ON BL. JOHN PRANDOTHA, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT CRACOW IN POLAND.
In the year MCCLXVI.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
John Prandotha, bishop and confessor, at Cracow in Poland (Bl.)
BY J. P.
§ I. Immemorial cult; the Acts.
[ ] With much praise the more celebrated writers of Polish affairs have made mention of this Prelate: The Beatus' cult in the 15th century briefly, however, and generally on occasion of others whose deeds they are handling. Before the rest is to be mentioned John Longinus, commonly Dlugosz, canon of Cracow, who not only in other Works to be cited below praises John Prandotha rather often, but in the Life of Bl. Cunegund, virgin and duchess of Poland, speaks in such a way that there can be no doubt that in the 15th century that Beatus had a notable cult in the metropolitan church of Cracow — into which especially it was here to be inquired. The aforesaid author therefore, in the Prologue to the Life of Bl. Cunegund, exhorting James of Sienno, bishop of Cracow from the year 1460 until 1462, to promote the canonization of the said Beata, addresses him in these words: Take therefore this office reserved for thee by the most good God; and beware lest the opportunity, neglected by others, be neglected by thee also; but use both thy excellent nature and the skill and virtue with which thou art endowed; nor suffer the loss of so many mortals as are to be edified and saved by that canonization. And revolve this the more frequently in thy mind, considering what befell thy predecessors Vislaus and Prandotha, pontiffs of Cracow. Of whom the one, because throughout the whole government of his pontificate he deferred procuring the canonization of that most blessed man Stanislaus, the glorious prelate and martyr of Cracow, was in a vision shown through sleep and rest, no otherwise than as in waking, to Falislaus, a knight of the diocese of Cracow, stripped of his pontifical vesture and cast from the chair of Cracow, on which for less than twenty years he had negligently sat; while the other, who, succeeding him, procured that canonization with fervent zeal, very many difficulties being overcome, having obtained a famous memory, shines also with a great sublimity of miracles, which at the invocation of his name the divine Clemency works to this day for those approaching his tomb, which stands in the church of Cracow.
[2] Dlugosz' words are confirmed by an epitome of the Life published in the year 1606 from the presses of Cracow by Martin Baronius, a cleric of Jaroslaw, under this title: approved by miracles, The Life of Blessed John Prandotha, a Pole, bishop of Cracow, compendiously drawn from the archive of the kindly church of the Castle of Cracow, on the miracles of holy men. For in that Epitome, to be reprinted below, the following are read at num. 6: In the time of Pope Nicholas V and of Zbigniew, Cardinal of the title of St. Prisca and bishop of Cracow, and in the year MCCCCXLIV, when the holy bones of this Divine man were being raised and translated into another tomb of the aforesaid chapel, where they are now buried, from his opened sepulchre they breathed for four days a most sweet and most fragrant odor, which wonderfully refreshed and revived all who then stood by, and healed many also by the power of its fragrance: and there are other almost innumerable miracles, wrought from this year MCCCCXLIV until MCCCCLXIV at very frequent intervals and most evidently approving the Man's sanctity, which I here sketch in brief. There is presently subjoined an enumeration of some who were delivered from various diseases and perils, and indeed of two who were recalled from death. Fr. Frederick Schembegh, a priest of the Society of Jesus, whose notable eulogy you have in the Bibliotheca of the same Society, sent in the year 1616 from Cracow to our Bolland a copy of the said epitome, printed on a broadsheet, and wrote upon it in his own hand that it was faithfully drawn from the archive of the cathedral church of Cracow; and in a letter to the same Bolland he added: I myself have seen the process of the miracles in the archive of the cathedral: he has there a raised sepulchre, famous by the devotion of the people. Yet an error lies hidden in the words of the Epitome cited above; for in the year 1444 the Pontiff was Eugene IV, and not Nicholas V, who was substituted for him only in the year 1447, when he was taken from among the living.
[3] with great splendor How outstanding the Beatus' cult was in those times we are taught from what the aforesaid Baronius appended in print to the aforesaid epitome of the Life, and first indeed from a Hymn to him and a twofold prayer, as follows:
Great Prandotha among prelates, / by signs, by virtues, by life, / by religion toward God, / and by piety toward the clergy,
all cry thee aloud Father of the poor / and guardian of orphans; / the hosts of Christ / bear witness to thy powers.
At the tomb of thy body / the lame take up their step, / the tongue of the dumb is loosed, / the limbs of the sick are healed.
Happy art thou, Cracow, / in which shine the tokens / of the Saints; in our days / far be the enemy from thy borders.
Thee, O Christ, most loving King, / we all entreat on this day, / that in the seats of heaven / thou place us with the Heavenly ones. Amen.
℣ Pray for us, Bl. John Prandotha; ℞ That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Prayer. God, who hast deigned to make thy blessed Prandotha illustrious with the splendor of miracles; grant in thy mercy that all we who implore his help with thee may feel the effect of our petition. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Another. Almighty everlasting God, who hast willed most lately to raise up the excellent merits of blessed John Prandotha, confessor and pontiff, and mercifully to declare them to thy faithful by divers prodigies of miracles: grant, we beseech thee, that all we who rejoice in his special festival may be able happily to come to that heavenly glory which is Christ Jesus. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
[4] Whether the people of Cracow ever venerated the Beatus with an Office and Mass was flourishing also I have nowhere ascertained; but that they celebrated his annual memory with a special festival I gather not obscurely from the Prayer recited in the second place; nay, it becomes to me most probable from this, that he was reckoned not only among the chief patrons of the city of Cracow but also of the kingdom of Poland. Both we learn from the same Martin Baronius, who in the same place exhibits a Catalogue of the holy persons of both sexes, Patrons of the city of Cracow, and in it, after St. Stanislaus bishop of Cracow and martyr, St. Casimir prince of Poland, and St. Florian leader of the army, places in the fourth place Bl. John Prandotha, twenty-first bishop of Cracow: and, when the rest have been enumerated, he consecrates the whole little Work to our Beatus alone in these words: To the most blessed and most holy prelate John Prandotha Bialacovius, of the noble and most ancient family of the Odrowaz, bishop of the throne of Cracow, the XXI in order, most beloved confessor of Christ, most glorious patron of the kingdom of Poland, most illustrious for notable miracles, to the praise of almighty God and to the honor of the whole Church triumphant, for a perpetual memory to posterity, Martin Baronius of Jaroslaw devoutly and with humble mind offers and dedicates this slight little gift, with the names of the Saints buried at Cracow added. In the year of the Lord MDCVI. Finally the whole little Work is thus closed: All faithfully extracted from the catalogue of the holy Patrons of the kingdom of Poland, approved at Rome by the master of the sacred Palace, and approved at Cracow by the reverend father and lord Andrew Schoneus, doctor of Sacred Theology, rector of the kindly university of the general studium of Cracow, and permitted to be printed with the consent of superiors. By the same author, Martin Baronius, cleric of Jaroslaw.
[5] Nor is it necessary here to stand on Baronius' testimony alone: begun for that Prandotha was held as a patron of the kingdom of Poland is persuaded also by a manuscript which we keep in our Museum under this title: A Catalogue extracted of the Saints and Blessed of both sexes, martyrs, confessors, virgins and heroines, from the number of the patrons of the kingdom of Poland, since there too there appears among the chief ones Bl. John Prandota of Bialacow, bishop of Cracow: and that he was among the chief patrons of the city of Cracow, a metrical booklet does not allow us to doubt, which, printed at Cracow in the year 1617 and inscribed The Tutelary Saints of the diocese of Cracow offering congratulation, was presented by the congregation of the Assumption of the Mother of God, established at the house of the Society of Jesus, to the most illustrious prince Martin Szyszkowski, bishop of Cracow, duke of Siewierz, and once a Sodalis of the same congregation. For, although not even a third part of those whom Baronius inserted in his Catalogue of Patrons has a place in it, he is thus reckoned: Bl. John Prandotha Odrovangius, bishop of Cracow. He departed from this life in the year of the Lord MCCLXVI on the XXI day of September, and is buried in the cathedral of Cracow.
[6] in the 17th century, After this he is brought in addressing the aforesaid most illustrious man in the following verse.
I am that Prandotha, once keen-eyed, / who, with Stanislaus as guide, had seen / Hyacinth piercing the flashing heavens / into the starry citadels:
While Szyszkowski now comes to the episcopal throne / of Stanislaus and mine / as successor (nor among the obscure) — / shall I feign a Tiresias by keeping silence?
But while I keep silence about thee, upright Szyszkowski, / me, whom night hid in mournful sepulchres, / piety and fragrant virtue / long since raised up as Blessed.
But these things will raise me higher, I think, / when thou, following our examples, / shalt set them in a clearer light by thine own, / surpassing them by noble deeds.
As the ancient glory of the Fathers / adorns their following posterity, so ought / a grateful posterity in turn / to honor with honors the long-lived fathers.
So, when the centuries of thy offices are ended, / when as victor, for thy merits, ascending / that throne among the stars which is prepared, / established for a perpetual age,
freely shall we accompany thee as thou goest, / not only with our eyes but with our shoulders too; / as many Patrons as thou acknowledgest, / we shall bear thee up together, setting our shoulders beneath.
What has here been briefly signified about SS. Stanislaus and Hyacinth, and about others before, I have kept to be elucidated below, that in a single unbroken series I might set forth whatever pertained to the antiquity and celebrity of the cult; concerning which nothing remains for me to add, except that Simon Starowolski, likewise a writer of the preceding century, in his Poland, or Description of the state of the kingdom of Poland, reprinted at Breslau in the year 1734, distinguishes Prandotha with the title of Saint, speaking thus at pag. XI, where he describes the city of Cracow: But very many bodies of the Saints also rest in this city, and chiefly those which are famous for miracles, namely of holy Stanislaus, of St. Prandotha, etc.
[7] in which it ceased, But behold for thee another face of things: our Papebroch about the year 1671 wrote to Cracow to the fathers of the college of the Society of Jesus, in order — as I understand from the replies presently to be mentioned — to obtain thence a fuller knowledge of the Beatus' deeds, miracles and cult. Fr. Louis Hoffman, minister of the college, answered most courteously on the XIII day of June of the aforesaid year, and gladly pledged his labor; nor after long delay he dispatched a second letter on the XVIII day of the next month of July, signifying that he had gone to the archive of the cathedral church of Cracow and had transcribed from an ancient parchment codex what could be had concerning the Life of Bl. Prandotha; warning besides that Papebroch should expect nothing further, since he had employed diligence great enough and had surveyed the Beatus' very body with his own eyes. To this letter he joined notices faithfully transcribed in his own hand from the authentic codex, with no word changed, and also some observations on the Work of the aforesaid Simon Starowolski, canon of Cracow, On the Lives of the prelates of Cracow, whom he says to have used the same codex and to have written the same things in substance about Bl. Prandotha: and at last he concluded the notices and observations with this passage: The body of Bl. Prandotha, after that elevation by Cardinal Zbigniew (see num. 2), was again about the year MDCXXXIII, on account of the bodies of Sigismund III and of queen Constance buried in the same place, moved by the reverend Erasmus Kretkowski, archdeacon and vicar general of Cracow, and, laid in a tin chest sealed with seals, rests in the sacristy or treasury of the cathedral church of Cracow, where also some painted images of him are set forth; but nothing is renewed about miracles, apart from what is casually printed on the broadsheet, of which too some copies are extant here. There is no cult of him after the promulgation of the Bull of Urban VIII on the cult of the Saints, nor could I find any description of those miracles (namely a fuller one than that which Martin Baronius had given). The votive offerings, of whose multitude, especially of wax, I have heard, have all been removed.
[8] That clause doubtless struck Papebroch, and therefore, before he laid aside Hoffman's notices and letter to be kept for this day, probably on account of a badly understood Bull of Pope Urban VIII. he wrote upon it a note in which he disapproves the headlong deed of the canons, saying: Very ill did the canons of Cracow do: if the Romans and the men of Castile had carried out Urban's Bull thus in the case of Bl. Louise and Bl. Ferdinand, not attending to the case of the exception valid for them, they would never have obtained the approbation of the ancient cult with the extension of a new one. It ought not on that account to be omitted by us. Indeed, in the whole Bull of Urban VIII published in the year 1625 there was nothing which compelled such an act; the Pontiff indeed, to meet abuses, forbade public cult toward those who had not been beatified or canonized by the Apostolic see, declaring nevertheless at the same time that by the things written above he does not wish nor intend in any way to prejudice those who are venerated either by the common consent of the Church, or by an immemorial course of time, or through the writings of the Fathers and of holy men, or by the knowledge and tolerance of the Apostolic See or of the ordinary over a very long time. From which words there could be elicited an exception from the prohibition for the cult of Bl. Prandotha, who, as has been shown, was so celebrated about the middle of the 15th century and in the 17th century continued with so great splendor — therefore by an immemorial course of time and by the knowledge and tolerance of the ordinary over a very long time: since by a very long time and its immemorial course the Pontiff understood only a time exceeding the bound of a hundred years, as he declared in another Bull published in the year 1634, that is, the year next after the cult of our Beatus was suppressed by the people of Cracow.
[9] Papebroch's judgment that the Beatus' Acts should not be omitted in our Work Henschen approved, The Acts to be given here. as is plain from tom. 2 of the month of April, which was illustrated by both and published in the year 1675 — four years, that is, after the aforesaid Hoffman had transmitted to Papebroch the aforesaid notices from the archive of Cracow together with the clause recited. For in the said volume of April, pag. 745, among the Prætermissi at the XX day of the same month and those referred to another day, the following are noted: Bl. John Prandotha, bishop of Cracow, in the printed Life is said to have died today, but the ancient episcopal manuscript Chronicle in the archive of the cathedral church expressly notes the day of St. Matthew the apostle and evangelist, XXI September. For my part I did not think it lawful for me to deny a place here to a Man so notable and formerly honored with so great a cult, on account of the headlong and ill-considered deed of some. And so I exhibit his Acts, gathered with what zeal I could. Yet I wrote meanwhile some time ago to Cracow, that I might learn whether perhaps any change has since been made: but hitherto I have received no answer: of which, if it shall come and shall seem worth the labor, I shall make our readers partakers either in the addenda to this volume or elsewhere as occasion serves.
§ II. The Beatus' illustrious family; his promotion to the bishopric, his love of justice, his constancy and fortitude in avenging an injury to his church.
[ ] The Beatus, a Pole by nation, Of the Beatus' deeds before he entered upon his archbishopric the Polish authors have transmitted to us scarcely anything. Martin Baronius indicates his native place and family thus in the Epitome of his life: To whom, though his native soil was small (of the village called Bolezlaw), fortune gave it; but the family of the Bialecii, which is one with the illustrious family of the Odrowaz, gave him a noble and great surname. The notices of the archive of Cracow, praised in the preceding §, have it thus: Prandota of Bialaczow … a Pole by nation, noble by family, of the house of Odrowasch. Dlugosz, lib. 7 of the History of Poland, says that he sprang from the house of Odrowasch and the villa of Bialaczow; Cromer, Polish Affairs, lib. 8, from the family of the Odrowaz, surnamed of Bialaczow. Fr. Simon Okolski, a Dominican, in the genealogical Work which he inscribed The Polish World, and which, divided into three volumes, he published at Cracow, tom. 2 from pag. 299 exhibits the family arms of the family Odrowas or Odrowaz, and, describing its origin, power and line, at pag. 301 brings down to the year 1140 Saul, count of Konskie, son of Saul Odrovonz, who himself too had several sons, and among them Ivo bishop of Cracow, who died in the year 1229, and Eustace, who, as he writes at pag. 309, brought forth into the light a son Hyacinth, or, as the ancients pronounced it (Cromer noting it), Jacicus: nay, also Jacko, as I read in Dlugosz, lib. 6 of the History, in these words: Ivo bishop of Cracow … about to return from Rome into Poland, asked Brothers of the Blessed Dominic. And being unable to obtain others, he obtained that three of his own companions and household — namely Jacko, canon of Cracow, who was himself also of the house of Odrowaz, likewise Ceslaus a Pole, Henry a Moravian and Herman a German — should be received into the Order by the Blessed Dominic; and, bringing them with him into Poland, he first planted the Order of Preachers in Poland while the Blessed Dominic was still alive.
[11] noble by stock, At pag. 310, coming at last to our Beatus, Okolski holds thus: Prandota Odrovons, descending from the sixth son — if he was not himself the sixth son — of Saul, count of Konskie, who among the other goods divided with his brothers held Bialaczow, Dæbne and Sczekocin, from which they used to mark their family, was bishop of Cracow, etc. According to these things he would have had as father or grandfather the aforesaid count Saul, and as brother or uncle Ivo — which last is more probable — and certainly as kinsman St. Hyacinth, as is also read in Martin Baronius' Epitome of his life: Of which family likewise St. Hyacinth, joined to him by blood, had gone before in age. The Acts of this Saint, who died in the year 1257, about nine years before Prandotha, have been illustrated among us in tom. III of the month of August from pag. 309, where in §2 of the preliminary Commentary it has been shown by the testimonies of writers that he drew his family from the Odrowaz, and the splendor of that most illustrious lineage has been discussed so fully that it would be superfluous to add anything here, and it suffices to have proved no less solidly that our Beatus too sprang from it. In what part of the kingdom of Poland the villa of Bialaczow is situated, or what village he meant to designate by Bolezlaw, I have not been able to make out: but that the Beatus was born in the former Dlugosz hints clearly enough; yet from this it is not certain that he was for that reason surnamed of Bialaczow; for since the stock of the Odrowaz gradually branched into different lines, therefore perhaps this surname clung to him because Bialaczow, or Bialaczevia, belonged to the branch from which he was descended: which Okolski seems to hint when he says: From which they used to mark their family. Finally the same author, after these and other things about Prandotha have been brought forward, subjoins: I see men of Bialaczow in the palatinate of Sandomir; whether they are of these arms, I do not know.
[12] Martin Baronius, having premised a few things about his native place, family and kinsfolk, a priest and archdeacon presently passes on to his priesthood: Of which Bl. Prandota, bishop and confessor — he says — to say nothing of his youthful age, which he had spent in the good arts and in theological studies with the highest praise, he was raised by Vislaus, at that time established in the episcopal see of this city, to the dignity of the priesthood and of the archdeaconate of Cracow. Nor do I find more in others, except that in the manuscript Notices and in Dlugosz, lib. 7, he is said to have been also canon of Sandomir; and Vislaus, elsewhere called also Vislimirus, occupied the see of Cracow from the year 1229 until 1242, within which years accordingly Prandotha was initiated into the priesthood and adorned with the archdeaconate and canonry; but what he did meanwhile, the same scantiness of writers has kept from us. And at last — these words
are joined immediately to those just recited from Baronius — he (Vislaus) being dead, on account of his admirable holiness and integrity of life and manners, he was made bishop of Cracow by the most blessed father Celestine the fourth, Supreme Roman Pontiff, and was consecrated by Fulco archbishop of Gniezno in the year from the birth of Christ MCCXLII. In the manuscript notices the following are read: Prandotha of Bialaczow, the twenty-first, a Pole by nation, noble by family, of the house of Odrowasch, archdeacon of Cracow and canon of Sandomir, is confirmed in the bishopric of Cracow by Pope Innocent IV, then presiding over the Apostolic See, in the year of the Lord MCCXLII. On the day of St. Urban he is consecrated by Fulco archbishop of Gniezno: whose election was, as is believed, celebrated by divine inspiration; because — a thing which rarely happens — all with one mind directing their votes toward him, chose him harmoniously, with none contradicting.
[13] Dlugosz, lib. 7 of the History, records the election in the same manner: Elected harmoniously by way of scrutiny by all the electors — a thing which never or rarely happens — and consecrated on the day of the Blessed Urban by Fulco of Gniezno, at the command of Pope Innocent IV. To these I add the briefer Chronicle of Cracow by an anonymous archdeacon of Gniezno, drawn up in the 14th century, as we gather from more than one passage, and published in the year 1730 by Friedrich Wilhelm von Sommersberg, a Silesian knight, in tom. 2 of the Writers of Silesian Affairs, in which at pag. 92 these things are found: Likewise in the year of the Lord MCCXLII the lord Wislaus, bishop of Cracow, died, whom the lord Prandotha succeeded in the bishopric. And the election was, as we believe, celebrated by divine inspiration; because — a thing which rarely happens — all with one mind directing their votes toward him chose him harmoniously, with none contradicting, to whom by right the election belonged. The very words sufficiently betray that what is related by the writers recited concerning the manner of the election flowed from the same source; but this is strange, that Martin Baronius' Epitome and the manuscript notices, although both are reported to have been faithfully drawn from the same archive of Cracow, not only differ in the chronological notes, but so far that neither opinion seems to come to a true reckoning. For Celestine IV, elected Pontiff in the month of October in the year 1241, departed from among the living in the month of November next following, about the XVII day after his election.
[14] is promoted in the year 1242; How therefore, Vislaus being dead — according to all in the year 1242 — was Prandotha made bishop by the same Celestine, as Baronius' Epitome hands down? On the contrary, Innocent IV, after a long vacancy of the Apostolic See, entered upon the Pontificate only in the year 1243, in the month of June far advanced. Therefore what is said in the manuscript notices cannot be true: Prandotha … is confirmed in the bishopric of Cracow by Pope Innocent IV, then presiding over the Apostolic See, in the year of the Lord MCCXLII. Nay, neither can what Dlugosz relates be true, that he was consecrated on the day of the Blessed Urban … at the command of Pope Innocent IV; unless we hold that the matter so happened that he was indeed elected in the year 1242, but consecrated in the year 1244 on the XXV day of May, sacred to St. Urban the Pope: yet against our so holding stands the Chronicle of Poland written in those same times by Boguphalus II, bishop of Poznań, and continued by Glodslaus, surnamed Bastco, guardian of the same church, in which, in the aforesaid Sommersberg, tom. 2 of Silesian Affairs, pag. 61, Boguphalus writes in this manner at the year 1243: In that same year too Conrad duke of Masovia entered the diocese of Cracow, plundered the villas of the church, and burned the manors of the bishop, and, many losses having been inflicted on the church, returned to his own unharmed. And on this account Prandotha, bishop of Cracow, who in the year next preceding had been elected and consecrated bishop, excommunicated that duke. Whose sentence the lord Fulco, archbishop of Gniezno, confirmed. I said that Boguphalus writes in this manner, both because he survived among the living until the year 1253, and because below, at pag. 64, relating the deeds of the year 1249, he clearly indicates himself as the author in these words: I, Boguphalus, bishop of Poznań, heard, sinner though I be, etc. Further, what he adds about the deeds between Prandotha and Conrad I shall give a little more fully, after I have reckoned what is related in others to have happened to our Beatus in the first year of his bishopric.
[15] he is admonished about promoting In the manuscript notices the following are found: Bishop Wislaus being dead, and Prandotha his successor being consecrated, in the first year of his pontificate count Falislaus had the following vision concerning the aforesaid Vislaus. For, having fallen into sickness, when on a certain occasion he dozed in that sickness, it seemed to him that in the greater church of Cracow the bells were being rung for Mass, and that the count himself in that vision was anxious to go in haste to Mass; and when with swift speed he had come to the foot of the hill, he found there the aforesaid bishop Vislaus, who was stripping himself of his red pontifical vestments; and it seemed to count Falislaus that at that same time Mass was being sung in the cathedral church: then with wonder count Falislaus said to bishop Vislaus how Mass could be sung without the bishop, since the bishop was still at the foot of the hill: and the bishop, turning to the count, said: I am not permitted to come there, because for so many years I was bishop in the church of Cracow, and suffered the body of holy Stanislaus to lie in the dust, and neglected to procure the holy man's canonization; and therefore I am stripped of my pontifical vestments: but go thou and tell bishop Prandotha that he neglect not to labor effectually for the canonization of God's Saint. To whom, when count Falislaus had answered, He will not believe me, he added, Say to him: Blockhead, blockhead, why dost thou not consider by what death the most blessed Stanislaus died, and for what cause, and how great and of what sort the miracles of his merits have been? And straightway awaking, he found himself healed of the sickness by which he had been held. Moved by which vision and faithful oracle, Prandotha, bishop of Cracow, etc.
[16] The same vision Dlugosz also records, lib. 7 of the History; the canonization of St. Stanislaus, bishop and martyr; but relating it in a fuller style in the Life of St. Stanislaus among us, tom. 2 of the month of May, pag. 253, he says that that count, whom he there addresses as the knight Falslaus, being negligent in carrying out the commands, after three weeks fell back into a deadly sickness, and, being healed again after the bitter complaints and threats of the same Vislaus appearing, obeyed the admonitions. To this the same author joins an apparition made a second time to a sick matron, in which Prandotha was ordered to be admonished to raise the bones of the same St. Stanislaus and to lay them more honorably. Both the pious Prelate performed: first he labored unwearyingly to obtain the canonization, and, this being obtained, solemnly raised the sacred bones, as I shall show in their places; for since in that work he had as helpers Boleslaus the Chaste, duke of Cracow and Sandomir and monarch of Poland, and his consort Bl. Kinga or Cunegund, the virgin, whose Acts we illustrated in tom. V of July from pag. 661, and since the matter was brought to the desired end only in the year 1253, it will be useful to premise what the Beatus is said to have done up to that time both with the said princes and with others.
[17] Therefore to the first years of his bishopric belong those things he restores Boleslaus the Chaste to his principality, which he did against Conrad duke of Masovia, uncle of Boleslaus the Chaste, and which, briefly related above out of the Chronicle of Boguphalus, must here be explained a little more at large. Conrad had invaded the principality of Boleslaus the Chaste while he was living in Hungary; but the nobles, estranged from him by his harsher rule, recalled Boleslaus, and, by the authorship and leadership of Prandota, bishop of Cracow, says Cromer, lib. 8 of Polish Affairs, swore a new oath to him. And when he came, so Dlugosz, lib. 7, they run with great applause and gladness to meet Boleslaus the Chaste their duke, with his consort Kinga, from Hungary and Moravia, and, with the consent and at the request of Prandotha bishop of Cracow, take him as their duke and lord, an oath being sworn to him; whose example the other nobles and squires of Cracow, to whom Conrad duke of Masovia had committed the castles and fortifications, followed, and, having bargained for life and pardon, hand back to him the castles and fortifications. Hearing this, Conrad came with a huge army; but Boleslaus, conquering him in battle, and while he threatened severe and cruel things against the church of Cracow and its prelate Prandotha, because he complained that the duchy of Cracow had been taken from him by his counsel and industry, … drove him into shameful flight.
[18] Such a victorious triumph having followed, Dlugosz continues thus, and excommunicates Conrad his enemy a few things being interposed: the soldiers of Cracow, not content with their former acceptance of Boleslaus the Chaste, duke of Cracow and Sandomir, again take him as their duke, and, with Prandotha bishop of Cracow cooperating, enthrone him, clothed about with silver, in the church of Cracow, the divine service having been solemnly performed. But this gladness was of shorter duration; for Conrad, breathing vengeance for the disgrace received in battle, stirred up the Lithuanians and other neighboring peoples of Poland against Boleslaus by entreaty and by price; and they, entering his lands and devastating and burning them with barbarous cruelty, struck so great a terror into the nobility of Sandomir that it deserted Boleslaus its lawful lord, from whom no hope of help shone, and again gave itself up to Conrad the invader: and he then indeed ordered all the rest to be spared, as Cromer writes, and cruelly plundered and burned the possessions of the Bishop of Cracow alone. Hear Dlugosz: But against Prandotha bishop of Cracow — because he would not agree with the other soldiers of Sandomir, and adhered to Boleslaus the Chaste, duke of Cracow, with a pure, faithful and unvarying tenor, and with persevering constancy resisted the attempts of duke Conrad — Conrad himself, vomiting forth vehement fury, sent armed men and first plundered and then burned the episcopal manors situated in the land of Sandomir, namely that of Tarsy, which is now called Bodzancin, that of Kielce, and that of Kunów, and afflicted the villas of the aforesaid three districts with manifold plundering, and drove all the booty gathered from the episcopal manors and villas into Masovia.
[19] on account of the damage inflicted on the church, But Prandotha, bishop of Cracow, a man of heroic breast, in no way dismayed by burnings and plunderings of this kind, could not be torn from his fidelity and subjection to Boleslaus the Chaste; nay, he even commanded the aforesaid Conrad, duke of Masovia, to be excommunicated and anathematized by the whole church of the Poles with ecclesiastical censures and anathema, by his own authority and his own process. Whose process and censures Fulco, who is also Pelka, archbishop of Gniezno, confirming in a synod appointed for that purpose at Łęczyca, commanded that Conrad duke of Masovia, as a violent ravisher of the goods of the church of Cracow, and an incendiary and unjust invader, all the provincial bishops consenting and approving, should be denounced as anathematized in the several churches and be held for excommunicated and anathematized. Thus far Dlugosz. Whence there shine forth the outstanding virtues of our Beatus: his love of the fair and the just, in that as soon as he had been promoted to the episcopal mitre he began to labor that the principality might return to Boleslaus, oppressed in unworthy ways by his uncle; his fidelity and constancy, in that, while the rest failed for fear, he himself clung to the lawful lord; and finally, in that, while perils threatened on every side, the injuries
inflicted upon the goods of his church he avenged; a heroic fortitude, and worthy that Martin Baronius should have recorded it in the Epitome of his life, as the collector of the manuscript notices from the archive of Cracow did, and the more distinguished writers of Polish affairs, Boguphalus, Martin Cromer, Matthias of Miechów and others.
[20] which Boleslaus afterward restored. The aforesaid authors have committed to writing nothing worth relating about our Beatus down to the death of Conrad, which they tie to the year 1247, and until which he did not cease to pursue Boleslaus and probably Prandotha too, his inseparable companion. And so in the said year Boleslaus obtained the peaceful government of his dominions, and doubtless began to repay the Prelate's fidelity with many favors, and to restore the losses hitherto inflicted upon the church. That I should believe this the manuscript notices, cited several times, bid me, in which under the aforesaid year 1247 the following are related: This Pontiff obtained from Boleslaus, duke of Cracow and Sandomir, very many concessions, liberties and privileges in full form for the church of Cracow, freeing that church from burdens [], taxes [], exactions and any payments whatever, ordinary and extraordinary; and he procured that these should be confirmed by Pope Alexander IV by the authority of the Apostolic See. Pope Alexander IV undertook the government of the whole Church in the year 1254 and held it until 1261, and accordingly by these words are to be judged as comprised the benefits which were conferred upon the church from the year 1247 until the times of his Pontificate, and which the Prelate of Cracow took care to have confirmed at the same time.
Annotations* i.e. burdens
* tributes
§ III. The canonization of St. Stanislaus, bishop and martyr, obtained by the care of Bl. John Prandotha; his other excellent deeds down to his blessed death.
[ ] For the canonization of St. Stanislaus, I have no doubt that the Beatus, having been admonished at the beginning of his bishopric about promoting the canonization of St. Stanislaus, bishop and martyr, as we indicated above, presently bestowed great labor upon this business, but did not accomplish as much as he would have wished, being hindered namely by continual incursions of enemies, by battles and disasters. But after the year 1247, affairs in Poland being more peaceful, and with the monarch Boleslaus favoring, nay and cooperating greatly together with Bl. Cunegund his consort, he brought the matter to such a point that in the year 1250 envoys duly instructed were sent to the Roman Pontiff Innocent IV, and the canonization followed in the year 1253. I do not wish here to weave the whole course of it, since this does not so much pertain to our purpose, and has been sufficiently set forth by Papebroch in the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of St. Stanislaus written by Dlugosz, and in the Acts themselves published by us in tom. 2 of the month of May at the VII day; nevertheless it will not be amiss to pluck some things thence, from which it may be discerned how great a part the blessed Prelate had in that business, and how great praise he thence obtained for himself.
[22] Thus writes Dlugosz in the Prologue to the third book of the Acts of St. Stanislaus, in the volume just praised, pag. 255: Boleslaus and Cunegund helping Being about to write of the third and principal difficulty of the canonization of Stanislaus, the Saint of God, after by the divine favor it has befallen me to discharge the other two, there came into my mind the clement and provident ordering of the divine goodness, that I might wonder at and admire it more vehemently than usual; which for that time in which it had decreed that the canonization of its beloved martyr Stanislaus should be consummated and accomplished, preserved both a Pontiff of Cracow and a prince, men filled with rare and singular virtues: of whom the one, Prandotha, was held full of faith, charity and religion and excellent in the greatness of his virtues; the other, Boleslaus, son of Leszek the White, in whom then rested the sum of Polish affairs and the monarchy, notable for chastity and religion. There was added also Boleslaus the prince's consort Cunegund, daughter of Bela king of Hungary, … who herself too poured out all her ducal resources with a magnificent and liberal spirit for the canonization of Stanislaus the Saint of God. To these he subjoins others who contributed both their labor and their money as well to the same cause; then he thus begins the first chapter of the third book: As the magnificent and stupendous prodigies grew frequent which the clemency of God, the Savior of all, was working in the church of Cracow and in very many other places at the invocation of his name through the glorious merits of the most blessed pontiff Stanislaus, Boleslaus the Chaste, prince and monarch of the Poles, and Prandotha, prelate of the people of Cracow, both, as we have premised, men of fervent devotion toward God, send their envoys, and those of the whole Polish realm and church, … to the city of Lyons in the Gauls, to Pope Innocent IV, in the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred and fifty, to set forth the miracles of God's Saint.
[23] he labors strenuously, Envoys had afterward to be sent a second and a third time to the Pontiff on account of difficulties which caused delay to the cause, as may be seen in the places cited; but from these I nevertheless transcribe the following, said by Dlugosz on that occasion in praise of our Beatus: That excellent and most good man, Prandotha bishop of Cracow, was made in no way more sluggish by this delay, which perhaps would have forced another to despair of pursuing it; but full of fervor and zeal he brought in before the Apostolic commissaries both the former witnesses and several other new ones … and spent half a year in completing the business of an examination of this kind, seeing to and attending to each point in person. The same things Dlugosz hands down also in the Polish History. Other writers too generally praise the Beatus on occasion of this business, who either record his deeds or treat of the canonization of St. Stanislaus; I choose one, the author of the Synopsis of the Life of St. Stanislaus, which Papebroch, drawn from an ancient manuscript and divided into fifteen numbers, prefixed to the longer Life composed by Dlugosz, and which before, divided in exactly the same words into as many lessons to be recited through the octave of the same Saint in the second Nocturn, Stanislaus Sokolowski, canon of Cracow, had inserted in the Proper of the Patrons of Poland. And so the aforesaid author, among us in tom. 2 of May, pag. 202, and in the Proper just mentioned, printed at Antwerp in the year 1643, in the 5th lesson of the octave day, writes in this manner: After a hundred and seventy years at length the Lord stirs up the spirit of Prandota, bishop of Cracow, a holy man; likewise of duke Boleslaus with his consort Kinga, a most chaste woman. Who, the miracles of the holy bishop having been gathered and proved as by fire by public attestation, send envoys to Innocent the fourth, Supreme Pontiff, etc.
[24] with a happy issue at last. The task of vindicating ecclesiastical immunity The matter was at last accomplished and the canonization decreed in the year 1253, upon which Dlugosz exhibits a congratulatory letter written on parchment by Cardinal John Cajetan to bishop Prandotha and to the chapter of Cracow, by us, he says, rather often seen and handled, laid up in the chests of the church of Cracow. It may be read in tom. 2 of May, pag. 258; and in the following pages it may also be seen with what solemnity that canonization was celebrated first at Assisi in Umbria, and then at Cracow together with the elevation of the sacred bones; for these things pertain to the present undertaking only so far as they were performed at Cracow chiefly by our Beatus' agency, and accordingly ought not to be described at length. For the rest, from the year 1254, to which in the aforesaid Chronicle of Boguphalus, continued by Glodslaus Bastco, the elevation of the bones of St. Stanislaus is tied, nothing memorable occurs until the year 1255, in which, when Boleslaus the Bald, called also the Fierce, duke of Legnica, had with the utmost ignominy and savagery cast Thomas bishop of Breslau, a venerable old man, together with the Provost and a canon into prison and chains, and had therefore been struck with anathema by the archbishop of Gniezno and other prelates, among whom Prandotha of Cracow was certainly not the last, Pope Alexander, the words are Dlugosz', lib. 7 of the History, moved to vehement disturbance by the letters of the bishops of Poland and by the envoy's report over the strange thing which had happened, gave in charge to the archbishop of Gniezno and to the bishops of Cracow and of Włocławek that they should require Boleslaus duke of Legnica by Apostolic authority to release Thomas bishop of Breslau, and, if he refused, should strike his person and that of the accomplices of the crime with censures, but his land with sentences of interdict. Who executed all things as they were bidden. The duchy of Legnica or Lignitz is in Silesia, once a part of the Polish kingdom, and its chief city is Lignitz, distant, on Baudrand's testimony, seven miles from Wratislavia or Vratislavia, Breslau, which is the chief city of Silesia.
[25] The Duke was in no way terrified by the ecclesiastical censures, nay was rather incited is committed to him and to other prelates by Alexander IV; to treat the captives more severely; wherefore Pope Alexander the fourth, being informed — these things again from Dlugosz — by the letters of Prandotha of Cracow and of Volmirus of Włocławek, bishops, that Boleslaus the Fierce, duke of Legnica, had held both the Apostolic admonitions in contempt and the censures thundered by them in derision, and had refused to release Thomas bishop of Breslau, and Boguphalus the Provost, and Hecard the canon … from captivity, being kindled with zeal for God in defending ecclesiastical liberty and its ministers, in order to repress with the Apostolic rod the insolence and rashness of Boleslaus the Fierce, duke of Legnica, decrees the banner of the Cross against the aforesaid Boleslaus the Fierce and his lands, as against a heathen and an enemy of the faith and of the Catholic religion. To this end, sending letters into Poland, he ordered the duke to be admonished anew, and, if he resisted, that the word of the Cross should be preached through the cities and dioceses, indulgences being set forth. The letters entire Dlugosz recites in lib. 7. Meanwhile bishop Thomas, wearied of the dreadful prison, without consulting the archbishop and bishops of Poland — who, on the same Dlugosz' testimony, were preparing to pour out both their substance and their blood for his liberty — freed himself and his companions with a huge sum of money. This indeed they took ill, but none the less carried out the commands of the Supreme Pontiff; for in the same year in which the Pontiff's letters are noted as written, namely 1257, the lord Fulco, archbishop of Gniezno — the words are those of Glodslaus Bastco, a contemporary author — Prandotha of Cracow, Thomas of Breslau, Boguphalus of Poznań (the third of this name, another namely than the author of the Chronicle), Wolimirus of Włocławek, Andrew of Płock and William of Lebus, bishops, and many abbots, prelates and canons of the churches, held a synod at Łęczyca (a city of Lower Poland). In which synod the aforesaid archbishop with his suffragans preached the cross given by Pope Alexander against Boleslaus duke of Silesia, etc. It has seemed good to draw out this matter somewhat at length, because, as is plain enough, our Beatus played no mean part in it.
[26] To the same year 1257 pertains what Martin Baronius narrates in the Epitome of his life about the vision the soul of St. Hyacinth which the Beatus had of St. Hyacinth passing into heaven: In the cathedral church, he says, being at one time given to prayer, and at the same time seized by a most placid sleep, he saw the soul of the Blessed Hyacinth, at the hour of his prayer, passing from this life into that heavenly country with an ordered choir of angels, the holy bishop Stanislaus accompanying it: who afterward, being awakened, found the vision true in fact. That Saint died at Cracow in the convent of the most holy Trinity of the Order of Preachers in the aforesaid year and on the XV day of August, as has been proved in §6 of the preliminary Commentary to his Acts, tom. III of the said month of August, pag. 319: and he was buried
by Prandotha bishop of Cracow and by a multitude of the people in the same convent of the Holy Trinity, as Dlugosz hands down, signifying nothing about the vision related by Baronius. Yet the biographers of St. Hyacinth generally make mention of it, and among them Leander Alberti, lib. 5 of the Work On the illustrious Men of the Order of Preachers, published in the year 1517, but in a somewhat different manner.
[27] The aforesaid author, in the Life of St. Hyacinth, which, because an older one was not at hand, we reprinted passing into the heavens in the just-named tom. III of August from pag. 339, after relating his death continues thus in chap. 2: His funeral Prandeta, prelate of Cracow, a venerable man, celebrated with all the multitude of the citizens and the common people with great mourning: to these he subjoins the miracle of a dead man recalled to life on the same day, and goes on: The venerable prelate Prandeta, the holy Man's funeral being celebrated, entered the church of St. Stanislaus; and there, falling down before the altar of the most blessed Virgin Mary, worn out with labor, he was for a little while seized by a very light sleep. He thought that he saw certain youths clothed in the whitest tunics entering the choir two by two, and two most illustrious men following; the one endowed with a pontifical tiara, the other clothed with a preacher's gown, his scapular and tunic shining with immense whiteness, and wreathed with two crowns; and that, as he wondered at the progress of the unwonted sight, the pontiff said to him: I am the prelate Stanislaus; and he whom thou seest with me, a brother, is Hyacinth of the Order of Preachers, adorned with the crown of doctorate and with another crown of virginity, whom with this rejoicing company of most blessed spirits I am leading into that perpetual and happy life in which it shall be permitted to enjoy the eternal God: and that presently Stanislaus began with sweet and lofty voice that eulogy, Perpetual light shall shine upon thy Saints, O Lord, and, those holy spirits following, ascended with great splendor into heaven with the blessed Hyacinth. Whereupon Prandeta, awaking and going to the convent of the Preachers, related the course of the vision not without tears before an immense multitude of Brethren, priests and citizens. Thus far Leander Alberti.
[28] he beholds. But the authors named differ as to the time of the apparition; for Martin Baronius signifies that it took place at the very time of St. Hyacinth's death; Leander, after his sacred body had been committed to the earth by Prandotha himself. Leander was followed by Razzi in the Lives of the Saints of the Order of Preachers, and likewise by Severinus of Cracow in the Life of St. Hyacinth, from which we gave the same vision described at greater length in the cited volume in the Commentary, pag. 320; but he, expressing the circumstances of time, brought in obscurity: for he says that St. Hyacinth died on the day of the Assumption of the most glorious Virgin Mary about the ninth hour, then after certain other things: All things being performed, he says, which pertained to the burial of the man of God, according to the ceremonies of the Church, the venerable man lord John Prandotha, bishop of Cracow, who had committed the blessed Hyacinth to the earth in person, about the ninth hour entered the cathedral church of St. Stanislaus the martyr, led by devotion to the glorious Virgin; and finally, the vision being related, he thus concludes: Which vision took place on the day of the blessed man's death, on the solemn feast of the Assumption of the most glorious Virgin Mary, in the year of the Lord MCCLVII. I know indeed that in the one place the ninth hour of the morning can — nay, if he relates truly, must — be understood, and in the other the evening one; but since no reason is alleged, it is hard for me to believe that the Bishop in the evening, the ceremonies of the Church being observed, committed the holy Man's body to the earth on that very day. But the circumstance of time can add or take away little or nothing from the glory of our Beatus, and accordingly ought not to detain us longer.
[29] He delivers the veil to Bl. Salomea. To the vision already recorded Martin Baronius prefixes this: Besides, he consecrated to God two virgins of royal stock, namely blessed Salomea and Cunegund his kinswoman, and clothed them with the sacred veil in the religion of St. Clare, of the Order and institute of St. Francis. But in these matters the author paid no heed to the order of time; for Salomea, own sister of Boleslaus the Chaste, her spouse Coloman, king of Galicia or Halicz, being dead — with whom she had lived in perpetual virginity — professed the Order of St. Clare in the monastery of Zawichost, as Dlugosz, Matthias of Miechów and Cromer hand down with one consent; which monastery, at the request of his sister Salomea and his consort Cunegund, the same Boleslaus the Chaste erected and endowed in the year 1258, but in the year 1262, because it was too exposed to the incursions of the barbarians, at the urging of Prandotha and the nobles he transferred it to a safer place which is called Skała, otherwise the Rock of holy Mary, distant three miles from the city of Cracow, and in which about the year 1268 Salomea died holily. Of her Tossignano treats at length, lib. 1 of the Histories of the seraphic Religion, and agrees with Baronius in the matter narrated, saying at fol. 141 verso: Coloman being dead, holy Salomea, remembering her vow of chastity, returned to her native country, Prandotha being meanwhile bishop of Cracow, who also consecrated her by the imposition of the veil in token of virginity, the sacred Order of St. Clare being received, under the Rule of St. Francis, together with brother Raymond, minister of Poland. Of Cunegund, whom Baronius joins to Salomea, neither Tossignano nor the Polish historians make mention, unless perhaps Baronius wished Bl. Cunegund, consort of Boleslaus, to be understood.
[30] This blessed virgin indeed also embraced the Order and institute of St. Clare, and receives a vow of chastity from her brother Boleslaus the Chaste; but only after her husband's death, that is, after the X day of the month of December of the year 1279, which Dlugosz expressly notes in the Life of Cunegund among us, tom. V of July, pag. 703; and accordingly she could not be clothed with the sacred veil by Prandotha, dead more than thirteen years before: another Cunegund therefore Baronius understood; or, if not, it must be so expounded that what was in some manner begun while our Beatus was living, and probably present and approving, and completed after his death, Baronius ascribed wholly to him. For Boleslaus himself, while Prandotha still survived, publicly made a vow of chastity, although he always remained with his virgin consort, and Cunegund bound herself to the third Rule of St. Francis. Dlugosz deserves to be heard here again, in the volume just cited, pag. 700: When the said day had come for solemnly consummating this matter, duke Boleslaus the Chaste indeed performs such a vow (of perpetual continence, as the author had premised) in the hands of Prandotha bishop of Cracow in the church of Cracow, in the presence of many. But the virgin Cunegund, not content to bind herself lightly by a vow of virginity, with duke Boleslaus permitting and being present, in the church of St. Francis of the Order of Minors at Cracow, during the singing of a sonorous Mass solemnly performed for that purpose, in the hand of the minister of Poland, brother Bartholomew, who was then performing the divine Service, first binding herself by a vow of perpetual chastity, also assumes the Rule of the Friars Minor, etc.
[31] In the year 1261, out of his notable prudence, zeal for religion and fortitude, our Beatus accomplished a deed he drives the sect of the flagellants out of Cracow, by which he averted from the kingdom of Poland a great peril threatening the purity of the Catholic faith. There had lately arisen, not without an appearance of piety and holiness, the sect of the flagellants, and, gradually falling into the foulest errors, had spread itself widely through Italy and Germany, and now, penetrating into Poland, was not far from infecting this kingdom too with its poison; but, so far as appears from Dlugosz, it was first checked by Prandotha, and after his example wholly eliminated from Poland; nay, extinguished elsewhere too. And when, says the aforesaid author, lib. 7 of the History, this sect had first come to Cracow, the churches being visited and their penances as it were completed, it forthwith withdrew from Cracow, Prandotha the bishop threatening it with prisons if it did not quickly depart thence. But in the other dioceses of the Polish church too, Janussius archbishop of Gniezno and the other bishops of Poland uncovering their errors, and the princes of Poland commanding under grave penalty and confiscation of goods that none of the Poles should follow errors of this kind, that sect was derided and spurned. But in other kingdoms it was destroyed by fire and sword; and the error suddenly perished, its other followers deserting it and execrating what had been praised.
[32] he dies piously Beyond what has hitherto been brought forward, the historians and chroniclers suggest nothing in particular to be noted about the Beatus' deeds; his death Glodslaus Bastco, a contemporary writer, marks at the year 1266 in these words: And in the same year Prandotha bishop of Cracow passed from this world to Christ. Dlugosz at the same year adds also the day, as follows: On the twenty-first day of the month of September Prandotha, bishop of Cracow, a man of venerable life and the chief accomplisher and promoter of the canonization of the blessed Stanislaus, provided with all the Sacraments while hearing Mass, dies religiously and devoutly about the twilight of night, and is buried in the church of Cracow at the chapel of St. Peter and Paul, when he had spent eighteen years in the see of Cracow … And the aforesaid Prandotha, bishop of Cracow, a man truly most excellent and illustrious and famed for many virtues, had long desired to be dissolved and to depart from this bilge-water of evils to his Creator, where he might enjoy an everlasting age. Dlugosz was followed by Matthias of Miechów, the eulogy however being omitted: In the same year, he says, MCCLXVI, on the twenty-first day of the month of September, Prandotha bishop of Cracow, the chief promoter of the canonization of holy Stanislaus, when he had passed eighteen years in the bishopric, died about the beginning of night; and was buried at the cathedral church of Cracow in the middle of the chapel of the Apostles Peter and Paul. Both authors erred when they confined the time of his see to eighteen years; since from what was said before it is established that it was occupied by the Beatus from the year 1242; yet it may be believed that by the carelessness of copyists that error was thrust into Dlugosz, and inadvertently transcribed also by the writer of Miechów.
[33] in the year 1266. In the manuscript notices of the archive of the cathedral church of Cracow the year of his death is marked 1265; but here too I suspect that a slip of the pen lies hidden, not only because all the authors conspire in the year 1266, but because in the same notices the Beatus is said to have sat twenty-five years, which cannot be found from the year 1242 until the month of September 1265. Rightly did Martin Baronius, noting in the Epitome the year of death as 1266, determine the time of the see at twenty-four years; but neither was he free from his own error, when he set the day of death as the XX of the month of April, contrary to what the manuscript notices, Dlugosz, Matthias of Miechów and the booklet on the Tutelary Saints of the diocese of Cracow, cited at num. 5, have. The place of burial designated in the manuscript notices is the same as in Baronius and the others: then there is subjoined a brief eulogy conceived in these words: This man therefore, that he might be reckoned in fact and in name a true Procurator of the church, divided the revenues, the patrimonies and the other profits of his church according to the equity befitting it. He most studiously procured for the clergy an entire liberty according to God, justice and protection from every lay persecution, and the deliverance of his country. Finally, after some other things, there is added also an epitaph, of which only the first
verses, more distinctly transcribed, I transfer hither.
Here lies the glory of the church, here the good Pastor, here the flower / of justice, the honor of the clergy, Prandotha the prelate;
Here the way of truth, the glory of the clergy, Prandotha, the whole / praise of his country.
The rest are so entangled that I cannot make out a complete sense.
AN EPITOME OF THE LIFE
Drawn from the archive of the cathedral church of Cracow and published in print in the year 1606 by Martin Baronius.
ON BL. JOHN PRANDOTHA, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR,
AT CRACOW IN POLAND.
From the archive of Cracow.
Illustrious men are to be praised Although we know that the praises which the souls of pious mortals enjoy in the heavens after death are well-nigh infinite, so that no one — I do not say in words and writings, however eloquent and fluent he be, but not even in mind — can sufficiently comprehend them according to their dignity, yet it is not therefore fitting that anyone, overwhelmed by their great majesty and splendor, should bury the memory of them on earth. For if those gentiles, strangers to the knowledge of the true God, burned after the last rites of death with so great a desire and love for their own men — of whose integrity and authority the estimation had been celebrated among them in life — that they most diligently searched out what had been their native country, what their manners, what their kinsfolk, and finally each thing pertaining to their life, and handed down all these things, not without slight [*] expense, in monuments of letters, and that for this cause especially, both that men endowed with virtue should not be left without their reward, and that others too might be incited by their example to lead a like life;
[2] How much more does it befit us (marked with the name of Christ and illumined with the divine light, in whom the affection and zeal of religious piety ought to prevail more than in those the love of earthly things and the desire of empty glory) and among the Poles foremost in sanctity John Prandotha, toward our own men, men of our own profession and faith and our fellow countrymen, who instructed us not only, while they enjoyed this light, by the living doctrine and example of all holiness, but now too, having ended this life, incite us by frequent and those great miracles to follow more eagerly the footsteps of Christ — how much greater, I say, is the love and desire with which we ought to burn toward them? Of whose number, although there are already extant in this famous Poland of ours many and those most excellent monuments of our Patrons — as of the holy bishops Adalbert and Stanislaus, of Casimir prince of Poland, then of Hyacinth a, of the five Brothers b, of Cantius c, of Simon of Lipnica d, of Stanislaus of Kazimierz e, Canons of the Rule of the Order of the holy Augustine; of Michael f of the brothers of St. Mary of the same institute, and of others, whose lives one by one it would be long to reckon — yet with no lesser encomium of praises ought the Life and memory of blessed John Prandota, twenty-first in order among the bishops of that same city, preserved with his miracles in the archive of the kindly cathedral church of Cracow down to our own centuries, to be endowed and extolled.
[3] Who, as he was conspicuous in sanctity, so was illustrious for the multitude of miracles (whose series it will be permitted to see below). born of noble family, He was once a Pole by nation, but now is born to the seats of the heavens: to whom, though his native soil was small (of the village called Bolezlaw), fortune gave it; but the family of the Bialecii, which is one with the illustrious family of the Odrowaz, gave him a noble and great surname g, which nevertheless the name of John, given him when he was raised from the sacred font in the Catholic church, increased and adorned with a still ampler accession of praise. Of which family likewise St. Hyacinth, joined to him by blood, had gone before in age, together with Bl. Ivo h bishop of Cracow, and Ceslaus i, the brother of that same St. Hyacinth, serving with Bl. Dominic under the Rule of the Order of Preachers. Of which Bl. Prandota, bishop and confessor, to say nothing of his youthful age, which he had spent in the good arts and in theological studies with the highest praise k, he was raised by Vislaus, at that time established in the episcopal see of this city, to the dignity of the priesthood and of the archdeaconate of Cracow; and at last, he being dead, on account of his admirable holiness and integrity of life and manners, he was made bishop of Cracow by the most blessed Father Celestine the fourth, Supreme Roman Pontiff, and was consecrated by Fulco archbishop of Gniezno in the year from the birth of Christ MCCXLII l.
[4] bishop of Cracow, illustrious for pious works Who, as soon as he was set in this see, both procured and obtained from Pope Innocent the fourth the canonization of St. Stanislaus, bishop of Cracow and martyr, and his translation, with the expenses and diligence of blessed Cunegund, queen of Poland, once consort of king Boleslaus the Chaste, added m. And at home he raised from the foundations a chapel under the title of St. Peter at the same church, in which he now also lies buried; and this strenuous Athlete of Christ performed many other pious works in the same church; but greater ones still he bestowed upon the living temples of the Holy Spirit — the needy, the afflicted and the calamitous — and so liberally that he was called by all, street by street, the Father of the poor, and thence was held by all lovable and honorable.
[5] and for revelations. He died in 1266. Besides, he consecrated to God two virgins of royal stock, namely blessed Salomea and Cunegund his kinswoman, and clothed them with the sacred veil in the Religion of St. Clare, of the Order and institute of St. Francis n. But the Man is seen at the same time in his life to be of no less merit and of grace in many revelations, all of which this compendious page cannot comprise o: one of them, however, cannot be passed over in silence. When in the cathedral church, being at one time given to prayer, and at the same time seized by a most placid sleep, he saw the soul of Bl. Hyacinth, at the hour of his prayer, passing from this life into that heavenly country with an ordered choir of angels, the holy bishop Stanislaus accompanying it: who afterward, being awakened, found the vision true in fact. At length, worn out with age, amid vows of dissolution and desire of Christ, being about to receive in heaven the unfading crown of eternal glory, having taken the Eucharistic viaticum he reverently fell asleep, in the year of the Lord MCCLXVI, but on the XX day of April [p], and in the XXIV year of his pontificate.
[6] His body elevated in 1444 Whose happy death these miracles followed, with the sure experience of the whole cathedral church of Cracow. And in the first place there offers itself that which is truly worthy of note. For in the time of Pope Nicholas V [q] and of Zbigniew [r], Cardinal of the title of St. Prisca and bishop of Cracow, and in the year MCCCCXLIV, when the holy bones of this Divine man were being raised and translated into another tomb of the aforesaid chapel, where they are now buried, from his opened sepulchre they breathed for four days a most sweet and most fragrant odor, which wonderfully refreshed and revived all who then stood by, and healed many also by the power of its fragrance: and there are other almost innumerable miracles, wrought from this year MCCCCXLIV until MCCCCLXVI at very frequent intervals, and most evidently approving the Man's sanctity, which I here sketch in brief.
[7] For eleven sick persons of their own accord confessed that they had been relieved by his intercessions: he is made illustrious by miracles. from pain of the eyes, XVI: from pain of the feet, VII: as many healed from gout of the hand: from inflammation of the throat, 2; from trouble of the teeth, 2; from that of the loins, one; from that of the back likewise, 1; from a gnawing sore, 1; from the French disease, 2; from a quartan fever, 2; from headache [s], V; one remained given up as hopeless [t]; one healed from daily vomiting; 1 escaped from the peril of robbers; 1 is freed from prison; the same was heard from one deaf man and one lame from birth. One man too whose throat had been cut came to life again. A boy of one year, named Flamella, son of a certain man Nicholas the Brewer and of his wife Swetoslawa of St. Nicholas Street, lying in a grave infirmity, died, and at length, a vow having been made by the boy's parents at this Beatus' sepulchre, came to life again in the same chapel in the year MCCCCXLIV on the XVI day of August. Therefore know: For the Lord hath made wonderful his Saint, who hath shown us good things. Psalm IV.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. Rather the XXI of September, as I proved in the Commentary at num. 33.
q. Either these things were done in the time of Pope Eugene IV, or at any rate after the year 1444; since Nicholas V was raised to the Pontificate only in the year 1447.
r. Zbigniew or Sbigneus of Oleśnica, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church and prelate
of Cracow, Dlugosz, once his familiar friend, follows with many praises in the Polish History, lib. 13, and in the dedicatory epistle prefixed to the whole Work.
s. Probably cephalæa, which is an inveterate ailment of the head.
t. That is, unless I am mistaken, one of whose life all hope had been given up remained among the living.
perhaps magnis* (great)