Compagnus

ON BL. COMPAGNUS, CONFESSOR, OF THE CAMALDOLESE ORDER, AT PADUA IN ITALY,

In the year MCCLXIV.

SYLLOGE.

The deeds of Bl. Compagnus, the translations of his incorrupt body.

Compagnus, confessor, of the Camaldolese Order, at Padua in Italy. (Bl.)

BY J. B.

Galeazzo Gatari, doctor of laws among the Paduans in the fourteenth century, in the Chronicle of Padua, Bl. Compagnus, a noble of Padua, written in the Italian tongue and inserted by Muratori in his collection of the Writers on Italian affairs, near the very beginning of volume XVII, reckons among the noble families of the city of Padua the Ongarelli, from whom Bl. Compagnus, of whom we treat, drew his origin, as Portenari, to be praised below, writes. He flourished in the thirteenth century, in which, from the family of the Ongarelli, Ongarello de Ongarelli held the office of praetor of Belluno (the Italians call it la Podestà) in the years 1227 and 1250; likewise in the year 1279 Gerardo de Ongarelli, as Portenari writes in book 6 of the Felicity of Padua, chapter 5, and Giorgio Piloni in the Catalogue of the praetors of Belluno prefixed to his History of Belluno: but by what nearness of kinship these touched Bl. Compagnus, who was taken from among the living in the year 1264, I have nowhere found declared; not even in the Annals of the Camaldolese Order, of which he was, recently printed at Venice, which nowhere make mention of his family. Who or what sort of man he was, what deeds he did, whether living in the world or already enrolled in the Camaldolese Order, but before he was set over the monastery of Porciglia near Padua, is equally hidden from us. I shall therefore hold it enough if I touch briefly upon his deeds from the time when he was abbot of Porciglia, with the guidance of the abbot John-Benedict and Dom Anselm Costadoni, priests and monks of the Camaldolese Congregation, authors of the Annals of the same Order, and then set forth likewise a few things which pertain to the sacred cult of Bl. Compagnus, both from the same Annalists and from elsewhere.

[2] The monastery of Porciglia was founded under Jordan, the monastery of Porciglia of the Camaldolese Order, bishop of Padua, on the border of Padua outside the Porciglia gate by the river Medoacus, in a field which Pietro de Bonicis, a citizen of Padua, ceded for founding the monastery, on this condition, that its church should be subject to the bishop of Padua, and that the rights of the canons and of the church of St. Thomas de Arena in that place should be preserved. The foundations, moreover, of the church of Porciglia, which is sacred to St. Mary, are read to have been laid in the year 1214, in the Appendix added to the Chronicle of the monk of Padua in Muratori, volume VIII of the Writers on Italian affairs, column 736, in these words: "The church of St. Mary de Porcia was begun in the year of the Lord MCCXIV": but since the author of that Appendix constantly observes the order of years, and immediately before the words just transcribed put these: "The great palace of the commune of Padua was begun in the year of the Lord MCCXVIII and was completed MCCXIX"; and likewise immediately after them subjoined these: "The castle of Cittadella was begun in the year of the Lord MCCXX," in place of the year 1214, there perhaps faultily expressed, it seems that the year MCCXIX should be substituted, in which, in the Chronicle of Padua of another anonymous writer, edited by Muratori in volume IV of the Antiquities of Italy, it is said at column 1129 to have first begun to be built, in these words: "MCCXIX … And the church of holy Mary in Porciglia was begun on the 13th day of the beginning of November, in the time of bishop Jordan; and Pietro de Bonicis gave the first stone."

[3] founded in the year 1219, With these, if for the 13th day of November you read the 14th, agrees the instrument drawn up on that matter, which in the Appendix to volume IV of the Camaldolese Annals, column 395, is exhibited from the authentic copy of the monastery of St. Michael of Murano at Genoa in this manner: "In the name of the Lord God eternal. In the year of His Nativity MCCXIX, in the seventh Indiction, on the 14th day of the beginning of November, at Padua in the episcopal chapel, in the presence of Lord Florianus, archpriest, Danisius, Henry and Lanfranc, canons of Padua, Dom Jordan, Prior of St. Benedict, lord Joachim … chaplain of lord Jordan, by the grace of God bishop of Padua, lord Jacobinus, and Cavellus and Leopardus, judges of Padua, and others. The lord Jordan, by the grace of God bishop of Padua, gave to Pietro de Bonicis the first stone for building a church of Religion in honour of holy Mary the Virgin, in a field of land lying on the border of Padua in Porciglia near the river, which the said Pietro de Bonicis gave to the aforesaid lord bishop, as is established in a certain public instrument drawn up by me, Guarnerius the notary; saving that it shall be subject to the same bishop of Padua only, with no intermediary, and saving the right of the canons of Padua in the tithes, and of the church of saint Thomas de Arena and of the other surrounding churches in the quarter-dues, in the parishes and parishioners.

[4] he governed first, and with many goods, "And if perchance at any time hereafter any question should arise between the rectors of that church of holy Mary and the canonry of Padua, or the rectors of the said church of saint Thomas, or the rectors of the other surrounding churches, concerning tithes or quarter-dues, or parishes and parishioners, the same lord bishop and his successors may and must, without any question, decide that cause or causes or those questions freely at his will. And all these things were so done and ordained by the will and consent of the said Pietro de Bonicis.

"✠ I, Guarnerius de Campo Cruce, notary of the sacred emperor F., etc., wrote it."

The first Prior of the monastery of Porciglia elected was Bl. Compagnus, from which you may conjecture that he was a man distinguished not only by skill in conducting affairs but also by integrity of life: appointed to this office, he founded a double monastery, of men and of women, in which namely each dwelt separately: "And besides," say the writers of the Camaldolese Annals praised above, at the year 1219, "houses having been built and vineyards cultivated in the same field, he instituted another congregation of men and women together, to which there gave their names both those bound by marriage and the unmarried; widowed persons also, and young people," which assembly we too may call one of tertiaries, as they say. For the tertiaries, or lay brothers, of the monastery of Porciglia, Compagnus made certain special statutes, which the praised writers have brought into their Annals from a charter of the granting of possession of houses and gardens of the year 1222 in this manner: "That they should be bound to live religiously and chastely in every way in life and habit, and to dwell in the same houses; that they should not make any oath or complaint before a judge against any man, nor should they practise any trade or hold a market, or a loan, or a pledging of land, or of corn, or of wine or of oil, by themselves, nor in partnership with others without the leave of the Prior or of his successor; that they should enclose the aforesaid field before and behind, and that they should each be bound to defend the bank of the river in front of himself at the will of the Prior with the counsel of the greater part of the inhabitants of the same field of holy Mary.

[5] "Likewise, if of their own will they wished to depart, the leave of the Prior not having been asked, both spiritual, and, having been admonished, had not returned after eight days, they should fall from all right, and their usufruct should freely revert to the Prior of holy Mary. Likewise if — which God forbid — any man or woman of those dwelling upon the field should fall into fornication or adultery or the striking of another, or into any notorious or mortal sin, and, corrected by the Prior, should not abide at his will and should not amend, after the first and second correction he or she should fall from all his or her right, and then the Prior himself could and should expel him or her from the aforesaid field under a penalty of ten pounds of Venetian pence." Such a congregation was called the convent of Campese; those who were admitted to it were clothed in a habit differing from the secular, and professed that they wished to live and die in the habit of Religion at the church of St. Mary of Porciglia. From this, moreover, it is easy to understand how greatly Bl. Compagnus strove with all his strength to promote the worship and service of God, not only in monks and sacred virgins, but also in laymen of every state.

[6] Of his monastery, which he governed for forty-five years, and temporal he took such diligent care that (the words are those of the Camaldolese Annalists) "within a short interval from its foundation the monastery of Porciglia came out illustrious, and the first house of the white monks after that of St. Benedict in the city of Padua." In the year 1222, as the same writers write, he obtained from Guido de Landriano, praetor of Padua, Bethlehem the judge and Alberto de Magnano, procurators of Padua, with the consent of the council of the city, a stream of water for building mills; concerning which, when a lawsuit had arisen in the year 1224 between Compagnus and the Prior of saint Gregory, it was committed to the arbitration of Jordan, bishop of Padua. In the year 1228 he had a lawsuit with the chapter of Padua, as is clear from the letters of Gregory IX, reported in the Appendix to volume IV of the Camaldolese Annals, page 475, by which he delegated Compagnus's cause to the Prior of St. Benedict and to the abbot of Correzzola. In the year 1229 Compagnus and John, rector of the church of saint Thomas de Arena, chose as arbiter of the lawsuits which they had master Alberto of Monselice, with the consent of James, bishop of Padua, who had been elected in the place of Jordan, taken from among the living in the year 1228.

[7] he increased. A General chapter was celebrated in the monastery of holy Mary of Porciglia by the Priors of the Order of St. Benedict of the white habit of the diocese of Padua on the 10th day of January of the year 1239, of which Bl. Compagnus was a great part. It was decreed in it that the chapter should be celebrated every year on the Sunday after the Ascension of the Lord; that uniformity of Profession and of the divine Office, of food and clothing, of fasting and labour should be preserved; that a general president of the congregation, lest it be headless, should be sought with the consent of the bishop of Padua, and other things which were judged at that time to be most of all in the interest of the Order; as may be seen in the constitutions of this chapter, inserted in the Appendix to volume IV of the Camaldolese Annals, column 547 and the four following. Other lawsuits which he had with the Sacred Virgins of saint Mark of Porciglia he submitted to the decision of James, Prior of holy Mary of Monte Santa Croce, of Galzignanus, Prior of All Saints, and of Martin, Prior of St. John de Verdaria, in the year 1245. He found James, son of Rolandinus, a benefactor to his monastery in the year 1248, and then also Ymicia, wife of lord Azochus of San Zeno, who wished to be buried in the monastery of Porciglia: he, indeed, as the letters drawn up on that matter speak, "of his goods left [*] for his soul two hundred pounds of Venetian pence, and this at the disposition of the Prior of holy Mary of Porciglia and of the Prior of St. Augustine, who now are or shall be from time to time; and of his sister lady Palma, of which he left twenty-five pounds of Venetian pence for the burial"; she, however, a hundred pounds, and as many others from Compagnus

to be distributed among various churches; concerning which matter an instrument is extant in the archive of the monastery of St. Michael of Murano, drawn up in the year 1251.

[8] the body of him who died in the year 1264, incorrupt, These are roughly the heads of those things which can be gathered from the Camaldolese Annals at the aforesaid years concerning the deeds of Bl. Compagnus. Concerning his death, indeed, these things are read at the year 1219, in which he began to govern the monastery of Porciglia: "Renowned for holiness he passed to God in the year MCCLXIV, and obtained the title and cult of Blessed first in the church of Porciglia, then, the church and monastery of Porciglia having been levelled to the ground, in the church of St. Benedict, or of blessed Anthony the Pilgrim, to which his body was translated after the beginning of the sixteenth century." And again in volume V, page 68, at the year 1264: "Compagnus, first Prior of the monastery of holy Mary of Porciglia outside the city of Padua, sought heaven in the present year, after forty-four years of rule, in which he wonderfully increased the place. He lived and presided most holily, and Scardeone has comprised his praise in a brief discourse. There is shown" (every year, namely, as Scardeone wrote about the year 1559, in book 2, class 6, at which time the nuns of Porciglia were still dwelling in the monastery of St. Benedict) "his sacred body entirely incorrupt in the church of the nuns, who, having formerly dwelt together with the monks in Porciglia, and now translated into the city, are called, from the name of blessed Anthony the Pilgrim, an oblate of Porciglia" (see what was said of him in volume 1 of February, page 264, number 6), "the nuns of blessed Anthony the Pilgrim. After the destruction of the monastery of Porciglia at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the sacred remains of both were carried first to the city church of St. Peter. Thence to the new convent of the sacred virgins, and this inscription concerning blessed Compagnus is read on the urn: 'Here in this chest lie the bones of Dom Compagnus of holy Mary of Porciglia, who died MCCLXIV.' His birthday is celebrated on the eighth day before the Ides of October. Fortunius, Ractius, Minius, Botta, Grandius, Bucelin and the old Catalogues of the Saints prefixed to the Camaldolese Offices treat of him. The funeral of the holy Man was cared for both by the monks and by the nuns dwelling in the same monastery of Porciglia and drawing their origin from him."

[9] A twofold translation, therefore, was made of the body of blessed Compagnus, as also of that of Bl. Anthony the Pilgrim: the monastery of Porciglia having been destroyed, the one in the year 1509, in which, when the emperor Maximilian was laying siege to Padua, the monastery of Porciglia was destroyed, and the monks betook themselves to Venice, to the monastery of their Order of St. Michael of Murano; but the Sacred Virgins remained somewhat longer in Porciglia: in which interval of time, as Portenari writes, soldiers, having entered the church of Porciglia, now deserted, took the bodies of BB. Anthony the Pilgrim and Compagnus from there and carried them to the neighbouring house of the virgins; and they, having received these bodies, betook themselves to the monastery of St. Benedict, and there deposited those sacred remains. The other, however, in the year 1575, of which a little later. To the former, credence is given by the public letters drawn up on that matter in the year 1510, which in the Appendix to the seventh volume of the Camaldolese Annals, columns 285 and 286, run thus: "In the name of Christ, Amen. In the year of His Nativity one thousand five hundred and ten, in the thirteenth Indiction, on the twenty-seventh day of February, at Padua, in the Parlour of the monastery of the lady nuns of saint Peter" (otherwise St. Benedict) "of Padua, where at present the undersigned lady nuns of saint Anthony the Pilgrim, or of holy Mary of Porciglia, dwell because of the demolition of their monastery owing to the coming of the enemies about the city of Padua.

[10] "There being present the venerable lord priest Jerome, rector of the parish church of St. Cantianus of Padua, and there in, etc., and lord priest Mark Anthony, chaplain of the lady nuns of saint Peter of Padua, to St. Benedict's at Padua and there, these witnesses being had, employed and specially asked for the things written below; where, the chapter of the venerable and religious lady nuns of blessed Anthony the Pilgrim of Padua, or of holy Mary of Porciglia, having been called together and, as is the custom, assembled at the sound of the little bell, in which there were present the venerable and religious lady sister Christina of Padua, honourable abbess, lady sister Elizabeth of Padua, Prioress, sister Magdalene of Padua, sister Cecilia of Padua, sister Placita of Padua, sister Lucy of Padua, sister Laura of Padua, sister Candida of Venice, sister Seraphina of Venice, sister Agnesina of Padua, sister Justina of Feltre, sister Mary of Padua, sister Hieronyma of Padua, sister Thaddea of Padua, sister Philippa of Padua, sister Benedicta of the March, sister Polonia of Este, sister Petronilla of Padua, sister Euphrasia of Padua, and sister Bricita of Padua, all professed and having a voice in the said chapter and convent, and representing the whole and entire chapter, since they are more than two parts, regard being had to three parts of the aforesaid said nuns having a voice in the said chapter, as they themselves said.

[11] in the year 1509; "In which chapter the aforesaid lady abbess and nuns, assembled capitularly as above, said and declared to the reverend lord Ambrose of Milan, the well-deserving abbot of the monastery and convent of the lord brothers of saint Michael of Murano at Venice, to which the monastery of the lord brothers of blessed Anthony the Pilgrim, or of holy Mary of Porciglia, outside and near the walls of Padua, was and is united and incorporated, he being present and accepting in the name of his said monastery, that the body of blessed Anthony the Pilgrim, which was laid up in a chest belonging to the said two monasteries outside and near the walls of Porciglia of Padua and common between the said two monasteries, was and is placed, at the request of the aforesaid monasteries, in the church of the lady nuns of saint Peter of Padua, where at present the aforesaid lady nuns of blessed Anthony the Pilgrim reside and dwell because of the ruin and demolition of the said two monasteries owing to the coming of the army of the enemies all round the city of Padua; and that there were always with the said two monasteries two keys of the chest of the body of the aforesaid blessed Anthony the Pilgrim, namely one with the aforesaid lord brothers and the other with the lady nuns themselves, and that the offerings were always divided equally between the said two monasteries into two parts and shall be divided, as was done in the past, until it shall be otherwise provided. Moreover the aforesaid lady nuns, assembled capitularly as above, declared to the said lord abbot, in the said name, that the body of Dom Compagnus, which was in the church of the said lord brothers of blessed Anthony the Pilgrim before the aforesaid ruin, is at present placed in the aforesaid church of saint Peter of Padua; concerning all and each of which things I, Anthony de Conchellis, was asked to draw up a public document for the memory of those to come.

"I, Anthony de Conchellis, son of the late distinguished man lord Francis, citizen and inhabitant of Padua, etc., notary public by imperial authority, was present at all the foregoing, and, being asked, wrote them in good faith and reduced them to this present form, my customary sign and name being affixed in attestation."

[12] and thence in the year 1575 The other translation of the bodies of BB. Anthony and Compagnus took place in the year 1575, in which the nuns, formerly of Porciglia, moved into the new monastery of Bl. Anthony the Pilgrim, which had been built for them by the work and cares of Daulus Doctus, son of Bernardinus, on the day, as Portenari writes, of the 27th of April; in which same year, on the 25th day of March, he says the aforesaid bodies were translated, a solemn procession having been held, the clergy and the whole people accompanying, and placed in their ancient tombs of marble, raised upon little columns. There was added, on the testimony of the same Portenari, a tablet of this kind: "Here is buried blessed Compagnus of the family of the Ungarelli, who was the first Prior of holy Mary of Porciglia, formerly outside the walls of the city of Padua. He died in the year of the Saviour MCCLXIII on the eighth day of October." Erroneously, as I think, Bl. Compagnus is here said to have died in the year 1263; since in the other, older inscription, carved on his very urn and transcribed at number 8, and elsewhere commonly, he is read to have died in the year 1264. Indeed, if Portenari expressed that inscription correctly, the other inscription, which Thomas de Minis recites from Augustine Fortunius, and which is not, as he says, younger than the year 1509, from which therefore the inscription reported by Portenari seems to have been taken, runs thus: "Here in the chest lie the bones or body of lord Compagnus, first Prior of holy Mary of Porciglia: who died in the year MCCLXIV."

[13] For the rest, the yearly showing of the incorrupt body, its solemn translation in the year 1575, was translated to the monastery of Bl. Anthony the Pilgrim. the inscription just mentioned in which he is called Blessed, and finally the constant assertion of the Camaldolese themselves, by which they say that he is venerated as a Saint or at least as a Blessed, although they do not explain sufficiently in what this cult consists, have brought it about that I have judged that a place should be given here in our Acts to Bl. Compagnus; granted that he has not been enrolled by solemn rite in the number of the Saints or Blessed, nor enjoys a particular ecclesiastical Office, in which sense Ferrarius seems to be understood, noting these things in the General Catalogue of the Saints at the 8th day of October: "From the monastic Martyrology, in which he is named a Saint, though he has neither been enrolled among the Saints, nor is venerated with an ecclesiastical Office, nor is very ancient": he is, however, ancient enough that he may not be comprehended under the decree of Urban VIII concerning not venerating Saints and Blessed whom the Apostolic See has not declared as such. Ménard inscribed him in the Benedictine Martyrology at the 8th day of October in these words: "At Padua, the deposition of St. Compagnus, Prior, whose body, which is seen to be entirely incorrupt, shows of how great merit he is before God." Wion uses the same words in book 3 of the Lignum vitae at this day, as also Philippe Dorgain in the Calendar of the male and female Saints who followed the Benedictine Rule: Bucelin, in the Benedictine Menology, ascribes this eulogy to him: "At Padua, the deposition of St. Compagnus, Prior. He, having followed the most holy and most perfect Camaldolese institute under our Rule, and having thereafter been appointed Prior of holy Mary of Porciglia, advanced with such progress in the race of the virtues that he became renowned with the fame of a rarer holiness. Whose merit became known most of all even from his death, since down to these times his sacred body is shown entirely incorrupt, to the astonishment of all who behold it. The most perfect Man died in the year of Christ MCCLXIV."

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