ON BL. SIMON OF COLLAZZONE, OF THE ORDER OF FRIARS MINOR, IN UMBRIA,
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE 13TH CENTURY.
CommentarySimon of Collazzone, confessor of the Order of St. Francis. (B.)
BY J. D. B.
On the 1st day of November at Spoleto in Umbria, in the convent of the Friars Minor at San Simone, with the fame of sanctity there died blessed Simon, Why Blessed Simon is treated in the Acts, called of Collazzone. He ought perhaps to have obtained a place among the Prætermissi. For although he is commonly marked with the title of blessed by the hagiographers of the Seraphic Order, yet it is established by no indications that a public cult, given to the blessed man from his happy death, thereafter was strong and is strong now. Nevertheless with Jacobilli Vite de' santi e beati dell' Umbria, at the day 1 November. we have decided to treat briefly of the blessed man, because in the year 1252, by a letter given at Perugia on the 22nd day of April, Innocent IV admonished the bishops of Spoleto and Gubbio and the abbot of the monastery of Ferentillo of the diocese of Spoleto with how great care the legitimate witnesses were to be examined, whom they were to receive concerning the life and conversation and miracles of Brother Simon, of venerable memory, of the Order of Minors. And it is indubitable that the inquiry was made; for in this our age that process is preserved at Spoleto in the archiepiscopal chancery. But why the blessed man was not enrolled in the catalogue of saints, Wadding teaches in these words Wadding, Annal. Minor., year 1240, n. 6. : While these things (the miracles and their testimonies) were being viewed in the curia, Innocent died and the solicitude of the people of Spoleto about canonizing the holy man was relaxed. And so we approached the people of Spoleto by letter, and asked whether they had anything that would contribute to the praise of Simon. The Conventual Fathers Ibid., year 1240, n. 8. dwelling at Spoleto at San Simone replied that they had never seen or heard that a life of the blessed man had been written, and moreover that in the general expulsion all records had been lost. Wherefore, since scarcely any hope dawns that there will be discovered things that would serve for illustrating the life and deeds of Simon, we can do nothing else than insert in our Acts the same things which Jacobilli and Wadding long ago wrote.
[2] [He discharged various functions in the Order while living, and when dead was illustrious for miracles.] Blessed Simon, then, noble by birth, is said to have had as father the count of Collazzone, which is a little town of the diocese of Todi. Jacobilli appeals indeed From a letter given from there in the year 1877. to ancient monuments of Todi; but he omitted to set them forth. Until these are dug out of hiding, then, let the assertion remain within the limits of probability, no otherwise than the things he hands down of the mother of Blessed Simon, called Matilda, who was among the courtiers in the service of the wife of the Emperor Otto IV. To establish this the writer indeed refers to a diploma of Frederick given at Perugia in the year 1186; but one who seeks knowledge is little helped by such an indication. In the year 1210, a boy in age, as Wadding has it Op. and loc. cit. , in the fourteenth year of his age, as Jacobilli has it, he took the habit of the Minors. He made wonderful progress in the order, outshining most in gravity of morals and prudence in the conduct of affairs. He drew his mother by his exhortation to a pious manner of living; then he led his sisters and nieces to the cloister. In the year 1221 Brother Caesarius of Speyer, the first minister of Germany now appointed by Blessed Francis, sought companions for himself, of whom our blessed man was one. In the following year Caesarius, having held a provincial chapter at Worms and seeing the order in Germany now resting on happy auspices and solid foundations, seized by the desire of seeing Francis, joined to himself Brother Simon of Colozano, a nobleman, with certain others, and returned to St. Francis Annal. Min., year 1210, n. 45. . From then on our blessed man lived in Italy, where, created minister of the March, he was soon set over the province of St. Francis; which functions he exercised with great industry and piety Ibid., year 1221, n. 5. . In the year 1235, on the 21st day of April, a certain Simon of the Order of Minors was present as a witness at Todi Ibid., year 1222, n. 25. at the confirmation of the diploma by which Boniface, bishop of Todi, proclaimed free and immune the virgins who served the Lord in the monastery of St. Lawrence, near Collazzone. This Simon Wadding believed to be ours, on no other indication, as it seems, than the site of the monastery near the town of Collazzone, the fatherland of our Simon. Jacobilli narrates Ibid., year 1210, n. 45. that Simon was harassed by Elias, general minister of the Order. Which anyone will readily believe who remembers how many and how great injuries Elias inflicted on those men whom he saw, led by the zeal of true sanctity, adhering to the precepts of the Seraphic father. At length Blessed Simon died in the year, as we have said, 1240, whose sanctity the Lord made manifest by many miracles in life and after death. The pontifical delegates Ibid., year 1235, n. 37. Cf. p. 626. , of whom it has been said above, having employed a diligent examination, discovered the following miracles, which Pisanus reduced to a compendium from the process itself, which I myself have seen. A boy at Spoleto drowned in the waters of a mill he restored to life; in the city of Fermo he freed from death another who fell into a deep well; likewise he snatched another from the same danger. He cured eleven crippled in diverse ways, five with hernia, twenty-two blind, eleven dumb, sixteen deaf, eight lame, three women of an infirmity of the breasts, eleven of swelling of the body and limbs, nine of the royal disease, four of a demon, two of the stone, five of gout, three of an evil of the throat and chin, two of scrofula. Three out of their minds he restored to sound judgment, he drove away hidden infirmities from five, he straightened three bent, healed two withered in their limbs, to six suffering from lethargy, and also to as many others suffering from flight of sleep, he was present with a sudden remedy. One suffering in the spleen, another in the testicles, three in the navel and belly he restored to perfect health. To one perishing of horrible nausea he restored appetite, one leper, and another almost breathing out his life in a spasm he cured. He made a languishing horse robust, he healed a shepherd and languid sheep. All these things are established from proved and sworn witnesses in the process itself.