Two Ewalds

ON THE HOLY TWO EWALDS, PRESBYTERS AND MARTYRS IN OLD SAXONY,

IN THE YEAR, AS IS MORE PROBABLE, DCXCV.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

The two Ewalds, presbyters and martyrs, in Old Saxony. (SS.)

BY C. B.

§ I. Notice of Old Saxony, in which the Saints suffered; the various formation of their name; their memory in the sacred Fasti; their ecclesiastical cult; the Passion to be published.

[1] Old Saxony, according to the varying fortune of wars and the varying character of the times, had boundaries now narrower, now less narrow. In the age of Charlemagne, of Old Saxony which seems to have obtained also in the age of the Ewalds, it was enclosed chiefly between the Rhine, the Weser and the Elbe. This may be gathered from the metrical Annals published by du Chesne in tome 2 of the Writers of France, by Reiner Reineck, Bouquet and others. For in these the author, an anonymous poet who lived in the age of the emperor Arnulf and embraced in verse the deeds of Charlemagne, describing at the year 772, Indiction IX, the peoples of Old Saxony, sings thus:

The Saxons, fierce by nature and hard of breast, Not yet deigning to bear the sweet yoke of Christ, Had been too much subdued by demonic error.

[2] But the Franks, worshippers of Christ, had long since Held the Catholic faith, and over many peoples through the world notice from the anonymous poet: They were already ruling, supported on every side by whom, And chiefly by the power of God, whom they duly worshipped, They could indeed conquer this one nation; Which was not even united under one king, So as to defend itself alike by the practice of warfare; But the whole people, divided in various ways, had Almost as many dukes as districts, as though the limbs of one Body had been torn apart in different directions on this side and that. But a general division holds three peoples, Distinguished by which Saxony flourished of old. The names now remain, the ancient valour has departed. Accordingly they call Westphalians those dwelling in the western Part, whose boundary is not far distant From the river Rhine. The region towards the rising of the sun The Osterlingi inhabit, whom some by another name Call Ostvali, whose borders The Slavs, a faithless nation joined to theirs, infest. Between the aforesaid, in the middle region, dwell The Angarii, the third people of the Saxons. Their Fatherland is joined on the South to the lands of the Franks, And the same is bordered on the North by the Ocean.

[3] how far its part between the Rhine Since, as is readily agreed among the learned, the peoples of the Slavs, in the reign of Charlemagne, occupied the tract of lands which lies between the Elbe and the Oder, the last ten verses transcribed here, however unpolished, quite openly place Old Saxony between the Rhine, the Weser and the Elbe, and moreover define its limits quite explicitly. Yet since, for those who are about to discourse below on the place of Old Saxony where SS. Ewald suffered, a somewhat more accurate notice of the limits by which the part of Old Saxony lying between the Rhine and the Weser was circumscribed will be useful, it pleases me to inquire more diligently into this matter. There seems indeed to be no doubt that in the age of the Ewalds as well as in that of Charlemagne Old Saxony had as its limits on the east the Weser, on the west the Rhine or at least places near the Rhine, on the north the Yssel and Frisia; but how far it then extended on the south is not equally ascertained. In the Annals of Tilius, inserted by Bouquet in tome 5 of the Writers of France, whose author flourished at the beginning of the ninth century, at the year 776, for which the year 775 is noted as to be substituted, these things are read: "Then the king (Charlemagne) held a synod at Düren, and proceeding thence into Saxony took Sigeburg." Sigeburg is situated on the left bank of the river Ruhr, so that at the time when Charlemagne attacked the Old Saxons in arms, their region or province extended on the south, if not further, at least to the river Ruhr; and I do not reckon that it was of lesser extension towards the same quarter of the world at the end of the seventh century, when the martyrdom of the Ewalds took place.

[4] For Cluver, book 3 of Ancient Germany, chapter 13, proves from Gregory of Tours and the Weser extended towards the South. that the Bricteri or Bructeri, or also, as Bede writes, Boructuarii, in the time of Theodosius the Great, or when the fourth century was well advanced, had their seats between Cologne, the Catti or Hessians, and the river Lippe or Luppia; nor do I find that they yielded these, either of their own accord or compelled by force, before the end of the seventh century, when they first heard the saving doctrine of Christ announced to them by St. Suitbert. But then, conquered by the Saxons, they were probably compelled to migrate elsewhere. This seems to be gathered from Bede, when in book 5 of the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, chapter 12, he writes thus: "Which Suidberct, namely, having received the episcopate, returned from Britain, and not long afterwards withdrew to the nation of the Boructuarii, and by preaching led many of them to the way of truth; but, the Boructuarii having been conquered not long afterwards by the nation of the Old Saxons, those who had received the word were dispersed wherever they could." St. Suitbert was ordained bishop in Britain in the year 693, as you will find proved among us in St. Suitbert, number 8. Since, therefore, from Bede's testimony Suitbert not long afterwards brought many of the Boructuarii to the faith,

and they were not long afterwards conquered by the Saxons, it becomes likely that the former happened about the end of the year 693 or in the year 694, and the latter about the end of the year 694 or the beginning of the following; so that already then the Old Saxons had advanced their limits on the south, if not further, at least as far as the river Ruhr, to which I have just taught they were afterwards extended in the age of Charlemagne, and the tract lying between the Ruhr and the Lippe, its former inhabitants having been driven off or added to the power of the Saxons, began to be counted as part of Old Saxony.

[5] Accordingly, since our Saints, as I shall prove below, obtained the palm of martyrdom in the year 695 in that part of Old Saxony In this the Ewalds were crowned with martyrdom: which lies between the Weser and the Rhine, it follows from all that has already been said that this probably happened in that tract of lands which, cut off between the Weser, Frisia, the Yssel, the Rhine and the Ruhr, comprises the bishopric of Münster, that of Osnabrück, that of Paderborn, the county of Mark at least in part, and some other lordships; yet that it undoubtedly happened there cannot be asserted, for this reason, that that tract, as you will easily gather from what has already been said, perhaps extended on the south beyond the river Ruhr at the time when the Saints suffered, and nothing, as will become evident from what is to be said, occurs anywhere which suffices for undoubtedly fixing the wrestling-ground of the Ewalds to some definite place. However that may be, there is indeed no doubt that the Saints were killed in that part of Old Saxony which lies between the Weser and the Rhine. For Bede, at number 4 of the Passion to be published, relates that the bodies of those slain were thrown into the Rhine; which would certainly be foreign to the truth if they had been killed in the Saxony lying between the Weser and the Elbe. Further, from what has been said above everyone will easily gather how Pagi, in the Critique at the year 693, affirms that the Ewalds met death for Christ in the region of the Boructuarii near the Rhine, and yet does not openly conflict with Bede, who writes in the Passion to be published that it happened in the province of the Old Saxons. For the region of the Boructuarii, at least in part, had, at the time when the Ewalds were killed, begun to be reckoned to Old Saxony, and was afterwards always counted with it, even when Bede was writing his History; so that, on the hypothesis that the Saints were truly killed in the region of the Boructuarii, it can be asserted without open contradiction that this happened there and at the same time in Old Saxony.

[6] their names variously formed; their memory in many In whatever way, then, the matter is regarded, the Saints undoubtedly obtained the palm of martyrdom in that part of Old Saxony which lies between the Rhine and the Weser, so that it is not necessary to bring forward more to confirm this matter. A good many writers have mentioned SS. Ewald; but these are not written by all with one and the same formation of the name. For by some they are expressed as Egualdi or Eugualdi, by others on the contrary as Edwaldi or by some other similar appellation more or less corrupted. Bede in the Passion to be published distinguishes the Saints by the indeclinable name Hewald; but in the Martyrology which is prefixed in our Work to tome two of March he calls them Ewaldi. This appellation we too shall use henceforth: for it is far more common and used by almost all the martyrologists who celebrate the Saints; and these are not few in number, both classical ones and others who have drawn from the classical ones, together with the present-day Roman, the more recent ones. The most ancient of all is Bede; for no mention of the Ewalds occurs either in the Hieronymian or in the little Roman. To transcribe here the various eulogies with which each adorns the Saints at the third day of October would be useless: for all draw their origin almost from the one eulogy which Bede first used. This alone, therefore, together with the eulogy prepared by Wandelbert, because this is metrical and perhaps not drawn from Bede alone, I recite here, meanwhile intending to add in the course (of this) if anything worth noting occurs in other eulogies which is not in Bede's eulogy. Wandelbert sings thus:

The Ewalds, equal in merits, in race and surname and altar And in doctrine, dedicated the fifth (Nones) to themselves by death.

[7] inscribed in the sacred Fasti and in Bede's own But Bede celebrates the Saints thus: "Among the Old Saxons, the birthday of the two Ewalds, who, coming with Bishop Willibrord into Germany, crossed over to the Saxons; and when they had begun to preach Christ there, they were seized by the pagans and so killed: at whose bodies much light, appearing for a long time, declared both where they were and of what merit they were." Although this eulogy, as I shall say below, has perhaps been interpolated by a writer who flourished after Bede, yet the announcement of the Ewalds which it contains undoubtedly belongs to Bede himself as its genuine and original author, and that, granted even that only those announcements of the prose Martyrology prefixed among us under Bede's name in tome 2 of March belong to Bede, as our Sollerius conjectures in the Preface to Usuard, number 56, which occur likewise in the metrical Martyrology of Bede, which d'Achery published in print in the year 1671 in the tenth tome of the Spicilegium. For the Ewalds are celebrated in the praised metrical Martyrology of Bede also at the third day of October, or at the fifth Nones. This is done indeed in a single verse, but, so that the sense may be had entire, I transcribe here also the two preceding. They run thus:

On the sixth Nones of October * Bosa chooses to have Solemnities on earth, who rejoices in highest Olympus, And the twin Ewalds are venerated by the lot of the fifth.

[8] The announcement of the Ewalds, therefore, belongs beyond all doubt to the genuine prose Martyrology of Bede. genuine Martyrology, Further, the metrical eulogy prepared for the Saints by Wandelbert and transcribed here above makes them equal as in merits, so also in doctrine. If Wandelbert wished it signified that the Saints were adorned with equal learning in every respect, he strayed from the truth. For Bede, by whose testimony everyone stands, writes thus of the two Ewalds at number 2 of the Passion to be published: "They were both of one name, as of one devotion: for each of them was called Hewald; with this distinction, however, that according to the different appearance of their hair, one was called Black Hewald, the other White Hewald: each of whom was imbued with the piety of religion, but Black Hewald was more instructed in the knowledge of the sacred Scriptures." The two Ewalds, therefore, were not of equal doctrine or learning on Bede's testimony. But Wandelbert perhaps only wished that they were imbued with the same and equal dogmas of the faith. Which can certainly be consistent with the greater learning of Black Ewald in the sacred Scriptures. For the rest, the praised metrical eulogy of Wandelbert most rightly celebrates the two Ewalds as equal not only in merits, race and surname, but also in altar, whether by altar you understand the dignity of the priesthood or ecclesiastical cult. For both were distinguished with equal dignity of the priesthood, as Bede testifies in the Passion to be published; and both also, taken from among the living by martyrdom, obtained equal honour of ecclesiastical cult, as will become plain from what I now set about saying.

[9] You would scarcely find Saints who more quickly after their happy departure from among the living ancient ecclesiastical cult than the Ewalds obtained the cult usually paid to the Saints. For besides that their sacred bodies, as Bede testifies in the Passion to be published, last number, were laid up according to the honour befitting martyrs, and Pepin shortly afterwards, having had them taken from the ground and brought to himself, committed them to a tomb at Cologne with much glory, it seems to have been instituted immediately after their death that they should be venerated every year with fitting honour. Certainly Bede, just praised, who flourished together with the Saints and departed from among the living in the year 735, as the more common opinion now has it, writes thus in the Passion to be published, last number: "The day of their (the holy Ewalds') Passion or Finding is celebrated in those places with fitting veneration." The annual memory of the Saints was therefore celebrated with fitting cult before the year 735, and hence it becomes probable to me that this was already done from the very year which immediately followed their glorious martyrdom, to be fixed, as we shall say, to the year 695. So hasty was the fervour of the faithful in venerating the holy Martyrs. But this seems afterwards to have relaxed not a little, so that perhaps even the annual memory of the Saints ceased for some time to be celebrated. Certainly their sacred bodies lay placed in neglected coffins until the year 1074, in which, as I shall teach below, St. Anno II, archbishop of Cologne, bestowed on them the new honour of elevation and translation. This is asserted in the very letters of St. Anno about this translation of the Ewalds, to be transcribed here below.

[10] But after the said year 1074 the cult of the Saints, at Cologne, however perhaps diminished by the lapse of time or even wholly neglected, probably recovered its former strength on the occasion of the mentioned translation, or perhaps even acquired greater. Whatever may be the case, I find in our literary Collection three manuscript Lessons pertaining to the ecclesiastical Office to be recited of the two holy Ewalds, and proper to them. These are noted as taken from the manuscript Breviary of Cologne at the Holy Apostles, which he who copied them for our predecessors about the end of the last century judged to have then at least four hundred years of age. It may indeed be that he did not judge rightly; but there appears no reason to doubt that the said Breviary was older at least than the fifteenth century. The Saints were therefore already before that century venerated in the diocese of Cologne, or at any rate at Cologne, with an ecclesiastical Office, and that proper to them: and it is most probable that they did not afterwards cease to be venerated there. For three Breviaries of Cologne are at hand, of which the older is noted as printed in the year 1498, the second in the year 1577, and the third finally in the year 1618. And in all three the ecclesiastical Office of the two holy Ewalds is proposed to be recited at the III day of October; and in the two former indeed they have, besides the prayer, five Lessons proper to themselves in addition, but in the latter, inasmuch as it was brought to the norm of the Roman Breviary, they have obtained, besides the Prayer, only three Lessons of the Second Nocturn proper to themselves.

[11] at Münster, These are the things which I have found worth recording about the ancient cult of the Ewalds among the people of Cologne; I now turn my discourse to other places likewise illustrious for their ancient cult. Before the rest there meets us Münster, the chief city of Westphalia, formerly called Mimigardeford. The sacred heads of both Ewalds, as I shall teach below, were formerly translated there. The memory of this translation is recorded at the XXIX day of October in Greven's Usuardine Auctarium in these words: "At Münster, the arrival of the heads of the two holy Ewalds, presbyters and martyrs"; and it was formerly celebrated every year among the people of Münster on the same day with an ecclesiastical Office. This is clear from the ancient Breviary of Münster which is with us, and which is noted as printed in the year 1489. For in this, at the said XXIX day of October, there is proposed an Office of the holy Ewalds to be recited, in which they have, besides various Lessons, a Prayer proper to themselves in addition, in which to the sacred heads

present among the people of Münster allusion is made. Further, these formerly venerated the Saints not only on the aforesaid XXIX but also on the III day of October. For although on this day they formerly celebrated the translation of St. Ludger, and probably still celebrate it today, yet in the Office which is said of it in the aforesaid Breviary a commemoration to be made of the holy Ewalds is prescribed. Next to the city or diocese of Münster there present themselves four further places illustrious for the cult of the Saints, namely the county of Hoya, situated on the Weser; Appelderbeke, or, as others write, Appellerbeke, a village of the county of Mark, situated not far from Dortmund; Laer, a village of the diocese of Münster, not far removed from Horstmar; and finally Croneburg, a little town in the duchy of Berg; and although the three last are situated either in the diocese of Cologne or in that of Münster, and consequently belong to the things which have already been said in general about the cult of the Saints in these dioceses, yet each is to be recorded here by name together with the county of Hoya, because in these the Ewalds were formerly venerated in a certain singular manner.

[12] and in other places, And indeed that the Ewalds, to begin with the county of Hoya and the village of Appellerbeke, were formerly venerated in a certain singular manner in these two places, or had a very celebrated cult, when the Catholic religion flourished in those parts, becomes clear from what Werner Rolevinck, book 2, chapter 1, On the situation and manners of the Westphalians, and Hermann Fley, called Stangefol, in the Preface to the Annals of the Westphalian circle, chapter 9, committed to writing. To these I refer the curious reader for brevity's sake, and proceed to prove the ancient and at the same time singular cult of the Saints in the village of Laer. Nicolaus Schaten, priest of the Society of Jesus, in the History of Westphalia, which he wrote in the century just past, records this at page 354: "There is shown in that village" (namely Laer) "a spring leaping forth with three jets, which they (the holy Ewalds) drew forth by striking the ground with a traveller's staff, when an extreme drought was afflicting the inhabitants. There is also a field, sacred by religion and untouched by the rake for many years back, in memory of these Men. But more memorable in it is a sacred building, formerly erected to these Saints and restored in our age by Bishop Christoph Bernhard." Since, therefore, as is understood from these words of Schaten, a sacred building was formerly built to the holy Ewalds in the village of Laer, there is no doubt that they formerly had a singular cult there, or were honoured in a certain singular manner. As regards further the little town of Croneburg, that the Saints formerly enjoyed a certain singular cult in this too appears probable for this reason, that there are also those who assert that they were crowned with martyrdom there, and no argument otherwise occurs by which they are led to assert this.

[13] However the matter stands, the Saints certainly had a very celebrated cult there in the century just past. even today not yet omitted in most places, For Gelenius, who then published the Work On the Greatness of Cologne, and who, inasmuch as he lived not far from Croneburg, could have perceived the matter perfectly, writes thus of the Ewalds in the said Work, book 3, Syntagma 4, page 288: "In the duchy of Berg also they are most celebratedly venerated in the little town of Croneburg." Moreover, I do not doubt that they are venerated there even today. For from the cult which they had in the past century, or even earlier, an argument not without foundation is made for the present-day cult. Hence I likewise judge that the Saints are venerated today both in the village of Laer mentioned above and at Cologne, and chiefly indeed in the church of this most pious and most celebrated city formerly distinguished by the name of St. Clement, now by that of St. Cunibert. For in this their sacred bodies are preserved. Moreover, at the XVI day of November, on which the translation of the Ewalds, made by St. Anno in the year 1074 on the third day of October, and afterwards to be recorded at length here by us, is inscribed in two Usuardine Auctaria in Sollerius, Gelenius, just praised, records this in the sacred and pious Fasti of Cologne: "At Cologne, in the church of St. Clement or St. Cunibert, the translation of the holy Evalds by Blessed Anno, archbishop." In the age of Gelenius, therefore, in the church sacred to St. Cunibert there was celebrated not only the birthday of the Ewalds at the III of October, as in other churches of Cologne, but also the translation at the XVI of November, so that the Saints were then venerated there especially, and consequently today too, according to what has already been said, are probably venerated. For the rest, as regards the city of Münster, I judge that the Saints are venerated there too even today; but I would not dare to assert for certain that this is done in the same manner as formerly, because their heads, formerly translated there, perished through the fury of the Anabaptists, as I shall teach below.

[14] And let these things already said about the cult of the Saints, as well ancient as present-day, suffice. I now declare The Passion to be published. what and of what kind is their Passion which I shall subjoin to this Commentary. It was written by the Venerable Bede, and taken by us from the Ecclesiastical History which he composed of the English nation, book 5, chapter XI. Bede prolonged his life from the year 673, in which he first obtained the light, to the year 735, as the most received opinion now has it: and the Ewalds obtained the palm of martyrdom towards the end of the seventh century (we shall try below in some manner to determine the year). The said Passion of theirs, which we are about to publish, therefore deserves the highest credence, inasmuch as it was composed by an author not only most loving of the truth but also contemporary, who consequently had at the same time well perceived the things which he committed to writing. But however great the authority, accuracy and credibility of Bede as author, he nevertheless defines neither the wrestling-ground which the Saints had in Old Saxony nor the year in which they suffered. There is added that he supplies nothing either from which you might know for certain whether the Saints were monks of the Order of St. Benedict. Hence the opinions of the learned vary concerning the Benedictine monkhood of the Saints, as also concerning the year and wrestling-ground of their martyrdom. Nor is it strange: for besides that Bede deserts them here, they find no ancient record at all of sufficiently approved credibility by whose help they can determine anything certain. We shall weigh those opinions in the course of this Commentary, and estimate how much each is to be valued from the weight of the reasons on which it rests. Moreover, we shall try in some manner to illustrate, either here or in the Annotations to be subjoined to the Passion to be published, some other things which are touched on by Bede indeed, but not explained clearly enough, intending also to add what we have ascertained pertains to the posthumous glory of the Saints arising from their translated sacred remains.

* perhaps "Nonas" Nones

§ II. Whether the Saints are among the XI Apostolic men who set out from Ireland into Frisia with St. Willibrord for the sake of preaching the Gospel, and whether they were monks of the Order of St. Benedict.

The mission of the Ewalds into Frisia with St. Willibrord Marcellinus, or rather an impostor who under the false name of Marcellinus, companion of St. Willibrord, committed to writing the Life of St. Suitbert, bishop, inserted in Surius's first Quarter, writes thus in chapter 6: "He (St. Egbert) therefore chose and gathered, after the likeness of the twelve Apostles, twelve apostolic Men, constant in the faith, from various monasteries, to preach the Catholic faith to the Germans. And these were sent: Willebrord, Swibert, Acca, Wigbert, Willibald, Winibald, Lebuin, the two Ewalds, Werenfrid, and I, the least of all, Marcellinus, who wrote this history, as also that of St. Willebrord." The Ewalds, therefore, if Marcellinus is to be believed, were of the number of the apostolic Men who, sent by St. Egbert for the sake of preaching the Gospel, came with St. Willibrord into Germany or rather Frisia. "But," says Mabillon of the Suitbertine Life, part 1 of the III Benedictine Century, page 239, "in the Bollandist March," namely tome 1, in St. Suitbert, bishop, "this fiction of the impostor has been confuted by such strong arguments that no one will henceforth give credence to such open lies of pseudo-Marcellinus" (so he deservedly calls the author of the Suitbertine life). Among the lies or fictions of Pseudo-Marcellinus confuted in our Work in the place just cited there occur various assertions comprised in the words of pseudo-Marcellinus just transcribed here. But I, dismissing the others, touch here on one only, which concerns the Ewalds, and which nevertheless was not entirely invented by pseudo-Marcellinus, as you will easily gather from what is to be said.

[16] Accordingly, in tome 1 of March of our Work, in St. Suitbert, bishop, number 19, it is written thus: is to be held false, one and another reason "The two holy Ewalds are numbered … (by Pseudo-Marcellinus) among the XI companions of the same St. Willebrord. But Bede explicitly opposes, who, book 5, chapter XI, having narrated the mission of Willebrord and his companions into Frisia and the preaching begun, subjoins this: 'Whence it came about, by the help of divine grace, that they converted many in a short time from idolatry to the faith of Christ.' Then, immediately, of the Ewalds: 'Following their examples, two certain presbyters of the nation of the English, who had long been exiles * in Ireland for the sake of the eternal fatherland, came to the province of the Old Saxons, if perchance they might by preaching gain some there for Christ.' He says these FOLLOWED THE EXAMPLES OF THOSE TWELVE, not that they set out in their company, nor that they were of their number: nor that they came into Frisia, whither those went, but to the province of the Old Saxons." This is indeed a most strong argument for showing that the Ewalds did not come into Frisia with St. Willibrord. That the matter may nevertheless come out still more evident, it pleases me to add some things. There occurs at all in Bede, in the Passion to be published, no trace from which it could be concluded that the Ewalds had communication of counsels, still less fellowship of the journey, with St. Willibrord, where, however, they are recorded to have had as companion Tilmo the monk, who is counted by no ancient writer at all, nor by pseudo-Marcellinus himself, among the eleven apostolic Men who set out with St. Willibrord from Ireland into Frisia by the arrangement of St. Egbert. Moreover, the Saints, so far as it is permitted to gather from the same Passion to be published, entered Old Saxony straight from Ireland, and there at once, and consequently in the first year of their arrival, obtained the palm of martyrdom; and this, as is admitted by almost all, happened, if not later, certainly not earlier than the year 693. Hence further it now follows that they did not come into Frisia with St. Willibrord.

[17] For besides that, as I have said, they entered Old Saxony straight from Ireland and so did not previously turn aside into Frisia, is shown; and although from Bede's Martyrology St. Willibrord came from Ireland into Frisia with his eleven companions in the year 690, as pleases some, and among these pseudo-Marcellinus, or certainly in the following year, as Pagi contends in the Critique at the year 690, number 1, from the Westminster (chronicler); so that the holy Ewalds, inasmuch as they set out from Ireland after him, did not land in Frisia with St. Willibrord. Pseudo-Marcellinus, therefore, who does not seem older than the fourteenth century, (made) the Saints

fellowship of the journey with St. Willibrord either invented, or, as appears more probable, perhaps drew it from the prose Martyrology of Bede prefixed to tome two of our March. Certainly in this, at the III day of October, the Ewalds are joined to St. Willibrord as Companions. The words recited already above, in which this is done, are these: "Among the Old Saxons, the birthday of the two Ewalds, presbyters, who, coming with Bishop Willibrord into Germany, crossed over to the Saxons; and when they had begun to preach Christ there, they were seized by the pagans and so killed." So the aforesaid Martyrology, and indeed, as it seemed to our Predecessors, according to the genuine text of Bede. Nor yet, on that account, is it to be thought that the fellowship of the journey of the Ewalds with St. Willibrord is wrongly denied. For although the announcement of them (see what I discoursed at number 6) at the III day of October in the praised prose Martyrology truly has the Venerable Bede as its author, it does not follow from this that the entire eulogy with which they are adorned there likewise proceeded from Bede as its genuine author and exists wholly pure of all interpolation.

[18] the contrary could be contended; yet most certainly the Saints Sollerius, in the Preface to Usuard illustrated by him, number 53, writes thus: "It is undoubted that some Martyrology was composed by the venerable and holy writer" (namely Bede), "and no less certain that it was very incomplete: certain besides, that it has hitherto been published by no one in the original phrasing about which there is complete certainty." Moreover, he then indicates sufficiently in more than one place that he inclines to believe that not a few eulogies of Saints which occur in our prose Martyrology of Bede have been interpolated here and there. And indeed no one, as I think, will deny that the matter is so. Hence it is lawful to suspect that it perhaps arose from interpolation that the Ewalds, in the eulogy with which they are adorned in our prose Martyrology of Bede, are indicated to have come with St. Willibrord into Germany. Baillet, who with us judges that the holy Ewalds did not come with St. Willibrord into Germany or Frisia, a region of Germany, affirms that it can be doubted whether the eulogy prepared for the Saints by Ado, in which their coming into Germany with St. Willibrord is asserted, was not intruded into the Martyrology of Bede by an interpolator. Baillet's opinion would surely please, did not the same eulogy of the Saints as in Bede, and that expressed in almost the same words, occur in Rabanus, who is older than Ado. "But," someone will say, "by whom, then, can the Eulogy which is attributed to the Ewalds in the Prose Martyrology of Bede have been interpolated?" I answer that it seems to have been done by Florus, by whom it is ascertained among all learned hagiologists that the Martyrology of Bede was augmented. For although, when the Martyrology of Bede is said to have been augmented or to have grown by the zeal of Florus, it is commonly understood only that some Saints were added by Florus to the Martyrology of Bede, yet nothing prevents its being believed that some change was now and then introduced by Florus into the very eulogies which Bede wove into his Martyrology.

[19] cannot be counted among the XI apostolic Men, companions of St. Willibrord. But if this displeases, see whether it is better so to interpret the prose Martyrology of Bede that it signifies that the Saints came with Willibrord into Germany, not in that they were in the company of Willibrord, but only in that at about the same time at which he (came) into Frisia they arrived in Old Saxony, both regions of Germany. One or the other must surely be asserted, lest Bede must be said to conflict with himself. For he (see what I discoursed at number 16), in the Passion to be published, or in the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, book 5, chapter XI, reports things in writing from which it necessarily follows that the Saints did not cross from Ireland into Germany in the company of Willibrord; and one must stand rather by the Ecclesiastical History of Bede than by the Martyrology. For besides that this is quite suspect of interpolation, the time at which the Ewalds arrived in Old Saxony (see again what was said at number 16) favours the History. Further, since the Saints, as has already been proved, did not come with Willibrord into Germany, it is certain that they were not of the eleven apostolic men who set out with Willibrord into Frisia by the arrangement of Bishop St. Egbert. And this indeed would be certain even if, led by the authority of Bede's prose Martyrology, we freely conceded that the Ewalds arrived in Germany with St. Willibrord. For although they are explicitly asserted in the aforesaid Martyrology to have landed in the company of Willibrord, they are not on that account counted among the eleven Apostolic men who set out with Willibrord into Frisia (for they could, even though they were not of these, have gone to Germany with Willibrord); but Bede in the Passion to be published most openly excludes them from the number of the said eleven apostolic men. For after he has narrated that St. Willibrord and eleven other holy and industrious men crossed from Ireland into Frisia for the sake of preaching the Gospel, he presently adds that the two Ewalds, following their examples, set out into Old Saxony to gain souls there for Christ: by which manner of writing no single man possessed of reason will deny that both Ewalds are excluded from the number of the eleven apostolic men who crossed with St. Willibrord into Frisia.

[20] Although, therefore, as it is permitted to gather from what has already been said, That they were monks indeed the prose Martyrology of Bede was perhaps the cause of pseudo-Marcellinus's writing in the words recited above that our Saints came with Willibrord into Frisia, and consequently he perhaps did not use pure invention in this matter, yet he is not to be excused by the same reason when, by the words likewise transcribed here above, he counts both Ewalds among the eleven apostolic men who set out with St. Willibrord into Frisia by the arrangement of St. Egbert. But I now proceed from the confutation of what Marcellinus wrongly wrote on this subject to discussing the Benedictine monkhood of the Saints, most confidently asserted by some. I undertake, then, to examine two things here. The first is whether the Saints were monks; the other, whether, on the hypothesis that they were monks, they undoubtedly professed the Benedictine institute. That the Saints were monks appears very probable. For Bede, in the Passion to be published, number 2, writes thus of them: "Following their examples" (of Willibrord and his companions) "two certain presbyters of the nation of the English, who had long been exiles in Ireland for the sake of the eternal fatherland, came to the province of the Old Saxons." The Saints, therefore, before they set out from Ireland into Old Saxony, were for some time, on Bede's testimony, exiles in Ireland for the sake of the eternal fatherland: and to be an exile for the sake of the eternal fatherland seems to signify in this writer nothing else than to profess the monastic life, having left one's native soil. Certainly in him, as anyone will easily detect from the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, to be a pilgrim for Christ, or for the sake of the eternal fatherland, is scarcely taken in another signification; so that to be an exile for the sake of the eternal fatherland, on account of the similarity which exists between the two formulas of speaking, is probably also taken in the same signification in Bede.

[21] The Saints were therefore most probably monks, and consequently perhaps also of the number of those English appears most probable; but whether of the Benedictine of whom Bede records this, book 3, chapter 27: "There were there, in the island of Ireland, many of the nobles and also of the middle rank of the English nation, who in the time of the bishops Finan and Colman" (who died in the year 676), "having left their native island, had withdrawn thither either for the sake of divine reading or of a more continent life; and some indeed soon faithfully gave themselves over to the monastic way of life; others rather rejoiced to give attention to reading by going round through the cells of the Masters. All of whom the Scots most willingly receiving, took care to furnish with daily food without price, and also with books to read and with free teaching." In some manner also the monkhood of the Saints is confirmed from the fact that in the Passion to be published, number 2, both are said to have been imbued with the piety of religion. There is added that in the same Passion, number 5, there is numbered among their companions an illustrious man whose name was Tilmon, made a monk from a soldier, so that they too were themselves most probably monks, as I have already said. But now I inquire into another thing. Were they most probably also of the Order of St. Benedict? Mabillon, in the 2nd Benedictine Century, placed both Ewalds among the Omitted, inasmuch as he held as uncertain not only their profession of the Benedictine institute but even their monkhood. "The two Evualds," he says there, "whether they were monks is uncertain from Bede, book 5, chapter XI." But afterwards, whether rightly or otherwise what is to be said will disclose, he changed his opinion. For in tome 1 of the Benedictine Annals, page 592, he explicitly calls them monks, and narrates their martyrdom there and on the page next following: and since he does this in a Work which is chiefly destined to recording the things done by his Benedictine Order and through its Saints, he seems to count the Ewalds also among the Benedictine Saints, although he nowhere openly declares it.

[22] institute: this is affirmed by many; yet it cannot be held for certain Dorgan, Ménard, Bucelin and other Benedictine Hagiologists inserted them, as undoubtedly belonging to their Order, in the sacred Fasti compiled by them. Wion, himself also a Benedictine monk, in book 3 of the Tree of Life, page 325, also commemorates the Saints at the third day of October, and adds in the Annotations from Trithemius that both led the monastic life in the monastery of Ripon in England, which then, as they would have it, was of the Benedictine institute. There are also some others who affirm the same without doubt. But these are all more recent, and rest on no testimony of antiquity at all, so that they ought not all to be enumerated here. Nicholas Harpsfield, in the English Ecclesiastical History, page 122, reports this about the Ewalds in writing: "The splendid zeal of Willibrord in propagating the Gospel many others drew as an example. Among whom were two Hewalds, who long lived as voluntary exiles from their fatherland in that holy company of Willibrord of which we have spoken." Willibrord, before he came into Frisia for the sake of announcing the Gospel, led the monastic life for some time in Ireland, and was, as it appears, a follower of the institute of St. Benedict. Since, therefore, Harpsfield indicates in the words just recited that the Ewalds lived long in Ireland as voluntary exiles in the holy company of Willibrord, he favours the opinion of those who ascribe the Saints to the Benedictine Order. But although Harpsfield is held by some learned men as a weighty author, yet, being a writer only of the sixteenth century, he is too remote from the age of the Ewalds to be safely believed when he attributes Benedictine monkhood to the Saints without a suitable testimony of antiquity. Whatever Harpsfield writes, therefore, the undoubted monastic profession of the Ewalds according to the institute of St. Benedict can no more be established from him than from Trithemius, Wion and other Benedictine writers of a more recent age.

[23] Let us now discuss what and what kind of arguments offer themselves not even from the fact that the Saints followed Willibrord, by which the writers already praised, and others, could have been induced to believe that the Saints were of the Order of St. Benedict. Since St. Willibrord and his eleven companions (crossed) into Frisia from Ireland

set out by the arrangement of St. Egbert, and the Ewalds, incited by their example, on the testimony of Bede, took the road into Old Saxony, some perhaps thought that this too was brought about by the arrangement or exhortation of St. Egbert, and that the Saints had therefore previously lived for some time under the discipline of St. Egbert, a monk of the Benedictine institute. But again nothing occurs in Bede, or in another ancient writer, from which you might in any way gather that the Ewalds came into Old Saxony for the preaching of the Gospel with St. Egbert striving for it or rousing them. Suppose, however, that it was brought about with St. Egbert as author and instigator; what, I ask, will it be possible to conclude from this for proving the Benedictine monkhood of the Ewalds? It is very doubtful whether all the eleven apostolic men themselves who set out with St. Willibrord into Frisia previously spent their life for some time under the discipline of St. Egbert. Wherefore that matter must with better right be doubted as regards the Ewalds, and consequently their Benedictine monkhood remains very doubtful, even if we lay it down as fact that they set out into Frisia at the impulse of St. Egbert for the sake of announcing the Gospel to the gentiles. If, therefore, no other argument tells for the Benedictine monkhood of the Saints, I do not see how the praised writers could have been induced to believe it firmly. But Mabillon, in the 3rd Benedictine Century, part 1, in the Preface, brings forward those weighty reasons from which someone might perhaps have held it at least as most probable that the Saints were of the Order of St. Benedict.

[24] For there, number 16, he writes thus: "After the Scots" (the Irish) "and the Britons became accustomed to the Roman ceremonies, or from the fact that after the embassy of St. Adamnan to King Aldfrid the monks of both nations also came over to the institutes of the Benedictine Rule, which St. Augustine had brought into Britain. Bede signifies this not obscurely in the fourth book of the History, likewise in the fourth chapter, where he treats of the two monasteries built by Colman in Ireland, 'of which the one, called Mayo,' he says, 'is held to this day by English inhabitants; and, all having long since been converted to better institutes, it contains an excellent swarm of monks, who, gathered there from the province of the English, after the example of the venerable Fathers, live under a Rule and a canonical abbot in great continence and sincerity by the labour of their own hands.'" What Mabillon contends in these words I will not call in doubt here. Let it be held for the time being, therefore, as true and undoubted that the monks, as well the Scots or Irish as the Britons, together with the Roman ceremonies, or with the canonical Paschal observance, which Mabillon here chiefly understands by the Roman ceremonies, took up the Benedictine Rule, or, as he speaks, came over to the institutes of the Benedictine Rule. That, this being granted, anything may be had for asserting the Saints to the Benedictine Order, it is necessary that already then, when they led the monastic life in Ireland, all or at least most of the monasteries there had embraced the ecclesiastical time of the Paschal observance. But how, I ask, can this be proved with sufficient certainty? Mabillon, in the Preface praised above, number XI, writes thus: "Through Adamnan, presbyter and abbot of the monks of Hii, who, sent on an embassy into England, had learned the Roman customs there, 'the greatest part of the Scots in Ireland, and some also of the Britons in Britain, took up the ecclesiastical time of the Paschal observance,' says Bede in the seventeenth chapter of the fifth book. 'Yet his own, who were in the island of Hii, or who were subject to that monastery, he was not able to lead onto the path of truth.' That this was done a little after the six hundred and ninetieth year the sixteenth chapter of the same book proves."

[25] most of the monasteries of Ireland the lawful There were therefore, if Mabillon writes rightly here, already before the year 695, in which the Ewalds set out from Ireland into Old Saxony, most of the monasteries of this region which had embraced the ecclesiastical time of the Paschal observance, and consequently also the institutes of the Benedictine Rule; for we hold it for the time being as undoubted that these were taken up by the Irish monks together with the canonical Paschal observance. These are the weighty reasons, produced by Mabillon, from which someone, as I have said, will perhaps judge it to be concluded that the Saints were of the Order of St. Benedict. But the whole matter depends on the time at which, as Bede says, the greatest part of the Scots or Irish took up the ecclesiastical time of the Paschal observance. Mabillon in the words transcribed here above indicates that this happened before the year 695, as I have already hinted, and asserts that it is proved from the sixteenth chapter of the fifth book of the History written by Bede. Let us see, then, whether it can be concluded from the said chapter that the canonical Paschal observance was taken up by the Irish before the year 695. I transcribe all the words which can in any way bear on this. And they are these, immediately subjoined to the last words of Bede recited by Mabillon above: "For Adamnan, presbyter and abbot of the monks who were in the island of Hii, when, sent on an embassy by his nation, he had come to Aldfrid, king of the English, and, having stayed some time in that province, saw the canonical rites of the Church; and was also skilfully admonished by many who were more learned not to presume to live with his very few, and those placed in the farthest corner of the world, against the universal custom of the Church, either in the Paschal observance or in any other decrees; he was changed in mind; so that he most willingly preferred the things which he had seen and heard in the churches of the English to his own custom and that of his people.

[26] as Bede narrates, embraced the time of the Paschal observance: "For he was a good and wise man, and most nobly instructed in the knowledge of the Scriptures. Who, when he had returned home, took care to lead his own, who were in Hii, or who were subject to the same monastery, onto that path of truth which he had come to know, and which he had himself taken up with his whole heart, and was not able. He therefore sailed to Ireland, and, preaching to them, and declaring with modest exhortation the lawful time of Easter, he brought back very many of them, and almost all who were free from the dominion of the people of Hii, corrected from the ancestral error, to Catholic unity, and taught them thoroughly to observe the lawful time of Easter. And when, having celebrated the canonical Easter in Ireland, he had returned to his island, and was most urgently preaching to his monastery the Catholic observance of the Paschal time, and yet could not accomplish what he was attempting, it came to pass that he departed from the world before a full year's circle had been completed. The divine grace indeed so disposing, that the man most zealous for unity and peace should be snatched away to eternal life before, the Paschal time returning, he should be compelled to have a graver discord with those who would not follow him to the truth."

[27] The lawful time of celebrating the Paschal festival was, for this (happened) not before the year 695, as Mabillon would have it; as is understood from these words of Bede, first taken up by most, and almost by all, of the Irish monks then when St. Adamnan, having discharged his embassy to King Aldfrid, and having been taught the canonical rites of the Church, crossed into Ireland and there taught the monks thoroughly to observe the lawful time of Easter. Mabillon acknowledged only two embassies of Adamnan to King Aldfrid, both of which were accomplished before the year 695. Hence he judged that before this year the greatest part of the Scots or Irish had embraced the ecclesiastical time of the Paschal observance. But that a third Embassy to King Aldfrid, which is later than the year 695, was undertaken by Adamnan is made manifest from the words of Bede just transcribed here and from the year of Adamnan's death. For Adamnan departed from among the living either in the year 703 or in the year 704, as is taught among us at the XXIII day of September in that Saint; and only one Easter (see the recited words of Bede and, among us at the said day, in Adamnan, number 28) intervened between Adamnan's death and his embassy. It was therefore accomplished about the year 702 or 703, and consequently is most certainly different from the two other embassies of Adamnan accomplished before the year 695.

[28] Further, since only after this (see again the recited words of Bede) was the accession of very many of the Irish made to the Catholic observance of Easter, but it came about some years later. it follows, on the hypothesis which we are following, that down to the year 702 or 703 very many monasteries still existed in Ireland which had not yet embraced the Benedictine institute; for they did not substitute this for their ancient norm of living before they had taken up the Catholic observance of Easter, as is admitted by all. Wherefore, since before the year 695, and in this very year in which the Saints were crowned with martyrdom, very many monasteries still existed in Ireland which were not of the Benedictine institute, and the Ewalds perhaps led the monastic life in one of these, the other argument proposed from the positions of Mabillon, by which someone could perhaps have been induced to believe the Benedictine monkhood of the Saints, loses all its force. Hence further it now follows that it is very doubtful whether the Ewalds were monks of the Benedictine or of another institute. From what has been said you will also gather that the Ewalds are with no right counted by Ghinius, in the Birthdays of the holy canons Regular, among the Saints of his Order.

* Chifflet: "exulaverant" had been exiles

§ III. Certain inventions of pseudo-Marcellinus about the Saints; and whether they suffered and preached the faith in the village of Laer.

The Saints, as Pseudo-Marcellinus relates, from Frisia The Suitbertine History of Pseudo-Marcellinus in Surius has this in chapter 10: "The number of the faithful growing daily (in Frisia), the aforesaid preachers (Willibrord, Suitbert, the Ewalds and others) preaching with great devotion, when those of them who were endowed with priestly rank ministered the grace of baptism to the believers, and did not have consecrated churches to which they could call together the converted people and celebrate and complete the divine things, by the common decree of all the brethren and neophytes they chose two of them to be consecrated as bishops, who should preside over the Frisian people by the word of preaching, and dedicate churches, and celebrate sacred orders, namely St. Willebrord, a man deservedly outshining all, humble and filled with examples of all virtue: and St. Swibert, a man meek of heart, exceedingly instructed in the sacred Scriptures and ecclesiastical disciplines. And St. Swibert went on to Britain or England with Acca and the two Ewalds and some other neophytes, and I, Marcellinus, with them. And we came to the assembly of York on the vigil of St. Laurence, the precious martyr: by which, and especially by our parents and friends, we were graciously received. At length, the two Ewalds, our fellow-brethren, making for Ireland with the leave of St. Swibert, a promise having been made that they would follow us to Germany as quickly as they could, St. Swibert went with us to St. Wilfrid, then bishop of the Mercians."

[30] did not cross into England with St. Suitbert, to be ordained bishop. Again many pure and unmixed inventions lie in these words; but it will suffice to have presented here only those which pertain to the Ewalds. Just as pseudo-Marcellinus wrongly wrote above (see number 15 of this Commentary) that the Ewalds came into Frisia with St. Willibrord, Suitbert and other apostolic men, the companions of St. Willibrord, so here he now (writes) that the same, with St. Suitbert, to be ordained bishop,

set out into England and thence returned into Ireland, he has ineptly invented. St. Suitbert was ordained bishop in the year 693, as is agreed among most of the learned. Both Ewalds, as is understood from the Passion to be published, came straight from Ireland into Old Saxony, and were immediately killed there by the country people, so that they first arrived in Saxony in the very year in which they obtained the crown of martyrdom, and did not cross the sea from Ireland towards Germany before that time. Since, therefore, this is so, how can they have set out from Frisia into England in the year 693 with St. Suitbert, who was to be ordained bishop? Moreover, the Ewalds, as we have proved above, did not come into Frisia in the year 690, or, as others would have it, in the year 691, with St. Willibrord, St. Suitbert and the other ten apostolic men, companions of St. Willibrord, nor are they believed by most of the learned to have landed there before the year 693. Wherefore in this very year 693 they did not set out from Frisia into England with St. Suitbert. Accordingly, chiefly indeed from the headlong martyrdom which the Ewalds suffered there immediately, having scarcely entered Old Saxony straight from Ireland, and then also in some measure from the time at which this happened, their journey into England with St. Suitbert becomes incredible. Nor only in some measure in asserting this, but also in another matter, from the time at which the Ewalds came into Old Saxony and were crowned with martyrdom, is pseudo-Marcellinus openly convicted of invention.

[31] [nor were they present at the synod of Utrecht, even granted that this is not fictitious,] In the Suitbertine History which he invented, chapter 14, he writes thus: "The aforesaid holy pontiffs (Willibrord and Suitbert), and the excellent preachers who came with them from England to Utrecht, observing that many people, God prospering it, had been converted from the error of unbelief to Christ, a synod having been convoked in the new church of Utrecht, decreed, after the manner of the Apostles and disciples of Christ, to send out the more excellent preachers into the various surrounding barbarous nations to preach the faith of Christ to them. And there were at that time in the same primitive church of Utrecht apostolic pontiffs and excellent canon preachers, who, following St. Suuibert the bishop with the holy Euualds, constantly preached Christ to the nations." The synod of Utrecht which he mentions here is fictitious, as is shown among us in tome 1 of March in St. Suitbert. But let us grant for the time being that a synod was truly celebrated at Utrecht by the bishops SS. Willibrord and Suitbert; not even so, however, will the things which the words just transcribed here insinuate about the holy Ewalds agree with the truth. For by these Pseudo-Marcellinus hints that they either were present at the synod of Utrecht which he mentions, or at any rate were then, when it was being celebrated, still surviving among the living; but the Saints could not then still be surviving among the living, and consequently could not be present at the synod either. For I shall show below that they, as I have already often remarked, suffered martyrdom in the year 695, or at any rate not later; whereas the synod of which we are here treating is not earlier than the year 696, inasmuch as it was celebrated only when St. Willibrord, as Pseudo-Marcellinus himself not obscurely indicates before and after the words just recited, had already been created bishop of Utrecht; which the Venerable Bede, in the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, book 5, chapter 12, explicitly affirms happened in the year 696.

[32] Further, Pseudo-Marcellinus, after the words just transcribed here, enumerates some Apostolic men [but that they, before they entered Saxony, preached Christ in the Nabia which he mentions] who laboured at the conversion of the gentiles in Germany, and at the same time, having set out the end which these attained, records this of the two Ewalds: "The two holy Euualds, entering Nabia, confessed Christ by preaching, who, going up from there into Saxony, were crowned with a glorious martyrdom." "But," says Molanus at this day in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium, "what … Nabia was, and whether it belonged to our Belgium, I see is unknown to the learned." Schaten, praised already above, does not much dissent here from Molanus. For in the History of Westphalia, book 6, page 352, he writes thus: "Marcellinus records that these (the holy Ewalds) entered first Nabia and then Saxony, and were shortly crowned with a glorious martyrdom. What that Nabia is no one has yet explicitly attained; whether they boarded a ship and entered Saxony by the mouths of the Weser, and someone wrongly copied nabia for navis; or whether, having crossed into Saxony through Nabalia, which to many is the old Yssel, they first penetrated beyond which the other heralds (had not), and Marcellinus meant this, is still unascertained, nor do others dare to determine it." Le Cointe, in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks at the year 702, number 25, affirms that the Yssel is also called by another name Nabalia, and understands, as it appears, by Pseudo-Marcellinus's Nabia the region near this river. Others, and among these Willibrord Bosschaerts, Dissertation 52 On the first Apostles of old Frisia, incline to another opinion.

[33] But these things ought not to detain us here; is not rightly reconciled with Bede, for I do not judge that credence is to be given to Pseudo-Marcellinus when he affirms that Christ was preached by the Saints in Nabia before they entered Saxony: so far am I from assenting to Le Cointe, who, ascribing to an interpolator of his Work the things which Pseudo-Marcellinus ineptly invented, writes thus in the praised Annals at the year 702, number 20, with regard to the asserted entry of the Ewalds into Nabia: "About the holy Ewalds the interpolator has nothing which is not confirmed by the authority of Bede. 'The two holy Ewalds,' he says, 'entering Nabia, confessed Christ by preaching, who, going up from there into Saxony, were crowned with a glorious martyrdom.'" And indeed I do not see how it is confirmed by the authority of Bede that the Saints first preached Christ in Nabia, whatever region this at length may be, and only afterwards in Saxony, and obtained the palm of martyrdom. For Bede writes of the Ewalds in such a way as to indicate that they went straight from Ireland to Saxony, and did not announce the faith elsewhere before they landed there. "Following their examples" (of Willibrord and his companions), he says in the Passion to be published, number 2, "two certain presbyters of the nation of the English, who had long been exiles in Ireland for the sake of the eternal fatherland, came to the province of the Old Saxons, if perchance they might by preaching there gain some for Christ." Then, after a few things which do not bear on this, no mention at all being made of another region in which the Saints preached the faith, he narrates that they, having scarcely entered Old Saxony, were killed by the pagan country people of this region. Bede's narration, therefore, does not support the interpolator of Marcellinus, or Pseudo-Marcellinus, but rather opposes him; nay, this one, as it at least appears to me, is undoubtedly not rightly reconciled with it.

[34] as also that the same, in the village of Laer, Nor does this hold good only as regards Pseudo-Marcellinus, but also as regards Werner Rolevinck. For he writes, book 2 On the Situation and Manners of the Westphalians, chapter 1, that the holy Ewalds first preached Christ in the village of Laer, situated not far from Horstmar, and then, advancing through the neighbouring places, penetrated also beyond the Weser or Visurgis: but Bede's narration hints not obscurely that the Saints were killed by the pagan country people in the first village of Old Saxony to which they turned aside. Turn over with attentive mind, studious reader, numbers 3 and 4 of the Passion to be published, and I do not doubt that you will immediately perceive that the things narrated there cannot be conveniently enough reconciled with what the praised Werner Rolevinck records about the faith first preached by the Saints in Laer, a village of the diocese of Münster and consequently of Old Saxony, and about the journey then undertaken, the neighbouring places having been traversed, beyond the Weser or Visurgis. "Who (the holy Ewalds), coming," says Bede, Passion to be published, number 3, "into the province," namely of the Old Saxons, "entered the lodging of a certain steward, and asked him to have them sent on to the Satrap who was over them, because they had some embassy and useful cause which they ought to bring to him"; and then, some things having been interposed which can by no means favour Werner, he has thus at number 4: "They (namely the inhabitants of the village in which these were lodging with the steward) suddenly seized them (the holy Ewalds) and slew them; White Hewald indeed by a swift killing with the sword, but the Black one by a long torture of punishments and a horrible tearing apart of all his limbs: and having slain them they threw them into the Rhine." The Saints, therefore, as Bede's whole narration insinuates, suffered martyrdom in the very village of Old Saxony to which they first turned aside. Wherefore, since one must stand rather by Bede, a contemporary of the Ewalds, than by Rolevinck, a more recent writer who cites no testimony of antiquity for himself, the narration by which he relates that the Saints, Christ having first been preached in the village of Laer, advanced through the neighbouring places into Old Saxony situated beyond the Weser or Visurgis for the sake of preaching the faith appears by no means to be admitted.

[35] Nay, it follows also from Bede's narration that the Saints did not preach Christ in the village of Laer in which they did not suffer, did that very thing. But of this matter unless their martyrdom can at the same time be placed there: and that it cannot be placed there, which even from what is to be said appeared more probable to Rolevinck, follows from the said narration. For the pagans, when they had killed the Saints, threw their sacred bodies, as Bede relates in the words recited at the preceding number, into the Rhine; but the village of Laer is too far removed from the Rhine for the bodies of the slain Saints to have been thrown into it from there. It can indeed be said that these were carried by cart to the Rhine and then cast into it; but no one, as I think, would easily bring himself to believe this. The Ewalds, therefore, did not obtain the palm of martyrdom in Laer, a village of the diocese of Münster, and consequently did not preach Christ there to the nation of the Old Saxons. Rolevinck nevertheless, whom Schaten, already praised more than once, supports, book 6 of the History of Westphalia, page 354, most openly teaches, not only in the second, as I have already remarked above, but also in the third book On the Situation and Manners of the Westphalians, chapter 8, that the Saints announced the Gospel to the pagans in that village. For there he records this: "There occurs the memory of the two holy martyrs Ewald, who began their apostolate in the parish of Laer named above. This I reckon the first in rank as regards the faith of all Westphalia: which is thus evident, because they lived about a hundred years before Charles" (namely the Great), "and by preaching left in it sure indications of its primitive conversion, which remain up to the present. I could find nothing more certain, nothing older." The indications of conversion left by the Ewalds in the village of Laer which Rolevinck records here are most probably no other than those which he had already mentioned above, book 2, chapter 1, writing thus of the Ewalds: "Entering … (the holy Ewalds) the province" (namely of the Old Saxons), "they came into a certain district or village, now called Laer, where, honourably received, they sowed the word of life, which as in earth

falling, bears good fruit of salvation up to the present.

[36] "There also, flourishing with miracles, they drew a spring from the rock, the indications which Rolevinck assigns of which, as they say, this was the cause. For when they were thirsty, they said to a certain poor woman, Give us to drink: who answering said: I have none, sir, and we are wearied with scarcity of water. They said: Henceforth you shall not have scarcity of waters. And, pricking the rock with their staves, most beautiful springs burst forth in different places, which, drawn off into a stream, cease to flow at no time of summer. They also consecrated a beautiful and spacious field to the use of the poor, which to this day is called the Sacred meadow, through the middle of which the aforesaid river runs, and affords both a delightful spectacle to the eyes and a sweet drink to the animals. It is said that those were frequently struck by God who attempted to plough this meadow against the testament of the Saints and to the prejudice of the poor community." Thus far Rolevinck: but does he rightly take the field consecrated to the use of the poor in the village of Laer, and the stream, or its springs, with whose waters the same village is watered, as indications from which the conversion of the people of Laer to the faith, made by the Ewalds, can be established? The stream or river which waters the village of Laer is called the Aa; which name is common to many other rivers. By Baudrand in the Geographical Dictionary it is described thus: "Aa, or Alpha, Aa, that is, water, a small river of Germany in the Westphalian circle, washes the town of Steinfurt of the lordship of Münster, and two German miles below rolls into the river Vecht." That this little river was raised up by the Ewalds by a prodigy Rolevinck by no means persuades me, inasmuch as he is a writer only of the fifteenth century and not supported by a suitable testimony of antiquity, without which no single man, unless excessively credulous, would ever admit things of this kind, prodigious and otherwise incredible.

[37] cannot make it certain, Rolevinck seems to have drawn the whole matter from popular tradition, which everyone knows very often strays from the truth. Certainly, when about to relate the cause or occasion by which the Saints raised up a spring in the village of Laer, he prefixes a manner of speaking by which he indicates plainly enough that he has it only from report. "They drew," he says in the words recited at the preceding number, "a spring from the rock, of which, AS THEY SAY, this was the cause." Moreover, nothing which supports Rolevinck occurs anywhere either in Bede or in any other ancient writer whom I have read. Bede indeed writes thus at the end of the Passion to be published: "It is said, moreover, that in the place in which they (the holy Ewalds) were killed a spring bubbled up, which in the same place to this day pours forth the copious gifts of its flow." But, besides that the venerable writer speaks here in the manner of one doubting, he makes discourse only of a spring which was raised up in the place where the Saints were crowned with martyrdom; and that this did not happen in the village of Laer I have already taught, and what is to be said below will teach that very thing more fully. Accordingly, all things weighed, it appears very little probable that the aforementioned stream or spring by which the village of Laer is washed was raised up by the Ewalds by a prodigy, and it is therefore wrongly taken by Rolevinck as an indication from which the conversion of the people of Laer to the faith through the Ewalds, and so the preaching of these among them, can be established. Let the same judgment be passed also on the field of Laer which the Saints consecrated to the use of the poor. For by what reasoning can it be sufficiently proved that that field was consecrated or granted by them to the use of the poor, when no ancient record whatever testifies to it? From this perhaps, that those who attempted to plough that field or meadow to the detriment of the poor community were now and then punished by God? Certainly Rolevinck seems to mean this by the words recited at the preceding number, to which he also immediately subjoins some examples of divine vengeance taken on the violators of the said field or meadow.

[38] just as neither can the ancient cult But what then? Let it be that those were now and then punished by God (which, however, Rolevinck does not make certain to me) who had attempted to plough the aforementioned meadow to the detriment of the poor community. This could have happened either because they were seizing the possession of the poor with the utmost injustice, or because they were failing in the veneration due to SS. Ewald, in whose honour perhaps the pious munificence of one or several had once granted the said meadow to the poor. Thus too it can be explained why the Saints, as Rolevinck likewise testifies in the place cited above, are commonly called in the village of Laer the Lords of the Sacred meadow: for no apter reason for this appellation seems able to be given than that the donation of the meadow of which they are called the Lords was once made in their honour. For things which had once been given in honour of any Saints whatever, either to monasteries or to the poor, were said, by a most customary formula of speaking, to have been given to the Saints themselves. This is clear from various charters of donation in various writers, by which the pious liberality of the faithful once conferred very many goods on monasteries and the poor. Accordingly, neither from the field or meadow of Laer consecrated to the use of the poor, whatever Rolevinck writes about it and the talk of the common people reports, can anything be dug out for rendering undoubted the preaching of the Ewalds among the people of Laer and the conversion of these to the faith through them. And while I say this, consider the same said also of the ancient cult of the Saints among the people of Laer; for their ancient cult there seems not to have been born from the faith preached in the village of Laer through the Ewalds, but rather from this cult the common opinion of the people of Laer about the faith preached among them through the Ewalds.

[39] So I judge, because from what has been said the preaching of the Saints in the village of Laer cannot be reconciled rightly enough with Bede; which the Saints enjoyed in the said village. but without this their ancient cult among the people of Laer can be most aptly explained. The Ewalds, namely, first of all watered with their blood, for the cause of the faith, Old Saxony, which afterwards produced an ample harvest, and were on that account deservedly counted among the holy Apostles of that region. Hence it may have come about that the people of Laer, inasmuch as they were situated in Old Saxony, took them from of old as their patrons and tutelary Saints, and afterwards venerated them with constant veneration, having also dedicated to their name the church which they were building for the worship of God; which last thing the words of Schaten recited at number 12 insinuate that they did. Further, from the ancient cult with which the Saints were honoured in the village of Laer and other places of Old Saxony I reckon it also came about that some ascribed their martyrdom to that same village, others on the contrary to the village of Appellerbeke, to the little town of Croneburg, or even to the county of Hoya. But that from this nothing can be had for fixing the wrestling-ground of the Saints to some determinate place is plain from what has already been said. And indeed I have shown by name above that the Saints did not suffer martyrdom in the village of Laer; and that this did not certainly happen in any of the three other places just mentioned either will become evident from the following §.

§ IV. The wrestling-ground of the Saints is treated further, and it is shown that it can be undoubtedly fixed neither to the village of Appellerbeke nor to another definite place.

The Saints most certainly neither in the little town of Croneburg Of the three places mentioned at the end of the preceding §, which I have proposed to investigate here whether they can be held as the wrestling-ground of the Saints, two occur undoubtedly not made illustrious by the martyrdom of the Saints, namely the county of Hoya, situated on the Weser, and Croneburg, a little town of the duchy of Berg, placed on the river Wipper or, as others write, Wupper, and removed about three or four hours' leagues from Cologne. I begin the investigation from this latter place. Some think that the Saints suffered martyrdom there. So, as to substance, Schaten, already praised more than once, book 6 of the History of Westphalia, page 354. But he designates by express name no one at all who defends this opinion, nor could I find any, however great the diligence applied in searching the writers. Perhaps some learned and at the same time pious men in Westphalia thought so in the past century, who, although they did not commit that opinion of theirs to writing, yet communicated the same with Schaten. However that may be, the Saints were undoubtedly, as it at least appears to me, not crowned with martyrdom at Croneburg. For the bodies of those slain were, on the testimony of Bede, cast into the Rhine; and that little town, as will become evident to one inspecting geographical maps, is more remote from the Rhine than that it should become credible that this was done there. But if you reply that the bodies of the Saints were perhaps transported by cart to the Rhine and cast into it, I answer that not even this can be admitted while the narration of the venerable Bede stands entire. For on that hypothesis the bodies of the Saints would most probably have been transported to the bank of the Rhine nearer to Croneburg, and consequently cast into the Rhine near the confluence of the Rhine and the Wipper, which place (consult the geographical maps) is not two full hours' leagues distant from Cologne; whereas it is necessary, for Bede's narration to subsist entire, that the place where this happened was removed from Cologne by a much longer space.

[41] nor in the county of Hoya For it has thus at number 5 of the Passion to be published: "Nor were heavenly miracles lacking to their (the holy Ewalds') martyrdom. For when their slain bodies had been thrown by the pagans into the river (Rhine), as we have said, it came to pass that these were carried against the rush of the flowing river for almost forty thousand paces, as far as those places where their companions were." So Bede's narration, to which what is afterwards subjoined most openly indicates that the sacred bodies, carried for almost forty thousand paces up the Rhine towards Cologne, and not yet having arrived there, were drawn out of the waters and honourably laid in the ground. The place, therefore, where the bodies of the slain Saints were thrown into the Rhine was, according to Bede's narration, distant from Cologne at least forty thousand paces, and consequently far more remote than the place where the Wipper rolls into the Rhine, or where these two rivers flow together. While Bede's narration stands entire, therefore, it cannot be admitted that the bodies of the Saints were cast into the Rhine there. Further, it now follows from this that it is wholly certain and undoubted that the Saints did not suffer martyrdom in the little town of Croneburg. Nor is it less certain that this did not happen in the county of Hoya either. For the bodies of the slain Saints, as I have already often remarked from Bede's testimony, were cast into the Rhine; and the county of Hoya is very far distant from this river, so that the Saints were consequently not crowned with martyrdom there. Moreover, the Ewalds, as is clear from the fifth number of the Passion to be published, had some companions, and these, when they suffered, were living near the Rhine, not far distant from Cologne. Hence it seems probable to me that the Saints went from Austrasia, having crossed the Rhine, to Old Saxony. If, then, they had suffered in the county of Hoya, they would previously have traversed an enormous part of Old Saxony lying between the Rhine and the Weser; which is by no means to be admitted.

[42] suffered: but this For Bede, as I have already hinted above, at numbers 3 and 4 of the Passion to be published teaches plainly enough that the Saints,

having scarcely entered Old Saxony, were killed by the pagan country people of this region. Moreover, our manuscript Lessons, which I mentioned at number 10, taken from the most ancient Breviary of Cologne at the Holy Apostles, relate this very thing also in almost express words. For the second of them has this beginning about the Ewalds: "The holy Men, founded in the charity of Christ, having now advanced, had scarcely crossed the borders of the unbelieving nation (the Saxons), and, immediately received into the lodging of a certain steward, were bound by causes of delay." So the aforesaid lesson, in which afterwards, after some things which do not bear on this, the martyrdom of the Saints is indicated to have been accomplished in the very place in which they had been received into lodging by the steward as soon as they had crossed the limits of Saxony. It is therefore by no reasoning probable that they were put to death by martyrdom in the county of Hoya, and consequently it becomes wholly certain and placed beyond all controversy that this did not happen there. It remains that we now inquire whether by any sufficiently certain argument Appellerbeke, a village of the county of Mark, can be held as the undoubted wrestling-ground of the Saints. Werner Rolevinck, already very often praised, in the Fasciculus temporum at the year 694 writes thus: "Westphalia is converted to the faith about these times; where first the two Edualds, namely the White and the Black, holy presbyters coming from England, preached: who there, in a certain township called Laer, by their prayers drew a spring from the rock, and consecrated the Holy field, so called to this day, to the uses of the poor: where wonderful things often happened to those wishing to act against the testament of the Saints, and they were horribly struck. At length they were martyred in the county of Hoya near the city of Bremen: and their bodies were translated to Cologne." So Rolevinck, placing the wrestling-ground of the Saints without hesitation in the county of Hoya; in which matter, no less than in asserting the preaching of the Saints in the village of Laer, he was beyond all doubt deluded, from what has been said.

[43] But afterwards he most openly changed his opinion. For On the Situation and Manners of the Westphalians, that it took place in the village of Appellerbeke, Rolevinck which Work he composed after the other just mentioned, he reports this in writing: "This martyrdom (of the two holy Ewalds) was accomplished about the seven hundredth year of the Lord, on the third day of the month of October, in the diocese of Bremen and county of Hoya. Others say, which is more likely, that this martyrdom was accomplished in a certain place which is now called Appellerbeke, near Dortmund. And there their memory is solemn, and miracles done there are reported. It can be said, for the concord of these, that in the county of Hoya they were mortally wounded, but nevertheless recovered. And at length at Appellerbeke, since they did not cease from preaching, they were killed as quickly as possible. In this manner many Legends of the Saints have been harmonized. And thus the solemn memory can be saved which is equally constantly proclaimed in the aforesaid places." The solemn memory of the Saints which is constantly proclaimed in the county of Hoya and the village of Appellerbeke can also be saved, or, to speak more clearly, a fit reason can be given for the ecclesiastical cult which the Saints constantly enjoyed there down to the age of Rolevinck, even if the Saints are laid down as killed in neither the one nor the other place. This is clear from what I discoursed at number 39. As regards the manner by which Rolevinck affirms in the words recited that the discordant opinions about the wrestling-ground of the Saints can be brought into concord, it is without any doubt to be rejected. This becomes manifest from number 35, in which we adduced those things from which it necessarily follows that the Saints preached the faith in no other place than that in which they suffered; so that, since they did not suffer in the county of Hoya, it cannot be said either that they preached the faith there and received mortal wounds. The manner of reconciliation assigned by Rolevinck is therefore inept. However that may be, this writer indeed declares most openly in the words recited that he had receded from his former opinion, by which he had ascribed the wrestling-ground of the Saints without hesitation to the county of Hoya; which I had hinted above was done by him.

[44] and Schaten pronounce more probable, Let us now see what is to be determined about the other opinion, which he embraces as more probable. He would have it, then (see the words just transcribed here), more probable that the Saints obtained the palm of martyrdom in the village of Appellerbeke near Dortmund. Schaten also goes over to this opinion with hands and feet, writing thus in book 6 of the History of Westphalia, page 354: "Some think that it (the martyrdom of the holy Ewalds) took place in the village of Laer, not far from Horstmar in the diocese of Münster, others at Croneburg, a town of the duchy of Berg. More certainly those who contend that they were put to death in the village of Appelderbeke, of the county of Mark, not far from Dortmund; for there is a farm and a mill there which keep the name from the place of the slaughter: yet posterity, from the time when they afterwards became Christians, venerated the place among sacred monuments. There, close by, is the river Emscher, into which the bodies of the martyrs were rolled, and carried with the downward flow of the waters into the Rhine; after which, received by the Rhine, the course of nature being changed, they were seen to swim against the stream and to go up almost forty thousand paces, until they arrived at the place of rest shown by a heavenly ray. The other places which are shown were not places of martyrdom, but of lodging and stay. For they are said to have gone to the county of Hoya at their first entry into Westphalia. From there to have traversed Westphalia in apostolic fashion, announcing the law of Christ. And when in the village of Laer they had found the inhabitants kinder and more inclined to hear the doctrine of Christ, they remained some time among them." Thus far the praised Schaten, asserting many things which collapse from what has been proved above. But what he discourses about the wrestling-ground of the Saints, and brings forward for placing it in the village of Appellerbeke or Appelderbeke, can be estimated from what is to be said. Before I proceed, it pleases me still to set out what Hermann Fley, called Stangefol, praised already above, also writes to our purpose.

[45] [and Fley even thinks it certain; but this is not made undoubted either from the farm which is named there from the slaughter,] He, in the Preface to the Annals of the Westphalian circle, chapter 9, number 5, records as to substance that the holy Ewalds were crowned with martyrdom at Appelterbeck, and that this is made manifest from the ancient monuments of this place. For there is there, as it is called by the common people today, the farm of the murderers or of the murder, which the chief of the murderers was inhabiting when they killed the Saints. Accordingly, the praised Hermann thinks it not only more probable, as Rolevinck and Schaten do, but even certain that these were killed in the village of Appellerbeke. But does this writer rest on weighty reasons solid enough and born to create undoubted credence? This at least does not appear so to me. For as to his saying that there exists in that village a farm which is today called in German Morderhoff or Mordthoff, that is, the Farm of the Murderers or of the Murder, or even, as Schaten would have it after Gelenius, On the greatness of Cologne, page 288, by the words just recited, Mortmuhl, that is, the Mill of Murder or of Robbery, this certainly by no means proves the matter. For that farm or mill could have been so called in antiquity from the slaughter of any other persons whatever perpetrated there, this cause of the appellation could have been blotted out of men's memory by the lapse of time, and on that account it could afterwards have been referred by posterity to the martyrdom of the Ewalds, inasmuch as they saw them venerated in the village of Appellerbeke in a certain singular manner, and had no other cause of the cult at hand than that they had suffered there. Hence everyone will now easily gather how, as Schaten says in the words just transcribed here, the aforementioned farm or mill could have been venerated by posterity among sacred monuments, and yet it does not necessarily follow from this that the Saints undoubtedly suffered martyrdom there.

[46] The Saints would nevertheless most certainly have suffered in that farm or mill [nor from the offices of veneration by which the steward of this farm was bound towards the Saints] if the things which the praised Hermann records, in the cited chapter, number 6, agreed with the truth. For he says that there was enjoined on the steward of the aforesaid farm or mill, and on his posterity, as a perpetual penalty for the slaughter perpetrated, first that they should keep at their own expense a lamp always burning before the statues of the holy Ewalds; next, that on the second and also on the third day of October, on which the festive day of the holy Martyrs is celebrated, they should render them offices of singular veneration; and thirdly and finally, that they should then pay out a certain measure of wheat; and from this debt indeed, as he adds, the aforesaid farm is not yet exempted, although the Catholic religion, together with the cult of the Saints, has been abrogated in the village of Appellerbeke. So Hermann, almost as to substance. But it is destitute of all likelihood whatever that the things which he records were enjoined on the very steward who killed the Saints as a perpetual penalty for the slaughter perpetrated. For Bede writes thus in the Passion to be published, number 4: "When that satrap, whom (the Saints) wished to see, had heard of it" (the martyrdom of the Saints), "he was very angry that strangers wishing to come to him had not been permitted; and, sending, he killed those who had slain the Ewalds, all those villagers, and consumed the village with fire." Since, therefore, as Bede makes evident by these words, all the villagers who had killed the Saints, and consequently also the steward of the aforesaid farm, were slain soon after by command of the satrap of the region, the matter having been heard, it is by no means likely that the things which Hermann reports were enjoined on the aforementioned steward and his posterity as a perpetual penalty for the slaughter perpetrated. Moreover, the Saxons were not converted to the Christian faith until about a hundred years had already elapsed after the death of the Ewalds. Wherefore on this head too it is not credible that among a nation most hostile to the rites of the Christians until the times of Charlemagne it was established that those who had killed the Saints should pursue them, as a perpetual penalty, with the services of veneration which Fley enumerates.

[47] Accordingly, it may indeed be that, about two or three or even more centuries having elapsed after the death of the Ewalds, was bound, is it made undoubted. and the nation of the Old Saxons having long since been converted to the faith, our Saints began to be honoured with those offices of veneration which Fley records in the farm which is today called the Farm of the Murderers or of the Murder, and that this was enjoined on the steward of the aforesaid farm as a perpetual penalty for their slaughter perpetrated there, as it could have been thought. But since, from what has been said, this was not enjoined on the steward who killed the Saints, it cannot be argued from this that the Saints were killed in the said farm, however much they were once accustomed to be honoured there with the signs of veneration recorded by Fley. For how the Saints could have obtained that singular veneration in the farm already so very often mentioned, and yet it not be necessary on that account that they suffered martyrdom there, everyone will understand with easy effort from what I discoursed at number 45. Thus also, the wrestling-ground of the Saints not being fixed to the village of Appellerbeke, the things can easily be explained which I find recorded in our Collectanea in these words: "And that steward" (namely of the farm already very often praised above), "when the Catholic religion was still flourishing there, once every week, namely when the signal was given

was obliged to betake himself even from the labours of the field to the church for the sake of hearing Mass in honour of the Ewalds, many great (penalties) being appointed if he should omit it." Accordingly, from the veneration which the Saints enjoy in the farm of Appellerbeke named from the murder, it can no more be concluded that these undoubtedly suffered there than from the naming of the farm itself derived from murder. Let us now see whether this cannot be made undoubted from elsewhere. Schaten, already very often praised, indicates plainly enough that no monument of antiquity at all is available from which anything may be had for fixing the wrestling-ground of the Saints to the village of Appellerbeke. For after, in book 6 of the History of Westphalia, page 354, he has discoursed some things about the wrestling-ground of the Ewalds and other things pertaining to them, he subjoins this: "Nothing in these is more certain than the handed-down faith of our forefathers, to which things of this kind must be referred; for many things are also obscure on account of antiquity and the carelessness of writers."

[48] Nor can the matter be proved from the lesson of the most ancient Breviary, The things, therefore, which Schaten relates about fixing the wrestling-ground of the Saints to the village of Appellerbeke are drawn from the tradition of the forefathers alone, as he himself indicates not obscurely by these words. But this, without any monument of antiquity, cannot create certain and undoubted credence. For the wrestling-ground of the Saints, therefore, to be proved undoubtedly fixed to the village of Appellerbeke, something more than tradition is required. Hence also Schaten does not undoubtedly fix it to this village. But Hermann Fley, who does this, in the chapter praised above cites more than once the Latin Lectionary of the church of the Holy Apostles at Cologne. I suspect that this Lectionary does not differ much from the most ancient Breviary of Cologne at the Holy Apostles, from which our Lessons about the holy Ewalds, mentioned at number 10, are noted as taken. However that may be, certainly in the third of these the following are read opportunely for our purpose: "These (the holy Ewalds), therefore, having been slain in the township of Appelderbeke, on the little river Embiscara, they threw them there into marshy places. Afterwards the most wicked murderers, stirred by the goads of greater envy, or rather frightened after the crime committed, drew out the bodies of the holy Guests from there for the sake of hiding them and threw them into the Rhine." The Saints, therefore, as is explicitly declared in these words, suffered martyrdom in the village of Appelderbeke or Appelerbeke, and this cannot be doubted, provided the praised Breviary of Cologne has certain and undoubted credibility. But this, although perhaps (see number 10) written already about five centuries ago, is too far removed from the age of the Ewalds for the things which it records about them in its Lessons to be trusted safely enough. Our two older printed Breviaries of Cologne, the one of the year 1498, the other of the year 1577, present the third Lesson of the most ancient manuscript Breviary of Cologne, just mentioned, also almost word for word, but with the words just transcribed here, which ascribe the martyrdom of the Saints to the village of Appellerbeke, cut out.

[49] I transcribe here that Lesson entire, as it is had in the printed ones. for it seemed doubtful to the very compilers of the printed Breviary afterwards, "Whence also the conspired society of crime, glowing more fiercely with the torch of diabolical cruelty, attacks them (the holy Ewalds) with violence as they were giving attention to the mystery of the Lord's immolation, scatters the sacred things, and, tearing them and handling them rashly, presumed to cut the throat of the White one more swiftly with the sword, but to slay the Black Evald, torturing him with a longer punishment, his limbs being wretchedly torn apart. Whom, therefore, having been slain, either the most wicked murderers, stirred by the goads of greater envy, or rather frightened after the crime committed, threw the bodies of the holy Guests into the Rhine for the sake of hiding them." So far in the printed ones the aforesaid Lesson, in which there is plainly no word from which you might in any way gather that the Saints suffered martyrdom in the village of Appellerbeke. I would scarcely doubt that those who compiled our two mentioned printed Breviaries had before their eyes the aforesaid manuscript Lesson, in which the wrestling-ground of the Saints is attached to the village of Appellerbeke. Wherefore, since they cut out absolutely all the words by which this is done in it from the Lessons which they prepared for the Saints, they certainly seem to have doubted whether the Ewalds truly suffered martyrdom in the said village. And indeed they seem to me to have been able to doubt of this matter not undeservedly, not to say anything more. For from what has been said the opinion which puts the Saints as crowned with martyrdom in the village of Appellerbeke is destitute of absolutely all testimony of antiquity, and the weighty reasons which are brought forward by its patrons cannot create certain credence, inasmuch as they are derived almost from popular tradition alone; which, although it is indeed frequently uncertain and suspect of falsity, yet is here especially to be held as such for this reason, that it cannot be reconciled rightly enough with Bede, by whose testimony I reckon one must stand, as I now set about proving.

[50] The venerable founder of the Ecclesiastical History of the English nation, then, in the Passion to be published, number 4, writes thus: nor can it be sufficiently reconciled with Bede; "They suddenly seized them (the holy Ewalds) and slew them; White Hewald indeed by a swift killing with the sword, but the Black one by a long torture of punishments and a horrible tearing apart of all his limbs: and having slain them they threw them into the Rhine." And, a few things having been interposed, he continues thus at number 5: "Nor were heavenly miracles lacking to their (the Ewalds') martyrdom. For when their slain bodies had been thrown by the pagans into the river (as we have said), it came to pass that these were carried against the rush of the flowing river for almost forty thousand paces, as far as those places where their companions were." The Venerable Bede teaches, therefore, as I have already more than once remarked, that the bodies of the slain Saints were cast into the Rhine by the pagans; and that indeed, as the words already recited create belief, so openly that he who should deny that the bodies of the Saints were cast into that river would most certainly conflict with that writer, and consequently also with historical truth. Hence further it appears to me by no means certain, not to say wholly foreign to all likelihood, that the Saints underwent martyrdom in the village of Appellerbeke, situated not far from Dortmund. What makes me so disposed is the distance of the aforesaid village from the Rhine, which comprises about ten hours' leagues, and which is consequently so great that, if the Saints had been killed at Appellerbeke, their bodies could not have been cast into the Rhine there.

[51] Schaten indeed, in the words recited above, Gelenius, On the greatness of Cologne, page 288, and some others say that the bodies of the Saints, slain not far from Dortmund, were cast into the Imschara or, he therefore did not so much interpret him as others write, the Embischara or Emschara river, by whose waters the village of Appellerbeke is washed, and thence, brought into the Rhine by the downward flow of the waters, were miraculously carried against the stream for almost forty thousand paces towards Cologne. But if the bodies of the slain Saints, as those writers would have it, cast into the Imschara, were brought into the Rhine only by the downward course of the waters of this river, I do not see how Bede could have written, the truth being safe, that they were cast into the Rhine by the pagans. Fley, very often praised, noticed the difficulty. Hence, in order to defend placing the wrestling-ground of the Saints at Appellerbeke, he tries to dissolve it, and to this end, in the Preface to the Annals of the Westphalian Circle, in the ninth chapter already cited more than once, number 8, he writes thus in German words, rendered by me into Latin: "As to what the Venerable Bede says, book 5, chapter XI, that the bodies of the holy Ewalds were cast into the Rhine by the slayers; it must not be understood as done IMMEDIATELY, as though they were thrown into the Rhine at Appelterbecke; but MEDIATELY, so that they were rolled by the slayers into the river Emscher, so that the slaughter might be hidden from the satrap of the region, and from there (whether in a natural or a supernatural manner God knows) were carried through Mengede, Castrop, Crange, Horst, Wellem, Oberhausen, below Ruhrort opposite Orsoy into the Rhine, and thus were carried by water prodigiously from Appelterbecke to near Kaiserswerth, to forty thousand paces, as the Venerable Bede affirms in the place cited."

[52] as twisted him to his own mind, Fley, So Fley labours studiously to dissolve the difficulty which arises against his opinion about the wrestling-ground of the Ewalds from their being cast into the Rhine, as asserted by Bede. But with success happy enough? That at least does not appear so to me. For what historian has ever spoken so as to assert that arms, for example, were cast by soldiers into some river, when he meant it signified that these were carried into it only by the help of another river into which they were cast, by the flow of the waters? This manner of writing would surely be absurd, and more accommodated to the quibbles of the philosophers than to historical and sincere truth, and therefore I do not reckon that it was used here by the Venerable Bede, who was accustomed to explain his meaning nakedly and openly, as befits a historian. Accordingly, Fley in the words transcribed here above did not so much interpret the Venerable Bede as violently twist him to his own opinion, and therefore left entire force to the difficulty which he was planning to solve. He uses the same liberty of interpreting, or rather of twisting, that writer when he writes that the bodies of the slain Saints were carried by water to forty thousand paces, near Kaiserswerth, and cites Bede for this assertion. For thus he attributes the forty thousand paces, through which Bede writes that the bodies of the Saints were carried up the Rhine alone towards Cologne, partly to the journey which these made up the Rhine, and partly to the journey which he contends the same completed down the Imschara by the downward flow of the waters. I pass over that, according to Bede's opinion, the bodies of the Saints cannot have arrived near Kaiserswerth, which nevertheless the praised Fley, citing Bede for himself, also writes in the words just recited.

[53] But although this writer seems to have the venerable historian of the English nation against him, and that perhaps especially in the opinion by which he judges that the martyrdom of the Saints happened in the village of Appellerbeke, [who also from the things which (he says) about the road by which the bodies of the Saints to the Imschara] he nevertheless, in order to confirm this in some manner, says, in the Preface to the Annals of the Westphalian Circle, in the chapter very often cited, numbers 6 and 7, that he saw with his own eyes at Apelterbecke the farm mentioned above which has its name from the slaughter or murder, that the same can still be seen there, and that the history of the Ewalds is perfectly well known to the inhabitants of the place; moreover, that there is also seen there the road by which the bodies of the slain Ewalds were dragged by the country people to the river Imschara and cast into it; further, that both non-Catholics and Catholics know and narrate that that road is never watered by dew or by rain. These things Fley (says) in the cited place as to substance; by which, however, he no more renders the matter which he contends proved than by the other weighty reasons already discussed and confuted above. Somewhat more strength indeed will perhaps seem to someone to be had in what this writer adds about the road which is never watered by dew or rain; but not even from this can the matter be made certain and undoubted. That that road is never watered by dew or rain, from men perhaps of simpler wit, and not sufficiently acquainted with the thing they were narrating, still less

from those who had experienced it, Fley only heard. Moreover, whether the said road is short or long, open or covered with trees, this writer does not set out. Perhaps, if it were more thoroughly known, it could be explained without miracle how it is never watered by dew or rain. But if nevertheless this happens by miracle, it will be almost continuous, and it would also most probably have been observed more than once by men of keener nose.

[54] Why, then, does Fley cite by name no trustworthy witness of this kind were dragged, (a road) never wont to be watered by dew and rain, who has testified that he distinctly observed the mentioned road lying wholly arid and dry while the neighbouring lands were copiously soaked with dew or rain? He would surely thus have had a fit argument for the said prodigy. But truly I think that Fley most probably lacked a witness of this kind whom he might bring forward. Certainly I, if you except Fley alone, could find no writer at all, either more recent or more ancient, who commits the mentioned prodigy to writing. Nay, the deepest silence is kept about it even by the praised Rolevinck and Schaten themselves, who nevertheless think it more probable that the wrestling-ground of the Saints is to be placed in the village of Appellerbeke, and who therefore could have confirmed this opinion of theirs from it. Will you perhaps say that these writers had not perceived it? But let it be so: this will be an argument that the prodigy, inasmuch as it was hidden from the Westphalian writers themselves, is celebrated only by a few; which nevertheless, if it were consonant with the truth, could not but be held most celebrated in the mouth of very many. In our Collectanea it is said only that the road by which the bodies of the slain Saints were dragged to the Imschara is never watered by dew. Here are the words: "They say … that the dew has not been wont to water the ground where their (the holy Ewalds') bodies were dragged to the river," namely the Imschara. It can more easily happen that the rustic common folk, deceived by prejudices or a false appearance of things, believe that some place is not watered by dew, than that they persuade themselves that this does not happen by rain either: for the first they will not everywhere and always detect to be false as readily as the second, although both be false.

[55] he does not make his opinion certain: Perhaps, therefore, the people of Appellerbeke, possessed by inveterate prejudices about the martyrdom of the Saints among them, and deceived by a certain false appearance of things, first believed for some centuries that the road by which the bodies of the Saints were dragged to the Imschara is never watered by dew, and then in the lapse of time some more credulous persuaded themselves, even without examination of the matter, that this does not happen by rain either. In this manner it may have come about that the report now prevails even among the people of Appellerbeke that the aforementioned road is never watered either by dew or by rain; which indeed, on account of what has been said, seems to me of so little weight that I think it should not have been admitted even by Fley himself, had he not been more inclined than was just to the opinion which lays down that the Saints suffered at Appellerbeke, and which receives support from it. However that may be, although the prodigy here discussed has not yet been convicted of open falsity from what has been said, it ought at least to be very suspect to everyone. Wherefore nothing at all certain can be made out from it for proving that the Saints suffered martyrdom in the village of Appellerbeke; especially since Bede's narration, by which the bodies of the slain Saints are related to have been cast into the Rhine, is undoubtedly conformable to the truth, and from it, according to what has been said, it seems to follow that the Saints did not suffer martyrdom in the said village of Appellerbeke.

[56] two further arguments against this having therefore Accordingly, whatever Fley adduces for placing their wrestling-ground there, it always remains doubtful to me at least, not to say wholly unlike the truth, that the Saints suffered so far from the Rhine. Two other arguments also persuade me to judge so, of which one is likewise drawn from Bede, and the other partly from the very words of Fley recited at number 51. I begin with the latter. The river Imschara does not seem to have such an abundance of waters at Appellerbeke that the bodies of the slain Saints, cast into it, could have been carried from there into the Rhine by their downward flow. It is permitted to gather this from the very words of Hermann Fley just mentioned, which I transcribed here at number 51. For by these that writer indicates that he doubts whether it was done in a natural or a supernatural manner that the bodies of the Saints, cast into the Imschara, were carried from Appellerbeke through the bed of this river into the Rhine; and he does not seem likely to have doubted about this matter unless he had known the scantiness of the waters which the Imschara has. And indeed that the Imschara does not have at the village of Appellerbeke such an abundance of waters as suffices for carrying human bodies is also understood both from the very situation of this village and from the Lesson of the most ancient manuscript Breviary of Cologne praised above more than once. For the village of Appellerbeke is situated not far from the sources of the Imschara; and rivers, and especially little rivers or torrents such as the Imschara is, are usually very small at their sources, and not fit for carrying things of greater bulk.

[57] of which one (is drawn) partly from the very As regards now the said Lesson of the most ancient Breviary of Cologne, it has thus to our purpose: "These .. (the holy Ewalds), having been slain in the township of Appelderbeke, on the little river Embiscara, they threw them there into marshy places. Afterwards the most wicked murderers, stirred by the goads of greater envy, or rather frightened after the crime committed, drew out the bodies of the holy Guests from there for the sake of hiding them and threw them into the Rhine." Since by these words it is signified that the bodies of the Saints were drawn out by the murderers from the river Imschara, into whose marshy places they had been thrown, in order to hide them, and cast into the Rhine, it is an argument that the river Imschara at the village of Appellerbeke, namely especially at the beginning of October, when the Saints suffered, does not have an abundance of waters which suffices for hiding human bodies or carrying them far away from there. It appears most probable, therefore, from what has already been said, that the bodies of the Saints could not have been carried from Appellerbeke into the Rhine by the downward flow of the Imschara without miracle. Wherefore it is necessary that in the opinion of Fley, Gelenius and others, by which the bodies of the Saints slain at Appellerbeke are laid down as thrown there into the Imschara and thence carried into the Rhine, two miracles most probably be admitted as done; the one, by which the bodies of the Saints were carried against the rush of the flowing Rhine towards Cologne, on the testimony of Bede; the other, by which they contend the same were carried from the village of Appellerbeke into the Rhine by the downward flow of the Imschara.

[58] But this second miracle seems by no means to be admitted. of Fley's words, For besides that it rests on no testimony of antiquity, the carrying of the Saints from Appellerbeke into the Rhine by the downward flow of the Imschara, from which it follows, appears feigned or at least asserted without ground. Moreover, in the Lesson of the manuscript Breviary of Cologne, already praised above several times, the bodies of the Saints are said to have been cast into the Rhine by the murderers; not, however, to have been carried from Appellerbeke into this river by the downward flow of the Imschara. Since, therefore, this Breviary, being very ancient from what has been said, most probably surpasses in age Rolevinck, Gelenius and the other more recent writers mentioned above, and it does not record that the bodies of the Saints were carried from Appellerbeke into the Rhine by the downward flow of the Imschara, this seems to have been invented, or at least asserted without ground, by those more recent writers. They saw, namely, that the distance of the village of Appellerbeke from the Rhine was greater than that it should be in any way credible that the bodies of the Saints slain there were cast into it (which, however, on account of Bede's testimony they could not deny). Determined nevertheless not to abandon the opinion which lays down that the Saints suffered in the village of Appellerbeke, they therefore asserted, though supported by no suitable testimony, that their bodies were carried from the same village into the Rhine by the downward flow of the Imschara. But since, from what has been said, it is little likely that this could have happened without miracle, the opinion also, in which this nevertheless has to be asserted without any foundation, appears to me little probable even from this head alone.

[59] That this may be further weakened more and more, the other is drawn from Bede, having been brought forward, I now come to the other argument which, as I said above, is drawn from Bede. The Saints, as, from what has been said, the whole narration of the venerable historian of the English hints, suffered martyrdom in that village of Old Saxony to which, having scarcely entered this region, they first turned aside: and this seems by no means able to be reconciled with the opinion which maintains that the Saints were killed at Appellerbeke. I prove the matter thus: the Ewalds, according to what has been said, most probably entered Old Saxony from Austrasia, having crossed the Rhine. And they seem to have crossed the Rhine either near Cologne or between this city and the confluence of the Rhine and the Lippe. Whichever you lay down, it does not appear likely that the village of Appellerbeke was the one to which the Saints first turned aside in Old Saxony. For if you would have them cross the Rhine near Cologne, they could not have arrived at the village of Appellerbeke except by crossing a fairly long tract of land which lies between it and Cologne; and this tract at that time (see what was said at numbers 4 and 5) either the Boructuarii still held at least in part, or the Old Saxons, these having been driven out, had reduced almost the whole of it into their power and occupied it. If the Boructuarii still held the region, I do not see why the Saints, passing over these, who were also heathens, should have crossed to the heathen Saxons for the sake of preaching Christ. But if at that time the Old Saxons had occupied almost the whole of that tract of land, which on account of what was said at numbers 4 and 5 can perhaps be admitted, the Saints most probably had to pass through not a few villages inhabited by Saxons before they came to Appellerbeke. They do not seem, therefore, to have turned aside first into this one, having scarcely entered Saxony; whence, on account of what has been said, it follows that they do not seem to have suffered martyrdom there either. But if further you would have it that the Saints crossed the Rhine not near Cologne but between this city and the confluence of the Rhine and the Lippe, and that not far from this confluence, which you will easily gather from what is to be said is most probable; if, I say, you would have this, then it will be much less credible that the Saints, having scarcely entered Saxony, first turned aside into the village of Appellerbeke, since several other villages of the Saxons lay between it and the confluence of the Rhine and the Lippe. Whence it follows that it is also to be held much less credible that the Saints were crowned with martyrdom there.

[60] the wrestling-ground of the Saints neither to the village of Appellerbeke. Accordingly, all these things having been weighed, it becomes more and more doubtful to me whether the Saints suffered martyrdom in the village of Appellerbeke. Nay, the things which we have thus far brought forward seem almost to render it certain that they did not suffer martyrdom there. But there will perhaps be someone to whom it seems strange that a matter which has seemed most probable to not a few men, even learned ones, is called in doubt by me, nay is pronounced almost destitute of all likelihood. To extricate myself from this objection, such as it is, I answer that I am not the first to whom it has seemed that one should judge so. For Gamans, a priest of our Society, among

the very many Writings which he kindly transmitted to our Predecessors, treating of the Saints, gave one not to be despised under this title: "The tutelary Saints of Old Saxony, which is today Westphalia, who, while living, made it illustrious by their merits and miracles at the beginning of the nation's being brought to Christ, or who after death migrated into it, their sacred bodies having been religiously brought from elsewhere." And in this Writing the Ewalds are treated in the first place, and the praised Gamans writes thus of them opportunely for our purpose: "In a short time (the holy Ewalds) so watered the arid lands of the gentiles with their blood that those cultivators who afterwards came to till this lately stony field could gather the desired fruits. Of the place of martyrdom it is not clear." Gamans therefore judged that nothing was established about the wrestling-ground of the Saints, and so that it was not to be placed undoubtedly in the village of Appellerbeke. Cratepolius also seems to doubt about the wrestling-ground of the Saints. For, treating of the Ewalds in his treatise on the Saints of Germany, he keeps altogether deep silence about the place in which they were crowned with martyrdom, although meanwhile he enumerates things which would more aptly have been joined with a mention of the wrestling-ground.

[61] and it is concluded that it cannot be fixed to another determinate place either. For the rest, the praised Gamans not only doubted whether the wrestling-ground of the Saints was to be placed in the village of Appellerbeke, but even held it for certain that it could not be placed there. For in the writing praised above, to the words already just recited, he subjoins this: "That they (the holy Ewalds) suffered in Old Saxony not far from the Rhine, Bede, a writer of those times, has made undoubted." According to Gamans's mind, therefore, the Saints suffered martyrdom not far from the Rhine, and consequently not in the village of Appellerbeke, inasmuch as it is distant about ten hours' leagues from the Rhine. This opinion of Gamans indeed appears to me very probable, nay almost certain, on account of the irrefragable authority of Bede. For since Bede teaches in the Passion to be published that the bodies of the slain Saints were cast into the Rhine, and that these were carried from the place where this happened for almost forty thousand paces towards Cologne, it seems to me that it must be laid down that the Saints, having crossed the latter river not very far from the confluence of the Lippe and the Rhine, entered Old Saxony and were crowned with martyrdom there; but in what place this was done everyone will now easily understand, from what has been said, cannot be determined. It will also be possible, as far as I judge, conveniently to gather from what has been argued what it is fitting to determine about the opinions mentioned above of Rolevinck, Schaten, Fley, as also of Gelenius, who does not dissent from these, concerning the wrestling-ground of the Saints. I meanwhile, reckoning that I have now sufficiently inquired into this, proceed to investigate the time at which the Saints were crowned with martyrdom.

§ V. The time at which the Saints were crowned with martyrdom; and whether the bodies of these slain men were carried up the Rhine as far as Cologne.

[The martyrdom of the Saints is placed by almost all between the year 690 and 700,] In determining the year in which the Saints suffered martyrdom, writers disagree very much among themselves. Yet this is laid down with fairly unanimous consent by almost all between the year 690 and about the year 700. Sigebert of Gembloux in the Chronography at the year of the Lord 693 writes thus: "Evald the White and Evald the Black, coming from England, are martyred in Gaul, and by command of Pepin are buried at Cologne." Rolevinck, book 2 On the Situation and Manners of the Westphalians, chapter 1, asserts that they were put to death by martyrdom about the seven hundredth year of the Lord. Schaten in his History of Westphalia sets down their martyrdom at this same year. Hermann Fley also, already very often praised above, does the same. The Westminster (chronicler) ties the death of the Saints to the year 695; Trithemius to the year 693: for in the Annals he writes thus: "Clovis, the elder son of the mentioned king Theoderic, succeeding his father, reigned over the Franks four years, Pepin being Mayor of the palace: in which year the Euualds, the White and the Black, monks and presbyters, coming from England for the love of Christ into Saxony, are martyred, and were buried at Cologne by command of prince Pippin." The discourse here is of Clovis the third, king of the Franks, who was the elder son of Theoderic the third, king of the Franks. To the words just recited Trithemius had prefixed this: "Theoderic" (namely the third), "king of the Franks, died in the fourteenth year of his reign, and of the Lord's Nativity DCXCIII." Clovis, therefore, according to Trithemius's calculations, began to reign in the year 693, and in the same year the Ewalds came into Old Saxony and suffered martyrdom. But Clovis the third began to reign not in the year 693 but in 691, as the opinion of the learned now has it, so that Trithemius, since he joins the martyrdom of the Saints with the year in which Clovis the third began to reign, ought to have referred it to the year 691, more emended calculations having been applied. However that may be, he too places the martyrdom of the Saints between the year 690 and the year 700. It would be long to enumerate all the other writers who do this very thing. Let it suffice to have said that scarcely anyone is found who places the martyrdom of the Saints either before the year 690 or after the year 700. For I do not dwell here on a few certain writers who, closely adhering to the inventions of Pseudo-Marcellinus, defer it as far as the year 703 or even 704.

[63] and this indeed neither before the year 690, Accordingly, there is excellent agreement among almost all writers about placing the martyrdom of the Saints between the year 690 and 700, and it consequently appears certain that the Ewalds were put to death by martyrdom neither before the year 690 nor after the year 700. "But," you will say, "all the writers enumerated, from whose unanimous consent this appears certain, are too remote from the age of the Saints to be able to create certain and undoubted credence for the things they write about them." I answer that the matter is also proved from elsewhere by solid weighty reasons. And first, indeed, that the Saints neither suffered martyrdom nor came into Old Saxony before the year 690 is made undoubted from Bede and from the year in which St. Willibrord crossed with eleven other apostolic men from Ireland into Frisia for the sake of preaching the Gospel. For Willibrord, as is admitted by all, did not come into Frisia before the year 690; and Bede, at number 2 of the Passion to be published, having narrated the journey of Willibrord and his companions into Frisia, subjoins: "Following their" (Willibrord's and his companions') "examples, two certain Presbyters" (Ewald the White and Ewald the Black) "of the nation of the English, who had long been exiles in Ireland for the sake of the eternal fatherland, came to the province of the Old Saxons, if perchance they might by preaching there gain some for Christ." The Saints, therefore, did not come into Old Saxony and were not crowned with martyrdom there before St. Willibrord's departure from Ireland into Frisia, and consequently not before the year 690. And this indeed of the former of the two limits within which we have hinted that the martyrdom of the Saints is certainly to be concluded. As regards now the other, or the year 700, I prove thus that the martyrdom of the Saints cannot be placed after it: Du Chesne, in tome 1 of the Writers of France, published a historical Fragment which is carried from Dagobert the first down to king Pepin.

[64] nor after the year 700, In this an uncertain author, but one whom the more recent learned, from what is to be said, judge is to be followed here, records thus opportunely for our purpose: "Pepin, therefore, when he had excellently administered the principate of the palace … for twenty-seven years, died in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord DCCXIV. In his times two English presbyters, the Euvalds, while they were preaching to the Saxons, crowned with martyrdom and declared by miracles, were entombed by him at Cologne in the year of the Lord DCCXXIV. In the following year St. Willebrord, ordained archbishop by Pope Sergius, preaching to the nation of the Frisians, flourished in virtues." Thus far the praised anonymous writer, into whose text it is clear from that same text itself that an error has crept here through the carelessness of the copyists, and that for the year of the Lord DCCXXIV, in which the Ewalds are narrated to have been entombed by Pepin, the year of the Lord DCXCV is to be read. For at its beginning Pepin is said to have departed from among the living in the year of the Lord DCCXIV; wherefore it is necessary that afterwards in the course of the text the holy Ewalds are wrongly narrated to have been entombed by the same Pepin in the year of the Lord DCCXXIV. For how could Pepin, already ten years dead, have entombed the Saints, or who would believe that the anonymous writer committed this to writing? It must be, therefore, that an error has crept here into his text through the carelessness of the copyists or scribes. Further, in the praised text St. Willibrord is said to have been promoted by Pope Sergius to the archiepiscopal dignity in that year which followed the burial of the Saints procured by Pepin. Wherefore, since St. Willibrord, as Bede, book 5 of the History of the English nation, chapter 12, explicitly affirms, attained that rank in the year 696, the year immediately preceding this ought to be substituted in the anonymous writer's text for the year DCCXXIV, which is therefore wrongly marked there for the year in which Pepin entombed the Saints, and did not proceed from the author of the Chronicle himself but from those who copied it. Hence it now follows that the Saints obtained the palm of martyrdom in the year 695, and consequently that this did not happen after the year 700. And this also of the other of the two limits within which I have insinuated the martyrdom of the Saints is to be included.

[65] "But," you will say, "Bede does not treat of the martyrdom of the Saints but, as appears more probable, it happened in the year 695. before he has set out the departure of St. Willibrord and his companions from Ireland into Frisia; and after he has narrated the martyrdom of the Saints, he recounts in the immediately following chapter the ordination of St. Suitbert as bishop. St. Willibrord, from what has been said, departed from Ireland into Frisia with his eleven companions, apostolic men, in the year 690, or, as others would have it, in the year 691; and St. Suitbert was ordained bishop in the year 693, as the more common opinion now holds. Bede, therefore, records the martyrdom of the Saints between two different things, of which one was done in the year 690 or 691, the other in the year 693, and so it seems it must be placed not in the year 695 but either in some one of the years 690, 691 and 693, or in the year 692, which lies between this latter and the two former." I answer: even if it were granted for the time being that the Saints obtained the crown of martyrdom not in the year 695 but in some one of the four years just mentioned, what I asserted above would certainly still remain unshaken and firm, nay would even be confirmed thereby, that the martyrdom of the Saints can be placed neither before the year 690 nor after the year 700. But although Bede records the martyrdom of the Saints between two things of which one was done in the year 690 or 691, the other in the year 693, it ought not on that account to be fixed either to one of these three years or to the year 692. For no one would easily demonstrate that Bede everywhere narrates things in the order in which they were done. Moreover, it is nowhere expressly affirmed by the venerable Writer that the martyrdom of the Saints (took place) between Willibrord's (journey) from Ireland into Frisia

journey and St. Suitbert's ordination was accomplished; whereas by the anonymous author praised before, as is clear from his words transcribed here above, it is openly declared that the Saints underwent martyrdom in the year which immediately preceded the promotion of St. Willibrord to the archiepiscopal dignity, made in the year 696. Since, therefore, more seems to be attributed to the said anonymous writer openly declaring something than to Bede not expressly affirming the contrary, it seems more probable to me that the martyrdom of the Saints is to be fixed to the year 695.

[66] [The ancient opinion of the people of Cologne about the bodies of the Saints carried up the Rhine] This very thing has also seemed so to Le Cointe in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, to Pagi in the Critique, and to other more recent writers who have treated this subject, and that on the sole authority of the anonymous and uncertain author already praised more than once; with whom also (see number 62) the Westminster (chronicler) agrees. No other things occur which contribute anything to determining more certainly the year in which the Saints were crowned with martyrdom. Now, therefore, as I also proposed to do in this §, I set about investigating whether the bodies of the slain Saints, which the heathen murderers had cast into the Rhine, were carried up the river as far as Cologne. There is an ancient tradition among the people of Cologne that the bodies of the holy Ewalds were carried up the Rhine to that place where now at Cologne a well is seen in the choir of St. Cunibert. This we are taught, besides not a few other writers, both by Winheim in the Sacrarium of Cologne and by Gelenius in his Treatise On the Greatness of Cologne. I transcribe here the words of the latter, because he sets out the matter more accurately. In the third book of the said Work, then, Syntagma 4, page 279, he records thus: "The church of Cunibert … received increase by the munificence of the Austrasian princes Pepin and Blessed Plectrude, when the bodies of the blessed Ewalds, accompanied by a heavenly torch, swimming of their own accord against the stream, landed here (at Cologne), and were raised in the presence of the clergy and people, where now there is a bronze well in the choir with this inscription:

The Rhine with violent whirl brought the Ewalds to land, Whom a light from on high carries hither, where the spring gushes.

[67] the opinion as far as Cologne is not to be admitted: "For by the liberality of the nobles so many torques and necklaces were offered that by their expense, the river being forced to yield, the addition of the modern choir was made." And then at page 288 he supplies this on the same subject: "With a prodigious light they (the bodies of the Ewalds, miraculously against the Rhine) swam to Cologne, where, recognized by divine revelation by Blessed Tilmannus, their colleague, they were honourably received by Pepin and Blessed Plectrude and the clergy and people of Cologne in the place which the well in the choir designates." Thus far the praised Gelenius, adding also after a few things an old Leonine poem about the holy Ewalds, in which likewise it seems to be asserted that their bodies were carried up the Rhine as far as Cologne. Here it is also; it runs thus:

Let the feasts of the two Ewalds gladden us; They are of one manner, and of unlike colour, Cut off at one time, they are likewise glorified; Afterwards up the parts of the Rhine, but not by the rower's arts, The bodies ascend, and make for the walls of the city, Not by the breath of the wind; praise and honour be to the Almighty, Who grants honour to those joined to him by love.

There is no doubt, therefore, that among the people of Cologne, through a tradition received from their Forefathers, that opinion has prevailed by which it is commonly thought that the bodies of the holy Ewalds were carried there up the Rhine. But, be it said with the good leave of the people of Cologne, it seems to me by no means to be admitted.

[68] for it conflicts with Bede. For it conflicts, as it at least appears to me, most manifestly with Bede. For he writes thus in the Passion to be published, numbers 5 and 6: "One of them (the holy Ewalds) appeared to one of his companions, whose name was Tilmon, an illustrious man, and noble also as regards the world, who from a soldier had been made a monk; indicating that he could find their bodies in that place where he should see a light from heaven shining on the earth. Which was so fulfilled. For their bodies, having been found, were laid up according to the honour befitting martyrs; and the day of their Passion or Finding is celebrated in those places with fitting veneration. Finally, the most glorious duke of the Franks Pippin, when he learned of these things, sent, and, their bodies having been brought to him, laid them with much glory in the church of the city of Cologne beside the Rhine." By which words it is most openly signified that the bodies of the Saints, carried up the Rhine, stopped in some place distant from Cologne, and were there honourably entombed by Tilmon, to whom they had been shown by a prodigy, and by his other companions; and that from there, when afterwards they had been taken from the ground by Pepin, the matter having been heard, they were translated by him to Cologne and there honourably laid up in a tomb beside the Rhine. The opinion of the people of Cologne, therefore, by which the bodies of the Ewalds are thought to have been carried up the Rhine as far as Cologne, conflicts with Bede. "But," you will say, "in the Life of St. Anno, archbishop of Cologne, inserted in Surius's fourth Quarter at the fourth of December, chapter 37, these things are read: 'Among these things he (St. Anno) also raised from their tombs the precious bodies of the two Euualds, instructed by a revelation of the same Martyrs: whom the Rhine with its back-flowing stream had once carried from Saxony to Cologne to be buried.'"

[69] The Life of St. Anno was committed to writing by an author nearly contemporary, nor does any support accrue to it from the Life of St. Anno. who is at the same time most weighty and most trustworthy, as is admitted by all. "Wherefore, since by these words, which have just been recited from it, it is not obscurely indicated that the bodies of the Saints were carried up, or by the back-flowing Rhine, as far as Cologne, the opinion of the people of Cologne which asserts this can be admitted as true, and the words of Bede transcribed here above ought to be explained in such a way that they do not conflict with it." I answer that the Life of St. Anno indeed has an author who is also most trustworthy, nearly contemporary with this holy bishop. But since St. Anno, as will be understood from what is to be said below, ceased to be among the living towards the end of the eleventh century, the former did not undertake to commit his Life to writing before the twelfth century. Whence it follows that he is also too remote from the age of the Ewalds, inasmuch as they flourished in the seventh century, to be able to make certain and undoubted what he writes about their bodies carried up, or by the back-flowing Rhine, as far as Cologne. So much only, therefore, can be concluded from the Life of St. Anno, that the tradition by which the opinion prevailed among the people of Cologne about the bodies of the Ewalds carried to them up the Rhine is very ancient; and I declared plainly enough at number 66 that it is such. Further, even though I neither wish nor dare, on account of the authority of Bede, to admit that the bodies of the Saints were carried up the Rhine as far as Cologne to the place where the bronze well is now seen in the Cunibertine choir, I do not on that account assert that the things which Gelenius relates in the words recited about the addition of the modern choir to the Cunibertine basilica are foreign to the truth.

[70] Nay, on the contrary, it appears to me most probable [Yet the Cunibertine choir was perhaps built from the gifts which had been offered to the Ewalds.] that, after the bodies of the Ewalds, by command of Pepin, had been taken from the place in which they had previously been entombed and translated to Cologne, torques and necklaces were offered in their honour in enormous abundance by Pepin, by his wife Plectrude and by the Austrasian nobles. I think also that by the value of those precious offerings which had been made to the Ewalds, the pious liberality of the people of Cologne being added, the modern choir of the Cunibertine church was built, the Rhine also, which had previously enclosed in its bed the place where this was built, being forced to yield. As regards, however, the bronze well of the choir, which also, on the testimony of Winheim, the people of Cologne report to survive for the health of the sick, I suspect that it was not built before the opinion had already prevailed among the people of Cologne about the bodies of the Ewalds carried up the Rhine to them to that place. Which opinion indeed I reckon could easily have prevailed among them even one or two centuries only after the slaughter of the Ewalds, for this reason, that those sacred pledges were carried up the Rhine not very far from the city of Cologne, and soon from there translated by Pepin to Cologne. I doubt also whether the same opinion, once it had arisen, always clung equally firmly to the minds of all the people of Cologne. Certainly in our most ancient Breviaries of Cologne praised above there is the deepest silence about the bodies of the Saints carried up the Rhine as far as Cologne.

§ VI. The bodies translated by Pepin and afterwards by Anno, archbishop of Cologne.

The Saints, whom Pepin first translated, The bodies of the Saints, which had first been translated by divine power, according to what has already been said, from the place in which they had been cast into the Rhine by the heathen country people to the place where Tilmon and their other companions were living, were afterwards likewise translated by men. And the first indeed of the translations of them which were made by men was accomplished at the procurement of Pepin. The bodies of the Saints, namely, prodigiously surrounded by a heavenly light and swimming of their own accord against the rush of the flowing Rhine, had been carried as far as that place where Tilmon and their other companions were dwelling. Nor had God made his servants illustrious by this prodigy only; but he also deigned by another to reveal their bodies to Tilmon when they had already been brought to the place where they were first to be buried. Hence it came about that in a short time the glorious martyrdom of the Saints, its fame having been most swiftly propagated, was spread abroad in every direction, and all who heard of the miracles which had followed it were persuaded that the Saints were of the highest merit with God. Pepin, therefore, having also heard of the matter, did not allow that the Saints, whom he heard to have been honoured by God with such prodigies, should not likewise be honoured by men. He therefore ordered their sacred bodies to be brought to him at Cologne from the place in which they had been committed to the earth by Tilmon and his companions, and caused them to be laid in the ground with much glory in the church (this is now distinguished by the name of St. Cunibert) of the city of Cologne beside the Rhine. All these things the Venerable Bede teaches us in the Passion to be published, numbers 5 and 6; to whom, therefore, studious reader, referring you, I proceed to explaining the other translation of the sacred bodies.

[72] St. Anno translated them again in the year 1074. This is clear from his From the year 695 or at least 696, in which, as everyone will easily gather from what has already been said, the bodies of the Saints were translated to Cologne, to the year 1074, nothing occurs either in the historians or in other ancient monuments from which it could in any way be understood whether and with what cult the Saints were favoured among the people of Cologne in the time lying between those two limits. I do not doubt, however, that they continued to be honoured by them as Saints for a long time even after their first translation, made by Pepin; but whether their solemn annual memory was never interrupted, I would not dare, as I have already again remarked above, to assert for certain. However that may be, their sacred bodies, from the time when they were translated by Pepin until the said year 1074,

lay placed in neglected coffins. But then St. Anno, archbishop of Cologne, bestowed on them the new honour of translation. And indeed both the one and the other are clear from the Letters which St. Anno himself issued about the translation of the Saints made by him. These, therefore, as they exist in manuscript in our Collectanea, I transcribe here entire. In the year 1661, as I find noted, they were transmitted from Cologne by the lord dean of the collegiate church of St. Cunibert and the lord Paul Schriber, canon and treasurer, to the lord count of Geleen, and from him afterwards to our Bolland. They run thus:

"In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Anno the second, archbishop of Cologne, to all the faithful of Christ, as well future as present. Since the space of this life is proved to be short and feeble, because human age and the law of birth, although the multitude of years seems to be prolonged, always tends to its setting: it is salutary for all, and to be sought with all their strength, to send ahead of themselves in mind and work something good thither, where, if things are joyful, they know no end: and if sad, the pain is endless, yet admits of some sort of compassion. For this reason, anxious for my sins, and greatly fearing the strictness of the judgment to come, I have decided, by honouring the Saints of God and relieving those who serve them, to make them intercessors for me in the judgment, I who cannot be justified by my own merits.

[73] "The glorious martyrs of God, the Euualds, therefore, placed in coffins neglected through the ignorance of those who went before, which are recited here, from his Letters about this. I, a sinner and servant of the servants of God, Anno the second, archbishop of Cologne, although unworthy, have translated, so that those who have already been received into the heavenly contemplation might be held worthy of some honour among us, in order that they may beseech the mercy of almighty God, for whom they suffered, for us in heaven the more zealously, the more they are glorified and honoured by us on earth according to our small measure. In their translation, therefore, to the brethren serving as soldiers in the same monastery to the holy martyr Clement and the holy confessor Cunibert, and to the same martyrs the Euualds, for the supplement of their daily consolation, I have given the tithe of the new-broken lands in Heimorderheim and Strazfeldon , XXX * measures of wheat at Maseneel from the revenues of the woods, a pound of pence at Geveron, V pounds of the money of Soest from the little plots or small courts of the same township. And this was done before the witnesses noted below, Ezelin the provost, Berengar the dean, Everhard, Ruotbert, Bertholf, Regenbold; before laymen also, Franco, prefect of the city, Count Heriman, Count Gerard; and, that it may be the more truly believed and the more firmly held in future, I have caused this charter to be written in testimony, and have deposited it in the same monastery as a future memorial. The aforesaid translation was made in the year of the Lord's Incarnation MLXXIIII, Indiction XI, on the V Nones of October. If anyone, therefore, shall take away the little supplement which we have bestowed on the aforesaid brethren, let him incur perpetual anathema in the sight of God almighty, and depart sad from the sight of God into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. Amen."

[74] In these, what as regards the donations Surius, in the fourth Quarter, at the third day of October, in the two Ewalds, also presents letters issued by St. Anno about the translation of the holy Ewalds which he made; but these disagree not a little with the letters of St. Anno on this subject just recited. For it records no donations made by St. Anno to the monastery of St. Cunibert (colleges of canons also were formerly distinguished by the name of Monasteries); whereas the Letters already recited enumerate some. The question can therefore now be asked whether the letters which Surius presents, or those which our collectanea present under the name of St. Anno, are to be held as the genuine letters of this Saint. That the letters which our Collectanea present, already recited, are to be held as the genuine letters of St. Anno seems able to be urged even from the fact that Anno issued letters about the translation of the Saints. For if those letters on that matter in which no donations are enumerated are to be held as the genuine letters of St. Anno, it does not appear why Anno issued them, unless perhaps someone would have it that he did this solely in order to leave attested by a public instrument that the translation of the holy Ewalds had been made by him. But what makes it seem that the letters in which donations are enumerated cannot be held as the genuine letters of St. Anno is the Diploma of St. Anno which, under the title of the Triumph or Translation of St. Cunibert, from a manuscript codex of the same church of St. Cunibert at Cologne, we shall publish at the XII of November, on which the Acts of this Saint will come to be illustrated.

[75] which they enumerate, are perhaps not genuine, For in this St. Anno also enumerates the donations which he made at the translation of the holy Ewalds to the monastery or college of canons of St. Cunibert; but he makes no mention of the donation, recorded in the Letters transcribed here at the preceding number, by which he then gave to the same monastery five pounds of the money of Soest or Susatia from the little plots or small courts of the same township. Nay, on the contrary, he most openly signifies in the said Diploma that he made this donation before the translation of the Ewalds. Moreover, in the aforesaid letters of St. Anno about the translation of the Ewalds, Anno says that he makes the donations which he records "to the brethren serving as soldiers in the same monastery"; by which manner of speaking he indicates that he had spoken there of the monastery before, and yet he had in no way done so. And this is the other reason which makes it seem that the Letters about the translation of the Ewalds in which donations are enumerated cannot be held as the genuine letters of St. Anno; and perhaps, both from this and from the preceding reason, it can not undeservedly be contended that whatever pertains to the record of the donations has been intruded into the Letters of the same Anno about the translation of the Ewalds from the Diploma of St. Anno just mentioned. And if this is so, the letters which Surius presents will have to be held as the genuine Letters of Anno, and those which we have transcribed here will also be such, provided the things pertaining to the record of the donations are cut away. Hence further it now follows that, in whatever way the matter is regarded, those things in the Letters of Anno are certainly genuine by which he testifies that the bodies of the Ewalds, which had before lain placed in neglected coffins, were translated by him. Truly, therefore, the bodies of the Saints had lain placed in neglected coffins until the age of Anno, and he at length bestowed on them the new honour of translation: both of which I had asserted above.

[76] But another thing is still to be noted here concerning the said Letters of Anno. For in these, both as they exist in Surius Indiction XI is wrongly marked: and as in our Collectanea, the translation of the holy Ewalds of which they treat and we are now treating is noted as made in the year 1074, Indiction XI, on the fifth Nones of October; but the year 1074 can by no means be reconciled with Indiction XI, and that whether the Constantinopolitan or Greek, or the Constantinian or Caesarean, or even the Pontifical indiction be laid down as used. The matter will become manifest to everyone from the mere calculation of the individual indictions. The Pontifical indiction takes its beginning from the Kalends of January, the Constantinopolitan or Greek from the Kalends of September, the Constantinian or Caesarean from the VIII Kalends of October, or the XXIV of September. Hence, as will become evident to one who computes, from the Kalends of January of the year 1074 to the Kalends of January of the year 1075 the twelfth Pontifical indiction was in course; and from September of the year 1073 to September of the year 1074 the twelfth indiction was likewise running, both the Constantinopolitan or Greek and the Constantinian or Caesarean, and in that very month the thirteenth also was beginning. Go to tome 3 of September of our Work, page 444 and following. Accordingly, whatever indiction be laid down as used in the letters of Anno, the year 1074 is wrongly joined in them with the eleventh indiction. It is necessary, therefore, that there be an error either in the year or in the indiction. Wherefore, since, as I shall presently prove, there is no error in the year, for Indiction XI there must be substituted Indiction either XII or XIII; and that Indiction XIII is to be substituted appears more probable. I judge so because in the age of Anno the Constantinian or Caesarean Indiction seems to have been in use among the Germans, which takes its beginning from the VIII Kalends of October or the XXIV of September, and which consequently in the year 1074, on the fifth Kalends or the third day of October, on which day and year the translation of the Ewalds is noted in the said letters as having been made, was numbered the thirteenth.

[77] I now prove that in the year 1074, in which the translation of the Ewalds is noted in the letters of Anno as having been made, for that the year is rightly noted is proved from this, that the calamities there is no error. In the Diploma praised above Anno speaks thus: "It happened that, my sins requiring it, I suddenly fell, beyond fear, into straits, which, since they are by no means to be concealed, but the glory of the power of the Saints Cunibert, Clement and the Ewalds, to whose intercession and suffrages I had at that time especially fled, is to be made known, (I declare) that, as I know without doubt, by their intercession my fear was transformed into hope, my sadness into joy, danger into security, and the impious counsels of many against me were frustrated. Without delay, therefore, having summoned to me the same provost Hado" (of him he had spoken before), "my confidant and familiar, I reckoned with him with a cheerful and joyful mind, that for the time at least I might make some return to their merits, and according to his counsel I handed over to the brethren five pounds to be paid from the plots or small courts of Susatia, because St. Cunibert acquired it for St. Peter, and because the pious archbishop Heriman, afterwards, the body of St. Cunibert having been dug up and translated to Susatia, defended and obtained it by judicial combat from unjust and importunate heirs. Not much time afterwards I presumed, although unworthy, to translate the holy Ewalds." Before St. Anno translated the holy Ewalds, therefore, he had escaped, by the intercession of these and of the Saints Cunibert and Clement, grievous straits, the greatest danger, and the impious counsels of many against him, as is clear from these words. If, then, these calamities which Anno then escaped belong to the year 1074, the translation of the Saints, inasmuch as it was made shortly after them, is rightly marked in the letters of Anno with the year 1074. That those calamities, therefore, belong to this year I now prove.

[78] [recorded in Anno's Diploma, (are not other) than the calamities into which he (fell) through the sedition of the people of Cologne,] In Surius, fourth Quarter, in the Life of St. Anno, which, as I have already remarked, a weighty and almost contemporary author wrote, book 2, chapter 21, there is set out at length the most grievous sedition stirred up by the people of Cologne against St. Anno in the year 1074. And Anno most probably makes discourse in the aforesaid Diploma of no other straits and dangers than those which he underwent in that sedition. That this may be evident, it will help to set out here also some things about the same sedition. The bishop of Münster (this was Frederick, joined in familiarity with St. Anno) was celebrating the Paschal festival with St. Anno, by whom he had been invited for this purpose, at Cologne

He was therefore now preparing his departure. For that reason those who managed the domestic business of the archbishop are ordered to procure a suitable ship to carry him. They, having surveyed and examined everything, seize a ship of a very rich merchant, because it seemed fit for those uses, and order it to be most speedily made ready for the archbishop's use, the merchandise which it was carrying having been thrown out, and they threaten force against the servants who guarded the ship and refused to obey. These with hastened course carry the matter to the owner of the ship. He had a son of adult age, excelling no less in daring than in strength, most dear to the chief men of the city. He, having taken his servants and as many young men of the city as he could, drives the archbishop's ministers from the seized ship, and then puts to flight those who approach to seize the ship again. Nor content to have done this, he spreads seditious talk against the archbishop through the whole city, and at length brings the matter to this, that the citizens conspire for the death of their shepherd and stir up a most savage sedition. The biographer of St. Anno praised above depicts the matter graphically, as it was done. I therefore transcribe it here in his words.

[79] in the words of the Life of Anno It runs thus: "The day now declining towards evening, when drunkenness had been added to anger, like oil to fire, suddenly a conspired band of citizens burst out: and first all the gates of the city were fenced with guards: then from all parts of the city they rush to the court, that is, the palace of the archbishop, and, attacking him as he was dining with the bishop of Münster in a certain frequented place, they hurl missiles, throw stones, kill some of those standing by, and put the rest, worn out with blows and wounds, to flight… Then his own people, having with difficulty and scarcely extricated the archbishop among the wedges of enemies and a cloud of javelins, carry him off into the church of St. Peter, and make fast the doors not only with bolts and bars but also with great masses moved up against them. The vessels of the devil, full of the wine of the fury of God, rage outside and roar like overflowing water, and, running through all the inner parts of the bishop's house, they break in the doors, plunder the treasures, cut through the wine-casks, and while they pour out too headlong the wines gathered with the utmost effort for long use, the cellar, suddenly filled, had almost suffocated them, endangered by unexpected waves, which is ridiculous even to tell. Others, bursting into the archbishop's chapel, despoil the altar, handle the sacred vessels with polluted hands, tear apart the pontifical vestments; and while with curious, nay furious diligence they overturn all the furniture of the sacred ministry, finding there a certain cleric hiding for fear in a corner of the altar, and thinking that it was the archbishop, they kill him, not without triumphant reproach that they had at last some time put a limit to a most petulant tongue. But when it was learned that they had been deceived by the likeness, and that the bishop was protecting himself within the church of St. Peter both by the sanctity of the place and by the strength of the walls, gathered in a mass from every side they besiege the church itself, strive with set effort to break through the walls: finally, unless the archbishop be handed over to them very quickly, they threaten to apply fire also.

[80] "Then those who were inside, seeing that the minds of the people were all obstinately set on his death, described here, and that the men were agitated not by drunkenness alone, which is usually digested by time, but also by hatred and a kind of frenzied fury, persuade him to try, having changed his dress, to escape from the church and deceive the besiegers, by doing which he would free both the sacred building from burning and himself from peril of death. The time promised an opportune protection for flight. For, the sedition having been protracted into the middle of the night, all things were bristling with darkness and gloom, so that it was not easy for anyone to distinguish the faces of those meeting him. A narrow passage lay open from the church into the dormitory, and likewise from the dormitory into the court and house of a certain canon adjoining the wall of the city: and he, a few days before the sedition arose, had obtained from the archbishop, God mercifully providing this very thing for the archbishop's safety, that he might be allowed, the city wall having been broken through, to make himself a little postern. Led out there, the archbishop, four horses having been brought for the conveyance of him and his companions, went away, using most conveniently the darkness of the shady night, lest he be recognized by those meeting him; and, having found after a short time the bishop of Mimigardeford *, being now finely thronged with companions for that calamity, he arrived at the place whose name is Neuss. Meanwhile those who were around the church were shaking the walls with frequent blows of battering-rams, and there was the confused voice of those rioting and calling to witness the faith of almighty God that he would not escape their hands, would not deceive the diligence of the besiegers, even if he should transform himself into the smallest creeping things of the earth. On the contrary, those who were besieged, now by supplicating, now by promising that they would hand him over to them if, most diligently sought, he were found, craftily mocked the effort of those pressing on, until they judged that the archbishop had been carried further and had advanced to safe places. Then at length, the doors having been unlocked, they allow them to enter and to search at their pleasure: and they add that he was sought in vain within the enclosure of the church, who they had certainly ascertained had gone out of the city at the first onset of the aroused multitude, while it was still broad day, and could now have passed into distant parts: and that this was the more to be suspected, because, forces having been gathered from every side during the delay of the night-time, he would come at first light to seize the city with arms. Having entered, therefore, when they had overturned all the inner parts of the church by investigating more diligently, scarcely at length admitting belief that they could have been deceived, they turn their minds thereafter from the zeal of searching to defending the city, and distribute the armed multitude round about along the battlements."

[81] In such a manner St. Anno encountered and at the same time escaped a most imminent peril of life. into which he was thrown, are not different; Now, as far as I think, everyone will easily understand from this description of it already given that this Saint in the aforementioned Diploma is making discourse of no other straits and no other dangers than those which he underwent in the sedition of the people of Cologne stirred up against him. For no characters of the calamity which Anno says he underwent are found expressed in the Diploma, as will become evident to one comparing it with the description, which do not also fit exactly the most wretched state into which he was thrown by the savage sedition of the people of Cologne, as it has now been described. The calamity which Anno records in the Diploma reduced him to sudden straits, and exposed him to grave danger and the impious counsels of many. That the sedition of the people of Cologne stirred up against the holy man did this very thing also is most evident from its description already given. And as to what Anno also says in the Diploma, that his fear was changed into hope, danger into security, sadness into joy, this very thing also happened to him in the sedition of the people of Cologne. This is clear again partly from the same description already given, partly from the happy success with which St. Anno, only four days having elapsed after the sedition, came to the city of Cologne thronged with an enormous multitude of armed men, compelled the seditious to their duty, and forced them to do what was commanded, as the praised Life of Anno also explicitly testifies a little after the words recited above. Accordingly, absolutely all the characters of the calamity recorded by Anno in the letters fit excellently the most wretched state into which he was thrown by the sudden sedition of the people of Cologne. Wherefore, since Anno is not found to have fallen at other times into a state so wretched, to which the same likewise fit, beyond all doubt he is making discourse in the Diploma of no other straits into which he fell, and no other dangers, than those which he underwent in the sudden sedition of the people of Cologne against him.

[82] and that that sedition happened in the year 1074, Hence I now show in this manner that the translation of the holy Ewalds, which from what has been said and is to be said St. Anno made, is to be fixed to the year 1074: St. Anno, as is expressly noted in his Life in Surius, book 3, chapter 13, departed to the Lord in the year 1075, on the fourth day of December. The sedition of the people of Cologne, of which we have now treated at length, happened in the year immediately preceding the death of St. Anno. This will become evident enough, as I think, to anyone considering the course of the Life of Anno in Surius. Moreover, in chapter 21 of the Life of Anno, from which we described above the sedition of the people of Cologne against this Saint, it is openly declared that this happened (go to the said chapter) in that year in which the Birthday of Blessed George the martyr fell on the fourth feria of Easter week: and in the year 1074 the Paschal festival fell on the XX day of April, and consequently the birthday of St. George the martyr, inasmuch as it is kept on the XXIII day of April, on the fourth feria of Easter week. This will easily become known to anyone either working out the Paschal reckonings or consulting the Paschal tables. Accordingly, the sedition of the people of Cologne against Anno ought to be tied to the year 1074. For Anno's death does not permit it to be referred to another year in which Easter again fell on the XX of April; for if it happened perhaps a year or more after the same sedition, it certainly cannot, considering the Life of Anno, have happened very many years after it. Wherefore, since from what has been said the calamity which Anno says in the Diploma, very often praised, that he underwent is not different from the calamity which he incurred through the sedition of the people of Cologne, it is wholly necessary that that too which is recorded in the Diploma be tied to the year 1074.

[83] Further, it was in the very Easter Week, as is indicated not obscurely in chapter 21 of the Life of Anno, very often cited, that the sedition of the people of Cologne befell Anno, and consequently also the calamity which he records in the Diploma. Now Anno in the Diploma (see number 77) luminously signifies that not much time after this, [but that Anno translated the Saints shortly after the calamities recorded in the Diploma.] and consequently also after the sedition of the people of Cologne, he translated the bodies of the holy Ewalds, or bestowed on them the new honour of elevation. These were therefore translated by Anno in the year 1074, and that indeed on the third day of October, inasmuch as that is the day on which this is explicitly noted as done in the letters of Anno recited at numbers 72 and 73; for the bodies of the Saints could not be said to have been translated not much after the sedition of the people of Cologne, or the calamity which Anno records in the Diploma, if this had been done only on the third day of October of the following year. And indeed that it was not done then is clear from the fact that St. Anno, on the testimony of his Life, already often praised, lay most dangerously ill in that month and year, in which also, when it had advanced to the IV of December, he died, and, brought almost to extremity, could not translate the bodies of the Saints. Accordingly, from all that has already been said it is made certain and undoubted that the bodies of the Saints were translated, or bestowed with the new honour of translation, in the year 1074. Whence it follows, which I had undertaken here chiefly to prove, that the error crept into the letters of Anno about the translation of the Ewalds, transcribed here above, not as regards the year but as regards the Indiction. For Indiction XI, therefore, as I have already said, Indiction XII or rather XIII must be substituted. And so indeed you now have, learned reader, both the year and the day, and also the occasion on which the bodies of the Saints were translated by Anno.

[84] Further, a few things still remain to be said about this translation of the Saints. And this indeed he (did), by revelation For in the Life of St. Anno, book 1, chapter 37, these words, which I have transcribed above already, are read: "Among these things also of the two

Euualds he (St. Anno), instructed by a revelation of the same Martyrs, raised the precious bodies from their tombs: whom the Rhine with its back-flowing stream had once carried from Saxony to Cologne to be buried." And in book three, chapter 6, these: "When, his flesh now wasted away, the skin clung to the bones, at one time, overcome by sleep (St. Anno), and then awakened, he broke out in tears into words nearly these: 'O Euuald, martyr, what wrong have I done you, or what have I committed against you, wretch that I am?' When others asked what he meant by these words, he answered: 'I saw the most holy martyr Euuald, whom they call the Black, standing at the holy altars: and when I was ministering to him as he sacrificed, he, the Sacrifice being finished, in a purple chasuble, very beautiful in a most white garment, as though coming lately from the laver, was received into heaven. And I followed him as he went away, and when we came to the doors of heaven I hoped that I would likewise enter: but, alas, violently repulsed by him, I see myself rolled back into this darkness.' Saying this, he poured out such tears that those who were present, moved with pity, wept together with him."

[85] From the former text we are taught that the Saints were not raised from their tombs, or translated, by St. Anno previous heavenly until he had first been instructed by a revelation from them; which is in no way given to be understood in the Diploma and letters of St. Anno praised above. Nor yet on that account is it immediately to be thought that St. Anno, before he raised the Saints, was instructed by no revelation; for St. Anno could have suppressed this in silence both in the Diploma and in the letters out of modesty and lowliness of mind. Moreover, in the Letters he also supplies something from which it can be argued that he was instructed by a previous revelation when he raised the Saints. For in them he says that the Ewalds, before he raised them, had been placed in coffins neglected through the ignorance of those who went before. By which words he seems to indicate that for some time before his age it had been unknown in what place the Ewalds lay laid. Hence further it can now be argued that Anno needed a revelation in order to find and raise these, and was also granted it from heaven when he actually raised the Saints. But if nevertheless someone contends that it does not follow from Anno's words just recited that the tombs of the Saints were unknown before his age, it can be answered that Anno, even granting this, could not in vain have been instructed by a revelation, not indeed one by which he was taught in what place the Ewalds lay laid, but one by which he was taught that these were to be translated, or bestowed with the new honour of elevation.

[86] instructed by revelation, he perhaps did. However that may be, it does not at least appear to me unlike the truth that St. Anno, when he raised the holy Ewalds, was instructed by a previous revelation from them, as his Life teaches. Far be it, however, that anyone should think this the same as the vision of Anno recorded in the latter text of the Life of Anno, which I transcribed at number 84. For besides that this set before St. Anno for seeing not both Ewalds but only one, it did not happen before the year 1075. This becomes manifest from the chronological notes which occur before and after the relation of the said vision in the Life of Anno in Surius, as anyone turning it over will detect with no effort. Accordingly, St. Anno was most certainly not instructed by that vision for the translation of the Saints, inasmuch as, from what has been said, he made it before the year 1075. Add that in the relation of the aforesaid vision there also occurs nothing at all by which St. Anno could in any way have been instructed to make the translation or elevation of the Ewalds. These things I thought were to be observed, with regard to the Ewalds, on the two texts of the Life of Anno transcribed here above. Further, what has thus far been said about the translation of the Saints by Anno, or at least can be gathered from what has been said, runs thus in summary: St. Anno, a little after the Easter of the year 1074, having fallen by the sudden sedition of the people of Cologne into the utmost straits and a most imminent peril of life, implored the help of the Saints Cunibert, Clement and the Ewalds, felt the Saints invoked to be present to him, and, restored to security by their intercession, and perhaps also admonished or instructed by a revelation from the Ewalds, decided to raise these from their ancient tombs.

[87] separate coffins having also been given to each Saint. Nor did he only decide this, but also carried it into execution in that same year 1074, Constantinian Indiction XIII, on the third day of October, on which the Ewalds are venerated; and he then also placed them in two separate coffins. This seems to be gathered from book 3 of the Life of Anno, chapter 15. For there it is written of St. Anno, already dead: "On the fourth day, after Masses had been celebrated, the holy man was carried to the monastery of St. Andrew, to the sacred virgins, to St. Cunibert, where he was placed in the middle between the two Euualds." For the rest, Gelenius, On the Greatness of Cologne, book 3, Syntagma 4, page 288, has this about the Ewalds: "They are enclosed in the same sarcophagus, the gift of the family of Lindlar, as the arms on the sarcophagus teach." The sacred remains of the Ewalds, therefore, as Gelenius teaches by these words, are now enclosed in the same tomb or sarcophagus. Winheim, however, in the Sacrarium of Cologne, page 62, writes thus: "St. Anno, in the year after the birth of Christ 1074, on the V Nones of October, translated them from coffins quite mean through the ignorance of those who went before into the present ones." If, therefore, the present coffins of the Ewalds are those into which, as Winheim indicates by these words, St. Anno translated the holy Ewalds, it follows that the Saints, inasmuch as, from what has been said, they were translated by Anno into separate coffins, now also have separate coffins: but this seems to conflict with Gelenius, who, from what has been said, teaches that the Saints are now enclosed in the same tomb or sarcophagus; nay, even with what Winheim himself recorded a little before, writing thus in the said Work, page 61: "There are still preserved in another gilded tomb the two martyrs Ewald, presbyters." Did Winheim perhaps not observe what would follow from his making the present coffins of the Ewalds the same as those into which the Saints were translated by St. Anno? That indeed I would not dare to assert for certain. For it may be that the Saints are now enclosed in the same separate coffins into which they were translated by Anno, comprised in one and the same gilded tomb.

* in the Translation of St. Cunibert, "Helmorderschem"

* ibid. "Strasveldon"

* ibid. "XX"

* that is, of Münster

§ VII. The heads of the Saints granted to the people of Münster, and another part of the relics to St. Norbert.

The heads of the Ewalds were formerly granted to the people of Münster. That the sacred heads of the Ewalds were formerly granted to the people of Münster Gelenius explicitly affirms, On the Greatness of Cologne, book 3, Syntagma 4, page 288. He has thus: "Their (the holy Ewalds') heads, or sacred crowns, were formerly given to the people of Münster." Werner Rolevinck, book 3 On the Situation and Manners of the Westphalians, chapter 8, as also Cratepolius, On the Saints of Germany, assert that they are preserved in the cathedral church of Münster, sacred to St. Paul. The words of the former are these: "Their (the holy Ewalds') heads are kept in the cathedral church of Münster": and of the latter these: "The heads of these martyrs (the holy Ewalds) are preserved in the cathedral church of Münster." In two Usuardine Auctaria in Sollerius the Arrival of the heads of the two holy Ewalds at Münster is announced on the XXIX day of October. There is no doubt, therefore, that the sacred heads of the Ewalds were truly once granted to the people of Münster. But it can now be asked here on what occasion, or at what time, it came about that the people of Münster were enriched with that sacred treasure. Just as the writers who openly teach, or at least hint, that this was done are commonly met with, so you would scarcely find one who defines, even in a broad manner, the time at which this very thing was done. Certainly I, whatever diligence I applied in searching books, could find only Schaten, who declares clearly enough about what time he thinks the sacred heads were given to the people of Münster.

[89] His words, book 6 of the History of Westphalia, page 354, are these: The time of this grant "St. Anno, archbishop of Cologne, afterwards raised them (the bodies of the Ewalds) from the ground and extolled them with honours. The heads were translated to Münster about that time, which Frederick, bishop of Münster, obtained, as is believed, as a gift of Anno, the two being most closely joined to each other." According to Schaten's mind, therefore, the sacred heads were granted to the people of Münster at the time when St. Anno bestowed on the Saints the new honour of translation or elevation, and consequently in the year 1074. For then Anno translated the Saints. This opinion of Schaten appears to me most probable indeed. For Frederick, who governed the church of Münster while St. Anno was governing that of Cologne, was indeed joined in familiarity with St. Anno, as Schaten says. This is clear both from his coming to the city of Cologne, indicated above, to celebrate the Paschal festival with Anno, and also from his promotion to the bishopric of Münster, procured by Anno; as Cratepolius in the Annals of the bishopric of Münster, drawing his material from ancient writers, clearly testifies in these words: "Anno … archbishop of Cologne set this Frederick (brother of the margrave of Meissen and provost of the brethren of Magdeburg) over the church of Münster, and ordained him bishop." Moreover (see number 79 and following), Frederick, bishop of Münster, who flourished with St. Anno, was also present with him when he incurred a most imminent peril of life from the sedition stirred up by the people of Cologne.

[90] and occasion. He most probably heard, therefore, from Anno himself that he, sought for death by impious and wicked men beyond all expectation, and almost dragged off, implored the help of the Saints Cunibert, Clement and also the Ewalds, and that by the most powerful intercession of these Saints he was happily snatched from the danger of a death as close as could be. Hence he was kindled with a singular cult both of SS. Cunibert and Clement and also of the Ewalds, and on that account laboured to acquire such relics as he could of these latter Saints, to be exposed to the veneration of the faithful of his diocese. Whence he went so far that, having heard of the translation of the Ewalds which St. Anno was about to make on the third day of October of the year 1074, he asked Anno that a part of their relics be given to him, adding also reasons which he thought most suitable for obtaining his request. These parts, as I reckon, Frederick most probably had in acquiring the sacred treasure for the people of Münster. As regards Anno, he most probably not unwillingly assented to his friend's request, led perhaps chiefly by this reason, that he looked forward with a glad mind to the cult of the Ewalds being thereby not moderately propagated in the diocese of Münster. Accordingly, he granted the sacred heads of the Ewalds to the people of Münster, and that perhaps on the very third day of October on which, from what has been said, he bestowed on them the new honour of elevation in the year 1074. And so indeed you now have, studious reader, the occasion and at the same time the time of the Grant by which the heads of the Ewalds were conferred on the people of Münster. I now proceed to other things which I have found still to be recorded about those heads.

[91] These, whatever Cratepolius writes, through the fury of the Anabaptists, This sacred treasure, brought to Münster, was received, as it is fitting to believe, with the highest honour both by the people and by the clergy, and placed in the cathedral church, which is sacred to St. Paul; which last seems to be gathered from Rolevinck, Cratepolius

and others, who record that the heads of the Ewalds are preserved in that cathedral church. Further, those sacred pledges were preserved for a very long time in the said church, with the highest veneration of the faithful as well. But are they preserved today? Certainly, if Cratepolius were to be believed, they were still preserved there in the year 1592. For this writer, who in this year published his Treatise On the Saints of Germany, supplies in it these words, which I have recited already above: "The heads of these Martyrs (the holy Ewalds) are preserved in the cathedral church of Münster." But I shall not easily persuade myself that Cratepolius did not here deviate from the truth, and that in the aforesaid year 1592 the heads of the holy Ewalds still existed among the people of Münster. For although I find no printed Work of any writer whatever which opposes Cratepolius here, yet among the Writings, of which Gamans, a priest of our Society, himself wrote out with his own hand a fairly great quantity and transmitted to our Predecessors, there occurs one already praised above, in which I find this marked by this most sagacious man in the article on the two Ewalds: "Their (the holy Ewalds') heads, brought to Münster and preserved in the cathedral, perished through the fury of the Anabaptists." The fury of the Anabaptists noted here by Gamans is that by which, in the year 1534, having seized Münster, they created a king for themselves and most wretchedly afflicted this city with the utmost impiety, sacred things also being scattered; and that fury did not last longer than to the year 1535, in which at length, after a long siege, the same city was wrested from the Anabaptists.

[92] The heads of the Saints, therefore, had perished at Münster already before the year 1536, which is here described in the words of Hermann von Kerssenbrock and consequently Cratepolius wrongly wrote that they were preserved there in the year 1592; unless perhaps someone would rather assent to him than to Gamans. But besides that Gamans, and not Cratepolius, is very highly commended for accuracy, no one, as far as I think, will easily assent to the latter writer who has paid attention to with what great rage the Anabaptists raged at Münster against sacred buildings and things, and especially against the cathedral church, sacred to St. Paul, in which the sacred heads of the Ewalds were preserved. Hermann von Kerssenbrock, a contemporary author, teaches us this excellently in Mencke, tome three of the Writers of German Affairs, column 1548. I think it worth while, therefore, to transcribe here his words, however rather lengthy: they are these: "In troops (as though they were sharing out crimes among themselves), burning with incredible madness and zeal for harm, they (the Anabaptists) range through the city (of Münster) on the XXIV of February (in the year 1534); some terrify the vestals of Niesing, others attack the brethren of the Leaping Spring, some invade the Georgians, others make an onset on the Johannites and the other convents and sacred buildings of the city, plunder garments, money, furniture and whatever they thought would be of use to them, nor do they restrain themselves from the churches; silver, gold, sacred cloths, chalices and all the ornaments dedicated to the worship and ministry of God they carry off, and they become the clothing and pay of the most impure scoundrels, harlots and soldiers. The images remaining from the former disturbances they break, or, the walls having been scraped, cast down. The chapel consecrated to St. Antony near the Mauritius gate, its movable goods having been snatched away, they demolish. But no force, though often tried, could harm the chapel of St. Ludger.

[93] "On the same day, at the fourth hour of the evening, Bernard Mumme, a scoundrel, is described, leading a column with him, attacked the sacristan of the Cathedral church (that is, of the cathedral church sacred to St. Paul), wrested the keys from him by force; there first they burst into the chapel of the Blessed Virgin and others in order, despoil, break, corrupt. Thence they strip the Cathedral church, all its ornaments having been snatched away, profane the sanctuaries, tear down the altars, the cloths with which they were covered having been plundered, strike with hammers and axes the clock, a most artful work; but with singular fury and hatred they smash to pieces the baptisteries and the repositories of relics, cut up the windows and seats elaborated with great art with the insignia of the lords. The images of the Blessed Virgin and of John the Baptist, most artfully painted by the monk Franco on two panels, they carry off for the use of furnaces, and place them above the lower moat of the city near the cemetery of the Jews for those keeping watch. The effigies of the Sibyls, expressed with admirable art and disposed on the outside around the choir at certain intervals, they root out; the images carved in native marble and elaborated with rare art they mutilate, their heads, arms and legs being broken; and the wooden ones, cut up with axes, they cast into a built-up fire. The statues of the Fathers, Prophets, Apostles and other Saints, fixed everywhere to the columns and walls, they cast down, ladders and levers having been brought up. The bones of the Saints and the most holy Body of the Lord they trample underfoot, they wreck the organs, the pipes having been snatched out, they break the painted windows, and above all the most excellent and ample gift of Bishop Eric; the books, smeared inside with human excrement, they heap into one pile to be burned; the library of the most learned man Rudolph Lange, enriched with his works and autograph monuments not yet published, they tear and rend apart."

[94] most probably perished. Relics Since, therefore, the Anabaptists, with that rage which is set out in these words of Kerssenbrock already recited, raged in the year 1534 against the cathedral church of Münster, sacred to St. Paul, in which the heads of the holy Ewalds were preserved, smashed to pieces the repositories of relics there, and trampled the bones of the Saints underfoot, I reckon most probable what Gamans writes, that the heads of the Ewalds, which were preserved at Münster in the cathedral church, perished through the fury of the Anabaptists. I hold it, therefore, as almost certain that Cratepolius, when about the year 1590 he wrote his Treatise On the Saints of Germany, wrote without sufficient acquaintance with the matter what he asserted about the heads of the Ewalds preserved at Münster. Accordingly, the people of Münster possessed those sacred pledges from the year 1074, in which they received them from St. Anno, only until the year 1534, and most probably no longer possess them, however much perhaps they might wish it. And these are the things which I had to record about the sacred heads of the Ewalds once brought to Münster. It remains now that I treat of the part of the relics from the bodies of the Saints once granted to St. Norbert, patriarch of the Premonstratensian Order. This Saint, the foundations of the monastery of Prémontré in Picardy having already been laid, came from there in the year 1121 to Cologne, and, since he had it in mind to build a church in which to gather together the companions whom he had already joined to himself, and knew well that the city of Cologne was most rich in sacred pledges of the Saints, he asked the archbishop, who was then Frederick, the third of this name, that some relics of the Saints be granted to him. The archbishop kindly assented to the holy man's wish, and there were granted to him two little vessels filled with various relics of various Saints, and also with a part of the bodies of the Ewalds. This is testified in the Life of St. Norbert, inserted among us in tome one of June, by the author, a Premonstratensian canon, his contemporary.

[95] he obtained from the Saints, and to Floreffe The words in which he does so there, number 48, are these: "After these things (St. Norbert) came to Cologne, where he was also willingly received… He himself also already then had it in his will to build a church in which he might receive those gathered together. For this cause he asked of Archbishop Frederick and the other faithful that he might be worthy to receive some patronage of holy relics, with which happy Cologne had from of old been not least filled and endowed. The bishop assented, the clergy assented, judging the petition to be just, and the people. And he, a fast having been proclaimed to his brethren whom he had with him, and whom God had conferred on him there, commended this precious gift to God, that he might grant him to find a venerable patronage. And on the same night a virgin of the number of the eleven thousand virgins, both the name of the virgin herself and the place where she lay, was designated to someone through a vision: and on the morrow, according to the order of the vision, the body sought there was found entire. Which having been received with hymns and praises of God and thanksgiving, two little vessels, in the manner of a bier, were filled for him to carry away with relics also of other virgins and of certain other martyrs, namely Gereon, the Moors, the two Ewalds." Norbert, enriched with this sacred treasure, did not stay much longer at Cologne, but, intending to return whence he had come, took the road towards Prémontré, and when he had arrived at the place where now the abbey of Floreffe is seen, about the second milestone from Namur, on the river Sambre, there met him a noble matron, whose name was Ermensendis, countess of Namur, and when she had offered him the little church of the township of Floreffe for building a monastery, the holy man accepted what was offered, and there, hastening to Prémontré, left one of the little vessels of relics mentioned above.

[96] The praised contemporary author testifies these things likewise at number 49, St. Norbert brought, some things having been interposed after the words just recited, writing thus of St. Norbert: "Having taken up the relics not long afterwards, and having gathered the college of brethren, as well clerics as laymen, whom he had begotten to God through the word of preaching, he undertook the journey of returning; who was everywhere received magnificently in the churches and congregations with procession. And a certain noble matron, Ermensendis by name, countess of Namur, hearing of his passing, swiftly went to meet him, earnestly beseeching that he would be willing to accept a certain little church of hers in the township of Floreffe for placing brethren and religion there. For she had for a long time had it in her will to propagate religion in the same church for the remedy of her soul and of those of her predecessors. And he, seeing the affectionate devotion of the woman, had regard to her, and accepted what she asked. And, one of the little vessels of relics having been left there, he hastened to Prémontré (for the day of the Nativity was at hand), having about thirty novice brethren of clerics and laymen." The relics of the holy Ewalds which he had obtained at Cologne would undoubtedly have been left at Floreffe by St. Norbert if part of them was in one and part in the other of the two little vessels of relics mentioned above.

[97] But of this matter it is established neither from the praised contemporary Premonstratensian author where Henschenius wrote that they still exist. nor from elsewhere; whence it comes about that it can be doubted whether the people of Floreffe, canons of the Premonstratensian Order, ever had, and consequently whether they have even today, relics of the holy Ewalds. Rayssius, in the Belgian Hierogazophylacium, page 218, enumerates the relics of the Saints brought by St. Norbert from Cologne to Floreffe in the year 1121, and among these the relics of the Ewalds do not appear. Nevertheless our Henschenius, in the Annotations on the last sentence, which closes the latter text of the praised contemporary author transcribed here, letter e, observes thus: "There are there (in the abbey of Floreffe) relics of the Saints prescribed," namely the Moors, the two Ewalds and other Saints, from whom the author, already praised more than once, on whom Henschenius makes these observations, had recorded in the words transcribed here at number 95 that St. Norbert received relics at Cologne. "But," you will say, "is that observation of Henschenius, by which it is affirmed that relics of the Ewalds exist at Floreffe, to be admitted?" I think that he did not make it without mature examination. Perhaps, therefore, he who supplied to Rayssius the catalogue of the relics existing at Floreffe omitted in it the relics of the Ewalds, although they existed at Floreffe, and that error was afterwards detected after the year 1628, in which Rayssius published the praised Hierogazophylacium in print, so that it cannot be concluded without doubt from Rayssius that relics of the Ewalds are wrongly attributed by Henschenius to the people of Floreffe. For the rest, it may be that in many other places also, and especially in Westphalia, inasmuch as that region counts the Ewalds among its twenty-four chief tutelary Saints, relics of these exist, and of the faithful

are exposed to the veneration of the faithful; although I have not been able to find this committed to writing.

* easque and them

* perhaps "parie(ti)" in the wall

PASSION,

by the holy and Venerable Bede,

From the Ecclesiastical History of England published at Paris in the year 1681, book 5, chapter XI.

The two Ewalds, presbyters and martyrs, in Old Saxony. (SS.) BHL Number: 2803

By Bede.

[Led by the example of SS. Willibrord and his companions, who had set out into Frisia,] But when the man of the Lord Ecgberct ^a saw that neither was he himself permitted to come to preach to the nations, being kept back for another advantage of the holy Church, of which he had been forewarned by an oracle; nor did Victberct ^b, coming into those parts, make any progress; he tried further to send into the work of the word holy and industrious men, among whom the excellent Wilbrord ^c shone forth in the rank and merit of the presbyterate. And when they had arrived there (and they were twelve in number), turning aside to Pippin ^d, duke of the Franks, they were gladly received by him: and because he had lately taken hither Frisia, Radhbed having been expelled from it ^e, he sent them there to preach; he himself also helping with imperial authority, lest anyone should cause any trouble to the preachers; and raising up with many benefits those who were willing to receive the faith: whence it came about, by the help of divine grace, that they converted many in a short time from idolatry * to the faith of Christ.

[2] the two Ewalds go to Old Saxony, Following their examples, two certain presbyters of the nation of the English, who had long been exiles in Ireland for the sake of the eternal fatherland ^f, came to the province of the Old Saxons ^g, if perchance they might by preaching gain some there for Christ. And they were both of one name, as of one devotion: for each of them was called Hewald; with this distinction, however, that according to the different appearance of their hair, one was called Black Hewald, the other White Hewald: each of whom was imbued with the piety of religion, but Black Hewald was more instructed in the knowledge of the sacred Scriptures.

[3] having entered the region, they ask to be led to the satrap, They, coming into the province, entered the lodging of a certain steward, and asked him to have them sent on to the satrap who was over them, because they had some embassy and useful cause which they ought to bring to him. For these same Old Saxons do not have a king, but very many satraps set over their nation ^h, who, when a crisis of war comes on, cast lots equally, and whomever the lot shows, him all follow as leader in time of war. Him they obey; but when the war is completed, all the satraps again become of equal power. The steward therefore received them, and, promising that he would send them to the satrap who was over him (as they asked), kept them with him some days.

[4] And when they had been recognized by the barbarians as being of another religion they are killed by the country people; (for they were always free for Psalms and prayers, and daily offered to God the Sacrifice of the saving victim, having with them sacred vessels and a table dedicated in place of an altar ⁱ), they were held suspect, lest, if they should come to the satrap and speak with him, they should turn him away from his gods and transfer him to the new religion of the Christian faith; and thus little by little their whole province should be compelled to change the old worship for the new. Accordingly, they suddenly seized them and slew them; White Hewald indeed by a swift killing with the sword, but the Black one by a long torture of punishments and a horrible tearing apart of all his limbs: and having slain them they threw them into the Rhine ^k. When that satrap whom they wished to see had heard of it, he was very angry that strangers wishing to come to him had not been permitted; and, sending, he killed all those villagers and consumed the village with fire. And the aforesaid Priests and Servants of Christ suffered on the fifth day of the Nones of October.

[5] Nor were heavenly miracles lacking to their martyrdom. For when their slain bodies had been thrown by the pagans into the river (as we have said), their bodies, prodigiously carried up the Rhine into which they had been thrown, it came to pass that these were carried against the rush of the flowing river for almost forty thousand paces, as far as those places where their companions were. And also a very great ray of light, reaching up even to heaven, shone every night above that place, wherever they happened to have arrived, and this even in the sight of the pagans who had killed them. And also one of them appeared in a vision of the night to one of his companions, whose name was Tilmon ^l, an illustrious man and noble also as regards the world, who from a soldier had been made a monk; indicating that he could find their bodies in that place where he should see a light from heaven shining on the earth.

[6] Which was so fulfilled. For their bodies, having been found, are honourably buried, and afterwards translated to Cologne. were laid up according to the honour befitting martyrs; and the day of their Passion or Finding is celebrated in those places with fitting veneration. Finally, the most glorious duke of the Franks Pippin, when he learned of these things, sent; and, their bodies having been brought to him, laid them with much glory in the church ^m of the city of Cologne beside the Rhine. It is said, moreover, that in the place in which they were killed a spring bubbled up, which in the same place to this day pours forth the copious gifts of its flow.

ANNOTATIONS.

* idololatria idolatry