the faithful has continually flowed together and continues to flow, to venerate his body and devoutly commend themselves to his intercession: the witnesses depose, who adding from their own sight, testify that Philip the Third, the Catholic King,

and Queen Margaret of Austria, together with the Archbishop of Toledo, the Nuncio of the Apostolic See, and very many other Bishops and nobles, visited the said sepulcher, with which ten other witnesses agree: one of whom adds that in the space of ten years the aforesaid persons visited the same sepulcher six times. The universal concourse and frequency of the people at the said sepulcher is also confirmed by the remissorial judges in the Process, folio 408. and those venerating the Relics: Nor were the commendations and prayers of those visiting in vain or frustrating, as is shown by innumerable votive offerings hung around the same sepulcher by the faithful, to testify that they had been made partakers of their desires. This uniform veneration is also gathered with respect to the Relics of this servant of God: for all at his death sought to take something from his garments as relics, and to this day the faithful flock to the aforesaid sepulcher, not only to venerate the body but also the Relics; namely the blood, the fingers, the cowl, the cloak, the shoes, and other things of this kind, concerning which in the visitation of the sepulcher, folio 406. And witnesses depose, one of whom, adding from his own sight and personal experience, states that such is the people's devotion toward this servant of God that the faithful, flocking to the visitation of his sepulcher, are unwilling to leave unless the Relics of the same are shown to them; and to see and venerate them they are accustomed to wait for a long time; for sometimes it is forbidden that they be shown, so that tumults that might arise in the convent may be avoided, etc.

[9] Among these relics, the aforesaid fingers hold a distinguished place of admiration, in which the King himself: which are preserved to this day incorrupt and whole; as well as the cowl, which is still preserved in its own integrity and emitting a fragrance of wondrous odor: by the contact of which relics the faithful commonly obtain very many graces, and not a few are restored to their former health. Indeed these relics were once brought by the Guardian of the convent of Aguilera to Philip the Fourth, now Catholic King of Spain, who was then suffering from a grave illness in the town of Aranda de Duero, and placed upon him, and recalled him to sleep, from which, upon waking, he immediately began to improve and fully recovered; as the Majesty of that Most Serene King himself testifies with most pious affection, in letters sent to the Most Excellent Count of Monterey, his Ambassador to Your Holiness. Nor was the veneration of the faithful contained within the body or the relics of the servant of God; but it proceeded also to his images by devout propagation, not without a notable argument of the opinion conceived regarding his sanctity... That these are seen and preserved, painted and printed in various places, various persons depose, and that the servant of God Regalado was customarily painted with flames and splendors of fire: and this one testifies concerning both ancient and recent paintings, with whom three others agree.

[10] All of which is confirmed even more clearly from the series of the visitation of the sepulcher in the Process from folio 402 from the sepulchral inscription: to folio 408, in which the Notary and the Judges report that they found the sepulcher of the servant of God fashioned from alabaster, and raised to the measure of a man; on whose summit the statue of Regalado was displayed, and on its upper part an inscription was read, carved in the same alabaster, containing the praises of the same Regalado, and indicating that his bones rest in the same sepulcher, which the Countess of Haro erected. The tenor of the aforesaid Inscription, substantially related in the same visitation, is expressed in these formal words: Here lies adorned flesh, here rest shining bones. Persevering, he served Christ. Fleeing the world from infancy, he despised the honors of this wretched world. Peter Regalado, Vicar of the House of God and Ladder of Heaven, here ended under the Poverty of the Rule of St. Francis; seeking no reward of the world, for the grace of Christ. The Countess of Haro adorned the sepulcher; he who in return prays for her continually to Christ. He put an end to the labors of the flesh on the second day of the Resurrection of the Lord, in the year 1456. To which inscription, carved in so ancient a stone, full credence must be given.

[11] Furthermore, in the same visitation, the aforesaid report that on the aforesaid sepulcher are carved several miracles of the same Regalado: and the representation of miracles: which are likewise described on two ancient tablets and also depicted in other places, both in the chapel and also in the convent and church of Aguilera. Likewise, that around the said sepulcher there are innumerable votive offerings, burial shrouds, most ancient crutches and staffs, as well as feet, hands, legs, arms, and other such things composed of wax, hung there by the faithful as a sign of recovered health and as proof of graces received through the intercession of Regalado. That likewise an image of the same servant of God is found depicted in the sacristy of the said convent, a work of the greatest antiquity, with the head adorned with a diadem and splendors (and this indeed as a sign of spiritual kingdom and an argument of the beatitude attained) and expressed in the likeness of a penitent with a greatly emaciated face; with an inscription of this kind: My soul has melted like wax melting in the midst of my bowels. and other monuments to be seen at Aguilera: Furthermore, several relics of the same servant of God are preserved with great veneration and adornment; namely the handkerchief with which he wiped tears during his meditations, and another which, placed underneath, caught the flowing blood when, by order of Queen Isabella, the hand was amputated from the rest of the body of Regalado, as well as the shoes, cowl, cloak, and fingers. Furthermore, a very ancient tablet on which was inscribed a certain Antiphon, Prayer, and Versicle composed in praise of Regalado. And finally, at the opening of the case in which the bones of the servant of God were deposited, they perceived a very fine odor and great fragrance, which fragrance and sweetness of odor, flowing miraculously and beyond every condition of nature from the other relics as well... is an argument of an implanted divinity, as it were.

§ II On the Miracles.

[12] But let us make a transition to the miracles, which, as they bring a more certain and indubitable witness of sanctity, Likewise from the multitude of miracles: so, according to the rite of the Holy Roman Church and the sanctions of the sacred Canons, they are required in those being advanced to Canonization. In which article indeed, deliberately omitting the disputations that concern the essence, requirements, operations, degrees, and proof of miracles (about which our predecessors and we ourselves in preceding Reports on Saints have discussed), we shall set forth certain miracles from those which the omnipotent God, wonderful in His Saints, has wrought through the intercession of Regalado. For that this glorious servant of God performed innumerable miracles is gathered from the depositions of witnesses, concerning which in the process; from the reports of historians inserted above, and especially those who wrote the Life of Regalado; and finally from the tenor of the above-considered visitation, in which not only are the miracles carved in the ancient alabaster sepulcher expressed (of which singular account must be had, as was already considered concerning the inscription of the same sepulcher) and several others depicted in the convent and church are reported; as well as described on two ancient tablets (which tablets, if the necessary requirements concur, are wont to merit credence); but the Notary testifies that in the archive of the convent of Aguilera he saw and found a book in authentic form, described by public Notaries: in which are contained one hundred and sixteen miracles, wrought through the intercession of Regalado, and written by the legal hand of Notaries, and afterwards in the year 1456, before Alfonso Fernandez, Vicar and Ecclesiastical Judge of the town of Aranda; and John Martinez de Santo Domingo, Rector of Villanueva; Diego Diez de Palacios, as well as John Sanchez de Aranda, public Notaries, they were authorized and approved; and finally in the year 1550, before Peter Alfonso de Alameda, Archpriest and Apostolic Judge of the same town of Aranda, and the Licentiate Francis de Villa-Fag, Corrector, as well as before Christopher Ortunno, Ferdinand Hermoso, and Gregory de Aranda, royal Actuaries and Apostolic Notaries, they were transcribed, and both books, both the original and the transcribed copy, are found in public form signed and authenticated, etc. We shall therefore set forth first certain of the miracles which Regalado, with God working, performed while living; and in the second place we shall append some of those which the same omnipotent God wrought through the intercession of His deceased servant.

of which some, omitting others, are related here: The miracles follow under these titles, which we have seen fit to excerpt here, lest matters already sufficiently explained in the Life be repeated here merely on account of the added Theological examination: for what this is and how thorough it is can easily be known from other similar ones. The titles therefore are as follows:

I He converts pieces of bread and meat, to be distributed to the poor, into roses.

II While praying he is rapt in ecstasy and diffuses an immense splendor.

III He gives the habit of St. Francis to one deceased and already buried.

IV He completes a journey of 42 miles in the space of one hour.

V He crosses rivers with his cloak extended over the waves.

VI He comes to the aid of religious destitute of bread.

VII He predicts the arrival of the Bishop of Palencia and heals a hunchback.

These in the Life: of those which were done after death and proved, we also omit the first two, sufficiently known from the Life and what has already been said.

I The deceased extends bread to a poor man.

II Fresh blood springs from the body of Regalado, buried for 36 years.

You have the titles of the rest in the margin. The third, therefore, which I append, is as follows.

[13] Anna Bertranda, a resident of the town of Gomiel de Hizan, He heals a woman suffering from hemorrhage and near death: affected by a prolonged flow of blood, after trying remedies of various kinds, had come to the point that she was thought to be about to die at any moment. There were present with the sick woman certain religious of the Franciscan family, who had come from the monastery of the town of Aguilera, to assist her in those things which pertain to the salvation of the soul. Turning to one of them, Anna said: Father, I would like you to pray to Blessed Regalado for me; if he should obtain health for me from God, I will go on foot to visit his sepulcher. One of the aforesaid religious had brought the cowl customarily worn by Regalado, and applied it to the sick woman: and she recovered from the hemorrhage and received her former health. So concludes the one who administered the goods of the same Anna for fourteen years, and the daughter of the same Anna deposes from her own sight, and another witness: concerning the public voice and fame, not only the aforesaid witnesses depose, but also five or more others. We have judged this healing to be miraculous; the certainty of this miracle: because this flow of blood, which had continually tormented the sick woman and had several times brought her to the last breath of life, had already become naturally so incurable that, although many remedies of various kinds had been applied and tried, they nevertheless availed nothing. There is added moreover the judgment of the physicians, who had despaired of the health of the sick woman. Notwithstanding all of which, the sick woman so recovered that, although she survived for many years afterward, she never again suffered from the same disease, which had previously been constantly afflicting her, as the same witnesses assert. The credence of this miracle is also established by the health that followed in a short time and without any application of medicines. Since it is certain that the force of a prolonged disease cannot be expelled by the powers of nature or the medicines of physicians except in a long space of time; and thus much more difficult without the same medicines of physicians (which the nature of this disease seemed especially to require as

purgatives) this flow of blood, to be attributed to the vitiated quality of the blood itself. Whence, since the sick woman recovered so quickly and completely, not by any ministry of rightly operating nature or art, but at the sole application of the cowl, it must assuredly be confessed that this emanated from God divinely through the merits and intercession of Regalado; which is confirmed by the preceding prayers and vow of the sick woman, as well as the contact of the cowl; especially since all the witnesses assert with one voice that the healing was miraculous. Nor does it matter that the cure was not instantaneous, because it is not necessary that a miracle happen in an instant, but it suffices that it happen successively... Which, however, must be understood provided that (as in this case) it occurs in a time, though somewhat longer, in which it could not have occurred from the nature of the thing.

[14] He heals incurable ulcers: Joanna Garcia, a resident of the town of Gumiel de Mercado in the kingdom of Castile, fell into a pitiable disease, her abdomen so foully ulcerated that seven holes were visible in it: and these were of the worst kind, and through them all the excrements of food and drink were discharged. Remedies of various kinds were applied for many months; which availing nothing, the physicians pronounced the disease incurable. Joanna, being in this state, began to think of imploring the help of Regalado, and promised to visit his sepulcher; and having obtained permission from her father with difficulty, she was placed on a horse, bound with the tightest bandages lest the intestines be injured. She arrived at the church of the monastery of Aguilera, and there, her sins having been erased by the Sacrament of Penance and the most holy Eucharist received, she betook herself to the sepulcher of Peter, and commended herself to his intercession with earnest prayers for obtaining health from God. Nor was it in vain: for immediately the perforated ulcers were consolidated, and with every disease driven away, Joanna was restored to her former soundness. The same Joanna Garcia deposes of this fact from certain knowledge, and her mother from her own sight, and a kinswoman of the same Joanna from what is public and notorious; and it is found depicted among the other miracles in the aforesaid convent of Aguilera. That this healing was miraculous is demonstrated first by the quality of the disease itself, which, being prolonged and having passed into a settled state, could be healed only with difficulty; for ulcers which last for a long time can be healed only with difficulty, as Galen and Avicenna generally affirm. Which difficulty of cure is also confirmed by the remedies applied in vain and the assertions of the physicians, concerning which the same Joanna and her mother depose. Secondly, the instantaneous manner of healing confirms it: for the ulcers were immediately and perfectly closed without any medicine, as the same Joanna asserts, and her mother testifies from her own sight on the following day: whence the miracle remains fully proved from the above arguments, especially since this disease would exclude not only instantaneous but also rapid healing. This indeed is to be attributed to the intercession of Regalado, as the preceding trust of the sick woman in the servant of God and her invocation of his intercession testify; for as soon as the sick woman commended herself, she immediately knew herself to have recovered, as the same Joanna deposes.

[15] Francis Garcia, a resident of the place of Sutillo in the kingdom of Castile, when he was suffering badly from both legs, so that he could not at all walk without crutches, He heals a lame man: had recourse to the help of Peter Regalado, whose fame of sanctity was most celebrated throughout those regions, and, carried on horseback, he made his way to his sepulcher; where, after commending himself for nine hours (they call it a novena) with heartfelt affection, that he might obtain health from the divine clemency; he was suddenly freed from all infirmity and lameness of the legs, and returned home on foot; leaving his crutches as a memorial of the miracle. The daughter of the same Francis and his son recount the fact from their own sight: another deposes from his own sight as to the disease and the recovered health, and as to the manner deposes from what he heard from the same Francis, and concerning the public voice and fame several other witnesses depose. This healing also is demonstrated to be miraculous both by the quality of the disease and by the manner of the cure, obtained in the brief interval of nine hours, without any ministry of medicines. For it is most certain that convulsion or contraction of the limbs cannot be cured easily or quickly, even with the application of medicines... Whence, since this event exceeds the powers and capacity of nature, it must without doubt be referred to the right hand of Him who transfers to His beloved the power of healings of this kind, begun in Himself, as is clear from Matthew, Chapter 11.

[16] He raises a drowned boy: In these most recent times also, in the year of salvation 1627, God illustrated His servant with the glory of a remarkable miracle. In the town commonly called Gumiel de Mercado, there is a certain public fountain called St. Peter's; to this, when a three-year-old boy named John, son of John Reinoso, had come at some time, either for the purpose of playing, as usually happens, or to do something; he fell into the vessel in which the water of the fountain is caught, and was submerged there. When he had lain there for the space of nearly three hours (as could be conjectured from a reckoning of the time when he had left the house), a certain girl came to the fountain to draw water as usual: and terrified by the sad spectacle, as soon as she recognized the boy, she filled the whole place with cries and wailing. The neighbors rushed in. The poor boy lay under the water on his back with mouth open, and his face was not far below the surface of the water, which was seen slightly tinged with blood. The little body was therefore drawn out, and held suspended for some time with the face downward between the hands of those who had hurried there, so that the water might flow out. But when not even a drop came out, and no traces of movement or life were perceived in him; with weeping and lamentations he was carried into a certain porch. It happened that Father Diego de Ordonez, Vicar in the monastery of the House of God of Aguilera, was passing through the said town to carry out the duties committed to him by the Superior of his monastery: he, seeing a crowded throng of sad and astonished women flocking to the same porch, asked the bystanders what this was about, and was informed of the accident. Diego felt himself moved inwardly to ask the divine clemency for the boy's life through the merits of Regalado, about whose being enrolled among the Saints action had recently then begun to be taken: and approaching more closely, he reached the boy with difficulty through the thronging crowd. The little body was livid and cold; the eyes were turned upward and swollen, the belly was distended and swelling with the volume of water. The mournful sight increased Diego's compassion, and inflamed his soul with more vehement hope of recovering life for the boy. He approached and carefully examined the tender limbs; and when he found them cold, rigid, destitute of all pulse of the arteries and entirely stripped of life; having called for silence by a clapping of hands, he turned to those standing around: Since, he said, no remedy can now be hoped for except from God, let us commend this boy to His servant Regalado. Having said this, as many as were present together with Diego earnestly prayed God that He would deign through the intercession and merits of Regalado to restore life to the boy; and they promised, if they were made partakers of their vow, to carry the boy together with the shroud in which he was wrapped to his sepulcher. Then Diego, forming the sign of the Cross over the boy with joined hands, said: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, through the intercession and by the merits of Blessed Regalado, may God grant you life; and then, having kissed the boy's ears twice, he embraced him most tightly. Wonderful to tell! Immediately the boy uttered a cry, and moving his head, looked at Diego; and after half a quarter of an hour, happy and ruddy, showing no traces of injury or any other harm, he came through: and in memory of the miracle he was clothed in the habit of St. Francis, The undoubted proof of this miracle: and was thenceforth commonly called Regalado. These things the same Fr. Diego Ordonez deposes, both in the Process and in its repetition made here in the Curia, and Mary Gonzalez de Penillos, who first saw the boy submerged in the fountain, agrees, as does Mary Cassada, who extracted the boy from the fountain; Dominic de Reynoso, the grandfather of the boy, Mary de Segovia, the grandmother, Stephen Botero, the great-uncle of the boy, Bartholomew de Santes, the companion of Brother Diego Ordonez, all of whom depose from their own sight and certain knowledge, and six other witnesses also concur with them. It cannot be doubted that this boy was miraculously recalled to life: since according to the Philosophers there is no return from privation to possession; and according to the dogmas of the Faith, unless the end of this world shall have come, the human race will not awake from the sleep of death... Nor did it seem to us that the death of this boy could be doubted, since sufficiently evident signs of death concur; First, because, as can be conjectured from the time he left the house, he remained submerged in the fountain for a lengthy period of time... Second, because he was found lying motionless under the water on his back with arms spread out, mouth open and submerged, and the water was found tinged with blood. Third, because after he was drawn from the fountain, his little body was found swollen with volume of water, destitute of all movement of the spirits, with a livid and darkening face, eyes inflated to a horrifying degree, and cold and rigid limbs. Fourth and finally, because all the witnesses agree, as above all Fr. Diego Ordonez well explains, that the aforesaid boy was dead without any doubt. Whence, even setting aside the miracle of the resurrection itself, which remains abundantly proved from what has been set forth; since, notwithstanding all this, scarcely had the sign of the Cross been formed in the name of the Most Holy Trinity over him, when the boy not only uttered a cry but after half a quarter of an hour came through happy and ruddy, showing no signs of injury or other harm; from this alone the proof of the miracle results, since naturally in so languishing a little body there cannot be so rapid a return to its former state, for bodies that have been weakened by a long time and more violent afflictions must be restored slowly.

§ III On the validity of the Process and the legitimate examination of the witnesses.

[17] It remains, Most Holy Father, that we take the last step to the third and final part of this report, the Process formed at Aranda: in which we still have to treat of the validity of the process and the legitimate examination of the witnesses, from which the proofs of both the sanctity of life and the miracles have been drawn. And as far as concerns the Process fabricated by Apostolic authority in the kingdom of Old Castile, and in the town of Aranda of the diocese of Osma, we have judged that the validity thereof cannot be doubted. For after Your Holiness, graciously inclined to the supplications of the entire Order of Friars Minor of St. Francis of the Observance, committed this cause to the Sacred Congregation of Rites, there were, by virtue of the aforesaid commission, through the same Sacred Congregation in the year 1627, dispatched remissorial letters, directed to the Most Reverend Lords the Bishops of Osma and Valladolid, as well as the Archdeacon, Dean, and Sacristan of the aforesaid Cathedral Church of Osma, with the faculty that two of them should proceed jointly according to the aforesaid commission of Your Holiness. Which letters to the Most Reverend Lord Martin Manso

de Zuniga, by virtue of remissorial letters granted by the Pope: Bishop of Osma, as well as to Doctor Alfonso de Portillo, Treasurer of the same Church of Osma, were presented by Fr. Diego Ordonez, as the procurator appointed in this cause by the Religion, and seeking their execution, and demonstrating the legitimate mandate of the Procuracy admitted by the aforesaid judges. Nor should it create any difficulty that Doctor Alfonso de Portillo is styled Treasurer of the Church of Osma, of whom the remissorial letters do not speak, which were directed only to the Archdeacon, Dean, and Sacristan. Because it must be noted that among the Spaniards the Sacristan is called the Treasurer, since the word Sacristan among them receives the signification of the lowest ministry; as the curialists testify in the attestation exhibited, and all difficulty is removed by another attestation of the Bishop of Osma himself, who testifies that the aforesaid Doctor Alfonso de Portillo is the Sacristan in the same Church of Osma and is called Treasurer, and that the name of Treasurer and Sacristan is one and the same.

[18] When, however, the aforesaid Judges had accepted and opened the said letters, for their execution they appointed a Notary and a Messenger, the form of law being fully observed: who swore to faithfully exercise their office. They moreover chose and appointed as the place for the hearing and examination of witnesses the chapel and oratory of the episcopal house, which appointment of place was necessary as being of the substance of the judgment. For the days of hearings, however, they appointed all and each non-feast day; and for the hour, the eighth in the morning until the eleventh; and from the second hour of the afternoon until the fifth. And before the same Judges, in the aforesaid town of Aranda, this process was made, which at the instance of the aforesaid Procurator, and by prior decree of the Judges, and with the appointment of a Notary, was transcribed, and collated with the original by the Notary of the cause and another appointed for that purpose, who after the signatures and the affixing of the Judges' seals, subscribed themselves and testify concerning the faithful collation and comparison; although for the purpose that this Process might be said to be in proving form, the subscription of the Notary who drew it up would suffice... Finally, however, closed and sealed, with the attestation on the back of three public Notaries concerning the legality of the Judges, the Notary of the cause and the adjunct, together with the letters of the same remissorial Judges, it was presented in the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and finally at the instance of the same Fr. Diego Ordonez, as Procurator and exhibiting his mandate, it was opened, and by mandate of the same Sacred Congregation, having appointed an Interpreter, the examination of its recognition was committed to him. Which Interpreter indeed took the required oath to faithfully interpret: and reported the said process together with the letters of the Judges, faithfully interpreted by him: and this process, formally recognized by six witnesses saying that they knew the handwriting, the persons, and the seals, was finally remitted to the Auditorium of the Rota by the same Sacred Congregation.

[19] As for the witnesses, we have judged that they were properly and correctly examined; and with prior citation: for they were formally examined, with that diligence which is required in graver causes of this kind... namely with the prior induction made by the Procurator, and the citation or monitory decreed by the Judges, and executed through the courier or messenger against each of them personally. Which citation or monitory, being of the substantials of the Judgment, were absolutely necessary. All of which witnesses formally swore to tell the truth, as is required; and oath of the witnesses: since the substance of the deposition consists in the oath: and they were examined individually, deposing first according to the interrogatories, then upon the articles contained in the remissorial letters... From all of which it is established that the witnesses were properly and correctly examined, since the jurisdiction of the Judges who examined them is apparent from the remissorial letters directed to them as stated above; and the form properly observed by them from the inductions, citations, oaths, and depositions of the witnesses, first upon the Interrogatories and then upon the Articles. It does not stand in the way that some of the witnesses are of the same Order as Regalado, above all exception: and therefore suspicion of partiality toward the cause might seem to apply to them: because since the singular personal advantage of the religious themselves is not at stake, they are not prohibited from bearing testimony for a religious and concerning the virtue of a religious. Nor let it be objected that at least the said Fr. Diego, as Procurator in the cause, should be excluded, from the rule that a Procurator in a cause that he handles or has handled cannot be a witness for his principal; because the aforesaid rule does not obtain when, as in this case, suitable witnesses concur with the said Procurator's testimony. Which especially holds when, as likewise in this case, the Procurator is of good condition and reputation. For if a solicitor in these terms is not repelled from giving testimony, much less ought a Procurator to be repelled, who is less prohibited from giving testimony than a solicitor.

[20] From which, having established the validity both of the process and of the examination of the witnesses, from which it is concluded that the canonization may proceed: the third and last part of this Report also remains completed. Whence, since the virtues and miracles of Regalado, which we have placed before the eyes of Your Holiness, sufficiently testify what glory in heaven this most fortunate follower of Christ has obtained for himself; this one thing remains, that he render him equally glorious on earth by the infallible oracle of his unerring voice: for we judge the cause to be in such a state that Your Holiness may, whenever it may please you, proceed to further steps, etc.

John Baptist Coccinus, Dean of the Rota.

Philip Pirovanus, Auditor of the Rota.

Clement Merlinus, Auditor of the Rota.