Thomas

ON BL. THOMAS, ARCHBISHOP AND CONFESSOR, AT MILAN IN INSUBRIA,

ABOUT 783.

HISTORICAL-CRITICAL SYLLOGE.

Thomas, archbishop, confessor, at Milan in Insubria. (B.)

BY J. S.

§ I. The veneration of the Blessed one, such as it is, proved.

Bl. Thomas, recorded in the Martyrology of Milan, Filippo Ferrari, in the general Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, nowhere recorded Bl. Thomas, archbishop of Milan, nor did he weave any eulogy for him in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy. In the index of this Work, however, he numbered Thomas among the Saints or Blessed in these words: Thomas, bishop of Milan, 28 September. At this day too he has been referred by others, as we shall see. But Pietro Paolo Bosca, who published the Martyrology of Milan in the year 1695, commemorated Bl. Thomas at this day with the title of Saint, writing thus: At Milan, of St. Thomas, bishop of the same city and confessor, who, with the help of St. Eugenius the bishop, most constantly defended the Ambrosian rites. He alleges many writers to assert the ecclesiastical cult of Bl. Thomas, or his own assertions about him, almost all of whom I have consulted, because many honoured Bl. Thomas with no title of Blessed or Saint, and therefore cast upon me some doubt about his legitimate cult. But that doubt, such as it was, I entirely removed from myself by searching through the writers alleged by Bosca. And I perceived not only that Bl. Thomas is honoured at this time, but also that he was honoured for immemorial time before the celebrated decree of Urban VIII on the cult of the Saints: which I could less perceive from Bosca's words alone.

[2] The chief reason for doubting the cult of Bl. Thomas was the Table of the archbishops of the holy church of Milan many praised him without a title of holiness., published by decree of the fourth provincial council, and afterwards enlarged in many parts, which was printed at Milan under this very title in the year 1584, and composed, I think, by Galesini, who certainly subscribed for the archbishop. In this table the title of Saint or Blessed has been given to very many archbishops; not so to Thomas, of whom these things are read in the same place: Thomas Crassus, a Milanese, given to the pursuit of piety, made a pilgrimage for religion's sake to Jerusalem: having returned thence, under Pope Hadrian, on the Kalends of November, made archbishop, he wonderfully defended, by the zeal of Bishop Eugenius, the books of the Ambrosian Office, which Charlemagne had judged should be burned. He crowned Charlemagne, king of Italy, with the iron crown; he solemnly baptized at Milan Glissa, daughter of King Pippin. He sat 28 years. He died on the Kalends of October. He was buried in the basilica of St. Lawrence. The deeds of Bl. Thomas, or certainly those attributed to him, are touched on here, but no title of Holiness is given him; and this was imitated by Ughelli, volume 4 of Italia sacra, in the Catalogue of the prelates of Milan, and by our Papebroch in their Chronotaxis before volume VII of May, as also by many others whom it is not necessary to list. Puricelli himself, in the Life of Bl. Lorenzo Litta, archbishop of Milan, in which he sufficiently proved the cult both of the latter and of Bl. Thomas, abstains from the titles of Saint and Blessed when he uses his own words.

[3] But the body of Bl. Thomas Wherefore I shall gather the more diligently from the mentioned Work of Puricelli everything by which the legitimate cult of the Blessed one is asserted. Giovanni Pietro Puricelli was archpriest of the church of St. Lawrence, in which the body of Bl. Thomas is kept, and in which he is honoured with ecclesiastical Office. And the Life of Bl. Lorenzo, which we shall cite, was printed in the year 1653. First, in chap. 26, num. 19, he shows that the body of Bl. Thomas had long before that time been numbered among the relics of the Saints, and Thomas himself honoured with the title of Saint. For he alleges a parchment table which had formerly hung in the church to instruct the people concerning the indulgences and relics of the Saints of the same church. To commend the antiquity of that table he says: And the characters inscribed on it are already so consumed by age itself and by moths that many cannot be read in any way, and the rest only with trouble and difficulty. Then from that table he recites these words: Likewise around the said church is the chapel of St. Peter, in which there is every day an indulgence of forty-eight years and as many quarantines, through the whole year: and there lies the body of St. Thomas, archbishop of Milan. In num. 23 he says: I too have an Italian little book, printed at the press of Milan in the year 1515, in which the relics of the Saints lying in this basilica of St. Lawrence … are enumerated. And among these in the fourth place is numbered St. Thomas the bishop, who by the consent of others cannot be thought other than the one of whom we treat.

[4] was from immemorial time (numbered) among the relics of the Saints Again, in chap. 32, num. 2, he adduces the Italian book of Carlo Bascapè, afterwards bishop of Novara, on some churches of Milan, dedicated to St. Charles Borromeo and published in the year 1576. He, treating of the church of St. Lawrence, enumerates the chapels placed round about, and among these the chapel of St. Peter, in whose altar, he says in Italian, is the body of our holy archbishop Thomas. He baptized Glissa, daughter of King Pippin; since, when he had proposed to have a son and a daughter baptized, he wished that the former should be baptized by the Pope, the latter by the archbishop of Milan. Paolo Morigi agrees concerning the body of St. Thomas, as he calls him, kept in the said altar, and concerning Glissa, daughter of Pippin, baptized by the same, namely in the History of Milan, which Puricelli cites in num. 3. The same concerning the body of Bl. Thomas, whom he constantly calls Saint, Morigi repeats in the Sanctuary of Milan, where he adds some things in Italian, which I render into Latin: In the altar of St. Peter is kept deposited the body of St. Thomas, a noble Milanese of the Crassi family, and archbishop of Milan. He was an excellent defender of the Ambrosian Office, and baptized Glissa, daughter of Pippin, king of Italy. The same Morigi, in a third Work cited in the same place, numbers Bl. Thomas among the holy archbishops. Puricelli adds in num. 4 Giovanni Pietro Giussani, who in an Italian Work which he published in the year 1593, on the seven stational churches of Milan, says that the body of St. Thomas is kept in the altar already frequently mentioned. Giovanni Battista Villa agrees, who speaks in almost the same manner, and is cited by Puricelli in num. 5.

[5] The just-cited Puricelli proceeds to the visitations of the relics was numbered, and he himself honoured with the title of Saint: which St. Charles Borromeo made in the year 1581 and his successor Federico Borromeo in the year 1608, both archbishops of Milan and Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. In the Acts of the latter, among the relics is numbered the body of St. Thomas, archbishop of Milan. In the Acts of the visitation of St. Charles, Puricelli testifies in num. 8 that it is written thus of the altar of St. Peter: In this altar is laid up the body of St. Thomas, archbishop of Milan. Then he adds the decree, after the visitation made by St. Charles, concerning the body of St. Thomas, which runs thus: The body also of the divine Thomas the archbishop, deposited within the ground near the altar of St. Peter, may be left there under the custody of the scholars of St. Gotthard, with the chapter. Puricelli subjoins in his own words: Which things indeed I have added in passing, but the more gladly, that the holiness of that archbishop Thomas (namely Crassus) might be made known also by the testimony of the archbishops St. Charles and Federico. Castiglioni, who wrote the Life of Bl. Thomas in Italian, cited in Puricelli, chap. 33, num. 22, observes that the bodies of others than Saints are not commended to the Scholars and the chapter, and so confirms the cult of Bl. Thomas by the testimony of St. Charles, and observes that he is called Saint by the same.

[6] The same Castiglioni further, cited in Puricelli, num. 21 a miracle also happened at the removal of one of the bones., observes that that chapel of St. Peter was commended or handed over to the Scholars of the Confraternity of St. Gotthard, that they might restore and adorn it and use it for the celebration of Masses and for the other Offices of their Confraternity. On occasion of the aforesaid restoration, in the year 1567, on the 10th day of June, the body of Bl. Thomas was found in a marble case. This case having been opened, the chaplain of the Confraternity of the Scholars took a bone from it, and deposited it in the oratory with other relics. But when he had gone home, he was seized with a most grievous fever. Astonished by this sudden chastisement, he hesitated in doubt. At length he had himself taken to the mentioned oratory, and took that sacred relic, and restored it to the case, closed again. Which done, at once, at that very moment, he was well, and freed from all fever and from the numbness of body arising from it. These things Castiglioni narrates in this manner, but a little more at length, who also says that the name of that priest was Girolamo Messaglia, and his age forty years. What I have produced so far proves most manifestly that Bl. Thomas was honoured with the title of Saint by very many, and that his body from immemorial time was numbered among the sacred relics. These things would already suffice in any case for inserting him in our Work with the title of Blessed.

[7] The foregoing are confirmed by documents of the 14th and 15th centuries, Nevertheless Puricelli brings forward still more certain things, partly from Castiglioni, partly from elsewhere. For in chap. 33, num. 23, he testifies that he has an Ambrosian codex, and at its end a Calendar, set down in the year of Christ one thousand three hundred eighty-one. And from this Calendar he produces these words at the 10th of September: Of St. Thomas, archbishop. He lies at St. Lawrence's. Thus already in the 14th century Thomas was entered in the Calendar with the title of Saint. Then from Castiglioni he produces the inscription which was found in the marble chest in which the body of the Blessed one was found in the year

1567, when the Scholars of the confraternity of St. Gotthard adorned the chapel of St. Peter, as has just been said. And the inscription, which teaches the earlier finding of the same body, is this: The finding of St. Thomas, archbishop of Milan, on the tenth of June, one thousand four hundred ninety-seven.

[8] and there is added an annual Office in the church of St. Lawrence. Finally everything concerning the cult is confirmed by the annual festival of the Blessed one, which is celebrated in the church of St. Lawrence on the 1st day of October, as Puricelli, archpriest of the same church, testifies, not on the 28th of September, as Castiglioni and Giovanni Francesco Besozzo, to be mentioned often below, had written. In the Calendar of the Missal printed in the year 1560 the feast day of Bl. Thomas is also indicated at the 28th of September, as Bosca observes in the Annotations to the Martyrology. Perhaps the festival was formerly celebrated on that day, and then transferred to the Kalends of October. Puricelli too observes that the festival of Bl. Thomas is announced in that Missal, but that it was not found by him in other Breviaries or Missals, as it is also not found in the Milanese Missal which we have in our Museum, printed in the year 1522. But I think this came about because that feast is celebrated in the single church of St. Lawrence. For the rest, Castiglioni, in Puricelli num. 22, asserts that the feast of the Blessed one is celebrated in that church from ancient custom; and that it was commanded by decree of St. Charles Borromeo that that custom should be observed. Let these things suffice concerning the legitimate cult of Thomas, whom, however, I have preferred to call Blessed rather than Saint, because he is honoured in a single church.

§ II. The time of the episcopate is investigated.

Few things written of the deeds of the Blessed one, and those partly uncertain. Of the deeds of Bl. Thomas few things are narrated, fewer are certain. A Life of the Blessed one, of some sort, was written in Italian by Giovanni Antonio Castiglioni, but we do not have it. The age of Castiglioni, however, who flourished and wrote in the 17th century, makes me believe that little book less necessary, since he must have gathered everything from old writers, as others have done, if he wrote anything rightly. A History of the Pontiffs of Milan was written in Italian by Giovanni Francesco Besutius (Besozzo), and it was enlarged, and so reprinted in the year 1623. In this Bl. Thomas is placed fiftieth among the prelates of Milan, and has a longer eulogy than most of the others preceding and immediately following. But many things in that eulogy are uncertain, and some not even probable. Of almost such a kind, but much briefer, is the eulogy which Ughelli put together in volume 4 of Italia sacra. These two eulogies, which agree in most assertions, we shall briefly examine, together with the chronology, which our Papebroch too undertook to examine in the Exegesis on the bishops of Milan before volume VII of May.

[10] Let us begin with the chronology, which is wont to give light to facts. Three old Catalogues of the prelates of Milan He is said to have sat 28 years, but this is less certain:, of which one was published by Mabillon in the Museum Italicum, volume 1, page 109, another by our Papebroch in the Exegesis already mentioned, the third by Muratori in volume 4 of the Writers of Italy, list the years and days of the episcopate of Bl. Thomas in plainly the same words. For all have thus: Thomas the bishop sat 28 years, 5 days. He died on the fifth day before the Kalends of October, buried at St. Lawrence's. Of the years and days, as I said, all three agree, as also of the day of death. But in Papebroch's it is wrongly read buried at St. Ambrose's; since from what has been disputed before it is altogether clear that Thomas was buried in the church of St. Lawrence, as the two other catalogues have. It is not added in those catalogues from what year the time of the episcopate is to be begun, so that it is by no means strange that the more recent writers disagree about it. I wonder more that the time of twenty-eight years has been so contracted by some that they have not kept even the half. Ripamonti, History of Milan, book 9, page 580, asserts that he died in the seventh year of his pontificate. Ughelli, in the 12th year of his pontificate, and about the year of Salvation 783. Besutius kept the twenty-eight years of the episcopate, and since he notes in the margin that he was elected in the year 765, he must have ended them in the year 793. Castiglioni, cited in Puricelli, chap. 33, num. 24, asserts twenty-eight years of the episcopate, and fixes the death of the Blessed one in the year 798, on the 1st day of October. So too Donato Bossi, cited in the same place, num. 19, admits those twenty-eight years of the episcopate, and adds four months, and since he says he was created in the year of the Lord seven hundred sixty-nine, he makes him living at least up to the year 797.

[11] But Puricelli, in the Work on the Monuments of the Ambrosian basilica and monastery, num. 14, produced an old instrument he died about the year 783, from which it is clear that in the eleventh year of Charlemagne reigning in Italy, and the fourth of Pippin his son, that is, in the year of the Christian era 784, Peter, who succeeded Bl. Thomas, was archbishop of Milan. Ughelli saw this, and for that reason fixed the death of Bl. Thomas about the year 783. Our Papebroch, led by the same argument, judged the death of Thomas to be fixed in the year 783 itself. This epoch certainly cannot be far from the true one: for in the year 781, running towards its end, he baptized Gisela, daughter of Charlemagne, as we shall see. He died, therefore, between the years 781 and 784. Moreover Papebroch suspects that a mistake has crept into the numbers by which he is said to have sat in the old catalogues, and thinks that XXIV is to be read for XXVIII, departing at least less from the number fixed in the catalogues than Ughelli. That conjecture of Papebroch's is certainly likely, yet a thing cannot be made certain from a likely conjecture. Hence I should not wish to affirm for certain that Bl. Thomas sat only twenty-four years. For neither are the years of the preceding bishops indicated by such certain arguments that it is undoubted that Bl. Thomas was promoted in the very year 759, at which Papebroch places the beginning of the episcopate.

[12] Puricelli, in the Life of Lorenzo, chap. 33, num. 25, will keep the twenty-eight years of the episcopate [but the beginning of the episcopate is less certain: he died on the 27th of September.], and suspects that he was created bishop about the year 756: he could also have said about the year 755. For since he is said to have died on the fifth day before the Kalends of October, or the 27th day of September, it is not probable that he lived up to that day of the year 784. And so, the day of death being kept, for changing which there is no reason, he certainly did not die after the year 783, and was not created after 755, if he sat twenty-eight years, five days. I cannot disapprove Papebroch's opinion, since all the years which are attributed in the ancient catalogues to the bishops of Milan from the beginning of St. Benedict to the end of Bl. Thomas are more than could have elapsed between the year 680, in which St. Mansuetus, the predecessor of St. Benedict, was living, and the year 783, after which Bl. Thomas did not survive. For this cause some years must necessarily be cut away, and Papebroch cut off three in Benedict, four in Thomas. But it is not altogether established whether the years of Bl. Thomas rather than of his predecessors are to be diminished. Hence I wish to determine nothing certain about the years in which he sat. Others of the more recent writers will have it that the Blessed one died on this day, the 1st of October, others on the 28th of September; but they allege no reason by which we should be compelled to depart from the 27th day of September asserted in the ancient catalogues.

§ III. The assertions concerning the deeds of Bl. Thomas are examined.

[Some things asserted of the Blessed one only by more recent writers; that Charlemagne and Pippin] Most more recent writers attribute to Bl. Thomas the surname Crassus, yet I do not find that surname in the old catalogues, or even in writers somewhat more removed from our age. Wherefore I leave it to the Milanese themselves to inquire whether he is rightly called Crassus: for among the old writers I find him named only Thomas. The Table of the archbishops and Besutius assert that Bl. Thomas, before his episcopate, made a pilgrimage for religion's sake to Jerusalem. This I cannot confirm by old testimonies, yet I do not intend to deny it, since perhaps it has been found in documents unknown to me. But he certainly did not receive his episcopate from Pope Hadrian, who began his Pontificate in the year 772, but much earlier. With difficulty too can those things be admitted which Ughelli subjoins, writing thus: He at Monza crowned Charlemagne with the iron diadem, and consecrated him king of the Lombards in the year 774: and in the year 781 he distinguished Pippin, son of the same Charlemagne, with the diadem of the kingdom. Yet Sigonio affirmed the same, book 4 On the Kingdom of Italy, so that I cannot wonder that the opinion of Charlemagne, as also of his son Pippin, having been crowned with the iron crown by Bl. Thomas, has pleased most Milanese writers.

[14] were crowned with the iron crown by Bl. Thomas, Sigonio asserted; But Le Cointe, in the Annals of the Franks at the year 774, num. 30, refutes that opinion somehow, chiefly from the silence of the ancient writers. Fontanini composed a lengthy Dissertation on the Iron Crown, in which in chaps. 3 and 4 he strives to defend Sigonio's opinion, and contends that both Charlemagne and his son Pippin were crowned with the iron crown by Bl. Thomas. I shall set down Sigonio's words about Charlemagne, that the fair reader may see that the Milanese writers, if they erred, at least erred after a man excellent in learning. King Desiderius, he says, having been conquered and captured, and all the Lombards having been received into allegiance and surrender, Charles claimed the Italian kingdom for himself by right of victory. And that he might sanction this moreover by a new right, he employed, as was thought, an old decree of Pope Gregory. For he willed to be crowned at Monza with the iron crown by the archbishop of Milan, and established that it should be so observed among posterity. Then he describes the ceremonies of the coronation, and adds: These things Thomas, archbishop of Milan, then performed. From which very much splendour accrued to that church. These things at the year 774. Then at the year 781 he relates that Pippin was anointed king of Italy by Pope Hadrian, as also his brother Louis king of Aquitaine. Then he subjoins: These things having been done, there was a return thence to Pavia. There the same services were renewed by Archbishop Thomas. For he both presented Pippin at Monza, after the example already established by Charles, with the iron crown, and received Gisla, the daughter, from the same font (of Baptism), washed in the Christian rite. You have, reader, the source from which the modern Milanese writers drew. From Sigonio's words, too, badly understood and indeed ambiguous, they made Gisela, who was the daughter of Charlemagne, the daughter of Pippin.

[15] Muratori, in volume 2 of the Anecdota, also wrote a lengthy Dissertation on the Iron Crown but Muratori proves by solid arguments,. And in it, in chap. 5, he intends to prove that neither Charlemagne nor Pippin nor their successors, the kings of Italy from among the Franks, were crowned with the iron crown. He begins his Disputation thus: The Lombards having been driven from the royal throne, and King Desiderius conquered and captured, Charlemagne obtained power over affairs in Italy… That he was crowned at Monza with the iron crown by Archbishop Thomas, Carlo Sigonio … hands down, and Zucchi most gladly subscribed to his opinion. The same of Pippin, son of Charles, and of Bernard

and Lothair, grandsons, both the aforesaid writers relate, and, to dissemble nothing, I find Galvano (Fiamma, a writer of the 14th century of the Order of Preachers) also agreeing with them in the Manipulus Florum, chap. 126 and following. Yet that the authors affirmed these things from conjectures alone is as certain as what is most certain… We read six hundred, so to speak, composers of Histories, partly contemporaries of Charlemagne and his successors, partly little removed from their age… Who then does not see that in so many monuments this custom of crowning kings ought not to have been passed over, if it had ever prevailed? Nevertheless, although every most minute deed of Charles the augustus and of the rest is recounted there, yet no word of the coronation at Monza occurs, just as if that distinction had been something to be despised and wrapped in silence. On the contrary, none of these writers passes over in silence the Roman coronation of Charlemagne, which everyone recognized was to be reckoned even among his chief glories.

[16] He adds the authority of Le Cointe, and proceeds thus: Let Sigonio see, then that that opinion is not probable., by what author he may defend himself where he affirms that Charles was crowned at Monza. For as regards Pippin his son, we know that he was proclaimed king of Italy not at Monza but at Rome, and there presented with the crown. That Pippin was crowned at Rome Sigonio himself wrote, but that he was crowned again by Archbishop Thomas he added altogether improbably. This Muratori proves from the baptism of Gisela related by many, with which Sigonio joined the coronation of Pippin. For, having cited some writers who relate the baptism of Gisela, and to whom I shall presently add others, he discourses thus: But if the archbishop of Milan had conferred the crown again on Pippin at Monza, the authors could neither have been ignorant of it and ought to have written it, who by no means omitted the sacred cleansing of Gisela, although a thing of far less moment. After other things, which for brevity's sake I pass over, as I have omitted many others, he concludes thus: But if we diligently turn over the old Histories, we understand that the Frankish kings were girded with the Italian diadem by the Roman Pontiffs only. Sigonio's opinion, indeed, since it is destitute of the suffrages of the ancients, you would more justly compare to a dream than to history. Certainly Donato Bossi, Giorgio Merula, Tristano Calco, and other most diligent writers of the affairs of Milan, and most versed in the antiquities of this city, altogether omitted this coronation of the Frankish kings in Italy, since in truth no records were at their disposal by which they might claim so great a glory for the Insubrians. Thus far Muratori; nor do I find in Fontanini's Dissertation even the least argument which I could oppose. In the Annotations to Sigonio, reprinted at Milan in the year 1732, the opinion of Sigonio refuted here is likewise refuted.

[17] Gisla or Gisela was baptized by Bl. Thomas, But as regards the baptism of Gisela, daughter of Charlemagne, conferred by Thomas in the year 781, it is indubitable, and asserted in rivalry by the writers of Frankish affairs. I shall cite only the writers whom Martin Bouquet published or reprinted in volume 5 of the Writers of France. The Annals of the Franks which are commonly called the Tiliani have thus on page 20: And from there (namely from Rome, where Pippin and Louis had been anointed kings) he (Charlemagne) returned, came to the city of Milan, and there his daughter Ghisla was baptized by the archbishop, Thomas by name, who himself also received her from the sacred font. Other old Annals of the Franks, in the same volume, page 42, after Charles's being brought back from Rome to Milan, add: And there his daughter the lady Gisola was baptized by the archbishop, Thomas by name, who himself also received her from the sacred font with his hands. Einhard in the Life of Charles, in the same volume, page 204: And the king having departed from Rome, and coming to Milan, Thomas, bishop of that city, baptized there his daughter, Gisla by name, and received her from the sacred font. The Chronicle of Saint-Denis, page 236, having set down first Charles's return to Milan, has in French what I render in Latin: Thomas, archbishop of the city, baptized and lifted from the font a certain daughter of his: he was her spiritual father, and gave her the name Gilla. It is printed in French Gille, which I did not wish to change, although perhaps Gisle was written.

[18] daughter of Charlemagne. Ado in the Chronicle, in the same volume, page 319: At Milan his daughter Gisla was baptized and received by Thomas the bishop. The Annals of Metz, in the same volume, page 343, of Charlemagne: Returning thence, he came to Milan, where his daughter Gisla was baptized by Archbishop Thomas, whom the bishop himself lifted from the sacred font. To these I add only Ptolemy of Lucca, omitting many others, because he adds something in praise of Bl. Thomas. He has thus in volume XI of the Writers of Italy, page 986: And returning thence (Charles) from the City and coming to Milan, he was received there gloriously by the clergy and people, and there his daughter was baptized, Gisela by name, by the archbishop of Milan, Thomas by name, a venerable man and of extraordinary holiness. I shall not adduce more writers on an indubitable matter. Einhard, among the daughters of Charlemagne by Bl. Hildegard, names Gisla last.

[19] The Blessed one is said to have defended the Ambrosian rites, We come to the asserted defence of the Ambrosian rites, of which the words given in num. 2 speak thus: He wonderfully defended, by the zeal of Bishop Eugenius, the books of the Ambrosian Office, which Charlemagne had judged should be burned. These things can with difficulty be confirmed by suitable reasons. Less displeasing to me are the words of Ughelli, who says of these things only: He was skilled as much as anyone in the ecclesiastical rites, and showed himself a most keen defender of the Ambrosian. Galvano Fiamma, whose Work is published in volume XI of the Writers of Italy, already cited before, in the Manipulus Florum, chap. 124, treats of Charlemagne, and among other things writes these of him: He tried with all his strength to annul the Ambrosian Office: he determined that the Office of Gregory (that is, the Roman) was the source of all Offices. Whence he instituted three schools beyond the mountains for learning that Office: the first he placed at Metz, the second at Sens [], the third at Orléans.* These things may be true, yet I do not think they are to be examined further. Charlemagne certainly instituted schools, and caused them to be instituted; nay, he also willed that the divine Offices be corrected and emended. He was moreover most devoted to the Roman Church, and so could have desired that all should adopt the Roman rites: yet I do not find in the contemporary writers that Charles wished or laboured that the Ambrosian rites should be wholly abolished.

[20] Ptolemy of Lucca, of almost the same age as Fiamma and some will have them defended by a miracle., and of the same Order of Preachers, in the Ecclesiastical History, book XI, chap. 7, after certain assertions about what St. Gregory did for the ecclesiastical Office, writes the following to our purpose (in the same volume, page 915): The Histories also relate that when there was a great dispute [] among the faithful about the Office of Ambrose, Charlemagne favouring the Office of blessed Gregory, as will be said below, in a council in the time of Pope Hadrian it was defined, by a certain judgement held, that the Gregorian Office should prevail in the Church. And the judgement was such, that the bishops gathered there ordained that the Ambrosian and the Gregorian Missal be placed upon the altar of St. Peter; and, the door of the church having been closed and secured with the seals of some bishops, they left them so from Vespers until morning. And when at the hour of matins they had entered the church, they found the Gregorian Missal loosened into its leaves and scattered through the whole church, while the Ambrosian Missal remained on the altar, and they found it alone open. On account of which judgement they judged that the Office of Gregory should be spread through the world, the Ambrosian remaining in the church of Milan alone.* Ptolemy records nothing of that prodigy in the very place where it most ought to have been narrated, if it had happened. Wherefore I think that the whole of it flowed from the badly patched-together History of Landulf the elder, published in volume 4 of the Writers of Italy, which has not a few things altogether ineptly invented.

[21] Muratori, in the Prolegomena to the mentioned History of Landulf, page 49 and following, discourses of many things to our purpose concerning the author and his Work But Landulf the elder,, which was cited by some as the Chronicle of Datius, although, as Muratori strives to prove at length, St. Datius, archbishop of Milan, wrote no Chronicle. That question, which concerns St. Datius, given by us at the 14th of January, I shall not touch here. I shall only show from Muratori how little credit Landulf deserves in many other things, how none in these. Muratori wished, as he himself says, to forearm the readers against the calumnies, ignorance and scurrility of the writer, that he might disarm his otherwise foolish venom. Of his age he says: This Historian, whose Chronicle is carried down to about the year 1085, lived in the times of Gregory VII, Supreme Pontiff, and certainly flourished before the year 1100 from the birth of Christ; that is, three centuries after Bl. Thomas. He observes secondly that he himself was perhaps a married priest, certainly a most keen patron of the married, or concubinary, clergy. Wherefore it is no wonder, he says, if there fills his books both enormous slander against the Roman Pontiffs, and wonderful petulance against any upright men hostile to incontinence. And soon: What? that no light ignorance and no common impudence also blacken Landulf. Both he forthwith proves. Both the learned reader will see, provided he has read the History itself. These things suffice to diminish credit in Landulf in all things.

[22] who wrote those miracles under the name of Bl. Thomas, Let us hear other things too, bearing more nearly on our matter. Further, he says, in not a few other places too you may see the credit of Landulf totter. The Complaint of Bl. Benedict, archbishop of Milan, concerning the consecration of the bishop of Pavia, which is found here, and had already been published by me in volume 1 of the Anecdota, chap. 5 of the Appendix, is a speech falsely attributed to the same archbishop, as I showed in the same place, chap. VII. Similar speeches this writer, according to his wit, substitutes for other men, in order to sell his opinions, although sometimes futile, under another's name; to say nothing of the miracles and visions recorded, or, to speak more rightly, invented by him with too great facility in favour of his own. Muratori has touched in this place on the very matter of which we treat. For Landulf in chap. 10 begins a narrative about the Ambrosian Office and its defender Bishop Eugenius, which he carries through five chapters as a sermon of Bl. Thomas the archbishop, with this title prefixed: Sermon of Bl. Thomas, archbishop of Milan, how the Ambrosian Office was defended through Bl. Eugenius against Pope Hadrian and the emperor Charles by most evident miracles. But it is clearer than light that that account is not Bl. Thomas's, since it is carried down to times at which Bl. Thomas had long ceased to live. It is equally clear that the things which Landulf narrates are rather childish figments and badly stitched fables than true facts.

[23] deserves no credit concerning these things. That all those things were written long after the death of Bl. Thomas is clear from chapter 14, which belongs to the same account; and so that whole account was printed from the 15th century in Mombritius, volume 1

fol. 261, under the title Life of blessed Eugenius the bishop. For the author begins chapter 14 with these words, Many times having passed, etc., in order to relate that the body of Eugenius was found by revelation. And the Milanese, and notably Bosca, will have it that this is the Eugenius who is inserted in the Roman Martyrology at the 30th of December. And so at that day his cult can be examined more broadly; nay, it can also be proved more broadly that that whole account, which Mombritius called the Life of Bl. Eugenius, was unskilfully patched together from fables and inept figments. Of Bl. Thomas nothing is said there, but everything is attributed to Eusebius. Wherefore it will be enough for me to have observed that from that impure source, as far as I have hitherto been able to gather, flowed all the things which are read in the more recent writers concerning the Ambrosian books burned by Charlemagne, and defended by an improbably asserted prodigy. For although not all transcribed their material from Landulf, he certainly seems to be the first author.

[24] Perhaps Charlemagne thought of introducing the Roman rites Yet from this I would not infer that Charlemagne did not think of propagating the rite of the Roman Church to other churches, or perhaps even of introducing it into all churches. Ptolemy of Lucca, book 15, chap. 6, writes the following of Charles, already crowned emperor: And after this, as other Deeds of the French relate, whose authors I do not know, but which I have read, while the emperor was keeping the feast of the Resurrection with Pope Leo, and they were eating together, it happened that the Roman cantors of the Pope and the cantors of the emperor, who were French, contended together as to who performed the office better. When this had come to the emperor, he made his cantors come to him, and put this question to them: where was the water purer, in the fountain or in the streams? They answered that it was in the fountain. "You then", he said, "have given sentence against yourselves; because the Office of blessed Gregory, which the Roman Church holds, is the fountain of the Offices of all the other churches." Then, with the good pleasure of Pope Leo, the most serene emperor took with him Roman cantors, and the Antiphonary of blessed Gregory with the whole of the rest of his Office, and carried them with him into France. And he instituted schools for learning the aforesaid Office, one at Metz, and another at Soissons: a third they relate at Orléans. And he ordered to be cut back the melodies of levity which the French, and especially the Belgians, made in their divine Office. Similar things are read in the older French writers, from whom the Italian writer drew. But they narrate the event earlier, namely at the year 787, in which King Charles was at Rome.

[25] From attempts of this kind on Charles's part Landulf seems to have taken occasion to invent many things concerning the Ambrosian Office and rites: but Bl. Thomas had already died before the year 787, so that the whole matter seems by no means to concern him into all churches: but the assertions of miracles totter.. Of the miracles asserted by Landulf Cardinal Bona also doubted, in book 1 of the Res Liturgicae, chap. 10, where he treats of the Ambrosian Mass and its peculiar rites, which, when their abolition was being treated, Giuseppe Visconti writes in book 2 On the Rites of the Mass were approved by miracles. But to prove these things, says Bona, although he asserts that many testimonies are at his disposal, yet he brings forward none except Galvano and Beroldus, who, he says, are preserved in manuscript in the most well-furnished Ambrosian library and in the record-office of the metropolitan church. But these are unknown writers, of what weight whose authority is I leave to others to discuss. For I do not know in what age they lived, and on what foundation relying they wrote the things which Visconti reports from them. So Bona, very prudently. But the Works, which were then unpublished, have since been brought to light, and so it has become more apparent on how fragile a foundation all those things rest. If anyone desires more about these things, let him go to Muratori, volume 4 of the Antiquities of Italy, Dissertation 57, which is on the Rites of the Ambrosian church.

\ Elsewhere Suessionibus* (Soissons).

\ Perhaps disceptatio* (dispute).