ON ST. DEUSDEDIT, ABBOT OF MONTE CASSINO, IN THE KINGDOM OF NAPLES,
In the year DCCCXXXIV
SYLLOGE.
Deusdedit, abbot of Cassino in the kingdom of Naples. (S.)
Mabillon, although a diligent writer of Benedictine affairs, had few things St. Deusdedit, who died in the year 834, concerning the deeds of St. Deusdedit pertaining to piety to insert either in the Annals of his Order or in the Acts of the Saints, as he himself professes in the fourth Benedictine century, part 2, page 463. In the place last cited, where he treats together of three abbots of Cassino of the ninth century inserted into the number of the Heavenly ones, Apollinaris, Deusdedit and Berthar, he writes only this about Deusdedit: Apollinaris was succeeded by Deusdedit, the fifteenth abbot, and he sat six years. Sicard, prince of Benevento, gaping after the goods of the monastery, treated him most harshly. "For he" (Mabillon uses the words of Leo of Marsica, Chronicle of Cassino, book 1, chapter 22) "seized the aforesaid venerable abbot, a man conspicuous for all holiness, for the sake of money, and committed him to custody. Which holy Man, when he had been laid to rest on the 7th day before the Ides of October, in the place where he is laid up restored to their former health, at his ashes, many held by fever and oppressed by diverse sicknesses who asked in faith." The Roman Martyrology makes mention of him on that day, and relates that the holy Man expired in prison, worn out by hardships. His memory is venerated under a double rite among the Cassinese: his death happened in the year DCCCXXXIV; the Ms. Breviary of Oderisius (abbot of Cassino), written at the close of the eleventh century, is silent about him. Nor does Mabillon write much more about him in the Annals at the year 828, in which Apollinaris, St. Deusdedit's immediate predecessor, died on the 5th day before the Kalends of December; or at the year 834, in which Deusdedit ended his life in prison on the 7th day before the Ides of October.
[2] The day of death of each is marked in the Necrology of Cassino in volume 7 of the Writers of Italy, on the 9th day of October, when he was abbot of Cassino published by Muratori in the year 1725 in the Milanese press; that of Apollinaris indeed at column 947 in this manner: On the 5th before the Kalends (of December) died D. Apollinaris, priest and abbot of this place: and that of St. Deusdedit at column 946 thus: On the 7th before the Ides of October died D. Deusdedit, abbot of this place. To most of the abbots of Monte Cassino whom the author of the praised Necrology mentions he expressly adds the title of priest; and since he does not do so where his discourse is about St. Deusdedit and some others, he seems to intimate that these were not priests; or at least he renders their priesthood suspect: nor further have I found anything anywhere about St. Deusdedit which proves his priesthood; which it may suffice to have observed here in passing. For the rest, in the old Chronicle of the Lombards, or of the monks of the monastery of the most holy Benedict, in Camillo Pellegrino, volume 9, part 1 of the Thesaurus of the Histories of Italy, column 78, Deusdedit is noted to have presided over the monastery of Cassino for 6 years; which need not have been complete; since these extend from the 27th day of November of the year 828, on which Apollinaris died, to the 26th day of the same month of the year 834, in the month of October of which Deusdedit died: Deusdedit will therefore have been elected prelate of Cassino toward the end of the year 828 or the beginning of the following.
[3] Deusdedit indeed seems at the beginning to have obtained a peaceful government: he had Sico, prince of Benevento, well disposed to him; at that time a certain Sico held the principality of Benevento, who, as Leo of Marsica, praised above, writes, was beneficent to St. Deusdedit and the monks of Cassino, in these words: To him (Deusdedit) the aforesaid prince Sico made a precept concerning the river which is called Lauri, with all its boundaries and fisheries, and all things which on this side and that beside the river itself pertained to the right of his palace. Erasmo Gattola, in the Accessions to the History of the abbey of Cassino, page 32, exhibits the Charter of the donation from the Register of Peter the deacon; but not such as Leo of Marsica saw: for in it is read not Sico, but in his place Romuald, duke of the nation of the Lombards, who did not exist during the whole six years in which Deusdedit governed Cassino. It is also read to have been given in the month of October, in the 2nd Indiction, which likewise did not occur in the same six years, as Angelo de Nuce, abbot of Cassino, observes in his Annotations on the cited place of Leo. Sico died, according to the calculation of Camillo Pellegrino, in the year 832: he had as successor in the principality of Benevento his son Sicard, who, the more fair his father Sico had perhaps been to St. Deusdedit and the monks of Cassino, the more unjust he was, not only to the monks of Cassino, but also to his kinsmen and generally to every best man.
[4] Erchempert, who lived toward the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the following, describes him thus but by the cruelty of Sicard, Sico's son, in the History of the Lombards of Benevento, in volume 9 of the Thesaurus of Italian affairs praised above, column 23, number 10: Sico, then, having taken up the principality, renewed the treaty with the Franks, persecutes the Beneventans with bestial ferocity, and, while he still survived, made his son Sicard, a man slippery enough, restless and petulant, and swollen with pride of mind, heir of the principality. And thus Erchempert continues at number 12: Sico having died, Sicard alone obtained the monarchy, who had already ruled happily with his father, often mentioned, for some years, and began from levity of mind to pursue the people committed to him with bestial voracity and cruelly to tear them. Siconulf, his brother, as Erchempert goes on to narrate, he condemned without cause to perpetual exile; the Beneventan nobles he consigned either to death or to prison; Majo his kinsman he thrust into a monastery; Alfanus, a brave and faithful man, he did away with by hanging. See more about the wicked deeds of Sicard in the anonymous Salernitan, volume 2, part 2 of the Writers of Italian Affairs, column 209 and some following; which, however, he mostly committed deceived and seduced by the deceits and art of a certain Roffrid.
[5] having died of the hardships of prison, At length he laid violent hands also on St. Deusdedit; whom, snatched from his monastery, he committed to prison until he died in it: Erchempert teaches the cause and the manner of the crime perpetrated: While he was managing such things, says Erchempert at number 13, it was done by divine dispensation that, while he was trying to extinguish another innocent man, a sickness meanwhile anticipating him, he himself, struck from heaven in spirit and flesh alike, perished. For before he died, that the heap of his perdition might be more justly increased, for the love of money he deposed from the pastoral charge of the monastery of monks, by secular power rather than by fitting reason, a notable man worthy of God, conspicuous for holiness, Deusdedit by name, vicar of the most blessed Benedict, and committed him to custody. The words of Erchempert just given intimate that St. Deusdedit died in prison: but Peter the deacon, in the book On the Rise and Life of the Just of the sacred monastery of Cassino, uses such words that he may seem to have been slain in it by a violent death: Deusdedit the abbot, he says, captured [by] the prince of Benevento for the sake of money, and thrust into custody, was slain there. Since, however, neither Erchempert nor Leo of Marsica said anything of his violent death, Peter's words seem to be so understood and interpreted that St. Deusdedit is said to have died his day worn out by the hardships of prison; as the emenders of the Roman Martyrology have spoken.
[6] he was famous indeed for prodigies, The body of the deceased, carried from the prison to the monastery of Cassino, was committed to burial there; and it is religiously kept in a chapel, as Bucelin writes in the Benedictine Menology at the 9th day of October. His tomb was famous for various prodigies: Who, when he had been buried, says Peter just cited, in the monastery of blessed Benedict, a certain man tossing in a most grievous heat of fever, in the very heat of the fever, resting upon his sepulchre, fell asleep: and awaking, he began to render thanks, saying with a very loud voice: Blessed art thou, God of our fathers, who hast made me whole by the merits
of Deusdedit, thy servant. When therefore this had reached the ears of the peoples, a huge crowd of the sick began to run together to his sepulchre and to supplicate the Redeemer of all there for their safety; whose vows God regarding, he restored there to their former health many held by fever and oppressed by diverse sicknesses who asked in faith. Leo of Marsica, older than Peter, wrote similar things in the words reported at number 1: and Erchempert, older than both and nearly contemporary with St. Deusdedit, likewise wrote them, presently subjoining to the words reported at number 5: Whose ashes, where he lies buried, are known even now very frequently to cure some held by fever and oppressed by various sicknesses who ask in faith.
[7] [he was not, however, enrolled among the Saints by the Roman church with solemn rite.] Marcantonio Scipione, in the Elogies of the abbots of Cassino, writes that St. Deusdedit was entered in the number of the Saints on account of frequent prodigies, in these words: Frequent miracles thereafter, and demons put to flight from possessed bodies, made known the most illustrious virtue of the dead abbot; presently the Roman church consecrated his name and memory with sacred feasts, with solemn rite and ceremony. St. Deusdedit was famous for prodigies from the ninth or tenth century, as we have seen from Erchempert. Was Deusdedit, in the mind of Marcantonio Scipione, already then entered by the Roman church with solemn rite in the roll of the Saints? If it were so, mention of him would certainly have been made in the Breviary of abbot Oderisius, written at the close of the eleventh century, of which Mabillon, praised at number 1: as also in the ancient Martyrology of Cassino, which Erasmo Gattola, page 824, says from Peter the deacon was written in the eleventh century by order of the abbot Desiderius: indeed that Martyrology (see volume 7 of the Writers of Italian Affairs, column 935 and the three following) exhibits St. Berthar, abbot of Cassino and one of St. Deusdedit's successors, though added by a more recent hand. Further, we do not know that St. Deusdedit was at any time entered in the roll of the Saints with solemn rite and ceremony: we know, however, that he is adorned in the Roman Martyrology at the 8th day of October with this elogium: At Cassino, of St. Deusdedit, abbot, who, thrust into prison by the tyrant Sicard, worn out there by hunger and hardships, rendered his spirit: but that no mention of him is made in Molanus and Bellinus, who lit the way for the emenders of the Roman Martyrology. It is not necessary to transcribe here the words of Wion, Ménard, Bucelin, and of any other more recent compilers, whether of Martyrologies or of Menologies, who have mentioned St. Deusdedit. Bucelin, perhaps from monuments of his Order unknown to me, also says that St. Deusdedit was distinguished for learning, of which both splendid and many monuments survive; of which, however, I have found mention made neither in Peter the deacon, On the illustrious men or Writers of the monastery of Cassino, nor in the Supplement to these compiled by Placido Romano, nor in Wion in the Lignum vitae, nor in Erasmo Gattola in the Catalogue, praised by him in the History of Cassino, of the Monks of Cassino illustrious for writings and learning.