Comgall

ON SAINT COMGALL

ABBOT OF BANGOR IN IRELAND.

A.D. DCI.

Comgall, Abbot of Bangor in Ireland (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

Among the chief and more notable monasteries of the region of Ulster among the Irish, there existed that of Bangor, by S. Comgall, The monastery of Bangor, of whom here we treat, constructed in the present County of Down, not far from the Eastern sea on the right side of the estuary of Carrickfergus, whence is a very short crossing into Galloway a province of Scotland. Jocelin in the Life of S. Patrick, by us on XVII March illustrated, num. 86 of this place inserts these things: S. Patrick went round often through Ulster, and walked through it: and its inhabitants teaching attentively the Catholic faith, he turned aside sometimes for the sake of resting with his most holy company to a certain little hill, situated not far from a valley, in which afterward was constructed the Bangor monastery. Sitting therefore they beheld from the hill that valley filled with ethereal light and a multitude of the heavenly host: with their ears nonetheless drinking in the hymnody of the heavenly chant uttered by Angelic voices. All therefore seeing this great vision, built from the prophecy of S. Patrick by S. Comgall: with unanimous devotion asked S. Patrick, that in that place divinely consecrated he would build to them said: A circle of sixty years being completed, there shall be born a certain son of life, Comgall by name, which is interpreted Fair-pledge: for he shall be beloved of God and men, and on account of the beauty of his morals and merits he shall prosper, and shall reign with Christ, to be counted among his pledges. He moreover in the place foreshown by light a church of the Saints shall build, in which innumerable bands of sons of light and life he shall gather to be devoted to the service of Christ. But in the time foretold Comgall being born, and by the progress of years and virtues afterward grown up, in the aforesaid place named Bangor, a most noble monastery he erected: in which many thousands of perfect monks through the Gospel to Christ he begat and in Christ brought forth. a seminary of many monasteries, That holy place fruitful of Saints, as a vine fructifying the sweetness of odor, extended its branches even to the sea, and beyond the sea its shoots; because Ireland, Scotland, and many islands with monasteries and perfect monks its offspring filled, and even the transmarine regions. For as by the relation and writings of the Saints we have learned, one of the sons of the Bangor monastery, Luanus by name, of a hundred monasteries was the founder. chiefly through SS. Luanus and Columbanus: But another called Columbanus, founding and erecting many monasteries, of innumerable as it were monks the Father he was: who first presided over the excellent monastery of Luxeuil in Gaul, then of Bobbio beyond the Alps: where glorious by miracles manifold and resplendent he rests in peace: and so the prophecy of S. Patrick fulfilled shines forth. Of the ancient nobility of the Bangor Church it seems superfluous at present more diffusely to pursue, since it has been brilliantly described in the acts of the Saints Comgall, first Abbot of that place, and Malachy Pontiff and Legate of the Apostolic See in all Ireland.

[2] These things Jocelin in the Life of S. Patrick, in the twelfth century of Christ written. The cited disciples of S. Comgall are venerated, Luanus or Molua IV August, Columbanus XXI November. His little works and Life Thomas Sirinus published in a single tome at Louvain in the year MDCLXVII, and to it he inserted the Life of S. Molua or Luanus Abbot hitherto unedited, in its own time to be illustrated: from which it is established that of several monasteries he was the founder. But S. Bernard in the Life of S. Malachy asserts, destroyed by pirates that Luanus alone is wont to be said founder of a hundred monasteries: and of the Bangor monastery these things he adds. This once destroyed by pirates, on account of the distinction of its ancient dignity, Malachy, as one about to replant a certain paradise, embraced: and because many bodies of Saints slept there. For not to be silent of those, who in peace are buried, they say nine hundred at once on one day by pirates were slain… Malachy therefore having taken with him about ten Brethren, coming to the place began to build. and restored by S. Malachy … Moreover the oratory within a few days was completed, and thenceforth God is served in it, as in the days of old, with like devotion indeed, though not with equal number. Malachy presided over that place for some time, himself rector, himself the rule of the Brethren; created then Bishop of Connor not far from the Bangor monastery, and afterward Archbishop of Armagh, to whose Life on III November the rest will be to be elucidated.

[3] Double Acts. The Acts of S. Comgall we give double: the former, and those shorter, from a triple MS. codex, namely one left to us by Henry Fitzsimon of the Society of Jesus, another transmitted from the college of Salamanca, and a third communicated by Hugh Ward an Irish Minorite. The latter Acts, and those longer and by James Ussher in the Antiquities of the British Churches praised as sincere, we have from a certain Irish codex transmitted and we compared with those things, which Thomas Sirinus in the Commentary on the Life of S. Columbanus published. Both Acts seem sincere and written in a simple and therefore truthful style, and in the second Acts some things from the former are repeated.

[4] Some compendium of them is contained in the old Breviary of the Church of Aberdeen in Scotland, The sacred cult 10 May. into three Lessons distributed, and on this X May wont to be recited at Matins: to which this Prayer was added. O God who through B. Comgall, thy Confessor and Abbot, the Priest of thy Church from blindness to sight by baptizing didst restore; grant we beseech by his merits and intercession the true light of thy faith to understand, and the blindness of sins perpetually to avoid. On the same day X May, Richard Whitford in the English Martyrology printed about the year MDXXVI at London, these things are read: In Ireland the feast of S. Comgall the holy Abbot, whose nativity was revealed sixty years before he was born, and to another also a holy Bishop: who while he was baptized, from the earth a fountain burst forth, and to a blind Presbyter sight was restored. To the highest afterward perfection he came, and the dead ten or twelve to life he recalled, and many revelations he had, and famous for great miracles he died. On the same X May the same memory is celebrated in the MS. Florarium of the Saints, and in Grevenus in the Supplement to Usuard printed in the years MDXV and MDXXI, Ferrarius and others. The same is commemorated on the second day of January in the Scottish Menology of Camerarius, and X March in the Supplement of Molanus of the first edition to Usuard, likewise by Canisius, Dempster, Ferrarius.

[5] The time of his life and death. Of the time of his life we have only in the former Life that in the eightieth year of his age on the VI Ides of May he migrated to Christ. In the latter Life it is said that an old man on the VI Ides of May he sent forth his spirit. In the Martyrology of Tamlacht these things in the first place on X May are read: Comgall of Bangor, in the year of his age XCI, but of his Principate the year L, the third month, and the X day. The same fifty years to have presided in the Bangor monastery the former Acts have. Ussher page 956, from the Irish Annals taught, asserts, that about the year DLV or DLIX the foundation of the Bangor monastery, and DCI the death of Comgall happened: and to the said year DCI he adds in the Index, that he the death he met being LXXXV years born. We judged at one time that S. Patrick foretold his nativity about the year CCCCLVI, and after sixty years S. Comgall born about the year DXVI, and therefore if he lived LXXXV years, he departed from life in the year DCI, and the Bangor monastery was constructed in the year DLI, as in the Annals by the Four Masters it is reported Colganus asserts page 192. If more certain monuments anyone should bring forth, gladly we shall follow.

[6] mention in other Acts. The mentioned Sirinus added some Miscellanies of S. Comgall, extracted from the Acts of SS. Coemgenus, Cannicus Abbot, Carthagus or Mochudda Bishop, Mannu or Fintanus Abbot, Luanus or Molua Abbot, and Mochoemogus or Pulcherius Abbot, of which two last the Acts entire also he gave. We the Acts of Mochoemogus gave XIII March: those of S. Carthagus we give XIV May, of the others the Acts in their own time will be to be elucidated. Notker on the day IX June, with a long encomium celebrates S. Columba Abbot, and toward the end these things has: Although he had very many disciples or companions equal to his sanctity, yet one Comgall, in Latin illustrious by the name of Faustus (the preceptor of the most blessed Columbanus, the Master of the Lord and Patron of us Galli) of his virtues and merits as it were the sole, by the example of Isaac, he left heir. And S. Columbanus in Instruction 2 S. Comgall his Master under the name of Faustus alleges, and his most brilliant and most elegant doctrine for the confirmation of his sayings adduces. Other writings of his we know not to exist. Possevinus in the Sacred Apparatus asserts that he left a Method of the regular life and several Epistles, A Rule composed by him. which to the Fathers of the monasteries he had written. Moreover the Rule of S. Comgall is cited below in the greater Life num. 42 and 51. And S. Munna or Fintanus, as from his Acts Sirinus relates page 314, for some time with S. Comgall remained, reading with him and learning his Rule:

which he seems to have handed to other monks destined to erect new monasteries: nay that S. Columbanus sent into Gaul and Italy promulgated the same the said Sirinus rightly judges. Meanwhile the same S. Comgall to his own Benedictine Order ascribes Antonius Yepez at the year 557.

LIFE

From three MS. codices.

Comgall, Abbot of Bangor in Ireland (S.)

BHL Number: 1909

FROM MSS.

[1] The blessed and venerable Abbot Comgall, of the most noble Sedneus, his mother Briga was brought forth. Of whom the day before he was born, Born of his father Sedneus, his mother Briga, S. ^b Macniseus Bishop of Connor, the Holy Spirit revealing it to him, prophesied. For hearing the sound of horses and of a chariot passing by, to the bystanders he says: That chariot bears a King. This having been heard by them, with hastened step they go out to see the King; but when no one there besides Sedneus and his wife Briga, the day before his birth, what kind he would be is foretold by Macniseus. whom before they had sufficiently known, they found, to the man of God they return stupefied, saying: Holy Father, Sedneus and his wife sit alone in the chariot. Then the Bishop: Sons, says he, do not in this, which I said, esteem me a liar. For she in her womb bears a King, whom on the morrow ^c the sun now risen she shall bring forth: who in virtues the heart, in the brightness of miracles the world shall adorn: whom not only many thousands of monks, but also Kings and an innumerable multitude of peoples, as it were that through the whole night, and at his birth he is honored by heavenly light. preceding the day on which the infant was born, in the region surrounding the place of his nativity, by suitable witnesses, a great light is reported to have shone. This infant therefore divine grace from his very cradle accompanied, and with the bright gift of miracles enriched.

[2] For first when to the Holy Presbyter of his eyes, [a fountain bursting forth he is baptized by a Presbyter before blind then healed.] retaining nevertheless by memory the order of baptism, to be baptized he was led; at his coming a fountain of living water in the place, where he should have been baptized, by the virtue of our Lord Jesus Christ, at once from the earth bubbled up; that in it the holy infant, with Angels ministering, might be baptized. But the aforesaid Presbyter rejoiced by so great a miracle, with the waters of the same sacred fountain his face and eyes bathed, and trusting in the Lord his sight straightway recovered: and afterward the holy infant the name of the Trinity being invoked he baptized. And by the name Comgall, which ^e sounds dear pledge (according to which by Saint Patrick the Apostle of the Irish before ^f LX years of him, that he should so be called, was prophesied) he named him. But his parents both in the commandments of the Lord walking without complaint, and in the third grade of the Catholic Church, which is the legitimate matrimony of spouses, continently standing, their son God offered, and themselves him nourished, and as their only son they loved. But the boy grew and was strengthened in spirit, and from the sacred beginnings of his nativity was filled with divine grace.

[3] On a certain day the holy boy laboring in his own field, sleeping he appears to his mother with a fiery column, and beside a certain heap of stones after his labor reposing, upon him rushed slumber. Then his mother coming to him to visit, saw a column of fire from heaven even to him sleeping to have been stretched. Who terrified by the honor of so great a vision, knew not what she should do: to approach nearer indeed she dared not, but to leave him she would not. Trusting in the Lord therefore she stood unmoved, and what would be the end of the matter patiently awaited. At length the boy awakened, having a flaming face, says to his mother: Fear not, says he, mother, for by heavenly fire in nothing am I hurt: but see that to no one in these days this vision thou show. At a certain other time, his father laboring in his own field, he is reported to have said: This small clod of the little field do thou cultivate; but I will go and a spacious land, bearing larger and sweeter fruits, I will instantly seek. milk in a vessel after the bottom is torn away he carries: After these things with his uncles, in the cell which is called the Monastery of Comgall lodging, to the dairy-station, that milk thence he might carry, he was sent: and he returning home, and carrying a vessel full of milk, by a certain chance the bottom of that vessel fell to the ground; yet by the nod of God the milk all in the vessel without a bottom remained. O how wonderful is God in his Saints, by whose power his servant the bottom of the vessel in his bosom with him bore, but the vessel full of milk without a bottom on his shoulders even to the monastery carried. A few days after these things passed, the holy boy wishing secretly to follow the Lord calling him, laid aside the secular habit, taking up the Ecclesiastical, the restraint of worldly affairs being left: and from his father's house, to a certain skilled man of his people he migrated, [psalms and hymns he learns:] from whom psalms and hymns and the other things pertaining to boys in all subjection and patience, a virgin in mind and body, he learned.

[4] After these things the prudent youth took the habit, and ^g Fintanus the Abbot, namely a most illustrious man, dwelling in the parts of Leinster, he went to; he presides over the Bangor monastery 50 years. under whom for a great space of time with all devotion he served God. Then with the holy Abbot's license and command he returned to his country, and the Bangor monastery he constructed: where over thousands of monks in sanctity of life and rigor of rule for ^h fifty years he presided, and many miracles through him the Lord wrought, of which few we shall tell. Some wished of the Brethren, providently counseling, that he certain places, for building monasteries upon them or for fishing or any other utilities convenient, from those offering them should receive. To whom the man of God answered: Stronger is the line of many, in one place with the Leader present concordantly fighting, than through many without a Leader dispersed. At a certain time they asked him, that some to a pool, which was two days' journey distant from the monastery, for fishing he should send. To whom he said: You have the sea near you, and why in it will you not fish? They say, that never had they seen there a catch of fish. The Brethren therefore sent there nets, and sufficiently fish they took. But a contention having arisen there among certain secular men about catching the fish, the holy man removed the cause of dissensions by the word of prayer, so that rarely there afterward at least one fish was caught. But it came to pass when the Lord magnified him, other monasteries he directs: and many monasteries of monks under his hand he had, that one of the more ancient Abbots, a man of venerable life, in whose monastery he himself when younger for some time had stayed, came. But when at the table they had reclined, and rejoiced from so great fellowship; that elder began with a word of rebuke to test Abbot Comgall, that he might know whether that humility and virtue of obedience, which formerly he had had, in him remained. Who at once rising and upon the ground prostrating himself, rivulets of tears most abundantly began to pour. he rejoices being tested by another Abbot: But being asked why he wept, at length he answered: That it grieves me this most sweet passage of humility for many years not to have had.

[5] At a certain other time, when to visit it happened that, the other companions going before, he with one companion went more slowly, and the straight way deviating they turned aside to a certain little house near the way; which prayer first being made they entered, and afterward the vesper hour there they completed. But when they were there, there came to them a certain man devoted to God, and running to his house, water for washing their feet and garments that they might rest he brought, and a fire being kindled with food as he could refreshed them. But when they were so refreshed, thanks to omnipotent God and to their host, by heavenly light often illustrated he is beheld. as is the custom, they gave. And when for the weary it was time of resting, the Father commanded that the younger in a bed more carefully strewn should repose: which when he had done, the good Shepherd kept vigil. After some space of the night passed the Brother awaking, saw the splendor of an immense light to illuminate the whole house: and when his face to the depths he lowered, with no less he was surrounded by light: and this irradiation of light even to the following day endured. Then the man of God said to the Brother: See that this vision while I live to no one thou tell: which altogether he fulfilled. The day dawning, a guide the aforesaid host was even to the monastery whither they were going. A certain religious man, by name Crimthanus, the holy man's spiritual minister, who accompanied him even to the place in which by night he reposed, and was wont to close the door from outside; on a certain night wishing to explore what the man of God, the others sleeping, did, in a corner of the house, he not knowing it, hid himself. But it was the custom of S. Comgall, that his body indulged to rest, before that man departed; he would sleep. He therefore sleeping, behold the aforesaid Brother the whole house with an immense light for nearly an hour to be filled saw; S. Comgall also so quickly awaking and praying, and to himself saying with a low voice he heard; What there, O Crimthanus, dost thou? Go out, and to no one as long as I live shalt thou declare these things. Tomorrow indeed for such audacity thou shalt undergo the due judgment. At another time to the same man of God, when the Ecclesiastical order he received, on the hill of Bangor for three days and as many nights a divine light appeared. The holy Lugidius also the Bishop in the Condensian ⁱ Church the flaming hairs of his head, and the holy Angels flying about him beheld.

[6] It happened at one time that Comgall being absent one of the brethren in the monastery was sick. But at that time nothing else for daily sustenance except herbs, and certain other mean things for sustenance they had. The Brethren moved therefore by piety, The dead are raised, to some of the same order Monks, where more conveniently he could live, and chiefly on account of his kinsmen near that place dwelling, counseled to go. When therefore to a place, distant three or four miles, that sick man was sent or carried; as he reached the place, in which the monk afterward 15 years survived: he died there. But the vigils of him being celebrated according to the custom, when it was day, the body to the monastery was carried back. There came therefore his kinsmen and his blood-relations with him, and lamenting made secular exequies, all which the rest of the Brethren disturbed. But when a little after B. Comgall to the monastery returned, and the Steward humbly of the negligence toward the keeping of the sick man confessed his fault; the pious Father to the place where the corpse was coming, God most devoutly prayed, and the dead man rose again: who afterward fifteen years in that monastery survived. The same also by way of conference to the Brethren was wont to relate, that when through a certain

ladder directed to heaven with others going before him he wished to ascend, he heard a voice saying, that his Abbot Comgall did not then permit him to go. On another day too the Brethren according to custom laboring, one of them, another falling amid the labors, by labor and thirst beyond measure weighed down, falling died; and from midday until the ninth hour lifeless he lay. But the Abbot the holy one, grievously bearing the Brother by sudden death overtaken, prayed to the Lord, and forthwith the dead man to life was restored.

[7] At a certain other time, while ^k S. Columba from the island of Iona to the Bangor monastery was sailing; the third in the company of S. Columba extinguished it happened that one of his Brethren by a grievous infirmity preoccupied in the ship died. But when to the mouth of the river, by name ^l Bice, they came; the dead man among the baggage of the ship in a hidden place placing, to the monastery hastily they went, where with great joy they were received. But after they had one another in the holy kiss of peace saluted, Comgall the feet of the pilgrims washed; and then, if any beyond the number, which he saw they had, he asked. S. Columba by a certain provident dissimulation answering, said that in the ship there remained one. Then B. Comgall by the fervor of charity filled said, Let there be sent, says he, for him that with the rest by the benefit of speech and mutual recreation he may rejoice. For it behooves that you all your hands and feet after the labor of the voyage cherish: the ship too with its things shall be safe. S. Columba, knowing that for his reverence in all things Blessed Comgall was to be heard by God, said: That Brother will not come unless thou thyself go for him. Comgall without delay to the ship hastens, and the Brother at once not appearing, among the baggage to be sleeping him thinking, diligently sought: and whom alive he thought to be, dead he found. Then the man of God in himself stupefied, to the aids of accustomed prayer recurring, omnipotent God for him suppliantly besought, saying: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ rise, and hasten to come to thy Brethren. But he as if from sleep awakened at once rose, no sign of death in himself having. and before one-eyed, But they to the monastery coming the Abbot looking back at him, and him one-eyed beholding, said: Not one-eyed or one-eyed or weak, nay in his whole body and all his members whole, to be granted to me by the Lord I asked. Who soon by the Lord was heard; For in the same hour who had been dead and raised, by the command of the man of God washing his face, an eye received better and fairer; whose keenness even in old age was not diminished.

[8] and four others. This same blessed man four others dead, by the power of God to life restored; and other miracles very many God cooperating he wrought. But in the eightieth year of his age, on the VI Ides of May he migrated to Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns one true God, unto the ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATA.

* MS. of R.P. Hugh Ward: finding.

ANOTHER LIFE

From an ancient MS. and the edition of Sirinus.

Comgall, Abbot of Bangor in Ireland (S.)

BHL Number: 1910

FROM MS.

CHAPTER I.

Birth, education, various dwellings, the monastery of Bangor constructed.

Dailnaraide, Born in Ulster of his father Sethna, which is over against the sea, in the Northern tract of the province of the Ulstermen, S. Abbot Comgall sprang: whose father Sethna was called, who was a soldier of the duke of Dailnaraide, and he himself in his old age begat S. Comgall. The holy Comgall now was nourished diligently in the house of his parents, very loving ^b him his parents as their only son. At a certain time, when S. Comgall was his army to war against his enemies, and Sethna the father of S. Comgall by his Lord the Duke to that war was called. But he on account of exceeding old age could not go to war; from the war which his father, he is preserved. and S. Comgall still a boy in place of his father, although he was unwilling, yet by the command of his parents to the Duke wishing to war with his own went forth. But omnipotent God, wishing to preserve his servant S. Comgall, lest either his hands or his eyes by the shedding of blood be violated; by the divine nod those enemies among themselves made peace, and B. Comgall whole in body and soul to his parents returned with his own.

[2] After these things the holy boy Comgall the secular habit forsook, Made a Cleric he cannot amend the loves of his master and the Ecclesiastical habit took up, and letters with a certain Cleric learned, who dwelt in a certain village in the country: and that Cleric by nature was frail in pleasures. But holy Comgall his Master through parables taught, of which one is: For on a certain night, when that Cleric with a woman had slept; S. Comgall praying and keeping vigil wrapped his tunic in the dung of sheep. But on the morrow his Master said to S. Comgall: O Comgall, why is thy tunic dirty? S. Comgall answered him, More perilous is it for thee, Master, to have a soul dirty than a tunic: worse indeed truly is the dung, in which thou the past night didst wrap thyself in body and soul, than this. But that Cleric not contradicting was silent, but yet his life he would not amend. Now the pious youth Comgall, seeing that his Master in error still remained, forsook him with his country, and directed his way to the Southern tract of Ireland, and entered the Province of the Leinstermen, under S. Fintanus he becomes a monk: and came to S. Fintanus the Abbot of the monastery by name Cluain-ednach, ruling in the people of Luighis, situated in the Northern tract of the Leinstermen, near the roots of mount Bladma, and S. Fintanus received B. Comgall into his congregation.

[3] And when there S. Comgall in holy conversation and a hard life was, by whose prayers he is freed from weariness, the devil cast in great weariness into his heart concerning his country and parents, bearing great and hard labor: and he confessed his temptation to the holy Father Fintanus: and the holy Father poured prayers and supplication to God for him, and there was expelled at once the devil from Comgall through the prayer of his senior. For when S. Comgall beside the cross, which is in the Western part of the monastery of Cluain-ednach, with tears had prayed; surrounded with light a supernal light shone round about him, and his heart was filled with great spiritual joy, and from that hour in all his life never weariness of spiritual things rushed upon him.

[4] foretold by S. Macnesius before his nativity: We recapitulate other things of the nativity and boyhood of S. Comgall. The holy Macnesius now the Bishop, who lies in his own city, by name Conire, which is in the region of Dailnaraide, prophesied of the nativity of S. Comgall: for when on a certain day Sethna the father of B. Comgall and his wife by name Brigh, in one chariot carried, had come through the place in which the Bishop was; he hearing the sound of the chariot said to his ministers: See who are in the chariot, because under a man in whom the grace of God abounds it sounds. The ministers now looking said to the Bishop: Lord, the soldier Sethna and his wife are carried in the chariot. To whom the holy Bishop says; Truly that woman has in her womb a son, whose glory great shall be in heaven and on earth. That now woman Brigh on the morrow the sun rising a most reverend son, whose name shall be called Comgall, shall bring forth in the town of ^c Mourne: and he great before God shall be, and in the manner of a most bright ray of the sun in Ireland shall shine: And she conceived and brought forth as said the Bishop Macnesius.

[5] [a fountain bursting forth he is baptized by a Presbyter before blind, then enlightened.] On a certain day afterward the holy infant was led to a certain Presbyter by name Fedlim, that he might baptize him, and that Presbyter for many years was blind, but yet the order of baptism by memory retained. In that place now water before there was not: but at the coming of the holy infant Comgall a fountain at once clear from the earth arose: and this hearing the blind Presbyter washed there his face, and at once were opened his eyes, and in his light after long blindness the order of baptism he reread; and giving thanks to God the holy infant the author of his health he baptized, and in the house of his parents the holy boy Comgall himself was nourished.

[6] On a certain day the blessed boy Comgall growing

he himself alone was working some little task outside, sleeping he appears to his mother with a fiery column. and lo slumber rushed upon him and he slept; but his mother visiting him, saw a fiery column reached forth from heaven even unto the holy sleeping boy; and the woman now terrified knew not what she should do, for she dared not approach the boy, and thought him to be burned by the fire: yet then she, by the divine nod patiently enduring, the holy boy awoke from sleep, having a ruddy face, and glittering eyes; and said to his mother: "See, mother, that thou tell no one too quickly what thou hast seen." She too, being silent for a time, afterward narrated to all in order what had appeared to her.

[7] At another time S. Comgall was with the Duke of Dalaradia in camp, amid the snows he is preserved untouched, and a great snow rained upon the camp on a certain night: but to the holy Comgall remaining with his own in the midst of the camp the snow in no way came or approached, but in the manner of a small castle the snow surrounded the Saint on every side: and concerning this all wondering. Then the Duke said to them: "From this day forth S. Comgall with his own shall be free from me and from all secular power: for he is the Saint of God." Afterward S. Comgall, therefore exempt from secular power, having received liberty and license, and a benediction being given by him in turn to the Duke, returned with his own to his home: and that Duke was made powerful and gracious on account of the benediction of S. Comgall.

[8] S. Comgall on a certain day and his Father were walking through their own field, his father being left, and he said to his father: "Father, we ought to desert this land with its cares." His father not consenting to him, he said again: "Do thou till this little land, dear Father: but I will go and seek for myself most diligently another land better and greater from the Lord God." Afterward he himself deserted his parents, he is received by S. Fintan. and learned letters for a time in his fatherland, then came to S. Fintan in the Province of the Leinstermen, dwelling in his monastery Cluain-edneach, and was received there.

[9] On a certain day in the aforesaid monastery Cluain-edneach a certain blind man was led to S. Comgall, his saliva enlightens a blind man: himself with his own asking from him in the name of Christ the light of his eyes. Then S. Comgall with his finger placed saliva upon his eyes in the name of Christ, and immediately the saliva of the Saint, by the grace of God, healed the eyes of the blind man, and he received light, and rejoicing in his light returned.

[10] After now much time S. Comgall was sent by S. Fintan, that he should return to his fatherland, for the cause of building cells for nourishing the servants of Christ. Then now S. Comgall still after many years was without Order, he builds the monastery of S. Kiaran, for he did not wish to receive grades: and the benediction and prayer of Father Fintan being received, S. Comgall with the disciples ordained for him began to proceed to his fatherland, and came to the holy congregation, which was in the monastery of ^d S. Kiaran in his city Cluain-Macnais, and remained there for some time in great sanctity, then proceeded to his fatherland. Catholic men gathering to him from day to day, S. Lugidus the Bishop with great persuasion ordained S. Comgall there a Deacon: he is ordained Deacon, then Priest, and after an interval of time he was ordained Priest. Afterward S. Comgall went around his fatherland, preaching to the peoples for a time the seeds of the Gospel.

[11] And S. Comgall wishing to despise fleeting things, and desiring to embrace eternal things, proceeded to the lake ^e Erne, and entered into a certain island, which is called the Custodial island; in the Custodial island he leads a strict life: and there he dwelt in a most sweet life without any solicitude concerning earthly things: and his monks after him entered into that island, and not being able to live most rigidly as their Abbot, seven of them died of hunger and cold. Hearing this the holy Fathers came to him, and asked him that for true charity he should relax a little more gently, his too great rigor, for the cause of nourishing his body for God and of preserving the Brethren in the service of Christ. But S. Comgall would not relax of his rigor for a man what for God he had begun to hold; but of the rigor of the Brethren he piously relaxed, and granted them to live and work like the other monks.

[12] After these things Blessed Comgall wished to desert all Ireland and for Christ to make pilgrimage across the sea into Britain, and there to remain: but, God granting, by the prayers and tearful entreaty of S. Lugidus the Bishop, his consecrator, and of other Saints overcome, he was retained in Ireland; and they led him out, that he should build for his fatherland cells and monasteries for God, and he constituted a great monastery, which is called Benchor in the region, he constructs the monastery of Benchor, and others: which is called the Height of the Ulstermen near the Eastern sea. And a very great multitude of monks came thither to S. Comgall, so that they could not be in one place: and thence very many cells and many monasteries not only in the region of the Ulstermen, but through the other Provinces of Ireland, and in diverse cells and monasteries three thousand monks were under the care of the holy Father Comgall; but greater and more renowned than the other places is the aforesaid monastery of Benchor, where an illustrious city was built in honor of S. Comgall.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER II.

Various miracles and the dead raised up.

[13] On a certain day when S. Comgall was there in a certain place alone, he stretched out his hands to heaven, after a fast of three days weary and thirsting, and cast his saliva on the pavement: for S. Comgall was a man of wondrous abstinence. Leprosy is wiped away by his saliva. And lo the Saint lifting his face upward into heaven, a certain leprous beggar seeking aid, came to him silently, and seeing the saliva of the Saint upon the ground, proceeded gradually, and gathered it from the pavement, and mixed it in water, and washing himself thence, full of faith, immediately was healed of his leprosy, and with joy in the morning came to S. Comgall, still not knowing it, and confessed to him what he had done. To whom the Saint said: "Go in peace, and tell no one, but give thanks to God thy Savior." But he going out narrated it much more to all.

[14] On a certain night also one young man of the Brethren, named Meldanus, his cell shines with celestial light. came to S. Comgall dwelling alone in a cell, wishing to indicate something to him. And when he had approached near, he saw the whole little house within burning with flames, and full of light in the manner of the sun: and through all the windows and openings of the dwelling the rays of the sun burst forth. Then that prudent young man, not daring to approach nearer, signed himself with the sign of the Cross of Christ, and gradually returned. But S. Comgall knowing what had been done, on the next day called that Brother to him, and says to him: "See, son, that thou tell no one in thy life, what thou hast seen," but he yet could not conceal it.

[15] Enanus a monk is raised up from death, On another day also when S. Comgall had made of boards a little bed with his own hands, that there each of the Brethren might die; one of the Brethren, named Enanus, said to him: "Holy Father, thou doest a good work for the Brethren about to die in this little couch, because it will greatly profit them for finding pardon. Would that I had deserved to migrate from this world in this little couch!" To whom S. Comgall said: "It shall be done to thee, Brother, as thou wishest: for from this little bed thou shalt go to heaven." But it befell that that Brother was sent far from the monastery of Benchor to a certain place; and dwelling there he died, and his body, S. Comgall commanding, cold was carried to the monastery of Benchor, which the holy Father Comgall after two days raised up, and that Brother himself afterward lived many years, and at the end of his life from his aforesaid little bed migrated to heaven, as S. Comgall had promised him. This Brother now, who was raised up, frequently announced to the Brethren, what he saw and heard, saying: "I was led to heaven by two Angels sent by God: his soul carried back to his body by Angels: and when I was among them in the midst of the journey, behold other Angels came to meet us saying: Carry back that soul to its body, because the servant of Christ Comgall asks from God that it be granted to him, therefore lead it back to its body, and let it remain with S. Comgall until his old age: and so it was done."

[16] Certain thieves and robbers furtively took the vegetables and fruits of the Brethren. Concerning this the Brethren grieving made a complaint to S. Comgall saying: "We labor in vain, the thieves blinded by his benediction Father, because our labor profits neither the Brethren nor the guests, the evildoers taking it from us." On the following night S. Comgall blessed the garden with the sign of the holy Cross, saying: "Blind, O Lord God almighty, the thieves coming hither, that they may wander here within, until they know their guilt, because Thou, O Lord, canst do all things." And so on that night the thieves coming hither and thither, were blinded, and going around the garden many times within, found no door or opening, that they might go out: but at the last with their loads they came into the court, becoming penitent they are made monks: and the burdens being laid down there in the sight of the monks, bending their knees they did penance, and there were made monks by S. Comgall.

[17] A certain holy and venerable old anchorite, named Critanus, Angels seen together to offer the sacrifice: was called to S. Comgall at the feast of Easter, and he himself saw on holy Easter splendid Angels beside S. Comgall offering, who touched and blessed now the altar, now the chalice, now the hands of S. Comgall, and his mouth, and his head and the oblation with him they blessed. Seeing these things the holy anchorite Critanus, after the fast greatly thirsting, said in his heart: "Would that, my

Lord, that of a certain liquor, first tasted by S. Comgall, I might extinguish my thirst!" S. Comgall knowing by the spirit of prophecy the thought of the blessed anchorite, the desire of Critanus known and fulfilled: the order of offering being consummated, entering the house, immediately tasted the liquor, and calling to himself a certain minister, named Segenus, said to him: "Carry this liquor to the holy elder Critanus thirsting much, and let him drink blessing God, and thou shalt say to him from me, that he is a faithful and patient man." And that elder for all these things gave thanks to Christ.

[18] On a certain night the Brother, who was the minister of S. Comgall, Crimacthanus by name, the cell of the praying one filled with celestial light: after he had left Father Comgall in his little cell to rest, and had closed the door from outside, went himself to the dormitory. Wishing now to explore whether the Saint slept, he returned after the midmost interval, and then the Saint was resting. When that Brother had stayed before the door of the hut, he saw after an interval a clear light filling the whole dwelling, and saw S. Comgall quicker than the word awakened, and rising with a wondrous and beautiful face, rejoicing and praying. Afterward he said to the Brother remaining outside: "O Crimacthanus, what doest thou there, be not there, but quickly depart and tell no one, what thou hast seen, and for so great audacity tomorrow a penance shall be imposed on thee." And that Brother fearful departed, and on the next day did penance.

[19] Walking on a certain day S. Comgall, there met him a certain man on the way, named Borganus, a dead boy is raised up: carrying his little son dead in his bosom, and said to S. Comgall: "O holy Father, I ask thee in the name of Christ, that thou raise up my only son: for I know that whatever thou shalt ask from God, He will give." Then S. Comgall looking into heaven prayed to the Lord, and after the prayer said to that father: "If God shall will, thy son shall live, and wait here until the holy Abbot Cannicus come to thee, and give him thy son, that he may bless him with the holy sign; for he today will come by this way." S. Cannicus coming therefore after almost one hour, that man mourning said to him: "Behold my only son is dead, I beseech thee, Lord, that thou bless him with the sign of the cross of Christ." S. Cannicus now turned to that man, looked into heaven praying, and said to him: "Thy son shall now live; for to the holy Father Comgall he is granted by God," and immediately he revived sound and strong, who was called Glassanus: and giving thanks he departed with his father.

[20] There was a certain cruel man and tyrant, hard and very malignant, of the descendants of Turtaraide, grain refused for a silver vessel, named Croidhe, whose mother was called Luch, which sounds in Latin "Mus" (Mouse). And when the Brethren of S. Comgall were in straits without grain, they said to S. Comgall: "Behold that silver vessel, which was sent to us in alms, if it please thee let it be sold for grain, that the Brethren may be able to live." Then the aforesaid tyrant Croidhe was called to S. Comgall, and the Saint said to him: "Behold a silver vessel which God sent the Brethren, and give grain for it." For he abounded in grain. But that malignant man with pride said: "What is yours, I do not want, and what is mine, you shall not have, I would now rather a Mouse should eat the grain than you." This he said of his mother. To whom angry S. Comgall said: "As thou hast said, so shall it be done to thee: for all thy grain the mice shall eat, and nothing shall profit thee." Which so was done; for two ricks, which he had, it is consumed by mice in which were fifteen wagon-loads, the mice ate, and nothing of them remained to the third day except stubble and chaff, as S. Comgall said.

[21] In the seventh year also after the monastery of Benchor was founded, the holy Father Comgall sailed into ^b Britain, wishing to visit certain Saints there, and to remain there for a time: and he constituted there a Monastery in a certain village in the region of Heth, and there remained for a time. a monastery constructed in Britain: On a certain day when S. Comgall was alone in a field working outside, he placed his chrismal upon his garment. On that day many Gentile robbers of the Picts rushed into that village, that they might seize all that was there, whether men or cattle. When therefore the Gentiles had come to S. Comgall working outside, and had seen his chrismal upon his cape; they thought that chrismal to be the God of S. Comgall, and the robbers dared not touch him for the cause of fear of their God. But the Brethren of S. Comgall with all the substance those plunderers led to their ships. But the holy Father Comgall seeing this, moved said: "The Lord is my firmament and my refuge and my deliverer": and adoring he signed heaven and earth, and the sea: and immediately the Gentiles were struck with blindness, and moreover the sea terribly swelled; so that it cast the ship onto the shore, and the bodies of the Gentiles were sharply wounded. Then they leaving all that they had seized, asked pardon with great prayers from S. Comgall. and the penitents healed: The Saint now moved with mercy, prayed for them. And they received their light, and a calm being made empty-handed they returned and infirm. Afterward S. Comgall by many holy men was led back into Ireland.

[22] It was a custom in the Monastery of the holy Father Comgall, that if anyone rebuked another, although that one were culpable or inculpable, immediately he who was rebuked should humbly bend his knees. Therefore when Father Comgall himself was on a certain island in the Northern region of Ireland, a humble monk preserved unhurt under the waters: on a certain day the Brethren navigating in the midst of a lake, the steersman of the boat rebuked one of the Brethren. That Brother immediately, caring nothing of the peril of the water, leapt from the boat that he might bend his knees before him, asking pardon: (for the little boat was narrow:) but the water forthwith swallowed that Brother. Then the Brethren coming in great sadness to S. Comgall, announced to him what had been done. To whom the holy Father without perturbation said: "God is able to preserve our Brother alive under the waters: depart, and seek him where he was devoured." The Brethren returning to the place where he was submerged, one of them who was most skilled in swimming above the waters and under the waters, sent himself into the depth of the place; and found that young man lying face to the ground, and lifted him up with himself alive and sound; and he himself was under the waters from the first hour of the day until the ninth hour: and he said before the elders: "I had nothing of molestation under the waters, but I was as if upon the dry land." And the Brethren hearing this were confirmed in humility to bear reproaches.

[23] There was in the Monastery of the holy Father Comgall a certain young man, very obedient and humble and mild, whom the Brethren surnamed the obedient one, who immediately did the commands of all, and avoided things forbidden as poison. On a certain day therefore the holy Father Comgall making a journey, another obedient one is not wetted within the marine tide: that young man with the rest was in his company. And when he had come across a certain shore, on which a very great inundation was coming, one of the Brethren rebuked the aforesaid obedient young man. But he hearing immediately fell on his face on the shore, and he himself had the shoes of S. Comgall: for that Brother had been wont much to serve the holy Father. But the Brethren not knowing that the Brother had lain there, proceeded on their way. That Brother now was last of the rest; and when they had come to the dry land from the shore, S. Comgall asked where the obedient Brother was. And when he was not found, the holy Elder said to his own: "Has any of you rebuked the Brother?" Then one confessed, that he had rebuked him. And S. Comgall commanded that the Brethren should return to seek him: but as they hastened the inundation of the sea met them, and they found the Brother prostrate on the shore, and the sea filling the whole shore: but to him, by the breadth of a house between itself and the land, it did not come. And the Brethren rousing him, he came with them to S. Comgall. The holy Father with him and the rest of the Brethren gave praise to God.

[24] a boy raised up choosing to die gives up his spirit: On a certain day when S. Comgall was on a journey; a certain boy in the Monastery died by a sudden death, and on the same day S. Comgall came to the Monastery. And when this was announced to him, he said: "It is my fault that the little boy in my Monastery before time suddenly died": and saying this he proceeded to the place where the cold little body was. And when he had prayed there, the dead one revived. And the holy Father said to him: "Dost thou wish, little son, to remain in this life?" And when the pious boy had chosen to die, S. Comgall blessed him, and thus he gave up the Spirit in peace.

[25] A certain secular man earnestly asked S. Comgall, that he would receive some possession of his in oblation; but the man of God would not accept. But at the last when he was troublesome to him, he said to him: "Why dost thou wish to cast thy leprosy upon me?" That man now struck by this word, angry departed. Likewise an iniquitous King came to S. Comgall, gifts offered by the impious are rejected having a little casket full of gold and silver, that he might offer it to him. But the King standing before the door of the place, sent this by a messenger to S. Comgall: but the holy man did not even deign with his eyes to look at the casket, saying: "Why does the sinner wish to pour out his sins upon us? let him have his own iniquities, and the fruit of them." Thence the King thus confounded with his casket departed.

[26] There came once to the Monastery of S. Comgall a man of venerable life, ^c S. Finbarrus the Bishop, who lies in many miracles in his city Machbile: and Father Comgall with his Brethren rejoiced at the coming of so great and such a guest. for S. Finbarrus milk obtained from heaven: But the Bishop and Comgall supping with their own, someone indicated to S. Comgall, that the Bishop wished to drink a little milk on account of his infirmity. Now bread and water and vegetables only were at that supper: for milk and the other foods in the Monastery of S. Comgall were before unknown in sight and taste. Then S. Comgall, knowing that there was no milk in the Monastery, sent to the cellar;

and there was found there a vessel full of the best milk, so great that it would suffice for all; and it being placed before the Bishop he commanded it to be divided to all. The vessel being now carried back to the cellar, it no longer appeared: afterward, the Bishop and other Saints persuading, by reason of charity milk was received for the old and infirm in the Monastery of S. Comgall. and permitted to the old and infirm.

[27] A certain boy was learning to write, but no one could teach him, because what he wrote could scarcely be recognized, whether the hand of a man or the talon of a bird had drawn it; the art of writing conferred by his benediction. and so it was for many days. At last coming to S. Comgall, the holy man blessed his eyes and hands, and forthwith his writing was bettered, so that he surpassed the other scribes, and in that very art he was an author and teacher in his life.

[28] On a certain night when the Brethren had assembled to the church, S. Comgall said to them: the soul of S. Finnbarrus seen to be carried to heaven. "Let us pray, dearest ones, for the soul of our Father Finnbarrus the Bishop, which now to heaven by the Angels is carried," and it was found on the next day, as the holy most pious Father Comgall foretold.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

Others raised from the dead: various miracles: disease, death, burial.

[29] At another time, when S. Columba had sailed, one of the Brethren in the ship died, and when they had come to the harbor, which is called Inivir-Beg, they hastened from the ship to the Monastery of S. Comgall, and with joy were received by him: and the elder Comgall himself washed their feet, and asked them saying: "Is there any of you outside?" To whom S. Columba said: "One remained to guard the ship and the baggage." the dead one is raised up: Comgall said: "Let the Brother come to us, and the ship with the baggage will be well guarded." S. Columba now foreseeing the virtue of S. Comgall, said: "That brother will not come from the ship unless thou thyself call him." Then Father Comgall proceeded to the ship, and finding the Brother in the ship dead, prayed to God for him, and said: "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ rise, son, and come to thy Brethren." At this voice now he rose as if from sleep; he namely was one-eyed. Walking to the Monastery S. Comgall himself, and that with sound eyes, who had been one-eyed: saw that he had been one-eyed: and said: "Did I ask a one-eyed one from the Lord my God?" and he said to the Brother: "Wash, brother, thy face in water." But water was not there beside them, but by the nod of God at the word of the Saint a fountain burst from the earth there, and his face being washed thence the eye had sight, and that eye was more beautiful and clearer than the other, and its keenness was not diminished in old age. The Brethren seeing these miracles, their mind was kindled in the love of God.

[30] On a certain day the Brethren working, one of them laboring much died, another dead one is raised up: and from the midday hour until the ninth hour lay lifeless. But S. Comgall bearing ill the sudden death of his Brother, prayed to God, and raised him up, and he came with the Brethren sound to his cell.

[31] desired food is received from heaven: Coming once S. Columba to S. Comgall, they entered the Church, and celebrated there their Hours: then returning to the refectory they began to sup. Then S. Comgall commanded a certain Brother to bring a certain food, which was not in the Monastery. But he, not delaying, went out to the cellar, and found by the grace of God what the Saint commanded to be brought: and carried it to the Saints. The servants of God taking it gave thanks to God: but S. Columba understanding that to be a gift of God, said to S. Comgall: "Food, holy Father, is not imprudently to be taken or received: for not by a man is it sacred, but by an Angel of God ministering it is prepared." But the rest knowing this said: "Blessed be God in His gifts."

[32] On another day when the Saints of Christ, that is, Comgall and Columba sat at table, a demon is driven from his cook, they saw a demon soberly sitting in the seat of his cook. Then S. Columba said: "What seest thou, Father Comgall?" S. Comgall said: "I see a demon sitting." S. Columba said: "Now we will prove what kind your cook is, in whose seat a demon sits." The cook now called came, and seeing the demon in his seat, rebuked him with grim eyes, saying: "Most unhappy demon, what doest thou here? By what madness sittest thou in our seat? certainly I know not myself from my youth to have consented to thee, otherwise do thou now bring it forth: therefore flee at once into the deep of the sea, or into the desert where thou canst harm no one." And immediately the demon saying nothing departed. Then S. Comgall and S. Columba did penance, that they had wished to hold the Brother culpable through a demoniac illusion. But the rest were edified in him.

[33] there is walking upon the strait. On a certain day for some necessity S. Comgall said to one of the Brethren: "Quickly by a straight path, Brother, hasten across the strait." Then the obedient brother, delaying nothing, walked across the strait with dry feet, and unharmed returned to S. Comgall. The rest knowing this were strengthened in humility.

[34] the smith's art infused into one not knowing it. On another day, when the smith of the Monastery was not near, S. Comgall said to one of the Brethren: "Go, Brother, into the workshop of the smith, and make us a gridiron for roasting fish": and the holy Father blessed the hands of that Brother. Then the obedient Brother, as if he had learned this art from boyhood, made in one day a most excellent gridiron, and other utensils.

[35] a cymbal is sent by an Angel. The sister of S. Comgall had holy sons, who far from S. Comgall dwelt in their cell: and those Saints sent to S. Comgall the brother of their mother, that he might give them a cymbal. Then the benign bestower Comgall sent them a cymbal, namely an Angel carrying it. Those saints receiving the cymbal from the Angel of God, gave thanks to their Savior Jesus Christ.

[36] saliva turned into a golden ring: A certain poor man came to S. Comgall, asking from him something in alms. Then the most blessed Comgall, having nothing to give him, cast his saliva, weary from prayer, into the bosom of the poor man, and immediately it was turned into gold: and it became a ring in the bosom of the poor man, according to the will of the man of God, in which were four scruples and a half. That man rejoicing went out, and narrated all that had befallen him.

[37] a burning stone carried by an unhurt hand: The holy Father Comgall once said to the obedient Brother, that he should carry a burning stone from the fire to him: and that Brother holding the stone burning from the fire, carried it with unhurt hand to the most pious and most holy Father Comgall, giving glory to God most high.

[38] swans fly up of their own accord: The most blessed Abbot Comgall with his disciples beside the shore of the lake Feabhail saw swans swimming, and sweetly singing upon the waters. Then the Brethren asked the holy elder, that in place of the solace of food, he would lead the swans to them, and they might touch them with their hands. For then the Brethren needed to eat, but eating was not ready for them. The pious Father said to them: "If it is the will of God, let it be done." At this voice the swans by the divine nod compelled flew to the servants of Christ, and one of them by its flight stood in the bosom of the holy elder Comgall, and again, license being received, returned to their place.

[39] fish supplied by Angelic guidance, On a certain day, when S. Comgall had divinely foreseen the coming of S. Columba with his disciples, laboring at the oar, he asked from the Lord food for his guests. Then an Angel sent by God gathered a flock of fish in the sea, and led them to the shore before the Monastery of S. Comgall. The holy man knowing this done, commanded his own to bring the fish: and many fish were brought to the Monastery, with which the holy guests and the holy family were satisfied.

[40] Cormacus son of Diarmod King of the Leinstermen, ^a sprung of the race ^b Censelach, offered himself with three castles situated in the region of the Leinstermen, Catharlach situated upon the bank of the river ^c Berta, and Foibran, and Arderema to God and S. Comgall. Cormacus King of the Leinstermen becomes a monk, And he came to the Province of Ulster, and was made with S. Comgall in his Monastery of Benchor a monk. Afterward the ancient enemy in his heart put a great weariness toward his fatherland and sons, kinsmen and household gods. Then he with vast anxiety of mind came to the holy Father Comgall, and confessed to him, that he could not endure there, unless he visited and saw his fatherland. S. Comgall now, knowing that he could not retain him, dismissed him and certain Brethren with him: and the journey begun immediately upon him, his holy Abbot praying for him, a slumber sent by God rushed upon the overhanging hill, ^d Astilo Beunchor: and there he slept from the first hour of the day until the ninth, and in a dream he is strengthened against temptations. and saw such a dream: For he saw himself to have walked the borders of the Leinstermen, and to have surveyed very many cities and castles, and to have gone around flowery fields and pleasant meadows, and to have held chosen chariots and his kingdom, and the Dukes and Nobles and Provosts and the rest of the ensigns of his kingdom to have sat about him: and when he was satiated of all these things he was awakened in great weariness at the ninth hour; and hated all that he had seen by the help of God, and fulfilling his own will returned to his holy Abbot Comgall; and narrated to him all these things, and remained there thenceforth in the religious life until his death ^e.

[41] a fire is once and again kindled by his breath: On a certain day also of great cold the holy Father Comgall walking with his Brethren, found a certain house on the way, empty of men: and entering into it the cold Brethren gathered firebrands found to S. Comgall, asking him, that by the power of Christ they might have fire. Then the holy Father blessed the firebrands in the name of God, and breathing from his mouth the fire blazed in the firebrands, and the pyre being kindled the Brethren were warmed, giving thanks to Christ.

The same on another day S. Comgall with his Monks was in a certain valley, a dark and cold night fell in the desert upon them. Then the Brethren afflicted with too great cold asked Father Comgall, that they might have the solace of fire by the grace of God, for they had no fire-bearing iron. Forthwith the Saint of God by the breath of his mouth blew upon wood set before his eyes, and fire blazed from it, driving away the darkness and cold, illuminating and warming the Brethren. But on the next day neither fire, nor a vestige of it appeared in that wood: but leafy like the other woods with branches entire it was seen, having nothing of burning: and concerning this the Brethren wondered much, giving to God most good and great continual praises.

[42] a harsh Duke is amended: S. Comgall came once to the citadel of Trachim, and fasted there that night against a Duke harsh to him. But in the middle of the night the Lord shook the citadel from its foundations, until arms and other things fell from the walls. Then the Duke compelled by the nod of God did penance, pleasing the saint of God Comgall much.

[43] A certain young monk, named Conuath, came to S. Comgall, a monk is healed of swelling of mind. wishing to see the conversation of the servant of God. That Brother indeed thought no one beyond himself to be laboring more, and asked S. Comgall, that he might live in his sight in his wonted conversation concealing nothing. Now in the middle of the night S. Comgall after his manner went out into a neighboring river, and that monk descended with him, and that Brother could not be above between S. Comgall and the river, for the too great cold of the water; nor below for the heat of the water, which descended from the holy elder. That Brother seeing so great grace in S. Comgall, did penance for the swelling of his mind, and remained thenceforth under the rule of the most holy Comgall.

[44] At a certain time S. Comgall came to the citadel Mœ-mad, and there fasted against the King dwelling there. a hard King is bent by reason of a rock split into 4 parts by his saliva. But the King hard and harsh to him would not hear the Saint of God. But at the end of the fast the holy elder cast his saliva upon a great rock, before the sons of the King and the friends of the King: and the rock forthwith was split into four parts, the friends and sons of the King being present. Hearing this the King feared greatly, and coming humbly did great penance, and granted of his own accord to the most holy and most pious Father Comgall what he sought.

[45] On another day when the holy Father Comgall had sailed in a certain strait, he himself rebuked a certain young man of the Brethren, Crimacthanus by name: upon the wave a monk remains with dry clothes: and immediately he went out of the ship, and prostrated himself upon the sea bending his knees, and the wave was under him as if stable ground; and he was there prostrate until S. Comgall called him into the ship, and his garments were dry. The wind now blowing and the sail extended, by the great power of God, the ship stood in one place, until all this was done: afterward rejoicing much in God they sailed.

[46] Ronanus son of Aeda, Duke of the nation, had Brava as a wife beautiful and dear, who bore a son having a black face. a deformed boy by his benediction is made beautiful: That Duke seeing the unseemly boy, said: "This unseemly one shall not be my son, nor will I have his mother as a wife": and he expelled the son with his mother. She immediately proceeded to S. Comgall, ignorant of the crime, and narrated to him the cause of her expulsion. The cause being heard from the confession of that chaste woman, the man full of God blessed the face and eyes of the boy: and forthwith in his whole body and face, having hyacinthine eyes, most beautiful he appeared: for before he was fouler in the eyes than in the other members: and returning they were received gratefully by Duke Ronanus.

[47] When the holy Father Comgall had wished to build a cell on an island, named ^f Reachraind, there came thirty soldiers: the injurious are punished by death: and seizing his hand they expelled him thence: and in vengeance of this crime they all before the end of a month died.

[48] There came once the most blessed three Abbots, namely S. Comgall, S. Columba, and S. Cannicus to a Gentile King named ^g Brudæus, and he commanded the doors of the castle to be closed against them. But S. Comgall signed the doors with the sign of the holy Cross, King Brudæus is converted by miracles: and they fell broken to the ground: but S. Columba broke the doors of the royal house by the same sign. S. Cannicus also signed the hand of the King, brandishing a sword to kill them, and immediately the hand of the King was withered: and so it was until he believed in God: and when he was made faithful in God, his hand was loosed.

[49] The Queen of King ^h Fiachna, who reigned in the citadel which is called in Latin Atrium-magnum (Great Hall), the Queen about to die from poison given is healed: but in Scottish Rathmore, situated in the plain of Linia, and who was of the race of the Ulstermen, namely of the region Dalaradia, drank poison; and was tortured with most grievous pains: and she with her friends knew not by whom the poison was given to her. That Queen herself was called Cautigera, who was a faithful and chaste woman. Physicians being gathered from everywhere they could in no way cure the Queen. At last by the counsel of posterity S. Comgall was called to the Queen for that cause: and the holy man blessing the Queen said to her: "By the grace of God thou shalt receive health, and thou shalt know the man giving thee the poison": and immediately the Queen was healed. But after a little while the devil entered into one of the Queen's maidservants, and she was made senseless, and confessed that she had given the poison to her Lady. All wishing to deliver the maidservant to torments, the Queen did not permit, until S. Comgall the author of her health should judge her. The holy elder Comgall sending by a messenger freed her from death, and from servitude, and that maidservant herself afterward did a penance pleasing to God. The aforesaid king Fiachna held a most strong kingdom in Ireland, with whom the relics of many Saints of Ireland were elevated, and honorably laid up.

[50] When the elder S. Comgall once had come to the cell of a certain holy and religious Virgin, one who calumniated him is punished by death: he heard a great complaint, that a certain cruel man and plunderer, named Fergus, had by force seized the beasts of that place. And S. Comgall proceeding to him, said to him: "Release to me the cattle, which thou hast seized from the handmaids of Christ." But that proud man and tyrant despising the holy elder, not only did not release the beasts, but with pestiferous mouth and most harsh words calumniated the servant of God. On the following night that unhappy man ascending into his bed to sleep with his wife, by a most evil death, in vengeance of his crime, died.

[51] a leper entering the bath after Comgall is healed: A certain young man, Aedianus by name, grandson of Dunlaing, reading the twelve minor Prophets with S. Finellus, saw in dreams his garments about a certain leper of his race: and when he had awakened from sleep, he saw his body struck with leprosy. Who by the counsel of B. Finellus his master hastened to S. Comgall, asking from him health. Then the most blessed elder Comgall was in the greatest infirmity, and was compelled by the holy Fathers to the use of baths on account of his too great pains. And S. Comgall commanded the aforesaid young man Aedianus, that he should wash himself in the bath, from which the elder himself then had gone out. And when he washed himself there, immersing his whole body under the water; he was cleansed from all his leprosy: and with great joy giving thanks he returned to his own. Often troops of demons visibly fought against S. Comgall, and could not even change his mind from its internal intention toward his Lord Jesus Christ.

[52] Now the time of the departure of the most blessed elder Comgall approaching, Grave and long-lasting torments he was tortured with immense and various pains: for his ears were closed without hearing, and what is more difficult his belly was closed without effusion of urine; and he suffered other grave pains: and the servant of Christ Comgall was in such torment from the beginning of winter until Pentecost. Some now said, that so great pains were given upon him by God, on account of the hardness and harshness of his rule in his monks. Others said, that on account of his too great pains without discretion in his body of his own accord, that in the same body against his will he might suffer. Others said otherwise. Meanwhile ⁱ S. Meldanus the Abbot, born of the race of the Scots, sent by God from heaven, appeared to a certain holy monk, named ^k Colmanus, in dreams saying to him: "Not therefore for that which men say are so great pains sent into the body of S. Comgall, for the increase of his glory. although their causes are true: but for love of him by Christ for the increase of his merits he is tortured. For as he suffers torment before men without merit, so in the sight of the Angels crowned with eternal rewards very many he shall rejoice."

[53] The monks indeed of S. Comgall, some days before his death, wished daily to give him the divine Eucharist and other divine sacrifices. To whom the holy Father Comgall said: "From no one will I receive the sacrifice, until there come to me sent by God ^l S. Fiachra the Abbot from the province of the Leinstermen." And an Angel of the Lord came to S. Fiachra, whose monastery is beside the river Berba at the border of the Leinstermen, the sacred viaticum given by S. Fiachra. namely in the people Huadrona, which is called Airard; and sent him to S. Comgall, laboring in many pains, that he might receive from his hands the Body and Blood of Christ. When now S. Fiachra had come to the monastery of Benchor, he immediately gave the Lord's Communion to the most blessed Father Comgall. Afterward S. Fiachra asked the servant of God Comgall, that he might receive something of his relics at a fitting time: and it was promised to S. Fiachra by the disciples of Father Comgall what he sought. Then, many holy Fathers being present, his death 10 May. the most holy elder Comgall full of the Holy Spirit, most happily on the sixth of the Ides of May, after the course of his admirable life, gave up his spirit: and was buried with due honor in his most illustrious monastery of Benchor, his burial. where the benefits of God through him at all times are obtained from the Most High.

[34] Now much time having passed after the death of the most holy Father Comgall, the aforesaid S. Fiachra came to the monastery of Benchor: and the relics of S. Comgall being honorably elevated from the sepulcher, S. Fiachra chose the arm of S. Comgall, and carried it to the borders of the Leinstermen, the arm obtained by S. Fiachra, namely his Province. But while he made the journey in

the region of the Leinstermen, he came to the citadel of a certain Duke there, who was called Aedus. Then the son of that Duke Aedus was led to S. Fiachra, that he might baptize him: and S. Fiachra now opening his ^m satchel, to draw thence the book of Baptism, the arm of S. Comgall flew up into the air. There the holy men fasting and bending their knees and praying long, at length there came to them from heaven the arm, and entering the earth among them nowhere appeared thence. For three days therefore they dug the earth and did not find it. Seeing this, the miracle hides itself. Duke Aedus offered that citadel with its fields to the relics of the holy and most pious Father Comgall forever. And there now the holy Fiachra the Abbot constructed an illustrious monastery in honor of our Patron Comgall, and in the name of the holy Trinity, the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, to whom is praise and honor forever. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

c Serinus Bearna.

CONCERNING SAINT LAURENTIUS

AMONG THE GREEKS.

Laurentius, among the Greeks (S.)

G. H.

Most celebrated is the festivity of S. Laurentius the Martyr on the day X of August, equally among the Greeks as among the Latins; so that it does not seem a wonder that to various Saints of various nations the name of him was given in his honor. Twelve such are suggested in the Roman Martyrology and the general Catalogue of Ferrarius; to whom we set forth several others to be added in this our work, but on the present day one related in the Greek Manuscript Menaea, preserved with Petrus Franciscus Chiffletius, in which we grieve that only it is noted that S. Laurentius rested in peace. But that he rested from labors by a happy exchange, the distich subjoined to the name indicates:

There is a certain exchange with God for Laurentius, Who by labors received the far-from-labor of Eden.

Where Eden, that is, Paradise of a new composition is named by the adjective πορρωπόνη, as having all labor far off, the composition being made from πόρρω far, and πόνος labor: but you may render it in Latin thus:

There is a commerce between God and Laurentius, That the price of labor be where there is no labor.

And these things we suggest, that those who obtain more concerning the Acts of this man and of others like him, may set them forth or submit them to us to be edited.

CONCERNING SAINT SOLONGIA,

VIRGIN AND MARTYR AMONG THE PEOPLE OF BOURGES.

ABOUT THE 9TH CENTURY.

Solongia, Virgin and Martyr among the people of Bourges (S.)

G. H.

The holy Virgin and Martyr Solongia, commonly S. Soulange, is venerated with a great concourse and pious veneration of the faithful at the hamlet called from her name, three leagues distant from the city of Bourges in the Archpresbyterate of Bourges, where she has hitherto shone with many miracles; which have rendered the said veneration more celebrated. Sacred cult But what is to be grieved, nothing exists written by any coeval author: but, as we have observed to have been done more often in this work; the very pilgrimage of the neighbors to the Saint, which the frequency of miracles excited, gave the name to the hamlet: and her Relics were elevated and enclosed in more becoming caskets, and images sculpted, and an Ecclesiastical office celebrated to her honor. The Lessons also which should be recited at Matins, Acts from the Lessons, were composed, from the ancient tradition of the inhabitants and the said images: which Philippus Labbe, by birth a man of Bourges, among the Lives and elogies of the Saints of Bourges in volume 2 of the New library of Manuscript books published, and which also written had submitted before Honoratus Nicquetius, equally as the other a Priest of our Society and most loving of our studies concerning the Acts of the Saints. others rendered from French into Latin: He formerly Rector of the College of Bourges of the Society much promoted the knowledge of this S. Solongia, and wrote her acts in French, more often separately reprinted at Bourges, and inserted in the Legendaries of the Saints likewise in French printed at Lyon: which (the former part omitted taken from the aforesaid Lessons) we also here give rendered into Latin by Franciscus Ragenavius, also a learned man of our Society, and printed at Bourges in the year MDCLIX. This Father moreover submitted to us four Odes, composed by himself in honor of S. Solongia, the Tower and Patroness of Bourges, Virgin and Martyr, illustrious for miracles, singular by the perpetual guidance of a star, finally the Lady and Governess of Bourges. Another poem composed Eustachius Gallier: another elogium, like a long epitaph, wrote Joannes Pyron, each of our Society. But these omitted we give the ancient hymn with the Antiphon, whose use is even today in the proper church of the Saint; confraternities erected. and the diploma of Alexander VII the Supreme Pontiff, by which the Confraternity erected to her honor is established, both in the Parochial Church sacred to her, and in the Collegiate Church of Bourges, called S. Peter-of-the-Girls, with whose Chapter is the Patronage of the said Church of S. Solongia.

LIFE

From the lessons of the proper Church.

Solongia, Virgin and Martyr among the people of Bourges (S.)

BHL Number: 7822

FROM THE PROPER OFFICE

[1] Born in the territory of Bourges, Holy Solongia in the territory of Bourges, in the village called In-Valle de Villemont, near the city of Bourges, was sprung from honest and Catholic parents: beautiful in face, but more beautiful in faith; in body a young girl, but in mind hoary: fearing God, and made fruitful with good morals: taught with Tobias from infancy to fear God, and to abstain from all sin; to bear also the yoke of the Lord from adolescence, with S. Jeremiah, considering it to be good unto perpetual salvation. For when she was seven years of age, at which time she would deservedly be reckoned a young girl, piously educated, yet God clemently preventing her in the benedictions of sweetness, there seemed in her an immense old age of mind. For she in her tender age was beheld openly to flourish with certain virtues, and tokens of grace, which would be more copious upon her in the future of the divine benediction's grace to be diffused.

[2] For when the blessed Solongia, her infancy simply passed at home in the faithful custody of her parents, had passed to the years of puberty (at which time namely the proclivity of the human body, through the lasciviousness of the flesh, she avoids the vices of the flesh: is wont to spread itself to manifold kinds of vices) she in no way loosed the reins of concupiscence: for she did not play with those playing, nor with those who walked in vanity did she ever show herself a partaker. For to God she commended her chastity from adolescence; and choosing Him alone as her true spouse, she did not consent to know and receive the corrupter of her flesh even through conjugal union. She commends her chastity to God. For she did not judge it fitting, that momentary, transitory, vain, useless and fleeting things ought to be preferred to true and eternal riches and everlasting delights. On account of which she always kept her soul clean, and neither by day nor by night ceased from divine colloquies and prayers, commending her chastity.

[3] She heals the sick. And because God works wonderfully in His Saints, He willed that she, whom He had inwardly filled in the soul with so great gifts of graces, should outwardly through miracles appear illustrious to the world and to be venerated by the testimonies of divine virtue: whence she obtained from God so great grace wonderfully, that at her sight the infirm were cured. For as we read that at the shadow of B. Peter the Apostle the infirm were cured; so also this virgin beloved of God, if she beheld anyone placed in infirmity, she frees the possessed: she commands the elements and animals immediately he was cured of all ailment. She received also from Jesus Christ, her amiable spouse, on account of the cleanness of flesh and spirit, power over unclean spirits. For she expelled demons from possessed bodies: and because obeying Christ at his pleasure she kept the Evangelical law with a pure mind, as if she were restored to the state of first innocence, irrational creatures obeyed her at her nod as if subjected by God; as if the Prophet David had foretold of her by a veridical prophecy: "Thou hast subjected all things under her feet, the sheep and all the oxen, moreover the beasts of the field: the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea, that pass through the paths of the sea." For when she commanded the winds and the lightning, immediately they lost their malice. The birds also and the cattle, if they brought any damages on the crops of her parents and neighbors, immediately at her command withdrew.

[4] Therefore the virgin Solongia, surpassing her age by her morals, knowing by the clearness of her spirit the dark fallacy of the demon, and the murky gulf of the flesh, and also the horrendous chaos of worldly things; following the splendor of eternal light and the spotless mirror Jesus with all her mind, faith and love; by the very Lord our Jesus Christ, she is illustrated by a preceding star: was visibly honored by the splendor of a glittering star, the true light. For to declare the serenity and clearness of the soul of that virgin, God sent her a certain shining and clear star, which preceded the virgin herself by day and by night; and disposed her, wherever she should proceed to pray or to chant to the Lord. It was indeed worthy, that Solongia, who bore only the Sun of justice inwardly in her breast, should outwardly shine in her body with the splendor of a starry light. For the son of the Prince of the land, hearing the fame of the virgin Solongia, who in beauty, wisdom and goodness had no equal; ran to the place anxious in mind, thinking how he might enjoy union with her.

[5] And so the lascivious youth coming to the place, in which the most chaste virgin dwelt, so great a beauty being seen, the more he boiled with the fire of burning lust. But because it was provided by the laws, that no one should violently bring molestation to virgins, he began to invite her to his love by various promises and also by bland discourses.

forthwith to invite her. For he said that his father was the Prince of the land, most powerful in riches, whose succession to himself, as he said, pertained by hereditary right; he boasted also to excel the rest in beauty, nobility, and fortitude, and that no one like himself could be found in the province. He promised also, that he would make her lady of all his goods, if she would give a pleasing assent to his will. But blessed Solongia, established in Christ, despised with a most firm mind the vain promises and empty words, and also the haughty boasting of the youth. She indeed solidified in the grace of the Holy Spirit and illustrated by true wisdom, shuddering at the nuptials of the youth, is believed to have addressed him thus: "To that eternal and best Lord of mine Jesus Christ, who in beauty, wisdom, virtue, power, and abundance of all goods excels all things, I have been from my infancy, am and ever shall be perpetually dedicated, therefore to Him alone I keep faith, who by His grace has betrothed me."

[6] seized by force, And when the holy virgin had answered such things to the youth, esteeming his nuptials of little worth, most constantly rooted in the love of Christ; the youth, deceived by a flagitious love, turned himself to bringing molestation and violence upon the virgin. Wishing therefore the sacrilegious pander to seize the bride of Christ, and violently to take away the most precious treasure of virginity, the virgin of Christ seeking the protection of flight withdrew from the place. At length the savage robber pursues, and seizes the captured one swiftly, mounts upon a horse; and placed her before upon the neck of the horse, and fleeing with most swift course carried her off. Then the holy virgin, she leaps from the horse. seeing herself placed between two crises (like another holy Susanna, to whom either the loss of chastity or the peril of death was imminent) chose rather through martyrdom to fall into the hands of a man; than, the lily of virginity lost, to abandon the law of her God. Wherefore leaping from the hands of the rapacious wolf, beside a fountain at the crossing of a brook having slipped from the horse she fell of her own accord into the Gravella. Then that insane youth, seeing himself esteemed of little worth by the virgin of Christ, her head cut off she dies a Martyr, changes love into hatred, matrimony into homicide; and savage in heart, more savage in hand, the sword seized cut off the head of the virgin.

[7] The most holy virgin beheaded exchanged the land of darkness and misery, for the land of remission and eternal glory by the title of martyrdom, by a happy commerce. Indeed Jesus Christ fittingly judged, that she who in the vale of this misery had shone with the lily of the valleys by the comeliness of modesty, should in the mountains of eternal light by the palm of martyrdom be fragrant with the flower of the field: and because the beloved faithful one Jesus Christ, as a cluster of Cyprus, between the breasts of her mind, and thrice she names Jesus Christ: invited through the sweetness of grace, had reposed in happy rest; as a little bundle of myrrh through the bitterness of death itself, through glorious miracles He made her evidently fragrant: for her head cut off from the body deserved thrice to name Jesus Christ. O truly worthy soul! who hadst kept the sweetness of the true cluster within the little vessel of thy heart with the entire gift of thy body through thy whole life, the wine-press being trodden through the martyrdom of the passion, and the breathing-hole of the bodily vessel being broken, couldst not in any way contain the odor of so great a name: truly having followed the spiritual footstep of B. Magdalene, who, the alabaster broken, poured the most precious unguent upon the head of the Lord, and the house was filled with the odor of the unguent. Indeed, most holy Virgin, the alabaster of thy precious body being broken through the passion, the nard of thy name, while the King was in His repose, gave the sweetness of odor, with which the whole house of the Church was filled with the odoriferous gifts of graces.

[8] Therefore happy Solongia to the praise of God of herself offered a double holocaust in the evening of her life, namely her body through the salutary victim of the passion outwardly in the court devoutly sacrificing, and her mind through most fervent charity in the temple inwardly through continual zeal of prayer offering as incense. For she gave the head of her body for Christ the head of the souls of the faithful. For when the truculent butcher had cut off the head of the virgin, she taking her head in her own hands, from the place in which she had been beheaded even to the place, in which by God's providence and her own choice she honorably rests, by Angelic guidance wonderfully carried it; in which place by faithful persons fearing God it was honorably delivered to burial. For there in the process of time, the clemency of Christ favoring and the devotion of the faithful aiding, in her name a church was built, which until today is named from S. Solongia throughout all the territory of Bourges. she has a church dedicated to her:

[9] But how great in life this glorious virgin was of eminent sanctity, after her death the magnificence of the supernal Goodness worthily showed by many prodigies of miracles; while at her invocation and merits, provided however the faith and devotion of those seeking aid, she shines with miracles: the virtue of almighty God restored to the blind sight, to the deaf hearing, to the mute speech, to the lame gait, and to the paralytic sense and to the withered, moreover to the broken and ruptured rendered entire health; powerfully snatched those enclosed in prisons, drove demons from possessed bodies. But B. Solongia passed away in the hamlet of Bourges, almost the seventh mile from the city of Bourges, beheaded by the sword of a truculent homicide, on account of the keeping of chastity. But the most holy virgin began forthwith, as has been said, to glitter with many and great miracles, that the sublimity of her sanctity, the regard of the Lord's face shining over it, which living in the flesh through the examples of perfect justice had become known to the world, she now reigning with Christ, might be proved unto all firmness of faith through the miracles of Divine power in heaven. Innumerable also in diverse parts by her merits the benefits of God do not cease to abound, as the inhabitants of that region frequently experience, who in their adversities, perils, and necessities, through the most blessed virgin Solongia faithfully invoked, feel themselves heard, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit reigns unto the ages. Amen.

ANOTHER LIFE

Rendered from French into Latin.

Solongia, Virgin and Martyr among the people of Bourges (S.)

FROM THE FRENCH.

CHAPTER I.

Acts in life, martyrdom, burial.

[1] The history of the life and illustrious martyrdom of S. Solangia (now usage has obtained that she is called Solangia) is drawn out, Whence this history is drawn. partly from the Lessons of her solemn and most ancient Office, which is recited in her proper Church, in a town near Bourges, to which the name of that holy Virgin and Martyr is given; once a city, as from very many old monuments and ancient vestiges it is established even today, and so one of the twenty cities, which in the province of Bourges, that he might keep Julius Caesar from supply and foraging, Vercingetorix burned in one day; partly from the observation of the inhabitants, and the constant fame of very many ages and the credence of the things, which were done, and of the miracles, which were perpetrated, by the intervention of that Virgin and Martyr, in those very places, in which the things, which we here undertake to narrate, befell.

[2] S. Solangia was born at the town of Villemont, at the sixth or seventh mile from the city of Bourges, Born of a vinedresser father of Christian parents, her father a vinedresser: and as she was of notable beauty of body to behold and of liberal form, so also of eminent comeliness of mind before God; because it had been the care of her parents to educate her in Christian precepts, she is brought up in the fear of God: and to inform her unto all piety; inspiring in her an immortal hatred of mortal sin, and deeply impressing it in her inmost heart, and a chaste fear and horror of all those things, which even most lightly would offend the eyes of the Divine majesty. So holy a childhood instruction disposed her most innocent mind, from her tender nails, wonderfully how much and how sweetly and efficaciously to draw with all her breast the influxes of graces, and wonderfully softened and subdued it to receive the celestial sowings, which into her bosom the Divine goodness and munificence largely and liberally poured.

[3] Therefore already from the seventh year of her age, she began tenderly and ardently to love Jesus Christ, at seven she chose Christ as her spouse: and frequently to use His most holy name, and to pronounce it with a sense of piety; so that she now seemed to bear it about engraved on her heart and deeply impressed. She chose Jesus for her spouse at that age the girl, and consecrated to Him her virginity, which also to Him day and night she commended, as to the King, and spouse of virgins, who exacts from them Angelic purity in such wise, as if they had no commerce with the body, with which they are clothed. "I love Christ," she said, in the same or nearly similar words, with which once blessed Agnes, certainly with a like affection of piety, "whose Mother is a virgin: whose Father knows not woman: whom when I shall have loved, I am chaste; when I shall have touched, I am clean; when I shall have received, I am a virgin."

[4] The most holy girl often went from Villemont (namely from the town of her domicile, where it was now is a meadow, and in French is called Le Pré-verdier) into a place, not far indeed, but yet enough remote from witnesses, woody and uncultivated, which now also is seen, and is called the field of S. Solangia: in the field now called S. Solangia's, in which, for the memory of the matter and of the holy Martyr a wooden Cross stands erected; whose chips even now, a remedy of fevers, the faithful people carry away. That field, I say, the most upright girl frequented, and whatever of time was left over to her from the necessary care and custody, which she never laid aside, of the flock, which she led there to pasture, all that she consumed in assiduous prayers and familiar colloquies with God. The path, which she trod, where she was wont to pray. to be nourished and fattened by the celestial delights of her spouse, broad as much as is enough for a wagon's wheels, even today in the unmown fallow lands, like the milky way in the heavens, is observed: and as that is distinguished by frequent and crowded stars; so that by a denser, more vigorous crop, the path even now more fruitful. and by half a foot higher than in the neighboring fields is discerned. That place of prayer felt her very often, so animated to the contemplation of Christ Jesus expiring on the cross, that she offered herself wholly to Him in holocaust, and consecrated herself utterly to His love.

[5] Nor was the most sweet Spouse lacking to His most upright bride: but that He might render her even then illustrious and conspicuous to men, He conferred upon her in turn precious gifts, whom He knew besides the glory of her Spouse to behold or breathe nothing else. she works miracles: Whence it came about that the most upright virgin put to flight the most filthy demons from possessed bodies: that, as S. Peter by his shadow, so she by her sight alone healed the sick: that finally she either averted or assuaged winds and tempests in such wise, as if the elements without sense felt her voice and command. The noxious birds moreover she kept from the depopulation of the fields, by the mere nod of her will: and, she who by faithfully obeying the commands of God, had brought back the innocence of the first parents of the human race, and represented it by most chaste morals, enjoyed also their privileges. If ever any of her sheep separated itself, that for the granted pastures it might attain the forbidden crops and furtively pluck them, and so feed on the crops of private persons; her, not by a headlong course, not by immoderate clamor, not by a brandished crook, not by dogs sent in or cast

clods, as shepherds are wont, did she coerce: but without anger, without force, without contumely, sweetly and by the mere and silent signification of her will, as is the manner of Angels to speak, she recalled it from the alien pasture and theft. Nor is that less either admirable or unusual, she is illustrated by a preceding star: that to declare the serenity and clearness of her soul, and at the same time to testify, how much He was pleased in her: the Lord Jesus Christ had granted her a shining and clear star, which visibly preceded her by day and by night, and slipped down to the earth, disposed her to celestial conversation and familiar meeting with Him, and upward now to psalmody, now to prayer, which is made by the mind, called her most pure heart from the earth: that if she, who assiduously meditated and sought Christ the sun of justice, the same a handmaid and a Queen, equaling the minds of Kings, and superior to human affairs and loves; could not, to her beloved, as once the three Kings from the East, save by the guidance of a star and an ambitious retinue, sufficiently magnificently come.

[6] Excited by the fame of her beauty, the son of the Count or Dynast of Bourges, whom the Lessons of the Office call the son of the Prince of the land, by a more noble youth led by curiosity, or more truly captured by love, under the appearance of hunting came to Villemont: and found in the place, which I just mentioned, of prayer, in pastoral garb and simplicity the girl, whom he sought, praying. As he saw, so he perished. The youth suddenly inflamed with love of the virgin, immediately to descend from his horse, courteously and most lovingly to salute her, to address her with bland discourses, to open his love to her, with difficulty first, somewhat shyly and difficultly, but candidly at last, and of his own accord to confess it, to call her lady, to profess himself her most humble servant. Why more? lest she should suspect fraud from a lover, or fear force from a Prince, seriously and from the soul to bring in the discourse of lawful nuptials, to attest his love, the offered nuptials to offer the consortship of the marriage-bed, to commend the great fortune offered from a humble state; to boast his beauty, nobility, fortitude; by which dowries of mind, body, and nature he surpassed all the rest of the whole Province: to display the large wealth, in which he abounded; to propose the paternal Principality to be shared with her, by the right of marriage, which he himself hoped by hereditary right, she nobly rejects, and at once to promise the delights of life, and to promise the favor of the court; finally to omit nothing of blandishments, to pass over nothing of services, by which he could soften the mind of the virgin, win her over to himself, and bend her to his love. At the word of nuptials she, from which she shrank with all her breast, first as at an unhoped-for thing was afraid, then also shuddered: and lest he should ever either propose or hope anything similar, forthwith, her countenance composed to severity, answered: "From my infancy I have consecrated myself wholly to God: I have chosen Christ Jesus and the Lord as my spouse: I have chosen, nor will I ever admit any other lover: the rest are nothing to me before Him, who for my sake made man of a Virgin, did not disdain to descend to human calamities and our miseries, which together with our nature He assumed."

[7] At these so severe words, and so unexpected a rebuff, especially from a girl of humble fortune, by which she so repelled the highest felicity of this life, (which others so eagerly seek when denied, so avidly embrace when offered) so precisely, so constantly and rigidly; the youth first to be astonished and to wonder: then the youth maddened by love to press: then the Prince to rage, to threaten and wish to bring force upon the girl; finally the handmaid of God to flee, the Dynast to pursue, and the man easily by running to outstrip the girl; to halt the fleeing one, to seize the struggling one, and at last to place her crosswise on the neck of the horse. She scarcely six hundred paces, from the place where she had been seized, and escaped from the hands of the ravisher, slips from the hands of the ravisher, and at the crossing of a small stream, or (as now appears) rather at the crossing of a very small bay of a seething and overflowing river, whose name in French is Gravelle, casts herself from the horse hastily with an impulse and a leap. The wicked Prince to roar and to gnash his teeth, deluded and contemned by the escaped prey, and (as he was of a most ferocious and headlong disposition, of cruel nature, and of most fervid and uncontrolled wrath) to turn love into hatred, sound mind into insanity, reason into rabies and fury; to draw his sword suddenly, she is beheaded, and to cut off the head of the most innocent girl and most upright virgin. She standing, as she was when she received the wound, and holding her severed head in her hands, thrice with a clear voice pronounced the Name of Jesus; and by it testified, that she, no less dead than living, was wholly of Christ Jesus, for all time, and so for all eternity. And what is more to be wondered, the Martyr, surviving her own death and performing her own funeral rites, carried her cut-off head wonderfully by Angelic guidance into the temple of divine Martin, which commonly was called du Cros, to be buried in the temple of S. Martin and chose for herself a sepulcher. But that temple, ennobled by the sepulcher of so great a Virgin, and so great a miracle, was first restored and repaired, and thenceforth amplified with a great accession.

[8] Who now would follow the miracles, which were perpetrated there? The blind received sight, the lame walking, the deaf hearing, the paralytic sense, the withered and the other sick health, and the use of their members. There were heard there Angelic harmonies, and so great was the frequency of wonderful things, that the temple of S. Martin, increased and adorned by the custody of so sacred a deposit, and illustrated with so great miracles, nay even the town received the name of S.-Solangia, now called S. Solangia's. and even today keeps it: as also on account of a similar celebrity of miracles, six hundred other places likewise changed their former name, that they might assume the name of her, whose splendor of miracles stirred the peoples to herself: as it befell at Paris to the temple of S. Vincent the Martyr and the temple of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul: at Bourges, (to pass over the rest) to the temple of the same Apostles and of the Blessed Virgin a Navi: of which the first is now unknown except under the name of S. Germain a Pratis, the second under the name of S. Genovefa; the third under the name of S. Ambrose, the fourth finally under the name of S. Sulpicius.

CHAPTER II.

The translations of the Relics also in supplications. Rain obtained. Sacred cult.

[9] After the sacred relics of S. Solangia had long rested in a common sepulcher, The Relics are enclosed in a wooden casket. they were then enclosed in a wooden little casket somewhat more honorably. But the inhabitants of the place, moved by the multitude of pilgrims flowing together from everywhere to the sepulcher of the holy Virgin, took care that a casket of gilded Corinthian bronze be made, and obtained from the Lord John de Villiers, then in a gilded bronze one. then Vicar general of the most Reverend Archbishop of Bourges ^a Michael de Bucy, that into that new and more becoming casket the Body of the Virgin and Martyr and the precious bones be translated: which by the very Reverend Lord ^b Dionysius de Bar, once Bishop of S. Papulus of the Volcae, was solemnly performed, as is established from the letters given to him by the same Vicar general; by which also he granted an Indulgence of forty days, both to those who should be present at the translation, and especially to those who by their resources should have promoted so holy a work. Nor is to be passed over in this place, that which makes very much for the illustration as well as the confirmation of this history, that that casket, surrounded by six gilded plates of Corinthian bronze artfully wrought, on which the martyrdom is sculpted. in which are expressed to the life, the son of the Dynast the ravisher of the Virgin, the Virgin placed on his horse; the same leaping from the horse; afterward the head cut off, and her head carried before her, finally the apotheosis of her soul and its carrying into heaven by the ministry of Angels.

[10] The same preserved from the rage of the Calvinists. It is a wonder that this casket has come to us entire, since the heresy in the former age, with so obstinate wickedness and so sacrilegious impiety, attacked, dispersed, overthrew the Relics of the Saints, which both antiquity had so zealously preserved for us, and the piety of the Fathers had adorned with such precious gifts, and the veneration of the faithful had so greatly commended. The most fortified and most celebrated cities of this kingdom could neither protect nor snatch from the common fire the bodies of the saints, which to them, as once at Antioch the body of ^c S. Simeon Stylites, were a wall and a bulwark. Lyon lost SS. Irenaeus and Bonaventure: Tours SS. Martin and ^d Francis of Paola: Bourges B. ^e Joan once Queen of France, and B. Massaeus, one of the twelve first companions of Saint Francis of Assisi: Austrian Vienna was despoiled of the sacred remains of the Saints, with which the choir of its Metropolitan church was holily crowned. I pass over Orléans and similar cities, which suffered an equal loss: and yet in so general a fire, by which the most holy things, with so great custody, so long, so zealously preserved, were burned up; the small town of S. Solangia, undefended, with no circuit of walls, everywhere accessible to ravishers, open day and night, in a level plain, and what is chief, under the feudal dominion of the most powerful heretical Dynasts, who imported that pestilence into Gaul, keeps that treasure of hers intact even today, and inviolate, so many others being plundered, pillaged, broken with the mallet, melted and struck into coin, cast away, burned and reduced to ashes the bones of the Saints, and scattered to the winds.

[11] In time of drought, the inhabitants of Bourges and of the neighboring cities and towns have recourse to S. Solangia: who in time of drought and it has scarcely been observed, that the most powerful Patroness, and most gracious with God, was invoked in vain. But the apparatus of the supplication, as far as concerns the people of Bourges, is of this kind. Two country-men, is carried about by the supplicants, chosen from the very town of S. Solangia, putting their shoulders under the casket, with flowery garlands and crowns on their arms, bare-headed, bare-footed, make the whole journey: whom the neighbors accompany and join themselves to them by agreement, with their banners and crosses. The Parish-priest of S. Privatus first in the suburb itself receives the sacred Relics: the Prefect of the city and the Consuls the Four-men, with great burning torches, outside the pomerium; the Clergy of S. Stephen, and together the Urban Praetor with his Senate within the pomerium meet them, and to the Metropolitan temple of S. Stephen honorably and religiously lead them: then after some prayers there one goes into the sacred building of the B. Virgin, which they call de Salis, and there Mass is solemnly celebrated of the B. Virgin Mother of God. But that temple of de Salis is the most august of all, with singular pomp and religion; and of most ancient religion, built namely by Saint Ursinus, in the very place, in which that first Apostle of the people of Bourges (whom most learned men deservedly judge to have been ^f Nathanael, that true Israelite without guile, so greatly praised by the mouth of Christ the Lord) in the city then the chief of the Gauls, gave the beginning of Evangelical preaching. Toward the end of that Mass the two country-men, who put their neck under the sacred Relics, receive the body of Christ. There was a time when they also premised a three-day fast (now content with a vigil) and indeed deservedly: it is immovable if the carriers be nefarious. for the Virgin seems not only to demand sanctity, but also to require and altogether and severely exact it from those, by whom she suffers herself to be carried. A few years ago (the matter is known to all)

two worthless men, of contaminated life and famous for depraved morals, could by no force ever move the sacred Relics of the Virgin from the court of the temple. In the year MDCXXXI, of the two townsmen deputed to carry the sacred bier, one on the return of the supplication to a neighboring hamlet, named Paracy, when from some occasion I know not what, by a sudden motion and heat of boiling irascibility, not without public scandal of the bystanders, had sworn an oath; forthwith felt the punishment of the sin in the sight of all, one of the long poles or arms of the sacred bier being pressed down, and gravely pressing his shoulder, the other being lifted up into the air: while meanwhile his innocent comrade, who bore the same bier on his neck, felt no inconvenience. Which was so perspicuous to all, that the Priest himself who performed the duties of the Parish-priest, judging that the bier would fall unless it were succored; placed himself under the sacred load inclining toward a fall, that he might sustain it, and meet the ruin, which seemed near. At length that swearer, admonished by the miracle, his sin recognized, and pardon from his soul and from his inmost heart sought from God, ran over what remained of the journey with that facility, with which he had begun innocent. But to return to my purpose; all the ceremonies, which I just mentioned, being completed, the casket is carried back to S. Privatus: thence it is carried back to S. Solangia whence it had been carried out, the Parish-priest of the place always present, and leading the sacred procession.

[12] Moreover that supplication never enters except by the Gordonic gate, which place now is a crossroads and a most celebrated market, in which there was once a gate of the city, by which there was a way to Sancerre, then the Castle of Gordon, as now Sancerre, ^g as it were Sacrum-Cereris (Sacred to Ceres), so called, because it was dedicated and consecrated to Ceres, whom the ancients judged the goddess of the earth, whence also the city has a typical shield; a golden Goose bound with a silver fillet, in a field as they call it once scarlet, now azure or cyan. Into that place therefore, as into a crossroads and a market of saleable things, as I have said, most celebrated, there flows together for the most part a copious multitude of common people, and it happened in the year MDCXXXV, on the VI of May, that in the crowded throng of the people, in the year 1635 to remove the blasphemy of a Calvinist some Calvinist or other, when the frequent people followed the supplication, and everywhere by the manner and institution of the ancestors the crossroads resounded with the voices of those praying together; "S. Solangia, pray for us" (there was a drought for the greatest part of the season, and for that cause the casket of S. Solangia, with solemn rite and the wonted pomp, was being carried) "To what end," said he, "and for what good is that casket carried about? therefore, I believe, the cataracts of heaven will be open, because she is carried about the whole city!" But of this blasphemer God shortly closed the mouth, impudent equally as impious. For immediately from the first beginning of the Mass to the consecration and adoration of the Blood of Christ, a rain poured from the clouds, a poured rain falls; perspicuously declared, how present and efficacious was the patronage of S. Solangia, to obtain rain. Then in the year MDCXXXVII, that is two years after, again in the year 1637. for a similar necessity the Relics of S. Solangia were brought. The Clergy of S. Stephen and the Prefect of the city went forth to meet them at S. Lazarus: during the whole time of the sacrifice, which by custom was offered in the temple de Salis, a copious rain fell; and in the years thereafter following, as often as the supplication preceded, so often rains followed, and even in this very year MDCLVIII, and more often unto the year 1658. in which I write these things.

[13] Forestalled and provoked by so many and so great and so frequent benefits, the people of Bourges judged it their part, that a public testimony and eternal monument of their gratitude should exist: to which end, a magnificent indeed and precious silver casket, completed by collected money, they offered to their benefactress in the year MDCLVII, in which the former one of Corinthian bronze, after a silver casket made in the year 1657. as has been said, is enclosed: which as soon as it was brought to Bourges, an innumerable multitude of people following the procession, immediately after the supplication the clouds, the receptacles of celestial waters, most copious rains being poured, the thirsting lands, in the utmost aridity of the fields, widely irrigated. So beneficent is S. Solangia toward those invoking her. Who although she does not always with equal swiftness respond to the vows of those imploring; yet nevertheless persists in her ancient possession of satisfying sooner or later their pious expectation and just desires, procuring rains in their times, for tempering and softening the drought of the fields. Nor within these terms and bounds only does she circumscribe her patronage: she generally hears all who invoke her, for extirpating pestilence, averting diseases, and the other public as well as private calamities to be averted, as the people of Bourges have lately learned by their own experiences in the former years.

[14] she is venerated 10 May, and on the 2nd weekday of Pentecost, The feast of S. Solangia is celebrated on the tenth of May, namely the day of her martyrdom; moreover on the second weekday of Pentecost, the day of the translation of the Relics and at the same time of the dedication of the temple: on which days the people to three, four, sometimes five thousand follow the supplication, with a public supplication to the place, which once she ennobled by her prayers: which is commonly called the field of S. Solangia, as we have already noted above, in which a Cross is erected. And as the royal way cannot hold so great a multitude of people; so it comes about that the mixed throng treads and tramples down the fallow lands in its path, flowering according to the season of the year, without detriment to the fallow lands. the wheat not only growing up into a stalk, but also the stalk clothing itself into fruit, and the grain bursting from its sheath: and it is altogether a wonder, that the fallow lands so trodden down take no detriment thence, and the stalks within two days rise again so vigorous and upright, as if no man had trampled them. Of which miracle, now celebrated by the mouth of all, in the year MDCXXXVII Henry Bourbon the second, Prince of Condé, then dwelling at Bourges, wished to be an eyewitness. The supplication, which the casket of S. Solangia, as the Prince of Condé saw in person in the year 1637. having set out from Bourges by agreement to the town of S. Solangia for this very purpose, on the Kalends of June on the second weekday after Pentecost carried back to Bourges (the feast of Pentecost fell that year on the XXXI of May) was of four or five thousand, undertaken at the exhortation of the Reverend Father Andreas Bullengerus the Augustinian; to whom it was easy to impel the people of Bourges to that office of piety toward S. Solangia, since his popular eloquence and incredible force of stirring the common people, moreover the rarity of rains aided, the year accusing the stars scorching the fields; and not only did the fear of gathering nothing press, but now the desperation of harvest was almost present. The most Illustrious First-prince therefore saw, and with admiration saw, that effect of the divine goodness, in favor of the general Patroness of the people of Bourges.

[15] Nor is this miracle new, or observed only for a few years. For in the ancient monuments of the annals it is found, that in a similar supplication, when the casket of S. Solangia was being brought to the place, which I have mentioned, thus once a Jew prohibiting passage, and the people by custom wished to pass through the hemp-sown field of a certain Jew; the Jew opposed, utterly denied passage, and prepared himself to repel force, if it should be brought: the Parish-priest moved the people aside, and led the supplication by another way. the hemp dried up. But, God avenging the public crime of the Jew, immediately a slight dew fell upon the hemp of the Jew, and as if struck with blight by the rays of the sun, suddenly all withered: while on the contrary, the fallow lands, widely trodden down round about, rose more vigorous and gladder. This miracle, I say, cannot be but most ancient, since the Jews were not first driven from Gaul, before the year MCXC; and since, eight years interposed, they had returned by postliminy; they were not perpetually exiled, before the year MCCCXXIII: from which it follows, that for many years back S. Solangia undertook the procuration of the trodden-down fallow lands, from those who venerated her with solemn supplications.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

The manner of the pictures. The time and author of the martyrdom, and the comparison with S. Genovefa.

[16] S. Solangia is for the most part painted, ^a holding her head: as also S. Dionysius ^b the Apostle of the Gauls: S. Nicasius Prelate of Rouen designated by S. Dionysius: she is painted holding her head, that great Manlius Severinus Boethius the Roman, both Senator and Consul, whom Theodoric King of Italy ordered to be beheaded in the year DXXV: as also ^c S. Desiderius Bishop of Langres: finally Saint Justus, of Auxerre, a Martyr of nine years, or with a sword and palm, Patron of the people of Beauvais. Otherwise she is represented as a Virgin and Martyr, in her right hand bearing a sword, in her left a palm.

[17] at what time she suffered, is inquired, As far as concerns the time of the martyrdom no other light shines for us, from the history of her life, than that she necessarily died after the four hundredth year, since it narrates, that the Martyr carried her cut-off head into the temple of ^d S. Martin, whom it is established to have died in the year CCCCII under the Empire of Arcadius and Honorius, the sons of the Great Theodosius. As for the rest, the same history affirms, that she was slain by the son of the Dynast of Bourges. But that word Dynast seems to insinuate the possessor of Bourges and the Province, such as with the supreme right of Dominion the Counts or Governors of the Provinces of the kingdom began to be, from the coming of King Hugh Capet to the crown of the kingdom in the year DCCCCLXXXVII. But then, after about a hundred years, the King resuming Bourges, the province was governed by those Governors, who now were not its lords by supreme right: and that unto that time, in which King John from his return from England MCCCLX, after a captivity of four years and thirty-five days, erecting the Province into a Duchy and Patriciate, gave it in trust to John of France his son: whom also afterward many Kings imitated, who granted the same by feudal right to very many princely men as well as women of the royal stem. But besides that that word of Prince or Dynast, of itself indifferent, is also indefinite to signify all Governors, whether they possessed the province by private right, or not; it is perspicuous, that even if we take Dynasts

in the stricter sense, unless light shine for us from elsewhere, we still tarry in a too vast and vague reckoning of time, that we may proximately define the year of her martyrdom.

[18] Wherefore the notation of time which we seek would be utterly uncertain, unless a manuscript Codex, which is preserved in the Library of the Reverend Fathers Augustinians of this city, in which is also contained a brief chronology of the Archbishops likewise of this city, made us more certain, that S. Solangia consummated her martyrdom, by the very hands of Bernard the Count of the province, she seems to have suffered in the 9th century in the time of Frotarius Archbishop of Bourges. But that Frotarius had been first Archbishop of Bordeaux, and as such is found subscribed to the Council of Troyes, in the year DCCCLXVII. Then the Bordeaux territory being laid waste by the Normans, by the favor of King Charles the Bald he intruded himself into the Bishopric of Poitiers, afterward also thrust himself into the Archbishopric of Bourges, by the favor of the same King, either at the end of the year DCCCLXXV or at the beginning of DCCCLXXVI, Vulphadus being dead. But a little after, by the Apostolic Legates and by the King, celebrating the Paschal feast at S. Dionysius, a general Synod of Pontigon being proclaimed for the next month of July, when through courtly flattery Frotarius had spoken things pleasing to the King, concerning the Primacy of Angesigus Bishop of Sens; the day before the Ides of July, by the authority of the Apostolic Legates, there was read in the Synod the proclamation of the same Frotarius Archbishop of Bordeaux, that it might be permitted him to occupy the Metropolis of Bourges; which also he did, the Bishops protesting in vain by unanimous consent. The King moreover striving, and with the Roman Pontiff John VIII insisting, that he would deign to approve this either introduction or intrusion, and confirm it by his authority; the Pontiff deferred the answer long enough; at length legitimately admonished, and made more certain that the Archbishopric of Bourges was vacant, by the death of Vulphadus on the sixth of the Nones of October DCCCLXXV, or, as others would have it, the day before the Kalends of April of the following year DCCCLXXVI he having ended his life; he wrote to the King in the year DCCCLXXVI in the month of October (which is the eighth of his letters) and likewise to Frotarius (which is the thirty-seventh) and to this Archbishop of Bordeaux, he indulged the administration of the Archbishopric of Bourges, that which he calls, to make a Cardinal and to Incardinate.

[19] About that time, the Count of Bourges was Bernard, and slain by Count Bernard. son of Bernard Count of Poitiers and of Bilichildis, the younger brother of Ranulph, the first of that name Count of Poitiers, and the first Duke of Aquitaine created by Charles the Bald, when he suppressed the kingdom of Aquitaine and again instituted the Duchy in the year DCCCLVI. Moreover that Bernard Count of Bourges, was Marquis of Nevers: whence also the aforesaid Pope John VIII, in his letter CV, names him Marquis and the most noble of Marquises: he was moreover Count of Auvergne. That Bernard therefore, Count of Bourges and Auvergne and Marquis of Nevers, powerful as he was, with all effort opposed, that is, most powerfully resisted this introduction of Frotarius, pledged all his goods, and claimed them for himself: which also he interdicted to the Archbishop, nor left him even free entrance to the city of Bourges. Which when the Pontiff had learned, he admonished the Count of his duty: and when nevertheless he persisted in his purpose, and proceeded to be further troublesome to the Archbishop; he at length removed the obstinate one from the communion of the faithful in the year DCCCLXXVIII, as is established from his Letter CXX: in which he calls him the son of Bernard and Bilichildis, and a sacrilegious invader of the goods of the Church. But also the same Pontiff in the same year DCCCLXXVIII, a great assembly of Bishops being gathered at Troyes (since, King Charles the Bald being dead, under his son and successor Louis the Stammerer he had come into the Gauls) the sanctions of the Sardican and African Council being recited, by which Bishops were prohibited from passing to other Churches, their own being left; decreed, that those who had departed from their Sees should return to them. By the force of which decree Frotarius was compelled, the Church of Bourges dismissed, to pass to Poitiers on the VII of the Ides of September, after he had occupied the See of Bourges for three years and fourteen days: where also he died, and in the Abbey of S. Cyprian, which he himself had built, was buried. From these things, which have been said hitherto, it can not obscurely be gathered, about what year S. Solangia joined to the lily of virginity the roses of martyrdom: namely under Frotarius and by the very hands of Bernard Count of Bourges, son of Bernard Count of Poitiers and of Bilichildis: that is, within the triennium of the introduction, administration, and deposition of Frotarius, on the day X of May, which day is sacred to her memory. But on which precisely of those three years; uncertain. Although also, the things which we have said hitherto, selected though from most approved authors, have their ^e authors who think otherwise: so great is the diversity either of opinions or of carelessness of the writers of that time, and so they suffer their own difficulties. We in so great a variety of opinions, have followed probability and the authority of the best writers. Let someone arise at some time, who may happily both find and set forth something more certain! which if anyone shall do; we will not unwillingly embrace it.

[20] Who now in so great a Virgin would not admire the love of virginity, Celestial gifts conferred on her. the force of love toward Christ, the goodness, and Divine providence toward a humble and, to the sense of men, abject keeper of sheep in the territory of Bourges? The love of virginity indeed: which yielded not nor was in any way bent to the nuptials of the Prince offered of his own accord, to a girl humble and a daughter of the earth, if not also of heaven, lest she lose the treasure of purity: which as nature grants us, so grace alone preserves and guards. But the incredible force of love toward Christ, which already from the seventh year of her age so occupied the heart of the little virgin, that she preferred to die, than to displease her Spouse and send back the messenger. Finally the goodness of Divine providence, which subjected to its handmaid, noble by no clearness of birth, an entire and illustrious province, which she living could not even hope for according to her condition, and had spurned the dominion offered of his own accord by a Prince. But now she is a refuge and a sacred anchor to all the calamitous; and to her the recourse is so certain, that to have invoked is enough, especially in time of drought; in which time she so promptly obtains rain, as if she had the keys of the cataracts of heaven at hand. Very many of the Saints command demons: others seem to have power of diseases and health, of life and death: to others power over tempests, winds, elements has been granted: to some virginity has fallen as their portion; to some the palm of martyrdom has come as their lot; to others both jointly. But how many will be found, whose sepulchers Angelic harmonies have more often adorned? How few, who have left the illustrious vestiges of their sojourn on earth, which scarcely fables have feigned in heaven, impressed unto all memory of posterity? How rare, who have borne their cut-off head in their hands, and carried it thither, where by the concourse and veneration of peoples they might be venerated? Will many be numbered, who after death have spoken, and who have so much of authority in their patronage, that for entire regions, laboring with want of waters, they obtain rains at will? But God in the one S. Solangia collected those various gifts, and granted them in her favor with this intent, that she might be a veneration to all: especially to the people of Bourges, whose prayers she so kindly hears, and so humanely as well as powerfully grants. Let us too pray that she may impress Jesus on our heart, and so deeply engrave His love, that from its abundance the tongue may often pronounce, what the heart will love. Let us pray, that she may obtain for us from God command over the winds of our souls and the whirlwinds, that is over the perturbations hostile to tranquillity: that she may entreat showers of tears, more precious than all the showers which she ever obtained for the territory of Bourges, and than which heaven can pour nothing more fruitful upon the earth.

[21] Moreover, who does not detect in the province of Bourges ^f another Genovefa? If Genovefa of Paris was born in a humble place, a country-woman, a keeper of sheep and a virgin; so likewise is the one of Bourges. she is compared with S. Genovefa. The level of the fields was to each an oratory, where they might deal more familiarly with God: the daily use and exercise of feeding sheep supplied to each the matter of piety, by representing to the eyes of their mind, with a most tender sense of love, the highest and chief Shepherd of all, seeking the lost sheep, placing the sought and found one on His shoulders and carrying it back to the sheepfold, thence to be brought into the celestial dwellings. S. Genovefa is the Patroness of the people of Paris and their tutelary Angel; S. Solangia of the people of Bourges. At Paris, the fields thirsting and laboring with heat, S. Genovefa is a refuge: to the people of Bourges, S. Solangia. But if the merits of each suffer comparison (although to judge concerning the merits of the Saints is not ours, since God is their judge and rewarder) in one thing it seems to me S. Solangia far excels S. Genovefa, namely that to the grace of virginity she joined also the glory of martyrdom, and merited a double crown; while to S. Genovefa only the aureole of virginity is owed.

ANNOTATIONS.

ANCIENT HYMN.

Solongia, Virgin and Martyr among the people of Bourges (S.)

Now let us today give thanks to Christ, the glory of the Saints, Who to Blessed Solongia gave eternal rewards.

This Blessed Solongia loved Christ alone with a pure heart From infancy, free from all defilement.

Believing Christ, worshipping Christ and loving Him above all, Treading down Satan, spurning the world, and breaking the vices of the flesh.

Jesus, whom living she bore written in her heart continually, She brought forth in a threefold word, dying happily.

In the celestial college this Blessed Solongia, With the lily of chastity is crowned with glory.

Villemont is honored with the odor of her name; The stream of the fountain is reddened with the color of her blood.

She spurned human marriage for the love of Christ: On account of which also the holy virgin sustained martyrdom.

Her severed head she lifted up, the grace of Christ favoring:

And to the place she carried it, in which now is the church.

In which her ailments are healed by her holy prayers: Diseases, fevers and pains from the bodies of many.

May power most worthily chant praise, honor, glory to the most high Trinity, Through Blessed Solongia.

ANTIPHON.

Solangia, Virgin to be venerated, whose feasts to be celebrated Have returned annually; Chaste, prudent, and faithful, Be willing to obtain for us perpetual joys.

℣ Pray for us, Blessed Solangia.

℞ That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

PRAYER.

By the clemency of Thy piety, we beseech Thee, O Lord our God, look upon the universality of Thy Church with a propitious countenance, who hast deigned happily to exalt the most Blessed Solangia, Virgin and Martyr, with celestial glory. Through the Lord.

POPE ALEXANDER VII.

Solongia, Virgin and Martyr among the people of Bourges (S.)

FROM MANUSCRIPTS.

For the perpetual memory of the matter. Since, as we have received, in the Parochial church, commonly called de S. Solange, Indulgences for the Confraternity of S. Solangia erected in her church of the Diocese of Bourges, a pious and devout Confraternity of the faithful of Christ of both sexes, under the invocation of S. Solangia, yet not for men of one special craft, canonically erected or to be erected exists, whose Confraternity-brothers and Confraternity-sisters are wont to exercise very many works of piety and charity; We, that the Confraternity of this kind may daily receive greater increases, trusting in the mercy of almighty God and in the authority of His Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the faithful of both sexes, who shall enter the said Confraternity, after it shall be canonically erected, on the first day of their entrance, if truly penitent and confessed they shall have received the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, a Plenary; and also both to the Confraternity-brothers and Confraternity-sisters described and to be described in time in the same Confraternity, in the article of the death of each of them, if also truly penitent and confessed and refreshed by sacred Communion, or as far as they cannot do this at least contrite, the name of Jesus with the mouth, if they shall be able, but if not with the heart devoutly shall have invoked, also a Plenary; and to them now and in time the Confraternity-brothers and Confraternity-sisters, truly penitent and confessed and refreshed by sacred Communion, who shall have devoutly visited the church or chapel or oratory of the aforesaid Confraternity on the tenth day of the month of May, from first Vespers until the setting of the sun, on such a day, each year; and there for the concord of Christian Princes, the extirpation of heresies, and the exaltation of holy Mother Church shall have poured pious prayers to God, a Plenary likewise Indulgence and remission of all their sins we mercifully grant in the Lord. Moreover to the same, truly likewise penitent and confessed and refreshed by sacred Communion, visiting and praying at the church or chapel or oratory of this kind on the feast-days of the Purification, Annunciation, and Assumption of the immaculate Virgin Mary, and also on the second Feast of Pentecost, as is premised, on whichever of the aforesaid days they shall have done it, seven years and as many quarantines; but as often as they shall be present at the Masses and other Divine Offices, to be celebrated and recited in the said church or chapel or oratory in time, or at public or private congregations of that Confraternity to be made anywhere, or shall have received the poor into hospitality, or shall have composed peace between enemies or caused it to be composed or procured it, and also those who shall have accompanied to burial the bodies of the deceased, both of the Confraternity-brothers and Confraternity-sisters of this kind and of others; or shall have accompanied any Processions whatsoever, to be made with the license of the Ordinary, and the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, both in Processions and when to the sick or elsewhere wherever or however in time it shall be carried; or if impeded, the signal of the bell being given for that once shall have said the Lord's prayer and the Angelic salutation; or also five times the same prayer and salutation for the souls of the deceased Confraternity-brothers and Confraternity-sisters aforesaid shall have recited; or finally shall have brought back anyone to the way of salvation, and shall have taught those ignorant of the Precepts of God and the things which are unto salvation; or shall have exercised any other work of piety or charity; so often, for each of the aforesaid works, sixty days of the penances enjoined on them or otherwise in any way due, in the wonted form of the Church, we relax: the present being valid for perpetual future times. But we will that if otherwise to the said Confraternity-brothers or Confraternity-sisters, performing the premises, any other Indulgence perpetually or for a time not yet elapsed to last, shall have been granted; the present be void: and that also, if the said Confraternity be already aggregated to some Archconfraternity, or be aggregated or by any other reason united, or also in any way instituted, the former and any other Apostolic letters shall in no way avail them, but from then by that very fact be utterly void. Given at Rome at Saint Mary Major under the Fisherman's ring, on the nineteenth day of March, MDCLVIII, in the Third Year of our Pontificate.

the publication of the same. Annas de Levy de Ventadour, by the Grace of God Archbishop of Bourges, Primate of the Aquitanias, ordinary Counselor of the Most Christian King in his more holy Councils, to all who shall inspect the present letters health in the Lord. The present Indulgences having been seen, and also the erection of the Confraternity under the invocation of S. Solangia in the Parochial church dedicated to the said Saint, made by our authority; we permitted the publication of the said Indulgences in our Diocese. Given at Bourges in our Archiepiscopal Palace on the twenty-second day of May, in the year MDCLVIII.

similar ones in another within the city. There is also another Diploma of the same Pontiff Alexander VII, given at Rome on the VI of March MDCLVII, and here approved on the XXVI of April, by which to the Confraternity, erected under the invocation of the same S. Solangia by Apostolic and Patriarchal authority in the secular and Collegiate church of S. Peter-of-the-Girls, indulgences and graces altogether equal are granted. Which since it is most similar to the former one; and with only the names changed by nearly the same copy; we here pass it over, content to have admonished the reader.

John de Villiers, Licentiate in the Decrees, Dean of the Church of Bourges, and of the most Reverend Father in Christ and Lord, the Lord Michael, by the grace of God and of the holy Apostolic See Archbishop of Bourges; Primate of Aquitaine, General Vicar in spiritual and temporal affairs; to the Reverend Father in Christ and Lord D. Dionysius de Bar, once Bishop of S. Papulus, Health in the Lord. the faculty of the Vicar for the translation of the Relics, The Proctors of the fabric of S. Solangia, of the diocese of Bourges, have set forth to us, that they to the praise of God and the honor and propagation of the name of the said S. Solangia, and that by the faithful of Christ daily flowing thither it may be more fittingly adorned and venerated, have caused a casket of gilded copper to be made, into which the Body of the same saint and the precious bones existing in a certain other ancient wooden casket they intend with singular devotion to cause to be translated: hence it is that we, assenting to the devout intention of the same Proctors and of the other parishioners of the said Parish, that you may be able to open the ancient wooden casket of this kind, and the body, head, relics, and precious bones aforesaid of the same Saint from it into the said copper casket, the solemnities required in such cases being observed, to translate; we impart and grant to you the faculty: and also to all and singular the faithful of Christ assisting or being present at the Translation of this kind, who from the goods conferred on them by God shall have contributed to bearing the burdens and expenses to be made there, or also shall have extended helping hands; forty days of the penances enjoined on them in the Lord we mercifully relax. Given at Bourges on the last day of the month of May, MDXI, by the authority of the aforesaid most Reverend Lord, which we discharge in this part. Done as above.

CONCERNING S. GUILLELMUS THE PRESBYTER

OF PONTOISE IN GAUL.

IN THE YEAR MCXCII.

Guillelmus the Presbyter of Pontoise in Gaul (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

Rigordus, Chronographer of Philip Augustus King of the Franks, in his deeds writes these things: "In the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred ninety-two, on the twentieth day of the month of November, there was a particular eclipse of the Moon after midnight in the sixth degree of Gemini, and it lasted for two hours. But in the following May, on the sixth of the Ides of that month, the day of his death at the time of the Rogations at Pontoise a certain Priest, English by nation, Guillelmus by name, strong in sanctity of life and morals, miracles migrated to the Lord. At whose sepulcher at the time of his death, the Lord cooperating, many miracles were done, the blind illumined, the lame cured, but others from various diseases fully restored to former health. pilgrimages, But the fame of so great a man being diffused through the world, made many come from diverse parts for the cause of pilgrimage to the place of his burial." Thus Rigordus. The sacred memory of this Thaumaturge on the said X of May, is inscribed in various Martyrologies, concerning whom in the Manuscript Florary of the Saints these things are handed down: "At Pontoise, of Guillelmus the Priest." In Greven in the Auctarium of Usuard, struck about the years MDXV and MDXXI, these things are read: memory in the calendars. "At Pontoise, of S. Guillelmus the Presbyter and Confessor, a man of great charity." Which same things are handed down in the German Martyrology of Canisius: and from this cited he is inscribed in the general Catalogue of Ferrarius. Richard Whitford in the Martyrology, which in English according to the use of the Church of Salisbury in the year MDXVI he edited at London, has these things on this day: "Likewise the feast of S. Guillelmus born in England, a man of great sanctity and of very many miracles." On which day also Saussay in the supplement of the Gallican Martyrology writes these things: "At Pontoise, of S. Guillelmus the Presbyter, illustrious by zeal for souls and by studies and arts of piety." But Pontoise, or Bridge on the river Oise, by some writers Isara, is a city six leagues distant from Paris: concerning which we treated more fully on VIII April, at the Life of S. Galterius the Abbot.

[2] Robert the monk of Auxerre, who flourished in those times, describes this history with some other circumstances: "In the same year," he says, "in the Bishopric of Paris at the castle of Pontoise, a certain Priest, Wilelmus by name, while he was performing with the people the Litanies, which are before the Ascension of the Lord, touched by a sudden ailment died. his virtues: Concerning him they relate, that he was of wondrous charity toward the poor and widows and orphans, and a vehement assailant of vices, and a most vigilant prosecutor of the divine office; and although dwelling in the world, yet altogether postponing the world: who how purely, how acceptably he served God, is plain from the showing of frequent signs, by which the Lord magnifies His Saint." Thus the said Robert, who seems to refer his death to the year MCXCII, but Rigordus to the year MCXCIII, while after the eclipse of the month of November of the year MCXCII he asserts the said Guillelmus dead in the following May. But we judge it must be read, in the preceding May, the time of his death the Rogation Sunday, in the year 1192 and thus by Robert the same year would be indicated. But this conjecture is excellently proved from the days of the Rogations or Litanies before the Ascension of the Lord indicated. For in the cited year MCXCII with the cycle of the Moon XV, of the Sun XXV with the Sunday letters ED, Easter was celebrated on the fifth day of April, the feast of the Ascension on the XIV of May, and the preceding Sunday on the X day of the same May on which he is said to have died, when he was performing the Litanies with the people: which very Sunday they seem in the Gallican Churches to have begun to be performed. But these things could not be referred to the preceding or following year; because then this Rogation Sunday fell, either on the XIX of May, or on the day XII of May.

CONCERNING B. BEATRICE ATESTINA

VIRGIN NUN OF PADUA.

OF THE ORDER OF S. BENEDICT.

IN THE YEAR MCCXXVI

Beatrix Atestina, of the Order of S. Benedict of Padua (B.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

In the most illustrious family of the Princes of Este the celebrated names of the Azzos and Beatrices were much used, the former of men, the latter of women: and of these two were conspicuous for sanctity of life, namely Beatrix daughter of Azzo IX (whom they call Azolinus or Acciolinus), B. Beatrix of the family of Este, of whom we gave some Acts in the Appendix of the second volume of January page 1138, pertaining to the day XVIII, about to give more in the Supplement of the same month. The other B. Beatrix, was her aunt and the sister of the said Azzo, whose sayings and deeds Albert the principal Priest in the monastery of Monte delle Vigne is testified to have copiously committed to writing, by Bernardinus Scardeonius, in book 2 of the Antiquities of the city of Padua Class 6 page 119, and by Joannes Baptista Pigna, in book 2 of the History of Este page 149. But the writing of that Albert is asserted no longer to be found in chapter 25 and the last of the Italian life which, edited by Jacobus Philippus Tomasinus, Bishop of Cittanova in Istria consecrated about the year MDCXLI, published in the year MDCXIII, the Soror Quieta Optata, Abbess of the monastery of S. Sophia of Padua, where the body of that Blessed one is had and venerated, took care to have reprinted again in the year MDCLXXIII, and dedicated to Cardinal Gregory Barbarigo Bishop of Padua. There is cited also in the same place a Manuscript of the monastery of S. John the Baptist of Jemula, in the vulgar tongue concerning the Life of Beatrix; and it is cited as nearest in antiquity to the writing of that Albert, before the other twelve there enumerated and treating of Beatrix writers: wherefore through the Reverend Father Heraclius Christanellus, most zealous for promoting this work, from whom we had obtained the printed Life, we insisted, that at least a copy of that Manuscript should be made for us; but he migrating thence, this endeavor too was in vain: nor did we believe we should insist further, since, the Italian writings of those who had used it being weighed, we saw they say scarcely anything, which is not found in the two elogies of two authors here to be set forth, by which at least the defect of the later monument is abundantly supplied. The first and coeval of the Saint is the Paduan Monk, she is praised by a coeval Paduan Monk from whose pen we have a Chronicle, together with the history of Albertinus Mussatus struck at Venice in the year MDCXXXVI. He in book 3 page 37 under this title, "Concerning the venerable Virgin Beatrix, sister of the Marquis of Este, who rests in the mount of Jemula," subjoins this narration of her life.

[2] It accrues to the praise of the most noble house of Este, that it is not only adorned with the illustrious works of illustrious men; but also from it proceeded a generous offspring of notable women, who conquering the concupiscence of the flesh together with the world, and manfully triumphing over the prince of the world, came happily, as is piously believed, to the starry realms. The first of whom was the most noble virgin, as one who, having spurned nuptials, in fact and in name Beatrix, sister of the aforesaid Marquis: who when she was of wondrous beauty of body and manifoldly adorned with virtue, despised the world with its pomp, refused to receive a mortal spouse, desiring to come to the chaste embraces of the eternal Spouse, beautiful in form above the sons of men. This most holy purpose therefore of the most devout virgin, her illustrious brother and a throng of friends and a multitude of noble matrons, for love of present things unmindful of future ones, strove in all ways to impede: now proposing to the chaste virgin the glory of the world, now the marriage of a noble spouse, and the felicity of most sweet offspring: and likewise they asserted that the ruin of her house, the sadness of friends and the joy of enemies would follow from such a change. By these and words of this kind composed for deceiving, they strove to recall the mind of the glorious virgin from her good purpose. But the most prudent virgin, illustrated by the grace of the sevenfold Spirit, which makes the tongues of infants eloquent, reckoned their words, having a certain appearance of truth, but existing not at all so, as nothing; and that God alone must be served, because whatever else is done in this life is lost, she showed by most efficacious arguments. The purpose therefore, and embraced the monastic life. which the wise virgin had conceived in her heart, eager to fulfill it by fruitful works; to the mount, which is called Jemula, where there is an oratory constructed to the honor of B. John the Baptist, with certain other honorable virgins, having the same intention with her, forthwith flew: and there in holy conversation unceasingly remaining, the Lord illustrated all Italy for the cause of her sanctity.

[3] The fame therefore far and wide running concerning the conversation of the precious virgin, many most illustrious virgins began, even from far parts, like doves fleeing a hawk, she gathered to herself very many virgins, to come to the aforesaid place, desiring to be instructed by the disciplines of so great a virgin, and to be informed by the examples of her holy conversation and most devout colloquies. Of whose coming indeed the illustrious virgin gave thanks to the Divine majesty, with tearful prayers entreating the Creator, that He who from diverse regions had gathered virgins of this kind, for the glory of His name and honor, would deign to keep them in the observance of holy religion. By the salubrious counsel therefore of the most prudent virgin Beatrix, all the aforesaid ten virgins concordantly elected a certain Sister Desiderata as Abbess, who should manfully provide for so most holy a college. Under whose rule with how great humility, obedience, patience, and charity the devout virgin led an Angelic life on earth, it would be too prolix to narrate the several things; but as the holy virgins related to us, and instructed in every kind of virtue who deserved to have the company of this most pious virgin, we briefly say, that both the words and the deeds of the glorious virgin were seasoned with discretion, full of honesty, conspicuous in goodness, and gracious to God and men: so that by her honest manners and the ordered gestures of her body, and by her words usefully and piously brought forth, it was believed by all, that God truly dwelt in the bridal chamber of her heart. And when for a long time shining with these aforesaid and other virtues the most illustrious virgin had remained in divine services and regular disciplines; the celestial King, who desired her beauty, mercifully freed her most holy soul from the prison-house of the present life, that He might adorn the celestial court with her blessed company: after death she is in veneration. by whose radiant example the present Church was wonderfully illustrated. But her most holy body in the aforesaid reverend monastery, in a stone ark was honorably placed with spices, where in great veneration unto the present time it is held. Thus the Paduan Monk: to whom we subjoin another elogium with an epitaph, written by the above cited Scardeonius, which is of this kind.

[4] It must now be said concerning B. Beatrix Atestina, in fact and in name truly Blessed, sprung from the municipality of Este of Padua, Likewise from Scardeonius that, the world being contemned, and a daughter from the most noble progeny of Accius of Este by his second wife: who although in the highest delights had been softly brought up, yet kindled with the ardor of the Holy Spirit, for the love of Christ all the enticements of this world being spurned, dedicated herself wholly to God from almost infant age: choosing no other spouse to be named to herself than Christ. And although both for the nobility of her race, and also on account of the exceptional beauty of her body, she was prematurely sought in marriage by many most noble Princes; she nevertheless, disgusted and utterly hating the name of nuptials, with a constant mind answered that she wished to be betrothed to Christ alone. In a short time at length, deprived of both parents, with many prayers she strove to entreat Acciolinus her brother, that through him it might be permitted her without any expense of dowry to undertake the espousals of Christ; whom with all her heart she burned for, and to whose nuptials she panted with mind and spirit. against the will of her brother the Marquis, But when he utterly denied; she at length decreed to steal herself secretly from the paternal house, her brother unaware, and to enter secretly the monastery of Salarola, which was not far thence; and to bind herself with those sacred virgins as a not-unworthy companion in perpetuity to the service of God. And fearing, lest perchance some force or molestation should come upon those very virgins for her cause either from her brother or from the soldiers, who in the neighboring castles of Cerro and Calaone then stood as a garrison; she used in that matter the counsel of Jordan Forzateus Prior of S. Benedict, and likewise of Albert Prior of Monte delle Vigne, men of great authority, and joined to herself by the bond of kinship. Of this also she made conscious Aloysia her stepmother, a most prudent woman; and also Michael, a soldier exceedingly strenuous, who at that time presided over the town of Accello or Monte-Silice: that if perchance anything graver should threaten the sacred virgins from Acciolius the brother or from the military garrison, together with these Priors they might in any way mitigate the fury of the brother, and also if it were necessary repel force by force.

[5] All things therefore being thus disposed, Beatrix wholly burning with the love of Christ, her garments changed, received by Jordan and by Albert, religious men, who according to the agreement awaited her outside, from Este to the monastery of Salarola by night with a most honorable escort is led: she betook herself to Salarola and put on the habit: where with incredible alacrity received by those virgins, and the Vestal habit immediately put on, to her Spouse, whom she had so greatly desired, she is more closely joined. Meanwhile a sudden tumult arises in the house of the brother: who for too great fury could scarcely be restrained, but that, attacking the monastery, he should snatch her thence by force, and ill-treat the Abbess with the virgins. But on this side the mother Aloysia, on that Michael the friend and kinsman restrain the fury of the angry man, and meanwhile by the craft of Jordan the matter is deferred, until that recent fury boiled over. But so much availed the humble and assiduous entreaty of Beatrix and of the trembling Sisters, that Acciolinus, what he had before so greatly shuddered at, soon his mind changed approved: and the vow of his sister being received, one of all thenceforth before the rest favored it.

[6] then in the mount Gemmula A year and a half therefore the pious virgin accustomed herself there to all the monastic instructions: but she was so greatly wearied of the noise of drums and the clangor of trumpets, and the uncertain clamors of soldiers, which from the too great nearness of the places were there assiduously heard, that she did not seem altogether to have wholly left her paternal house. Wherefore she determined to go to Gemmula, a monastery utterly alien from such a tumult: which at that time, the wicked monks being driven thence, happened to be vacant of an inhabitant. This therefore with the consent of the Abbess and of the Bishop of Padua, together with ten other virgins, a great number of matrons accompanying, she enters, one of whom we read to have been B. Juliana of Mantua of the noble family of the Ripa-comites… Our Beatrix therefore lived thenceforth, as long as she lived, in labors, miseries, vigils and most bitter chastisements of the body: but the softness and adornment of bed, and of garments and of all beautiful furniture always detesting, and all delights and the seasonings of foods utterly contemning, nor making more of the world and its pomps than of the foulest dung of the world. she lived most holily, Hence humility, obedience, chastity, assiduous prayers, fastings, divine meditations, celestial contemplations, were ever her only delights and her one joy. No arrogance in her, no boasting, no memory finally of worldly nobility or

agnation or cognation any more. But of riches so great a contemner and a lover of poverty she had been, that she desired nothing rather, than at times to be burdened with want and need. For she said that nothing more avails to relax the hearts of virgins, and to impel them from spiritual fervor to the love of earthly things, than the abundance of things and the superfluous abuse of riches. Wherefore (as Albert Prior of Monte delle Vigne relates, not permitting even a single coin to be kept. who first, as I hear, is reported to have written her Life) when once a silver coin had been found upon the altar, and no other was left in the whole monastery; she commanded it to be given to the needy. "Let not, I pray," she said, "that coin obscure the splendid name of most perfect poverty, which we have promised to God; and let it not bring to us the beginning of avarice and the evil seed of propagating cupidity."

[7] She therefore shining with such sanctity, after five years, from when she had gone to Gemmula, migrated to the Lord. But concerning the signs and prodigies and of her life and death, at length forewarned of death by the appearance of a dove, besides the other things which are related of her, this I have judged must by no means be kept silent: that a little before her death, while among the rest of the Virgins she reclined at table, that she might take food; a most white dove, never before seen there, remaining beside her, where as if admiring her it had for some while gazed at her with fixed eye, of its own accord flew away, nor was ever seen any more. This a little before her death. But afterward through a long space of time it was observed: that as often as anything new threatened the family of Este, from which she had sprung, so often many days before in her chapel a very great noise was heard, and her body, which by custom lay supine in the sepulcher, was found turned to the other side. Which indeed what it portended, it is not here ours to seek. But the memory of this matter, observed and known then in that age, gave warning to posterity. But she died being only twenty years old, professed indeed, but on account of her youth not yet by the custom of the Church blessed by the Bishop. Buried at Gemmula in the temple of S. John the Baptist in a marble ark, where is this epitaph.

[8] In this tomb lies the pious virgin Beatrix by name, Who was from her soul a lover of the divine law: she is praised by this epitaph. Whom the Marquis of Este begot and Azzo is called, Born of a wife, a father whom Savoy accompanies. This indeed a gem, who now shines above the stars, Made the monastery, through which the mount Gemmula shines: Although she was lofty, powerful, upright, noble, and generous, Renowned, eloquent, pleasing, and before all also beautiful, Chaste, modest however, wise and chaste in mind, Making herself humble, she becomes the friend of the King of heaven. Who the loftier she was in this world, So much the more was she in mind subject to Christ. Mount Gemmula rejoice, who enjoyest so great praise: And let the Sisters strive to equal her morals, That after the Matron they may deserve to have the crown, This which she laid as a foundation, may God accomplish. Amen. In the year of the Lord MCCXXVI, the sixth of the Ides of May.

[9] Other writers concerning the same. Thus far Scardeonius, in whom several things were inserted concerning B. Juliana of Mantua, to be set forth on the Kalends of September, her birthday. Joannes Baptista Pigna above mentioned adds these things to the others related: "With this specimen of a most holy life and fame kindling innumerable persons, in the mount Gemmula, on the VI of the Ides of May, she flew up to the powers above, after the twentieth year of her age; perhaps the more swiftly, the more by fasting and religious vigils and secret meditations she had more attenuated herself. To her memory divine honors were given and the surname of Blessed was bestowed." To these add, whom we have not seen, Michael Savonarola "Concerning the magnificent ornaments of the city of Padua," ornament IV. Two Italian lives And these indeed all wrote in Latin. In Italian the same Beatrix prolixly praised Angelus Portenarus, of the Eremitan order of S. Augustine, in the work entitled "The Felicity of Padua" book 2 chapter 11 and book 9 chapters 24, 36 and 40: which author however we have also not seen; but we have found him alleged, first with him who in the year 1649 edited an opusculum concerning the life of Beatrix, augmented by himself with copious Historical notes and an index and prefaces, which until then was preserved in the monastery of S. Sophia of Padua, under the title "Of triumphal humility."

[10] This Manuscript also is alleged by the author of the above named more prolix Italian Life, Bishop Tomasinus, no mention being made of the aforesaid Notes and edition; so that he seems to have known nothing of them. from which, edited in the years 1649 and 1651 But he had that still unedited but prepared for the press, when to Ferdinand Ughellus, preparing volume V of sacred Italy, was sent the Catalogue of the Bishops of Cittanova, whose series this Tomasinus closes with a notable elogium and an enumeration of manifold writers, both edited and then still unedited. But among the edited is the life of B. Jordan Forzateus above praised given to the light in the year MDCL, one year before this life was edited. But it was edited with a previous dedication to the nuns of S. Sophia, and a protestation of the author that he undertook that writing, in thanksgiving for some singular benefit, which he believed himself to have received divinely through Beatrix; as in the previous Dedicatory to the second edition of the year 1673 the curatrix of that new edition the Abbess Quieta testifies. Further from each of those Italian lives and the Annotations to the first it is helpful here to excerpt some things, a supplement is given. which may illustrate the narration of the Paduan Monk and of Scardeonius, and complete the rest of the narration concerning the body and cult of Beatrix.

HISTORICAL SUPPLEMENT

From the twin Italian Life.

Beatrix Atestina, of the Order of S. Benedict of Padua (B.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

[1] [Deprived of her mother she was brought up under the care of her stepmother and aunt:] In the town of Este, in the year MCCVI Beatrix was born, her father Azzo VIII, son of Obizo; her mother Leonora, daughter of Thomas III Count of Savoy; as an infant indeed she was deprived of her, and passed into the power and care of Marchesella daughter of Adelardus de Adelardis, once Governor of Ferrara and Ancona, whom by a second marriage Azzo her father had joined to himself; and of Elisa, daughter of Ludovicus Count of S. Boniface, whom Tomasinus calls the aunt of Beatrix, perhaps because she was the wife of Boniface her uncle, who beyond the cares of the public affair attended to administering the domestic ones at Este. But the same is perhaps she, whom Scardeonius calls Aloysia, and wrongly believed to be the stepmother of the Blessed one. For which cause some other writer is also compelled to admit even a third marriage of Azzo, which from elsewhere he does not prove. I, if she was not the wife of Boniface, would call Elisa or Aloysia either the wife of his brother Aldobrandinus, or joined to Beatrix by some other degree of consanguinity or affinity, rather than a second stepmother.

[2] But after she reached the sixth year of her age, her father also died to her, but at six she also loses her father, a man most praised for heroic fortitude and Christian piety: and in the Abbey of Vangadizza, in a notable marble tomb, which now is converted into the use of a Baptistery, he was laid with an epitaph, which sculpted on the stone in Lombardic letters is of this kind.

In Thy years, O Christ, twice six and a thousand two hundred Azzo the Marquis yielded to the fates, in the month of November: The flower, the glory of empire, the flower of the fatherland, the glory of the world, Beautiful, comely, wise, eloquent, spirited. If he cultivated peace, if he waged sad wars, Ever in each was he provident and gracious. What he did to Frederick, what he did to Otto, Is known to all, it is not expedient here to be recited. a man most praised in the epitaph. Mantua, and Verona, together Ferrara mourn, To whom he had been Lord at that time and Power. Why do I tarry in words? There is none who can tell, Nor could be written, how great his grace had been. Envious death snatched him, that he should not live longer: I believe that thence the moon was even then bloody. Such and so great a man lies here, in this tomb is entombed. Who sees this, let him say at least, God bless him. When you have seen Azzo, by these verses Let him be known to you, although he be removed in flesh. He was a Tully in eloquence, a man of Pella (Alexander) in arms, An Ithacan (Ulysses) in genius, whom thou, hollow rock, layest up.

[3] But dying, says the Paduan monk, he left Aldobrandinus already a youth and Azzo a little infant with their own mother: so that of the first marriage there was to him only a son with the sister Beatrix: of the second likewise also one, who also had a sister Constantia. On such an occasion the girl Beatrix clad in mourning, so pleased herself in that vileness of the unadorned garment, henceforth always using a cheap dress. that the lawful time of mourning being passed, although she consented to change the color, yet she would never wish to be clad in the form and modesty, nor in more precious things. And this was a prelude and a presage of that life which she would thenceforth lead, At ten her own brother the Marquis dies worldly pride being contemned: but to this modesty she added observance toward her stepmother and the friend or wife of her uncle Boniface, with a tender affection toward sacred things, and a wondrous benignity toward the poor, even at that little age. Then in the year MCCXVI by the crime of his familiars Aldobrandinus took poison, by which he was extinguished, and there remained in the honorable house of Este, as the Paduan Monk says, Azzo his brother a little boy, whence he was commonly called Azolinus, when Beatrix was already passing the tenth year of her age. And so the impediments, which by him about the year MCCXX were objected to his sister, when she with those helpers whom Scardeonius names betook herself to Salarola, the sacred monastery of S. Margaret, were only of boyish fervor, and by the authority of her elders not difficultly removed.

[4] There she laid the apprenticeship of the religious life, under the Abbess Concordia, in the 14th year of her age having entered the monastery of Salarola, one of the first foundresses, of whom mention in the public tablets of instruments from the year MCCXIX beyond XXIV is found: but the nuns of that very place, when, it being deserted about the year MCCCCLIX they betook themselves to Padua, to be united to the nuns of S. Matthias, bore with them two bronze flasks, which Beatrix had used at Salarola, and unto the present day with veneration preserve them. Beatrix was passing the fourteenth year of her age, when she assumed the sacred habit at Salarola: and there for a year and a half she was instructed in the religious life, before, the aforenamed Abbess and the Bishop of Padua Jordan of Modena consenting, after a year and a half translated with 10 companions to Gemmula, she migrated to Gemmula; together with ten other virgins; namely B. Juliana, whose memory is recollected on 1 September; Imiza, who if she is not Sister Desiderata herself, so called by an adjective name by the Paduan Monk, the first Abbess of the place, certainly succeeded her before the death of Beatrix, named in the public instruments from the year MCCXXV; Inida, Alena, Tenca, Ermelina, Benassuta, Beata, Palma and Ota. With these most holily lived Beatrix for altogether five years; and amid their prayers and tears most piously died in the year MCCXXVI on the X day of May the XX year of her age completed. she dies in the 21st year of her age. But being dead, with a lively face

and a sweet fragrance which flowed from the body, she afforded a specimen of the beatitude which her soul enjoyed in heaven; there was a great concourse of the neighbors to the corpse exposed in the church, desiring to touch and kiss it: and the family of the Prince of Este being roused, drew with it the whole Clergy of the town to celebrate the obsequies of the deceased.

[5] honored by a sweet odor from the sepulcher and other miraculous tokens These performed she was buried in that cemetery, which thenceforth was to be common to the rest of the Sisters about to die: from which first there began to be perceived a most sweet odor, and to move those passing by, that their nostrils being applied nearer they should investigate its origin and cause. There were then some of the Sisters, who noted that something of splendor was diffused above the tomb, and indicated this very thing to others: who turning their eyes thither, after Matins were chanted, confessed that something similar seemed to them also to be seen. But when, the year turning, the anniversary day of her death recurred, at the same hour at which she had expired the bells began of their own accord to ring: by which signal the Nuns being roused to the church, and composing themselves to prayer, the tapers which stood upon the altar were lighted from heaven, and more and more the fragrance proceeding from the tomb grew strong. Wherefore the Confessor of the monastery, full of celestial gladness, no longer said Mass of Requiem as for the deceased; but of the Virgin, as of a Blessed one, and spent that whole day in prayer before the sepulcher.

[6] she is translated into a marble ark. It pleased then, that her brother the Marquis, the Bishop of Padua Jordan (who then was still alive, having died MCCXXVIII) and the superiors of the Order should be admonished of the things which had been done. They indeed judged the sacred body should be elevated from the earth, and placed in a conspicuous tomb of marble. This being industriously and diligently prepared and carved, to honor the translation of his blessed sister, he led to Gemmula the two Priors of the Benedictine Order Jordan and Albert with a numerous throng of Ecclesiastics and Nobles, a multitude of people following of their own accord; where the Priests clad in sacred vestments, from the high altar with lighted tapers and hymns and canticles proceeded to the place of burial: which being unsealed there appeared the body wrapped in a most clean linen cloth, so still entire as if then for the first time it had been carried thither. In such therefore and so comely a state carried to the church, they exposed it to the sight, admiration, and veneration of all, until the sacred chant should be finished: then they laid it within an ark, which somewhat elevated above the earth had been placed, in the little oratory near the church, which living she herself had been wont to use for more secret prayers. The epitaph carved on the ark, as it is of the same style which we have related composed for her father Azzo, so it seems to have had the same author.

[7] In the same monastery there still survives the entire body of another nun, The place grew then in the number of nuns and the abundance of temporal things; so that after about sixty years from the death of Beatrix, the old church being destroyed, a new one had to be built, whose cemetery in the year MCCLXXXVIII on the XXIII day of December, by blessing it consecrated Bonaventura the Eremite Bishop (or rather Chorbishop, the See of Padua by the renunciation of Count Princivallis, made into the hands of Nicholas IV, then vacant), but the very new church he dedicated on the XV of the following June: under whose choir was the common sepulcher of the nuns, which in the year MDLI is seen to have been restored and adorned, the title still to be read there seems to indicate; whence for not many years back a sweet odor was wont to be perceived, says Tomasinus, and it proceeded from the still entire body of a certain Nun. Who that was it is not pleasing to divine: this is certain, whether that of Beatrix Queen of Hungary: that in the same place was buried another Beatrix, the niece of this our Blessed one by her brother Aldobrandinus, who, Andrew King of Hungary being dead about the year MCCXXXV, fleeing the contentions arisen over the succession, had betaken herself to her fatherland to this monastery, and full of years and merits had died, a sedulous imitatrix of her Blessed aunt.

[8] Various then was the fortune of the whole fatherland: yet among all the storms of the wars there waged the monastery of Gemmula stood under the patronage of the family of Este, [and it itself remained under the Patronage of the people of Este, while there were nuns there.] as is plain from a Brief of Pope Sixtus IV in the year MCCCCLXXII and that on the X day of May, by which is recognized the gracious presence of Beatrix, caring for her monastery. Of the very Brief given to the Bishop of Padua (he was Jacobus Zenus, memorable for the collected Lives of the Pontiffs, which are with us in manuscript) this is the tenor: "Venerable Brother, health etc. To the pious and laudable desires of our beloved son the noble man Hercules Duke of Modena, as much as with God we can, we willingly assent, as his singular devotion toward us and the holy Roman Church merits. Since therefore the same Duke, for the right of Patronage, which in the monastery of the Nuns of Zemola, of the town of Este of the diocese of Padua he is said to have, as he caused to be set forth to us seeks that in the same be instituted and confirmed as Abbess, our beloved daughter in Christ, his niece canonically elected… although not presented within the due time: We exhort thy Fraternity in the Lord, and in virtue of holy obedience command thee, that, considering that by no negligence of the present Duke this presentation, as he asserts, has been delayed, but for certain good respects procrastinated; thou shouldst confirm Laura herself, as if she had been presented within the due time, as Abbess, as is premised, anything contrary notwithstanding. This will be very pleasing to us."

[9] the book of the miracles of Beatrix lost in this age. Meanwhile there is no doubt, that Beatrix shone with many miracles, on whose occasion the sepulcher was adorned with many votive offerings: but as these, the place being afterward deserted, were neglected, so those utterly perished from the knowledge of men, together with the old book in which they were inscribed: which, as Tomasinus says, about the year MDCX was lent to the Reverend Father Albert Olzignano, of the Congregation of the most blessed Virgin of Monte-Ortone, he being dead it could never be found, however diligently sought. But the sacred body of B. Beatrix remained in the very place until the year MDLXXVIII: when Frederick Cornaro, Bishop of Padua, the Virgins to be translated from Gemmula to Padua intent on the execution of the decrees of the Council of Trent, decreed those Nuns, in the monastery of Gemmula open to any incursions too exposed to the injuries of the times, to be translated into the city, an old Priory and church of S. Sophia being procured for that end, which had passed into the right and commendam of the family of the Bonfii. That there had been there a temple of Apollo, which the first Bishop of Padua S. Prosdocimus had converted into the uses of Christians, is a tradition received from the ancestors: which tokens also found in this age confirm. This is certain, to the old building of S. Sophia in the year 1578, that the Clergy of Padua, thither, as to the first Cathedral in old time, every year on the fourth weekday of Easter processionally goes, and judges this to be done from the year of Christ DCXX, when Tricidius the Bishop is said to have translated the Episcopal See to that which is now the church of S. Mary. But at that age in which Beatrix occupied the monastery of Gemmula, some judge that the place, which once had been of the Benedictine monks, the Canons Regular of the Lateran had; and that their prior was Gerardinus de Bononia, whose memory a part of the monastery completed in the year MCCXLII preserves.

[10] However it be, those who before had occupied the place deserted by religious men in the mount; now also, the patrons the Bonfii yielding, obtained a similar one in the city, the right of it being transferred and confirmed by Gregory XIII, in the year MDLXXVIII on the XV of October: and possession was entered by Magdalena Zaccarotta the II of the same name and family, but the XIX Abbess, with the Prioress Cornelia Beccari and other consecrated Sisters XXVI, younger Professed VII, Conversae IV, those awaiting the Habit IV. Yet before these migrated they wished to send ahead into the city the sacred body of Beatrix, thither they send ahead the body of S. Beatrix on 12 November. and on the XII day of November having processionally accompanied it even to the gate of the cloister, they delivered it into the hands of four porters: who, accompanied by as many Priests and as many Nuns and two Conversae, carried it to the church near the brook leading to Padua, called Cento. Then on the next day, placed in a little boat, Antonius Corona the Chaplain of the monastery, and Julius Vigonza the Doctor with his wife, and also the aforesaid Mothers, Joanna del Sasso of Bassano, Leonora Plera the German, Cecilia Sala of Padua, and Blanca da Lusso of Cologne, with Vincentia and Angela the Conversae, conveyed it: and thus carried to Padua by very many Priests and other faithful, bearing lighted torches before it, it was led into the church of S. Sophia, and placed in the sacristy: where it remained until the XV of March in the year MDLXXIX. Then namely the nuns, which on 15 March following placed in its proper chapel, who on the XXV day of November had likewise themselves processionally followed, and had translated themselves with all their furniture thither; matters being somehow composed, at length had a prepared chapel near the sacristy, the marble ark of Beatrix also being translated thither, which there even now remains, honored by many tapers burning around, and conspicuous through an iron grating.

[11] But the state of the sacred body is this. Wholly dried up and rigid it seems to have only skin drawn over the bones, solidly cohering, and most light in weight; long two Paduan ells and a half. The head moderate is without hair: the eyes closed: the nose by the glass once lying over it is somewhat injured and marred: the mouth, the lips being consumed, shows the teeth, but by the devotion of certain persons diminished in number from many years: the fingers of the hands and feet with their nails cohere bound together among themselves. But it is about twenty years, says Tomasinus, since, many prayers being premised, by the Abbess and the other superiors of the monastery it was clad in new garments, two Sisters holding it among their arms, and again placed in a cypress chest, which is placed within the marble ark, in which today it is beheld, the head, which is covered with a white veil, wreathed with a flowery garland, inclined to the right side, that it may more conveniently through the little window of that chapel through the grate and the crystalline cover of the chest be beheld by those approaching from outside, the feet also bare and most entire are open to view.

[12] There are also preserved there by the nuns some of her sandals, her veneration there and elsewhere. which the sick ask to be brought to them, often with admirable success; as I myself, says Tomasinus, experienced, in the year just past being held by a grave ailment. But what once was in use, to hang at her monument silver or wax images of hearts, that even now obtains, as if thereby those offering wish to demonstrate, that they venerate Beatrix, as a singular Patroness for obtaining and preserving cleanness of heart. Finally the holy Virgin is venerated annually, not only in the church of S. Sophia, but also in another of S. Bartholomew on account of singular graces, which there too invoked she affords to mortals: and her annual memory is inscribed in the Auctarium of Molanus to Usuard, and also in the monastic Martyrologies of Wion, Dorganius, Menardus and Bucelinus, and in the general Catalogue of Ferrarius. But what now at Gemmula? That place utterly deserted now and

half-ruined, after the departure of the sacred Virgins, the remnant of the monastery of Gemmula. alienated from them, about the year MDCL was possessed by a certain Venetian wool-merchant Dominicus Filoso, who had no care of preserving it. And so the church, destitute of all ornament and all sacred instrument, lies squalid, the choir-stalls scattered hither and thither, and three altars scarcely preserving the remnants of the almost consumed panels. But in the dormitory now for the greater part collapsed there survives a little cell, which seems to have been B. Beatrix's: and on one side above a certain door this title is read: "This work caused to be made the Lady Sister Magdalena de Zacharctis of Padua, the XV Abbess of this place in the year of the Lord MDX in the month of May": elsewhere too in a certain chamber there survive pictures, expressed with a rude enough brush, representing the most Blessed Virgin Mary, S. John the Baptist, S. Benedict and B. Beatrix.

MIRACLES

From the Italian of Jacobus Philippus Tomasinus Bishop of Cittanova.

Beatrix Atestina, of the Order of S. Benedict of Padua (B.)

[13] In the year 1500 Padua besieged an aged nun The ancient miracles of this Blessed one being lost, there came into my hands a certain more recent little book, containing a few graces, noted from the year MD, that is from the time of the league of Cambrai against the Most Serene Republic, when the Emperor besieged Padua, and the whole of its territory fell into the prey of military license. On this occasion the nuns being compelled to provide for their life and honor by flight, all had betaken themselves to Este. But one of them of decrepit age, thrust into an oven is preserved from fire, since she could not by fleeing overtake the rest, came into the hands of the soldiers: who wishing to extort from her, ignorant of all things, an indication of hidden silver furniture, when they struck out nothing, thrust her into the oven of the monastery, and wood being heaped up there they tried to burn her. But long laboring in vain at the work, when at last the material seemed to have conceived some little flame, they withdrew. But this suddenly being extinguished, the old woman remained there enclosed, finding no exit for whole three days and nights; until some of the neighbors heard her groaning and invoking the aid of holy Beatrix, and the wood being drawn out drew her forth. But understanding for how long a time she had been there thus, all suffused with tears, together with the nun miraculously preserved, they went to the sepulcher of the Blessed one, all together to give thanks to her.

[14] and a little ark of relics from the hands of robbers. The Spanish soldiers of the same army, when, plundering the monastery itself, they had found a certain little ark, in which some Relics were enclosed, so firmly fastened, that by no ingenuity could they open it; reckoning that something of money or silverware was contained in it, they took it away with them. Meanwhile the nuns left in the monastery, hiding themselves, prayed B. Beatrix with tears, that she would not suffer it to be violated and lost. But behold, while the robbers received into a skiff, with greater leisure again try to unlock it, or at least to break open its lid; a wooden image of the boy Jesus, which for the use of instructing the manger through the Christmas feasts had been composed within wrapped in swaddling-bands, those being loosed, put forth its foot, as if living, through a chink: by which spectacle they being moved, soon set forth one of their own onto the land, who should carry back the said little ark to the place of the monastery. The body of the Blessed one yields to a Presbyter. Sister Catharina Beccari of Montagnana, Prioress of the monastery, affirmed to the Sisters, that when the Bishop of Padua was awaited about to visit the monastery; he, who then was the Confessor of the sacred Virgins, wished to clean the ark, in which the holy body of the Blessed one lay. But when he did not dare to touch it out of reverence, it of its own accord and visibly drew itself back to the side, so that that venerable Priest could clean the ark from the dust, without touching it; with the stupor of all as many as were present; and then returned to its former place.

[15] a paralytic hand is healed. Sister Lucretia Beccari, kinswoman of the aforenamed one, when she herself also discharged the office of Prioress, narrated, that when as a young girl she dwelt in the monastery of Gemmula, there came thither certain monks from the monastery of S. Justina for the sake of visiting their kinswomen; having in their company a certain Father, Justinus by name, whose hand, the sinews dissolved, had been made useless for all use. He as soon as the ark was opened to him by the Confessor, and he, prayer being premised, touched it, received that same hand as sound as it ever was: and all, thanks being given, with gladness returned to Padua. In the year 1584 overwhelmed by ruins a nun remains unhurt. In the year MDLXXXIV on the Vigil of S. John the Baptist a horrible tempest aroused twisted one lightning-bolt into the cell of Sister Genevra of Parma, which with great crash drew with it the roof and tiles and the rest of the material upon the dismayed nun: who in such a moment had nothing more salubrious than to commend herself to God and B. Beatrix. But the tempest being assuaged the Sisters running up, found her indeed covered with ruins, yet on bent knees, and in no part injured, but with glad countenance giving thanks to her Preserver.

[16] one laid down for death convalesces, Lord Joannes Petorinus, a public and celebrated lutenist, infirm unto death with a flux and a malignant fever, had lain three days laid down by the physicians. His kinswoman Sister Maria, a Nun of the often-said monastery, made a vow for him to B. Beatrix, and sent something of her Relics in a little box to the sick man. Who although he knew not what was contained in that box, yet as soon as he took it into his hands, he felt his breast distended with a sense of sudden gladness, his eyes suffused with tears: and shortly returned to former health. To Sister Leonora the German, fallen into apoplexy, a twisted mouth is restored her mouth had been twisted toward the right ear: who with great devotion ordering herself to be carried to the ark of the Blessed one and embracing it, was soon restored to her former state, many of the Sisters beholding the matter not without stupor. and an obscured eye. Francisca also Marchina a Conversa in S. Sophia, the use of one eye lost, made a vow to the Blessed one and received it.

[17] a pain of the heart is dispelled, Sister Michaela Faturini, feeling a grave pain of the heart, which day and night gave her no rest, because there was always before her a dread that God should not have pardoned her her sins; full of bitterness and disgust fell into a perilous symptom. To her for the cause of help the rest running up, suggested that she should commend herself to the Blessed one. She obeyed and vowed a silver heart and a Mass to be procured. Which when they were done she experienced herself freed both from the aforesaid evil and from those importunate thoughts, and then lived glad and most devoted to B. Beatrix. the Rector of S. Bartholomew is healed, Lord Dominicus Pizzatus, Rector of the church of S. Bartholomew of Padua, when oppressed by a certain incurable infirmity he lay, the Physicians pronouncing his health despaired of on that day which precedes the Vigil of the Saint, namely the eighth of May; news of his perilous state was announced to his own Sister Archangela: who, companions being taken with her, supplicating approached the ark of the Blessed one, and vowed to pass the imminent Vigil on bread and water and to add certain prayers: which when she did, she suddenly understood the sick man to have been relieved, who offered a silver statue for himself, and thenceforth lived most devoted to the Blessed one.

[18] a badly affected shin and an injured eye. Sister Marina Fracanzana, suffering in her shin, as soon as she applied to it the veil of the Blessed one, and made a vow, was healed. Sister Livia Martinenga, suffered in an eye injured by a needle and deprived of sight: but a vow being made to the Blessed one, she forthwith convalesced, and saw with each eye as before. a salubrious liquor exudes from the ark. It has moreover been observed that, as often as her ark exudes a certain humor (which collected and carried to the sick brings health to very many) some public inconvenience threatens the city or the monastery. And thus the Nuns narrate, the pestilence raging in the years MDCXXX and XXXI, that ark was continually moist with sweat.

CONCERNING B. MIRUS THE EREMITE

OF SURICO AT THE LAKE OF COMO IN INSUBRIA.

THE SECOND FRIDAY OF MAY.

Mirus the Eremite of Surico at the lake of Como in Insubria (B.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

Antiquity called Larius the lake, which now they commonly name the lake of Como. At its Northern head, where the borders of Insubria touch Helvetia, lies the town Surico, commonly Sorigo: His feast in the church of S. Michael whose Parochial church sacred to S. Stephen, when it had been raised to the dignity of a Collegiate, it was provided among other things in the year MCCCCLVI, under the Pontificate of Calixtus III, by an instrument drawn up by Francis Ripa Notary and Episcopal Chancellor, on the IX day of November, that on the feasts of S. Mirus and S. Antony, and on the feast and consecration of S. Michael, where in the year 1452 the body was found Masses should be sung in the very church of S. Michael. That is situated on a nearby hill: where when on X September in the year MCCCCLII under the proper altar the body of the aforesaid S. Mirus had been found, now after much time elapsed there laid, the piety of the people of Surico kindled with new heat, decreed that same church to be augmented and amplified, as is established from the bull of Indulgences obtained on that occasion from Antony Bishop of Como, which together with the instrument of the finding and a copy of the Manuscript Italian Life and other notices, the Reverend Father Paulus Sfondrati, Rector of our College of Como in the year MDCLXXIII, most kindly communicated to us.

[2] now called S. Mirus's, Thence, what elsewhere often in a similar case, there too gradually prevailed the custom, that the old nomenclature being abolished, what was called the church of S. Michael, was called the church of S. Mirus: and there his feast, by ancient use, is celebrated, on the second Friday of May: either because on such a day the Saint died, or because that is the anniversary of the body elevated or translated before the times already noted. Concerning which since nothing certain is established, that he might fix a feast in itself movable to some determined day the author of the Martyrology of Como, the first Aloysius de Tattis, Theologian of the Somaschan Congregation, chose the X day of May; whom in this we willingly follow. Would that we also had ancient Latin Acts of that Saint to give: The Italian Life written about the year 1601, for these seem at some time to have existed, and from them taken the things which from the Italian composed about the year MDC we again give back to Latinity: adding the instruments of the aforesaid finding and of the Indulgences, and finally the translation most lately made, of which this monument exists at Surico, enclosed in the ark on parchment: "The bones of the body of B. Mirus the Confessor, by the most Reverend Gregory de Carsinego of the Order of S. Benedict Bishop of Trebizond, the translation in the year 1637 Suffragan of the most Reverend Prelate Antony Pusterla Bishop of Como, in the year MCCCCIII on the X day of the month of September found, when near the middle of this sacred building on the left side under a too humble place they lay, Lazarus Carafinus Prelate of the holy Church of Como, with a solemn celebration, with the greatest assembly and frequency of peoples running together from everywhere, with no less piety and religion, enclosed in this marble ark on Sunday the XXV day of the month of October of the year MDCXXXVII."

[3] The same Lazarus Carafinus, asked concerning this Saint,

to the most erudite man the very Reverend Father Silvester a Petrasancta of the Society of Jesus, illustrious for published books and most loving of our Bollandus, the full name, whether Aemilius? wrote a letter, by which the history of his life and translation is briefly and elegantly explained: which, as he received it in Latin, the very Reverend Father Andreas Ferrarius, of the Third Order of S. Francis and Prior of S. Donatus of Como, took care to have printed in the year MDCLIII, at the end of the Italian life, extended by himself with much apparatus of more verbose eloquence into the form of a little book, and dedicated to the same Bishop Lazarus: who in the aforesaid Letter having spoken of the translation made by himself, thus concludes it: "Very many other bodies of Saints in other places I have taken care to bring forth with solemn rite, and have carried them myself: but nowhere a greater frequency of people, nowhere an equal cult and veneration." At the beginning of the Letter he treats of the name, which he believes to have flowed from Aemilius, with Benedictus Jovius, brother of Bishop Paulus, who concerning Donatus, Lugutio, and Aemilius, Divine ones (as he himself says) of the mountains, wrote an elegant and adorned poem in the former age. That there are also those who call him Iminus, our Christophorus Grinus wrote to us from Loreto, when he sent a copy of the printed life: and in the little book concerning the Saints of the diocese of Como, taken care to be printed by the Bishop Lazarus himself, thus is read: "B. Iminus, the Eremite, in the church dedicated to his name, in the people of Surico on the Larius, to whose sepulcher the city of Milan, in time of drought, for asking rain, with vows never frustrated, envoys being destined, implores aid": and the name Aemiliana, by popular use turned into Humiliana, we have found; yet we judge that we must not depart from that which alone is known from antiquity by name.

[4] To me asking, who that S. Donatus, who Lugutio was; the Martyrologist of Como being interrogated answered, that this one indeed was no other than S. Lucius the Martyr, patronage in time of drought for rain. whom Ferrarius mentions on the day XII of July in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy; that other a Bishop of Arezzo and Martyr, whose birthday is celebrated by the church on VII of August; whom Jovius calls Divine ones of the mountains, because their churches are raised on the mountains. But from the Sylva of the same Jovius in Manuscript, by which he praises the three already said Saints, after the former two celebrated, he sent that part which concerns S. Mirus. Namely commanded by him, as he feigns, the Poet, before he finishes what he had begun, to write what was his fatherland, and what was its origin and nomenclature anciently; that matter being explained, by poetic invention rather than historical certitude (For the Etruscans are said to have advanced their empire even to the Alps, and of them the Volaterrans to have founded at the lake Larius a city called Volturrena from the name of the ancient fatherland, which the Lombards destroyed, whence also the name became obsolete) concerning S. Mirus himself prosecuting these things sings:

Now to thee I return, now to thy marvels I revert, Rain-bringing nourisher, and to things to be remembered through the whole world. Thou couldst the deep thirst of Marcus Aurelius Caesar Satisfy, send rains to the dry Legions, he is celebrated in Benedictus's poem And by the impulse of a lightning-bolt drive off the enemy. As another Elijah, to overcast heaven with clouds Indeed thou availest, and bringest aid to the dying herbs. And the Phaethontean disaster to invade the lands I scarcely think it could have, if then those Times had borne thee: nor do I think the whole world Could be enveloped in flames, unless then thy powers the Ruler of Olympus Restrain, and touch thy breast with placid words, Lest thou begin to oppose the immovable fate of the world. Therefore thy power presides over the clouds and the denied rain, And with sudden murmur changes the heaven. If under a burning sun a savage summer has lain heavy, And the countryman draws the streams off into the absorbent sand; For the Insubrian people always, the fields thirsting, It is an old religion to send thee waxen gifts.

[5] At the solstice once all the fields far and wide were boiling, And at the same time the grass lay squalid in the glad fields; and it is proved by an example And each languishing vine grew pale on its elm. Not the melon, not the cucumber, not the long gourd of late Grew in the cultivated gardens of the Insubrian land. The gardener himself dying of thirst stretched empty Palms to heaven, and called the powers above to his vows. Not the cooked grain-mash in the wide kettles plainly Profited, or the Priest suddenly moistened with dew. There stood by the sleepless gardener the mild image Of Aemilius: he gave commands: and a salubrious rain God promised, and bore his head into the lofty heaven. No delay: the celestial visions are narrated to the people, And piety came over their minds, and gifts being prepared A waxen column, notable also by art, was sent ahead. Then it is borne into the shrine, where Larius draws together its broad waves: And by the wonted rite they perform the solemnities. Scarcely the prayer being finished, the clouds gather in the ether; Nor could those returning home, a band being made, Quicken their steps. By the rain and the sudden storm Seized, they hasten to the foliage, into the huts in the broad Fields they go, and adore the gift of the Divine one. Insubrian peoples, celebrate every year the Divine Aemilius; who to your bed-bearing Mames Often give gifts, to which he, called, assents. As to your mothers, if perchance their breasts are dry, Mames is milk-bearing; so also to the thirsting fields Rain-bearing Aemilius will come with swift wings.

S. Mames, or Mamas, is venerated on XVII of August; therefore probably wont to be invoked by rustic women in childbirth for obtaining milk, because, his mother being for the faith captive with her husband, he was brought up without the use of maternal milk: that what he himself lacked for God's sake, that he might confer on others. But that old religion for obtaining rain toward S. Mirus, which the Poet praises, the Life proves by several arguments; in which there is nowhere any mention of the third Rule of S. Francis, to which Mirus had bound himself, none likewise in the epigraphs of the seven tablets, which around the old altar painted were seen, when it was lately demolished for the cause of the aforesaid Translation. And yet the Italian phrase, in which those were written, did not surpass the age of one century. Receive them rendered into Latin, and in these a compendium of the life.

[6] The epitome of the life from the tablets around the old altar, I. Here the father and mother of S. Mirus of sixty years, desiring offspring, humbly prayed the Divine Majesty, that He would fulfill their desire, graciously granting it to them, vowing it to religion or pilgrimage. II. Here the father and mother of S. Mirus, in their prayers commonly poured forth heard by God, obtained the desired grace; and to them by an express miracle a son was born, whence to him fell the name of Mirus. III. Here S. Mirus, to fulfill the vow of his father and mother, as a pilgrim went to Rome, doing the greatest penance for his sins. IV. Here S. Mirus, inspired by divine goodness, went to Canzo to a hermitage, doing for his sins an admirable penance. V. Here S. Mirus, after thanks given to his people of Canzo, bids them farewell, promising that he would succor them as much as he could in all their necessity. VI. Here the soul of S. Mirus, the divine providence so disposing, at Surico was loosed from his body: and while an ark was being fashioned for burial, birds carried into this place chips miraculously. VII. Here the townsmen of Prato, striving with all effort to translate the body of S. Mirus, whom they persuaded themselves to be theirs, by the will of God, in perpetual memory of the matter and as an example to us, remained with hands held fast.

[7] it is said by some that he was of the 3rd Order of S. Francis, Above the very old altar also painted in the vault S. Mirus was beheld with a radiated head: in a habit doubtless of ruddy or ashen color, as everywhere hermits and pilgrims are wont: and hence I believe Andreas Ferrarius took it, that he so confidently ascribed him to the Professed of his Third Order, as concerning many other similar ones did Arturus the author of the Franciscan Martyrology, who for his wonted levity in this kind, would not have omitted B. Mirus, if the little book of Ferrarius had come into his knowledge. But I judge not only that that Blessed one is to be ascribed to no certain Order, but vehemently also suspect, that he is older than that he could have known the third Order, which S. Francis first instituted in the year MCCXXI, giving the habit to B. Luchesius, whose Life we gave on the day XXVIII April. verisimilarly older than himself. For I consider, that the instrument of the finding, drawn up in the year MCCCCLII and by the Bishop Carafinus in the year MDCLIII brought to light, says that now after much time elapsed the body of the most blessed Mirus rested in the tomb, whence by very many it shone with miracles and shines in those parts; but now God by His piety and mercy has deigned to show the hidden treasure. Indeed this manner of speaking seems to require no slight space of time, and more than of one or another century, which from the death of the Saint until the elevation of the body and its repositing under the altar, and from this to the finding, intervened: since it is indicated, not only that the body of the Saint was removed from the sight of men (for so it was even thenceforth until our age) but also from the memory and knowledge of the people of Surico; who although in that church and altar venerated S. Mirus, yet knew not in what place his body buried was laid.

[8] Meanwhile the author of the Italian life (I know not what conjecture he followed) wrote that Mirus was born in the year MCCCCXXXVI. not born in the year 1436, Franciscus Ballarinus, in the Chronicle of Como, in the same year consigned his Birthday, but to heaven, not to earth. The Bishop Carafinus, in the letter to Petrasancta, believed he had done enough by subtracting one century from that number; and saying that to aged and barren parents Mirus was granted in the year MCCCXXXVI; from which beginning Ferrarius computing the rest of the years of his life, brings his death into the year MCCCCVIII, which as probable Aloysius de Tattis receives, but from the supposed truth of the year assigned by Carafinus. or 1336. But by this reason for only forty-four years would Mirus have been hidden in the tomb, when he was uncovered, long since celebrated for very many miracles: which does not appear prudently credible. It is consequent therefore, that concerning the age in which he lived nothing certain can be established; and that conjecture is more probable which would move him nearer to the tenth or eleventh century. And perhaps it came about, that the year DCCCCXXXVI noted in some older monument, the characters now almost faded, imposed upon someone, and persuaded him to read M for D and rewrite it: for anciently the figures were not in use, by which anyone might suspect it done, that for 1036, by a similar error 1436 crept in.

LIFE

From the Manuscript Italian of the very church.

Mirus the Eremite of Surico at the lake of Como in Insubria (B.)

FROM THE MANUSCRIPT ITALIAN.

[1] B. Mirus was born in the town of Canzo of the State of Milan, Born of barren and aged parents by a vow and the parish of Incino: whose father was called Erasmus, his mother Drusiana. These when they were of sixty years, fearing God and most devoted to the B. Virgin Mary, and lacked children, moved by the desire of a succession, to be applied to the service of the divine Majesty, prayed the Lord, promising that a son, if any should be born to them by the divine will, they would dedicate to His service in some religion or perpetual pilgrimage. The same prayers

also they directed to the Mother of God. It pleased therefore the Lord to hear the humble supplications of these His devout ones, and to grant them the longed-for grace: and so with infinite admiration of all who knew them, on account of the great age of Drusiana now sixty years old, there was born to them a so greatly desired son: to whom in baptism they gave the name of Mirus, he is delivered to a certain hermit to be instructed. as one brought forth into the light by a miracle from an aged woman, and admirable also for a notable beauty of countenance. The boy moreover was given to a nurse to be suckled, and a few months after Drusiana the mother died. But when the boy had reached the twelfth year of his age and was now made capable of discipline, he was given by his father to a certain Hermit of holier life to be instructed, who dwelt in those parts. Under this master the docile boy profited excellently, no less in virtues and Christian morals, than in letters, with the great stupor and joy of the good Hermit, hoping to receive from his instruction the fruit of no slight consolation: for whatever was commanded him by the old man the boy most diligently performed, and by prompt and filial obedience had won for himself the love of his master, even in the zeal of praying, although of tender age, imitating him.

[2] Then having advanced to the twenty-second year of his age his father Erasmus died, deprived of his father and he being left heir of all the paternal resources, through the hands of his master (perhaps by the last will of the deceased, desiring all his substance to be divided to the poor) so disposed of them, that, all things being renounced which could oppose an impediment to the divine service and the acquisition of spiritual goods, he remained free and loosed. But he persevered in that so religious life with his dear father and master until the thirty-second year of his age, when that Hermit died, and was buried in the town of Canzo. After whose obsequies, Mirus seeing himself deprived of bodily and spiritual company, and of his master wished moreover to dismiss that little which from the paternal resources he had reserved for the frugal sustenance of each. And when he did not cease to pray God, that He would bestow on him the grace of knowing what was His good-pleasing and perfect will concerning him; there was offered to him sleeping a dream, in which he seemed to behold in the place of the Savior his master the Hermit, and to hear these or similar words from him. "My son, he is bidden to set out for Rome: delay not to fulfill the divine will: for although thou hast hitherto served God from thy soul, renouncing all resources for His love; nevertheless thou must go abroad to visit the places and relics of the Saints, and namely of the Blessed Peter and Paul at Rome; for it is little whatever of service thou hast hitherto done to the Creator, and it altogether befits to be extended to further things for acquiring His grace. Rise therefore forthwith, and delay not, because this is the will of God."

[3] where the threshold of the Apostles being visited Mirus awakened, wholly glad and full of divine consolation on account of the vision, gave himself to prayer, giving thanks to the Lord, who had graciously deigned to reveal to him His will. Then bidding farewell to his friends and kinsmen, with a staff in his hand he set himself on the way to make pilgrimage: and what from the alms collected along the way abounded for his necessary sustenance he began to distribute to the poor, of whom therefore some followed him, especially three little boys, who clung to him as to a father wherever he went; whom also he followed with a tenderer and truly paternal affection, instructing them with all charity to the observance of the divine commandments. But when he came to Rome, and visited the sacred places there and the relics of the Saints, he understood that in the mountains near the City there dwelt a certain Hermit, to whom he decided to betake himself for the cause of seeking counsel and aid: which also he sought from him on his knees, that from his mouth he might deserve to learn, by what means furthermore he could please God. The hermit's name was Brigidus de Colomna, whom much and long-lasting abstinence had made pale and lean. from Brigidus the Hermit he understands He asking the name of his guest, and how many years he counted in the service of God, received such an answer from him: "Mirus I am called from baptism, Father, because from aged parents I was wonderfully born": then he narrated in order the whole series of the life led by him. In turn Brigidus related to him, that he now lived in that place for the fiftieth year, living only on those things which he could there gather: he added also what temptations and snares of the devil he had there endured and overcome by the grace of God, by the protection of prayer and abstinence; very glad that in that solitude it had been given him to live, far from the vanities of the world, bringing destruction to the soul: for patience and assiduous prayer were needful to obtain salvation. Finally he invited Mirus to remain with him, meanwhile while they should explore by persevering prayer the will of God.

[4] that he must return to his fatherland. Mirus thus remaining there, when after his manner Brigidus had awakened for the Matin prayers, an Angel of the Lord stood by him and said: "Mirus here, whom thou hast received as a guest, is a man of God, to whom in my stead thou shalt say; that it pleases our Lord, that he return to his fatherland begging, as he came hither, to be certified on the very journey concerning his end: and that with a glad and cheerful mind he persist in the begun form of living." These things said the Angel vanished: but Brigidus filled with joy and solace, when after the prayer completed he had returned to the cell, and had found Mirus asleep, would not awaken him: but awaiting the dawn, after prayers commonly poured forth and a good part of the day spent in sacred exercises, invited Mirus to take a refreshment of a little food, such as was available in that place. Then thanks being given to the Bestower of all good things, he thus addressed him: "I have, Mirus, what I must command thee on the part of God, committed to me by His Angel. Thou hast come into these parts far from thy fatherland, which by God's inspiration thou didst leave, to visit the relics of the City of Rome: now thou must return to the same place: and on the very way thou shalt learn what further remains for thee to do. obeying which command Contrite therefore and confessed of thy sins, thou shalt take indulgence and depart." Mirus immediately obeyed the precepts, and lovingly embracing Brigidus, with his benediction returned to Rome: where he found the three aforesaid little boys, who as in his absence they had greatly grieved, so the same being received cheered, commended themselves to him with all subjection. On the following night it was commanded him from heaven through a vision, that he should return as soon as possible: wherefore the places again being visited in which he should gain Indulgence, he sought the benediction of the supreme Pontiff; who likewise enjoined upon him in virtue of holy obedience and for the remission of sins, that by persevering in that habit of penance he should seek again his fatherland.

[5] On the next day he set himself on the way with those three poor little ones of his, making short journeys, lest he should be compelled to interrupt anything of his wonted prayers and spiritual exercises: and when he had come into a place of Lombardy, which is called S. Georgii in Lumellina, at that time when a very great drought had extinguished the hope of the future harvest; for the townsmen of S. Georgii he obtains rain: and on that account he saw mourning the honest but in number heavy family of him, to whom he had turned aside; which had taken counsel of changing its abode shortly, if that calamity were not quickly ended; Mirus the matter understood: "Bring to me," he said, "all the townsmen, greater and lesser, in the name of Christ: who if for His love they will fast with me and pray devoutly, I promise not to depart hence sooner, than they have obtained the desired abundance of water." But all did whatever Mirus commanded: to whom on the following night a man appeared, clad in a long garment and bearing a cross; who showing the wounds of his body, said to him: "On account of the prayers which thou hast poured forth, know that the desired grace will be granted thee." Stupefied by this vision Mirus, when he submitted himself on his knees, about to kiss the feet of him who had appeared to him, that one vanished, and left the place full of a celestial odor. But Mirus passing the rest of the night in prayer, and giving thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ for the favor of so great goodness, commanded that on the next morning all should confess their sins, and gathered within the church, hatreds being laid aside if there were any, should lovingly embrace one another. But on the very Sunday toward evening, God demonstrated the efficacy of His servant in praying, bestowing rain: which through whole five days sweetly irrigating the dry earth, revived the languishing and almost scorched seed, so that thereafter it gave a copious harvest to its husbandmen. By which benefit that people recognizing themselves most obligated to Mirus, when they saw him and his three companions covered with badly patched garments, decreed new ones to be made for them.

[6] While they prepared these, Mirus withdrew himself from their eyes with his company, and coming to Canzo, where now he was known to no one, bidden to depart from Canzo also, emaciated by the miseries and fastings of the pilgrimage, sought and obtained hospitality with the Parish-priest of the place, begging for himself and his three little ones food for some time. Until toward night there appeared to him a matron, bearing a little boy in her arms, and said: "My son, this is not the place designated for thee: therefore depart hence alertly. He whom thou seest is my son, dead on the cross for thy redemption and that of the whole human race: thou hast served him well, and therefore we have come to visit thee: for the time of thy departure approaches. Go along the bank of the lake, sustaining thy life by begging while making pilgrimage, as thou hast hitherto done, until thou come to the other head of the lake into the place destined for thee, where, pressed by a grave pain, thou shalt be sick, and thy soul shall be loosed from thy body, which there shall be preserved in thy memory." Therefore Mirus making pilgrimage, he dies at Surico: through the lands set near the lake of Como came to Surico, a town founded at the head of the lake: where a little after he was sick and died. But Mirus being dead a controversy arose among the people of Surico concerning the place in which he should be buried. But while a bier was being fashioned, within which the body was to be placed, behold ravens descended to the workman planing the boards, and the little pieces cut off seized with their beaks, and carried them together to a neighboring little hill to a church dedicated in honor of S. Michael the Archangel. he is buried in S. Michael's. Which matter being observed by the bystanders, they judged that they would do according to the will of God, if they took care to have the deceased buried there. Which also was done with the greatest concourse of peoples, on account of his exceptional sanctity; many also afterward with frequent visitation having recourse there, and obtaining the desired graces.

[7] But that God willed him to be buried there, the subsequent effects confirmed, namely concerning the men of the Community of Prada, which is a town in the valley of Chiavenna: who claimed that body to be theirs, the people of Prada prohibited from carrying off the body, because the mother of S. Mirus himself, Drusiana, was sprung from there. When therefore to that

to seize it they had come armed, and now had lifted the lid of the ark, in which the sacred bones were stored; their hands caught within the open chink by a miracle stuck fast, so that they could not move them thence: and it is believed that for the cause of obtaining liberation they bound themselves by a vow, of sending every year from each family someone to visit those holy Relics, and to bring a votive taper: as even today they observe at the feast of the Saint himself, every year they come thither making supplication which is celebrated on the second Friday of May, coming processionally with their Parish-priest: which same also they do in time of too great drought, bringing back the fruit of their prayer with the confusion of the heretics, inhabiting those regions. On the same day, with similar pomp of procession, there comes thither the Community of Surico, men and women, with their Lord Archpresbyter and Canons; and there they sing Mass over the altar, under which is reposited the body of the blessed and glorious Mirus. Likewise hither come the people of Burano or Monte-Mezzano, and the Community of Bugiallo. By ancient use also every year persons at least chosen from each family are wont to come processionally from the Communities of S. Gregorio, as also others for rain. Brento, Stazona, Germaseno and Garzeno with their Parish-priests; likewise from the town of Doro and the Commune of Novate: from which so great a concourse of peoples occasion was given of annual fairs to be celebrated in that place.

[8] But especially the city of Milan is piously affected toward this holy Relic: and in time of drought the most Illustrious Lord Vicar and the Twelve-men placed in charge of caring for the grain-supply send one of their attendants, especially Milan always with the best success called White-and-reds, together with some Religious: who as soon as they reach Surico indicate the cause of their coming to the Reverend Lord Archpresbyter or his Vicar: who together with them from the Collegiate church of S. Stephen proceed to the church of S. Michael, now called S. Mirus's; and there Mass is sung and the White-and-red receives the sacred Communion, himself also praying for obtaining that grace which is desired: but it scarcely ever happens, but that while the legate comes to Surico or returns thence to Milan, he receives the fruit of his devotion, that is, the rain so greatly desired. But in token of the benefit obtained some years ago the city of Milan sent thither a vestment of green Damascus cloth, adorned with golden fringes, with a Pall and Chalice and other instruments necessary for the use of the Sacrifice. At other times also it has destined various gifts thither.

[9] Nor only from the city of Milan, but also from other towns of the same Province deputies come in similar necessity to obtain rain, and the neighboring dioceses for instance from the dioceses of Tortona, Pavia, and Alessandria. It happened moreover in the year MDXCVIII in the month of August, that there was so great an aridity of the earth, that it cracked, and the vines seemed scorched, nor was fruit hoped from them that year. But in this necessity the Catholics of the Community of Caspano in the Valtellina proposed to send processionally at least one person from each house with the Parish-priest to Surico, with the confusion of the heretics. to obtain water through the intercessions of S. Mirus. Who as soon as they returned home a most pleasing rain, which lasting three whole days, whatever scorched and dry as if in winter seemed began to bring back the amenity of spring with new greenness: to the greatest confusion of the heretics dwelling at Caspano, who had pursued the Catholics going to Surico with hisses and laughter, so that for many days they dared not come forth from home, lest they should be compelled to hear the reproaches of the Catholics, upbraiding them with their incredulity. Yet not therefore were they converted, but referred the received grace to other causes, just as also the Jews the miracles which our Lord Jesus Christ did.

ANNOTATIONS.

p The Valtellina or Volturena is called that part of Rhaetia, which the Adda waters: there is Caspano, distant from Surico, says Ferrarius, 12 Roman miles, by a difficult journey through crags and rocks: he adds moreover that 150 came making supplication, who having gone out in the morning, were present at the Mass said by vow at Surico, and afterward, their bodies refreshed, returned at the sound of the Ave-Maria, but then the benediction received from the Parish-priest, each dismissed to their homes, had rain before they entered them.

INSTRUMENT OF THE FINDING.

Mirus the Eremite of Surico at the lake of Como in Insubria (B.)

BHL Number: 5972

[10] For the eternal memory of the matter and that the truth may shine and grow clear, the Bishop of Trebizond; to all and singular about to inspect this public instrument be it known that God has visited us today, the dayspring from on high, according to that saying, "Wonderful is God in His Saints, and exalted above all His works." Ps. 67, 36 Since therefore now after much time elapsed the body of the most Blessed Mirus had migrated, in the church of S. Michael in a tomb it rested, whence by very many miracles it shone and shines in these regions and elsewhere: But now God by His piety and mercy has deigned to show us a hidden treasure. Therefore by the license of the most Reverend Father in Christ and Lord, the Lord Antony de Pusterla, by divine mercy Bishop of Como and Count, before many witnesses the Reverend Father in Christ Lord Gregory de Corsanego, monk of the Order of S. Benedict, Bishop of Trebizond, together with the undersigned venerable Fathers and Lords, the Presbyter Donatus de Caligariis, Archpresbyter of the church of S. Stephen of Surico; the Presbyter John de Pelitariis, Canon of the same Church; Brother John de Claro, Provost of the House of the Humiliati of S. Ursula of Surico; Brother Bonaventura, Guardian of the Holy Cross of Como; Brother Thadaeus, Brother Cyprianus, and Brother Jacob de Menasio, all of the Order of Minors; and also the Noble and Eminent Lords, Antony de Reato, Podestà of the land of Surico, by our most Illustrious and Excellent Lord the Duke of Milan; Petrinus de Ripa, Antony de Ripa, Melchior de Peliciariis, Francis de S. Juliano, Thomasius de Garsone, Gaudentius de Ferariis, all of the Commune of Surico; Thadaeus de Bioca and Zanne de Sertolia, of the Commune of Bugiallo; Daniel de Sarbalupiis and Genzolus de Caratio, of the Commune of Monte-Medio; and Gerardus de Bolziis, of the Commune of Trezono; and I Benedictus de Ripa, the undersigned Notary, and very many others of both sexes; the same Reverend Lord

Bishop abovewritten, together with the others abovewritten, on Sunday, on 10 September in the year 1452 he recognizes the body of S. Mirus. the X day of September of the present month, at the hour of midday, in the said church of S. Michael, in the chapel of S. Antony on the left side, opened the tomb of B. Mirus, over which tomb an altar had been built in honor of B. Mirus: and they found the hidden treasure, namely the body of B. Mirus, with a wondrous odor and sweetness of fragrance: which being left and sealed, it remains in the said church to the praise and glory of almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and of B. Stephen our Patron, and to the consolation of all dwelling in these regions, to whom is honor and glory unto the ages of ages, amen, according to that saying of the Apostle, "Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoleth us in our tribulation" and of the most Blessed Mirus. 2 Cor. 1, 3 Amen.

[11] Done at Surico in the church of S. Stephen the Patronal church, and he commands an instrument concerning these things to be laid up. the witnesses being present called and asked to the premises, Simon de Gheziis son of the late Sir Baldassar, Master Paul de la Porta son of the late Sir Melchior, both of Domaso, Sir Antony de Crotis de Elzinate son of the late Sir Stephen, Sanctinus de Benacciatis son of Lord John, of the Milanese diocese, and Brother Jacob de Spatiariis, of the Order of S. Angelus of the Milanese diocese, all witnesses called and asked to the aforesaid. Given and registered in the aforesaid church of S. Stephen in the year MCCCCLII, the I Indiction, on the XI day of the month of September.

✠ I Benedictus de Ripa de Surico, public Notary of Como by Imperial authority son of Sir John, this instrument of the finding and of all and singular the premises, by the command and order of the aforesaid Lord Bishop and at the request of the undersigned above named, have delivered and written and subscribed myself, and was present at the aforesaid and saw.

BULL OF INDULGENCES.

Mirus the Eremite of Surico at the lake of Como in Insubria (B.)

[12] Antony, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See Bishop of Como and Count, the Bishop of Como to all and singular beloved by us in Christ the Prelates, Abbots, Priors, Provosts, Archpresbyters, Presbyters, Rectors, Beneficed clergy, Canons, Chaplains and Ministers of the churches of the city and diocese of Como, to whom the present our letters shall be presented, and to all the faithful of Christ about to inspect the present letters everlasting health in the Lord.

By His ineffable divine works the Almighty does not cease daily to make His Saints from their merits grow bright to the faithful of Christ, that by their examples, by the temporal goods which by His inspiration we shall have done, we may be able to possess eternal joys, holding a firm hope and confidence, that he who sows sparingly shall also reap sparingly, and he who sows in blessings shall also of blessings reap eternal life. Hence it is that the most high Jesus, both inexplicable and powerful in heaven and on earth, the matter being understood intending by His supreme justice to exalt and reward His servants from their merits, on Sunday the X day of September of the year run MCCCCLII, by means of the solemnities of processions, in hymns and canticles and praises, to the honor of that most high and almighty God by holy mother Church ordained, the body of B. Mirus long since enclosed in a certain sepulcher, existing in the church of S. Michael of the Commune or People of Surico of our diocese of Como, in the presence of the most Reverend Father and Lord Gregory Bishop of Trebizond, our Suffragan and Coadjutor… and of seculars for the cause of devotion there standing by. Which body indeed as the report… and toward B. Mirus himself devoutly… manifestly grew bright, He mercifully demonstrated.

[13] And since the inhabitants of that Community of Surico with the highest affection and very great desire, and at the desire of the people of Surico for restoring the church of S. Michael not wishing to be unmindful of so great a benefit received, desiring to amplify and augment that church of S. Michael, in which is the aforesaid most blessed body of S. Mirus buried as above, which… is, both for reverence of Jesus Christ, and also of the aforesaid S. Michael the Archangel, and also of the aforesaid B. Mirus, who showed himself miraculously as above, so that the persons, who shall flow together to that church for the cause of devotion of the aforesaid most Blessed Mirus, may be able conveniently to reside in that church: And we wishing to afford the faithful a cause for obtaining the aforesaid joys, inclined by the prayers and supplications of the Community of the men of that place of Surico, of the People of Surico of our diocese of Como, of our wonted gentleness, and wishing and desiring to comfort that church with the privilege and gift of spiritual grace; by the ordinary authority which we discharge in this part, and by all manner, right, way, cause, and form, by which we best can and could, trusting in the mercy of almighty God, and the authority of His BB. Apostles Peter and Paul, in conclusion grants indulgences and the merits of B. Abundius the eminent Confessor our Patron, whom though unworthily we have succeeded in the Pastoral office; to all and singular men and persons faithful of Christ, who shall have devoutly visited that church of S. Michael and the body of the most Blessed Mirus on Sundays, and on the Festivals of the Nativity and Resurrection and through their Octaves, and likewise on the festivals of the most blessed Virgin Mother Mary and of all the Apostles, and also of the aforesaid Saint and Blessed Michael the Archangel, under whose name the said church was and is founded; and of Mirus, whose body in that church now for a long time was buried, and most lately by divine providence was made known as above; and on the days of Lent, as often as soever they shall have visited the church as is aforesaid, and to the repairs of that church and to its augmentations shall charitably have extended helping hands; forty days of the enjoined penances we mercifully relax in the Lord.

[14] And you Prelates and all the abovewritten we admonish in the Lord, and he wishes the pious work to be commended everywhere. that in the churches committed to you and in the celebrations of Masses, when a greater multitude of people shall be present, in our stead and authority, by word equally and example you induce and exhort the peoples committed to you, to do good to the envoys and messengers and proctors of that church; that by these and other good things, which the Lord inspiring they shall have done, they may be able to come to the eternal joys of felicity. But these letters of our concession, by John de Zobiis our Notary and Scribe we have commanded to be written and registered, and to be fortified with the appension of our seal. Given in the Episcopal House of Como MCCCCLIII, the I Indiction according to the custom of the city and diocese of Como, but on the day of Monday, the fifteenth of the month of January.

TRANSLATION OF THE BODY

From the Italian of Andreas Ferrarius.

Mirus the Eremite of Surico at the lake of Como in Insubria (B.)

FROM THE ITALIAN MANUSCRIPT.

[15] The sacred bones of B. Mirus remained unmoved for one hundred eighty-five years, In the year 1637 Carafinus the Bishop visiting Surico, until in this our age, in which greater honor than before is had to the venerable Relics of the Saints, the most Illustrious and most Reverend Lord Lazarus Carafinus of Cremona, by the grace of God Bishop of Como, in the year MDCXXXVII on the XX day of October came to Surico, about to satisfy his Pastoral office by the visitation of that parish, with the very Illustrious and most Reverend Lords Alexander Lucinus and Jacob Minontius, Doctors of both laws, and the very Reverend Lord Archpresbyter of Surico, with other familiars of his and many townsmen, ascended to the church of S. Michael, by half a mile, not only for the cause of inspecting it, but chiefly because he intended to make the translation of the body of S. Mirus. A prayer therefore being made before the chief altar, he commanded the wooden ornaments and panels to be removed, which represented the life of the Saint around his sepulcher: which done there appeared a chest, in which the holy body was enclosed. But this when he had likewise commanded to be broken open, the monument being opened there appeared in its rear part the Blessed one painted, stretched out at length, with the image of a Presbyter kneeling and of two Angels holding waxen torches.

[16] Afterward, the great stone being removed, which covered the inner ark, the bones of S. Mirus were beheld, extended upon a board in the form of a corpse, and covered with a most white and most fine veil, which were by the most Illustrious one himself reposited in a little chest most elegantly adorned, and closed and fortified under his seal. Then he having departed and the others called for this, privately indeed, and the bones for a while set apart, yet not without the light of many tapers, the sacred Relics were carried to Surico into the Collegiate church of S. Stephen, and there within a chest, sealed with a similar seal of the most Illustrious one, deposited in the sacristy with faithful custody, until the apparatus necessary for the decreed translation should be made. But this was decreed to be done on the next Sunday, the XXV day of October. On the night therefore preceding the said day the same most Illustrious one with the Lords Visitors and the Archpresbyter came into the church, and recognized the ark and his seal: but he commanded the little chest to be carried to the chief altar: where another little chest prepared for this, and within with yellow silk, without covered with crimson velvet, he blessed; and wiping the several bones separately with a linen cloth, transferred them into it, except a few Relics which he reserved for his devotion: and that same little chest, well fastened and sealed, he enclosed in another chest also of wood, with an attestation of the deed described on parchment. Afterward he commanded all to be again enclosed within the sacristy until the next morning.

[17] on 25 October the sacred rites being solemnly performed, Then upon a temporary altar before the choir of the church, that they might more conveniently be honored by all, the sacred Relics were exposed with many tapers shining around; but at the appointed hour the most Illustrious one with his company came to the church, Alexander Lucinus and Hyacinthus Georgii Canons of Como assisting him, clad in tunicles, and the Archpresbyters of Surico and Dongo with the Provost of Domaso bearing copes, the Curates likewise of the parishes of Surico and the neighboring Peoples bearing white chasubles, and the rest of the Clergy in surplices: and thus Mass was sung at the high altar, during which the very Reverend Lord John Donatus Ferrarius Archpresbyter of Dongo ascended into the pulpit, and gave a brief but elegant discourse concerning the life, death, and miracles of the Blessed one. Toward the end the people communicated from the hands of their Prelate, not only of Surico, but also from the three surrounding parishes, and gathered from the valleys of Chiavenna and Valtellina in the greatest number, especially from the town of Prada.

[18] he carried it back to its place to a new ark Meanwhile a procession was being arranged to the building of S. Michael, in which first walked the Confraternity-brothers from Giera, Tercione and Burano and other neighboring places, clad in sacks and bearing tapers: there followed the Clergy bearing also their own lighted tapers: and finally the aforesaid Lord Canons from the front part bearing the little ark, which alone from the rear part the most Illustrious one bore under a baldachin: and after him walked about six thousand men, with the greatest devotion and modesty. When it came to the gate of the town, other and other Priests succeeded to the load, until it came to the aforesaid church of S. Michael, the citadel across the lake, called de Turentes, applauding by the explosion of warlike engines.

Having entered there with the relics the Bishop, after the prayers prescribed in the Roman Pontifical, deposited the chest within a marble ark prepared for this, and covered it with a vast stone slab well cemented and sealed; the sky which had been rainy being made clear. and dismissed the people with his benediction. Moreover in this act it was most worthy of note, that whereas at that very time rains, no longer sought by prayers, but about to harm by their too great abundance, did not cease to pour themselves upon the lands; at the very moment in which the ark was elevated they ceased, and the clouds receding from heaven gave place to the sun, about to behold so devout a supplication.