Solongia

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.