CONCERNING SAINT BEVIGNATE.
MONK AND ANCHORITE AT PERUGIA IN ITALY.
ABOUT THE YEAR D.
CommentaryBevignates Monk and Anchorite at Perugia in Italy (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. H.
Philip Ferrarius in the general Catalogue on this 14 May celebrates the memory of Saint Bevignate a monk of Perugia, and that, as he there annotates, from the Tables of the Church of Perugia on this day. But he says there is extant a Church dedicated to him outside Perugia not far from the city: his memory in the calendars, in which his image and certain miracles wrought by him are seen. The rest is unknown. The same Ferrarius in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy from the pictures of the mentioned Church reports some miracles. The Acts from Iacobillus. But Ludovicus Iacobillus, in volume 1 concerning the Lives of the Saints of Umbria on this 14 May and in the Additions printed in volume 3, accurately published the things which could be had concerning this Saint, and for that end reads and cites the Perugian writers, Pompeius Pellinus, Caesar Chrispoltus, Caesar Alexius, John Panzieta, Ciactus, as also the Annals, Statutes, Calendars, Tables, and other monuments of the Perugian city and Church. We therefore from the said Iacobillus have excerpted these things.
[2] The Saint, from a monk made an anchorite, S. Bevignates flourished in the fifth century of Christ, whether he then came from Germany, or rather born in the Perugian territory, exercised agriculture there. But illumined by the grace of the Holy Spirit, his possessions being left, he took the monastic habit in some monastery of monks, who were clothed with a tunic of white-colored cloth, girt with a blue leather. Afterward, the leave of the moderator being obtained, he withdrew into a wood, situated near the city of Perugia: and there for very many years led a solitary life with austere penance, and in the holy exercises of prayers and divine contemplations. The fame of his sanctity being spread round about, many visited him, and by his intercession God worked various miracles, which are thus narrated by Ferrarius. When there was nothing, which he might set before those coming, or with which he might drive away hunger; he was illustrious by miracles, by his prayers the olive and the wheat, of which the time had not yet come, divinely ripen. Two innocent men hanged, when they had commended themselves to the prayers of Bevignates, are freed. A boy also slain by a wolf, brought to the holy man, by prayers made for him is recalled to life.
[3] When he had now dwelt long in the said wood, in a small hut raised by himself he closed his last day in sanctity, the day before the Ides of May, about the five-hundredth year. even after his death. But before he was given over to burial, very many sick and vexed by demons, by the touch of the sacred body, were freed and healed. But the body with due veneration was deposited in the said hut or hermitage, where the Saint had lived in great penance, and his soul had been received by God: in which place to his honor afterward the Perugians
built a church, a church erected to him: where in the year 1260 led the eremitic and anchoretic life in great perfection Ranerius Fagianus of Perugia, the author of the Confraternity of the Disciplined, then a Minorite: whose body is preserved in the city of Borgo San Sepolcro, and whose memory with the title of Blessed has been reported on the 9th day of June. his body under the altar: He held in the highest veneration the body of S. Bevignates, and so brought it about, that it was placed under the high altar, on account of a singular revelation made concerning his sanctity. The Bishop of Perugia at that time was Bernard Carius, who (as Ughellus writes in the Bishops of Perugia) was the author, that the city sent legates to John XXI the Pontiff, to beseech the Canonization of Blessed Bevignates of Perugia, for whom meanwhile he ordered a temple to be built near Perugia. Iacobillus says, that this could not be carried out through the death of the Pontiff. Meanwhile from immemorial custom, his cult under a double rite: in the city and diocese of Perugia, his feast is celebrated under a double rite on this day 14 May.
[4] The place itself afterward with the said Church came into the power of the Knights Templar, and by these is transferred to the Knights Hospitaller of Jerusalem of S. John, today called of Malta: and their Great Master on the very Kalends of May of the year 1324 gave it to Roccius Coebolius of Perugia and his wife Catherine under this obligation, a monastery added: that there should be built a monastery of twenty-four Nuns, under an Abbess according to the rule and statutes of the Knights of S. John of Jerusalem. But afterward, the monastery of Nuns being extinguished, there was there erected an Abbey of secular Presbyters, over whom with the title of Abbot presided also the Cardinal Francis Rapacciolus: but at last the Eremite Fathers of S. Augustine of the Perugian Congregation obtained it, from the convent of S. Maria Novella, by the authority of Urban VIII Pope translated thither in the year 1640. These things concerning the monastery built there.
[5] part of the body translated to the Cathedral church. Some Relics of S. Bevignates, from his said church, built outside the city, in the year 1609 on the 17th day of May to the Cathedral church, and a proper chapel erected to his honor, were translated with the greatest solemnity: in which there were carried about in procession the sacred Relics of S. Herculanus Bishop of Perugia, and of S. Peter Abbot also of Perugia: at which procession are said to have been present more than sixteen thousand men of both sexes, both from the city and diocese of Perugia, and of Foligno, Assisi and other neighboring places.