ON ST. JAFREDUS, MARTYR,
OR THEOFREDUS, IN THE MARQUISATE OF SALUZZO IN ITALY.
Under Maximian, as is reported.
SYLLOGE.
On his cult, the finding of his body, and the translations.
Jafredus or Theofredus, martyr in the marquisate of Saluzzo in Italy (S.)
BY J. S.
Ferrarius was the first to announce the memory of St. Jafredus as of a martyr of the Theban legion, in his General Catalogue at this day, His memory in more recent Martyrologies: the place in which writing thus: At Monte Viso, of St. Theofredus the Theban martyr, under Maximian. In his Annotations he adds these things: From the records of the church of Saluzzo, in whose diocese there is a village with a church dedicated to the Martyr near the little town of Crissolo. He is also called Jafredus: concerning whom see the History of the Theban martyrs lately published at Turin. Saussay followed him, where in the Supplement to the Gallican Martyrology he has it thus: In the territory of the Turinese at Monte Viso, the birthday of St. Theofredus the martyr of the Theban legion, beheaded there under Maximian. His precious remains, laid up, are honorably preserved in the church of the village of his name near the little town of Crissolo in the diocese of the church of Saluzzo. What is said in Saussay of a village of St. Jafredus is to be corrected: for I do indeed find a church of St. Jafredus, but not a village of that name. The same Saint is briefly announced by Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology. Ferrarius in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy announces St. Jafredus at the source of the Po; but it is the same place: for the Po rises out of Monte Viso and the Cottian Alps in the marquisate of Saluzzo near the borders of Gaul. Yet Ferrarius observes these things in his Annotation: Whether St. Jafredus suffered there is not so certain: that he was, however, one of the Theban legion appears from an inscription found on his tomb. But I wonder that that inscription is not produced, if this can be abundantly understood from it.
[2] Further, Ferrarius wove in the same place such an elogium as this: Jafredus, The Saint is believed to have suffered, and his body afterwards found: who is also Theofredus, a Theban soldier, fleeing the savagery of the emperor Maximian, came into the territory of the Turinese at the source of the river Po, at which time several others of the same legion, that they might not be defiled with impious sacrifices, withdrawing themselves from the camp, retired into various places. For he, when he had taken refuge in those places at the springs of the Po, was seized by the emperor's satellites and put to martyrdom for the faith of Christ. His body, buried near the village of Crissolo in the diocese of Saluzzo, since it was unknown, was disclosed by divine means. For when the oxen of a certain herdsman had cast themselves headlong from a very high rock into the valley beneath together with the plough, they were found without hurt, and the Martyr's sepulchre was discovered by the plough. A church was built to him on the neighboring hill, which is wont to be very much frequented for devotion's sake by the neighboring peoples, especially on this day and on the first Sunday of August, on account of the miracles usually wrought at the tomb of St. Jafredus. For these things he praises the History of the Holy Theban Martyrs which William Baldesano, canon of Turin, published in Italian.
[3] he is said to have been of the Theban legion, but that is not certainly shown. Now the praised Baldesano, in book 1, page 27, asserts of Theofredus or Jafredus that he is held for a Theban: and on page 129 he reckons the same among those who had fled into Piedmont that they might not be defiled with impious sacrifices; and affirms that he was found by the pursuing soldiers of Maximian near the fortress of Crissolo, situated on the utmost boundary of Italy, and there killed by the same. But I find no other foundation for these things than a conjecture drawn from the body found in that place. The finding of the body he narrates in book 2, pages 265 and 266, in the same manner in which Ferrarius gave it from him; and he says that that history was painted in the church of St. Jafredus. He adds, however, that the body found was not immediately recognized; but that by a revelation made to the same herdsman on the following night it became known that that body was the body of St. Jafredus the martyr. Thereupon, the matter being communicated to the ecclesiastical superiors, the veneration of the Saint began; and a chapel was built on the place where the body was found, to preserve the memory of the sepulchre; but the body was translated to the summit of the mountain, and there a church was erected to the Saint, which has been honored with a great concourse of the surrounding people, and also with indulgences granted by the Supreme Pontiff to those visiting it. All these things do not permit me to doubt that an exact examination concerning the body found and other matters was instituted by the bishop or by ecclesiastics delegated by him, before public veneration was arrived at: but the author neither set forth these things, nor the time at which all those things were done. Hence I do not know how certain it is that St. Jafredus is one of the Theban martyrs; and therefore I have so fixed his martyrdom under Maximian as at the same time to add my doubt by the words as is reported.
[4] Translation of the greater part of the relics to the fortress of Revello, Further, Baldesano complains that the heretics of his time, the Calvinists namely, afforded an occasion by which the pious affection of the people toward St. Jafredus somewhat languished. But he says that it was shortly to be restored by the exertions of Charles Emmanuel I, duke of Savoy, who had ordered a new translation of the body. Concerning this translation, when it had been carried out, Francis Augustine dall' Ecclesia, bishop of Saluzzo, in his Chronological History, page 123, writes thus: He procured that the relics of St. Jofredus the martyr, which had long lain in the church of the same name, situated in the place of Crissolo, should, that they might be more safely kept (the bones of the hip and of the arm being left there), be translated in the following year to the fortress of Revello; that is to say, Antonio Pichot da Montemario, bishop of Saluzzo, of whom the author is treating. And the translation was made in the year 1593, as is plain from the preceding event, which is bound to the year 1592. The fortress of Revello, in Italian Revello, I find marked on the maps of Piedmont not far from the city of Saluzzo, on the river Po.
[5] A second translation of the bones of St. Jafredus, or Jofredus, as he is here called, and afterwards to the cathedral church of Saluzzo. was made in the year 1642 to the cathedral church of Saluzzo, as the praised prelate relates on page 130 in an elogium of his own, in these words: While he was discharging the office of vicar general (Francis Augustine dall' Ecclesia, created afterwards in the same year bishop of Saluzzo) he translated the relics of St. Jofredus from the fortress of Revello to his own cathedral church. Concerning these he has it thus on page III: In this church … are honored the bones of Bl. Jofredus the martyr of the Theban legion, one of the protectors of the marquisate itself, which in the year MDCXLII, on the XVI day of February, on account of the demolition of the fortress of Revello, in which they had been preserved from the year MDXCIII, were translated by us into deposit, while we were capitular vicar general, with solemn pomp and array, more than six thousand of the faithful of Christ accompanying, by order of the most pious, most praiseworthy, and most excellent Christine of Bourbon, mother and guardian of R. C. Charles Emmanuel (the second). I have nothing further worth recording about this Saint.