John Lobedau

ON BL. JOHN LOBEDAU, CONFESSOR, OF THE ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS, AT CHEŁMNO IN PRUSSIA,

In the year MCCLXIV.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

John Lobedavius, conf., of the Order of St. Francis, at Chełmno in Prussia. (Bl.)

BY I. H.

§ I. The Blessed's homeland, the time of his death, certain virtues.

Thorunium, to others Torunia, to the natives and Germans Thorn and Thourn, The time of the Blessed's birth is uncertain; a noble emporium of royal Prussia lying beside the river Vistula, gave to the world this ornament of the Franciscan Order, John Lobedau, whom many call from his birthplace John of Toruń and the Prussian, others from his father Loberdancus, others Lobedanus, but most, whom we follow here, Lobedavius; by which name he is likewise distinguished by Frederick Schembek, priest, who in the thirty-eighth year of the century elapsed published at Toruń, in the Polish idiom, his Life collected from the ancient traditions about him and from the inquiries expressly made by some bishops of Chełmno and of Pomesania, in which he writes that he was born only of honest parents, adding nothing about the name of his father or mother. But neither do we have anything certain about the year in which he was brought into the light, either from the praised Schembek or from Wadding or other Writers of the Seraphic family, who even disagree among themselves, as we shall see at once, in assigning the time of his happy death: this one thing, however, can be safely laid down from the assigned place of birth, that John was not born before the year 1231, in which, on the testimony of Długosz, book VI of the Polish History, the knights of the Teutonic Order, called into Prussia already five years before, founded Toruń; unless perhaps there existed in the same place a villa or village of the same name in which he was born before the year 1231.

[2] That the Writers do not agree on the year of our Blessed's death I have already intimated: the writers do not agree on the year of his death, for Arthur du Moustier, whom Hueber follows in the Menology, announces him in his Franciscan Martyrology at the 21st day of June, as the day of his death, and both cite Wadding's Annals at the year MCCLXXI. But as I turned over and over again the assigned editor of the Annals of the Minors, there occurred not only no mention of that day, but not even anything determined about the year in which John died, since there in the Additions, number XII, he only pronounces that Bl. John died about this year (MCCLXXI). The Rev. Fr. Antonio Melissano de Macro, in the Supplement which he subjoins to Wadding's Annals at the year MCCLXIV, number 2, citing Mart. Baron. in the Catalogue of the SS. of the Order, and treating the matter more accurately, has these things: Brother Peter Basztin… at Wrocław in this year (MCCLXIV), on the feast of our B. F. Francis, held the first provincial chapter: when Bl. F. John Lobedau, a native of Toruń, at Chełmno a few days after

days rendered his spirit to heaven … Wherefore Rodolphus errs (in the Seraphic History, folio 323 verso), who says that John Lobedau died in the year MDXXVII on the 7th day of February: nor does Wadding in his Additions, cited above, reach the limit of the time. Then, certain things pertaining to the Blessed's Life, Miracles and Cult being interposed, he begins number 3 thus, intending to confirm what was said before: In the same year, then, as we said before, in which Peter Basztin was celebrating the provincial chapter at Wrocław on the feast of St. F. Francis, five days afterwards John Lobedau, the course of the present life consummated, gloriously reached the prize of eternal blessedness in heaven.

[3] nor certainly when This writer had been preceded by Schembek, cited above, he gave himself to religion, can be defined, who in the Polish Life, which, translated into Latin, we shall subjoin to this Commentary, likewise assigns the happy death of Bl. John to the ninth day of October of the year MCCLXIV. And led by the authority of these, we think that this Blessed died in the year 1264, and we refer him to today, to which also we find him remitted by Papebroch, volume 7 of May, folio 608, column 2, in these words: John the Prussian, entered in the Franciscan Martyrology on the 21st of June, is said in the Life published by this our author to have died in the year MCCLXIV on the 9th of October, when we shall give it. In still denser darkness is wrapped the time at which, having bidden farewell to secular business, Bl. John betook himself to the Franciscans, none of the authors whom indeed it has been permitted me to see bringing anything certain about it. From their writings, however, it is manifestly gathered that this could not have happened before the year MCCXXXIX: for first it is clear from Schembek that our Blessed fled to the Franciscan Fathers after monasteries had been built for them at Toruń and Chełmno; then also it is established from others that the praised Fathers were admitted to Toruń in the year MCCXXXIX, and afterwards to Chełmno too.

[4] On this matter Wadding writes in the Annals at the year cited above: At Toruń also in Prussia in this year a site for building their monastery was granted to the Minors by Pompo, Master of the Crossed Knights. And Melissano here in the Supplement, number 4, has: Pomo de Hosterno, sixth Master of the Crossed Knights, founded for the Friars Minor a monastery and church under the title of the blessed Virgin Mary at Toruń, and granted them a site to dwell on. Finally Rodolphus of Tossignano, book 2 of the Hist. Seraph. relig., folio 291, records these things: The Custody of Prussia has … the place of Culmen, the place of Toruń, where there is a monastery which Pompo, Master of the Crossed Knights, built, who first granted the Friars a site to dwell on in the year MCCXXXIX. There can be added to these what Długosz writes in the Polish History, book 6, in this manner: At the same time too (in the year MCCXXXIX) the same Pompinus, otherwise Pompo, Master of Prussia, erects a convent and monastery of the Friars Minor in Thorun under the title of St. Mary the Virgin, and assigned the Friars Minor a site to dwell on. Now, on the testimony of Schembek, Bl. John entered the Order of St. Francis, which had come first to Toruń in the year MCCXXXIX, and afterwards to Chełmno too. Whence, although the time at which our Blessed gave himself to religion can by no means be defined, it is established nevertheless, as I asserted above, that it could not have happened before the year MCCXXXIX. Further, I must here in passing warn the Reader that the aforesaid Authors err, if they would have Pompo de Hosterno (others name him otherwise) to have been at that time General Master of the Teutonic Order, since he was advanced to the supreme Mastership of that Order only in the year MCCLIII, as Sommersberg has it in the Writers on Silesian affairs, volume 2, folio 172. Now let us return to the Blessed.

[5] In collecting and transmitting to posterity his deeds and the miracles wrought by him both before and after his death, and only a meagre notice of his virtues is had. it is wonderful how meagre are the Annalists of the Minors, who almost all, copying one another, supply only a general notice of his virtues and of the benefits obtained from the propitious Majesty by his intervention, if you except one, and that altogether admirable, familiarity with our Saviour and his most holy Mother, who frequently appeared to him in the form of a boy and a matron, which you will find related more fully below in his Life. That John was raised to the excellent grade of Doctorate in Sacred Theology is recorded, so far as I know, only by Antonio Melissano in the place already often cited: which honour I think was conferred on him not by the governors of a public school, which I do not think flourished at that time in Prussia (see Baudrand, volume 2 of the Geography, folio 431, where he exhibits the Academies of the whole world), but by the Fathers of his Order; if, however, it really had place in a man pursuing all the humblest things. But in this all agree except the man of Tossignano, who, as I have already warned, wrongly fixed the Blessed's death in the Seraphic History to the year MDXXVII, that Bl. John was at one time the confessor and director in spiritual things of St. Jutta (she inhabited the woods half a mile from the city of Chełmno, whence she frequently betook herself to Chełmno for the sake of receiving the Sacraments; as her Life has it, volume 7 of May, folio 606), and that he burned with unwearied zeal in the preaching of the divine word and with a singular zeal for prayer and contemplation.

§ II. The ancient cult of the Blessed, its renewal, the Life to be published.

Ancient The virtues just narrated, and the various prodigies wrought at his tomb, won for our Blessed such fame of holiness both among his own and among outsiders that in good time, says the author of the Life, his holy bones were taken out of the first sepulchre in which they had been honourably laid up, and were translated and deposited in a little tomb adorned with little golden stars, a new monument being moreover built for him within the house of the Eucharist beside the high altar, closed with iron railings in place of a covering, and his effigy publicly exposed in the church for the veneration of all. And since a multitude of afflicted people frequently flocked there from every side, and often experienced the ready help of the Blessed in necessities, he was entered by the bishop and the whole clergy of the city among the chief patrons of Prussia, and an honourable place with a notable inscription was assigned to his image also in the Cathedral church at Chełmno. Another and ancient effigy of Bl. John, distinct from this, was seen hung on the wall toward the south in the twenty-seventh year of the former century in the chapel where St. Jutta is believed to be buried. It was a panel 12 palms high, whose middle place St. Jutta occupied, the right side Bl. Dorothea, the Prussian widow, and the left, finally, Bl. John, holding forth a book in one hand and a burning torch in the other, with an epigraph of this kind, set, says Schembek in the Life of St. Jutta, by the ancient bishops of the church of Chełmno for an example to particular churches:

Rejoice, Prussia, to observe such divine Patrons, And lay up their sacred bones in purple places: That you may not suffer plague, and sword, famine and fire; But may be safe by their help.

[7] the Blessed's cult These verses, inscribed on a wooden tablet, because they seemed perhaps to some to bear not very much antiquity, Sigismund III, king of Poland, staying in camp near Cieszyn, ordered to be brought to him and examined. While men skilled in such things carried this out with the greatest care, they were found to have been renewed for the third time. At which thing, as an evident demonstration of the ancient cult toward the Saints praised above, the pious king vehemently rejoiced, on the testimony of Schembek, who was then present. Our Blessed therefore had for some centuries (as is read in the Life), for about three hundred years, I would think, a notable cult with the other Patrons of Prussia in the church of Chełmno, into which chiefly inquiry was to be made here; he had his images exposed to the veneration of men in two churches, of which also some very ancient ones, withdrawn from the fury of the heretics, of which afterwards, were seen fixed to the walls in the same cathedral church as the century elapsed was growing old, as is to be gathered from the letters added to the Life: Polish, which, under legitimate attestation and the seal of the most reverend Thomas Szule, provost of the cathedral, and vicar of Lubawa in spirituals, and official general of Chełmno, John Hansler, priest, at that time German preacher at Toruń, once transmitted from Toruń to Daniel Papebroch together with the Life, and which I deem it worth the trouble to subjoin here entire. They run thus: Thomas Szule etc. To all and each whom it concerns we make known that there was presented to us by the very Rev. Fr. John Hansler, German preacher of the college of the Society of Jesus at Toruń, the Life of blessed Lobedau, of the Order of St. Francis, Patron of Prussia, printed in type, and that we were supplicated not to be reluctant to add the approbation of the Office for the better credit of the things expressed here. We therefore, having the best knowledge of all these things which are written about the aforesaid Blessed, as even the VERY ANCIENT tablets themselves and images fixed to the walls in the cathedral church of Chełmno testify, have judged all the things contained within to be approved and ratified as true, as we approve and ratify them by these presents. Which, for greater strength, subscribed with our own hand, we have judged to be fortified with the seal of the Office. Given at Chełmno on the tenth day of February in the year of the Lord MDCLXXX. Thomas Szule etc.

[8] Nor is the ancient cult of the Blessed established by these things only, but it is also not moderately confirmed by those by public devotion, which Schembek subjoined in the Polish idiom to his Life. Of these, one is called Devotion to this Saint, the other is a Hymn composed in his honour with two Prayers. Both, translated into Latin by a noble Pole, the interpreter of the Life, of whom toward the end of the Commentary, run thus:

Devotion to this Saint.

I. When the Lord has sent an insult upon you, receive it patiently for your other sins, and implore the intercession of this Saint, that you may be freed from it.

II. When you have committed yourself to the water, invoke him, asking prosperity of the Lord.

III. In sailing, sing a song of him morning and afternoon, or say the Ave Maria several times.

IV. When a tempest grows strong, ask his help with great confidence.

V. In sailing, visit him at Chełmno, or in passing offer three Paters and Aves with an alms in honour of God: or fast on that day, or on any other once a week, as long as you are on the waters.

VI. In time of Spring and autumn pray for those sailing, and on the day of the memory of this Saint do some good work for those erring in the faith.

[9] Further, the Hymn, in Sapphic metre, not altogether inelegant, by a Hymn, rendered from the Polish, and the twofold Prayer subjoined to it are couched in these words:

Hymn.

O Glory of Chełmno, hail, precious Gem of Toruń surpassing carbuncles; Be mindful of us, joined to the Saints, Saint John. The City eagerly longs, doubling honours, When it is celebrated for your birth; Nor can the Fatherland keep silent the praises deserved by your life. Bravely whatever the flattering lot Promised you, you spurned; the world, Unequal to so great a nobility, you send back with your heel. Poor, following the poor Lord, That you might wage better wars against the age, You follow whither God persuaded, leaving your father's threshold. He willed that you should be a soldier Of Francis's cohort, where of the modest

heart, a pious leader under him by example, you waged wars. The deceitful enemy never wrung The standard from you, but up to death A victor you set it, shining, in an august sepulchre. To which the people running and praying Always carry back an easy grace, And feel joys never sufficiently to be repeated in words. You lead the sailors cutting the sea by night To port, a shining pole-star, And grant them to cleave the storms with unhindered course.

And celebrate and worship the name of God, Lead, and make them return to their hearths with prosperous stern. Lighten the skiff weighed down by the mass Of sins, nor let the sails go to be snatched By the winds, but, kindly, take the wanderer away from all the rocks. Our hope is in you, and let your pardon Be our rudder; when the pilgrim Skiff shall come to rest, make it * to climb the safe harbour.

Prayer.

O God, who didst will that thy servant John of Toruń, wonderfully freed from calumnies, should be singularly celebrated for the help of men living on the waters, grant, we beseech thee, that all of us oppressed by calumny, and sailing, may by his intercession be freed from all evil in soul and body. Through our Lord etc.

Another.

O God, to whose obedience the waters and winds are always subject, grant through the intercession of thy servant John of Toruń that all who sail may arrive prosperously where they are going, and return to their homes with joy. Through our Lord etc. Amen.

[11] celebrated But whether the use and recitation of the mentioned Devotion and Hymn with the Prayers had prevailed among the Faithful already before the times in which the Heterodox came into Prussia to abolish the cult of the Saints and their images, who could say for certain? I think indeed that that Devotion had place of old, especially among the people of Chełmno, although perhaps it was not set in order, and printed in Polish type with the Hymn subjoined, before the seventeenth century was already growing up. However it be, anyone will gather that it is certainly established from these and from the old images of Bl. John that some day, perhaps today, was assigned to celebrate his memory, and that a special veneration was paid him by those sailing and in danger at sea, where they had often experienced his help not without prodigies. Which last thing the illustrious title of this kind prefixed to the Life above all confirms.

The Light In the darkness of errors and hardships, By the example of his life, his ancient teaching, and the help Of prayer, shining for the needy in Prussia,

BLESSED

JOHN LOBEDAW

OF TORUŃ,

Religious Priest of St. Francis, One of the ancient Holy Patrons of Prussia, Once confessor of St. Jutta of Sangerhausen, Singular Patron

OF SAILORS

And other seafarers, Resting at Chełmno, the episcopal city of Prussia, Among the Brethren of his Religion, Famous for miracles, Now, after the recent renewal of the ancient Devotion toward him, Described a second time more fully.

[12] Further, the most ancient veneration of the people of Chełmno and of others toward the Blessed had flourished, solemn until in the sixteenth century the raging heresy of the Lutherans did not fear to lay sacrilegious hands on all sacred things, and to turn into a stable the church sacred to St. James, in which the bones of Bl. John were kept, and compelled the Franciscan Fathers, after various mockeries, to desert their monastery and migrate elsewhere. By which impious machinations of the heretics that primitive cult of Bl. Lobedau was so nearly blotted out from the memory of men that the aforesaid Fathers, summoned from Poland to Chełmno by the authority of the most illustrious Peter Kostka (Christoph Hartknoch calls him Paul in the Select Dissertations on Prussian affairs, Dissertation 14, and says that he was designated prelate of that See by king Henry in the year MDLXXIV), and restored to the ancient monastery of their Order, did not come to the knowledge of the Blessed until a fable impiously coined by the heretics about a certain John, a merchant, once buried in the cathedral church, gave them a handle for inquiring so skilfully of the older inhabitants of Chełmno about Bl. John and his place of burial that at length they found under the pavement of the new church certain fragments of a little tomb adorned with little stars, and bones mixed together beneath them, and thereafter drew up and offered various informations (as they call them) for renewing the veneration of the Blessed. When those Fathers had often undertaken this, but always with vain labour, at length, the piety of certain Canons and other illustrious persons blazing up, a Decree for renewing the veneration of the Blessed according to the Bulls of Pope Urban VIII was issued by the illustrious John Lipski, at that time designated from the see of Chełmno and Pomesania to the archbishopric of Gniezno, on the thirtieth day of October of the year 1638, and at once on the following day, which was a Sunday, Mass having first been celebrated in the church of the Franciscan Fathers, and a sermon on the process of this business having been heard, the aforesaid Prelate ordered that decree to be put into execution, and the effigy of the Blessed to be exposed again to the veneration of the people.

[13] Soon, that the minds of the people of Chełmno and others might be more fervently kindled toward the cult of Bl. John so solemnly restored, restoration. the often-praised Frederick Schembek, having already before laboriously examined the inquiries which some Prelates of Chełmno and Pomesania had instituted about John's holiness, wrote from these and from the ancient traditions in Prussia about the Blessed a brief Life of him in the Polish language, and published it at Toruń in the same year 1638. Afterwards this, transmitted to our predecessors by John Hansler, priest, they had rendered into Latin in the year 1682, at which time there were living at Louvain the most noble lords Andrew Vincent Ustrzycki, sprung from an illustrious family of Poland, and James Sznetla, Prussian by nation. Of these the former translated the Polish Life into the Latin language, adding or changing nothing, as he testifies with his own hand and by an oath offered: and the latter asserts that the Latin, diligently reread and accurately compared with the Polish, differs from its authentic in no matter, and writes from Louvain on the 14th of July of the year 1682 that he will likewise corroborate this by oath, if there be need. Further, the Reader must be warned that Culma is commonly put wrongly by the interpreter for Culmza or Culmenzea: for here, whither already from the thirteenth century Henry II, prelate of Chełmno, had transferred the episcopal See, Culma or Culmia having been left, Bl. John was committed to the earth in the monastery of the Franciscans. Papebroch exhibits more things pertaining to this at the beginning of the Commentary on the Life of St. Jutta, volume VII of May, folio 602.

* beatum

LIFE

From the Polish of Fr. Frederick Schembek, the most noble Lord Andrew Ustrzycki, a Pole, being the Interpreter.

John Lobedavius, conf., of the Order of St. Francis, at Chełmno in Prussia. (Bl.)

CHAPTER I.

The homeland of Bl. John, his religious life, death, the beginning of his cult.

Born at Toruń Toruń, a royal city in the district and bishopric of Chełmno ^a, most celebrated in Prussia, although it is very famous on account of its many ornaments, which it has both from temporal things and from the spiritual treasure of the Relics of the SS. brought thither from Jerusalem by the Crossed Knights ^b, and from the devotion of the Catholic people toward them among Non-catholics; yet it glories singularly in the birth of Bl. John, priest of the Minorites. He, born there of honest parents, and brought up by them in the fear of God, when he grew up, of lofty and notable talent, often raised his heart and mind from the port of this earthly city to the port of that eternal and heavenly one, and, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, knew that every temporal good is like the passing waters beside which ^c he dwelt. And on the other side he had before his eyes the promise of the Lord ^d in this and in the other world, Matt. 19, 29, to anyone leaving father and mother, household, and whatever he possessed: and because the religious state with its vows is, and was, the invention of the Holy Spirit and not a human contrivance, therefore he gladly left for God's sake his parents, home, and what he could have on earth, and entered the Order of St. Francis, which had come from Saxony first to Toruń ^e in the year MCCXXXIX, and afterwards to Chełmno; there ^f, living according to that rule, he shone before the Brethren of his religion with the examples of great virtues, and with notable learning studied wonderfully in various ways to procure the salvation of secular men.

[2] by various virtues and wonderful St. Jutta too of Sangerhausen, German by nation, a widow famous for miracles, living about that time in the woods of Chełmno, and resting at Chełmno ^g after her death, used him as Confessor. But while serving the salvation of others, he also solicitously cared for the good of his own soul, rousing himself much to the love of the Lord and the imitation of his humility, chiefly by the contemplation that He deigned to be born a little child for the cause of human salvation, and that the Lord, who feeds every living creature, willed to be nourished at his mother's breasts like other infants who do not know how to provide for themselves. Considering also the ineffable dignity of his Mother from such a motherhood, and congratulating her on the same, he most humbly asked her to obtain for him from her Son both those virtues ^h. That devotion of John was pleasing and acceptable to the Lord, and, desiring to declare this to him, he appeared to him several times in the same infant form in the arms of his most holy Mother: about the time of which vision other religious Brethren heard before the doors of John's cell discourses of the most blessed Virgin with him; and since they recognized a woman's voice, they wondered what that might be ⁱ.

[3] But the proven holiness of his life took away from them every such * thought; by piety toward the Virgin Mother nor could they persuade themselves that a woman could be there. But the Lord, who clothes those most beloved by him in the same habit which he himself had on earth (that is, sends upon his own calumnies and injurious detractions from others, proving their patience, and constancy of heart in affliction, and love toward detractors and defamers, for their greater likeness to himself), did the same with this his servant. For when at a certain time the same religious had openly heard in his shut chamber not only a woman's voice but also an infant's wailing, now suspecting ill of him, they knocked at his doors with force: and when he would not open, they began to force them. But after the breaking in was made and the entry, with huge astonishment they found nothing except one great image of the crucified Saviour, whose flesh was as soft as that of a true man.

[4] Then John, addressed by the Superior to confess sincerely in virtue of obedience all this, famous, he dies happily, whatever it was, confessed that the Lord had appeared to him in infant form (as once to Magdalen in the form of a gardener, and to others in other forms) carried by his mother; and that, as he wept abundantly, being asked by the mother the cause of his weeping, he had answered that the Catholic faith and devotion, flourishing so brightly in Prussia, would be brought to ruin by the enemies of his church with great loss of souls, whose destruction he wept. Confounded by such innocence of John, the Superior and the others together with him begged him by God to forgive them the suspicion they had admitted: and he, forgiving from his whole heart, nor becoming proud from it, spent his life in assiduous progress of the virtues and labours for the salvation of his neighbours. At length, full of merits, he happily fell asleep in the Lord in the year MCCLXIV ^k, on the 9th day of October, in the same of the Crossed

city of Chełmno, on the other side, 5 leagues from Toruń, and there, in the church of St. James the Apostle in the Convent of his Brethren, where he had lived, he was honourably buried, and was adorned by God with various miracles after his death.

[5] On account of which in good time his holy bones were translated from the first sepulchre into a little tomb and he shines with miracles. picked out with golden stars, and deposited there, a sepulchre unusual for them, but open, having iron railings in place of a covering, having been built within the house of the Eucharist beside the great altar (which lasts uncorrupted until now), and celebrated by the pious devotion of men who, invocation having been made in their necessities, reported the help of his intercession; and he himself is seen depicted ^l above the house of the Eucharist. Knowing and seeing which, the ancient bishops of Chełmno with their Clergy also chose him singularly as Patron and intercessor with the Lord for themselves and the lands of Prussia (for in those times the church of God permitted this to bishops), and willed that among the other images of the Holy Patrons of those regions his effigy too should be placed in their cathedral church with such a subscription ^m.

Religious Brother John Lobedaw of Thorun, of the Order of Minors, shone forth in Life, Miracles and Doctrine.

They have had the same effigy renewed until now as often as long antiquity required it. And since he shone singularly in the help of sailors and other seafarers on the sea, when in dangers on account of dark nights his aid and intercession with the Lord was asked, he appeared to them with a light, and led those in danger happily to port and shore; for which cause his effigy is painted from then with a burning torch in his hand ⁿ.

ANNOTATA.

* namely the left

CHAPTER II.

The ancient cult of the Blessed, interrupted by the machinations of the heretics, solemnly restored in the seventeenth century.

The Blessed's cult And so this ancient devotion toward him lasted for some centuries, until just some years ago ^a, when the new faith had crept into Chełmno, and the heretics had turned that house of God, the church of St. James, into a stable and pigsty of the town (beasts of burden having been sent in there after a detestable and heathen fashion), and one of those heretics, a smith, had torn away the railings from the sepulchre of this Bl. John for his own use. His holy bones also were held in derision and mockery by the impudent scholars of the new sect, who studied in the very convent of the Franciscan Fathers at the church of St. James, the religious having been expelled: for these out of insolence threw them against one another with impious contempt: but because they were found again, with great wonder, put back in their due place in the sepulchre ^b, that sepulchre together with the bones was covered over with earth. Before this was done, a certain man of disturbed mind, Gorczyca by name, of Lubawa, episcopal scribe of Starogród, grieving at their disfigurement, and therefore, as he washed them, since they did not seem entire, mixed others with them from the cemetery, wishing them to be entire; and by this madness of his he hindered the honour of the Saint no less than that new sect by its mockery. For thenceforth the sepulchre passed in that desolation into lighter esteem, and at length into oblivion.

[7] Until Peter Kostka ^c, bishop of Chełmno, vigilant in his office, by the machinations of the heretics purged from the disfigurement of that devastation the church ^d recovered from that sect: he also brought back into it the Fathers of St. Francis, as the lawful heirs of their predecessors; who, because they were from the Polish province, not the Saxon, as those were who acted there before, knew nothing, as strangers, of the honour of that Saint ^e. But the demon, wishing on that occasion to mock him, and to turn into derision the Catholic devotion about the invocation of the Saints, stirred up some of the heretics to this; who, knowing that in the cathedral * at Chełmno a certain merchant named John Monich was buried, and that there over him there was a notable sepulchral stone with the same inscription and his merchant's seal carved, wished to substitute him in the place of this Saint: and, coming to Chełmno and pretending they were from beyond the sea, they affirmed that this Bl. John the Franciscan had appeared to them at sea, succouring them in present danger, and had commanded that they should visit his sepulchre at Chełmno in the cathedral church, where the stone with his inscription is. And, seeking the stone as if ignorant, they filled the town with this fable in the year MDCX. Although the prudent and circumspect John Panecius, Archpriest, refused them credit ^f, many of the common people nevertheless believed.

[8] interrupted But God turned their evil machinations to his own praise and that of his Servant. For from those discourses the Franciscan Fathers first began to inquire about the sepulchre of this Saint from Catholics of greater ^g age than that new sect was, and, informed documentarily by them as eyewitnesses, by seeking in the place shown (where before this knowledge a sweetness of odour was often perceived by many) they found under the pavement of the new church fragments of that little tomb with golden stars, and under them bones mixed together. But since it could not be investigated whether they had not been falsified still more than by that Gorczyca, through the malice of those burying them when the sepulchre was covered over, they have therefore been deposited in a hidden place until now, and will further be kept so, by the Decree made recently, at the renewal of the ancient devotion toward him, by the episcopal power of the Council of Trent, Session 25, chapter on the invocation of the SS., until God shall show them to be true by open miracles. For us, however, this is enough, that he undoubtedly rests in that church, and is ready in heaven to our help. And for the certain confounding of that opinion about his body in the cathedral church, there, by the will of the most serene king Sigismund the third, of pious memory, being in the camp at Czczow, and by the power of the most reverend Lord bishop Zadzik ^h, in the year MDCXXVII on the 25th day of September, that sepulchre was ordered to be opened publicly (where I also, who write these things, was present, serving the Lord bishop in this), and there, there having been found in the tomb the entire corpse of a long-haired German, and not of a Religious with shaven crown and religious habit, that gross deceit and lie of the heretics became plain to the eye of the inhabitants of that place.

[9] is restored. Wherefore the Franciscan Fathers often took care that the faculty be granted them of renewing by public authority in the church that devotion violated by the heretics: but because this business needed for its final decision the presence of the bishop, or at least certain informations, and time for examining them by the episcopal Person himself (and that on account of some circumstances in it), and other great burdens of the commonwealth hindered it, that care too lacked effect, until at length the Illustrious and Most Reverend nominated Archbishop of Gniezno, John Lipski ⁱ, bishop of Chełmno and Pomesania, staying at Chełmno in the year MDCXXXVIII, chiefly at the instance of the very Reverend George Alexander Dorpowski and John Schmak, canons of Chełmno, Officials General of his bishoprics; then also at the instance of the most Illustrious Melchior Weiher, Palatine of Chełmno, and of Nicholas, his nephew, son of the Palatine of Chełmno and Captain of Radzyń, asking this again and again in the name of the spiritual and secular estate of the land of Chełmno, a new inquiry having been made about this on the 28th day of October: and after this, on the second day, mature deliberation having been held with his Prelates and Theologians, issued a decree in favour of this Saint according to the Bulls of Pope Urban VIII ^k on this matter, and at once on the following day, the last of this month, a Sunday, in the same church of the Franciscans, having himself first celebrated Mass, he heard a sermon on the process of this business held for the information of the people, and there, publicly and honourably, by the very reverend Official of Pomesania, the Archpriest of Chełmno Schmak, by the most Illustrious Lipski of Sothacow, by the Custos

of the Franciscans, Magdalenscius by name, of the Orders already mentioned, being asked a third time, he ordered that decree to be executed in his presence, and had the effigy of this Servant of God, holding a burning torch in his hand, painted at his own expense and with his own coat of arms for that act, adorned with jewels, emblems and inscriptions ^l, exposed with votive tablets, torches and other ceremonies befitting such an act. To the honour of God our Lord, to whom in his Saints be honour from every creature, reigning for ages. Amen.

ANNOTATA.

* read cathedrali