Simon Stock

ON BLESSED SIMON STOCK

OF THE ORDER OF CARMELITES PRIOR GENERAL

AT BORDEAUX IN AQUITAINE

IN THE YEAR 1265.

Simon Stock, Prior General of the Order of Carmelites, at Bordeaux in Aquitaine (B.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

[1] The Supplement of the common Martyrology, printed for the use of the Carmelite Order on parchment before the end of the 15th century, on the 17th of the Kalends of June orders these things to be added: In the city of Bordeaux B. Simon Stock the Englishman, The worship in the Martyrology singularly devoted to the God-bearing Virgin Mary, and glorious for the coruscation of miracles: which words also are read in the Additions of Molanus to Usuard, printed in the year 1593. But before that Supplement was printed, nay before the typographic art itself was received into use, there was composed at Bordeaux a proper Office, of which a copy written in the year 1435 is there preserved, as by authentic letters informed Lezana writes that he himself has been. It was then printed in the same city in the year 1580, and in the Breviary of the Order. and lately in the year 1672 inserted into the Breviary of the whole Order, plainly as the same had before been inserted into his Carmelite Vineyard by the reverend Father Daniel of the Virgin Mary at number 878, where, or in the Breviary it can be read. Meanwhile it is certain, that an Office of the Common of a Confessor not a Pontiff, and indeed double, was in use at least from the year 1554. For in the Calendar of the Breviary printed at Rome it is thus had, Lezana being witness, who recites this Prayer from it: God, who hast given us Saint Simon as Ruler and Father; whom, while he lived, thou didst will to serve thy Son and his most glorious Mother, with pure heart and sincere devotion; we implore thy clemency, that we, whose merits we rejoice in, may rejoice in tranquil prosperity in thy continual praise, and be instructed by his examples.

[2] His Life was written, says in the year 1557 John Bale Century 4 number 7 of the writers of England, by Monaldus Rosarius the Gascon, The Life written in French by Roland Bouchier in the year 1513 Roland Bouchier of Hainaut, and Nicholas of Haarlem the Batavian, men learned in their times, that is on the confines of the 15th and 16th centuries. Of these only Roland came to our hands, in the Carmel of Valenciennes, where he in the year 1513 wrote the aforesaid Life as Prior of the place, rendered into Latin by the reverend Father Philip of the Visitation, Subprior of the same Carmel ten years before this, who also asked that I should insert the same into these our Acts of the Saints. I would do it indeed most willingly, if, what perhaps is permitted me through him, it were equally permitted through others of the same Order, to add some Annotations after our manner, by which errors might be indicated and doubts distinguished. Besides there holds us back from that counsel Peter Swaningthon, B. Simon's inseparable companion, another author Swaningthon a contemporary is said to be extant at Bordeaux, and the writer of his Acts, who first at Bordeaux, B. Simon having ended life, was public Professor of Theology, as I read in our Theophilus Raynaudus in the Partheno-Carmelite Scapular part 2 question 1 chapter 1. For those Acts John Cheronius asserts to be preserved in the archive of the monastery of Bordeaux page 165 of the Vindications of the privileged Scapular, and from them produces the Vision of B. Simon, suspect to John Launoy. For why after so great contentions about the truth of that vision, is that Life still suppressed, and withdrawn from public judgment and examination, even in this most recent and most ample edition of the Carmelite Mirror, augmented with monuments sought through all Europe? Surely before the Bellorosian Life of S. Angelus, now printed four or five times, it deserved to be inserted into the new mirror.

[3] while this is awaited I wish nothing prejudged for it, but neither do I think myself bound, either to believe an author still hidden, or in the place of a contemporary writer to produce another, two whole centuries later. Let then a part of the elogium suffice from the aforecited John Grossus Key 3 of the Orchard, which is concerning certain Saints of the Order. The eleventh was S. Simon Stock by nation English, the sixth General of the Order. Who before the coming of the Carmelite Friars to England awaited them in a prophetic spirit, in a hollow trunk leading a solitary life, and therefore from the trunk, which in the vulgar English is called Stock, is commonly named Simon Stock. But after he understood through his minister, that the Lords namely Vesci and Grey, Barons, had led some Friars from Mount Carmel to England, and had religiously founded them in the convents of Alnwick and Aylesford, he relinquished the aforesaid solitary life, and the holy Order of Carmelites, which he long by divine revelation awaited, there with great devotion entered. But in the process of time in a certain general Chapter, celebrated in the English Province,

he was miraculously elected General of his Order, the elogium is given from Grossus. which he ruled religiously and holily. At which time S. Lewis King of France, by reason of a miracle shown to him by the glorious Virgin Mary in the sea near Mount Carmel, led the Friars from that mountain into France… This Saint in his life became renowned for many miracles, of which let us bring some into the midst. For on a certain day he proposed to celebrate Mass, believing he had all things requisite; and when he had come to the ministration of the Chalice, destitute of wine, water, after the likeness of Our Lord Jesus Christ, he converted into wine, with which he celebrated the begun Mass. Continually abstaining from the eating of flesh, at a certain time he was taking food in the house of his brother: to whom the brother at dinner presented a cooked fish: which at the command of the man of God being cast into water, soon swam unharmed… This Saint Simon in the hundredth year of his age, while he was visiting in the Province of Gascony, on the 16th of the month of May, in the convent of Bordeaux migrated from this light, where his body, renowned for many miracles, rests: and therefore by some is called S. Simon Stock of Gascony, by some is named S. Simon Stock of Bordeaux: but S. Simon Stock of England, where he drew his origin, is more rightly said and called. Thus far Grossus in the Frankfurt MS.

[4] Alnwick is in Northumberland, the last of the English provinces toward the North, S. Simon entered the Order in the year 1240 as on the contrary the first of all the Southern is Kent, and in it Aylesford: but concerning both foundations we have in Lezana these ancient verses, described with a clumsy Minerva: in which however as to time we trust more, than Palaeonydorus or others, instituting (as we have seen elsewhere) a most disturbed Chronology.

In the year one thousand two hundred forty, Once the Carmelites take to the times of life, The first cells being granted, in the North the places of Vesci. Richard in the cloister Grey first fixed in the South. Which places I Vesci granted to the Carmelites, Perci founded: God joined us to him for himself.

It is probable that these verses, either by John Vesci himself or at least by his order composed, were taken from some marble tablet, exposed, after the manner of ancient foundations, above the gate of the Alnwick convent; whence it would be clear, that the ground was given by the Vescii, the house constructed by the Percii, which also itself is a noble family in Northumberland. But the time agrees best with the year of the decreed and begun transmigration, the same Brief being augmented he becomes Prior in the year 1245. which was 1238. Nor does it exceed faith that B. Simon, most celebrated for fame of sanctity in England and perhaps 85 years old when he entered the Order, conciliated to it so great favor with the English, that augmented with hastened increases the convent of Aylesford was fit, that before other new foundations it should receive in the year 1245 Alanus the Prior, conveyed from Syria into Europe to know more certainly and order the affairs of the Order, so happily begun to be propagated. So there was celebrated there the first Chapter in the Cismarine parts: in which it was judged expedient, that here, where now was a greater and was hoped soon to be a greatest number of Religious, to be divided through several convents and provinces, should be the common Head of the whole Order; for which in the East a Vicar would suffice, who there should foster and console the Relics of the elders and the more generous, willing to persevere in the Holy Land. But among these wishing to be Alanus himself, yielded the Priorate, and in his place by common votes was elected Simon.

[5] I would now wish to collect the Acts of Simon in the Generalate, and the excellence and miracles in life and after death, and also to discourse concerning the Relics which are said to be in some places: but it seems to me much more advisable, to preserve all these for posterity, about to make a supplement of May, after they have obtained the entire narration of Swaningthon. Meanwhile let there be seen part 4 of the Carmelite Mirror on this 16th of May, and among the prefatory Notes to the Life §6, and the Appendix to the same Life; from which I note that in the year 1645 on the Roman journey to the Chapter of his Order the reverend Father James Emans, Doctor of Sacred Theology of Cologne, turning aside to Bolzano (that town is in the Tyrol, commonly Bolzen) saw and heard and by a letter given after his return from Cologne thus testified: There in the church of the Fathers Preachers is a chapel, dedicated to S. Simon Stock, his worship at Bolzano in the Tyrol. and in it a most beautiful altar of S. Simon himself, constructed about the year of Christ 1626, by a vow by a certain noble Gaudentius Botsch zu Zwingenberg, Marshal of the Tyrol of Archduke Leopold of happy memory, to this end, that by the mediating intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and S. Simon, he might obtain an heir. But it happened that the altar being now erected God heard his vow, and granted him a daughter as heir. And behold the hour in which the wife of the aforesaid Noble conceived, it happened that at night the little bell of the same chapel in the belfry, which the same chapel of S. Simon has special, was rung of itself. But the same Noble being dead, at the same hour of his death, the tablet or image of S. Simon fell from the altar to the ground: and this is very celebrated with the Fathers Preachers of that place, and begot to the same chapel great devotion among men, which even now there perseveres: for always in the same chapel are frequent men, supplicating S. Simon.

* alternatively Concessi