ON BL. RUDOLF, HERMIT OF FONTE AVELLANA AND THEN BISHOP OF GUBBIO, IN ITALY, AND ON HIS BROTHER BL. PETER, LIKEWISE A HERMIT OF FONTE AVELLANA,
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Rudolf, hermit of Fonte Avellana and bishop of Gubbio, in Italy. (Bl.)
Peter, hermit of Fonte Avellana, in Italy. (Bl.)
V. D. B.
§ I. The antiquity of the cult of Blessed Rudolf, and its lesser celebrity.
Blessed Rudolf, about whose holiness Henschenius's opinion varied, Among those passed over there has already been talk several times
of Blessed Rudolf, and things have been said in altogether various ways. At
the 1st day of June Act. SS., vol. I of June, p. 6, on which in Ménard, in the
Benedictine Martyrology, his name appears with
the title of Saint added, Henschenius notes that he
is also called Saint by Wion, book II, among the bishops of Gubbio,
but that Ughelli seems not to approve it,
since he abstains from every title of Saint or Blessed;
nevertheless that he would be spoken of in the Acta Sanctorum
at the 26th of June, as was thought the day of his death. At
this day, further Ibid., vol. V of June, p. 155, the same Henschenius, reporting
that Rudolf is praised as a Saint by Ferrari and Bucelin,
passes him over again, since he held
that this was done by them only for this reason, that the editor of the works
of St. Damian had called the latter's letter to Alexander
II the Life of SS. Rudolf and Dominic; which
authority he held to be none; and that the people of Gubbio, far from
venerating him as a Saint, do not even honour him
with this appellation. But the same Hagiographer, at the 23rd
of February Ibid., vol. III of February, p. 407, recounting the disciples of Blessed Peter Damian enrolled
among the Saints, puts in the first place St. Rudolf,
bishop of Gubbio, venerated on the 26th day of June. From which
opinion it is plain that he departed for no other reason
than that he thought that he was not held a Saint by the people of Gubbio,
since Ughelli did not honour him with this appellation.
[2] and whom Ughelli confused with Theudald, But in truth the authority of Ughelli here is none,
and so it is erroneous that Rudolf is not numbered by the people of Gubbio
among the Saints; so that there was no
weight of reason on account of which Henschenius should depart from
his first opinion. For as regards Ughelli,
who would wonder (as the historian of the bishops of Gubbio,
Mauro Sarti, says [Mauri Sartii monachi et cancellarii Camaldulensis de episcopis Eugubinis, Pesaro, 1755, p. 48]), who
would wonder that Ughelli abstains from every title of honour,
since he refers to Theudald, Rudolf's predecessor,
Cf. Papebroch, Comment. on St. Ubald, n. 9, vol. IV of May, p. 630 the things which were written by St. Peter
Damian to Alexander II about Rudolf himself? This slip
of Ughelli is to be excused, not a prejudice to be created for St. Rudolf
from his authority. The same Sarti,
a most apt witness indeed, repels the other dart also
in these words Ibid., p. 49: Certainly, as to what they say (namely Henschenius),
that Rudolf is not called Saint by the people of Gubbio;
that indeed is utterly false, for not only by the
people of Gubbio, but by almost all other writers he is adorned with the appellation of Saint and
Blessed.
[3] already in the 14th and 15th centuries he was called saint; And certainly that this was done more than a hundred years before
the most celebrated decrees of Urban VIII
is beyond doubt. For Guerniero Berni of Gubbio,
who flourished under Federico III, count of Montefeltro,
and afterwards first duke of Urbino, and who, as commander of a cohort
of soldiers, long proved his fidelity and fortitude amid the hazards of wars
[Muratori, in the preface to the Chronicon Eugubinum, Scriptt. rer. Italic., vol. XXI, p. 919], twice calls our Rudolf
in his Chronicle of Gubbio San Ridolfo Saint Rudolf,
no otherwise than he shows San Giovanni da Lodi Saint John of Lodi and
Santo Ubaldo Saint Ubald Chron. Eug., vol. cit., 921. After he has recalled, namely,
the devastation of Gubbio and the restoration begun,
he writes these things in Italian Ibid., l. c.: Afterwards Saint Rudolf, who
built the hermitage of the holy Cross of Avellana, a holy man
and of harsh life, was created bishop of Gubbio by the Pope;
who, when he was 30 years of age,
passed to Christ. Saint Rudolf having died,
etc. Since he dedicated this Chronicle in the year 1472 to Federico
III, it follows that Rudolf was already
at that time commonly called San Ridolfo.
Nay, one may ascend a whole century higher, since
Griffolino Valeriani, a writer of the 14th century Sarti, de Episc. Eugubin., pref., p. CXXXVI,
cited by the Camaldolese Annalists Mittarelli and
Costadoni Ann. Camal., book V, n. IX, vol. I, p. 186, treating of the disciples of Blessed Ludolf, founder of the hermitage
of the Holy Cross of Fonte Avellana, speaks in this
way of Blessed Rudolf and others: There fled,
he says De Gestis Eugubi. historia Ms., p. LXX, to the Blessed one (Ludolf) Barioncius,
Divitius, Quintianus and other nobles of Gubbio,
who lived most holily in that hermitage, and
some were bishops and praised for Holiness, namely
Julian, Theobald, Rudolf, Peter Damian,
Mainard, another Julian, Teubald, etc. But that
there are no more ancient monuments which could likewise
be called into testimony, we need not wonder,
since of the bishops of Gubbio almost nothing written
survives Sarti, de Episc. Eugub., pref., p. CXXXVI, not even catalogues a little older.
[4] with which title he is adorned here and there by more recent writers. Let no one therefore be astonished that Wion, Ménard, Ferrari, Bucelin and others have inscribed Rudolf in their sacred calendars. What is more, Surius at the 26th day of June De vitis probatis sanctorum, volume 6, page 344. and Mabillon at the year 1063 [Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, sæculum 6, part II, page 152 and following.] published the letter of St. Peter Damian to Pope Alexander II, the former under the title of the Life of Saint Rudolf, the latter under the title of the Life of Blessed Rudolf, bishop of Gubbio, and of the Venerable Peter his brother, monks of Fonte Avellana. Jacobilli Sancti Umbriæ, at the 26th of June. likewise, Herrera [Vidas de Santos, etc. de la sagrada religion de N. P. S. Benito, at the 1st and 26th day of June.], and Basilius Duvergius or Duverchius Diarium, oder Camaldulensisches Tag-Buch, at the 26th day of June. celebrate him with due encomium and set him forth with the appellation of Saint. Finally Sarti De Episcopis Eugubinis, page 47 and following., the historian of the bishops of Gubbio praised above, and after him Mittarelli and Costadoni Annales Camaldulenses, book 17, number 12, volume II, page 211 and following., the most excellent writers of the Camaldolese Annals, contend of set purpose for the title of Saint given here and there to Rudolf.
[5] Yet he is not venerated in the churches at Fonte Avellana and Gubbio; It must be confessed, however, that the chief argument on which the Camaldolese Annalists Ibid., in the place cited. rely is altogether frail. For in refuting Henschen, who had said that Rudolf obtained no cult among the people of Gubbio, they set against him Jacobilli Sancti Umbriæ, volume I, page 660., who affirms that his body was placed upon an altar erected in his honour, where he is venerated even today, and that he shone with many signs and prodigies; and who, in the catalogue he appended of the more notable relics of the Saints preserved in Umbria, records the following Ibid., volume III, at the end, page 4.: In the cathedral church of the city of Gubbio rest the sacred bodies of Marianus, lector, and James, deacon, martyrs, to whom the said church is dedicated; likewise of Saints Fructuosus and Rudolf, and of the Blessed Theobald and Villanus, bishops of the same see. This passage had been praised by Henschen himself in the sylloge on Blessed Fortis at the 9th day of May Volume III of May, page 464.. But Sarti, a witness above all exception, confesses with the candour of his mind that these are so many fictions. But, he says De Episcopis Eugubinis, page 45., there is no altar in the church of Gubbio, no memorial of his body, nothing ever heard of miracles divinely wrought through his merits; so that it is a wonder that this good writer, not from depravity of mind, as I think, but from a certain ill-advised zeal of piety, serving up these things and others like them here and there in his books, did not fear, I will not say the censure of the learned, but the derision of all men, who could with no trouble have detected and hissed off such splendid lies. And immediately afterwards, beginning to speak of the hermitage of Fonte Avellana Ibid., in the place cited.: Nor in that place, he says, is there any monument of the holy man, just as there is not even one of the many most holy men who in those first times closed their last day in that place, if you except only St. Albertinus, whose body is most religiously preserved in the church of Avellana. This testimony is likewise beyond doubt, since Sarti completed his work for the greatest part in the hermitage of Avellana Ibid., Preface, LXXXV.. In a few words, he concedes that it can scarcely be proved that he always obtained in the church of Gubbio the cult owed to the blessed in heaven, since not even in his own times was any public cult paid him in that church, although he was commonly called Saint by the writers of Gubbio and of other nations Ibid., page 45..
[6] Yet hence we are not forbidden to call him Blessed, But indeed, although these things are so, since he now nevertheless enjoys true ecclesiastical cult in the very city of Rome, since for at least two centuries before the Urbanian decrees he was here and there called Saint, since Benedict XIV himself designates him by this title [De Canonizatione Sanctorum, book IV, part I, chapter V, number I, volume IV, page 22, Venice, 1788. Likewise De Synodo diœcesana, book III, chapter VI, number 4, volume XI, page 81.], I do not see how a place in our work could be denied him, especially after Surius and Mabillon (who had far fewer arguments at hand for doing so) published his Life among the Acts of the Saints.
[7] especially since he and his brother Bl. Peter have an altar at Rome, That ecclesiastical cult was paid him at Rome, moreover, there is a perpetual testimony in the altar which the Gabrielli family raised in the year 1740 in the church of the Camaldolese of St. Gregory in the City to Rudolf and to others whom it held to be sprung from its line, and on which it caused this inscription to be placed [Sarti, De Episcopis Eugubinis, page 51, and Mittarelli, Annales Camaldulenses, at the year 1740, book LXXX, number 22, volume VIII, page 661.]:
TO GOD, BEST AND GREATEST.
TO THE BLESSED * RUDOLF, BISHOP OF GUBBIO, PETER HIS BROTHER GERMAN,
FORTIS THE HERMIT,
MONKS OF THE MONASTERY OF THE HOLY CROSS OF FONTE AVELLANA,
AND CASTORA, WIDOW OF THE THIRD ORDER OF ST. FRANCIS,
RENOWNED FOR VIRTUES,
FORTE VALLETTA, FORMERLY GABRIELLI, PATRICIAN OF GUBBIO,
COUNT OF BACCARESCA AND OF CORRADUZZI,
AND ISABELLA VALLETTA, NOBLE OF ROME AND OF SEZZE, HUSBAND AND WIFE, *
TO THEIR KINSFOLK,
IN THE CENTENARY YEAR OF BLESSED FORTIS, 1740,
SET UP THIS MONUMENT
OF PIETY AND VENERATION.
Nor must it be thought that these things were procured secretly; for they were done a few years before that same Gabrielli was wholly engaged in having the cult of Blessed Fortis confirmed by apostolic authority De Episcopis Eugubinis, Preface, page XCV.; and he rejoiced that these efforts were at length crowned with a happy end in the year 1756 [Annales Camaldulenses, at the year 1756, book LXX X, number 62, volume VIII, page 698.]. Since therefore the Holy See, or at least the Sacred Congregation of Rites, tolerates these things, what follows from this may be understood from what Benedict XIV has where he treats of the glory surrounding the head of Alexander II, Gregory VII and other pontiffs, and of the title of Saint ascribed to them in the chapel of St. Nicholas. For he says that these things suffice for those to whom such honour is granted to be held among those to whom some cult in a determined place is permitted; which cult, however, unless it be subsequently increased, can constitute neither formal nor equipollent canonization; and accordingly he himself thence deduces the antiquity of the cult of St. Gregory VII [De servorum Dei beatificatione et canonizatione, book I, chapter XLI, number 19 and following.]. Wherefore, since this permission of a determined cult has the character of beatification, I see nothing by which we are prevented from ascribing the title of Blessed to Rudolf and to his brother Peter. Hence we shall also call Pope Alexander II, who will occur rather often, Blessed.
[8] and since there was seriously a question of granting an Office in his honour. Moreover, the history must be considered of what was done from the year 1656 that an ecclesiastical office of Blessed Rudolf might be granted by apostolic authority. Namely, on the 18th day of February a petition was presented to the Sacred Congregation of Rites by Odoardo Baranardo, procurator general of the Camaldolese order, in which was sought the faculty of reciting the office of St. Romuald on every unimpeded Tuesday, and moreover proper lessons of the Camaldolese Saints Albert of Siena, Peter Damian, Parisius, Theobald, Dominic Loricatus, the Polish Martyrs John, Benedict, Matthew, Isaac and Christinus, and also of Boniface, archbishop, Martyr and Apostle of the Ruthenians. At the beginning of the following month of March a decree came forth, by which the request concerning St. Romuald was rejected, and to the other, concerning proper lessons, it was answered that the lessons themselves must first be shown and submitted to examination. The contagion which came upon the City drew the matter out for many months, both under Baranardo and under Tiburzio Buffa, who acted in the place of the absent procurator general. Thence it came about that Tiburzio meanwhile added lessons of Saint Rudolf, bishop of Gubbio, and proposed certain other things to be changed or added in the celebration of the offices, with the consent and approval of the secretary Febei, and especially proper hymns and antiphons for the feast of St. Boniface, for the office of St. Rudolf and for another of the Holy Polish Martyrs. When the scourge of the plague ceased, in the following year, in the month of April, the matter was taken in hand again, especially because Wadding, appointed examiner by the cardinal ponens Girolamo Colonna, had raised many difficulties; namely, that the Saints for whom proper lessons were sought in the office did not certainly belong to the Camaldolese order; nor were all inscribed in the Roman Martyrology; nor did the lessons breathe the gravity of the ecclesiastical style; and finally, that proper hymns were the more difficult to grant; nor were objections of the promoter of the faith wanting; whence, since delays were knitted on to delays, on the 17th day of November the Camaldolese restricted their requests to the Saints, as Mittarelli speaks, better known and above all exception, and in the month of March of the year 1658 they presented to the Sacred Congregation of Rites more correct offices of the Saints inserted in the Roman Martyrology [Annales Camaldulenses, book LXXVII, number 12, volume VIII, page 361 and following.].
[9] The Saints from the orders of hermits were sparingly venerated. Nevertheless nothing was then accomplished; but afterwards, at various times, the Camaldolese obtained the confirmation of cult and proper lessons for Saints Albert of Siena, Peter Damian, Parisius, Theobald, Dominic Loricatus, the Polish Martyrs and Boniface; and since these were sought and granted one by one, but nothing further, so far as I know, was attempted for St. Rudolf, hence it comes about that the opinion of the secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Rites remains intact, who judged that the honour with which they had hitherto attended Rudolf was enough for him to be honoured also with a proper ecclesiastical office. And indeed, in truth, one must not deal rigidly with the Saints of the Camaldolese order, of Avellana and the like, who above all professed the eremitical life; for whether they wished to avoid the concourse of the people, easily stirred up by the cult of the Saints, or for other reasons, it seems to have been fixed and settled among them to promote with lesser zeal the honour of the Saints of their own community; so much so that Saints whose cult now prevails most widely had, two centuries ago, neither altars fortified with their patronage, nor names inscribed in Martyrologies, nor their relics exposed for veneration; but all their cult was reduced to this, that they were called by the title of Saints and that some painted panel or statue was erected to them in a more honourable place: which thing, however, in no way prevented Henschen and Papebroch from inserting into the Acts of the Saints many to whose memory not so great an honour was shown as to St. Rudolf. Wherefore, embracing the earlier opinion of Henschen, we shall now speak of him on this day, on which his memory is recalled in the Hagiology
of Italy, and which cannot be far distant from the day of his death, as the reader himself will easily gather from what we shall discuss in §3.
AnnotataSarti omits Beatis* to the Blessed.
Mittarelli: conjux* husband/wife, in the singular.
§ II. The principal writings concerning Bl. Rudolf and Bl. Peter; their family; a castle changed into a monastery; their conversion.
[St. Peter Damian wrote an encomium of Bl. Rudolf and Bl. Peter, by no means with a view to canonization;] And first, indeed, it seems that something should be said of the sources from which almost everything that is known of Blessed Rudolf and his brother Peter is drawn. In the first place comes the letter of St. Peter Damian to Blessed Pope Alexander II, in which he touches summarily on the principal heads of Blessed Rudolf and of his brother Peter, following the manner of an encomiast rather than of a historian. This writing, however, is above all exception, since that most holy man had been the master of both, and was therefore an excellent witness. After the Life of Blessed Rudolf, St. Peter Damian added the Life of Blessed Dominic Loricatus, who had died the year before. Our predecessors have already published it at the 14th day of October, on which the memory of this Blessed [Acta Sanctorum, volume VI of October, page 626, number 14. Works of St. Peter Damian, volume II, page 214, edition of 1664. Mabillon, Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, sæculum VI, part II, page 148.] is celebrated; and in this part, not in that which concerns Blessed Rudolf, there occurs a certain phrase which Benedict XIV brought into his very great work, writing thus [De Canonizatione Sanctorum, book IV, part II, chapter V, number 2, volume IV of the Works, page 22, Venice 1788.]: Blessed Peter Damian, in letter 19 to Pope Alexander II, who was seeking miracles to establish the sanctity of St. Rudolf, bishop of Gubbio, gave this answer: "You who seek a miracle, does it not seem to you a marvellous thing that a man, still encompassed by frail flesh, should live (so to speak) angelically, so that among very many thousands of men you could scarcely find one like him?" But a threefold error is here admitted; for, first, these words pertain not to Blessed Rudolf but to Blessed Dominic; next, so far was Alexander from seeking miracles to establish the sanctity of either, that he was ignorant both of their holy life and of their death, and so the most holy writer narrates their blessed passing as a new thing; thirdly, finally, these words are not directed to Blessed Alexander, but to any reader whatever; nay, the first words of this passage run thus In the places cited above.: But here someone perhaps may refute me, who, namely, hastens to hear not so much what order of living the holy man had, but by what miracles he shone in this life, etc. For the rest, from the very preamble it will be more than sufficiently known to the reader that the occasion of this writing was altogether other than the preparation of a process of canonization, as we now speak.
[11] Sarti, Mittarelli and Costadoni have likewise learnedly set forth their deeds. In the second place comes Mauro Sarti, a Camaldolese, who, author of many most praiseworthy works, published at Pesaro in the year 1755, from the Gavelli press, the commentary on the Bishops of Gubbio already cited so often, which is preceded by a dissertation on the city and church of Gubbio. There is no need for me to celebrate the praises of this man, which anyone will easily find in Mittarelli [Annales Camaldulenses, book LXXX, number 61, volume VIII, page 696 and following.], Ziegelbauer Centifolium Camaldulense, page 39., and, following Tiraboschi, Fantuzzi and other Italians, in de Angelis Biographie Universelle, volume XL, page 439 and following., and also in Feller Dictionnaire Historique, under the word Sarti.. In this work on the bishops of Gubbio, in which he shows himself throughout a sagacious man, skilled in antiquities and of much candour, he brings to the balance all the more obscure passages of the life of Blessed Rudolf and of the deeds done by him, by no means content to touch the surface of things. In the third place come the two writers of the Camaldolese Annals, Mittarelli and Costadoni, who are reckoned among the most learned Italian writers of the last century. It is not pleasing to discuss them again at greater length, since their praises are to be found in Ziegelbauer Centifolium, page 33. and Feller Dictionnaire Historique, under the words Costadoni and Mittarelli. cited before, and also in the Biographie Universelle Volume X, page 51, and volume XXIX, page 181 and following.. And since these came after Sarti and brought everything again to examination, everyone will see that there are aids enough at hand for proceeding with a firm step.
[12] It has not yet been proved that they belong to the Gabrielli family; From the inscription which we published above at number 7, it is clear that the Gabrielli family, originating from Gubbio, counts among its own Blessed Rudolf and his brother Blessed Peter, Blessed Fortis, whose life Henschen published at the 9th day of May Volume III of May, page 464., and also Blessed Castora, whose deeds Henschen likewise illustrated at the 14th day of June Volume III of June, page 1006., and an anonymous writer at Rome in the year 1732 Compare Sarti, De Episcopis Eugubinis, preface, page XCII.. Sarti concedes that Blessed Castora was of the Gabrielli line Ibid., in the place cited.; of Blessed Fortis he seems to doubt Ibid., page XCV.; but of Blessed Rudolf and his brother he denies it in plain words. For see how he discourses of his homeland, his family and his youth: And as to the homeland of Rudolf, he says Ibid., page 33 and following., everything is uncertain. There are not wanting those who would have him a native of Gubbio and even assign him to the Gabrielli family [Jacobilli, De Sanctis Umbriæ, volume I, at the 26th of June. Vincenzo Armanni, Letters, volume I, page 700.], which has been most illustrious in that city for many centuries now. But these things, supported by no suffrage of antiquity, are rejected. For Peter Damian, the only one we have who has handed down anything in writing about this excellent bishop, is silent on these matters. Picotti, a writer of the histories of Gubbio Manuscripts of them were extant in the archive of Armanni., having learned on the authority of Damian that a very strongly fortified castle had been given by Rudolf to the Avellanites when he came to the hermitage, interprets it of the castle of Campetri, which was formerly on the farthest borders of the territory of Gubbio, about five miles from the hermitage of Avellana towards the north-east, where some traces of it are extant, and the old name persists, and the Avellanites have an ancient church sacred to St. Peter, whence perhaps the name Campetri flowed, as though it were called the castle of Peter.
[13] the little story of Bl. Rudolf's conversion is rejected; This little story, moreover, either invented by himself or received from others, Picotti narrates. For when Rudolf held the ancestral lordship of this castle, and, according to the custom of the times, often carried on grave enmities with his neighbours, it once happened that, conquered in arms, and his land laid waste by hostile ravaging, his flocks driven off, and his crops either carried away or burnt and spoiled, he was reduced to the utmost want of provisions. His spirit was not broken by the calamity, but he nevertheless took a counsel unworthy of himself. He resolved to beset the roads round about, so that if anyone should unwarily convey any provisions through those places near the castle of Campetri, he might make an attack upon him and intercept whatever it was. It happened, however, that the muleteers of the monks of Avellana, who were carrying a great quantity of flour to Avellana, fell into his ambush. When this was announced to the Avellanites, those most gentle men were so far from thinking of avenging the injury that, since it was no secret what Rudolf's want was, they sent him many more sacks of flour even than had been taken away, asking him to regard what he had taken before and what they were sending him as a help of provisions in place of a little gift. The example of such charity and kindness is said to have moved Rudolf's savage spirit; and when from that time he had begun to entertain sounder counsels, having made peace with his neighbours on most equitable terms, and having brought his two brothers together with his mother to the same mind, he resolved to bid farewell to earthly things. And so, having given all his slaves their freedom and offered the castle of Campetri with all its estates to the Avellanites, he embraced that austere rule of life with his brothers under the discipline of Damian. Thus, in substance, Picotti, mixing many falsehoods with truths.
[14] he did not give the castle of Campetri to the Avellanites, For if you take away, Sarti continues, what we receive from Damian about Rudolf's conversion and the offering of his very strongly fortified castle, I do not know whence he fished up the rest. I think from the vain rumour of the common people and an old wives' little tradition, which also came my way more than once when I was in those places; which Picotti willingly took up and, adorning it with words, transferred to Rudolf. I judge it a mere fiction, for it both lacks the legitimate testimony of an ancient author, and the castle of Campetri does not occur in the older records of the Avellanites. It is only established that at the beginning of the 13th century the Avellanites held three of the ten parts of that castle; the remaining seven parts belonged to the people of Gubbio, concerning which matter we shall have to speak in the antiquities of Avellana. But what of the fact that Peter Damian in the letter praised narrates that a colony of monks was brought by him into that castle which he had received from Rudolf and his brothers? But of any monastery at the place of Campetri it has been possible to find not only no certain monument, but not even the slightest indication, although the memory of that place is most frequent in the records of Avellana from the beginning of the 13th century down to our own age. Picotti's little fable must therefore be hissed off. Thus far Sarti.
[15] but probably Camporeggiano; Mittarelli and Costadoni wholly approve these things, and add the following Annales Camaldulenses, book XIV, number 23, volume II, page 147.: It bears a greater appearance of truth, although it is not clearly established to us, that the monastery built on Rudolf's possession was that of St. Bartholomew in Camporegio or Camporeggiano in the diocese of Gubbio, which Jacobilli asserted was built in the year 1053 by Peter Damian. Not once only does Damian bring in mention of the monastery of Camporeggiano, and he calls it his own monastery. In the letter to John Book VI, letter XXV, volume I of the Works, page 99., a monk, about the year 1061, he names Richard rector of the monastery which bears the name of Camporizano, and in the letter to Moricus, doctor of laws Book VIII, letter X, volume I of the Works, page 131., he calls the same Richard prior of our monastery; and in the letter to the margrave Rainerius Book VII, letter XVII, volume I of the Works, pages 118 and 119. *he calls him our brother and fellow-monk Richard, of religious life and honourable gravity. These things show that the assertion of Jacobilli, nay also of Lancellotti, is true, namely that the monastery of Camporeggiano owes its beginnings to Damian. But whether it lay on Rudolf's possession is not altogether ascertained; this we know, that the monastery of St. Bartholomew was founded at the castle or fortress of Camporegio in the territory of Gubbio and
that Rudolf handed over to Damian a place situated on his possession, or a castle girt with impregnable fortification, that a monastery might be built there. The lords of the castle of Camporeggiano willed in the year 1350 that the whole castle itself should be subject to the monastery of Avellana. Add that Lancellotti is an excellent witness, since the monastery of Camporeggiano afterwards became one of the Olivetan congregation [Sarti, De Episcopis Eugubinis, preface, page LXXXV, and in the work, page 131 and following.], and he himself wrote its history. From him Historia Olivetana*, book II, number 50, page 308. we note moreover that this monastery was called not only of Camporegio or of Camporeggiano, but is also found in the records as of Camporiano, and also that the name of the abbot or prior who presided over it in the year 1053 is known, namely John. Moreover, that year 1053, in which according to Ludovico Jacobilli this monastery was also founded, agrees well enough with the time at which Blessed Rudolf and Blessed Peter laid aside the secular life, as we shall soon see.
§ III. The time of the death of Bl. Rudolf and of Bl. Dominic Loricatus, connected with the year of the death of Hugh I, archbishop of Besançon.
[The principal documents on which the various opinions about the year of Bl. Rudolf's death rest.] On the testimony of St. Peter Damian See below, number 7., Blessed Rudolf, when he seemed scarcely thirty years old, more or less, passed from this unhappy light to the author of the true light. Next, this death was recent when St. Peter wrote his letter; for he has See number 2.: Having therefore lately gone out from you, when I came beneath the walls of the city of Florence, a sudden messenger soon met me … namely, that the bishop of Gubbio was dead. Thirdly, Blessed Rudolf died about a year after Blessed Dominic Loricatus, as the same St. Peter testifies at the beginning of the life of Blessed Dominic, saying Acta Sanctorum, volume VI of October, page 621.: Dominic, therefore, the man of God, my father and lord, died a year ago, namely on a Saturday Ibid., page 627, number 19., on the day before the Ides of October, as the printed life or the oft-mentioned Letter of St. Peter Damian has Ibid., number 20., but on the fourth day before the Ides of September according to the Necrology of Avellana, which has at this day Annales Camaldulenses, volume VII, appendix, column 367.: Died the lord Dominic Loricatus, recluse, venerable hermit. We know moreover that this death occurred while St. Peter was staying at Rome; for he says Acta Sanctorum, volume VI of October, page 627, number 19.: On the third day after I went out from the walls of Rome, behold, a report met me … that Dominic had lately gone out of this world; and finally, that the said letter of St. Peter was written a few days after the 28th of October, since we read in it Ibid., page 626, number 16.: On the festival of the Blessed Apostles Simon and Jude, which we have very lately celebrated. For the rest, the extreme limits of the time within which this writing could have been composed are taken from the pontificate of Blessed Alexander II, who was enthroned in the autumn of the year 1061; concerning which matter more will be discussed.
[17] Bl. Rudolf did not die in the year 1067, as Grandi would have it; From so many chronological notes compared with one another, the most excellent writers have put together various systems. Namely Grandi Dissertationes Camaldulenses, number IV, page 129., a distinguished writer among the Camaldolese on historical and mathematical matters Ziegelbauer, Centifolium Camaldulense, page 23 and following., since the day of Blessed Dominic's death, or Saturday, could agree with the 14th day of October only in the year 1060 or 1066, determined that Blessed Rudolf (who died one year after) met this lot in the year 1067, and not in the year 1061; which year he excludes because he supposes Blessed Rudolf to have died on the 26th day of June; whence he would have to be said to have died some time before the pontificate of Blessed Alexander II, while nevertheless the writing of Blessed Peter Damian suggests an altogether different mind. But that day of death rests on the sole assertion of Wion and on no older monument Acta Sanctorum, volume VI of October, page 618., and it militates (if the whole writing be read attentively) equally against the year 1067 and any other as against the year 1061, in that his master St. Peter would have learned of Blessed Rudolf's death only four months afterwards. Which difficulty, as long as it is admitted that Blessed Rudolf died at the end of the month of June, will remain the same on every supposition.
[18] but in the year 1061, as is more commonly held, The second opinion, which is defended by Ottavio Turchi, canon of Apiro [Vita S. Dominici Loricati, preliminary dissertation, § II, page 47 and following. Compare Sarti, pages 36 and 54.], by Mittarelli and Costadoni Annales Camaldulenses, book XVI, number 29, volume II, page 225 and elsewhere. and above all by Siard van Dyck Acta Sanctorum, volume VI of October, page 617 and following., refers Rudolf's death to the month of October of the year 1061, and turns to its own advantage, first, that it savours more of simplicity and nature that St. Peter should mention for the first time the charge given him by Blessed Alexander II to write of serious matters worthy of perpetual memory, than that he should do so after he had sent many other letters to the same; secondly, that it is established from St. Peter Damian that Rudolf's episcopate was very brief, since his monastic life together with his episcopate lasted only seven years; and that he was present at the Roman council of the year 1059 as bishop of Gubbio; thirdly, that Blessed Dominic is spoken of as a dead man in Opusculum XXXIX of St. Peter Damian Works, volume III, page 292.; and that this opusculum was written to Hugh, archbishop of Besançon, one year after the legation to Gaul, that is, 1064.
[19] although the first argument that is brought forward wavers, Although I embrace this opinion, I will nevertheless say candidly what I think of the several arguments. The first seems to me to err in this respect, that it supposes this charge to have been given by Blessed Alexander II immediately after his election, as though the occasion of it could not have been very manifold; next, this charge seems to pertain to rumours and news; whence, since when St. Peter first wrote letters to Alexander containing simply news, but nothing about the administration of the church, he could also have recalled the same charge to memory many years after it was given, without offending against the laws of simplicity and nature.
[20] [but the second, namely that Bl. Rudolf was present at the Roman council in the year 1059, is attacked in vain by Sarti.] The second argument troubled Grandi most of all Compare Acta Sanctorum, volume VI of October, page 619., and drove him to assign two Rudolfs, succeeding one another, to the see of Gubbio: and no less Sarti, who determined that in the subscriptions of the Roman Council Rudolf of Gabii stands for Rudolf of Gubbio De Episcopis Eugubinis, page 39.; namely, that at that time there were still bishops of Gabii, or Gabinenses, on the testimony of the Gabine diploma Ibid., page 40 and following., to which Peter, bishop of Gabii, subscribed; that it would be no wonder that Rudolf of Gabii was confused with the bishop of Gubbio, since that same Peter is called now Agubinus [Mabillon, Annales Benedictini, book LXI, number 81, volume IV, page 559; compare the general Index under the words Petrus Agabinus and Petrus Gabinus.], now Eugubinus [The Consecration of the altar of Farfa, in Muratori, Antiquitates medii ævi, dissertation, volume V, column 1042.]; that this confusion was in fact admitted is the more credible, the less certain the subscriptions of the Roman Council are; and accordingly in the Chronicle of Farfa Muratori, Scriptores rerum Italicarum, volume II, part 70, column 647. one reads Rofredus Eugubinus and Rodulphus Gubinus; whence in the year 1059 some Rofredus sat at Gubbio, but Rudolf at Gubium, or rather Gabii.
[21] It is shown that Bl. Rudolf of Gubbio was present there, No one will deny that these things were acutely devised by Sarti; nevertheless they cannot stand at all. In truth, indeed, the discrepancy is great enough between the catalogues of subscriptions: the Vatican, published by Labbe Collectio Conciliorum, volume IX, column 1259 and following., that of Floreffe, received by Martène Monumenta Vetera, volume VII, column 60., and that of Farfa, which Muratori had printed [Chronicon Farfense, Scriptores rerum Italicarum, volume II, part II, column 646 and following.]. Nevertheless this diversity is not such that the true reading cannot be grasped by the help of the laws of criticism. In which matter Mansi Supplement to the Veneto-Labbean councils, volume I, column 1331 and following. has contributed great assistance. It will suffice for us to have spoken of the names which come in the 44th and 54th place. At number, then, or place 44, there comes in the Vatican codex: Nofredus, bishop of Siena; in that of Floreffe: Rofredus, bishop Atestensis; in the Chronicle of Farfa: Rofredus Eugubinus. But at number 54, in the Vatican codex: Rodulfus, bishop of Gubbio; in that of Floreffe: Rodulfus, bishop of Egubium; in the Chronicle of Farfa: Rodulphus Gubinus. Since therefore at number 54 the three codices altogether agree among themselves, the most well-worn rules of criticism urge that the name of Rudolf of Gubbio be wholly retained: on which side Sarti's proposed system, thrusting in the name of Rudolf of Gabii, certainly collapses.
[22] not, however, Rofredus of Gubbio, together with Guido of Milan, Nor does his case fall less at number 44, where he attempts to substitute Rofredus of Gubbio. For according to the reading of Floreffe, the bishop Atestensis must certainly be retained. In that council, namely, celebrated in the name of the Lord God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, in the year from his incarnation 1059, in the month of April, in the 12th indiction, the most holy Gospels being set forth, the most reverend and most blessed apostolic man Nicholas also presiding, in the Lateran patriarchal basilica, which is surnamed the Constantinian Compare the Collections of Councils cited., in that council, I say, not only was the celebrated decree of Nicholas II on the election of the Roman pontiff passed and the false dogma of the heresiarch Berengar condemned, but also the case of Guido, archbishop of Milan, was adjudged. Concerning which matter Arnulf, who wrote the affairs of Milan of this age little removed from himself, relates in favour of our argument [Historia Mediolanensis, book III, chapter XIII, in Muratori, Scriptores rerum Italicarum, volume IV, page 29.] that Wido or Guido was defended against the accusations of St. Arialdus by the prelates of Asti, Novara, Turin and the remaining suffragans, and was placed at the right side of Nicholas II in the present synod [On the controversy between the prelates of Milan and of Ravenna over the right of sitting at the right hand of the pontiff, compare Sassi, Archiepiscoporum Mediolanensium series, volume II, page 423 and following.]. Muratori attempted to call this testimony into doubt In the notes on this passage., alleging that among the fathers of the council neither Guido, nor the prelate of Asti, nor that of Turin appears in the Vatican catalogue. But if the matter be examined more accurately, and
this testimony will keep its credit, and by its help it will be possible to emend the Vatican codex. First of all, Arnulf is not the only one to record the presence of these prelates; so also does Bonizo, bishop of Sutri Liber ad Amicum, book VI, in Oefele, Monumenta Boica, volume II, page 807., a contemporary witness, and after him the cardinal of Aragon [Vitæ Romanorum Pontificum, in Muratori, Scriptores rerum Italicarum, volume III, page 301.]. Bonizo names Guido of Milan, Cunibert of Turin, Giselinus of Asti, Belzo of Alba, Gregory of Vercelli, Otto of Novara, Opizo of Lodi and Aldemann of Brescia. The cardinal of Aragon writes only the name of Milan in full letters; the others he indicates by an initial, agreeing, however, with Bonizo in everything. Next, to come to the subscriptions, at numbers 15 and 16 one reads in the codex of Floreffe: Guido, archbishop; — Dominic, patriarch of Grado. In that of Farfa: Wibert, archbishop; — Dominic, patriarch of Grado. In the Vatican: V., archbishop Bomegradensis, patriarch. Muratori [In the notes on the Chronicle of Farfa, Scriptores, volume II, part II, column 647.] will have it that Wibert, archbishop of Ravenna, is meant here; but at that time Henry sat at Ravenna [Compare Monumenti Ravennati de' secoli di Mezzo, volume I, numbers 109 and 110.], and Wibert occupied this see only in the year 1070 Ughelli, Italia Sacra, volume II, column 363 and following, Coleti's edition.. Everyone will notice the confusion of the Vatican codex. It remains, therefore, that with Mansi Supplement, volume I, column 1331, preface to the Roman council., relying on the testimony of Arnulf, we understand that Guido or Wido, subscribing in the first place after the cardinals, is the archbishop of Milan, although the place of his see is not expressed.
[23] with Cunibert of Turin and G., bishop of Asti. That the prelate of Turin was likewise present is established from number 66; at which there occurs in the Chronicle of Farfa: Gumbertus Taurinensis; in the Vatican: Cumbertus Maurinensis; in that of Floreffe: Cunibertus, bishop Paulinonensis. It is easy to detect T changed into M, then the same T into P and t into l, no otherwise than the conversion of ni into m. Under this mask, therefore, lies hidden Cunibert of Turin, of whom Ughelli and Coleti treat in the Italia sacra Volume IV, column 1037 and following.. Whence the credit of Arnulf is established anew. The way is therefore now paved for admitting what he relates of the bishop of Asti, and accordingly for accepting, according to the codex of Floreffe, the bishop Atestensis, and wholly setting aside Rofredus of Gubbio, and also Nofredus of Siena, who arose only from this, that five names dropped out of the Vatican codex, and moreover that from Rofredus, bishop Atestensis, and John, bishop of Siena, that single Nofredus, bishop of Siena, was fused together. But what of the fact that Bonizo calls the bishop of Asti Giselinus, Aragonius indicates him by the letter G, the codex of Floreffe names him Rofredus, the Vatican Nofredus? First of all, the name Nofredus must be set aside, which seems perhaps never to have been a human one. Rarer likewise is Roffredus. However that may be, it seems that originally only the initial letter G was written, as was the custom: hence arose Giselinus among some, among others Goffredus, and thence Roffredus. Ughelli Italia sacra, bishops of Asti, volume IV, column 357. calls him by the barbarous appellation Girlemus; Coleti Ibid., in the margin. recommends Wibertinus: which of these is to be chosen, let it rest with the reader. Let it suffice for us to conclude hence that Sarti, inserting him in the catalogue of Gubbio, and Antonio Pecci, inserting him in the diptychs of Siena Storia del Vescovado della città di Siena, page 124., must be corrected. Sarti is more fortunate, however, when he repels from himself another weapon, drawn from the diploma of Fossombrone, according to which in the year 1062 Hugh had sat after Blessed Rudolf. For he shows that that charter was published faultily by Ughelli Italia sacra, volume II, bishops of Fossombrone, column 829., and that its notes of time are these De Episcopis Eugubinis, page 45.: Done in the month of May, on the 15th day, in the 8th indiction, which agrees with the year 1070.
[24] [Opusculum XXXIX of St. Peter Damian, in which he speaks of Bl. Dominic Loricatus as already dead,] The whole force of the third argument is sought from the time at which Opusculum XXXIX of St. Peter Damian was written. Its chronological notes Mittarelli and Costadoni deduced from the very things contained in it. When St. Peter was carrying out his legation in Gaul, he had visited the church of Besançon, or Vesontio, and had found in it many praiseworthy things. He had noted, however, that at Besançon the clerics, and elsewhere in Gaul also the monks, sat during the time of the divine offices; which, according to the discipline of that age, was not at all permitted outside the time at which the lessons of the Nocturns were recited St. Peter Damian, Opusculum XXXIX, chapter IV, Works, volume III, page 292.. Against this abuse, therefore, the holy man drew his pen in the aforesaid opusculum, and among other things alleges the example of the deceased Dominic Loricatus, who even during the psalmody raged against his own body. Whence Mittarelli and Costadoni, believing that this legation was undertaken in the year 1062, argue thus: From which attestation of Damian, they say Annales Camaldulenses, book XVII, number 26, volume II, page 258., it is gathered that those are mistaken who put back Loricatus's death to the year 1066, since it is not likely that the holy doctor, full of zeal, restrained his pen for four years from censuring this fault of sitting at the time of the offices.
[25] setting aside the weaker argument, But, first, this argument is altogether a moral one, and the less binding the graver the other occupations pressing upon the holy man; secondly, at the beginning of the opusculum, to show how much certain things at Besançon had pleased him, the writer says that he still holds them in memory: which manner of speaking already intimates that some space of time had elapsed; thirdly, a whole year must be subtracted, for St. Peter undertook this legation in the summer of the year 1063, so that he returned to Fonte Avellana only on the 5th day before the Kalends of November of the same year, as Pagi made manifest against Baronius [Critica at the year 1062, number 3, Annales of Baronius, volume XVII, page 223, Mansi's edition.].
[26] is shown to have been written before the end of the year 1066 It seems, however, that this argument can be tightened from the time of the death of Hugh I, archbishop of Besançon, to whom that opusculum of St. Peter is inscribed. There exists indeed a very great dispute about the year of his death; while some contend that he died in the year 1066 Dunod, Histoire de l'Église de Besançon, volume I, page 104 and following., others in the year 1066 or 1067 [Jean-Jacques Chifflet, Vesontio, part II, page 221; J. B. Guillaume, Histoire Généalogique des Sires de Salins, volume I, page 21.], others in the year 1070 [The Sainte-Marthe brothers, Gallia Christiana, archbishops of Besançon, volume I, page 124 and following.], others finally in the year 1072 [Pierre-François Chifflet, Illustrationes Claudianæ, Acta Sanctorum, volume I of June, page 694 and following.]. The whole dispute, however, arose from a diploma of Henry IV, given in the year of the Lord's incarnation 1067, in the 4th indiction, the 14th of his ordination, the 20th of his reign, and in which the king asserts that Hugh (II), the venerable elect of the holy church of Besançon, at the command and request of his most holy mother the empress Agnes Augusta, came into his presence at Speyer, that he might confirm what his predecessor of blessed memory, Archbishop Hugh, had handed over to the church of St. Mary, mother of mercy, and of St. Paul, etc. Now anyone who will consult the common chronologists [Art de vérifier les dates, volume II, page 19; Helwig, Zeitrechnung, page 146. On the indiction, compare Du Cange, under the word Indictio, and above all Helwig, in the work cited, page 124.] will easily discover that these notes altogether conflict with one another; whence individual writers have laid healing hands on these notes in favour of their own opinion. Pierre-François Chifflet urged, moreover, that Agnes was at that time staying at Fruttuaria in Italy, and was not involved in German affairs except when, for the sake of procuring peace, she came to Worms in the summer of the year 1072 [Compare Voigt, Hildebrand, als Pabst Gregorius der Siebente, part I, page 165, Vienna 1819.], as Lambert of Aschaffenburg Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ, Scriptores, volume V, page 190 and following., or rather of Hersfeld [Compare Ludwig Friedrich Hesse, preface to the Annales of Lambert, in Pertz, volume cited, page 134 and following.], is the authority.
[27] from the time of the death of Hugh I, archbishop of Besançon, But, however these things may be, we read in the Pontifical Book of Eichstätt, written by Bishop Gundechar, the names of very many bishops who died after the author's ordination, that is, from the year 1057 to 1075. Now in this enumeration, in which account of time seems to be taken, there come among others, in continuous series, these five Pertz, Monumenta, Scriptores, volume VII, page 249.: Eberhart of Trier. Reginherus of Meissen. Huc, bishop of Besançon. Oudalricus of Pavia. Einhart of Speyer: of whom the first, on the testimony of Lambert [Ibid., volume V, page 172; compare Brouwer, Antiquitates et Annales Trevirenses, book XI, number 145, volume I, page 539.], died on Holy Saturday, or the 15th of April of the year 1066; the second likewise in the year 1066 [Lambert, Annales, at the year 1066, in Pertz, volume V, page 173; the Saxon Annalist at the year 1066, in Pertz, volume VI, page 694.], on the same (as it seems [Compare Lambert and the Saxon Annalist, in the places cited, and Sigismund Calles, Series Misnensium Episcoporum, page 71 and following.]) 15th day of April; the fourth, that is, Udalric of Pavia, formerly present at the consecration of Gundechar, the writer of this book Pertz, volume VII, page 246., unknown to Romualdo of Santa Maria Compare his Flavia Papia sacra, page 53., but inscribed in the catalogue of Pavia by Ughelli Italia sacra, bishops of Pavia, volume I, column 1089. between Henry Astarius and William of Canossa on account of the testimony of the monk Arnulf in his Chronicle of German affairs, and on account of a diploma of Lucca of the year 1062 under the name of Aldaricus or Uldaricus, and also accepted by Richard Bibliothèque ecclésiastique, under the word Pavie, évêque., is little known; the cause of which thing Arnulf of Milan seems to disclose, inserting these words between the years 1056 and 1059 [Pertz, Monumenta, volume VIII, page 18; Muratori, Scriptores rerum Italicarum, volume IV, page 22.]: While his (Henry IV's) infancy reigned, the people of Pavia boldly spurned the bishop given by him according to custom; deferring neither to the royal appointment nor to the apostolic consecration that had been performed, persevering until the death of the despised pontiff. To him, therefore, the people of Pavia opposed another bishop, named Henry Robolini, Storia di Pavia, volume II, page 54.; whom the Estenses imitated a little later Muratori, Scriptores rerum Italicarum, volume IV, page 23.. Hence there is no memory of Udalric among the people of Pavia, nor any means of determining the time of his death,
except from Benzo, who wrote to his successor William, recently chosen by the king, after the middle of the year 1066 [Panegyricus Henrici III, book IV, chapter XXXVIII, in Mencke, volume I, column 1030.]. Finally the fifth, Einhart of Speyer, died on the 23rd day of February of the year 1067 [Philipp Simonis, Historische Beschreibung aller Bischoffen zu Speyr, page 47, edition of 1773. Compare Lambert, Pertz, volume V, page 173.]. And hence it is understood that Hugh of Besançon, who comes in the middle among these four, died after the 15th day of April [Compare the diploma concerning the rights of the abbey of St. Bénigne, drawn up in the presence of Hugh, archbishop of Besançon, on the Friday of the second week of Lent, that is, the 17th of March, of the year 1066, in the Appendix, volume I of the Histoire de Bourgogne, page XXIX and following.], but before the end of the year 1066.
[28] who died on the 27th day of July of the year 1066: And these things become altogether certain by the testimony of Berthold, or Bernold, of Constance. For he has at the year 1066 [Chronicon, or the second Continuation of Hermann Contractus, at the year 1066, in Ussermann, Germaniæ sacræ collectio monumentorum, volume II, page 9, and in Pertz, volume V, page 429.]: Hugh, archbishop of Besançon, died, in whose place a canon of the same church, elected by the brethren, is substituted by the king. Of the day of his death, however, there is no difficulty; for in the Necrology of St. Paul and in the codex of St. John it is marked at the 6th day before the Kalends of August Jean-Jacques Chifflet, Vesontio, part II, page 220., that is, the 27th of July. The difficulty, however, which is drawn from the request and command of the empress Agnes seems somewhat exaggerated; for she could easily have sent letters to her son, as she did in fact for the donation of Meissen made in the year 1063 and confirmed by her son at Tribur on the 7th day before the Ides of January of the year 1064 [Compare Sigismund Calles, Series Misnensium Episcoporum, page 70 and following.]. Moreover, the argumentation of Pierre-François Chifflet collapses, because there exists also another diploma, namely of the year 1068, in which Hugh I is called of good memory Dunod, Histoire de l'Église de Besançon, volume I, page 105.; an expression for the most part applied only to the dead.
[29] whence it is understood that it cannot be that Bl. Rudolf died in the year 1067. Since, therefore, Hugh I, archbishop of Besançon, formerly legate of the supreme pontiffs, and a very great friend of St. Peter Damian, died at the end of July of the year 1066, and since by that threefold title his death must have become known to him as quickly as possible, it cannot be that the opusculum sent to the same Hugh was written after the 14th day of October of the year 1066, nor therefore that Blessed Dominic Loricatus died on this day. Whence it is easy to conclude that he died, therefore, in the year 1060, and Blessed Rudolf in the year 1061.
[30] Sarti contends in vain that he died in the year 1066 But Sarti intervenes, denying the principal foundation of the first and second opinions, namely that the clause of the letter of St. Peter Damian concerning Blessed Rudolf and Blessed Dominic is present in the best codices: But Blessed Dominic died on the day before the Ides of October, our Lord Jesus Christ reigning, etc. For I see, he says De Episcopis Eugubinis, page 38., that Loricatus is there distinguished with the appellation of Blessed. But this manner of speaking seems foreign to the utmost sobriety and prudence of Peter Damian. Having illustrated these things, he continues in these words: How far from empty these conjectures are is shown by some Vatican codices, written by hand and by far the most ancient, in which at the end of Peter Damian's letter to Alexander II those words are lacking: "Blessed Dominic Loricatus died", etc. As I learned from that very dear friend Ottavio Turchi, canon of Apiro, who at my request caused those codices to be consulted through friends living at Rome. And immediately he takes Turchi to task for having been silent about these things in the Life of Blessed Dominic published by him. Wherefore, adhering to the Necrology of Avellana, he places Blessed Dominic's death on the 10th day of September of the year 1065, which fell on a Saturday, and the death of Blessed Rudolf in the month of October of the year 1066.
[31] on account of the Necrology of Avellana. But Sarti's exception against the title of Blessed added to Dominic by St. Peter Damian is vain, since he also adorned St. Odilo with the same appellation, and St. Lawrence of Amalfi with the term of holy and venerable memory, before ecclesiastical honours had been granted, as Mittarelli and his colleague have skilfully noted Annales Camaldulenses, book XVI, number 30, volume II, page 230.. Their answer does not please equally, since they understand the memorial written in the Necrology of Avellana of another Dominic Loricatus, alleging Ibid., in the place cited. that the name of recluse little suits Blessed Dominic, who did not follow that kind of life long enough. A stronger weapon is the more recent age of the Necrology itself, as having been written at the beginning of the 16th century, that is, four and a half centuries after Blessed Dominic's death. Sarti himself confessed this Ibid., in the place cited., although afterwards De Episcopis Eugubinis, page 57. he would have this codex to be of an older age. But he has the codex itself against him, in which many names of men who died at the end of the 15th century are noted in the first hand [Compare the Necrology, in Mittarelli, etc., volume VII, appendix, column 356 and following.]. Whence it strikes everyone's eyes how weak this authority is. Certainly it is by no means to be compared with the authority of the clause of St. Peter Damian's letter, which Sarti confesses existed in many codices; but what he affirms, that it was not found in the best Vatican ones, he had not ascertained by himself, nor through Turchi, a learned man, but through anonymous friends of Turchi living at Rome. But how slight the authority of these was is evident even from this alone, that Turchi made so little of their diligence that he did not even wish to mention this matter in his Life of St. Dominic Compare Sarti, page 38.. Add to these that in the very words our Lord Jesus Christ reigning there is a mark of authenticity and a new argument that Blessed Dominic died in the year 1060. For although this formula was sometimes employed while an earthly king was living, yet commonly it was only put into use when the throne was vacant Compare Nouveau Traité de diplomatique, volume IV, page 591 and following.. But that Henry in the year 1060 had not yet put on the royal diadem, and that on the contrary in the years 1065 and 1066 he was acknowledged as king by all, and accordingly reckoned the years of his reign from the 5th day of October of the year 1065, is a certain thing Compare Art de vérifier les dates, volume II, page 19.. Since these things are so, and since the arguments of the second opinion prevail over the foundations of the remaining opinions, the laws of prudence urge that this be altogether adhered to. There remains, however, a certain difficulty, which, if not solved, everything must needs totter. Of it in the following paragraph.
§ IV. The difficulty arising from the time of the election and enthronement of Bl. Alexander II is removed. The history of this enthronement.
[The difficulty arising from the time of the election and enthronement of Bl. Alexander II.] That difficulty which I was just mentioning is drawn from the inscription of Opusculum XX of book III of St. Peter Damian, compared with the inscription of the letter on the death of Blessed Rudolf and Blessed Dominic. The former, namely, is of this kind Volume III of the Works, page 193.: To the most beloved ELECT of the apostolic see, and to Hildebrand, the Rod of Assur, Peter the monk, his service; whence it is gathered that the former was written before the enthronement of Blessed Alexander [Compare Henschen, volume III of February, page 413; likewise Pagi, at the year 1061, etc.] (not, however, his consecration, for he was already previously bishop of Lucca); the latter, however, after the enthronement. Now almost all determine that the election was held on the 1st day of October; but Fausto Antonio Maroni Commentarius de ecclesia et episcopis Ostiensibus et Veliternis, page 36. will have it that the enthronement was delayed for a fairly long time: and accordingly some writers refer Opusculum XX at least to the following month of November, when Cadalous was already procuring plots at Rome by means of money [Voigt, Hildebrand als Pabst, etc., part I, page 67, Vienna 1819; Baronius, Annales, at the year 1061, number 27.]. Whence, since that opusculum was certainly written before the letter on the death of Blessed Rudolf and Blessed Dominic, it would follow that the latter could not have been written shortly after the feast of the Holy Apostles Simon and Jude of the year 1061, but must be referred to another year, that is, 1066 or 1067; whence everything would collapse. It must therefore be proved that this enthronement was performed on the Kalends of October of the year 1061, and that therefore Opusculum XX was written before that time; which inquiry will give occasion for clearing up some deeds of the greatest moment.
[33] Wherefore it is shown that this pontiff was enthroned St. Peter Damian, in the synodal disputation between the defender of the Roman church and the royal advocate, introduces the latter speaking thus Opusculum IV, volume III of the Works, page 26.: You say that, constrained by necessity and as it were pressed by the brief space of a narrow time, you could by no means await the consent of the royal majesty in the election of the Roman pontiff: which is certainly established to be frivolous. For it is established that three months, more or less, ran their course in the meantime, from when Pope Nicholas of holy memory died until the Kalends of October, when this man succeeded. Now that by these words when this man succeeded the enthronement, and not the election, is to be understood, the very matter of the disputation makes manifest. For by the decree of Nicholas II on electing the pontiff, on which the royal advocate continually relies, the consent of Henry was not required previous to the election, namely, that the election might take place, but that the royal assent should be added to the election once made, before the ordination or enthronement was celebrated; which is clear not only from the decree as it is now circulated, which I do not wish to bring forward, since Baronius, using the testimony of Cardinal Deusdedit, contends that it was corrupted Annales ecclesiastici, at the year 1059, number 31.; but above all from St. Peter Damian. For he writes to Cadalous, the antipope set up against Blessed Alexander II Letter XXII, book I, volume I of the Works, page 19.: Certainly, since that election must take place by the principal judgment of the cardinal bishops, in the second place the clergy rightly gives its assent, in the third the people raises its applause; AND SO THE CAUSE IS TO BE SUSPENDED UNTIL THE AUTHORITY OF THE ROYAL HIGHNESS BE CONSULTED. Whence also the royal advocate in the synodal disputation defines the state of the question from the beginning in these words Opusculum IV, volume III, page 22.: Let it suffice us to say that you enthroned the pope without the consent of our lord the king. And then the whole controversy is about the enthronement, by no means about the election, except so far as the royal advocate objects that it ought to have been brought about that the king's assent should be added; which could not have been awaited on account of the sedition's
danger, so the defender of the Roman church contends. And accordingly the three months' space of which the royal advocate speaks is bounded on the one side by the death of Nicholas II and the election of Blessed Alexander II that soon followed, and on the other side by the enthronement, that is, the Kalends of October, when this man succeeded.
[34] We have also another testimony of a contemporary writer, namely Bernold of Constance, on the 1st day of October of the year 1061; who at the year 1061 has the following Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ, volume V, page 427 and following.: At Rome, Pope Nicholas having died on the 6th day before the Kalends of August, the Romans, sending a crown and other gifts to King Henry, the fourth of the same name, appealed to the king concerning the election of the supreme pontiff. He, having held a general council at Basel, and the crown sent by the Romans having been placed on him, was called patrician of the Romans. Then by the common counsel of all, and the envoys of the Romans electing, Chadelo, bishop of Parma, is elected pope on the 7th day before the Kalends of November and is called Honorius, never to possess the papacy. But on the twenty-seventh day before his promotion, the bishop of Lucca, Anselm by name, ORDAINED as the 158th pope by the Normans and certain Romans, called Alexander, sat 12 years. Similarly the anonymous writer of Zwettl, a writer of the end of the 12th century: While these things are being done, he says [Historia Romanorum Pontificum, in Pez, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, volume III, column 384 and following.], namely while the election of the antipope was being prepared, the Normans, having associated some Romans with themselves, SET UPON THE APOSTOLIC SEE Anselm, bishop of the city of Lucca, the name of Alexander being given him, on the Kalends of October, 26 (nay 27) days before the promotion of the bishop of Parma to the papacy. Moreover, owing to the abundance of testimonies, it is beyond controversy that Cadalous was promoted on the 28th day of October, which in the year 1061 was both the feast of Saints Simon and Jude and at the same time a Sunday. Whence again it is clear that Blessed Alexander was ordained, or set upon the apostolic see, on the Kalends of October.
[35] the difficulties drawn from Leo of Ostia are resolved, And indeed, if Leo of Ostia had been rightly understood, so far from giving occasion for disturbing the chronology, he would, on the contrary, have held a torch before it. In truth, indeed, he says [Chronicon Casinense, book III, chapter XXI, in Muratori, Scriptores, volume IV, page 431.] that Blessed Alexander was elected about three months after the death of Nicholas II; but by the word elect he understands the canonical institution or enthronement; for, first, he makes election and ordination synonymous, since immediately before he had written: When a very great sedition had begun to arise among the Romans concerning ORDAINING a pontiff; secondly, he says that the empress and Henry were greatly indignant that this had been done without their consent and authority; but, as is clear from the speech of the royal advocate in St. Damian, Agnes and her son complained not of the election, but of the enthronement made without their consent; thirdly, he affirms that Blessed Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino, set out for Rome with the prince of Capua on account of what he calls the election: but that the prince of Capua went to Rome for the sake of the enthronement, not the election, will be made manifest below from the testimony of Benzo. That he himself, moreover, says ordination also for institution or enthronement, Bernold did the same In the place cited above., and the same did St. Peter Damian himself, who, after laying down the administration of the diocese of Ostia, had reserved to himself, as will be seen below, the right of ordaining Blessed Alexander II, although the latter was already a bishop. For the rest, monks instituted in a monastery were at that time also said to be ordained there Compare the Chronicle of Farfa, volume II, part II, column 665.. And accordingly it is clear enough that Leo speaks of the enthronement, and is therefore the fourth witness. Add that the catalogues or series of the Roman pontiffs agree in this, almost, that they extend the pontificate of Blessed Alexander to eleven years, six months and twenty days, more or less [Compare the Colbert Catalogue in Guéranger, Origines de l'Église Romaine, page LXXXII; the second Colbert, ibid., page XCIII; that of Mallius, ibid., page XCIX; the third Colbert, ibid., page CIV; the Continuator of Marianus Scotus, in Pertz, volume V, page 487.]; next, that Blessed Alexander died on the 21st day of April of the year 1073, as Pagi made manifest Critica at this year.; and finally, that it may be assumed as a principle that the time for which pontiffs then sat is to be reckoned from the day of enthronement Papebroch, Propylæum Maji, page 4*.: if these three things are compared with one another, the enthronement of Blessed Alexander II will necessarily have to be placed about the beginning of the month of October of the year 1061.
[36] from the beginning of the pontiff's year in the bulls, But against these things it may be objected that it can be deduced from the very bulls of Blessed Alexander II that he was enthroned after the 12th day of October; or at least not on the 1st day of October: which again may be established either from the bulls or from the fact that it was not a Sunday; and these we shall now examine in order, and then set before the eyes the order of events. First of all, then, we have at hand Mansi, who deduced from the bulls of Alexander himself that he had not yet been enthroned on the 12th day of October of the year 1061. For when Pagi had doubted Critica at the year 1061, number 1. whether Blessed Alexander had reckoned his years from the day of his election or from the day of his enthronement, Mansi solved the question in such a way as at the same time to overturn our statements. Namely, from a bull given at Capua on the 4th day before the Ides of October by the hand of Sperus, subdeacon and librarian of the Holy Roman Church, in the 7th year of the pontificate of the lord Pope Alexander II, in the 7th indiction, he deduced that on the 12th day of October of the year 1068 the seventh year of Alexander had not yet run, and therefore that he had not been enthroned on the Kalends of October. But he ought to have noticed that these things were carelessly copied by Ughelli Italia sacra, bishops of Salerno, volume VII, column 383.; for Speri stands there in place of Petri Compare Nouveau Traité de diplomatique, volume V, page 233.; add, what is the chief point, that from the 7th indiction it can by no means be concluded that this bull belongs to the year 1068, since it is falsely put about Compare Natalis de Wailly, Éléments de paléographie, volume I, page 260. that Blessed Alexander used the Constantinopolitan indiction, that is, from the 1st day of September; so that the 7th indiction in Alexander's bulls may very well belong to the year 1067. That this assumption is false, moreover, you have from very many letters of Alexander II, one of which I shall indicate here, since two others will come below. Namely, the bull by which he confirms the goods of the monastery of St. Severus in Classe ends thus Annales Camaldulenses, volume II, appendix, column 184.: Given at Anagni by the hand of Albert, presbyter cardinal and chancellor of the holy Roman church, on the 6th day before the Kalends of January, in the 15th indiction, in the year of the Lord's incarnation 1062, but in the second year of the pontificate of the lord Pope Alexander II. Moreover, Mansi's assertion can be blunted from another quarter, namely from the charter of John, prior of St. Reparata of Salto, by which it is established that on the 14th day of October of the year 1063 the third year of Alexander was running; which, however, could not be according to Mansi's statements, since he occupied the chair of St. Peter on a Monday (as will be seen below), and the first Monday after the 12th day of October fell in the year 1061 on the 15th day of this month. Here are the chronological notes of this charter Ibid., volume cited, column 191.: In the years from the incarnation of the same (Jesus Christ our Lord) sixty-two after a thousand (the hollow, or incomplete, year is omitted [Nouveau Traité de diplomatique, volume III, pages 195 and 524; volume IV, page 709 and following.]), and let the lord Pope Alexander be in the see of the blessed Apostle Peter in the third year, on the fourteenth day of the month of October, in the second indiction, namely the Constantinopolitan, that is, from the 1st day of September.
[37] from the consecration of the church of Monte Cassino, Secondly, two other bulls may be objected, of which this is the conclusion: Given in the Castle of Cassino on the day of the Kalends of October by the hand of Peter, subdeacon of the Holy Roman church, and in place of the lord Anno, archbishop of Cologne, librarian. In the tenth year of the pontificate of Pope Alexander the second. But from the incarnation of the Lord the thousand and seventy-first, in the ninth indiction. One of these is published in the Bullarium of Cassino, number CVIII Compare Pagi in the Critica at the year 1071, number 2.; the other, in which the finding of Saints Benedict and Scholastica at Cassino is narrated, Luigi Tosti, a learned monk of that abbey, has recently published Storia della Badia di Monte-Cassino, volume I, page 408 and following.. Both were given when Blessed Alexander II consecrated the church lately raised by Abbot Desiderius, afterwards Blessed Pope Victor III, namely on the first day of the Kalends of October, on a Saturday, in the year of the divine incarnation 1071, in the 9th indiction, as a contemporary historian of this solemnity has it In Muratori, Scriptores rerum Italicarum, volume V, page 77.: let the reader note that he also employs the 9th indiction, not the 10th according to the Constantinopolitan custom; so that by this agreement of three documents we are forbidden to tamper with the first diploma together with Pagi Critica, in the place cited., who thrusts in the Constantinopolitan indiction. But since on the Kalends of October of the year 1071 only the tenth year of Alexander's pontificate was running, does it not here follow that ten years before he was not enthroned on the same Kalends? To this difficulty it can be answered, first of all, that errors of this kind are not rare in diplomas; next, that the mistake crept in here the more easily because the diplomas were prepared some days before, when the tenth year was still running.
[38] and from the fact that he had not been enthroned on a Sunday; But from the very things we have said about Sunday, assigned to the ordination and also to the enthronement of pontiffs, it will be objected to us that the Kalends of October fell on a Monday, and that therefore St. Peter Damian and the others who indicate those Kalends must be abandoned. Papebroch long ago perceived this argument, and for that reason drew back the enthronement of Alexander to the 30th day of September Propylæum Maji, page 196.; in which matter he had some followers, but many adversaries, since now almost all consider that Blessed Alexander was merely elected on the Kalends of October; and an election could be held on any day. But from the history of this enthronement Papebroch's difficulty is easily solved; namely, on the day before the Kalends of October, that is, on the Sunday, the enthronement was attempted, but in vain; whence it had to be completed by night, when the Monday was already running: for perhaps at that time the Sunday at Rome still ended with Vespers, as ancient usage had it [Compare Sermon 280 in the appendix to volume V of the Works* of St. Augustine, column 467.].
[39] after long waiting, without the king's consent But let us now speak in order of this enthronement, which seems to be reckoned among the most daring and most prudent deeds of Hildebrand, and which I find expounded by no one hitherto. And indeed, in setting forth this task, I do not fear to use the narrative of Benzo, bishop of Alba, a most unjust detractor of the best pontiffs and a most foul flatterer of Henry IV. For, to pass over that this has already been done by
Mansi [Supplement to the Veneto-Labbean Councils, volume I, column 1355, and in the Animadversions on Baronius, passim, for the later part of the 11th century.] (who nevertheless confused the enthronement of Blessed Alexander with his election), it is manifest that much light is shed from his writings on the narrative of St. Peter Damian, Leo of Ostia and others. Nicholas II having died, therefore, about three months before the Kalends of October [St. Peter Damian and Leo of Ostia in Baronius, at the year 1061, number 1, and at the year 1062, number 49.], on the 24th day of June, as the anonymous Florentine has it In Papebroch, Propylæum Maji, page 196., on the 19th day of July according to the Necrology of Cassino In Muratori, Scriptores rerum Italicarum, volume VII, page 944., on the 8th, 7th or 6th day before the Kalends of August according to the anonymous writer of Zwettl In Pez, Thesaurus, volume III, column 384., Bernold and the Auctarium of Berthold In Pertz, Monumenta, volume V, page 271., and also the cardinal of Aragon In Muratori, Scriptores rerum Italicarum, volume III, page 301., Anselm, bishop of Lucca, was elected as soon as possible according to the decree of the Roman council of the year 1059, and adorned with the name of Alexander II, or the Younger. The cardinals had hoped that this election would be pleasing to the king, because he was not one of their own, but an intimate and familiar of the king St. Peter Damian, Opusculum cited, page 29.. But since, by the decree of Nicholas II, the assumption of a new pontiff had to take place saving the honour and reverence due to Henry Labbe, Collectio Conciliorum, volume IX, column 1104., that is, that the ordination or enthronement could not take place without the king's consent St. Peter Damian, Opusculum cited, page 22., a sufficiently magnificent embassy was equipped of bishops, senators and principal citizens of Rome [Benzo, Commentarius de rebus Henrici III (to others IV), or Panegyricus in Henricum IV, book VII, chapter II, in Ludewig, Reliquiæ, volume IX, page 398, and in Mencke, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, volume I, column 1064.]: at their head went as chief the venerable Cardinal Stephen St. Peter Damian, Opusculum cited, page 27., having in his instructions to deliver to the king apostolic letters Ibid., in the place cited. and the insignia of the Roman patriciate, the cloak, the mitre, the ring and the patrician circlet [Benzo, in the place cited. Compare St. Peter Damian in the place cited: Verumtamen Romana ecclesia, etc.]. But the election did not please the courtiers, since Anselm had been the companion of St. Peter Damian in the legation to Milan, in which they had acted sharply against simoniacs and concubinary clerics according to the mind of Hildebrand Compare Baronius, at the year 1059, number 44 and following.. And indeed, since Hildebrand was held to be the chief author of this election, and it was understood that there would be no end to the war against scandals and abuses as long as this distinguished pontifical minister held the management of affairs, the courtiers applied their zeal to bringing it into their own hands. Which Benzo discloses with wonderful candour in these words Benzo, in the place cited.: But as soon as they (Stephen and his companions) are presented to the court, the nobles from all Italy and the other kingdoms are called together. For it seemed good to the lady empress and her silentiaries (that is, secretaries or ministers) that the gifts of the Capitol should not be received except together with the chief men of the kingdoms. Meanwhile, while they are waiting, Prandellus (a jesting name of Hildebrand), not unmindful of his art, is put out, shuffles. Whence it came about that Stephen, for nearly five days, to the injury of Blessed Peter and of the apostolic see, remained shut out before the doors, and was not permitted to present himself to the sight of the king St. Peter Damian, in the place cited..
[40] [this enthronement was attempted on the Sunday, but could be completed only on the Monday by night.] But at Rome also Alexander met with adversaries, namely some most corrupt nobles, above all Gerard, count of Galeria, excommunicated by Nicholas II for his depredations Ibid., page 28. Compare Baronius at the year 1061, number 2.. These also, from the clergy, and the senate and people, as Benzo has it Book II, chapter IV, Ludewig, volume IX, page 257; Mencke, volume I, column 984., equipped an embassy, which that same count of Galeria and the abbot of the Clivus Scauri accompanied Ibid., in the place cited., bearing with them the crown and the insignia of the patriciate [Annals of Berthold at the year 1061, in Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ, volume V, page 271.]. They pressed Agnes and her counsellors above all that another election of a pontiff should take place St. Peter Damian, Opusculum cited, page 28., or that the king together with the envoys should elect whom he would as pope according to God Benzo, book II, in the place cited.. When this was heard Ibid., and since a great sedition had begun to arise among the Romans concerning ordaining a pontiff, Hildebrand the archdeacon held counsel with the cardinals and Roman nobles [Leo of Ostia, or his continuator Peter the Deacon, book III, chapter XX, in Muratori, Scriptores rerum Italicarum, volume IV, column 431.], namely with Leo, originally proceeding from the Jewish congregation (and grandfather, as it seems L. A. Anastasio, Istoria degli antipapi, volume II, page 32., of Pietro di Leone, afterwards antipope), and at the same time with Cencius Frajapane [So the name was written; compare Costantino Gaetani, Vita del pontefice Gelasio II, page 115; likewise L. A. Anastasio, work cited, page 36.] and with John Brachiatus A term of abuse, for one having rather long arms.. The rest of the crowd was of beggars, accustomed to live on the leftovers of food; so writes Benzo with hostile pen, and he continues [Book II, chapter IV, and book VII, chapter II, in Ludewig and Mencke, in the places cited.]: With these three the aforesaid Sarabaite (Hildebrand) seeks out Richard, prince Compare Leo of Ostia, in the place cited. of Capua, and leads him to the city on condition of a thousand pounds, that he might furnish him help in the setting up of the new antichrist. What more? The money having been received, and (Desiderius, abbot of Cassino and Cardinal of the title of St. Cecilia, setting out for Rome with the prince Compare Leo of Ostia, in the place cited.) Richard endeavoured to lead the heretic of Lucca to St. Peter in Chains [Compare Bonizo, Liber ad amicum, book VI, in Oefele, Monumenta Boica, volume II, page 811; and the Roman Anonymous in Pertz, volume V, page 472. Hence correct Pagi, Critica, at the year 1049, number 6, and at the year 1073, number 5.]; but the Romans resisted him with warlike arms; and a great slaughter was made on both sides, and so the day closes. But Richard, helped by the darkness of night, makes his approach by another way, and with bloody hands (with his own hand he had consigned three of the Roman nobles to death in the fighting Benzo, book II, chapter II, in the writers cited, in the place cited.) enthroned the nocturnal pope and carried him off to the palace of the Lateran Ibid., book VII, chapter II. Compare book II, chapters II and IV..
[41] The schism of Cadalous that followed. When the empress heard this, together with her son they took it ill that these things had been done without their authority; and they cause Cadalus, bishop of Parma, to be elected Pope by the bishops of Piacenza and Vercelli only, on the very day of the festival of the Apostles Simon and Jude (the 27th of October) Leo of Ostia, in the place cited.. These things are most clearly expounded by Bonizo, bishop of Sutri and a contemporary writer [Liber ad amicum, sive de persecutione ecclesiæ libri novem, book VI, in Oefele, Rerum Boicarum Scriptores, volume II, page 807.], and by another Roman writer, somewhat favourable to Henry's party, and published not long ago by Pertz Monumenta Germaniæ, volume V, page 472. (to whom we owe so many excellent monuments). But these things and what followed pertain less to us. From this narrative, therefore, it is sufficiently understood why Blessed Alexander was enthroned on a Monday.
[42] The rest of the chronology of Bl. Rudolf's life is indicated. Returning, therefore, from this digression to the question proposed, we know that nothing stands in the way of Blessed Rudolf's having died in the year 1061. The time of his death being known, moreover, the chronology of his life is easily established. For since, on the testimony of St. Peter Damian, he lived thirty years more or less, hence it comes about that he was born round about the year 1031. On the same authority, he departed from this life seven years after he had sought the hermitage; whence his conversion is to be referred to about the year 1054, or even 1053, on account of the conjecture concerning the monastery of Camporeggiano proposed at number 15 of this Commentary. Of his episcopate it remains to speak in the following paragraph.
§ V. It is inquired whether Bl. Rudolf was truly bishop of Gubbio, or only filled the part of vicar of St. Peter Damian. Their mutual friendship. A few things known of Bl. Peter.
Bl. Rudolf was made bishop of Gubbio after the year 1057, That the time during which Blessed Rudolf occupied the chair of Gubbio was very brief appears not only from the seven or eight years during which he led the more perfect life, but above all from the fact that his predecessor Guido, or Wido, subscribed the Roman council of the year 1057 in these words Mansi, Supplement to Labbe's Collectio Conciliorum, volume I, column 1314.: Guido, bishop of Gubbio. Sarti reckons that Guido sat until the year 1059. Namely, to a certain bishop whose name begins with the letter U, St. Peter Damian writes Letter XII, book IV, volume I of the Works, page 56.: Have you forgotten that almost five years ago Victor, bishop of the apostolic see, in the plenary council celebrated at Florence, at which the emperor Henry was also present, forbade this under censure of excommunication, namely to alienate the estates of the church? Whence it seems to Sarti that these two things can be affirmed: namely, that this bishop is Guido himself, or Wido, Uvido of Gubbio, both on account of the initial letter, and because it is understood from the letter itself that St. Peter had authority over this bishop, such as we shall presently see he long used over the prelates of Gubbio; and next, that this letter was written in the year 1059, since these three things must be ordered among themselves, so far as can be done: first, that the council of Florence which is mentioned was held at Pentecost of the year 1055 Muratori, Annali d'Italia, at the year 1055, volume VI, page 171.; second, that in the year 1059, in the month of April, Rudolf subscribed the Roman council Compare above, number 20 and following.; third, that this letter of St. Peter was written almost five years after Pentecost, or the beginning of June, of the year 1055: wherefore by the expression almost five years ago is to be understood a five-year period consisting of the middle of the year 1055, the three following whole years, and one or another month of the year 1059. But since these things give at most three years and eight months, I should judge that the letter of St. Peter was given to some other
bishop, whose name also began with the letter U, and over whom the holy prelate of Ostia attributed to himself some authority, because he had promoted him by his zeal to the summit of the episcopate [St. Peter Damian, letter XII, book IV, volume I of the Works, page 56 and following.]. Wherefore the conjecture of Mittarelli Annales Camaldulenses, book XVI, number 26, volume II, page 223. is plainer, who considers that the question here is rather of Hugh of Cagli, of Camerino or of Numana, who subscribed the Roman council of the year 1059. It will be enough, therefore, to have affirmed that Guido sat at Gubbio at the beginning of June of the year 1057, and Blessed Rudolf in the month of April of the year 1059; at which time we have more than sufficiently shown that he was present at the most celebrated Roman council.
[44] but by no means held only the part of vicar of St. Peter Damian. Blessed Rudolf, moreover, ruled the church of Gubbio with St. Peter Damian as overseer and guide. But this matter also is full of difficulties, as the reader will presently understand from the documents brought forward. In the letter in which Blessed Pope Alexander II takes a certain church of Gubbio under the protection of the holy see, and which is inscribed to all the people of Gubbio, clergy and people, namely the faithful of St. Peter, this church is called the church of our most dear brother and fellow-bishop Peter Damian Labbe, Collectio Conciliorum, volume IX, column 1446.. In the time of Mainard, Blessed Rudolf's successor, some estates of the church of Gubbio had been alienated under the name of a benefice (as was the custom); and that prelate seems to have fallen also into other more disgraceful things; wherefore St. Peter, as one having authority, applied the rod of correction Book IV, letter VIII, volume I of the Works, page 50.. These things seem to have come to the ears of Blessed Alexander II, who also remonstrated with St. Peter on this matter. This reproach elicited from his pen a letter of which this is the beginning Book I, letter XIV, volume I of the Works, page 10.: That the church of Gubbio, WHICH WAS LONG AGO ENTRUSTED TO ME BY YOUR PREDECESSORS, is now, alas! altogether confounded, and cast down like a threshing-floor which is trodden under foot, I account to be required by my sins; I do not ascribe it, God forbid, to any fault of depravity on your part. This letter must be put off to the year 1069, on account of what he adds about his legations on behalf of Alexander. But long before, namely in the month of October of the year 1061, in Opusculum XX, more than sufficiently illustrated by us, he had written to the same pontiff: Blessed be the dispensation of the almighty Creator, because, lately ascending to you, weighed down by the burden of two bishoprics, the one to be ruled, the other to be visited, I crossed the steep ridges of the Alps, and soon, the load of tribulation cast off, unburdened and free, I returned like a fugitive by right of postliminy to my beloved solitude. Finally, in a certain diocese other than that of Gubbio, he had as fellow-bishop Albert, whom he commanded with the authority of paternal vigour, to whom he had commended souls just as God had committed them to himself, and who enjoyed at the least the authority of a suffragan or coadjutor bishop Compare letter I, book IV, volume I of the Works, page 44 and following.; nay, that Albert and St. Peter also received the customary dues in that diocese. All these things Sarti De Episcopis Eugubinis, page 49., and after him Maroni De ecclesia et episcopis Ostiensibus et Veliternis, page 40 and following., will have to be understood of the diocese of Ostia (and indeed, as it seems, rightly). Why, then, should not St. Peter similarly have been bishop of Gubbio and have entrusted to Blessed Rudolf the part of vicar in the episcopal office?
[45] as some have willed, From these passages, taken singly or compared with one another, various opinions have come forth. Baronius Annales ecclesiastici, at the year 1061, number 36. and Henschen Acta Sanctorum, volume III of February, page 413. said that the diocese of Ostia was handed over to St. Peter to be ruled, that of Gubbio to be visited; Alessandro Borgia Historia Veliterna, book III, century IX, number 33, page 224 and following., and after him Mittarelli [Annales Camaldulenses, book XVI, number I, volume II, page 195; and book XVIII, number 23, volume II, page 301.] and Sarti De Episcopis Eugubinis, page 30., held that Ostia and Velletri were committed to him to be ruled; on the contrary Fausto Maroni De ecclesia et episcopis Ostiensibus et Veliternis, page 62 and following. contends that he ruled Ostia and visited Velletri and moreover Gubbio; and finally, as regards these matters in particular, Mittarelli and Costadoni write these very words Annales Camaldulenses, book XIX, number 9, volume II, page 333.: Since Damian writes that the church of Gubbio was handed over to him by the predecessors of Alexander, not by his predecessor, it is deduced that the holy cardinal presided there from the year 1058, namely under two pontiffs, Stephen IX and Nicholas II, and committed his place first to Rudolf, then to Hugh, and perhaps also to Mainard, who will rather have to be called coadjutors and administrators of the bishopric of Gubbio under Damian.
[46] fulfilled, But to set forth my own opinion on these matters also in brief, I am easily led to believe that St. Peter Damian was simply bishop of Ostia, helped by Albert, a suffragan bishop; next, that the office or authority of visiting was entrusted to him over the church of Velletri, after John Mincius, its pastor, had been cast down in the council of Sutri for having mounted, or usurped, the chair of St. Peter; so that the administration, but not the see of Velletri itself, was in the hands of St. Peter. Thirdly, that St. Peter never laid down the bishopric of Ostia (for he retained the right of ordaining pontiffs), but renounced the administration of the dioceses of Ostia and Velletri; which renunciation, however, approved at first by Alexander, was shortly afterwards rejected by the same pontiff and his chancellor Hildebrand. Fourthly, that there was entrusted to him over the diocese of Gubbio, and perhaps some other neighbouring dioceses, a certain right, such as is nearly that of legates and pontifical nuncios; so that he could designate those who seemed fit to be created bishops, watch over their deeds, admonish them, in a word, that he had a certain censorial prefecture.
[47] as Maroni has shown more fully But since we have in hand the illustration of the Life of Blessed Rudolf, not of Blessed Peter Damian, there is no need for us to prove all the parts of this opinion more fully by their testimonies. It will be enough to have established only those things which pertain most nearly to Blessed Rudolf, namely, that he, no otherwise than Hugh and Mainard, was truly bishop of Gubbio, and by no means St. Peter Damian. Maroni has happily collected the arguments of this matter; let us therefore hear him: For since, he says [De ecclesia et episcopis Ostiensibus et Veliternis, page 64 and following, note 2.], I read that those whom we have named above were always called bishops of Gubbio even in the councils themselves; since they always distinguished themselves by this name; since Peter Damian himself named them bishops of Gubbio; since the same Peter never called himself bishop of Gubbio; since no one named him bishop of Gubbio; since he never conducted himself as bishop of Gubbio; since no one placed him in the series of bishops; since he never took care to obtain by prayers, impatient as he was of the episcopal burden, that he might be freed from it, as we read was frequently done in the case of Ostia; since he asserts that the church of Gubbio was committed to him by the predecessors of Alexander II, not by his predecessor, I cannot infer from the care of the church of Gubbio entrusted to St. Peter that he presided over it with episcopal authority.
[48] has shown, Maroni then argues from the letter to the bishop V., supposing that the bishop of Gubbio is meant; how difficult this supposition is to admit we have shown at number 43. Nevertheless it will help to hear Maroni disputing on this matter, since from this too it will be possible to understand Blessed Rudolf's condition. Maroni therefore continues: Add that, when the bishop V., whom the most learned Sarti proves to have been Guido, or, as he was then usually called, Vido, bishop of Gubbio, had to be rebuked by the holy man for having administered his church badly, he showed indeed some authority over him, but never episcopal; but only that which he deservedly considered to be in him, because by his means and patronage he had been chosen bishop: "I beseech you, brother," he says, "let not this rebuke seem heavy. For since you are not ignorant that you were advanced to the summit of the episcopate by our zeal, it is fitting that you should bear with equanimity one who, having so advanced you, nevertheless thus also sometimes reproves you." He does not call him his minister, he does not name him coadjutor; he does not bring forward his episcopal authority; he does not profess that he is bound by his office to rebuke one who errs; he does not declare that that church was committed to him by God and by himself, as he declared to Albert, who acted in his place in the pontificate of Ostia … Nor, however, will I therefore call him procurator or administrator of that church with the same authority with which he presided over that of Velletri. For how could it be that he was administrator and procurator of that church which never lacked its own bishops to administer and take care of it? In what sense, then, could St. Peter say that the church of Gubbio was committed to him by the supreme pontiffs? I think by the title of a peculiar patronage, protection and vigilance. Since St. Peter, although a cardinal and bishop of Ostia, greatly delighted in the solitude of Avellana in the diocese of Gubbio, the supreme pontiffs willed that church to be peculiarly commended to him, that from that place he might provide for its good by authority, counsels, admonitions, and every help he could; above all, that he might name and set over it bishops whom he knew to be suitable.
[49] although St. Peter had a church in the diocese of Gubbio. Nor does it seem that anything can be opposed to these things, unless perhaps what was proposed at number 44 concerning the church of St. Luke. But these too are not so difficult to explain; since formerly discipline held that when a bishop had consecrated a church, even outside his own diocese, it was called the church of the consecrator himself and depended on his jurisdiction, just as presbyters also stood at the disposal of him who had laid hands on them. Which matter we have already touched on elsewhere [Examen historicum et canonicum de regularium et clericorum juribus et officiis, chapter VII, number 12 and following, page 170 and following.].
[50] St. Peter appointed him corrector of his books; For the rest, how highly St. Peter Damian esteemed his disciple Rudolf is understood above all from the letter which the holy prelate of Ostia gave to Theodosius of Senigallia and Rudolf of Gubbio, bishops. For the holy man, thinking very humbly of himself, enjoined them that his opuscula and writings, as many as could come into their hands, should, while he lived, or at least after his death, be most diligently brought to the balance, and if they found anything said less rightly, they should either wholly expunge and delete it, or themselves correct and emend it. And the holy man affirms that he does this because he has no one dearer to him than they, and none more versed in the meditation of the Holy Scriptures: Moreover, he says, *since of those who are exercised in the meditations of the Scriptures, purer towards me in faith and
of more abundant charity than you, therefore I lay the burden of this labour chiefly upon you [St. Peter Damian, letter IX, book IV, volume I of the Works*, page 55. Compare Sarti, page 31 and following.].
[51] he gives him other signs of esteem. Among the works of St. Peter there is extant also another letter Ibid., book VI, letter XIX, volume I, page 92., written to the most dear brothers Rudolf and Ariprand about the year 1057 Annales Camaldulenses, book XV, number 1, volume II, page 168.. Sarti considers that this letter, full of love, was given to our Rudolf. And indeed, if there be compared with each other the letter on the life of Blessed Rudolf, the foretasted XIth of book IV, and this XIXth of book VI, many things will at once occur which favour this opinion. For in the latter he wishes his associates and friends, and, out of singular love, his uterine brothers, to be informed of the health divinely recovered by him; and at the end he adds: This our son (namely the letter-carrier), most beloved, I direct to you in reliance on you, after God. For whatever he shall accomplish in the cause for which he is sent will be ascribed specially to you alone. Moreover, as Mittarelli and Costadoni show Ibid., in the place cited., this letter was most probably sent from Acereta or Gamugno to Avellana, where Blessed Rudolf was then staying. Gaetani, the editor of the works of St. Peter Damian, considered that letter X of book IV Works, volume I, page 54., given to the bishop R., also pertains to Blessed Rudolf; but since the Massa of Sorbitulum, in which the prelate of Fossombrone had performed episcopal acts, was at that time by right of the bishopric of Senigallia, that bishop R., who had complained to St. Peter about his usurped rights, must be the bishop of Senigallia, not of Gubbio. Sarti, who treats this matter more fully, should be consulted De Episcopis Eugubinis, page 32..
[52] A few things known of his brother Bl. Peter. Blessed Peter, the brother of Blessed Rudolf, I should have omitted altogether had not his name too been inscribed on the altar of which mention was made at number 7. For the rest, apart from what St. Peter Damian has mingled concerning him with the deeds of Blessed Rudolf, nothing is known for certain. Which is also manifest from the following notes of Mittarelli and Costadoni: Of Peter, say those annalists Annales Camaldulenses, book XIV, number 22, volume II, page 146., the Bollandian associates omitted the memory in the Acts of the Saints; Jacobilli moreover has nothing besides what he reports from Damian. Hugues Ménard in the Martyrology of the Order of St. Benedict mentions him in these words at the 26th day of July: "In the hermitage of Fonte Avellana, of the venerable Peter, hermit." And in the annotations: "This blessed Peter was the brother of the said Rudolf, monk and hermit of Fonte Avellana and disciple of Blessed Peter Damian." The rest are silent. (Duverchius, however, mentions him with the title of Blessed Diarium, volume II, page 205 and following. at the 1st day of June.) Peter, Rudolf's brother, is to be distinguished from another Peter, who from a rhetorician of the world had been made a philosopher and a polished model of cenobites, to whom and to Albizo Damian in the year 1065 wrote the Apologeticum on contempt of the world Opusculum 12.; for the former professed the eremitical, the latter the cenobitic life. He is also to be distinguished from Peter of Nonantola, who after seventy years of monastic life was made a hermit of Avellana Opusculum 33.. Perhaps he is the same as the Peter of whom the same Damian writes this in the letter to Theuzo Opusculum 51.: "I pass over Peter, who suffers no trace of a bed to remain in his cell, but continually wears the bare pavement, whether in winter or in summer time." Damian indeed writes little of Peter, Rudolf's brother, besides the deed … of moderation, penance and abstinence when he was a novice, and besides what he adds, that the same Peter, as he was the elder in age, nevertheless also always went before Rudolf on the road of an arduous purpose and of a strict life. But those words take the place of a great eulogy: "Truly, if I wished to relate all that is at hand concerning Peter, this little sheet would perhaps fail first, while matter for speaking still remained." The time of his death is unknown. It is easily possible that he had already gone to the heavenly ones before his brother Rudolf, and before the year of the writing of Damian's letter to Pope Alexander. There follows now the Life of both brothers, which, as has been said elsewhere, is the earlier part of letter XIX of book I of St. Peter Damian, or of the antepenultimate opusculum of volume II of his works.
LIFE OF BB. RUDOLF AND PETER,
By St. Peter Damian.
Rudolf, hermit of Avellana and bishop of Gubbio, in Italy. (Bl.)
Peter, hermit of Avellana, in Italy. (Bl.)
BHL Number: 7282
SINGLE CHAPTER.
The penitent life of Bl. Peter and Bl. Rudolf.
Of Bl. Rudolf and Bl. Peter To the lord Alexander, most blessed pope, Peter, a sinner monk, his service a. Your beatitude has charged b me that I should never send you letters which contain anything light and worthy of oblivion and frivolous; which, that is, as soon as the reader has run through them by skipping, the devouring oamma c consumes: but that I should always write you something such as would deserve both to be received for the edification of readers and to be preserved among authentic writings. Whence thanks must be rendered to the Father of lights, who kindles the sanctuary of your breast with this fire of his love, that you both continually rest in the studies of the ancient Fathers, and moreover do not neglect to provoke to writing those who seem to you fit.
[2] their origin and conversion; Having therefore lately gone out from you d, when I came beneath the walls of the city of Florence e, a sudden messenger soon met me, who turned my midday into darkness, and filled the veins of all my inward parts with the gall of a most bitter message, namely that the bishop of Gubbio was dead f: whose manner of life, if it is recalled, will be able to edify the hearers in no ordinary degree. For it avails both for expressing the form of right living and for applying discipline to the correction of morals. For almost seven years ago g he, with his mother and two brothers, a little before him in age, having merely given their slaves their freedom, conferred on me his castle h, girt with impregnable fortification, with all the estates which were of his right, and coming to the hermitage i received the habit of monastic profession. We built a monastery indeed on their possession, over whose holy community, now living according to the rule, we rejoice sufficiently in the Lord k; where, his mother l and the brother who is weaker having been established, this Rudolf, who was afterwards raised to the episcopate, and Peter, his first-born brother, led the eremitical life so continently, so strictly, that fame proclaimed them wonderful to those who heard, and their life showed them remarkable to those who lived with them.
[3] the remarkable obedience and penance of Bl. Peter; Truly, if I wished to relate all that is at hand concerning Peter, this little sheet would perhaps fail first, while matter for speaking still remained. For, to relate briefly at least one out of many, while we were once sitting in chapter disputing about regular disciplines, he, being a novice, uttered one disorderly word out of secular habit. Then I, as though moved by anger, rebuked him with a sufficiently harsh invective, and after the rather long scourges of reproofs and rebukes, pronouncing sentence as on one struck by examination m, I ordered him to abstain from wine for forty days; yet with this intention, that for the present I might only deter him together with the rest from incautious speech, but afterwards temper the sentence with the moderation of a discreet remission n. But since it happened that I was intent on various affairs, and no one recalled this to my memory, the prescribed circle of days having now elapsed, at length I remembered it and was terrified, and astonished I inquired what Peter had done about the penance enjoined on him. And so I learned from the reports of the brethren that the penance had been fully carried out. I repented, I confess, of the sentence pronounced, but I rejoiced and wondered at so great a penitence of the brother, that for one single word uttered unadvisedly he had borne so long a penance; and had asked for indulgence neither by himself nor through others o.
[4] the severe Life of Bl. Rudolf in the episcopate; Now therefore let our discourse return to the bishop, with whom it began. For although the same Peter, as he was the elder in age, nevertheless also always went before on the road of an arduous purpose and a strict life; yet this one, promoted to the rights of the priestly office [p], did not omit in the church what he learned in the hermitage. For he always wore down his limbs with the same hair-shirts, was content with the same very scanty and contemptible garments. Indeed, while, as the nature of youthful age pressed upon him, he often suffered a most grievous accidie, he would tie little cords to the rafters of his cell, and so, with his arms inserted, he persevered hanging in the zeal of psalmody. Never did he eat fat, never eggs or cheese [q]. And in the very foods which were set before him, his continent frugality so tormented him that, reclining at table, he did not so much refresh himself as contend; and what outwardly seemed to be a banquet was rather an intestine war against gluttony. Often I strove that, at least in the inclemency of winter cold, he should either put under himself the litter of a papyrus mat [r], or at least sleep clothed at night. But he lay naked on a bare plank of wood, content with only an undershirt [s].
[5] his labours and abstinence; Further, he accounted the church a lodging, but decided that the little cell of solitude was his dwelling [t]. For the uncouth manners of the people and their undisciplined necks by no means suffered the light yoke of the Lord to be put upon them: but intent on earthly gifts, they gaped not after the word of God from the mouth of the pontiff, but after advantages as from the hands of a governor. For this region, the more it is found a stranger to riches, the more copiously it abounds in vices. For Eugubium seems to be named from egenus needy, or needy of good [u]. And therefore, compelled by my applying force, he retained by office the church which he had relinquished by desire; yet he dwelt more perseveringly in the hermitage. Whenever he could obtain that bread of this kind should be made in the hermitage, he ate the bread not of the brethren, nor indeed of the boys [x]; but that which was made either of pure barley, or rather of bran [y], which had remained over from the boys' loaves to be thrown to the dogs: and although, apart from the more solemn days, he was daily content with this bread, yet he weighed out its measure more attentively in the scales of equity [z]. Whence he sometimes complained to me that if measure [aa] were allowed him, he would indulge this same bread more largely to his itching gullet. For such fasting chastised the young man, that from whatever source he received the solace of nourishment, his stomach with empty belly did not care. Sometimes, indeed, even on Sundays knowing no cooked dish, he lived only on bread, and bread with water. He was continually girt with an iron band about his breast; which band, however, sunk beneath his flanks, he concealed the more diligently when he was stripped before the brethren. Never, namely, was the confessor present at a chapter in which he did not receive the discipline; and then he exulted festively if he was ordered to be scourged not by one only, but by two brethren [bb]. Often penance
of a hundred years he would undertake, which, namely, he would discharge in twenty days by the striking of rods and the other remedies of penance [cc]. The Psalter daily, when he could not fulfil two, he did not neglect to fulfil at least one [dd]. Which indeed, when he was settled in his cell, with both hands armed with rods, he was accustomed to continue entirely with the discipline [ee].
[6] his endurance of cold and his flight from simony; Moreover, when he was engaged on some journey, at whatever depth of the untimely night he rose, he did not cease to sing psalms, always with bare legs and feet [ff], until it grew light. Which custom, namely, while he remained in his cell, he kept day and night without ceasing. However severely the winter stiffened, he protected his feet with simple socks, while nevertheless his brother was content with shoes alone [gg]. Often he would adjure me terribly by the clemency of Christ that if ever perhaps he should go too far, I should by no means withdraw myself from correcting him; but should fulfil in him every manner of discipline that was owed to monks [hh]. Thus indeed he laudably observed both the rule of a monk and the authority of a bishop in alternate succession. For in season and out of season he pressed on with the word of preaching, and whatever he could take away from his household expenses he scattered, well prodigal, among the poor. Gathering a synod annually [ii], he permitted no canon [kk] of the accustomed offering or of gifts to be exacted from the clerics; but not even from the lapsed did he require any advantage besides penance alone: God forbid, he said, that I should sell the synod; let me rather raise up even the lapsed than fatten on their carcasses after the manner of a raven. It wearies me to proceed further in writing, and as it were an Icarian grief seems to restrain a father's hands from the painting [ll].
[7] his blessed but premature death. Him, therefore, adorned with these and such flowers of virtues, like a gleaming lily, the untimely frost of death withered, so that, when he seemed scarcely thirty years old, more or less, he passed from this unhappy light to the author of the true light [mm]. For being made perfect in a short space, he fulfilled a long time, as Scripture speaks; for his soul pleased God; and rightly is he said, made perfect in a short space, to have fulfilled a long time; because, while in that little time that he lived he held to the path of justice, so far as in him lay he spent all times in the service of the Creator. Indeed, whatever Wisdom says there of the holy man so fits him in all respects as if it were said specially of him. Venerable old age, it says, is not that of long time, nor counted by the number of years. But the understanding of a man is grey hairs, and a spotless life is old age. Pleasing God; whence it also follows: He was made beloved, and living among sinners he was translated. He was taken away lest wickedness should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul; for this reason he hastened to bring him out of the midst of iniquity [nn].
ANNOTATA.
p. As is evident from the context, St. Peter speaks of the episcopal character; whence it cannot be elicited from this that Blessed Rudolf passed through the presbyterate. Nor was it formerly customary, as it now is, for monks sufficiently instructed in letters to be promoted to the presbyterate. Some writers determine that Blessed Rudolf was designated bishop of Gubbio by St. Peter Damian; which thing is most probable, as is easily gathered from numbers 44 and following of the preliminary Commentary. Add that Mainard, Hugh and Dominic, the successors of Blessed Rudolf in the chair of Gubbio, were likewise taken from the Avellanite school of St. Peter Damian Sarti, De Episcopis Eugubinis, page 58 and following..
q. These things, however, did not belong to the Avellanite institutes Compare Opusculum XV of St. Peter Damian, chapter XIV, volume III, page 148.. Likewise at Camaldoli this rigour was not by law. Compare the Constitutions of Blessed Rudolf the prior, published by Mittarelli and Costadoni Annales Camaldulenses, volume III, works, column 524..
r. St. Peter Damian also elsewhere mentions the papyrus mat used by hermits Opusculum XV, chapter XIV, in the place cited.. A mat made of papyrus occurs in the Life of St. Romuald, a bed which is soft rush or papyrus in letter 30 of book VI Compare Du Cange's Glossary, under the word Papyrus.. That from the most ancient times similar mats or mattings served monks in place of a bed is sufficiently known from the old rules of solitaries. This papyrus, however, is not the Egyptian; for, on the testimony of Strabo, that did not grow outside Egypt and India; but the Sicilian, which still comes up in the marshy places of Calabria and Apulia and is different in kind from the Egyptian, and has bare stems, sometimes four cubits long [Encyclopédie méthodique, Arts et Métiers, under the word Papier, volume V, part II, page 469, Paris 1788.]: whence it is easy to weave this plant into mats.
s. Interula is an inner or innermost garment; concerning which more in Du Cange Glossary, under the word Interula.. From this passage it is clear that the law or counsel of sleeping in the religious garment [Compare Ferraris, Bibliotheca Canonica, under the word Habitus, number 20 and following.] did not obtain among the Avellanites.
t. The author means to signify that Blessed Rudolf stayed rarely at Gubbio, frequently at Avellana.
u. St. Peter Damian loved to play at etymologies, as appears from various passages of his works; but, for that time, with little success. Eugubium, a most ancient city, was formerly called Inguvium, or rather Iguvium, now Gubbio. In the past century there was much dispute about its beginnings and the origin of its name Compare Sarti, De Episcopis Eugubinis, preface, page L and following., but
perhaps not more happily than was done by St. Peter Damian. It is best known to antiquaries on account of two bronze tablets, remarkable for very ancient inscriptions, and commonly called the Eugubine tablets. Henschen indicated the situation of this city Acta Sanctorum, volume III of February, page 406. at the beginning of the Commentary on St. Peter Damian.
x. By boys St. Peter understands servants, attendants, slaves; lower down in the same letter, where he treats of St. Dominic Loricatus, he employs the same word in the same sense Compare Acta Sanctorum, volume VI of October, pages 626 and 628.. These, however, seem to have been a kind of lay brothers. For St. Peter, in the opusculum on the institutes of his congregation, has a chapter on the discipline of the servants; in which there is also the formula of oblation, by which they promised obedience and perseverance, but not conversion of manners, and gave the monks power of recalling them by compulsion and force into their service if they fled. Moreover, no otherwise than the monks, they lived stripped of property. They were called, however, not monks, but lay folk. They seem to have existed from the beginning at Vallombrosa, at Camaldoli and at Fonte Avellana [Compare Mittarelli and Costadoni, dissertation on the Conversi, in the appendix to volume I of the Annales Camaldulenses, column 353 and following.].
y. St. Peter Damian himself daily, apart from feast days, fasting, ate bran bread with yesterday's water [Life of St. Peter Damian, number 40, Acta Sanctorum, volume III of February, page 424. Compare page 425.]. St. Peter often mentions (as may be seen in Du Cange) that bread of cantabrum, or bran, prepared for dogs.
z. This is a peculiar praise; for by the Avellanite institutes the bread was not to be weighed daily, but only on fast days; whence the individual hermits had scales. The weight, moreover, was equal to three goose eggs [Compare Opusculum XV of St. Peter Damian, chapter VIII, volume III of the Works, page 147.].
aa. The same measure was always given to the hermits as to the monks, which on days of refection they were permitted to eat whole Ibid., in the place cited., but on fast days only a part, namely the weight of three eggs. Blessed Rudolf would therefore have preferred to receive daily only this part rather than the ordinary measure.
bb. Blessed Rudolf, prior of Camaldoli, in the Constitutions Chapter XIX, in the Annales Camaldulenses, volume III, works, column 521. speaks thus of this usage: But at other times (namely outside both Lents), assembling in chapter every Sunday, a brotherly exhortation having been given first, they must accuse one another charitably. Lastly, a common confession having been made first, they receive strokes of blows on their bare limbs, not, however, for the sake of tormenting their bodies, since they inflict severer punishments on themselves in their cells, but out of zeal for following the divine passion and the examples of humility, to the confusion of him who is the king of pride.
cc. Concerning this matter, so often handled by the learned, enough was said from Mittarelli in the preliminary Commentary on Blessed Dominic Loricatus Acta Sanctorum, volume VI of October, page 615., the inventor of this practice. Let the reader see there how a penance of a hundred years was performed within twenty days.
dd. By the Avellanite institutes [Compare Opusculum XV, chapters IX and XVIII of St. Peter Damian, volume III of the Works, pages 147 and 150. Compare Opusculum XIV, page 141.] one psalter was to be recited daily for the living, and one half or whole one for the dead, as time permitted.
ee. No less celebrated is the controversy about that manner of flagellation by which one rages against one's body with one's own hand, and it pertains to Blessed Rudolf in so far as its invention is ascribed to him, no otherwise than to St. Peter Damian, Blessed Dominic Loricatus and other Avellanites; but Guido, abbot of Pomposa, and St. Poppo, likewise an abbot, had already used it before them, or certainly they had learned it from them Mabillon, Preface 1 to the VIth Benedictine century, number 39.. It was, however, propagated above all by the writings of St. Peter. Benedict XIV [De Servorum Dei Beatificatione, etc., book III, chapter XXXIX, number 7 and following.] embraces many things in few words in praise of this practice.
ff. This was prescribed only, even afterwards, for the time during which one was in one's cell Compare Opusculum XIV of St. Peter, page 142..
gg. It must be that St. Peter afterwards made the laws of his hermitage more severe; for in Opusculum XIV he has this for all Ibid., in the place cited.: This too is not the least part of penance, that at all times, whether summer or winter, they use neither shoes nor gaiters in their cells; but it is the custom always to remain with bare legs and feet, except those who are pressed by the grievous trouble of infirmity.
hh. Hence it is clear that Blessed Rudolf joined the monastic profession and state with the episcopate.
ii. Since he held the episcopate for three or at most four years, he could only have held a synod in the years 1058, 1059, 1060 and 1061. That nothing survives of these synods no one will indeed wonder, since they were celebrated to inquire into the vices of the clerics and to give them salutary admonitions.
kk. This offering or canon of gifts, commonly called cathedraticum, synodaticum, synodus, etc., consisted of two solidi according to the laws of the church. To St. Peter Damian, who declared war on simony almost all his Life, that harmless and lawful usage was little pleasing, on account, perhaps, of the ease of abuses Opusculum XXXI, chapter V, volume III, page 239., as is clear from this passage. But this very passage illustrated, and many other things pertaining to the synodaticum, may be seen in Benedict XIV De Synodo, book V, chapters VI and VII, volume XI, page 80..
Allusion is made to the most well-worn fable of Dædalus and Icarus, and so to these words of Ovidius Naso Metamorphoses, book VIII.:
And the father's hands trembled
mm. In the Commentary, §§3 and 4, it was shown that Blessed Rudolf died in the year 1061, and indeed not long before the feast of the Holy Apostles Simon and Jude, that is, the 28th of October.
nn. All these things are taken from Wisdom, chapter IV.