ON SS. DANIEL AND COMPANIONS: SAMUEL, ANGELUS, DOMNUS, LEO, NICHOLAS, AND HUGOLINUS, MARTYRS, OF THE ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS, AT CEUTA IN MAURETANIA TINGITANA,
In the year 1221.
Preliminary Commentary.
The memory of the Holy Martyrs in the sacred Fasti, their passion, sacred cult.
Daniel, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
Samuel, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
Angelus, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
Domnus, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
Leo, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
Nicholas, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
Hugolinus, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
BHL Number: 2093
J. B.
With how great zeal for propagating the Catholic faith, of the Holy Martyrs and with what ardour even for shedding his blood for Christ, St. Francis of Assisi, parent of the Seraphic Order, burned, appeared very clearly in the year 1219, in which, the administration of the Order being committed to Elias, Minister of Tuscany, he set out with a plainly undaunted mind into the East, either to bring the king of Egypt (they call him the Sultan) with the Saracen nation to the faith of Christ, or, if that did not succeed according to his wish, to find there indeed the laurel of martyrdom, as he hoped: but that which he himself did not find in Egypt, Berard of Carbio, Peter of San Gemignano, Adjutus, Accursius and Otho, not degenerate sons of so great a Father, beheaded at Morocco in Africa by the hand of the king Miramolin himself in hatred of the faith, in the year 1220, the Deity favouring their wishes, attained: and not long after, emulating their zeal for the faith, Daniel, Samuel, Angelus, Domnus or Domnolus, Leo, Nicholas and Hugolinus, most worthy alumni of the same Order, their blood likewise shed for Christ, carried off an equally notable triumph over the Saracens, the most hostile enemies of the Christian name, at Ceuta in the borders of Mauretania Tingitana, where it is washed by the strait of Cadiz, a triumph celebrated by various monuments of letters, both sacred and profane.
[2] And first indeed these Martyrs are mentioned in the Calendar which was prefixed to the Roman Breviary, mention among the martyrologists, published at Venice in the year 1522, about six years after their cult was granted by Leo X, at the 13th day of October in this manner: Of Cerbonius, bishop and Confessor; and of the seven Martyrs of the Order of Minors: nay also their proper Office is read at page 473 of the same Breviary, to be recited on the 13th day of October by the institution of Leo X, on the testimony of the Rubric prefixed to it, and then for the first time, likewise on the testimony of the Table of Offices newly added, inserted in the Roman Breviary. Then they began to be inscribed in the Martyrologies, as Maurolycus, abbot of Messina, did as the sixteenth century was growing old, but at the 10th day of October, in these words: At Ceuta in Mauretania, of the Holy Martyrs Daniel, Samuel, Angelus, Donnus, Leo, Nicholas and Ugolinus, Companions of Saint Francis, translated into Portugal. Felicius, Galesinius and Molanus did the same: the former indeed at the 10th day of October; but these at the 13th day of the same month; whom those followed in this matter who most recently emended the Roman Martyrology. At Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana, they say, the passion of the Holy seven Martyrs of the Order of Friars Minor, Daniel, Samuel, Angelus, Domnus, Leo, Nicholas and Hugolinus: who for the preaching of the Gospel and the confutation of the Mahometan sect, having suffered insults, chains and scourges from the Saracens, at length, their heads being cut off, obtained the palm of martyrdom. I pass over the announcements of Tamayo, Arthur and other more recent martyrologists: but singular things about these Martyrs F. Antonio of the Purification, an Augustinian, writes at page 71 in the Lusitanian monastic Chronology, published at Lisbon in the year 1622. Likewise, he says, in the same month (namely June), at Ceuta, which is a city of the Portuguese in Africa, the passion of the Saints of the Order of Minors, Nicholas, Daniel, Ugolinus, Romulus, Emmanuel and Angelus, with two others, whom Leo X enrolled in the number of the Saints. When he calls Samuel Emmanuel, and Domnus, or Domnolus, Romulus, he errs in the names: but when, having enumerated six Martyrs, he adds two others besides, he sins more gravely; for it is undoubted that only Leo is absent from that enumeration, and that the whole class of these Martyrs did not exceed the number seven. But why he ascribed their feast to the month of June I am not to declare, unless perhaps some day of the same month was consecrated to their translation into Portugal.
[3] and other writers, There are added to the Martyrologists already cited, and
other writers, who likewise, and indeed more fully, committed to writing the Acts of these Martyrs; namely Bartholomew Albizzi of Pisa, in the Conformities, book 1, page 87 of the Bologna edition made in the year 1590, where at page 1 it is read that the Pisan published that Work in the year 1385; St. Antoninus, archbishop of Florence, of the Order of Preachers, who died in the year 1459, in the Histories, part 3, title 24, chapter 7, §6; the author of the German book entitled the Vineyard of St. Francis and printed at Antwerp in the year 1518, from which Surius published in Latin the Acts of the same Martyrs at the 13th day of October; Marianus of Florence, who died about the beginning of the sixteenth century; Mark of Lisbon, afterwards bishop of Porto, taken from the living about the year 1580, in book 4 of the Chronicles of the Order of Minors, chapter 31 and the two following; Peter Rodulphius of Tossignano, afterwards bishop of Senigallia, in book 1 of the Histories of the Seraphic Religion, page 74, whose Work came forth from the Venetian press in the year 1586; Henry Sedulius, in the Seraphic History, from page 176, and others praised by Arthur in his Annotations on the Franciscan Martyrology at this day; to whom, because they record some things about our Martyrs which you would not find among others, I add Girolamo Marafioti, On the Antiquities of Calabria, book 1, chapter 26 and the two following; Paolo Gualtieri, book 1, chapter 52, On the Martyrs of Calabria; Gabriele Barrio, On the Antiquity and Situation of the same Calabria, book 5; and finally Baillet in the Lives of the Saints at the 13th day of October.
[4] There are extant besides in the library lately Bollandian, twofold Acts but now of Tongerlo, twofold printed Acts of their martyrdom, and those, as they profess, proceeding from eyewitnesses; of which the one is exhibited by the letters of Brother Marianus of Genoa, staying in the suburb of Ceuta among the Christian merchants, written to Elias, vicar general, in the year 1227, on the 27th of October, which, drawn out from a very old parchment manuscript, Brother Francesco Antonio of Corigliano, of the Order of Minors Conventual, brought forth into the light at the press of Velletri in the year 1640, and dedicated to Filippo Salluzzo, a patrician of Genoa: and the other the Roman Breviary of the year 1522, of which above, offers, distinguished into nine lessons, and by Sedulius, in his Commentary on the martyrdom of the seven Brothers, not only indicated but also, as far as it appears, greatly praised in these brief words: Their Passion is extant also in the old Roman Breviary, most sweetly written, in which nothing seems to be lacking. These are of great weight and authority with me, both because I should not doubt that they were offered to and approved by Leo X as the sincere and genuine Acts of those Martyrs when, in the year 1516 (as will be said below), the Franciscan Fathers asked for and obtained from the Pontiff their lawful cult; and because they were originally written by an eyewitness, as appears manifestly from these words: nor even by these things were the ministers of the devil appeased, but, we seeing it, they shattered their heads: nor does it matter that at the end of the ninth Lesson mention is made of their translation into Portugal; for although this translation of theirs was separated from the passion by a sufficiently long interval of years, yet it appears certain enough that that clause was added to the Acts by someone else only then when they were distinguished into lessons and brought into the form of the ecclesiastical office, namely about the year 1522. It will therefore be worth while to reprint these Acts, even for this cause alone, that that Roman Breviary, published at Venice in the year 1522, is very rare in this our age.
[5] Now what of the Acts which bear the name of Marianus of Genoa? (of which the one, About these I think far otherwise: but because they are neither at everyone's hand, nor very long, nor finally altogether useless, and the things which are committed to separate leaves easily perish, it seemed good to transcribe them here: it runs thus: To the Venerable Father in Christ Elias, Vicar General of the poor Minors, Brother Marianus of Genoa sends abundant greeting. The peace of Christ. On the 26th day of September there came into this city of Ceuta three of our Calabrian Brothers, of whom one, who was called Daniel, from the town of Belvedere, was provincial, as they themselves said; and the other two priests, one called Brother Angelus of Castrovillari, and the other Leo of Corigliano; who, when they had been charitably received by our Christians, began to exhort these merchants with words which seemed full of spirit to follow the virtues and leave the vices, announcing the punishment which is wont to be given to the vicious, and the glory to those who follow the precepts of Christ; at length after eight days there arrived four others of their Companions, whose names, as we received from them, were Brother Ugolinus of Cirisano, and Brother Nicholas of Corigliano, Brother Samuel of Castrovillari, priests, and Brother Donolus of Castrovillari, a layman, who, awaited with great desire by their father, after they were united, rejoiced together. Of their Life let this one thing suffice, that it was seen to be not human, but wholly angelic and wholly separated from human things. These, now gathered together into one, on the Sabbath day first washed one another's feet, and thence the whole day they were in our oratory persevering in prayers; nor after night had come did they cease from what they had begun, but persevered, three times chastising their own flesh with dire scourges; that place was seen, while they were spending the night in prayer, all flashing with brightness and splendour. At length, as the day grew white, Brother Daniel received Sacramental Confession from one of his Companions, and thence he himself heard the Confession of all his sons, and, celebrating, gave communion to all in the Mass; which things being completed, we resisting, each one, holding in his hand a certain image of the Crucified, they enter the city, and with free voice cry out that Christ alone is the saviour of the world, and protest that the Mahometan law leads them to hell; but the people, hearing the reproaches against the false prophet, raging, beats them with various insults and reproaches, all which were sustained by them through Christ with a glad mind; they are at length led to the tyrant, who, seeing them with undaunted countenance and speaking with fervent and imperious mouth, judged them to be insane, and therefore orders them to be thrown into prisons, where they spent eight days without food; yet they suffered no hunger, because Christ was their food; they are tempted with many promises, whether they would deny Christ and embrace the Mahometan law; but they confirmed with more fervent reasons what they had said; and when their immovable mind was seen, it was decreed by the judge of the city, Arboldus by name, that they should be beheaded.
[6] The sentence being heard, all, as if they were invited to a banquet, contended is here exhibited which of them should be first to receive the palm of martyrdom. I shall not tell the hortatory words which the Man of God, Brother Daniel, held to his Brothers, nor what and what kind of answers the Brothers gave, because I should be too long; I shall tell at length that on the thirteenth day of October they were all beheaded; but the savagery of the barbarians did not stop here; for through the whole city their most holy heads and venerable bodies were dashed and shamefully thrown down; but, the people being pacified, the venerable and sacred relics were collected by us by night with great devotion, the Holy Spirit leading, and are kept with us; whose souls, however, without doubt exult in heaven with Christ, for the confession of whom they shed their blood. Given at Ceuta of the Saracens on the 27th day of October, 1227. But however much these Acts profess an eyewitness and have been submitted to the press from a very old manuscript, in my opinion at least they yield very much in authority and credit to the Acts praised above at number 5; and first indeed it will perhaps displease someone in them that this epistle is inscribed to Elias, vicar general. Elias was indeed called by that name while St. Francis was among the living; but in the year 1227, in which this Epistle was written towards the end of the month of October, Elias had already from the month of June, on the testimony of Wadding in the Franciscan Annals at the same year, number 2, been proclaimed in the general chapter, from vicar general, supreme moderator of the Order; which, as it could not have been unknown to Daniel and his Companions, inasmuch as they set out into Africa after the said chapter, having obtained licence from Elias, so it may appear not very likely that Marianus did not hear it from his guests, or, in writing letters to Elias, prefixed only the title of vicar. But it displeases many that in the same Acts the martyrdom of these seven Brothers is bound to the thirteenth day of the month of October, whereas a far greater and better part of the writers, as will be said below, assigns the tenth of the same month. It displeases most that that account of Marianus is not consistent with itself, as is shown there.
[7] On the 26th day of September (without doubt of the year 1227, are less approved, in which Marianus was writing) there came, he says, into this city of Ceuta three of our Brothers … after eight days there arrived four other Companions: these last four, therefore, did not arrive at Ceuta before the third day of October, which in that year was a Sunday. These (seven, Marianus goes on), gathered together into one on the Sabbath day (and so not later than the ninth day of October), washed one another's feet and spent the night in prayer. On the morrow, as the day grew white (the tenth of October), they enter the city, are seized, are committed to prison, where they spent eight days; therefore at least up to the seventeenth day of October. But how do these things cohere with those words in which they are said to have been beheaded on the thirteenth day of October? Again, according to these Acts they entered the city on a Sunday: count therefore from the thirteenth day of October, which in the year 1227 was a Wednesday, eight days in backward order, you will come round not to a Sunday, but to another Wednesday, on which they would have entered the city. But although this Epistle ascribed to Marianus is not consistent with itself as regards the adjuncts of time, yet as regards the rest I would not dare to accuse it of falsity, even for this most of all, that in these things it everywhere agrees with the Acts inserted in the Roman Breviary of the year 1522, and is opposed to them almost nowhere. These things about the Acts: our discourse now turns to the Martyrs themselves.
[8] their surnames, native land, The martyrologists, indeed, and the other writers praised above, nay even the Acts to be subjoined to this Commentary, generally exhibit the names of these Martyrs, but not likewise the surnames of each. Wadding, in volume 1 of the Annals of the Order of Minors at the year 1221, number 36, writes that Daniel, minister of Calabria and leader of the rest, was surnamed of Belvedere, and Nicholas of Sassoferrato, Rodulphius, Marianus of Florence and a manuscript History of the Martyrs being cited in the margin; and he observes that Donulus (otherwise Domnus) was called Dannulus by Rodulphius, and Romulus by Marianus, namely of Florence: he refutes besides Rodulphius, because the Martyr Angelus the same as Angelus of Pisa,
minister of England, was. But of the rest he is wholly silent about the surnames: but from the Epistle of the other Marianus, related above, we have it: 1°, that Nicholas, to Wadding of Sassoferrato, was called of Corigliano: by which one should abide, I do not know. 2°, that the same surname of Corigliano was given to Leo. 3°, that three of them, Angelus, Samuel and Donolus, obtained the same surname of Castrovillari. 4°, that to Ugolinus the surname of Cirisano was added; and since these towns are each situated in Calabria, it becomes likely that each of them also was a Calabrian by nation. 5°, Finally we are taught that all, if you except Domnus or Donolus, were endowed with the priesthood, which I think will scarcely be found elsewhere. That Daniel drew his origin from the family Fasanella Gualtieri writes in book 1, chapter 52, in the Triumph of the Calabrians; but since he confesses that he wrote this from tradition, let the credit of that matter rest with him. With Gualtieri agrees Michael of Zug, volume 3 of the Bullarium of the Capuchins, page 77.
[9] Further, Calabria not only fell to these seven Martyrs as their native land, the journey into Mauretania but they were also staying there, as Marafioti writes in book 4, chapter 25, when, kindled with desire of martyrdom, they set out from Calabria into Tuscany; thence into Spain, and finally, about to sail into Mauretania, having first obtained licence from Elias, namely in the convent of Castrovillari, formerly built by Andrew of Fano, on the testimony of Wadding, volume 9 of the Annals, at the year 1399, number 46. Gualtieri writes that Daniel and his Companions, about to depart into Mauretania, came together at the same place, and describes their journey through Calabria, likewise, as it appears, from the tradition of the natives, almost in this manner: the Martyrs, about to depart into Mauretania, and having gone out of the Convent of Castrovillari, where they had come together, hasten together to Belvedere (a town of Calabria situated not far from the shore of the Tyrrhenian sea), Daniel being appointed leader of the journey: proceeding thence, in order to commit themselves to navigation, they seek sailors: but these plead a scarcity of water. Daniel therefore orders the ground to be dug in a certain place on the sea-shore which he assigns, and, it being dug, there suddenly bursts forth a spring, which is still called today St. Daniel's; and they embark on ships. There remains, says Gualtieri, a monument of this embarking on the rock of a certain small harbour, whence in two ships, of which the one received four Companions, the other three, they set sail towards Africa. Thus he: but Barrio, himself too a Calabrian, has none of these things, either in book 2, where he treats of Blanda or Belvedere and its territory, or in book 5, where he describes the martyrdom of Daniel and his Companions; nor, of those whom I have seen, the remaining writers; nay rather, what he says about the Companions being carried to Africa in different ships, the others generally say was done not in Calabria but at Tarragona in Spain. Nor is it certain enough to me, although I do not deny the departure of the Companions from Calabria, that a spring was raised there by Daniel not far from the sea-shore, although this found its name from St. Daniel, which still flourishes today; partly because I do not know how ancient that tradition is, partly because that appellation of the spring could have flowed either from the mere departure of Daniel and his Companions from that place or from other causes. Nor did the Martyrs hasten from Calabria into Africa by a direct journey (which Gualtieri, as one who makes not even a word about Tuscany or Spain, seems to have intimated): for that they first landed in Tuscany, thence in Spain and finally in Africa is established more than enough from the Pisan, Mark of Lisbon, the author of the Vineyard of St. Francis, Rodulphius, and the Acts of the Martyrdom to be subjoined below.
[10] The Acts indeed say nothing about the journey of the Martyrs undertaken through Calabria; captivity at Ceuta, but about their setting out from Tuscany into Africa they speak thus: These, having obtained licence from Brother Elias, Minister General or vicar of Blessed Francis (Wadding adds, and the blessing of St. Francis), departing from the parts of Tuscany, came first to Tarragona, a city of Aragon. And thence, as the Acts continue, Daniel first set sail for Africa with three Companions: Marianus of Genoa assigns to Daniel here only two Companions, but the discrepancy is not of great moment. And those who had remained at Tarragona landed at Ceuta, according to the Acts, on the day before the Kalends of October, on the fourth day from Daniel's arrival. And the aforesaid Brothers, say the Acts, stayed with the Christian merchants (Genoese, Marseillais and Pisans) in a certain village outside the walls of the city, because it was not lawful for any of the Christians to enter the city without special licence of the Saracens. On the next following Sunday they rush into the town, preach Christ openly, and are committed to prison, in which they were seen to be surrounded with heavenly light, on the testimony of Marianus of Genoa. The other circumstances, both of the captivity and of the martyrdom, because they are described accurately enough, I pass over in silence: yet I cannot keep in silence their letters, full of divine ardour, which they gave from prison to Hugh, the senior priest of the Genoese staying at Ceuta, and to two religious men, one a Dominican, the other a Franciscan. They run thus, therefore, in Wadding at the year 1221, number 38.
[11] Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, letters written in prison, the father of mercies and God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our tribulation, who prepared for the patriarch Abraham the victim of the holocaust, who also by the precept of the Lord went out from his land not knowing whither he was going, and therefore it was reputed to him unto justice, and he was called the friend of God. Thus therefore let him who is wise become a fool, that he may be wise, because the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. Be it known therefore to you that if the Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered for us, and who said: Go and preach the Gospel to every creature: Go and fear not those who kill the body: likewise: The servant is not greater than his Lord: if they have persecuted Me, they will persecute you also: has led our ways in His paths to His praise and the salvation of the faithful, to the honour of Christians, and to the death and damnation of the unfaithful, as the Apostle says: We are the good odour of Christ: to some the odour of life unto life, to others the odour of death unto death. For if I had not come (says Christ) and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin; we shall praise Him for ever. Therefore the name of Christ has been announced before the king, and confessed by us, that there is not in another true salvation, and proved by true reasons, through an interpreter, before his wise men. To the King of ages, therefore, immortal and invisible, to God alone, be honour and glory for ages of ages. Amen. Farewell.
[12] With this greatness of mind, indeed, they hastened eagerly to the laurel of martyrdom sought with all their prayers: the passion, more probably in the year 1221, on the 10th day of October, but in what year, on what day they fell as victims to Christ, is controverted. St. Antoninus, Marianus of Florence, Rebolledo, Mark of Lisbon, Rodulphius and others say that it was done in the year 1227, the sixth from the death of St. Francis. On the contrary, others write that it happened in the year 1221, Francis surviving them, as the Pisan, Molanus in the Annotations on the Roman Martyrology, Barrio, with whom agree the Acts to be published below, the Breviary of Braga together with the Franciscan one, the Vineyard of St. Francis, Wadding, nay the whole Order of Franciscans, which, says Wadding, however much admonished that there is an error in the numbers (1221), has not admitted it nor corrected it, but always perseveres in the single opinion of the martyrdom of this very year (1221). To whose authority, by the same judge, those who think otherwise ought to yield: especially since they bring forward neither a solid foundation of their opinion nor a probable conjecture; for that they are said to have been sent into Africa by Elias, the successor of St. Francis, is of very slight moment, since in that very year (1221), St. Francis still living, Elias was moved to the administration of the whole Order. The same opinion that Wadding holds sits with me also: for since Francesco Antonio of Corigliano submitted to the press the letters of Marianus of Genoa about the martyrdom of Daniel and his Companions from a certain very old parchment manuscript, it could easily have happened that St. Antoninus obtained from somewhere this or a similar copy of the epistle ascribed to Marianus of Genoa, and, not daring to withdraw credence from it, inasmuch as it bore the authority of an eyewitness, threw himself and others into error. Finally, however the matter may stand, I should prefer indeed to stand in this matter by the Acts to be reprinted below rather than by the letters of Marianus, which do not cohere well enough with themselves, as was shown at number 7, and that not only as regards the year, but also as regards the day on which they were afflicted with martyrdom: the Epistle of Marianus hands down that it was done on the thirteenth day of October; but a far greater and better part of the writers, together with the author of the Acts to be reprinted below, ascribe their martyrdom to the tenth day of the same month, on which they first began to be honoured, namely from the time when lawful cult was granted them by the Pontiff, afterwards transferred to the thirteenth day of the same month: but the common people, as the author of the Vineyard of St. Francis declares, before public cult of them had been granted by the Pontiff, held the eighth day of October sacred to the memory of the Martyrs, whence it persuaded itself that they had suffered martyrdom on that same day, which Surius, Baillet and others afterwards followed with too little caution.
[13] Of those slain on the tenth day of October of the year one thousand two hundred and twenty-one, the relics, first collected by the Christians, as has been said above, the bodies of the Martyrs the common people, stirred with fury, our Anonymous looking on, tore limb from limb, dragged and scattered in every direction, so much so that it was held as a kind of prodigy that they could be collected by the Christians after the fury of the people had subsided: and, being collected, they were honourably buried in the suburban warehouse of the European merchants (for this the word Alfondega means), or, as our anonymous interprets it, the village, where by their merits, say the Acts, frequent miracles have been done; which words, whether they are the writer's of the Acts, or on the contrary his who, having reduced them to the norm of the ecclesiastical Office, divided them into nine Lessons, because I do not know, I hang in doubt whether those miracles followed close upon the killing of the Martyrs or not: yet to this seems to be referred the apparition of the Martyrs made a little after their killing, on the testimony of Gualtieri; and related by Barrio in these words: A certain Antonius of Pupia, when he mocked these, on the following night they appeared to him in sleep with sad aspect, clad in arms, threatening, and one of them, having seized a sword, seemed to fix a wound in his hip: although perhaps without any miracle, even from the mere horror of the injury inflicted on the Martyrs, or fear of the vengeance to follow, a dream of this kind was presented to this rash man.
[14] Further, how long their relics were preserved at Ceuta there is no one and then brought into Spain, who declares accurately. After some years into the church of St. Mary among the people of Morocco (to be founded there with the Roman rite
of a church, Wadding writes in volume 1 of the Annals at the year 1220, number 48, that the Miramolin gave the faculty to the Franciscan Fathers) Rodulphius of Tossignano, Wadding supporting him, affirms that they were translated, and shone with heavenly light, and some while after were carried thence again into Spain: But Mark of Lisbon (says Wadding at the year 1221, number 41), a Portuguese by race, makes no mention of this thing, nay writes that they are still preserved and honoured at Ceuta. Mark indeed is silent about their translation, whether to Morocco or into Spain, but he does not write that their relics are preserved and honoured at Ceuta, but that it is unknown where they lie hid. Only one Translation is mentioned by him who added these words of his own to the Acts written by the eyewitness: Then the son of the king of Portugal asked for them as a gift, and received them, and translated them into Spain. Peter, prince of Portugal, had the bodies of Berard and his Companions, Martyrs of the same Order, slain at Morocco in the year 1220, translated thence into Spain, as may be seen in their Acts brought into volume 2 of January of this Work at the sixteenth day of the same month: I fear, therefore, lest what can be said with truth of the Martyrs of Morocco has been wrongly transferred to those of Ceuta, and I doubt much whether the relics of those Martyrs were ever carried to Morocco. Nor is it sufficiently established who that son of the king of Portugal was, whose name I have found nowhere except in Baillet, cited by Benedict XIV, who affirms, but doubtfully, that he was Denis, son of Alfonso the Fat (nay, the III, not the II or the Fat). But although these circumstances of the translation are not undoubted, yet the translation itself ought not to be denied; which is asserted by the Franciscan Breviaries, the Pisan, Surius from the Vineyard of St. Francis, Rodulphius, Sedulius, Barrio, Gualtieri; Baillet, Benedict XIV On the Beatification of the Servants of God and the canonization of the Blessed, book 1, chapter 30, number 16, and many others. Nor is it so unusual that relics of the Saints perish, or are hidden, or escape the knowledge of men, either through a long course of years or through some sudden or unknown mishap. Besides, the memory of these Martyrs, on the testimony of Wadding, is greatly honoured in certain churches of the region of Entre-Douro-e-Minho in Portugal, and by name in that of Braga, the chief of that region, in which their proper Office was celebrated long ago: whence it will be, he says, no empty conjecture that somewhere in that tract, or in that very primitive shrine (he understands, as I think, the church of Braga), they are laid up unknown among the frequent and most celebrated relics.
[15] Moreover, that in the same Portugal God worked many miracles through the merits and intercession of these Martyrs, cult granted by Leo X, not only he who reduced the Acts of the Passion to the norm of the ecclesiastical Office, but not a few others also hand down: whence it came about that the common people began to venerate them and their images, and to celebrate a feast on the 8th day of October, as the author of the Vineyard of St. Francis writes: but greater was the scruple in that matter among the Franciscan Fathers, who thought it unlawful for themselves without having obtained the faculty from the Supreme Pontiff: animated therefore by the example of the common people, they asked that faculty for themselves of Leo X, and easily obtained it. This is clear from the letters of Leo X, which Wadding, already often praised, exhibits from their autograph thus: To our beloved sons the professed of the whole Order of Minors, especially of the Observance, wheresoever established. Pope Leo X. Beloved sons, greeting and Apostolic benediction. That your fruitful Order may rejoice in the precious fruits which it has produced; and that you, made stronger by the example of your own in the vocation in which you have been called, may follow Christ alone, whom you have taken up, and may fear no heavier things for Him, by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents, we grant to you and to each of you that in the churches of your houses you may freely and lawfully, publicly and solemnly, celebrate and say the Office of Martyrs of the Blessed Daniel, Angelus, Samuel, Donulus, Leo, Nicholas and Hugolinus, brothers of your Order, who deserved to undergo death for the name of Christ and to obtain the palm of martyrdom in the parts of the Saracens, under a greater double Office, on a day to be determined by your general chapter, every year, also in Masses and Litanies and other divine Offices, as of other Saints canonized by the Apostolic See, and to sing the proper legend in choir, in the churches of the houses, both of brothers and of nuns, subject to your care only, until it shall be come by us or our successors to the solemn canonization: and we more strictly forbid all and each of the Ordinaries of places, and other persons, to presume to molest or hinder you on this account. Moreover, because it would be difficult for the present letters to be carried to each and every place, we will that to their transcripts, subscribed by the hand of some public notary and fortified with the seal of the vicar general of your Order, altogether that credence be given which would be given to the presents if they were exhibited or shown. Notwithstanding the Apostolic constitutions and ordinations, and other things whatsoever to the contrary. Given at Florence under the ring of the Fisherman, on the 22nd day of January, 1516, in the 3rd year of our Pontificate.
[16] From these letters of Leo this is first evident, that the cult of the Martyrs of Ceuta granted by the Pontiff was restricted to the Franciscan family: and extended, then, that by force of them they cannot be said to be solemnly canonized, if we speak strictly; for which cause both Leo himself and lately Benedict XIV, On the Beatification of the Servants of God, etc., named them only Blessed: and since neither Leo nor any of his successors solemnly enrolled the same Martyrs in the number of the Saints, someone will perhaps ask why this title of Saints has been ascribed to them here? I answer that this was done not because they were solemnly enrolled in the register, but because their cult was extended to the whole Catholic world, when Leo X willed their Office to be inserted in the Roman Breviary, and indeed with this Prayer, in which they are expressly called Saints: O God, who grantest us to honour the birthdays of Thy Holy Martyrs Daniel and his Companions of the Order of Minors, grant us to rejoice in their fellowship in eternal beatitude. Through our Lord, etc.; which appellation ascribed to them you may read not only in the Roman Martyrology published by order of Gregory XIII and revised by the authority of Clement X, but Benedict himself also, in the new edition of the same Martyrology enlarged and corrected by him, left it untouched.
[17] It is likewise evident that by force of the same letters it lay with the Franciscan Fathers the feast transferred from the 10th to the 13th of October. to name the day on which the festivity of the Martyrs of Ceuta should be celebrated: and it pleased them first that this should be done on the 10th day of October, and so it was enacted in the general chapter held at Rouen in the same year (1516) by the Brothers of the Observance, and confirmed in the chapter of Burgos in the year 1523, and their legend was approved in the General Chapter at Assisi three years after: the same, as I think, which was inserted in the Roman Breviary of the year 1522 and is reprinted below. It seemed good to them afterwards to transfer that feast from the 10th day of October to the 13th, lest it should fall within the octave sacred to St. Francis. Pope Leo likewise seems to have done the same somewhat earlier; since the proper Office of those Martyrs occupies there the thirteenth day of the same month, with this rubric prefixed to it: By the institution of Leo X let the Office be made on the 13th of October. I have found their feast celebrated among the Franciscan Fathers sometimes under double rite, sometimes under double rite of the 2nd class; and indeed St. Benignus Fremaut writes in the Legend of these Martyrs that it was celebrated with an octave in various provinces both of Spain and of Portugal; from whom I likewise learn that the Capuchin Fathers of Belvedere or Blanda willed the church of their convent to be sacred to God under the invocation of St. Daniel, and that by his merits sight was restored to a blind man, and sailors were snatched from the greatest danger of captivity at sea by the enemies of the Christian name. Finally, Francesco Gonzaga, minister general of the Fathers Minor of the Observance, when in the year 1580 he divided the province of Calabria into two, decreed that to one of them, comprising Upper Calabria, the name of the province of the seven Brothers be given, as of its patrons, and that their effigies be carved on the greater seal of that province, on the testimony of Gonzaga himself.
ACTS OF SS. DANIEL, SAMUEL, ANGELUS, DOMNUS, LEO, NICHOLAS, AND HUGOLINUS, MARTYRS.
From the old Roman Breviary.
Daniel, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
Samuel, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
Angelus, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
Domnus, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
Leo, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
Nicholas, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
Hugolinus, martyr, of the Order of St. Francis, at Ceuta in Mauretania Tingitana. (S.)
BHL Number: 2094
IN THE YEAR 1221.
These seven holy martyrs, having landed from Aragon in Africa, At Ceuta, a city of the Saracens a, the Passion of SS. b Daniel, Angelus, Samuel, Donnus, Leo, Nicholas and Ugolinus c, who suffered in the aforesaid city in the year of the Lord 1221 d, on the sixth day before the Ides of October e. These, having obtained licence from Brother Elias f, minister general or vicar of Blessed Francis, departing from the parts of Tuscany g, came first to Tarragona, a city of Aragon, where Brother Daniel, who was prelate of the others, boarding a ship with only three h Brothers, leaving the others for a fitting cause i. When they had landed at Ceuta, a city of the Saracens k, they waited there until the other Brothers should come. Meanwhile Brother Daniel and the remaining Brothers preached the word of God to the Catholic men, Genoese, Pisans, Marseillais and very many others, who were then present there. And after some days the other Brothers, who had been left at Tarragona, landed at Ceuta on the day before the Kalends of October l m.
[2] about to carry the name of Christ in there, Brother Daniel, a religious and wise and discreet man (who had already been minister of the province of Calabria), and the other six aforesaid Brothers, fervent in Spirit, aiming with all their strength at the salvation of those infidels, did not fear to expose themselves to death, provided they could offer the wished-for fruit to God. And the aforesaid Brothers stayed with the Christian merchants in a certain village outside the walls of the aforesaid city, because it was not lawful for any of the Christians to enter the city without special licence of the Saracens. And on this account they wished to enter the city secretly, before their work should be perceived by anyone and they be hindered. On the sixth weekday n, therefore, treating secretly of the salvation of their own souls and those of others, they strengthened themselves, and on the following Saturday o, after Sacramental Confession, they received the Sacrament of the Eucharist, and, spending the following night sleepless, after the example of the Saviour one washed the feet of another, and they occupied themselves in divine conversations and prayers.
[3] Thus armed, therefore, the soldiers of Christ on the Lord's day [p] at earliest morning undertook the war. scarcely having entered Ceuta and been captured,
Entering the city secretly, through the middle of the square and among the crowds of the Saracens, crying out undaunted that there is no salvation in any other except in Christ Jesus. And, inflamed by the love of the Holy Spirit, they sent forth, crying out, fiery and admirable words of our faith and of divine love. But that savage and furious nation of the Saracens struck them on the heads, and afflicted them with many reproaches and blows. Then, captured and led before the king, heard by him through an interpreter, fervently announcing the things which are of the true faith and of the salvation of souls in Jesus Christ alone, and proving and persuading with many reasons (as is evident in their Epistle [q] to the Lord Hugh, senior priest of the Genoese), and that Mahomet and his law are deceitful and lead them to hell, they were ordered by the king himself to be committed to prison in iron chains, in which for eight days [r] they were macerated with many calamities and distresses [s].
[4] the Mahometan law being refuted, And on the eighth day, in the morning, which was the Lord's day, namely the sixth day before the Ides of October, 1221, the Brothers were brought to the aforesaid king, who, when he asked them whether they repented of the things which they had said against their law and Mahomet, and wished to retract them, all answered boldly that they wished to retract nothing at all, but, confirming, they proved that innumerable filthinesses and many things common to beasts were contained in their law, and showed Mahomet to be most vicious, and affirmed the law of our true God to be most virtuous and perfect and admirable, as being reprobative of all vices, assertive and inductive of the virtues and of all good morals, confirmed by portents and stupendous miracles (as is clearly evident in the New and the Old Testament); which never (though persecuted by whatever potentate, through innumerable deaths and slaughters of its faithful, resisting not with arms nor with any bodily strength) has failed to sprout and grow. Which could not be unless it were most true and of the true and omnipotent God. Nor believe that anyone can not [*] obtain happiness or beatitude unless, cleansed from vices and sins, they receive it from Him whose it is, who is God, three and one, Jesus Christ, who alone cleanses defiled souls and quiets them with true beatitude. Know therefore that neither you nor any of yours can be saved in the law which you hold. But from day to day you are defiled, blinded and hardened with vices on account of your continual sins. Recognize therefore the grace sent to you and yours, and be cleansed by the laver of baptism, that you may know the right way and walk by it.
[5] and the threats and blandishments of the Saracens being spurned, The Saracens, therefore, recognizing that they could not recall them by threats and terrors to the insanity of their faith, tried to draw them with blandishments and pleasures and the delights of bodies and venereal things. All which fervently rejecting, they proved them to be greatly depraved from rational nature, and made as it were brute animals, since such things lord it over them and rule them, and so not lords, as God and also nature has established you, but you are proved to have been made bought slaves of such insensible things [t]. For rational nature ought to lord it over such things, and not the contrary: to lead and to rule, and not to be led or ruled by such things, as beasts do. In this, therefore, you show that you have been made brute animals. Which truly the Holy Spirit affirms by the mouth of David, saying in Psalm 48: "Man, when he was in honour, did not understand: for he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them."
[6] Then the Saracens, furious and bestial, seeing that they could not recall them even by these things, they are condemned to death, threaten and menace death: But God, blessed, so strengthened their constancy that they aimed at death for Christ with all their strength, and most fervently proclaimed that Christ is the son of God, and that Mahomet and his followers have been plunged and are continually plunged into hell. Then a certain wicked swordsman, coming with anger to Brother Daniel, the prelate of the others, struck him on the head with a sword, saying that unless he became a Saracen he would kill him at once. And to this likewise the judge, Arbaldus by name [u], and a certain other old man exhorted them, saying: Why do you wish to lose the sweetness of the present life? Take up the faith and law of Mahomet, and you will have life and honours in the world. Then Brother Daniel said against that elder: O thou that art grown old in evil days, how long wilt thou be deceived by the error of Satan? Thy Mahomet is a minister of Satan, and to all following him is a cause of eternal death. Do thou rather be converted to the true Catholic faith, that thou mayest be saved, because thou hast been deceived enough by the error of the law of thy Mahomet. And when the judge had caused swords to be brandished against them for terror, and had found them most firm, he gave sentence that they should by all means be beheaded.
[7] which most gladly Then the six Brothers, exulting with great joy, and desiring to suffer many other things for Christ, considering that by so small a punishment they were to obtain so great a reward and gifts, such inestimable joys, leapt with no small gladness. And on the other side, inebriated with divine love, desiring to give up altogether their limbs and bowels in torments for Christ, they burned with excessive fervour of suffering. And all, with knees fixed on the ground, gave thanks to God that He had caused them to be numbered among His servants, that He deigned to lead them to the heavenly and inestimable joys, and had decreed to set them among the choirs of the Martyrs and of the Angels, that He had destined them to eternal life and infinite gladness, that He had kindled them for His name in suffering and in the vow of suffering, and had led them by a little torment to so inestimable a palm. We praise Thee therefore, O Lord almighty, of infinite goodness, of infinite clemency and mercy, and infinitely praiseworthy in Thy wonderful works.
[8] and with cheerful mind Afterwards, turned to Brother Daniel, they kissed his hands and feet, saying: We give thee thanks, Father, because thou hast been to us a good pastor and leader; bless thy sons. Who, embracing and kissing them all, blessed them: Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating a festal day, because we pass from death to eternal life, from sadness to unspeakable gladness, from mourning to inestimable joy, from darkness into admirable brightness, from blindness to most limpid vision, from ignorance to the highest wisdom, from misery to most delightful exultation, from heaviness and weight to delightful agility and subtlety, from servitude to a kingdom and dominion, from labour and distresses to rest and tranquillity, and briefly from innumerable calamities to infinite happiness.
[9] [they undergo: the relics of the beheaded, soon collected by the Christians, were afterwards carried over into Spain.] Then the soldiers of Jesus, stripped by the servants and with their hands bound behind their backs, bearing the reproach of Christ, led out of the royal hall outside the city, were led like lambs to death. And they, as if invited to a banquet, hastened with burning and exulting mind to the punishment of death. And when they had been led to the place of slaughter, by the hands of the wicked, their sacred heads being cut, they were beheaded and delivered to the Lord their most blessed souls purpled with blood. Nor by these things were the ministers of the devil appeased, but, we seeing it [x], they shattered their heads, [*] dragging their bodies through the city they tore them limb from limb, and handed them over to boys and other Saracens for mockery, so that thus before death, and in death, and after death they might be glutted with their reproaches. Afterwards their bodies were miraculously collected by Christians, and honourably laid up among the faithful in the Alfundega, that is, in the village of the Genoese [y], Marseillais and Pisans, where by their merits frequent miracles have been done. Then the son of the king of Portugal asked for them as a gift, and received them, and translated them into Spain, through whose suffrages God works many miracles to His glory and honour [z].
ANNOTATIONS.
p. On the 3rd day of October; here again Marianus agrees with the Acts as regards the Lord's day; but it is to be referred to the 10th day of October, if he wrote true things.
q. See it at number 11 of the preliminary Commentary.
r. The same Marianus writes: abiding therefore by his words, not before the 17th day of October (which you would read nowhere else) were the Martyrs drawn to the punishment of death, which, with the day of their death asserted by him, of the same month the thirteenth,
does not cohere.
s. At that time the Martyrs were seen to be surrounded with heavenly light, as Wadding, after others, writes; but Marianus says that it happened while, not yet having entered Ceuta, they were staying with the European merchants; the spectacle could have been repeated.
t. Read: Sensibilium.
u. The Africans sometimes use appellative names as proper ones: so they called their kings Miramolins, that is, princes of the believers, after the manner of the Egyptians, to whose kings the name Pharaoh was common: and Arbaldus or Astaldus, as Rodulphius of Tossignano writes in the book of the Seraphic History, folio 74 verso, means in Arabic the same as judge or prefect.
x. These are the words of an eyewitness, and perhaps of Marianus of Genoa himself, if he gave any epistle to Elias about the contest of the Holy Martyrs.
y. This word properly signifies a public Warehouse; it seems to be used here for the place in which the European merchants laid up their merchandise, situated not far from Ceuta.
z. What is said here about the relics of the Martyrs translated into Spain, or rather into Portugal, by the royal prince of Portugal is to be read generally among the Franciscan writers: Rodulphius, however, says that no certain monument exists about that matter in the books of the Order, except the ancient Chronicle which he praises. That it is not known where they now lie hid has been said in the preliminary Commentary: Barrio, however, writes that a Cardinal of Aragon (you have a Cardinal of this name, created in the year 1478 and died in the year 1485, mentioned in volume 1 of April, page 114, in the Annotations; another, who was in the fourteenth century, in volume 3 of the Writers of Italian Affairs, page 436) sent some relics of SS. Daniel and Angelus into Calabria; but he adds: as it is said. Moreover, all the things which follow from these words, Then the son of the king, etc., up to the end, I think were sewn on to these Acts when about the year 1515 or 1522 they were reduced to the norm of the ecclesiastical Office.
[] delete: non*
[] conquassarunt*