ON BB. BERTRAND AND CAUBERT, CONFESSORS OF THE ORDER OF FRIARS PREACHERS IN SOUTHERN GAUL,
ABOUT THE YEAR 1230.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Bertrand de Garriga, of the Order of Friars Preachers. (Bl.)
Caubert, of the Order of Friars Preachers. (Bl.)
BY R. D. B.
§1. Of the cult of Bl. Bertrand at Le Bosquet and at Orange. Of the burning of his relics. He is numbered among the Blessed in ancient and recent books.
Most of the older writers who have handed down to posterity the deeds illustriously done by St. Dominic, father of the Friars Preachers, and by his disciples, Blesseds Bertrand and Caubert are to be treated on this day. such as Bl. Jordan, Gerard de Frachet, Theodoric of Apolda, Bernard Gui, Leandro Alberti, and many others, their imitators, describe Blessed Bertrand de Garriga as a truly apostolic man, shining with virtues of every kind, and extol his holiness with outstanding praises. Yet the servant of God is by no means honoured with a liturgical Office at the time at which we write these things. But the Friars Preachers are greatly to be praised, gathered in provincial chapter both of the province of Toulouse in the year 1869 and of the province of Occitania in the year 1870, because they put diligent effort into having the holy see confirm by its vote, as soon as possible, the ecclesiastical cult accorded to Bl. Bertrand de Garriga beyond the memory of men, and grant that a liturgical office be celebrated in his honour. After we have spoken of Bl. Bertrand, we shall treat of Bl. Chabert or Caubert, otherwise Galliber or Galbert, an Allobrogian, who flourished in almost the same parts and at the same time, and spent no less labour in begetting souls for God, and whose public and ecclesiastical cult François Vibert, bishop of Maurienne in Savoy, declared in the year 1871 to be older by a hundred years than the Urbanian decree of the year 1634, and who also asked the Roman pontiff to pass the same sentence. It is no obstacle to our treating of the blessed priest on this day that his name is not inscribed in the menologies or other books of this kind at the 29th day of October: for since he has been entered in them now at one day, now at another, he seems to be held in some degree among the dayless. Now first let us discourse of Bl. Bertrand.
[2] [The body of Bl. Bertrand is raised from the earth incorrupt 23 years after his death.] By right and deservedly we give a place in our Acts to Bl. Bertrand de Garriga, as we have noted, since his public cult, and that ecclesiastical, precedes the Urbanian decree of the year 1634 by more than a hundred years. And this will become plain from the history of the cult, which we shall set out in imitation of our predecessors. For that the body of the blessed man was raised from the earth and translated into the church of the Cistercian nuns of the village of Le Bosquet twenty-three years after his death, that is, about the year 1253, Bernard Gui reports in these words: His (Brother Bertrand's) holy body, which was buried in the house of the nuns of Le Bosquet, where he also died, near Orange in Provence, after twenty-three years was RAISED, and found whole and incorrupt, and is kept there with fitting honour and devotion, where many have obtained remedies of health Durand and Martène, Amplissima Collectio, volume VI, column 419.. Almost the same is read in the Brief History of the Order of Preachers, by an anonymous author, which Mabillon brought out from a manuscript codex of the year 1367 of the convent of Santa Sabina at Rome, and which Martène and Durand made public Ibid., column 333.. His (Brother Bertrand's) body, writes that anonymous, after XXIV years was raised from the earth, found whole and incorrupt, and honourably laid in the house of certain nuns, and remains to this day … incorrupt. Leandro Alberti did not wholly follow this anonymous, but rather trod in the footsteps of Bernard Gui, who narrates that the body of Bl. Bertrand was raised after XXIII years, and not after XXIV years. This elevation of the body was a manifest indication of the cult shown to the servant of God [Benedict XIV, De Beatificatione etc., book I, chapter VI, number 2 and following; Acta Sanctorum, Propylaeum of May, Dissertation 20, page 172 and following; Fontanini, De S. Petro Urseolo, chapters 14 and 15, page 45 and following; Mabillon, Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, Preface to century V, number 99.].
[3] In the year 1413 he is translated by stealth to Orange, Nor did this cult cease afterward, as we very easily gather from the fact that, when in the year 1413 the convent of nuns had been suppressed by order of the Cistercian chapter, and its goods united to the monastery of Aiguebelle of the same Order Gallia Christiana, volume I, column 740, Piolin edition., the Friars Preachers of the convent of Orange secretly carried off the remains of Bl. Bertrand to their house. For this offence (because, as violators of ecclesiastical burial, they judged themselves liable to the censures of the Church), they sought and obtained pardon first from the antipope Benedict XIII, otherwise Pedro de Luna, then, in the year 1427, from Martin V. Of which thing this diploma gives proof:
[4] Martin V afterward approving. Martin, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved son the dean of the Church of St. Agricol of Avignon, greeting and apostolic benediction. It befits Us to follow up with timely favours the wishes of religious, especially in those things which regard the dignity and honourableness of ecclesiastical rite. A petition lately exhibited to Us on the part of our beloved sons the prior and brethren of the house of Orange, of the Order of Preachers, contained that, whereas formerly a certain Bertrand de Garriga, first provincial in the province of Provence, had died according to the custom of the said Order in the city of Orange, and the city itself then lacked a house or conventual place of the same Order, the body of the said Bertrand was given ecclesiastical burial in the monastery of the nuns of Le Bosquet outside the walls of Orange, which is now uninhabitable; and that then, after a certain space of time had elapsed, after the aforesaid house had been constructed and built, some brethren of it who then were, supported by lay power, coming to the aforesaid monastery in the night-time, apostolic
see, or of anyone else, on this matter, the licence, as is believed, by no means having been sought, presumed to exhume the aforesaid body thence and to transfer it to the house itself, and to keep it there hidden, laid away in a certain chamber, damnably incurring the penalties and sentences promulgated by law against such persons; and that at length the brethren themselves, and also their successors, conscious of the aforesaid detention, returning to their heart, are said to have been absolved from the excess, and from the penalties and sentences of this kind, by virtue of certain letters of the late Pedro de Luna, called Benedict XIII in his obedience, to which those parts then belonged; the same body, since licence to bury it has by no means been obtained in any way, remaining continuously in the said chamber, as it remains at present. Wherefore on the part of the prior and of the present aforesaid Brethren we have been humbly supplicated that we would deign, of apostolic kindness, to grant them licence to bury the body itself in the cemetery of the church of the said house, or in the same church. We therefore, who have no certain knowledge of the foregoing, inclined to supplications of this kind, command your discretion by apostolic writings that you diligently inform yourself by our authority concerning all and each of the foregoing, and if through information of this kind you find them to be so, that you bestow on the aforesaid prior and Brethren, by the aforesaid authority, licence to bury the aforesaid body in the cemetery, in a place fitting and honourable for this, or in the church of this kind. Notwithstanding the foregoing and any other things to the contrary whatsoever. Given at Rome at the Holy Apostles, on the seventeenth day before the Kalends of July, in the tenth year of our pontificate Bullarium Fratrum Praedicatorum, volume II, page 680..
From which diploma it is manifest that at the beginning of the fifteenth century Bl. Bertrand was held in great veneration, without, however, any certain argument of public cult shown to the servant of God being able to be drawn from it: for Martin V nowhere calls Bertrand blessed, nor his body sacred or anything similar. But certainly in that age the Friars Preachers of Orange would not have made so much of the remains of the servant of God, snatched from among the living two centuries before, had he not long since been adorned with the cult of the blessed. What was decided in accordance with that diploma is not known: but it is certain that the body of Bl. Bertrand remained with the Friars Preachers. The matter is narrated in a different way by Mamachi Annales Fratrum Praedicatorum, volume I, book II, page 368.: A convent of the Order (of Friars Preachers) having been built in that city (Orange), since the house of the virgins had almost collapsed, in the year 1427 ours translated it into their church, by the will of Martin V, the supreme pontiff. How these words can be reconciled with the letter of Martin V I do not see.
[5] But in the year 1561 it was burned by the Huguenots. In that place it rested until in the year 1561 the Huguenots, occupying by night the church of the Friars Preachers, laid it waste with fire and sword, not sparing even the remains of St. Bernard *, religiously kept there as sacred relics, or even the tabernacle of the Body of the Lord. And this is from the Calvinist Joseph de la Pise Tableau de l'histoire des princes et de la principauté d'Orange, page 285., who adds that the body of Blessed Bertrand gave off a fetid odour. This impious crime is also mentioned in the year 1705 by Canon Prevost, a Parisian, precentor of the holy Catholic Church of Orange, at folio 237 of the manuscript History of the bishops of Orange, which he left unpublished up to now, and of which a copy is kept in the public library of Avignon. Receive, reader, his words: On the first of November (of the year 1561) the church of the Dominican Friars was stormed in one night. The statues, images, the tabernacle of the Body of the Lord, and the body of St. Bertrand were given to the flames, and on the next day they held profane meetings in it. Such was the most ill-starred fate of the body of Bl. Bertrand.
[6] Yet the cult of Bl. Bertrand did not cease there, Meanwhile, although from the year 1413 the inhabitants of the parish of Le Bosquet had been despoiled of the body of Bl. Bertrand, they did not, however, abstain from venerating the holy man. For in the year 1643 the bishop of Tricastin *, François de Grignan, in whose episcopal jurisdiction Le Bosquet lay, visiting according to his office the church of that place, found at the high altar a tripartite image in which were represented St. Bertrand, St. Paul, and St. Catherine. There stood there also, beside the high altar, toward the bise, a round chapel, which popular tradition affirmed to be sacred to St. Bertrand and in which his body probably lay before it was carried into the convent of the Order of St. Dominic at Orange. The bishop permitted Mass to be celebrated at this altar of St. Bertrand, provided it were duly furnished with the necessary things Archives du département de la Drôme, fonds évêché de Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux.. Another witness of the continued cult of Bl. Bertrand, Anselme Boyer de Sainte-Marthe, a Friar Preacher of the convent of Tricastin, wrote in the year 1710, in the History of this place, that the servant of God was much venerated by the people, and at that time was called a saint; nay that there was also honoured in the church of Le Bosquet a great statue which they said was of the same blessed man, and before which pious persons poured out prayers Histoire de l'Église de Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, page 92.. Add that the cemetery of the place was called by the name of Bl. Bertrand, and is even called so today.
[7] But at the time of the French upheaval, at the end of the eighteenth century, even after his statue was broken at the end of the eighteenth century. the statue of Bl. Bertrand de Garriga, no otherwise than the other images and altars of the church of Le Bosquet, was broken and scattered. Likewise a very large tombstone, by which the inhabitants think the ancient burial of the blessed man in the suppressed monastery was covered, and on which the image of the servant of God was seen carved, was broken to pieces; whose fragments were collected by the people as things worthy of all devotion. Men of that age who survived told inhabitants still living that as boys they had very frequently prayed to Bl. Bertrand at this image. Nor did the cult of the servant of God perish afterward in that district; for a few years ago a statue of Bl. Bertrand was placed above the altar at the round chapel of which we have spoken, before which the inhabitants of the place often light candles, make vows, pour out prayers, have Masses celebrated in honour of the blessed man, saying that they have obtained many things through his intercession. Likewise men count it an honour to be chosen to carry the statue of Bl. Bertrand on their shoulders in public processions. Finally, in the parish of Le Bosquet you will scarcely find a house that does not have its image of the blessed man; on the back of which this prayer is read: Let us pray. Almighty and most gentle God, who brought forth for the thirsting people a fountain of living water from the rock, bring forth from the hardness of our heart tears of compunction, so that, Bl. Bertrand interceding, we may be able to bewail our sins, and, Thou having mercy, may deserve to receive their remission, through Christ our Lord. Having read these things through, no one will deny that ecclesiastical prelates, the clergy, and pious Christians, for six centuries now, have publicly and privately accorded to Bl. Bertrand the cult of the saints.
[8] The cult of Bl. Bertrand is shown to be legitimate Of this cult, a hundred years before the Urbanian decrees, there is this indication also, that in a book printed in the year 1517 he holds a place among the Blessed. For Leandro Alberti, a most eminent member of the Order of Friars Preachers, where he collects the Lives of certain illustrious men shining with holiness of the Order of Preachers, at the expense of Giovanni Lupi, citizen and bookseller of Bologna, … in the year of the Lord 1517, on the third day before the Kalends of March, writes: B. Bertrandos the Frenchman. Bertrand de Gariga, of the province of Narbonensian Gaul, was renowned under the instructions of father Dominic; nay he offered himself as his companion for many years, continually afflicting his flesh for our Lord Jesus Christ. To him the blessed father once forbade that he should weep over his own works wrongly done, but rather over those of others, perceiving that he afflicted himself too much for his own faults. For from then (obeying the father's word) he began to weep abundantly for others, letting himself go. At length, after very many labours which he had endured for the Lord, after immense affliction of the body, he passed devoutly to the Lord. One thing happened after his happy end which I ought not and cannot keep silent. Further, in the twenty-third year after, his corpse, exhumed, was found whole and incorrupt, so that it was a miracle to all, and, laid from that place in the monastery of certain nuns which is called Housquet, near Orange of the province of Narbonensian Gaul, it is seen to the present day as it had been carried there Leandro Alberti, De viris illustribus Ordinis Praedicatorum, book V, page 179.. Thus far Leandro, who prefixed the letter B to the name of the servant of God (as he did for the other saints and blessed whose Lives he either collected or wrote). Which document is of the greatest weight for demonstrating that the cult of Bl. Bertrand does not offend against the decrees of Urban VIII and was admitted into the Church already from antiquity.
[9] from written books. In Leandro's footsteps a good many writers have trodden, calling the servant of God blessed, so that from printed books alone it is manifest that, long before and after the Urbanian decrees, up to our age, he was honoured with the cult of the saints. In whose number are to be enrolled Antonio of Siena in the year 1585 Chronicon Ordinis Praedicatorum, pages 12 and 56.; Serafino Razzi in the year 1605 Vite de' Santi e Beati del sacro Ordine de' Frati Predicatori, part I, page 94.; Nicolaus Jansenius in the year 1622 Vita S. Dominici, page 271.; Malvenda in the year 1627 [Annalium Sacri Ordinis Praedicatorum Centuria prima, pages 175, 263 and following.]; the provincial chapter of the Friars Preachers in the convent of Aix in the year 1633; Jean de Rechac in the year 1647 [Vie de saint Dominique et de ses premiers compagnons, Vie du B. Bertrand, page 560 and following.]; Jean Mahuct in the year 1678 Praedicatorium Avenionense, book I, pages 6 and 8.; a member of the Friars Preachers of Vienne in the year 1700 L'année dominicaine.; Pierre-Joseph Haitre of the same Order, in the manuscript Martyrology of the Province, kept in the public library of Marseille; Jacques Lafond in the year 1716 L'année dominicaine, page 277.; Francesco Vidal in the year 1747 Sacro Diario Domenicano.; Domenico Ponzi [Sacro Diario Domenicano, volume II, at the 20th day of October, editions of 1758 and 1838.] and very many others. Finally the venerable priest Nadal Histoire hagiologique du diocèse de Valence, page 337., in the Hagiology of the diocese of Valence, of which the parish of Le Bosquet is today a part, affirms by right and deservedly, in the year 1855, that the cult of Bl. Bertrand has continued there up to our times. From which discussion it is plain not only that the honours of the saints were accorded to the blessed man beyond the memory of men, but also that they were approved by the knowledge, over a very long time, and the tolerance of the bishops. Wherefore the Ordinary of the place ratified the cult of the most devout man on the 12th day of August of the year 1870.
Annotations* read Bertrandi
* Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux
§ II. Bl. Bertrand, companion of St. Dominic. His deeds at Toulouse. He weeps much over his own and others' sins. He is created prior provincial of Provence. The beginnings of the convent of Avignon. The death of Bl. Bertrand.
Bl. Bertrand, born at Garrigues, None of the older writers committed the Life of Bl. Bertrand to letters, but, as we were just saying, several, narrating the beginnings of the Order of Friars Preachers or the Acts of St. Dominic, not seldom mentioned the servant of God. So the deeds of Blessed Bertrand are to be excerpted from these historians, especially from Blessed Jordan of Saxony, Gerard de Frachet, Theodoric of Apolda, and Bernard Gui. Now Bernard Gui [Léopold Delisle, Notice sur les manuscrits de Bernard Gui, page 186 and following, in Notices des manuscrits etc., volume XXVII, part II.], a most diligent writer of the Order of Friars Preachers, who lived a short time after Bl. Bertrand, reports that he sprang from Garricae (Garrigues) near Alestum (Alais) in the department of the Gard * [Germer-Durand, Dictionnaire topographique du département du Gard, pages 5 and 97.], and that he was one of the first disciples of St. Dominic, and took up with him the Rule of St. Augustine in the year 1216. These are the words of Bernard Gui: The Brethren who chose the rule with Blessed Dominic. — Here it is pleasing to set down first the names of the Brethren who, gathered together with Blessed Dominic at Prouille, unanimously chose the rule of Blessed Augustine, under which the Order of Preachers was to be confirmed for themselves and their successors, in the year of the Lord 1216; of whom I have found only these. I Brother Matthew the Frenchman… II Br. Bertrand de Garriga, aforesaid, of the province of Provence, so surnamed from the place of his origin, sprung from near Alais. He, being the companion of Blessed Dominic and his fellow-traveller, had often impressed on himself in vigils, fasts, disciplines, and many other virtuous works the form of life of the blessed Father, being a man of great holiness, and of inexorable rigour toward himself, and a most severe mortifier of his flesh… [In Mamachi, Annales Ordinis Praedicatorum, volume I, Appendix, column 362 and following.]. Bernard Gui repeats almost the same things in the Little Book on the Masters of the Order of Preachers [In Durand and Martène, Amplissima Collectio, volume VI, column 418. Compare ibid., column 333 and following.]. Whether Bl. Bertrand sprang from the noble family of the Garrigues or only from the place called Garricae is not clear. It is established, however, that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there existed in Languedoc a family so named, and that many who were born of it set their names to diplomas, and used this formula: B. de Garricis, Bernard de Garrigues, or also Bertrand de Guarricis [Histoire du Languedoc, by De Vic and Vaissette, volume II, proofs, column 507, volume III, proofs, columns 158, 172, 174, 213, 224, 335. Compare Germer-Durand, Dictionnaire topographique du département du Gard, page 97.]. Hence a field lies open to conjectures.
[11] probably in Provence, But it pleases less the venerable man Isnard, parish priest of Tulette in the diocese of Valence in France, and other writers [Bulletin de la Société d'archéologie de la Drôme, year 1870, page 274 and following.], that Bernard Gui affirmed that Bl. Bertrand de Garriga was so surnamed from the place of his origin, sprung from near Alais, as if by these words he had signified that the blessed priest first saw the light at Alais. The opinion of the venerable parish priest, on the contrary, is that Blessed Bertrand was born at Le Bosquet in Provence, and he brings forward a manuscript codex of the middle of the fourteenth century of the national library of Paris, number 4348, whose inscription is this: Catalogue of the priors provincial of the province of Provence of the Order of Preachers, and in which these words are read: The first prior provincial in the province of Provence was Brother Bertrand de Garrigiis, so surnamed from the town or place of his origin near Alais in Provence. Moreover the venerable priest relies on the popular tradition of the parish of Le Bosquet in Provence: according to which tradition Bl. Bertrand entered life in a hamlet of the parish still called Garrigues. But this opinion does not conflict with the sayings of Bernard Gui. For the excellent author, almost a contemporary of the blessed man, and using excellent instruments, does not say that Bl. Bertrand was born near Alais, but sprung from there. By which expressions, as is gathered from Facciolati, it is not signified that the blessed man was born at Garrigues near Alais, but that he drew his origin from that place. Moreover it is certain that the author of codex number 4348 had before his eyes the writings of Bernard himself Amplissima Collectio, volume VI, column 418.. Add that in his little work whose title is: The Brethren who chose the Rule with Blessed Dominic, these words already adduced occur: Br. Bertrand de Garriga, aforesaid, of the province of Provence, so surnamed from the place of his origin, sprung from near Alais. There is, however, a difference between codex 4348 and the other works of Bernard, namely, in the former the author errs in saying Alais is in Provence, since it is situated in Lower Languedoc. In the latter there is silence about the site of Alais, and it is only said that Bl. Bertrand sprang from near Alais, or, as below, Alestensis, that is, from the district of Alais. As to the tradition of Le Bosquet, nothing prevents that the family of Blessed Bertrand, having left its seat, migrated to Le Bosquet and placed its dwelling where now is the hamlet called Garrigues, and that the blessed man was born there.
[12] he was one of the first members of the house of Toulouse, Shortly after St. Dominic, Bl. Bertrand, and the other companions had admitted the Rule of St. Augustine, the house of Toulouse at St. Romain was established, of which the same Bl. Bertrand was one of the first members. For the praised Bernard writes, recounting the beginnings of that convent: In the year of the Lord 1216, in summer time, the first church was given to the Brethren in the city of Toulouse, which was founded in honour of Blessed Romanus the martyr… And the Brethren then were about sixteen in number, whose names, as far as I could find them, I have briefly touched on here… Brother Matthew the Frenchman, a learned man and ready for teaching, who was afterward the first and last abbot in our Order. Brother Bertrand de Garriga, sprung from near Alais, who was afterward the first prior provincial of this province. Brother Peter Cellani, who was the first prior of Limoges. Brother Thomas of Toulouse, a very gracious man and eloquent in speech. Brother Mames the Spaniard, brother according to the flesh of St. Dominic, and a most pure imitator of his holiness. Brother Michael the Spaniard, a contemplative man… Ibid., column 457.. From which series it is manifest that St. Dominic, beginning the house of Toulouse, had an excellent choice of men. Over the members at Toulouse he set Bl. Bertrand, as is plain from several diplomas fortified with his seal in the years 1215 and 1216. Martène edited the instruments of the year 1216 [Ibid., column 458. Compare Échard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, volume I, page 16, note.]. But we read the same in Bernard Gui himself, in the manuscript codices of Agen of the year 1305 and of Toulouse of the year 1308, which the distinguished man Léopold Delisle made public in part. From the copies edited by him we bring forward Gui's very words Notice sur les manuscrits de Bernard Gui.:
[13] over which he also presided. The first prior of the friars preachers of Toulouse after Blessed Dominic, who, as has been touched on before, was the head, lord, and master of all, was Brother Bertrand de Garriga, of Alais, in the house and church of St. Romain, where the Brethren first began to live together canonically and conventually, appointed there under the same Blessed Dominic. And he was prior in the year of the Lord 1216, in the month of October, as is evident in certain ancient letters and old instruments drawn up in the name of brother Bertrand, prior of the house and church of St. Romain, especially in the letter of the donation of a certain house for the place and the Brethren, made to the lord Brother Dominic and to Brother Bertrand, the aforesaid prior; and in a certain other letter of the purchase of certain houses for the same place, and of the sale of certain things made in the prior's name by the same. This brother Bertrand was afterward the first prior provincial of the province; of whom in the Lives of the Brethren and in the Series of the priors provincial many memorable things worthy of praise are noted. To which narrative Bernard Gui himself added these things with his own hand in the margin of the Toulouse codex: But of the priors who succeeded Blessed Dominic in the place of St. Romain I have not found certainty, on account of the lapse of time, from Brother Bertrand de Garriga, who was the first there, down to Brother John de Johannia; who was the last there, and the first in the second place in which we now live. Whoever wishes more of these and other codices, let him consult the excellent work of the most distinguished man Léopold Delisle on Bernard Gui.
[14] He weeps over his sins far too much, More about Bl. Bertrand was left us in writing by the excellent man Gerard de Frachet, an Aquitanian, born at Châlus near Limoges, who entered the Order of Friars Preachers in the year 1225. He compiled, says Bernard Gui, and studiously gathered the book which is entitled Lives of the Brethren … at the command of the venerable Father Brother Humbert, master of the Order… Full of days and of good works, in a good old age he passed to the Lord, in the convent of Limoges… in the year of the Lord 1271, in the sixty-sixth year of his age [Amplissima Collectio, volume VI, Historia Fundationum conventuum Praedicatorum, column 465. Compare Échard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, volume I, column 259.]. What he records of Bl. Bertrand, since it is referred to no year with certainty, and concerns the man himself privately, we shall narrate in the first place. At the beginning of the thirteenth century that blessed monk was the companion of St. Dominic in his apostolic labours, and especially among the Albigensians. So Gerard reports that St. Dominic forbade Brother Bertrand, his companion, to weep over his own faults, but rather over those of others, observing that he afflicted himself too much for his sins. And his words were of such power that from then on he wept abundantly for others, but for himself he could not weep even when he wished Mamachi, Annales Ordinis Praedicatorum, Appendix, column 363, in the Notes.. But afterward Bl. Bertrand seems to have exceeded the measure in another way; for from this time we read in the same Gerard de Frachet that he offered the sacrifice of the Mass almost only for sinners, the dead being neglected: Br. Bertrand, he says, a holy man and companion of Blessed Dominic, and the first provincial of the Brethren of Provence, said Mass almost every day for sins. When, therefore, in the convent of Montpellier (which began to be founded in the year of the Lord 1220 [Amplissima Collectio, volume VI, Bernard Gui, Fundatio Conventuum Praedicatorum, column 529.], Brother Benedict, a good and prudent man, had noticed this, he asked him why he celebrated more often not for the dead but for sins. He answered: "Because the dead for whom the Church prays in
are safe, and it is certain that they will come to salvation: but we sinners move in manifold danger, in suspense." The Brother said to him: "Tell me, dearest prior, if there were here two beggars, equally poor, but one had all the members of his body sound, while the other lacked them all, which would you help first?" He answered: "The one who could help himself less." Then Brother Benedict said: "So are the dead, who have neither a mouth to confess, nor ears to hear, nor eyes to weep, nor hands to work, nor feet to go on pilgrimage: but they seek and await our help alone. But sinners, besides our suffrages, can help themselves with all the aforesaid things." And when even so he did not acquiesce, on the following night a certain terrible dead man appeared to him, heavily pressing upon him with a wooden coffin, who more than ten times in that night woke him, and terrified him, and vexed him. Whence at dawn, calling the said Brother Benedict, and approaching the altar with tears, he then celebrated devoutly for the dead. He who wrote these things down heard them from the mouth of Brother Benedict himself In Mamachi, Appendix, column 363 and following, in a note..
[15] and he is a sharer in the miracles of St. Dominic, Bl. Bertrand was a witness of and sharer in the miracle which God worked at the request of St. Dominic, when they were going together from Toulouse to Paris, imparting to them knowledge of the Teutonic language, of which they were wholly without experience. Here is the narrative of Theodoric of Apolda, who wrote at the end of the thirteenth century. Going also from Toulouse to Paris, the holy Father (Dominic), when he had come to Rocamadour, spent the night there devoutly keeping vigil in the church of Blessed Mary, having as companion of his journey, his fellowship, and his devotion Brother Bertrand, a holy man, who was the first prior of Provence. Going on the next day, they met on the way certain Teutonic pilgrims, who, hearing the man of God with his companion going through psalms and lessons in prayer, attached themselves to them devoutly. And coming to a town, they invited the saints and provided for them lavishly in the accustomed manner: and so they did for four continuous days. Then he proceeds: On the fourth day Blessed Dominic, groaning, said to his companion: "Brother Bertrand, truly I have a wounded conscience, that we reap the carnal things of these pilgrims, while we do not sow spiritual things for them. If it please you, let us pray the Lord on bended knees that He give us understanding and speech of their tongue alike, so that we may be able to announce the Lord Jesus to them." And when they had prayed, to the amazement of those men, they spoke the Teutonic idiom intelligibly, and, walking for another four days and speaking with them of the Lord Jesus, they at length came to Orléans. And the Teutons left them on the road to Paris, humbly commending themselves to their prayers.
[16] who forbids that one of them be made known while he lives. On the next day the humble Father said to the Brother: "Behold, Brother, we are entering Paris, and if the Brethren know the miracle which the Lord gave us, they will believe us saints, when we are sinners; and if it comes to seculars, we shall lie open to much vanity. By obedience, therefore, I command you not to tell these things to any man before my death." So the thing lay hidden, until after his death Brother Bertrand made it known to devout Brethren [Acta Sanctorum, volume I of August, page 589. Compare Mamachi, Annales Fratrum Praedicatorum, volume I, Appendix, column 323.]. The learned Malvenda thinks this event happened in the year 1219 Annales Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, at the year 1219, page 261.. Br. Bertrand also told me … says Bl. Jordan in the Life of St. Dominic, that when he was once making a journey together with him, and a heavy storm of weather arose over them, and already a great flood of rains was pouring over the earth, master Dominic, having made the sign of the cross, so drove away before him all the flood of the same inundation that, as they walked, while they always saw before them, at a space of three cubits, the drops falling densely upon the earth, not even one drop touched even the fringe of his garments [Acta Sanctorum, volume I of August, page 555. Compare Mamachi, Appendix, column 286.]. As we have noted, Blessed Bertrand made for Paris with St. Dominic in the year 1219. But he had already gone to this city two years before, namely to begin the convent of Paris.
[17] He is sent to Paris; For in the year 1217 St. Dominic established the Paris house of his Order: to which, besides six others, he destined Bl. Bertrand. Indeed in Bl. Jordan, the biographer of St. Dominic, who extols Bl. Bertrand with many praises, we read: There were sent also to Paris Br. Matthew, the abbot mentioned above, with Br. Bertrand, who was afterward prior provincial of Provence, being a man of great holiness and of inexorable rigour toward himself: for he was a most severe mortifier of his flesh, and had imbibed for himself in many things the form and exemplar of his master, Bl. Dominic; to whom he was also at times companion of his journey. These, I say, were sent to Paris with letters of the supreme Pontiff (Honorius III) to publish the Order, and with them two other Brethren for study; namely Br. John of Navarre and Br. Lawrence the Englishman, to whom, before they entered Paris, many of the things which afterward befell the Brethren at Paris, namely about the dwelling and site of the houses, about the reception of many Brethren, were revealed by the Lord, as he himself foretold, and the event afterward proved. And apart from them Br. Mames, uterine brother of Blessed Dominic, and Br. Michael the Spaniard, having with them a Norman lay brother whose name was Odorius. All these were sent across to Paris; but the last three, travelling more quickly, arrived sooner. They entered Paris, then, on the day before the ides of September (in the year of the Lord 1217); whom after the space of three weeks the others mentioned above followed. And they hired for themselves a house near the hospital of the B. V. Mary, before the doors of the bishop of Paris. In the year of the Lord 1218 the house of Blessed James was given to the Brethren, though not yet absolutely, by master John, dean of Saint-Quentin, and by the university of Paris, at the instance of the prayers of the lord Pope Honorius; which they entered to dwell in on the eighth day before the ides of August [Acta Sanctorum, volume I of August, page 550. Compare the Chronicle of the Order by Humbert, in Mamachi, volume I, Appendix, column 300.]. Thus far Bl. Jordan: whose words, a few things changed, Theodoric of Apolda Acta Sanctorum, volume I of August, page 577. by right and deservedly transferred into his historical books. The diplomas of these donations our predecessors exhibited in illustrating the Life of Bl. Dominic Ibid., page 455 and following.. But I would have the reader advised that it is reported in the Brief History of the Order of Friars Preachers, written by an anonymous author in the year 1367, that they came to Paris about the beginning of October in the year of the Lord 1217. But this is not contrary to the statement of Bl. Jordan, since he says that of the companions some arrived at Paris on the 12th day of September, others after three weeks.
[18] prior provincial of Provence, he begins the convent of Avignon. How long Bl. Bertrand stayed at Paris is not reported: but certainly for no long space. For in the year 1219 he accompanied St. Dominic making from Toulouse to Paris. Moreover Bernard Gui writes these things: In the year 1221 the second general chapter was celebrated by Blessed Dominic … In which chapter, or in the preceding one, … the convents were divided into eight provinces… The first prior provincial in the province of Provence was brother Bertrand de Garriga In Durand and Martène, volume VI, column 403.. That writer added with his own hand, as is read in the manuscript codex of Rodez, afterward kept in the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva at Rome: Brother Bertrand was prior provincial in the year of the Lord 1223, as I found in a certain letter of Prouille. Martène, reporting these words, using the Baluze codex, wrongly wrote 1233 in place of 1223 Ibid., column 418.. What the blessed man did at the time when he discharged the office of provincial of Provence we are wholly ignorant, except that about the year 1224 he began the convent of his Order at Avignon. For Jean Mahuet writes in the book on the Avignon Origins of the Preachers: The convent of the Friars Preachers of Avignon was begun by religious sent about the year 1224 by Blessed Bertrand de Garriga, first Provincial of the province of Provence: but in the following year, when Louis VIII, king of the Franks, surrounded Avignon with a numerous army, they went out, and when at length the city was taken and the heretics and their abettors put to flight, the religious returned. Mahuet, reporting the same a little lower, adds: For so it is held in our old monuments Praedicatorium Avenionense, book I, chapter I, page 6; chapter II, page 8.. Jean de Rechac wholly supports Mahuet, who moreover reports that Blessed Bertrand established the convent of Marseille in the year 1225 Vie de saint Dominique, book V, pages 761 and 768.. He is reported also to have begun other houses. Antonio of Siena affirms that the year of his death was 1230 or thereabouts, but Malvenda Annales Ordinis Praedicatorum, page 264. notes that it is not known whence he took it. Antonio was followed by Giovanni Pio, Nicolaus Jansenius, Bzovius, Touron, and others. These things only do we gather with certainty about Bl. Bertrand from the ancient writers. We omit things unascertained or drawn from mere conjecture. The venerable man Isnard discusses more learnedly for his purpose; whose work, not yet completed, reached us when this commentary had already been printed almost entirely; and who, when he had heard that we were treating of Bl. Bertrand, sent us many excellent documents, for the most part indeed known to us. For which goodwill we are most grateful to him. Now of Bl. Caubert.
Annotations* Département du Gard
§ III. The family of Bl. Caubert, his entry into the Order of Friars Preachers, his death and cult.
IN THE YEAR 1264.
It is to be lamented that Bl. Caubert, a most eminent man, not only obtained no biographer after his death, The deeds of Bl. Caubert were written briefly by but was not even mentioned by contemporary writers, if you except Gerard de Frachet. He composed a concise history of the blessed man; which we value most highly, as written by a most devout and most skilled man, and a contemporary. Another eulogy Leandro Alberti inserted in the book On the Illustrious Men of the Order of Friars Preachers, making much use of the work of Gerard. Between the two writers there exists little difference. But Gerard excels in antiquity, as Leandro in hagiological notice. And certainly, were there not, besides the sincere judgement of the bishop of Maurienne, to be recorded below at number 12, certain indications in Leandro's narrative of cult accorded to the blessed man from the most remote times, we should have thought his eulogy, though very brief, should be passed over. But since we have taken most of what we have to say of the servant of God from the books both of Gerard and of Leandro, we copy their compositions here, and since Gerard was much earlier in age, we begin by copying out his narrative.
[2] Gerard de Frachet In the convent of Lyon there was a certain Brother named Chabert, a great zealot for souls. He, when for twenty years or more he had preached
around the mountains of Savoy almost continuously , at length coming to the town which is called Aiguebelle, in which he had celebrated his first Mass, and in which he had borne much fruit by preaching, feeling himself weighed down, said: "Prepare Mass for me, for in this town I celebrated my first Mass, and I believe I shall celebrate my last." When this had been devoutly celebrated, he had himself anointed with the last anointing, and, greatly edifying by holy words and the devotion of his faith the many who were present, after a little while he fell asleep in the Lord. There was then no small concourse of peoples to his tomb, and very many are said to have been freed from various ailments; and the church of the canons regular, among whom he is buried there, was much increased by the revenues of offerings Échard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, volume I, page 467.. In another place read in Gerard: Brother Chabert of the land of Savoy, a fervent and gracious preacher, who after death is said to have been renowned for many miracles, related that when he was a scholar at Bologna, on the day after the burial of the blessed Father Dominic, he saw with many others a certain demoniac led to the tomb of the blessed Father; and when he had entered, the demon began to cry: "What do you want with me, Dominic?" frequently crying and repeating: "Dominic;" and so, dragged over the tomb, the possessed man was freed from the demon Ibid., page 41.. Which prodigy is to be referred to the year 1221, as being the year of the death of St. Dominic.
[3] and Leandro Alberti. Gerard de Frachet, already praised, is supported by Leandro Alberti, an excellent writer, in these words: Bl. Chalbert the Allobrogian. Chalbert the Allobrogian, of the convent of Lyon, a devout and holy man and a very great zealot for souls, when he had preached for more than twenty years through the Alps and mountains of the Allobroges, turning aside to the village whose name is Aiguebelle, where he first performed the divine service (which they call Mass), and recalled many by his sermons from vices to virtue, feeling that his last day was at hand, said: "Men, prepare what is necessary for performing the sacred rites. For here I first performed the divine service, and I shall perform it for the last time (as I think)." These things done, he ordered himself to be anointed with the holy oil, and, answering eagerly to each formula of the words, at once fell asleep in the Lord. And when the country people learned that the man of God had died, running together to his funeral they extolled him with praises. Whence it came about that many, seized by divers ailments, were restored to soundness by almighty God, the name of the holy man being invoked. He lies, then, in the church of the canons regular. Which thereafter received the greatest increase from the offerings bestowed in the name of the man of God. For the death of the holy man was about the year of the Lord 1264 De viris illustribus Ordinis Praedicatorum, book V, page 195 and following..
[4] He was an Allobrogian and a Friar Preacher. From these words recited it is clear that the two most ancient writers who committed the memory of Bl. Caubert to letters did not declare from what town or village he sprang, or in what year he was co-opted among the Friars Preachers, or even what offices he had discharged before. We know, however, that he was of the land of Savoy, as Gerard speaks, or of the Allobroges, as Leandro Alberti does. It is very probable that he began life either at Aiguebelle or in its neighbourhood, and also that before he was enrolled among the Friars Preachers he had been invested with the priesthood: for otherwise it is difficult to understand why he celebrated his first Mass there, since there never existed at Aiguebelle either an episcopal see or a house of the Friars Preachers. It is not hidden from me that some have judged that the blessed man was already in the year 1221 a member of the Order of Friars Preachers, because Gerard narrates, as we have seen, that he was a scholar at Bologna when St. Dominic departed from life there in this year. But this argument seems slender; for at that time, as also now, the younger Friars Preachers who gave their attention to studies were called not scholars but students, as is evident from the Rule of the Brethren Holstenius, Codex Regularum, volume IV, page 113, Brockie edition. and from the Book on the Instruction of Officials [Ibid., page 170. Compare Masetti, Monumenta et Antiquitates veteris disciplinae Ordinis Praedicatorum, volume I, part II, chapter I, page 119 and following.], published by Bl. Humbert, master general of the Order and a contemporary of Bl. Caubert. The name of scholar, indeed, was given rather, though not solely, to those who were engaged in studies in the public schools. Moreover the servant of God was a member not of the convent of Bologna but of that of Lyon, and therefore, if he had given his name as a young man to the Order of St. Dominic, he would have pursued his studies in that very convent of Lyon, as was then the custom of the Order, unless perhaps he had been sent to the Paris house of studies of the Friars Preachers, which was then the only one of the nascent family Masetti, place cited, page 122.. Hence it seems less rightly deduced from Blessed Caubert's stay at Bologna as a scholar in the year 1221 that he was numbered among the Friars Preachers before his priesthood. Bl. Caubert is declared by Leandro Alberti to have departed from life most devoutly in the year 1264, whom Serafino Razzi, Lima, Jean de Rechac, Bzovius, Giovanni Michele Pio, and others have imitated.
[5] He is said to have written a certain Manual. At times some have disputed whether Bl. Caubert was that Brother Cabert whose work Henry of Susa, from the year 1241 to 1250 bishop of Sisteron *, approved: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. To the honour of the same, we, Henry, by its permission bishop of Sisteron, our synod having been gathered at Sisteron, have approved the Manual formerly made by Brothers Cabert and P. de Rosset, of the Order of Preachers, some chapters having been added, some declared, and we strictly enjoin that the things contained below be observed by all our subjects [Martène and Durand, Thesaurus novus Anecdotorum, volume IV, column 1079 and following.]. The Manual contains 104 chapters or statutes. Whether Bl. Caubert is the author of this Manual, or a namesake of the same Order, Échard did not dare to affirm Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, volume I, page 467.; but the times agree altogether, and he who preached the word of God on the borders of Savoy, or through the Alps and mountains of the Allobroges, could easily have made a famous name for himself in Provence too, in which Sisteron lies Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, volume I, page 467.; but of this matter there is nothing certain.
[6] The cult of the saints was accorded to him One thing remains for us, to show that the public and ecclesiastical cult which is attributed to Bl. Caubert is older by a hundred years than the Urbanian decree of the year 1634. It is indeed established, from the plain words of Gerard and Leandro, that the servant of God departed this life with a fame of outstanding holiness, and that as soon as he breathed out his soul the cult of the saints was accorded to him by the citizens of Aiguebelle, and also that the country people, running together to his funeral, extolled him with praises. But whether that no small concourse of peoples to his tomb … in the church of the canons regular was public cult or private, I am not the one to decide the matter. I confess, however, that public cult, or at least the beginning of public cult, pleases me somewhat more; because it seems to have been accorded not only not without the knowledge or against the will of ecclesiastical authority, but rather with its full approval. For, as Gerard says, the church of the canons regular was increased by the revenues of offerings, or, as Leandro narrates, by offerings bestowed in the name of the man of God, or took great increase: which surely seem to have been unable to be done without the consent of ecclesiastical authority: if this licence was given, the cult is without doubt to be called public and also ecclesiastical [Benedict XIV, De Beatificatione etc. Sanctorum, book II, chapter VII, number 5 and following.].
[7] long before and after This cult of the blessed, of whatever kind it was, is to be said to have grown little by little: for when in the years 1597 and 1598 the church of the canons regular, dedicated to the Mother of God, the place of burial of the blessed man, was destroyed with fire and sword by the French, who were waging war with the duke of Savoy, it had not yet ceased to be fervent. Which appeared also from the joy with which the inhabitants of that district were filled when in the year 1650 Claude Haloy, a citizen of Aiguebelle, asked the canons of the chapter of St. Catherine for permission to build, at his own expense, a chapel on the remains of the burial-place of Bl. Caubert and of the destroyed church of the Mother of God, formerly of the canons regular. Claude thought it better to restore the original church, because there, before the war of the year 1597, the parish office was celebrated: whence, transferred then to the church of St. Stephen, it was thereafter performed by a canon of St. Catherine. To undertake this most devout work he was moved also by the ancient devotion of the people of Aiguebelle and of the surrounding district, who had once venerated this church very greatly, as the seat of the remains of a man of the Order of Friars Preachers illustrious for holiness, apostolic zeal, and miracles: through whose intercession they had obtained a good many benefits from God. The chapter of St. Catherine assented to the prayers of Claude Haloy, and the bishop of the place approved the agreement entered into between both, in these words: Let letters be dispatched in form according to the supplication and the conclusions of the fiscal. Given in the palace of our city of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne on the 22nd day of June 1650, Paul Millet, bishop of Maurienne. Moreover Haloy increased the church restored by him both with benefices and with sacred furnishings, and gave it a thousand and sixty florins, whose yield was to be spent so that in perpetuity, every week, and on the feast of the Blessed Mary assumed into heaven, one Mass should be celebrated. On account of his munificence Claude and his heirs were constituted perpetual patrons of this chapel; the last of whom, Gerbais de Sona, baron of Aiguebelle, being about to leave this place for all time, substituted the chapter of St. Catherine for himself Pointet, Mémoire concernant le vénérable P. Galbert, page 21 and following..
[8] the Urbanian decree As soon as Claude's pious intention became known to the people, their devotion to the holy man grew wonderfully, as we have noted, even before the bishop had added his vote. This good will of pious persons God ratified, and granted them many singular gifts on account of the intercession of Bl. Caubert; whose indications were the very frequent votive offerings presented to so kind a patron. The chief of these was a panel in which Blessed Caubert was represented, sitting on a cloud, and at his feet a certain man, kneeling, carried a boy in his arms: to which panel this historical inscription was made: On the 19th day of June of the year 1650, about the second hour after noon, the wife of the lord Paleul, notary of Aiguebelle, striving to give birth, could bring forth only an arm and a leg of her child, so that she and her child were placed in peril of life. She had already invoked God, the Mother of God, and all the saints, men and women, whom she remembered, when it came into her mind to seek the help of Bl. Galliber: and when she had done this, without delay she happily brought forth the child: for which benefit she gives thanks to God. The offering of this panel,
since it was made by episcopal authority Ibid., page 22., is to be reckoned an act of public cult, as Benedict XIV teaches De Servorum Dei Beatificatione et Canonizatione, book II, chapter 23, number 9.. Others placed over the burial-place of the man of God his image, on which they also inscribed these words: Blessed Galbert.
[9] at Aiguebelle in Savoy. This fervour of the people of Aiguebelle had not yet slackened in the eighteenth century, when the Friars Preachers, as well as the chapter of St. Catherine and many others, sought with all their might from the Roman pontiff Benedict XIV that he would enrol Bl. Caubert in the register of the Blessed. The wish did not displease the successor of Benedict XIV, Clement XIII, who sent to Aiguebelle Giacomo Astesan, a member of the Order of Friars Preachers, afterward bishop of Nice, and at last archbishop of Oristano in Sardinia, to put diligent effort into uncovering the body of Bl. Caubert. When this was heard, the magistracy of the town, which contended that the patronage of the chapel of St. Caubert had been transferred to the chapter of St. Catherine to its injury, and that therefore it had a right to the very relics of the servant of God, made no small trouble for Giacomo Astesan. For on the very day, the 13th of October of the year 1758, on which the sacred tomb was to be examined, it took counsel and decreed that it would not prevent the finding of Blessed Caubert from being made by the apostolic legate, but would not allow the holy bones to be placed in a casket other than one made at the town's expense, or carried to any church other than the parish church of St. Stephen. Since the people of Aiguebelle were so disposed, no investigation of the body of Bl. Caubert was made, and it was left where it had been laid after death, and where in the year 1725 it had been seen whole by many people of Aiguebelle Pointet, page 23.. Peace was not concluded between the chapter of St. Catherine and the town magistracy until the 5th day of October of the year 1763. But since there is silence about Bl. Caubert in the agreement itself, there is no reason for us to dwell longer on this matter and be kept from setting out the remaining fortunes of the blessed body.
[10] The present-day devotion of the people. At the time of the French upheaval at the end of the eighteenth century, the chapel of Bl. Caubert underwent a very ill-starred fortune: for first it was partly overthrown; then it was sold at auction, as property of the Republic, to a carpenter, and turned into a workshop. But since about the year 1860 it was destroyed by flames, the ruined buildings were bought by the parish priest of the place, and on the ancient foundations and over the very tomb of Bl. Caubert a new chapel was built in his honour at the expense, and that great, of the citizens of Aiguebelle. To which most devout sanctuary religious Christians flock from every side, frequently offering stipends to priests for Mass. Not a few assert that they have recovered from sickness through the intercession of Bl. Caubert. But the present inhabitants of these parts affirm with one voice that the neighbours of the people of Aiguebelle too have burned with devotion toward the blessed man from the most remote times up to our age. Nay there is also a mountain, some kilometres distant from Aiguebelle, which, on the testimony of popular tradition, the servant of God very frequently climbed to give himself to prayer, and which is called by his name the Mountain of Chabert (Mont Chabert). On its summit waters spring up, which many do not cease to draw, since they are declared to have leapt forth by a miracle of the blessed man. A septuagenarian inhabitant adds that as a boy he very often heard that health had been restored by a miracle to many sick persons who drank this water with devotion. Moreover the parish priest of the parish of Mont Gilbert (Mont Gilbert), which name they hold to be nothing but a contraction of Gualiber (Gualibert), confirmed on oath, in the process for the confirmation of the cult of Bl. Caubert, that this servant of God is venerated with peculiar honour by the inhabitants of the place, and that his help is implored especially by women in childbirth.
[11] Leandro Alberti in a book of the year 1517 calls Caubert blessed, These things being understood, it seems manifest that there was a centenary cult of Bl. Caubert, before the Urbanian decrees, in the church of the canons Regular, and that it was continued with the bishop of the place tolerating it. But perhaps the same argument becomes more brilliant from the book on the Lives of the illustrious men of the Order of Friars Preachers, which Leandro Alberti printed in the year 1517, and where the servant of God Caubert, as we saw at number 3, is called blessed. For Urban VIII, forbidding in the year 1625 immoderate cult of the Saints, added that he did not wish by his decrees to prejudice the cult of servants of God which was then immemorial, or, as he declared in the year 1634, of a hundred years, that is, which arose before the year 1534, adding that that cult is immemorial which is proved by authentic documents: under which name … there come in the present matter first histories written by men worthy of credit, who composed them a hundred years before the Urbanian constitution … and this not only if they bear witness to the cult of servants of God, but also if they merely narrate his virtues and miracles, calling him by the title of BLESSED or SAINT [Benedict XIV, De Canonizatione et Beatificatione Sanctorum, book II, chapter XXIII, number 1.]. Now that the book of Leandro Alberti is an authentic document by which it may be proved that Bl. Caubert was counted in the number of the saints at least a hundred years before the Urbanian decree of the year 1634, or, as Benedict XIV interprets, a history written by a man worthy of credit, no expert will call into doubt. For since Leandro wrote, as Pio Tommaso Masetti says [Monumenta et Antiquitates veteris disciplinae Ordinis Praedicatorum, Prologue, article II, page 31.], about the year 1515, and diligently consulted old codices, we can safely trust his authority unless weightier documents stand in the way. Of this work also Girolamo Tiraboschi Storia della letteratura italiana, volume VII, part II, book III, page 171., Giovanni Fantuzzi Notizie degli scrittori bolognesi, volume I, page 147., Adrien Baillet Jugement des savants, volume II, number 110, page 38., and Échard Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, volume II, page 137. speak with praise. But how highly the book of Leandro is to be valued is clear especially from this, that before the Roman tribunals it is frequently used as a witness of the centenary cult of several servants of God of the Order of Friars Preachers, as we see in the cause of the confirmation of the cult of Bl. Mannes, brother of St. Dominic, of Bl. Jordan of Pisa, and of Bl. Lawrence of Ripafratta.
[12] as also many others who followed him. So the most truthful witness of the most ancient cult accorded to Bl. Caubert is Leandro Alberti: in whose footsteps there have entered, numbering Bl. Caubert among the Blessed of the Order of Friars Preachers, in the year 1585 Antonio of Siena Chronicon Fratrum Ordinis Praedicatorum, pages 13 and 120., in the year 1605 Serafino Razzi Vite de' santi e beati del sacro Ordine de' Frati Predicatori, page 63.; in the year 1607 Michele Pio Delle Vite degli huomini illustri di S. Domenico, column 106., as also in the year 1620 in another edition of his work The same work, column 179.; in the year 1615 Jean Blancone, who turned the work of Serafino Razzi into the French language Les Vies des Saints et Saintes de l'Ordre de saint Dominique, page 66.; likewise in the year 1616 in the Little Index of some Blessed martyrs and confessors of the holy Order of Friars Preachers, at the end of the Martyrology of the same most deserving Order. After the year 1625, although Urban VIII had forbidden that unapproved cult be accorded to servants of God, writers continued to call the venerable Caubert blessed, reckoning that he was to be numbered among those whom the pontiff himself had willed to be excepted from his decree. In the year 1678 the Dominican Year L'année dominicaine, at the 9th of January.; in the years 1758 and 1838 Domenico Ponzi Diario Domenicano, at the 9th day of January, editions of 1758 and 1838.; finally in the year 1867 the venerable man Truchet Histoire hagiologique du diocèse de Maurienne, page 291 and following., a priest of Maurienne, who did not hesitate to give the Life of the servant of God a place among the Lives of the Saints and Blessed written by him. But the principal argument is that the bishop of Maurienne (as we said at the beginning of the Commentary) declared, by ordinary right, that the cult attributed to Bl. Caubert is older by a hundred years than the Urbanian decree, and therefore legitimate. Nor did he exceed the faculty given to bishops by Urban VIII in pronouncing such a judgement, as Benedict XIV shows Benedict XIV, De Beatificatione, book II, chapter I, number 1., and asking the Roman pontiff that the cult of Bl. Caubert be enlarged. For the holy see declared on the 5th day of July of the year 1634: A particular process with subsequent pronouncement of the Ordinary or of a delegate of the Apostolic See, as it must precede according to the form of the aforesaid decrees concerning cult not exhibited, so also must it precede, and is to be made by the same respectively, when any postulator should allege that he is in one of the excepted cases; namely that cult was exhibited by indult of the Supreme Pontiffs, or by permission of the Sacred Congregation, or by the common consent of the Church, or through immemorial course of time, or through the writings of the Fathers and of holy men, or through the knowledge and tolerance, over a very long time, of the Apostolic See or of the Ordinary [Benedict XIV, De Servorum Dei Beatificatione etc., book II, chapter XVII, number 1. Ibid., book II, Appendix I.]. Now let us firmly hope that the holy see will be favourable to the wishes both of the Friars Preachers and of the bishop and of the whole clergy and Christian people, and that therefore the glory of Bl. Caubert on this earth and the devotion of the people toward him will take very great increases. Before we put an end to this historical commentary, we cannot but return thanks to the Reverend Father Xavier Faucher, of the Order of Friars Preachers, because he most courteously pointed out to us not a few historical documents most suited to illustrating the deeds of Blesseds Bertrand and Caubert. Now let us approach the Acts of Bl. Benvenuta; who, most devout virgin, although she never took solemn vows in the Order of Friars Preachers, nevertheless served diligently under their banner. For she was not only imbued with their salutary teaching, but also, co-opted among the members of the third Order of St. Dominic, or of Penance, and keeping its laws to the letter, reached the summit of Christian perfection.
Annotations* otherwise contra
* otherwise et confiniæ
* Sisteron.