ON BB. JAMES AND PHILIP, MARTYRS OF THE ORDER OF FRIARS MINOR AT BEVAGNA IN UMBRIA,
AT BEVAGNA IN UMBRIA.
In the year 1377.
CommentaryJames, M., of the Order of Friars Minor, at Bevagna in Umbria. (B.)
Philip, M., of the Order of Friars Minor, at Bevagna in Umbria. (B.)
BY J. P.
Mevania, commonly Bevagna, a city
of Umbria on the river Topino,
has been described by us at greater length
in vol. IV of August, The death of the Blessed on
the 23rd day of the same month, page
719, on occasion of Bl. James of Bevagna,
of the Order of Friars Preachers, who in that same
place closed his last day. But now there present themselves
two other Blessed, who by their death ennobled the same
city. Arthur announces them thus
on this day: At Bevagna, in the Territory of Foligno,
the passion of the blessed James and Philip, martyrs.
They are praised also in Hueber's Franciscan
Menology. Wadding at the year 1377,
num. 1 and 2, thus narrates their martyrdom: In this
turbulent time, in which the cities of Italy everywhere,
and especially of Umbria, the March and Lombardy, behaved
inconstantly, and refused the rule of their lords;
Trincius, son of Trincius, a severe and harsh ruler, held Foligno.
He had doubted
of the fidelity of the people of Bevagna, who were subject to him,
and at the suggestion of slanderers he sent men like himself,
William of Foligno and Peter Coccoranus,
as prefects of the most savage soldiers (a great part
of whom were foreign heretics),
who should severely punish the authors and conspirators
of a defection they had devised. They filled everything
with slaughter, blood, rapine, fire,
with no distinction made of rank or sex.
[2] There were then in that town the aforesaid Martyrs,
who, detesting the savagery, for justice' sake: their bodies cast into the river in the public square now
piously exhorted the people to bear the vengeance perhaps sent by God
for their sins;
now boldly reproached the tyrants with their cruelty and with the unjust
oppression of the innocent. The authors of the crime, indignant,
ordered their satellites to rush upon
the Friars as favorers of a rebellious people. Those men, after afflicting them with blows
and insults, at last killed them
toward the evening of the second day of September, and,
the bodies having been ignominiously cast out for the terror of others,
they decreed that on the following day they should be cast into the
flowing river Topino. Some pious townsmen,
having secretly taken them away by night and enclosed the corpses in a chest,
were carrying them off to be buried; but, being surrounded by the soldiers,
they left the pious spoil to the impious robbers, having suffered
injuries and wounds. Without delay
the cruel butchers committed the sacred deposit to the river.
But He in whose sight the death of his servants
is precious would not have them buried without honor
in the waters, but, the order of nature being wondrously
changed, he made the chest ascend against the impetuous course of the river,
as far as the bridge
named from saint Magnus.
[3] they are found, Those who were passing by, seeing the wooden mass drawn without sails,
without oars, without a steersman, by some hidden
force, suspecting something mysterious,
partly afraid, partly eager, either to venerate something divine
or to carry off gain, drew the chest
to the shore in that place where now is seen
the church of blessed Mary at saint Magnus.
The lid being taken off, they saw the sacred bodies
reverently laid out, gaping with a fresh wound,
and breathing a most sweet odor, by which signs
they judged that the pious Men had fallen for justice' sake.
[4] and are honorably buried. The matter being reported to the people of Foligno, the clergy went out
to meet them, and with funeral pomp led the corpses into the city,
presently to the cathedral church of saint Felicianus.
But before the doors it was necessary to stop, for by no
force, art or effort could they be brought into this church.
Meanwhile, with an unwonted ringing, with no one
pulling them, the bells of the Franciscan house resound;
by which miracles all not undeservedly believed
that it was sufficiently made plain that to these Martyrs a tomb was owed
among the associates of their own institute. Thither
accordingly the supplication of the whole people and clergy being directed,
they were laid with great honor in a chapel at the right hand
of the chief altar, in a noble tomb;
where to this day they lie open to the veneration of the faithful.
A little after, the Lord avenged the blood
of his Servants; for Trincius perished miserably,
cast down from a window …, and the authors
of the butchery, who struck with the sword, perished by the sword.
[5] The tragic end of Trincius is described at greater length
by the praised Wadding at the same year
1377, num. 22, among the wonders of Bl. Thomas, or
Thomasuccio, after the episcopate had been foretold by him
to a little boy: The tyrant under whom the Blessed were slain In that city of Foligno there ruled,
by vicarial power granted from the Apostolic See,
Trincius, the third of that name, son of Ugolino Trincius,
a man of lofty spirit, of intemperate life, and of tyrannical
rule. Him Thomas more than once fraternally
corrected, and sometimes sharply rebuked.
He, taking it ill that he should be so often
reproved by a contemptible man, resolved to cast him into the fire;
yet he said nothing to his servants, but under a feigned appearance
of honor summoned the man. Thomas, foreknowing from heaven
the danger prepared for him, went to a neighboring
oven, and wrapped in his cloak a heap of live coals.
When he came into Trincius's sight he spread out the burning
coals, the cloak being unharmed, and scattered them over
the pavement, saying: Behold the fire made ready:
behold also the sacrifice: you resolved to cast me into
the pyre; I shall gladly be sacrificed for the Lord.
Astounded by the double miracle, both of the unharmed
garment and of his secret thought being known, he held
the man of God in veneration, and knew that he shone
with a prophetic spirit.
[6] He wished accordingly to know from him (such is the curiosity
of men, is punished in a wondrous manner. and their desire for length of life)
whether his life would be prolonged for many years. To whom Thomas:
You will live so long, until the brass, or
the bell-metal which serves the common offices of the city,
shall fall down broken, and calves
shall fly over the tower. Reckoning both hard,
Trincius promised himself a longer life;
but by the clearness of the event the obscure mystery was unlocked;
for the Florentines and the enemies of the Pontiff
in this year 1377, having conquered the people of Camerino,
under the leadership of Lucius Tedesco, stirred the people of Foligno
to defection. As the people conspired, when they were summoning to arms with
the sound of the brass, the bell fell broken,
and the enemies set upon the tower their
standards, on which two calves were painted. Presently
they rushed into Trincius's palace, and, having thrown him
out through a window, wretchedly killed him on the 28th day of September.
[7] It remains that we return to our Blessed,
and prove their public and ancient cult.
The public cult Wadding above at num. 4 said: To this
day they lie open to the veneration of the faithful.
From the same author at the year 1390, num. 9,
it seems that it can be gathered that both were in great veneration in the 14th century,
as friends of God and as having died with the odor of sanctity,
from what is reported
of Brother Paulutius preparing himself for death:
He visited daily the tomb of blessed
Angela his fellow-citizen, and of the holy martyrs James
and Philip, … and prayed that they would intercede with the Lord
for him, that, as they had lived together in the same
fellowship, so they might reign together in heaven, and that
those who served under the same leader might
win the trophy in the same place. That great esteem
of their sanctity thereafter persevered in the following centuries.
For Mark of Lisbon, who is written to have died about
the year 1568, in Wadding's
Catalogue of the writers of the Order of Minors,
affirms in part 2, book 9, chapter 33, §3 of the Chronicle of the same Order
that the bodies of James and Philip, surnamed
the Innocents, are shown with great veneration
in the church of St. Francis at Foligno, and then indicates that they are there in
a chest above the altar of the great chapel at the Gospel horn.
[8] is confirmed. The veneration of the same Blessed persevered
in the seventeenth century: for Jacobilli, in vol. 2
on the Saints and Blessed of Umbria, published in print in the year 1656,
besides other things which he gathered at the 2nd day of September
about today's two Friars Minor,
records that their bodies were placed
in the church of St. Francis, and that they rest whole
in a chapel of the same church, for public veneration,
in a notable chest with the following inscription:
The bodies of BB. James and Philip, martyrs.
Our Daniel Papebroch, in the Ms. Diary
of his Roman journey, undertaken in the year 1660,
among the Foligno matters inserted by him in it, at the
18th day of December has this: We went to the church
of the Franciscans, where in a chapel at the right hand
of the choir, above the altar, rests the body of Bl. Angela
of Foligno, through the glass sides of a gilded chest,
which another, meaner, of wood covers. In a similar chest at
the left of the choir are the bodies of the Bl. martyrs James
and Philip of the Franciscan Order, and they lie
with a palm in their hands. Of that Bl. Angela
we treated on the 4th day of January from page 186. In the 18th century
Benignus Fremaut, in the general Franciscan Legend,
printed in Flemish in the year 1708, confirms the above,
indicating that those bodies still rest there
in a beautiful chest on the altar of the chapel at the right
side of the high altar, both then also
whole, as, he says, I myself saw and venerated them
in the year 1682. From these things thus deduced
we have judged that it is lawful for us, saving the decree
of Pope Urban VIII, as it seems, to weave these two
Blessed, together with the other dwellers of the heavenly court of this
day, into our Work.