John of Montmirail

ON BL. JOHN OF MONTMIRAIL, OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER,

IN THE MONASTERY OF LONGPONT IN FRANCE

The year 1217.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

John of Montmirail, of the Cistercian Order, in the monastery of Longpont in France. (B.)

BY C. S.

§ I. Notice of the monastery of Longpont: the Blessed one's memory in several Martyrologies: the Life written by an anonymous monk of Longpont: some other Lives are reviewed.

[ ] Concerning Longuspons, in French Longpont, the brothers Sainte-Marthe in the fourth volume of Gallia Christiana, In the monastery of Longpont, where he lived and died which comprises the abbeys, at p. 576 say this: "Longpont, sacred to Bl. Mary, of the diocese of Soissons, in the duchy of Valois, of the Cistercian Order, a daughter of Clairvaux, is ennobled by the tombs of the counts of Vermandois, princes of the second royal stock; and, monks having been taken from the divine abbot Bernard, in the year 1131, on the fifth of the Nones of March, this abbey is first founded on the ground of the deserted parish of Longpont, reduced almost to a solitude, by the piety of Josselin bishop of Soissons, and by the benefaction of Gerard of Chérisy, temporal lord of the place, it is converted into a monastery; which afterward the supreme Pontiffs, the kings of France, the bishops of Soissons, &c., enriched with various possessions and privileges." The learned Benedictines may also be consulted in the same enlarged Gallia Christiana, vol. 9, col. 473 and the following, where they briefly add concerning the vicissitudes of that abbey: "Longpont too, destroyed like the other monastic houses of France in the times of the English and of the heretics, was raised up out of its ruins, and adorned both with new buildings and with new discipline in the year 1612," &c.

[2] Adrien Baillet, to be cited below, in giving the situation of that abbey, Bl. John a monk, formerly lord of Montmirail, writes that it was founded only three French miles, or leagues, from the city of Soissons, beside the forest called Villers-Cotterêts. Now in this monastery, in the early thirteenth century, John, of whom we treat, led the monastic life and crowned it with a blessed end; surnamed "of Montmirail," in French de Montmirel or de Montmirail, from one of the ancestral castles which he possessed as a powerful man in the world; but in religion, on account of the singular humility of so illustrious a Man, deservedly also called John the Humble. Him several Martyrologies announce on this 29th day of September, on which he passed there to a happier life. Hugh Ménard in the Martyrology of the Saints of the Benedictine Order says thus: "In the territory of Soissons, of Bl. John of Montmirail, of the Cistercian Order, a man of admirable humility." Ménard's words Gabriel Bucelinus adopted in his Menology, after which he subjoined, after his manner, a prolix eulogy of the Blessed one out of his Life, to be mentioned and published below, which the aforesaid Ménard also reviewed in an abridgment in book 2 of his Observations.

[3] he is announced on this day in several monastic Him too Chrysostom Henriquez numbers among the Blessed of the Cistercian Order in his Cistercian Menology, celebrating him in the first place at this day in these words: "In France the deposition of Bl. John, lord of Montmirail, who, setting aside the nobility of his race and despising the delights of the world, put on the monk's habit at Longpont, and was renowned for admirable virtues and frequent miracles." The title of Saint was ascribed to him by Sigismund Alberti, a monk of the aforesaid Order, in the Catalogue of the Saints, Blessed and Servants of God of the same institute, published in print in the year 1712, whose words are these: "St. John, lord of Montmirail, of the blood of the kings of France, a monk of Longpont, in the diocese of Soissons, 29th of September, about the year 1225." To these may be added other and more ancient Catalogues, of which mention is made in the procès-verbal of the most illustrious and reverend lord Simon le Gras, bishop of Soissons, to be recited below at §10.

[4] and other Martyrologies, To the monastic martyrologists there come also a few others, of whom Philip Ferrari in the General Catalogue of those who are not inscribed in the Roman Martyrology mentions him at the same day indeed, but not without a fault, thus: "At M." (that is, at Mont) "Mirabilis, of Bl. John, surnamed the Humble." But in his Annotations he cites the records of the church of M. Mirabilis: yet I do not doubt that in both places Longpont must be substituted; since it was certainly there that he died and obtained a cult; but of his cult at Montmirail I have read nothing whatever in other writers. Andrew du Saussay in his Martyrologium Gallicanum says at this same day: "Likewise in the district of Paris, in the monastery of Longpont, a candidate of immortality broke the barriers of death, John the monk, surnamed the Humble, formerly lord of Montmirail; whose conversion was admirable, whose manner of life was angelic, and whose death was precious in the sight of God. For after his blessed consummation he shone with so great miracles that all who flocked to his tomb to seek help returned healed of whatsoever infirmity."

[5] especially of France, So Du Saussay; which pleased Baillet so little that he said in French: "The Cistercian Menology, the Benedictine and the Gallican Martyrology record his feast on the 29th day of September; the first two with the title of Blessed; the last under the name of John the Humble; but very negligently, so that the history of Bl. John of Montmirail seems to have been unknown to its author." Doubtless it displeased Baillet that the title of Blessed was passed over, which is really due to him, as will appear from what is to be said. For the rest, when Du Saussay says he died in the district of Paris, understand by "district" the prefecture; for otherwise it should rather have been said, in that of Soissons. He is called only Venerable also by Castellan in his Universal Martyrology, where, reckoning him among the Saints and Blessed of France, he says: "At Longpont, in the diocese of Soissons, the venerable John of Montmirail, of the Cistercian Order."

[6] But lest anyone should think that John's cult is denied by Castellan in that phrase, and he enjoys an ancient cult. it will help to have observed from his French Preface that Venerable is also the name he gives to those to whom some cult is paid, whether from tradition or by leave of the ordinary, but without an ecclesiastical Office; either because on the day of their death, in place of the yearly Mass of Requiem, a Mass of thanksgiving is sung; or because their tombs are adorned; or because they are painted with the diadem of glory (or with rays). Further, although no ecclesiastical Office, so far at least as I know, has been wont to be recited of our Bl. John, yet that his cult at Longpont is religious and ancient will appear in its place from the lamp and the wax candles that are wont to be lit at his tomb, famous for miracles, from the antiphons and Prayer hung up there for invoking him, and from the votive offerings, and lastly from the translations of his body and its keeping among the relics of other Saints; so that the title of Blessed altogether belongs to him, and therefore I have judged that he should be inserted into our Work.

[7] His Life Aubert le Mire indicated in his Cistercian Chronicle, His Life exists in manuscript printed at Cologne in the year 1614, at p. 189, in these words: "Bl. John the Humble, of Montmirail, in French Montmirail, born of a most noble race, flourishes as a monk at Longpont in the diocese of Soissons. There exists in that place his Life fully described by a contemporary." Concerning the same the most illustrious lord Simon le Gras, bishop of Soissons, speaks at greater length in the procès which I cited above, from which meanwhile receive the following: "The said prior (of Longpont), with the other Religious of the said monastery assisting, offered and presented to us a certain book written by hand upon parchment, covered with a boarded cover, as we saw and recognized, ancient; the beginning and head of which book is contained in these words in red letters: 'Here begins the Life of St. Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury.' … Out of which book, which seems to be a Sanctorale, pertaining to the memory of very many Saints of Christ, containing two hundred and twenty-three leaves and a half, there has been extracted the writing, or extracted copy, which is contained affixed first to this present procès-verbal, and especially from the hundred and thirtieth leaf, which begins:

[8] 'Prologue to the Life of the humble John, formerly lord of Montmirail and of Oisy.' in an ancient codex of Longpont, And below: 'It was the ancient custom that the victories of noble fighters should be committed to the memory of letters' … Which copy indeed we have extracted, transcribed and collated faithfully and exactly according to the said original and from page to page, word for word, and we have found all the said leaves sound, entire, neither suspect nor interpolated with any blots or faults; and we have judged such an original manuscript worthy of belief from the antiquity of its own credit." Thus far the aforesaid bishop of Soissons in the year 1639, when he was drawing up the procès-verbal to be sent to the Apostolic See at Rome for the obtaining of an Office of Bl. John. Of the same Life we have four manuscript copies, of which one, however, is nothing but a slightly abridged form of the longer one.

[9] of which we have three transcripts, and a fourth more abridged. The first was transcribed with his own hand from the autograph, and most courteously sent to our Predecessors in the year 1666, by the Rev. Father Antoine Muldrac, formerly Prior or subprior, then senior of the abbey of Longpont, and the same who published in print the Chronicle of that place in the year 1652. He prefixed to this copy of ours these words: "A transcript of the Life of blessed John of Montmirail, monk of Longpont of Soissons, from the original manuscript, which contains twenty leaves and a half." The second copy also is noted as taken from the autograph; but without any notice of time or of scribe. To the third nothing at all is noted. The fourth, lastly, is written as received from a manuscript of N. Belfort. Of these the first three differ only in words here and there and in orthography; which, since it may be due to the transcribers, and since I do not know which of them is the more correct, I shall follow Muldrac's copy, passing over the various readings of the others, which it will not seem worth while to review. As for the Belfort copy, this indeed contains the same things as the others; but it has some phrases otherwise expressed, and some also curtailed, most likely by the mere pleasure of a copyist aiming at brevity: wherefore it will be of no use to me.

[10] Its anonymous author, a monk of Longpont, The anonymous author of the Life expressly professes himself a monk in the Prologue, in which, alleging the cause of the Work he had undertaken, he says: "We, after long delay in refusing, at length overcome by the prayers of very many of our fellows, and chiefly yielding to the command of him to whom our monastic profession binds us by the bonds of obedience," &c. And that he was no other than a Cistercian monk at Longpont, his whole discourse abundantly intimates throughout the course of the little Work, and especially the passage, according to our division, at no. 72, where, as a dweller at Longpont, he speaks of a certain monk of that same monastery healed by the patronage of Bl. John, writing this: "But afterward I myself often saw the same man, when he passed by the tomb of the Servant of God, prostrating himself privately, as though wishing, by way of thanksgiving, to show him a reverence beyond that of others." From this head some authority accrues to the anonymous writer; namely, that since he wrote in that very monastery in which the Blessed one lived and died and was venerated, he could be so much the better informed of his deeds and of his posthumous glory, and could hand down more certain things.

[11] contemporary with him, or at least of the same age, His authority is increased still more by the time in which he flourished: for if he did not live together with the Blessed one (which he nowhere intimates), that he was at least of the same age may be gathered not obscurely from the Life. At no. 13 of the said

statements he cites as witness a certain servant of John himself, saying: "A certain one of the servants of the Man of God, by whose relation we have learned these things," &c. He speaks still more plainly at no. 32 in the same place, where, of the Blessed one while still living in the world before he put on the religious habit, he says: "Having heard the fame of a certain religious woman, who is still alive and is called Marie de Goigneliu, he resolved without delay to visit her, that he might enjoy her spiritual conversation and be edified by it." That woman, therefore, with whom Bl. John had conversed while not yet a monk, was still living when our anonymous author wrote, and consequently the same anonymous writer must be said to have been either contemporary with the Blessed one or at least very near him in age. Moreover, of the costly mausoleum erected at the Gospel horn of the high altar in the choir of the church of Longpont, and of the translation of Bl. John's body into it, which we shall say at §9 was perhaps done already before the year 1252, the anonymous writer has nothing: nay on the contrary at no. 77, relating a benefit obtained by a monk at the Blessed one's tomb, and again at no. 84 another obtained by a second monk, which he placed last of all, he clearly indicates that that tomb was still outside the choir: so that from this too it may be laid down that he wrote that Life before that time.

[12] Yet it is to be lamented that he did not better use these advantages of time and place for inquiring more diligently into the deeds of the blessed Man, he did not undertake to write all his deeds. and for composing from them an ordered Life. But that this was not the plan he set before himself, he himself professes in the Prologue, setting forth his mind in this way: "About to describe, with God's help, the life and miracles of that most famous prince John of Montmirail, we might usefully have said very many things about his secular soldiering and the greatness of his deeds and the abundance of his battles, right worthy of perpetual memory and recital. But since this can in no wise be set forth in few words, all those things which pertain to earthly and secular dignity being passed over in silence, we shall take care to explain, in simple and pure speech, not subtle or polished, only a few things concerning the spiritual virtues of this glorious Man and devout Servant of God, such as pertain to the common edification of all and are able to arouse the devotion of simple hearers." And so he wished not so much to weave a Life or history of his Hero as to review some examples of his virtues, which he believed the fitter for fostering piety in his fellow monks.

[13] And this he performed by dividing his little Work into three parts, His manner of writing: the abridgment published by Ménard. of which he prefixed to the first this title: "Here begins the Life, chiefly of those things which he did before his conversion"; to the second this: "How he renounced the world"; and lastly to the third that: "Here begins the third part, on his miracles and holy works." Beyond this division, by which he separated the Blessed one's deeds in the world from his deeds in religion and his miracles after death, as into three chapters, he took no care for the order of things, nor was he anxious about arranging a chronology, being intent almost solely on relating pious examples. Yet there is no reason to doubt the author's good faith, save in some circumstances of the deeds, which he may easily have amplified somewhat according to his own sense, which is familiar enough to other writers of such matters too. This same Life has everywhere lighted the way for all others who have treated of Bl. John's deeds, among whom Hugh Ménard sets out a Latin abridgment of it in book 2 of his Observations on the Benedictine Martyrology, as I have already noted above.

[14] The same Machaut set forth in French, illustrated and enlarged, Concerning him there wrote in French Machaut John Baptist de Machaut, a priest of our Society in France, and divided it into four books, and subjoined various documents which, diligently sought out, he used to prove his statements. He dying meanwhile in the year 1640, before the little Work had been published in print, the Prior and convent of Longpont in the following year dedicated it, printed at Paris, to the most illustrious lord Simon le Gras, bishop of Soissons. His labour will be useful to me here, chiefly on account of the records he adds. In French likewise Adrien Baillet wrote about the same Blessed one in vol. 3 of the Lives of the Saints at this 29th day of September, at which day in his Critical Table he appended the following censure in the French tongue: "Various writers have written his Life from the abridgment of a certain unknown monk of Longpont, and especially Father John Baptist de Machaut, divided into four books, with the addition of charters and original documents which lighted his way and which prove the history, whose author by their help enjoys the advantage of a contemporary.

[15] and Baillet: the Life to be given from a manuscript, hitherto unpublished. Manrique too and other historians of the Cistercian Order may be consulted: but there is none in the reading of whom great caution and judgment is not needed, on account of the carelessness and slight industry of the first author, who was leader and pattern to the rest. This Life, written in abridged form by a monk of Longpont, is reviewed in the Benedictine Martyrology of Dom Hugh Ménard." So Baillet, but he is mistaken: for the Life written by the anonymous monk of Longpont is not that which Ménard published; but this latter is merely an abridgment of it, composed not by a monk of Longpont but by Ménard himself. Hear Ménard speaking at the end: "This is the Life of Bl. John of Montmirail, which I have collected out of two manuscript books, reviewing his chief actions, many miracles too which are found in them being omitted for brevity's sake." For the rest, I shall print that Life, hitherto unpublished, of which I have already given my judgment above, and shall illustrate it with the customary annotations.

[16] Other manuscript Lives are recorded. Another Life of the same Bl. John, or rather the same enlarged by others, Angelus Manricus or Manrique records in vol. 3 of the Cistercian Annals at the year of Christ 1184, chapter 3, no. 1, where he prefaces that he will give his Life "written by a contemporary monk of Longpont, and enlarged by the testimonies of many, as it exists in manuscript at Cîteaux, whence" (he says) "it was sent to me." But afterward, both in this and in the following volume of the Annals, in relating the Blessed one's deeds, he carefully noted in the margin which things he had drawn from that contemporary and which from the additions. In these he relates various matters, of which some are more credible than others; some too are related as asserted by witnesses; so that they may seem to have been taken from some process, and perhaps from that which the aforesaid Manricus will say below is extant. Another Life likewise, or, as he himself calls it, an abridgment of a Life, Henriquez had, out of which he recites in his Notes on the Cistercian Menology certain things which are not read in our Longpont copies nor in Belfort's. Of both there will be mention several times in the course of this Commentary.

[17] one of which, said to be extant at Soissons, The aforesaid annalist of the Cistercians at the year 1200, chapter 5, no. 14, mentions a certain fourth Life thus: "Hugh Ménard in his Notes inserted an epitome of his Life; not of that which is extant among the Celestines, from which Gonon drew; but of that at Longpont, which we have reproduced." Now that Benedict Gonon, a Celestine monk at Lyons in France, in the Lives and sayings of the Fathers of the West, book 4, really produced an abridgment of another Life quite different from that of Longpont, out of the manuscript codices (as he himself prefaces) "of our monastery of Soissons." But in the Notes there he says again: "We have learned that the book of his life, containing two hundred leaves, is preserved in the library of our monastery of Soissons. And from a certain monk of the same monastery I have received this fragment"; namely that which he published. That our Papebroch was anxious to obtain that Life, if there were need, the following note of his shows, written in his own hand upon our Belfort copy.

[18] "Dom Jacques Lannoy, a Cistercian, has signified that among the Celestine fathers of Soissons a Life of two hundred leaves is preserved. Papebroch sought it in vain: I therefore wrote in the year 1665, on the 12th of November, to the Celestines at Paris, and sent a note of this Life with a memorial, that they might send to Soissons and see whether it is different from ours, or fuller, or richer in miracles at the end; and that they would take care to have transcribed what we lack." Notwithstanding these efforts, I have found that nothing of the sort was sent to us, although the aforesaid Celestine fathers of Soissons most courteously communicated many other things out of their library to our Predecessors. Wherefore I am forced to suspect that that prolix Life was not then extant among them, or, if it was, that it did not seem worth the trouble to transcribe it. And indeed it would not have been worth the trouble, if that which the aforesaid Gonon published is an abridgment of it. For it is certain that the author of that abridgment is a fabler, who, having borrowed some facts from the anonymous writer of Longpont, invented a far different Life. Take a specimen.

[19] He makes Bl. John of Montmirail, seized with a holy weariness of worldly things, but that which Gonon published, first a hermit for seven years in a desert place of his native soil; then brings him to St. Bernard abbot of Clairvaux, while he was founding the monastery of Ourscamp, commonly Orcamp, and affirms that he was admitted by him to the Religious habit. Shortly after he subjoins that John was set over the monastery of Longpont as abbot by the same holy father Bernard, though he resisted, and at last that he departed this life about the fourteenth year after the death of the divine Bernard. Of his tomb also he adds: "From whose tomb a liquid like white milk flowed long afterward for the healing of the sick; and even now on his feast day it flows abundantly; whence many sick and possessed persons are healed." These things are in the abridgment in Gonon, of all which not one word is true. In the first place, what is affirmed about the eremitic life led for seven years is plainly false from the biographer of Longpont, on whose testimony the Blessed one indeed deliberated about embracing it, but never undertook it, since the hermits and the doctors whom he had consulted upon this matter dissuaded him.

[20] It is false in the second place that our Bl. John was received into the Order by St. Bernard is altogether fabulous. while he was founding the monastery of Ourscamp: for the foundation of this monastery is referred in the Cistercian Annals to the year of Christ 1129, at which time Bl. John most probably was not yet born, as we shall see in its place. It is false in the third place that he held the prelacy of Longpont by the command of the same St. Bernard; both because Bl. John, if ever he lived at the same time as St. Bernard, was probably not yet grown up in the year 1153, in which St. Bernard departed this life; and because from authentic documents we shall prove in its place that he did not begin the Religious life until some years of the thirteenth century had begun; and lastly because the asserted prelacy of Longpont is quite contrary both to the statements of the biographer of Longpont and to the Catalogues of the abbots, both that published by the writers of Gallia Christiana and that which I have in manuscript. It is therefore equally false that Bl. John died about the fourteenth year after the death of the divine Bernard. Fabulous, finally, is that liquid like white milk flowing from his tomb; since to the men of Longpont

it is as unknown as to all the rest. Whether however these things were abridged out of another and fuller Life, which is said to have existed in the library of the reverend Celestine fathers of Soissons, I cannot assert, and that doubt they perhaps will easily be able to resolve.

[21] Much more should I wish that there had come into my hands the process concerning which, at the year 1200, chapter 5, no. 11, Manricus, the annalist of the Cistercian Order, noted this: We lack the process which is said to be extant. "There is extant likewise a judicial process, in which sworn witnesses depose many things which at present would breed weariness"; and again at the year 1236, chapter 2, no. 7: "There is extant and is read a process of the miracles of Bl. John, in which a hundred and more are proved, hearing, tongue, sight and the use of their limbs having been restored to the deaf, the dumb, the blind and the crippled, as soon as they implored the Saint's help; and that he was chiefly wont to give the desired health to those labouring under quartan fever, if they had recourse to him, the long experience of many has shown," &c. Thus far he; but he alone of all whom I at least have read cites the process, nor does he say where it is extant. But what he afterward intimates, that it was drawn up at the command of the supreme Pontiff Gregory IX, suffers much difficulty from the silence of the Prior and the Religious of Longpont, on which consult what is to be said at §10.

[22] A brief eulogy of him was written by abbot Galcher. A doubt may also be raised by the continuators of Gallia Christiana, vol. 9, col. 476, in the series of the abbots of Longpont, namely whether Galcher, whom others call Galther and Walther, first abbot of that abbey, afterward of Cîteaux, wrote any one of the aforesaid Lives. For they say: "He (Galcher) still governed Longpont when in the year 1212 Bl. John of Montmirail on the Sunday of the Ascension" — rather, on the day of the Lord's Ascension, or on the feast of the Lord's Ascension — "put on the monastic cowl, clothed in which he died on the 29th of September 1217, and was buried at the side of the high altar on the North side with an epitaph; whose Life abbot Galcher wrote." That Galcher was indeed above others fit for this work, seeing that he was a grave and learned man, and had himself admitted the Blessed one into the Order and as abbot had governed him as a subject. Henriquez inscribed him with the title of Blessed in the Cistercian Menology, Du Saussay as Pious in the Martyrologium Gallicanum, on the 20th day of January, at which day, because his cult was not proved, he was placed by our Predecessors only among the Prætermissi. But Galcher left not a Life of him, but only a brief eulogy or testimony concerning his integrity of manners and holiness, with this design, as I judge, that it might be of use if ever his canonization should be treated of. We received it from Longpont, and shall insert it into this Commentary in its places, as the course of the narrative shall require. It is extant also in Henriquez in his Menology at this day, but faulty at the end, whence Manricus had occasion to err in the year of Bl. John's death.

§ II. The Blessed one's illustrious progenitors on his father's and mother's side: his birth about the middle of the twelfth century: his mother's death: his father's second wife.

[ ] He was born of the illustrious family of Montmirail: The writer of the Life to be published, hastening at once to relate Bl. John's conversion and virtues (which alone he had proposed to himself), handed down nothing about his parents, nothing about the place and year of his birth; but beginning from his youthful age with these words: "That admirable prince John of Montmirail therefore, being gloriously exalted in the whole kingdom of France by reason of the probity of his mind and body, and also by the royal nobility of his race, and being still a most fervent lover of arms, bore himself liberally in the distribution of his goods after the manner of the nobles of this world." It is not easy to say in what way the Blessed one drew his descent from the royal race; and Machaut confesses in the French Life, book 4, chapter 14, that he had not been able to make it out, however diligently he had searched into his lineage. He notes, however, that Matthew, the son of the same Blessed one, is called kinsman by Theobald count of Champagne and Brie and king of Navarre also in a document of the year 1263, which he recites there at p. 451, in the words which I subjoin: "Our most dear kinsman Matthew, formerly lord of Montmirail and of Oisy." But this kinship of Matthew's may have arisen on the side of his mother Helvidis, concerning whom consult no. 44.

[24] Whatever be the case about John's royal blood, it is established that he was born of one of the more illustrious families of France, [he had for great-great-grandfather on his father's side Dalmatius, for great-grandfather Galcher,] and that his wife Helvidis and his descendants were at one time joined by kinship or affinity to the chief princes of Europe. André Du Chesne in the Genealogical History of the families of Guines, of Ardres, of Ghent and of Coucy, &c., published in French, book 6, chapter 6, reviews some of his paternal progenitors. And first indeed, out of the Chronicle of the abbey of St. John in the Vineyards at Soissons, he records Dalmatius, lord of the town, land and castellany of Montmirail in Brie, and also of Firmitas or Feritas-Galcheri, in French Ferté-Gaucher, flourishing under Philip I king of France, that is, after the middle of the eleventh century or at the beginning of the following. He subjoins that his son, Galcher by name, before the year 1125 gave to the same abbey of St. John in the Vineyards the churches and priories of St. Stephen at Montmirail and of St. Martin at Ferté-Gaucher.

[25] Machaut agrees in the Life, in whose p. 427 and the following he brings forward fragments out of the aforesaid Chronicle, men powerful and piously munificent; for grandfather Elias in which the donations of both, namely of Dalmatius and of Galcher, made to the aforesaid abbey are treated of, and Dalmatius is called the father of Galcher. Further, Galcher, on the same testimony of Du Chesne, took to wife a certain Elizabeth. Mention of both consorts is in the Martyrology or Necrology of the aforesaid monastery of St. John, out of which Machaut at p. 430 and the following recites this: "The Nones of November. Elizabeth, the wife of lord Galcher, a man of good memory, by whose intervention the altars of Ferté-Gaucher and of Montmirail with their ovens and appurtenances were granted to this church; who also permitted her house at Ferté-Gaucher to be consecrated as a church in honour of St. Martin." Du Chesne goes on, writing that Galcher begot by his aforesaid consort two sons, Elias and Galcher, of whom the latter, the second born, he says entered the Cistercian Order, citing the Life of St. Bernard abbot of Clairvaux, book 1, chapter 1, which passage is here to be reported.

[26] William, from abbot of St. Thierry near Reims become a monk of Signy, in the Life of St. Bernard, of whose pious wife and son which he wrote while he was still living, in our work, vol. 4 of August, p. 272, no. 62, says to our purpose thus: "Many know the illustrious young man Walther of Montmirail, whose paternal uncle, brother Walther, among those knights whom we mentioned before, professed the sacred warfare at Clairvaux. This Walther the younger therefore, when he was still a little infant and had not yet completed the third month from his birth, his mother offered to the Man of God (St. Bernard) to be blessed, rejoicing and exulting that she deserved to have so holy a man as a guest in her house. And when the Man of God, as he was always and everywhere accustomed to do, was speaking of salvation and edification to those about him, the mother of the aforesaid infant, holding him in her lap, was sitting at his feet. And it happened that in speaking he now and then stretched out his hand; and the little infant tried to seize it.

[27] mention is made in the Life of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, At length the little one's effort was noticed, when he had done it rather often, and, all wondering, opportunity is given him to seize the hand which he had wished for. But then with a truly marvellous reverence, putting one of his own hands underneath and holding it with the other, he raised it to his mouth and kissed it. Nor did he do this once only, but as often as he was permitted to hold the blessed hand." Thus far there, and no more; from which Du Chesne rightly laid down that Galcher, who is there named Walther (for both are the same name), and who was a Cistercian monk at Clairvaux, was the brother of Elias, and that the little infant was the son of the same Elias. Machaut on the contrary, book 1, chapter 1, judges that by the aforesaid infant is to be understood not the son but the brother of Elias, led into this error because he believed that the same infant was afterward admitted by the same St. Bernard to the sacred habit of his Order, taking of the nephew what William expressly affirmed of the same boy's uncle. And so that pious hostess of St. Bernard was the paternal grandmother of Bl. John, as we shall presently see, and that little infant was his uncle, while the other Walther, the Cistercian monk, was his grandfather's brother.

[28] and for father Andrew, lords of Montmirail. I go on weaving the genealogy with Du Chesne. Elias took to wife a certain daughter of the lord of Pleurs, who brought him as dowry the village of Bussiacum, commonly Bussy, a fief of the abbey of Faremoutiers, as he says is established from a document of the year 1144. From this marriage he writes that there were born, first Andrew, the father of Bl. John, who succeeded his father Elias in the possession of Montmirail and of Ferté-Gaucher or Galtheri; secondly Galcher or Walther, of whose infancy he had made mention above out of the Life of St. Bernard, and he added no more. Andrew, following the piety of his ancestors, is inscribed in the oft-mentioned Martyrology of St. John in the Vineyards, in Machaut at p. 430, in these words: "The eighth of the Ides of June. Andrew of Ferté-Gaucher, for whom we have half of the meadow and a quarter of the tithe of the village of Chatrongia." We have therefore as Bl. John's great-great-grandfather Dalmatius, as great-grandfather Galcher or Galther, as grandfather Elias, and as father Andrew; all lords of Montmirail and of Ferté-Gaucher, and commendable for their pious munificence.

[29] Notice is given of Montmirail, Of Montmirail, from which Bl. John and his forefathers reviewed above drew their surname, Adrien de Valois in his Notitia Galliarum gives the etymology and situation, from which I have excerpted the following. "Mons mirabilis is a place often mentioned by our historians. It has its name from the thing itself: for it is a castle set upon a hill which overhangs the river, in Brie, at a place midway between Provins and Château-Thierry. Our people call it Montmiralle; some write and pronounce Montmirail. Beyond the rest William, abbot of the monastery of St. Thierry near the city of Reims, mentions it in book 1 of the Life of St. Bernard abbot of Clairvaux, chapter 11: 'Many know the illustrious young man Walther of Montmirail.' Among the standard-bearing knights of Champagne, in the reign of Philip Augustus, the lord of Montmirail is numbered: likewise John of Montmirail, in the same place called John de Montemirelli." After these things he reviews also some other places of the same name in France, which do not pertain to the present argument.

[30] Baudrand noted this about the same place in his Geographical Lexicon: as also of Ferté-Gaucher "Monmiralium, Monmirail, a town of France in the province of Brie, on a hill by the river Grand Morin, and on the border of Champagne proper, distant four leagues from Château-Thierry to the South, and thirteen from Meaux to the East. It is also called Mons mirabilis."

In this latter fashion it is called also in the charters of donations of Bl. John himself and of his consort Helvidis; by others I have read it called Montemmirellum too. As regards the other place, called Feritas or Firmitas-Galcheri, or Galtheri, in French la Ferté-Gaucher, which we have said pertained likewise to the Blessed one's progenitors, and shall say came to him by right of inheritance, it will be of use to have observed from the aforesaid Valois that places fortified by nature and by art were of old wont among the French to be called by the barbarous-Latin word Firmitates, in French Fermités, and hence Fertés, of which name he there enumerates various places in France, among which he places Firmitas Galterii, in the vernacular la Ferté Gaucher, in the district of Meaux.

[31] In Corneille's Geographical Lexicon its situation and condition, as it was in his own time, in Brie. The Blessed one's mother was Hildiardis of Oisy, are thus set forth in French words: "A village of Brie in Champagne in France, which in Latin is called Feritas or Firmitas Galteri, is situated on the river Morin, five leagues from Château-Thierry to the South, and four above Coulommiers." Thus far we have treated of the paternal lineage of Bl. John; now let us likewise note some things about the maternal, which greatly increased the former in nobility and in wealth. The aforesaid Andrew, the Blessed one's father, lord of Montmirail and of Ferté-Gaucher, is said in Du Chesne to have taken to wife Hildiardis, otherwise Hodoardis, of Oisy, sprung from the ancient castellans, or burgraves as they call them, of Cambrai, lords of Oisy in the district of Cambrai, and viscounts of Meaux, whose illustrious progenitors I subjoin, some of them, from the same writer, but in fewer words than he.

[32] Hugh, the first of this name, castellan of Cambrai, lord of Oisy whose illustrious progenitors and also of Crepicordium, in the vernacular Crèvecœur, in the district of Cambrai, entered into marriage with Ada, niece of Richildis countess of Hainault. Of these was born Hugh II, likewise lord of Oisy and Crèvecœur and castellan of Cambrai, who had to wife Hildiardis, the aunt of Nicholas, afterward bishop of Cambrai, and with her founded the abbey of Vaucelles in the district of Cambrai. Their son and heir Simon obtained as consort Ada or Adela, daughter of Godfrey viscount of Meaux, who after the childless death of her father and of her only brother inherited, besides the said viscountship of Meaux, also Firmitas-Auculphi, in French la Ferté-Aucoul, otherwise called la Ferté sous Jouarre, and situated in the Brie of Champagne, likewise Trama, commonly Tresmes, and other places.

[33] To this illustrious pair of consorts Du Chesne ascribes three children, are reviewed from André Du Chesne, Hugh, Giles and Hildiardis; of whom he relates that the middle one was slain in the year 1160 in the battle against Thierry of Alsace, count of Flanders; and that Hugh, after two marriages, died without offspring. Lastly he says that Hildiardis, their sister, married Andrew lord of Montmirail, whose son was Bl. John, of whom we treat, and who by this means obtained that ample inheritance of the family of Oisy. With Du Chesne agrees Aubert le Mire in his Notitia ecclesiarum Belgii, except that he passed over the name of Simon's wife, and called Margaret, the consort of Hugh III, whom Du Chesne relates to have been the daughter of the count of Blois, viscountess of Meaux. Consult, if you please, the aforesaid little Work of le Mire, p. 504, where he briefly set out the maternal genealogy of Bl. John.

[34] and through whom the Blessed one was enriched with many lordships. We have therefore here also the Blessed one's maternal forefathers, lords of Oisy and castellans of Cambrai; namely Hugh I his great-great-grandfather, Hugh II his great-grandfather, Simon his grandfather, and Simon's daughter Hildiardis his mother; and lastly his uncle Hugh III, upon whose dying without children John by his mother's right added also the viscountship of Meaux and the castellany of Cambrai to his paternal inheritance, and thus at one time possessed the opulent lordships of the houses of Montmirail, of Oisy and of the viscounts of Meaux. He who wishes for more, let him go to the aforesaid Du Chesne and to Machaut in the French Life, book 1, chapters 1 and 2. I have reviewed these things that from so illustrious a pedigree, and from the titles and wealth of the blessed Man, his singular humility may shine out the more, by which, after he had once turned his mind to divine things, he so despised all worldly things, and himself along with them, that he wished to be held the least and vilest of all men, no less in deeds than in words.

[35] The year of his birth, which by one writer is assigned to 1170 The biographer, passing over the time of his birth as well as the names of his parents and the chronology of his Life, left them to be guessed at; nor did he take care to indicate even the age at which he became a monk, nor that at which he died; and if he had done so, it would not have been difficult, from the year of his death, which we have learned elsewhere to have been 1217 of Christ, and from the year of his taking the habit, which from what is to be said was about 1210, to weave together some sort of chronology. Machaut, book 1, chapter 3, book 3, chapter 3, and book 4, chapter 3, assigns for his birth the year 1170; but at the same time in the last place he employs reckonings which cannot be reconciled with that same year. Receive his words in Latin out of the French. "That we may join together all the epochs," he says, "since he was born in the year 1170, and put on the religious habit in the year 1210, and died in the year 1217, we shall conclude that he lived fifty years in the world, and at this age embraced the monastic life in the monastery of Longpont, where, after eight years spent in holiness in every exercise of all the virtues, he closed his last day in the fifty-eighth year of his whole life. These things we shall hold as established, until we be better informed."

[36] or to 1160, and by another writer to another year, So he indeed; nor is there doubt that either for the birth-year 1170 the year 1160 must be substituted, or only forty-eight years must be ascribed to the whole period of his life according to those reckonings; since more cannot be counted from the year of Christ 1170 to 1218, nor can his death be deferred beyond that year. But for placing his birth about the year 1170 he alleges only two things: first, that his father Andrew is read to have made pious bequests for his mother as one already dead from the year 1177; secondly, that he was of about the same age as Philip Augustus king of France, born in the year 1165. The first proves nothing: for what stands in the way of the Son's having been begotten many years before the mother's death? The other needed to be proved, not merely asserted. Baillet in the Life placed his birth about the year 1165, but in the margin in the same place at the same year 1165 or 1158. He retained the year 1165, afterward asserting that Bl. John died in the year of Christ 1217, but about the fifty-second year of his age. But since here too he cites no witness, and brings forward no argument, he must be seen to have spoken from mere conjecture.

[37] For my part, though I should not venture to determine anything certain without other arguments, which are not at hand, it cannot be determined, yet that I should rather prefer to believe John born before rather than after the year 1170, is persuaded by the monastic life he undertook certainly not after the year 1212, while his consort Helvidis, by whom he had already begotten six children, remained in the secular life. For less liable to dangers, and therefore also more likely, is the separation of a husband from his wife by the profession of one of them by mutual consent, at a more advanced age of both, than at a younger. But if Bl. John had first come into the light in the year 1170, that separation would have been made, by Machaut's own opinion, in the forty-second year of his age, that is, in the vigour of his years. My opinion is favoured by the monastic statue of the Blessed one placed upon his mausoleum, which, as Machaut inserted it engraved on copper by John Picart into his little Work, represents a monk rather more than sixty years old than less.

[38] Yet this statue may deceive; for in another image, but it may be fixed after the middle of the twelfth century. likewise engraved on copper and published from the press by R. Lochon in the year 1656, which we received as the true monastic effigy of the Blessed one from father Antoine Muldrac, so often cited above — in that image, I say, he is shown much younger than that he can be believed to have aged so much in those few years in which he lived as a monk. And so, not to be longer to no purpose, I judge that the birth of Bl. John must be fixed after the middle of the twelfth century, but how many years after is quite uncertain to me. On this occasion observe in few words how far from the truth that fabler wandered who was published by Benedict Gonon, who invented that Bl. John was admitted into the Order by St. Bernard abbot of Clairvaux about the year of Christ 1129, and died about the year 1169. Go to no. 19 and the following. I pass on to other matters. Nowhere is it read that our Bl. John had a brother or a sister; so that he seems altogether to have been the only offspring of his parents, or, if besides him others were born of them, these must be said to have died at a young age.

[39] His mother Hildiardis, Machaut writes, book 1, His mother being dead, his father took a second wife, chapter 3, died young enough, since his father Andrew passed to a second marriage. She was still living in the year 1169, as is clear from a document reported by him at p. 445 and the following, in which Andrew, the Blessed one's father, making an agreement with Geoffrey abbot of Sosme, mentions her as still among the living thus: "This same my wife Hildiardis approved and confirmed, for the memory and testimony of which approval and confirmation she had fifteen shillings." Yet she does not seem to have survived after the year 1177, if, as Du Chesne affirms at p. 223 and the following, Andrew in that very year made some donation to the church of the hospital of Ferté and to the nunnery of Charmes for the soul of the same his wife. That Andrew after her death joined another consort to himself is established from our anonymous writer of Longpont, who at no. 55 of the Life to be published has this: "Coming (Bl. John, now a monk, and repulsed from his wife's house) to the castle which is called Gaucher's, and having found the countess, who was his stepmother, he was received by her honourably and with a cheerful countenance."

[40] The other things which there follow sufficiently indicate that that countess, recorded by the biographer, but otherwise unknown. the Blessed one's stepmother, was then the lady of that castle, and accordingly it is likely that it was granted to her in dower by Andrew, once her husband, to whom it had belonged, so long as she should live. Her name and stock the biographer passed over in silence after his manner, nor have I read mention made of her in others; whose silence Machaut not improbably traces to this, that, since she died childless, she could easily be passed over by historians and genealogists, especially as she herself did nothing memorable.

§ III. The Blessed one's marriage with Helvidis of Dampierre; his offspring and illustrious posterity: his warlike deeds and the vices of his mind before his conversion: the restitution of tithes made by him.

[ ] The Blessed one took to wife Our anonymous writer of Longpont in the Life to be published makes mention of Bl. John's wife indeed more than once, but the wife's name, like many other things, he passed over in silence

He suppressed. That she was called Helvidis, both she herself and her husband John make plain in their charters of donation, to be reported in their place. The same is asserted by Alberic, a monk of Trois-Fontaines of Liège, a writer of the thirteenth century, in whose early years the Blessed one died, in his Chronicle, in which he at the same time indicated in a few words the most noble family of that woman. In the edition of the year 1698 prepared by Leibniz, at the year 1239 he says this: "Isabella, lady of Baia, dies, the mother of Simon of Châteauvillain. Enguerrand of Coucy, who was born of the sister of the said lady of Baia, gave his daughter in marriage to Alexander king of Scotland. This Alexander had as his first wife one of the sisters of the king of England, who * died without children.

[42] There are therefore two queens in the kindred of Melou and Helvidis of Dampierre (Molen) or of Dampierre; that of Scotland, and the wife of the king of Navarre, the daughter of Archambaud. For the father of Archambaud, Guy of Dampierre, had three sisters. One, Isabella, the mother of lord Gobert of Aspremont; and one, Oda, the mother of those of Torota; the third, Helvidis, bore to the lord (lady) of Montmirail Mary, the wife of Enguerrand of Coucy." Further, that by the lord of Montmirail no other is here designated than our Bl. John, is both ascertained from elsewhere and is taught by the codex from which John Burchard Mencken in vol. 1 of the Scriptores rerum Germanicarum published more correct and fuller readings of the same Chronicle, among which at col. 88 he notes that for dominæ (domino) must be read "to lord John," namely of Montmirail, as follows also in Leibniz. The same passage of Alberic Du Chesne, already often cited, followed at p. 226, and amplified it, writing in French what I subjoin in Latin.

[43] a most noble woman, "His wife (Bl. John's) was Helvidis of Dampierre (in French de Dampierre), sister of Guy, lord of Dampierre and of Bourbon, who begot Archambaud the Great, lord of Bourbon, among whose children were Margaret of Bourbon, queen of Navarre, countess of Champagne and Brie, and William, lord of Dampierre, count of Flanders and Hainault"; namely through his consort Margaret, daughter of Baldwin VIII count of Flanders and emperor of Constantinople, who after her sister Joanna, dead without children, succeeded to the aforesaid counties. Helvidis therefore, the wife of Bl. John, was the great-aunt of Margaret of Bourbon, married to Theobald II king of Navarre, and of William of Dampierre, who had to wife Margaret countess of Flanders and Hainault; of whose descendants Mary of Burgundy, joined in marriage to the emperor Maximilian I, brought her ancestral estates into the most august house of Austria, which was propagated through them.

[44] Of the time of John's marriage with Helvidis I have found out nothing, not after the year 1194, except that they were already joined in the year 1194, and in the year 1202 numbered three children. The first is plain from a charter reported in Machaut at p. 448 and the following, and presently to be given, by which Bl. John and his wife Helvidis restore and confirm certain tithes to the monastery of Sosme. The other we have from their document of a donation made to the monastery of Cantimpré in the year 1202, in which they expressly say: "We make known … that with the assent of our children, namely of William and John our sons, and of Elizabeth our daughter, we have given," &c., as may be seen in le Mire's Notitia ecclesiarum Belgii, p. 504, and in this Commentary below at §5. This marriage therefore cannot be fixed later than the year 1194, but nothing stands in the way of its having been celebrated some years, and indeed not a few, earlier.

[45] To the vows of the consorts an offspring numerous enough answered. Du Chesne at p. 226, of whom he had six children, five of whom and there among the corrections and additions at p. 451, reviews five of their children, besides Mary mentioned by Alberic, in French thus: "But she (Mary) was not their only offspring, but she had three brothers and two sisters; namely William of Montmirail, … who died before his father: John and Matthew of Montmirail, to be mentioned below: Elizabeth of Montmirail, named with William and John her brothers in a charter of the abbey of Cantimpré, dated in the year 1202 (which I have cited above from le Mire), but dying a little after without children; and Felicia of Montmirail, married to Hellin, lord of Waurin, seneschal of Flanders." Among these he affirms that Bl. John's lordships were thus divided: "John, after William's death the eldest son, received Montmirail, Oisy, Crèvecœur and the castellany of Cambrai; and, having taken to wife Elizabeth countess of Chartres, widow of Sulpicius lord of Amboise, he died without offspring.

[46] To Matthew there fell in the first place Ferté-Gaucher with half of Ferté-Aucoul, dying without offspring, Mary, their only daughter, was heir, the viscountship of Meaux, Tresmes and Beaux; the other half of which, given in dower to Felicia, afterward by her death without leaving offspring accrued also to the inheritance of the same Matthew; as did also all that had been John's, who likewise died childless." He adds finally that all these same things, when Matthew likewise departed this life without issue, came to Mary alone, their sister, who had had her own dower also. Of this Matthew, in the Martyrology or Necrology of the abbey of St. John in the Vineyards at Soissons, on the testimony of Machaut at p. 430, this may be read: "The nineteenth of the Kalends of February. Matthew lord of Montmirail and of Oisy, who gave us twenty pounds of yearly rent upon the mesteria" (on which word see Du Cange in the Glossary) "of Montmirail; so that on the day of his death the convent gave" (read "ought to have") "a suitable pittance" (that is, a more sumptuous meal), "which the church pays." There are extant also some charters of his donations, which Machaut published in the same little Work.

[47] Further, Mary, married to Enguerrand or Ingelran III lord of Cociacum, had an illustrious posterity. commonly of Coucy, left an illustrious posterity, which was joined by affinity both to the chief princes of Europe and to the most august house of Austria through Catharine, daughter of Leopold, son of the emperor Albert I. But concerning these consult, if you please, the aforesaid Du Chesne, and Machaut book 4, chapter 14, where he treats of this argument professedly. But Mary was buried, as she herself while living had asked, in the church of Longpont, not far from the mausoleum of her blessed Father, with an epitaph which in Machaut at p. 483 runs thus: "Here lies the noble Mary, lady of La Fère, who, while she lived most holily, was liberal in alms, full of good works, devout in prayer; the daughter of that most upright Knight and most devout Monk, brother John, formerly lord of Montmirail, the mother of Enguerrand of Coucy." Of her the discourse will recur in Bl. John's posthumous glory; but now let us return to the deeds of the Blessed one himself.

[48] The few things which the biographer relates I have already noted at no. 12 that the biographer of Longpont professes in his Prologue that he will say nothing of the Blessed one's warlike deeds, and of others that do not pertain to piety. Yet he relates one at no. 34 and the following, which must here be discussed. "When," he says, "he was serving under the glorious Philip king of the Franks, … he was greatly loved by the king himself by reason of most just causes. And not undeservedly; seeing that he was so often useful and necessary to him. Now he was in that battle of Normandy which the king of the Franks joined against the king of England at the castle whose name is Gisors: where, when the king had been forsaken of the help of his whole army and utterly abandoned by them, and was hemmed in on every side by his enemies, John, that prince worthy of praise, by his own valour with vast strength powerfully led him out from the midst of those who were seeking the king's life, and freed him from the peril of death. Then, coming into the parts of France, he gathered a copious multitude of men, with whom he returned in haste to his lord, prudently and carefully furnishing him with timely support.

[49] about the Blessed one's military deeds And so at last, through the mediation of John, that most faithful prince, king Philip, who a little before had almost succumbed to his enemies, wresting by force from the hand of the king of England the aforenamed castle, and also the whole land for which he was at that time contending, returned as victor into France honourably and with joy." The situation of Gisors, of which he here speaks, Baudrand gives thus in his Lexicon: "Cæsortium, or Cæsarotium, a town of Celtic Gaul in Antoninus; to later writers Gisorium, commonly Gisors, a town of France in Normandy, and the head of the Norman Vexin, on the river Epte, scarcely three leagues from the border of the district of Beauvais, enjoying the title of an ancient county, is distant fourteen leagues from Paris toward the summer sunset, in the direction of Rouen," &c. Now there had long been a contention over it between the French and the English, because the Englishman would not restore it, as he was bound by the treaties. At length Philip Augustus king of France, at the time when Richard I king of England, returning from the sacred war of Palestine, was held captive by the emperor Henry, took Gisors by storm.

[50] under Philip Augustus king of France, So Rigord or Rigot, the chronographer of the same king Philip, teaches in his Deeds of that king, in Du Chesne among the Writers of the History of the Franks, vol. 5, p. 36, where it is read: "In the year of the Lord 1193, on the day before the Ides of April, king Philip, an army having been gathered, took Gisors, and in a short space of time reduced under his power the whole Norman Vexin, which the king of England unjustly possessed." With this agrees also Philip's other historiographer and chaplain William the Breton, in the same place at p. 77, saying: "In the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1193 Philip the magnanimous took Gisors and the whole territory of the Vexin, and the borders of Neustria for the greatest part." He who shall wish to compare these things with the aforesaid words of the biographer will scarcely doubt that in both places the discourse is of the same expedition into the Norman Vexin. But since it is difficult to reconcile the other circumstances which the biographer records to Bl. John's praise with those same historiographers, I strongly suspect that two expeditions of king Philip were confused by the biographer.

[51] The aforesaid Rigord relates again at the year 1198 that spirited exploit of the same Philip, in Normandy, and the vast danger he underwent at Gisors, in these words: "The king … of England (Richard) unexpectedly, the king of the Franks being unprepared, with 1500 armed knights and many Cottereaux, and an infinite multitude of armed foot, laid waste the Vexin near Gisors, and destroyed a certain stronghold which they call Courcelles, and burned with fire very many country villages, and carried off their spoils. But king Philip, inflamed with exceeding wrath, desired to cross over to the castle of Gisors with five hundred knights only; but as his enemies hindered him, an easy crossing did not lie open to him. Seeing which, surpassing his greatness of soul by his daring, making a furious irruption through the midst of the enemy's ranks, and fighting manfully against the enemy with a few knights, by God's mercy he escaped unhurt, and reached Gisors, many of his knights having been captured and others put to flight.

[52] But in that encounter there were captured men

of name, they seem partly to be referred to the year 1193, Alan of Roucy, Matthias of Marly, William of Merlot the younger, Philip of Nanteuil, and very many others, whose names out of too great perturbation of mind we have been unwilling to write. And so the king of England on this occasion withdrew with triumph, and divided the spoils. But the king of the Franks, exceedingly troubled about what had been done, not calling to mind the offence against God, gathered an army, and, entering Normandy, laid it waste as far as Neubourg and as far as Beaumont-le-Roger, and carried off great spoils; and straightway disbanded his army, so that every man returned to his own home." Far more to this than to the earlier warlike expedition of Philip can the biographer's assertions be referred, if you except the storming of Gisors. The place of the battle agrees; the presence of both kings agrees: there is at hand a manifest occasion in which, as the biographer maintains, king Philip could be said to have been "forsaken of the help of his whole army … and hemmed in on every side by his enemies," and by the strenuous exertion of Bl. John to have been led out from the enemy's squadrons and freed from the peril of death.

[53] What lastly the anonymous writer subjoined about the military forces gathered after the battle by Bl. John and brought to king Philip, partly to 1198. He was not by which the latter, who a little before had almost succumbed to his enemies, presently came off victor, agrees excellently with the words of Rigord, who after that same battle presently relates that Philip, having gathered an army, laid waste Normandy as far as Neubourg and as far as Beaumont-le-Roger, &c. And so the biographer seems to have confused those two expeditions of Philip, namely the first of the year 1193, in which he took Gisors, and the other of the year 1198; the more readily perhaps because in both John had proved his service and his valour to his king. More about his military deeds the biographer did not hand down, but presently subjoined: "Doubtless for these causes he was greatly loved by the king, as has been said, and was very often adorned with gilded raiment." If we believe Francis l'Allouette in the Genealogical History of the family of Coucy, reported in Machaut, book 1, chapter 7, Bl. John was count of the stable, or constable as they call it, of France, and crossed over into Africa to make war against the Saracens.

[54] constable of France, nor did he serve in Palestine. But Machaut pronounces the first altogether improbable from the silence of all the writers who have diligently investigated ministers of that sort under each king; of the other he suspects that some record may have lighted his way; especially since warfare of this kind was by no means foreign to John's disposition; "unless, however," he says, "the aforesaid l'Allouette confused the Saracens with the Albigenses," of whom we must treat below. For my part, as regards the office of constable, I altogether agree with Machaut; because neither in the Catalogue of constables, which Moreri inserted into his Lexicon from Sainte-Marthe and Godefroy, do I find his name. With him too I acknowledge that a sacred expedition against the Saracens so well agrees with Bl. John's disposition, that it might seem strange if — I do not say into Africa, but into Asia — he did not cross with king Philip Augustus in the year 1190 or 1191 among the crusaders. Nevertheless, since he might have been hindered from that journey for various causes, I judge that too improbable, since the biographer is silent, who did not pass over John's desire to fight against the Albigenses; as may be read in the Life to be published at no. 13, and as we shall say in its place.

[55] Besides a desire for vainglory and prodigality Besides a warlike disposition, the biographer ascribes to the Blessed one, before the amendment of his life, an excessive liberality or prodigality, and an immoderate love of those sportive contests which he himself calls tournaments, the French tournois, and a desire of the empty glory born of them: which vices indeed are common enough and tolerable in men of that condition. For the rest, of others, at least of graver ones, he by no means accuses him. On the contrary he is painted far worse in an abridgment of a Life, out of which Henriquez in his Annotations on the Cistercian Menology at this 29th day of September, letter c, reviewed the following: "Who, being a most insolent youth, a knight vigorous in arms, comely by nature, generous of race, glorious in fame, was full of all uncleannesses, carnal and spiritual." These same things Manricus transferred from Henriquez into the Cistercian Annals at the year 1184, chapter 3, no. 2, and adopted them.

[56] others rub other things on him wrongly. But to me that abridgment of a Life is not of such account; whose credit, date, or the place whence it was taken neither of them indicates — not of such account, I say, is an abridgment of unknown credit, that I should believe John ever to have been of such abandoned morals. Certainly the anonymous writer in the Life to be published, at no. 4, in setting forth how he was brought by a certain pious Canon Regular to a holier life, brings in that canon gently reproaching him with vainglory and with labour lost upon worldly matters without any true gain to the soul, not with crimes or graver vices. That he was not one that coveted another's goods against right, nor an unjust possessor of what he knew to be such, we gather from the charter in which he willingly and gladly restored to the monastery of Sosme or Essômes, in French Essômes, of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, situated in the diocese of Soissons, that part of the tithes which, reckoning by the counsel of certain persons that they were owed to him, he had claimed for one year, and then, better informed after diligent inquiry, gave back, and provided that no controversy could be raised about them thereafter.

[57] The tithes which he had thought were owed to him, That charter, received from the archive of the same abbey, Machaut sets out from p. 448, and we have the same more fully among the manuscript documents sent from Longpont, as I here subjoin it: "I John, lord of Montmirail, make known that in my territory of Gelesches, concerning certain exsartata " (that is, uncultivated land, formerly set with thickets or forest trees) "reduced to cultivation, I held for a year in seisin" (that is, claimed for myself) "the part of the tithe belonging to the right of the church of Sosme, certain persons suggesting to me that it belonged to my right. But afterward, deliberation having been made and the truth of the matter sought out from the more expert elders of that country, I restored the tithe of the same to the aforesaid church, and with my wife Helvidis granted it in alms, and approved it freely and absolutely, saving the right of other churches, to be possessed for ever. And that it might be held the more firm, and that the matter might not come to litigation, excommunication having gone before and the strictness of an oath, approved by the testimony of witnesses, I caused the land to be bounded with fixed landmarks, upon the boundaries and the confines of the places by which the portions of the churches are divided.

[58] And so both I and my successors will by right defend the aforesaid tithe against violence, that it may be held by the church of Sosme; he restored to the abbey of Essômes. and whatever is contained within the landmarks, or is or shall be reduced to cultivation, its tithe shall be paid to the same church of Sosme. And that this be firm, I confirm it; then on my part I introduce as witnesses, Reynald knight of Bergières, Reynald knight of Vaucamps, and dom Ausolius *, and Stephen provost of Chaveron, Ralph of Curia Dominici, Nicholas of Villefontaine, Doo priest of Condé with his chaplains Ralph and Guiter: on the part of abbot Geoffrey, Hugh canon and priest of St. Martin, Peter of Brumets chaplain of the abbot. This was done in the year from the Lord's Incarnation 1194." For the rest, that this donation or cession was made by Bl. John before he set about ordering his Life more holily, will appear from what is to be said.

perhaps quæ*

Machaut, exertatis*

the same, inquisita*

the same, distinctione*

the same, approbato*

the same, Ausoldum*

§ IV. Converted to a holier life, he shines even while in the world with virtues, especially with charity toward his neighbour: he builds and endows a hospice below Montmirail.

[ ] John returning from the war The beginnings of John's admirable conversion to a holier life, and its author after God, our anonymous writer in the Life at no. 4 and the following begins thus to set forth: "John therefore, when, his enemies being subdued, he was returning home in triumph, a certain Canon Regular, a very religious man, had been wont to come to meet him, not with flattering or favourable praise, as the daughter of Jephthah is read to have met her father returning from battle; but rather exasperating him and rebuking him, and speaking thus: 'What gain, I pray, have you brought back with you from the tournament?' And rightly comparing empty glory to wind, 'O what a shrewd merchant,' said he, 'who with such great expenses and fruitless labours — and not, I reckon, without the suffering of blows — purchases with care and diligent zeal nothing else but wind!' By these and like saving admonitions he strove to recall the aforesaid Prince from the vanity of the world.

[60] And when he had passed the times of his youth in warlike deeds, and was still thought to be bound by an indissoluble bond of love to the passing world, receiving with a humble and devout ear the pious exhortation of his spiritual physician, he brings back from a desire of vainglory to a holier life he began little by little in a wonderful manner to withdraw himself from his former manner of life, and, descending from worldly height into contempt of himself, by the steps of humility he descended from virtue to virtue," &c. Henriquez copied out of his abridgment of a Life the following on the same subject: "Who (Bl. John), when Gisors had been stormed under Philip king of the Franks, by whom he was singularly beloved and was called by him John the Upright, was converted by a certain Canon Regular of St. John in the Vineyards, Walter by name." If credit could safely be given to the author of this Abridgment, we should have not only the canon's name and monastery, but also the time in which John was converted. What he asserts about the time of the conversion we shall presently examine; meanwhile let us look at the canon.

[61] a Canon Regular Whatever be the case about the name Walter, it is from elsewhere most probable that he was of the monastery of St. John in the Vineyards, which is an abbey of Canons Regular of the Order of St. Augustine, in French called Saint Jean des Vignes, and situated then beside, now within, the walls of the city of Soissons. The reason why I think so is that the church of St. Stephen at Montmirail belonged to the same abbey and was administered by its members. Machaut at p. 427 brings forward from the Chronicle of St. John in the Vineyards a fragment of a charter dated in the year 1125, in which Lisiard bishop of Soissons says to Walter abbot of St. John in the Vineyards, concerning Galcher the Blessed one's great-grandfather, to our purpose: "Moreover Galcher, lord of the castle which is called Mons mirelli, requested that the church of St. Stephen, situated in the same castle, be restored by our hands to the aforesaid abbey of St. John (in the Vineyards); which was so done." From the Martyrology or Necrology of the same abbey too, in the same place at p. 430, it is read: "The fifth of the Kalends of February. Galcherius of Ferté, the father of lord Elias, who gave us the church of Ferté and of Montmirail."

[62] of St. John of Soissons: someone assigns this to the year 1193 Finally Bl. John himself, in Machaut at p. 428 and the following, in a fragment of a certain charter

of an exchange made with the aforesaid abbey of St. John in the Vineyards, acknowledges that the church of St. Stephen was founded by his predecessors and belongs to the canons of St. John in the Vineyards. Since therefore the biographer asserts that John, on returning home from his soldiering, was piously accosted and converted by a certain Canon Regular, whom shall we believe this to have been other than one of those members of the monastery of St. John of Soissons who administered divine things at Montmirail, where John had his dwelling? As regards the year of the conversion, none can be assigned with certainty. According to the abridgment of a Life cited by Henriquez the year 1193 would have to be marked, in which we have said Gisors was taken by Philip king of France, and from the storming of which that writer relates that the Blessed one was converted on his return: but, as I have noted above, that writer is of feeble credit, and, although the said canon may have given him saving counsels at that time, yet it is not likely that John already then yielded his hands to his admonisher; since afterward, namely in the year 1198, he must be said from what has been alleged above to have still handled arms, from which after his conversion he seems in every way to have abstained.

[63] Much further from the truth was Manricus, the annalist of the Cistercian Order, another before 1184, another in the year 1200 pronouncing thus at the year 1184, chapter 3, no. 3: "Thus far concerning his first conversion, which without doubt must be believed to have happened long before this year (1184), so that there may remain room for the many and wonderful things which he did before he took the habit." Manricus was deceived by a faulty transcript of the testimony given by Galcher or Galter abbot of Longpont, of which I have already made mention above, in which, because he had read the year of Christ 1200 written as that of John's death, in order to find a time for his other deeds he placed the beginnings of his monastic life in the year 1184, and consequently his conversion long before. That for the year 1200 the year 1217 is to be read, I shall say below, and so all that reason for anticipating will cease, which also falls of itself from what has been said and is to be said. Baillet ascribes to his conversion that same year 1200 which Manricus from a faulty transcript assigned to his death: which opinion, although it may be true, yet I fear may have proceeded from mere hallucination.

[64] For when Baillet had said that John met his death in the year 1217, they wish it to have happened, but do not prove it. he noted in the margin: "Those who say the year 1200 (namely that he then died) were deceived by Henriquez, and took the year of his conversion for that of his death." Now indeed in Henriquez, out of the faulty testimony of Galter, this may be read concerning Bl. John's death: "But he passed over on the third of the Kalends of October, on the day of the holy angels, at the first hour of the day *, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand two hundred"; which words, as they were in fact for Manricus the cause of erring in the year of his death, so they seem to have been wrongly taken by Baillet as of the time of his conversion: for Henriquez recorded nothing besides either about the time of the conversion or about that of the death. I have found nothing from which I can gather a certain year of his conversion; and nothing likewise stands in the way of its having been able to happen a few years after the thirteenth century began.

[65] But how vast, how marvellous this change of manners was, Converted to God, while still living in the world guess from the Life to be published; and that in this part greater authority may accrue to it, it pleases me here to recite the testimony of the aforesaid Galter, then abbot of Longpont, afterward of Cîteaux, which is the head of the whole Order, out of our manuscript of Longpont. "We brother Galter, abbot of Longpont at the time when lord John of Montmirail took the habit of religion, testify to all men that, before he entered religion, he was of a most approved fervour; he was in the world one that denied himself, casting away all things which he had had, castles and villages, houses and estates, spurning the pomp and glory of the world as dung for Christ, and going wholly into Christ, by the prevenient grace of Him who separated him from vanity and from the pride of the world, and by His mercy made him a hearer not forgetful of that commandment in which He counsels: 'If any man will come after me,' &c. So praiseworthy was his manner of life while he was still in the world, that all who had seen him before wondered at that sudden change of the right hand of the Most High beyond what could be believed or reckoned." Thus the aforesaid abbot Galter, whose remaining testimony about the Blessed one's monastic life I shall also give in its place.

[66] His pious deeds after his conversion, which may be read in the Life to be published, there is no need to set forth here. he shines with signal virtues, especially with charity toward the wretched, But chiefly there shone in him, even while he lived in the world (for of this state we here treat), the utmost humility, an incredible contempt of himself and an ardour for subduing himself, charity toward the poor, the sick, the lepers — of whom he kissed these last the more eagerly the fouler they were; others he received at his table, and laid in his own bed, meaning himself to sleep on the ground; others he carried in his own arms, and took in the stench of them with his nostrils and mouth; corpses he carried to burial: all which that perpetual tamer of himself held as his delights: so that we rightly take as said of these things what abbot Galter presently says, that all who had known John before his conversion "wondered at that sudden change of the right hand of the Most High; … beyond what could be believed or reckoned." To the domestic witnesses, the abbot and the biographer, I add an outside one, Vincent of Beauvais, of the Order of St. Dominic, who flourished in the same thirteenth century.

[67] and by his contempt of himself and his victory over himself. He in the Speculum Morale, book 3, part 10, distinction 24, which is entitled On the visitation of the sick, brings forward among other examples one of our Blessed truly heroic. "Likewise," he says, "when John of Montmirail, a lord very pious and devout, saw a poor man greatly afflicted with sores, matter and filth, he said to him: 'Why do you not go to the house of God' (that is, the hospice, which we shall presently say was built by him) 'that you might rest there?' He answered: 'I cannot go.' 'And I,' said he, 'will carry you.' And taking him upon his shoulders, he carried him thither; and when he had filthy feet and legs full of matter, he washed them for him; and when his heart was in pain, he said: 'O wretched and proud heart! now you may burst'; and he drank with both hands the water he had drawn from the washing." More will the Life to be published give, which things, though in any man they be great and to be looked up to, are yet the more admirable in John, because, beyond his delicate upbringing, the ancestral brightness of his blood, his titles, his honours, his great favour with his king, his former handling of arms and the glory won from them, his noble and rich wife, and his family flourishing in wealth and in offspring, might above all others have deterred him from works of piety of this kind.

[68] With his wife he founds a hospice, Among the deeds of the blessed Man after his conversion the biographer records the building and endowing of a hospice, about which, after I have given his words, some things come to be observed. At no. 6 of the Life he has this: "When therefore the servant of God John, all the pride of secular soldiering being laid aside, had resolved in his mind to serve God alone, at Montmirail, his own castle, he caused a certain house to be swiftly built at his own charge, that the poor and strangers and pilgrims might be lodged in it, and that the sick might there be ministered to; revenues being assigned from which the poor might be sustained. But it must be known that in that same house, as we desire to show below, he applied himself to works of piety and mercy, as if he had resolved to build it solely for this cause." Of the time when the hospice was founded by him I can determine nothing, save that it already existed in the year 1207, in the October of which he with his wife is read to have made a new donation to it in a charter which Machaut, received from the archive of the barons of Montmirail, printed at p. 410 and the following, and which I have here transcribed from him.

[69] to which in the year 1207 he makes donations. "I John lord of Montmirail, and Helvidis my wife, make known … that for the remedy of our souls … we have given in alms to the house of God which is situated at Chaussée, in all my woods dead wood for the warming of the poor and for the need of the whole house: and one wood for the building of all the buildings of the said house… In the year of the Incarnation of the Word 1207, in the month of October." Machaut adds that there was appended to the charter, from a red silken cord, the Blessed one's seal, on whose front a lion creeping upon a shield is seen with these words: "Joh. of Mont…," but on the back a shield divided by three bands with this inscription: "And Castellan of Cambrai." He subjoins that another cord of silk of the colour of a golden apple hangs from the same document, but that the seal is absent, which he judged to have been Helvidis's. For the rest, I do not know whether the dots above in the charter indicate that there are lacunae in the original, or were used by Machaut only for brevity's sake. The latter seems to me more likely from the other documents which follow in him, in which he everywhere omits the words Notum facimus, "We make known."

[70] In the following year, that is, of Christ 1208, the same consorts confirmed the foundation of the hospice by a document published by Machaut out of the archives of the aforesaid barons at p. 411 and the following, The same he confirms in the year 1208 where it stands thus: "I John lord of Montmirail, and Helvidis my wife … (make known) that with the assent of our heirs … we have founded a house of God on the Chaussée of Montmirail for the receiving of the poor; and the place in which that house is built we have given free from every custom… Also to the same house water altogether free from every burden, conducted from the meadow of the cultura as far as the end of the ditch which encloses the porprisium" (that is, the enclosure, from the French pourpris*) "of the same house… Land sufficient for two ploughs, free from every custom, in the place which is called Mortoria… In all our woods the usufruct of our wood, both for enclosing and for burning, to be possessed for ever; yet so that in woods newly cut nothing be lopped within seven years. And in one wood we have likewise given to the same house and to the same grange" (that is, place) "a perpetual usufruct for lodging… In the year of the Incarnation of the Word 1208."

[71] Again Machaut reviews at p. 413 another charter of donation by Bl. John made to the same hospice: and endows it more amply, "I John lord of Montmirail, and Helvidis my most dear wife, make known … that Bartholomew of Condé in the mill of Duix… This part of the said mill we have acquired by title of purchase, and have given in alms to the house of God of Montmirail… Moreover we have approved and diligently confirmed the alms of master John of Faremoutiers, our beloved, namely one measure of oats, which we had previously given him in alms in the grange of Chièles, which is in the Essarts of Gandelu, which he afterward gave to the oft-said

house for the furnishing of oil in the lamp which is in the middle of the house of the sick. That therefore … 1208, in the month of March." To this document two seals are appended, on the testimony of the same writer; one that of Bl. John, such as was described above; the other that of Helvidis, holding a bird perched on her left hand, with this epigraph: "The seal of Helvidis, lady of Montmirail."

[72] There follows in the same place a charter of the same Helvidis, approving alms made to the aforesaid hospice by a certain Philip of Metringiæ, which Helvidis also did in the year 1210. which I pass over; and again another of the same Helvidis, which runs thus: "I Helvidis, lady of Montmirail and of Oisy, make known … that, whereas my most dear lord and husband John and I have built a house of God upon our own ground on the Chaussée below Montmirail for the remedy of our souls, I, continually desiring the advantage and increase of the said house, with his consent set up a fulling-mill in the ditches, where beyond the accustomed channel… But the fishery of the ditch into which the stream shall be turned back shall belong to the same house… And whoever shall hold the said mill shall be bound to provide that above, and especially on the side of the house, they have a fitting roofing, lest it cause too much trouble to the sick by the noise of the hammers… 1210." This document Machaut notes is only a transcript under the seal of William of Champeaux, prætor (in French bailly) of Montmirail. I omit other documents by which the aforesaid Helvidis and her sons John and Matthew, and also her son-in-law Ingelram or Enguerrand of Coucy, made or confirmed donations to the same house, as may be read there.

[73] This hospice was founded Concerning the place in which that hospice was founded by Bl. John, Machaut doubted, in book 2, chapter 3; namely whether it was erected in the town or castle itself, which we have said is situated on the hill, or below it or at the foot of the hill; but he stands for the former, until something more certain be brought forward. But to me, from the charters which I have recited from Machaut's own review, and shall partly cite also, it is beyond doubt that it was placed below the hill. In the charter given at no. 72 Helvidis expressly says: "Whereas my most dear lord and husband John and I have built a house of God upon our own ground on the Chaussée below Montmirail." With this agrees John count of Chartres, the son of Bl. John and Helvidis, in a charter of the month of October of the year 1233, in the aforesaid writer at p. 416, saying: "Fulk Seignouret of Vilers sells before me … to the house of God of the Chaussée below Montmirail."

[74] below Montmirail, Again in another, dated in the same year, in the month of November, the same count wrote, in the same place at p. 417: "Sixty-two arpents of land and meadow, which the house of God of the Chaussée below Montmirail bought." Plainly conformable to these too are the words of the Blessed one himself and of Helvidis in the charter reported in the second place; namely, "We have founded a house of God on the Chaussée of Montmirail… Also to the same house (we have given) water altogether free … conducted from the meadow of the cutura" (or cultura) "as far as the end of the ditch which encloses the porprisium of the same house." Calceia is a barbarous word signifying a paved way; proprisium, as I have said, an enclosure: the water which is here granted free to the hospice is doubtless the water of the Morin, or river Mucra, which from what has been said above flows below Montmirail. The hospice therefore was below Montmirail on the public way which led to the town, situated on the river Mucra and adjoining a certain meadow.

[75] not, as Machaut believed, in the town itself, Machaut noticed this, but tried to interpret the words alleged not of the hospice itself, but of a certain house belonging to it, saying that he believed the hospice was founded by John in the town itself, although a certain charter exists in which mention is made of a certain house and water which the hospice had below the hill. But the Blessed one's words are too clear to be so expounded; for he says: "We have founded a house of God on the Chaussée of Montmirail… To the same house (we have given) water … conducted as far as the end of the ditch which encloses the proprisium of the same house." And that you may the more wonder at his so opining, he himself asserts in the same place that the hospice of Montmirail long stood below the hill, but that by the lord of that town, who lived in his own time, it was a few years before transferred into the town for the greater convenience of the citizens.

[76] into which it was afterward transferred. But that he may remove from himself the argument which of itself suggests itself against him from the old site, he says that it seems to him that the hospice was transferred out of the town, in which it had been built by its blessed Founder, thither afterward, after his times, for the convenience of the water. Nay, this is to imagine a translation without any necessity and against plain ancient documents. Without any necessity, I say; for he brings forward no argument save that the rest of the biographer's context requires that the hospice was in the town, and that the chapel of the lower hospice seemed to him too recent to have been able to exist from the times of Bl. John himself. This last certainly proves nothing; since it is by no means strange if in the space of four hundred and more years — that is, as many as flowed from the beginning of the thirteenth century to almost the middle of the seventeenth — a new chapel was built there. The other I cannot gather from the biographer's context, and if any obscure expression occur in it, that is to be explained from the documents alleged, which are clear, not these from it. But of these matters enough.

[77] Since in the aforesaid hospice women as well as men were cared for, In the same hospice the Blessed one appointed women, he seems to have placed in it ministers also of both sexes. Of women this is established from the biographer, who at nos. 9 and 10 mentions one, as it were the superior of the whole hospice, in these words: "A certain woman, the manageress of the sick and of the house, who for her religion was held very familiar with him (Bl. John)," &c. She must indeed have been of great authority with him, since she is there read to have boldly reproached the blessed Man with faintness of heart when he shrank from the stench of a certain sick woman, and shortly after to have sharply rebuked him, because he, encouraged by the first reproach, had held his nostrils long applied, by a marvellous example, to the putrid sores of the same sick woman, that he might conquer himself. That these same servants of the place were Religious, or at least professed with a religious habit some holier kind of life, we have from two charters which Machaut printed from the oft-mentioned archives of the barons of Montmirail.

[78] The former, which is Helvidis's and her son John's, who should serve the sick, and these Religious, dated in the year 1217, is recited at p. 416 in this way: "Be it known to all … that lady Hermengard, formerly provost of Montmirail, before she entered the house of God of the Chaussée to serve the poor, taking there the habit of religion, for the remedy of her soul and of her ancestors, with the assent and will of her heirs gave to the same house of God one measure of grain… And I Helvidis, lady of Montmirail, and John my son lord of Oisy," &c. That Ermengard in the year 1217, when this charter was given, is called "formerly provost of Montmirail," seems to show that she had then already died, and raises the suspicion that she was perhaps that woman who is related in the preceding Life to have been "the manageress of the sick and of the house, and for her religion very familiar" with the Blessed one.

[79] The other charter was given by Matthew, the son of Bl. John and Helvidis, or living under a religious habit and a prioress. in the year, as it is noted, 1241, and in it he speaks of the prioress and sisters of that place. Receive the words of the document: "I Matthew, lord of Montmirail and of Oisy, make known … that the purchase of the land which is called the Essart of master Laurence, situated in the parish of Molene between Gemblon and Vifort, which the prioress and sisters of the house of God of the Chaussée … bought from the aforesaid Laurence … I hold ratified," &c. From all these things it may be gathered that the care and government of his hospice was handed over by Bl. John to women, and these Religious, or following a pious institute of life under a religious habit and the governance of a prioress; but what Rule they professed I have not hitherto found out.

diei*

or culturæ*?

§ V. Certain pious donations made by the Blessed one to various monasteries.

[ ] He gave some things to the abbeys of Essômes and of St. Mary of Soissons; Machaut, book 2, chapter 13, which he entitled "On John's pious donations," complains that so few documents of them have come into his hands; and this he attributes either to the sloth or to the ill will of those who neglect to seek these things in their archives, or, having found them, are unwilling for unfair reasons to communicate them, although they are asked for solely to publish the praise of the donors. Yet those which he obtained he records there; and the documents, or fragments of them, he reviews from p. 410. I shall follow with him the order of the time in which they were dated, yet so that those which pertain to one and the same place, even if they be read to have been made later, I shall give in a continuous series. The first charter of his which we have is that by which he restored in the year 1194 to the abbey of Essômes the tithes which by the persuasion of certain persons he had believed to be his own, and which I have already recited at no. 57 and the following. The other, which he says was made in favour of the maiden abbey of St. Mary of Soissons in the year 1199, I pass over, because I do not see what the fragment which he recites means.

[81] others to Cantimpré A little clearer is the donation made in the year 1200 to the abbey of Cantimpré in the district of Cambrai, which Hugh III, lord of Oisy and castellan of Cambrai, the Blessed one's own uncle, had founded near Cambrai. This the aforesaid Machaut sets out thus at p. 437: "I John, lord of Montmirail and of Oisy, castellan of Cambrai, make known … that by the will and assent of Helvidis my wife I have given to the church of Cantimpré a certain place … in the wood of Beaumont beside Montmirail … which a certain priest Bonnellus, having built it himself, placed into my hands… Done in the year of the Incarnate Word 1200." What this place was, the same writer explains, premising that it was a hermitage, situated by the wood of Bellimons, in French Beaumont, half a league from Montmirail, and he prefixed to this and to three following documents in the same place this title in French: "Foundation of a place (namely of the aforesaid hermitage) given to Religious sent from the abbey of Cantimpré in the district of Cambrai."

[82] founded by his uncle, To the same monks of Cantimpré some time afterward he gave a grange, that is, an estate or country farm, as we have from the document which is read there in this way: "I John lord of Montmirail, and Helvidis my wife, make known … that with the assent of our children, namely of William and John my sons, and of Elizabeth my daughter, we have given for ever to the church

of Bl. Mary of Cantimpré our grange, established in the territory of Gilloches, with the lands already cultivated and to be cultivated hereafter; at which donation there were present Renaud of Bergières, Gerard of Châtillon, John of Vaucamps, Simon of Fontenelles, William of Villiers, Nicholas of Bussy … 1202, in the month of March." This donation in the same year and month Blanche countess of Troyes confirmed, as supreme lady of the place, as follows: "I Blanche, Palatine countess of Troyes, make known … that my beloved and faithful John of Montmirail, with the approval and will of his wife Helvidis, gave in alms to God and to the church of Bl. Mary of Cantimpré six ploughlands of land… Done at Meaux in the year of the Lord 1202, in the month of March, given by the hand of Galther the chancellor." Since the French then began their years from Easter, which in the ordinary year fell on the 14th day of April, both charters, given in the month of March, belong to our year 1203: which I would have observed also for those that follow.

[83] In le Mire too, in his Notitia Belgii, p. 504, a charter is published, in the district of Cambrai, concerning which one might in any case doubt whether it is the same as or different from that of John just mentioned. It runs thus: "In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, I John, lord of Montmirail and of Oisy, castellan of Cambrai, and Helvidis my wife, make known to those present and to come, that with the assent of our children, namely of William and John our sons, and of Elizabeth our daughter, we have given in perpetual alms to the church of Bl. Mary of Cantimpré… And at this donation there were present Benaud of Vergières, Gerard of Châtillon, John of Vaucamps, Simon of Fontenelle, Ivo of Liuuandres, William of Villiers, Nicholas of Bussy. Done in the year one thousand two hundred and two, in the month of March." The year and month are the same in both; the witnesses too are the same, save that they are written in a slightly different manner, and that in the latter document there is read besides among them Ivo Liuuandres. But he may have been passed over in Machaut's copy by the fault of the transcribers, and from the same head, or from the difficulty of the characters, the witnesses' names too may have been slightly altered.

[84] But on the other hand Bl. John may in the same year and month have made several donations to the same abbey, which the Blessed one's son afterward confirmed. and employed almost the same witnesses. Machaut published both as different, one at p. 424, the other at p. 437. The doubt can be removed from the document of donation published by le Mire, if it anywhere still survives entire. However that may be, the Blessed one, besides the aforesaid arable land, is said also to have granted the right of taking wood in his forests to the monks of Cantimpré who dwelt in the same hermitage near Montmirail, in the French document of a donation made by Matthew, the Blessed one's son, in the year 1267 or 1268, in which he confirmed this right to them, namely that they might take wood for their own uses in the manner which, he says, "the letters of my beloved Father, which they have, prescribe." See Matthew's charter in Machaut at p. 438. Concerning the abbey of Cantimpré of the Order of St. Augustine, formerly situated near Cambrai, Denis Sainte-Marthe may be consulted in vol. 3 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, where at col. 162 it is said to have been reduced to ashes in the wars of the French in the year 1580, and its inhabitants to have withdrawn to Bellingen not very far from Halle in Hainault, where their successors continue to serve God to this day.

[85] Two other documents of donations granted by our Blessed one in favour of the monastery of Charmes, He likewise made two donations which is a priory of virgins of the Order of Fontevrault in the diocese of Soissons, I find in Machaut. In the former charter, confirming by his consent the donation of another, he speaks thus at p. 439: "I John lord of Montmirail make known to all … that Isabella la Ferrée of Saint-Aignan, with my assent and that of Helvidis my wife and of my heirs, gave and granted for the remedy of her soul and of her people to the church of Charmes four sesters of grain in the terrage of Saint-Aignan… And that this be ratified… The witnesses of this matter are Simon, the husband of the aforesaid Isabella, Renaud of Bergières, Hugh viscount of Château-Thierry … in the year 1202." The other document, from the testimony of John of Thourotte, canon and official of Soissons, in the same place at p. 441 and the following, is as follows.

[86] "To all who shall inspect these present letters, master John of Thourotte, canon and official of Soissons… to the nunnery of Charmes We have inspected the letters of the noble man John of good memory, formerly lord of Montmirail, under his seal, not cancelled, not defaced… 'In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Amen. Be it known to all, both to come and present, that I John lord of Montmirail, with the assent of Helvidis my wife, for the remedy of my soul and of my ancestors, have given to the nuns of Charmes forty shillings in perpetual alms without any justitia, namely out of my share of the proceeds of the grueria, for the buying of a pittance for the aforesaid nuns at the Purification of blessed Mary, to be paid every year by the hand of my servant, who shall receive them and render them yearly. But as often as my servant shall not have rendered the aforesaid forty shillings to the nuns on the appointed day, he shall give them five shillings by way of penalty. Done in the year of the Lord 1202.' In testimony of which matter to the present transcript … in the year of the Lord 1268."

[87] of the Order of Fontevrault. That the reader may want for nothing, I shall here note a few things about the barbarous words which occur in both documents. Bladum is used for any grain. Terragium, in French Terrage, is a certain right of a lord to receive a fixed part of the fruits from the fields, whence it is also called Campipars, in French Champart. Absque aliqua justitia seems here to mean the same as "without obligation," or "freely and gratis." Grueria, gruaria or gruarium, in French Gruerie, is likewise a certain right or lesser jurisdiction over forests and over offenders in them, subject to another and higher tribunal. The blessed Donor therefore laid down that out of the proceeds of a lordship of this kind, which belonged to him, forty shillings a year should be given in perpetuity to the nuns of Charmes for the buying of a pittance for them at the feast of the Purification of the Bl. Virgin Mary, that is, for foods or eatables to be furnished them more liberally on that day. Lastly, pro lege is the same as "by way of fine," which he imposed upon his servants who should neglect to pay on the appointed day each year.

[88] A charter of donation to the monastery of Cerfroid His munificence he is believed by some to have shown also to the Religious Order of the most holy Trinity for the Redemption of captives, which had been instituted toward the end of the twelfth century by SS. John of Matha and Felix of Valois, the first monastery having been erected by them in the diocese of Meaux between Ferté-Milon and Gandelu, which is called Cervus-frigidus and Cerfredum, in French Cerfroi, and is the head of the whole Order. To this end Machaut at p. 455, and Toussaint du Plessis, a Benedictine of the Congregation of St. Maur, in the History of the church of Meaux, vol. 2, among the documents at p. 103, no. 231, produce a charter from the archive of the aforesaid monastery of Cerfroid, which I here transcribe from the latter, where it is more full. "I John of Montmirail, lord of Oisy, make known to those present and to come, that for the remedy of my soul, and of my father's and my mother's, and also of my ancestors', I have granted, approved and confirmed to the Brothers of the Holy Trinity of Cerfroid, and have given in perpetual alms, those twenty arpents of wood which M. countess of Burgundy had previously given them, namely in the place in which the aforesaid Brothers first settled.

[89] by John of Montmirail, And one arpent of meadow at Brumez, in the place which is called Crievecuer; and about the whole marsh which pertains to me in that place which is called Vallandois: and the whole waste land as far as the great road. And that this alms may remain ratified for ever and stable, I have caused the present charter to be confirmed with my seal, with the witnesses subscribed, lord Adam the chaplain," &c… "Done in the year of grace 1212, in the month of March." That published by Machaut agrees, except that for brevity's sake it has three lacunae, and some words written a little differently, which I shall presently give. At the end, however, it is fuller, reviewing these witnesses: "The witnesses being dom Adam the chaplain, dom Galter the clerk, dom Anseric knight of Meigenes." Receive also the interpretation of the barbarous words which occur in this document. Arpennos, in Machaut arpentos: now an arpennus or arpentus, in French arpent, is a measure of land, or an acre, but varying in different provinces. Maresium, elsewhere also marescium and marescum, in French marais, in Latin signifies a marsh or marshy land.

[90] Machaut reads marchium for maresium. Larriscum, made to the lord of Oisy in the year 1212 or 1213, lariscum or larricium, from the old French word larris, is uncultivated field or uncultivated land. As regards the places there indicated, Brumez, in Machaut Brumets, is perhaps that which in vol. 7 of the Geographia Blaviana is placed in the duchy of Valois two French miles from Gandelu. For Crievecuer Machaut has Crèvecœur; and Bl. John was, as we have said, also lord of Crèvecœur in the district of Cambrai; but easily there may have been another place of the same name nearer to the monastery of Cerfroid. But what he wished to designate there by Vallandois, or, as it is in Machaut, Valendois, I have not hitherto found out. But that the reader may understand why the grant of Bl. John, or of his son, was needed for a donation made by the countess of Burgundy, it will help to have noted a few things. Margaret of Blois was first married to Hugh III, lord of Oisy and castellan of Cambrai, upon whose dying without children she passed to another marriage with Otto count palatine of upper Burgundy. But the aforesaid Hugh had as sole heir only his sister, Bl. John's mother, to whom therefore the inheritance of the same Hugh belonged.

[91] Hugh therefore had already died, and Margaret had married Otto, it seems that it must be referred to the Blessed one's son. when she, bearing the title of countess of Burgundy, gave the aforesaid things to the monastery of Cerfroid; and therefore, whether for the perpetual confirming of that same donation the consent of Bl. John, or of his son, was needed, or whether lawsuits were otherwise feared, or lastly whether, as the aforesaid Toussaint du Plessis writes at vol. 1, p. 179, Margaret herself expressly added this condition, "If Hugh's heirs consent," Bl. John, or his son, was asked, and consented to the donation, and moreover increased it out of his own. For the rest, from the year and month in which the charter of donation is dated, namely in the year 1212, in the month of March, it is doubtful whether it is not to be referred to our year 1213, because in the year 1212 Easter was celebrated on the 25th day of March, from which the French then began their years, as was said at no. 82. I have said that that donation was made by Bl. John or by his son of the same name: for to me indeed it is far more probable that it

ought to be ascribed to his son John. But since upon this opinion depends the time in which Bl. John began his Religious novitiate at Longpont, I shall discuss this controversy more conveniently and fitly at §7.

[92] It is strange that among so many charters, witnesses of Bl. John's pious munificence, The Blessed one gave to Longpont a house not one was found by Machaut, or at any rate not one was produced, in favour of the abbey of Longpont, in which he at last professed the monastic life and holily closed his last day. Yet that he gave something to this house also cannot prudently be doubted, and this the biographer in the Life to be published, at no. 48, indicated upon another occasion concerning a certain house in the castle of Gandeluz, or Gandelu, in these words: "The servant of God John had given in alms to the monastery of Longpont a certain house, situated in the castle whose name is Gandeluz; but his firstborn son, refusing to assent to the donation made, forbade the Brothers (that is, the monks of Longpont) to carry on their own business in the said house. Nay more, he by no means permitted them to repair it. When he heard this, his father John (now a monk), anxious in heart, coming to the aforesaid castle for the sake of repairing the house, hired workmen for it: but he himself too worked with them, as one of them. For he humbly carried on his own shoulders up onto the roof the tiles with which the house was to be covered."

[93] about which his son raised a suit, This donation Machaut acknowledges, book 2, chapter 13; but while he assigned it to the year 1218, he inadvertently referred a charter of John the son to John the father. I said inadvertently; for he himself among the documents at p. 456 rightly ascribed the same to the son, prefixing this title in French: "Donation of John lord of Montmirail, afterward count of Chartres," namely through Elizabeth countess of Chartres, whom he took to wife. Wrongly too Machaut says that the house given by the Blessed one stood outside the walls of the town of Gandelu, confusing two houses, as will presently appear. Further, it may be doubted whether John the son after the aforesaid deed of his Father abstained from harassing them; this is certain, that the suit revived at least after the same Blessed one's death, and, the monks yielding of their right, was settled under certain conditions. So we gather from two charters of the same John the younger, which Machaut published mangled after his manner, and which we have more entire in the manuscripts sent to us formerly from Longpont, out of which I here subjoin them.

[94] and at length by an amicable agreement entered upon "I John of Montmirail, lord of Oisy, to all who shall inspect these present letters, for ever. Be it known to all that, whereas there had long been a controversy between me on the one part and the Brothers of Longpont on the other, concerning a certain house which they had in the castle of Gandeluz, and concerning the stalls, rent, hostisia, hens, foacia and terrages which had been Odo Lepot's in the same castle, and in the village of Villers de Vuast; at length by common assent it was agreed between me and them that they quitclaimed to me and my heirs the aforesaid house and the stalls and all the rest which have been specified, and whatever they had in the aforesaid castle and in the village of Villers; save the tithe which had been Odo Lepot's, and five arpents of meadows at Vuandeluz, and save the liberties and immunities granted by my ancestors to the Cistercian Order; which they shall possess quietly and peaceably for ever.

[95] after his Father's death he settled it, But I, in recompense for the aforesaid things which they quitclaimed to me, have granted to the aforesaid Brothers twelve measures of wheat, by the measure of Gandeluz, sound and of good quality, to be received every year within the Octave of St. Martin in the grange of Jehegnes. So indeed that from the said grange no wheat shall be taken until the aforesaid twelve measures be paid in full to the Brothers. But if from the inclemency of the weather or by any other chance it happen that the aforesaid sum of wheat cannot be found in the said grange, it shall be rendered wholly and in full without contradiction from the Minagium of Vuandeluz; no others being to receive anything of the same minagium until the said Brothers have received the whole aforesaid sum. But if it should happen that the aforesaid wheat be not rendered in the aforesaid manner from the grange of Jehegnes or from the minagium, the bishop of Meaux shall lay the land under interdict until the Brothers be fully satisfied. All these things I am bound faithfully and firmly to keep, and, my faith being pledged, to warrant perpetually against all men. Matthew my brother also approved all this, and, his faith being pledged, promised that it should be firmly kept. Done in the year of the Lord 1218, in the month of April."

[96] Hither also belongs another charter, given that the monks of Longpont might procure for themselves outside the walls of the castle of Gandeluz a house necessary for their uses, as the documents prove, in place of that which they had ceded within it — that house, namely, which Machaut wrongly said had been given to them by Bl. John before he took the monastic habit, as I noted above. This charter in our Longpont manuscript runs thus: "I John, lord of Montmirail and of Oisy, make known to those present and to come, that I have granted to the church and Brothers of Longpont, for the remedy of my soul, and for the soul of my Father, and for the souls of my ancestors, to acquire one house outside the walls of Gandeluz for the storing of their tithe and their goods, and whatever else they will, saving all my justitia; only so that the Brothers themselves shall be unable to sell in that same house either grain or wine or anything else.

[97] It shall, however, be lawful for them to have in that house a servant of their own, which are given here. not married, but living at their own charge, wholly free from tallia and corveia and from every exaction. And that this may remain ratified and unshaken, I have caused the present page to be strengthened with the protection of my seal. Done in the year of Grace 1218." Interpret the barbarous words of both charters thus. Stalla are the seats or shops of merchants, or the right of having or letting them: census is used for tribute or rent due from lands, &c.; hostisium for the price due from foreign merchants for the hire of a shop or for licence to trade; gallinæ for the rent customarily received in hens. Foacia perhaps means the same as Focagia or Focacia, which likewise are a rent to be paid for each hearth. By terragia likewise is meant a rent due to the lord from fields and estates. Quittare is to cede; grangia, a country farm or estate; minagium sometimes signifies that which is owed to the prince for the measuring of grain, sometimes a grain market, sometimes also a country estate. Averia signifies various things, such as fruits, wares, movable goods, &c.; bladum, any kind of grain; tallia, a tax to the prince, and corveia, labour to be rendered by countrymen to their lord. He who wishes for more on these matters, let him consult Du Cange in the Glossary.

[98] Baillet in the Life of Bl. John, besides the donations of his already enumerated, Two other donations of his. records two more, made to Valsecret, which is an abbey of the Premonstratensian Order in the diocese of Soissons, commonly called Valsecret, and to Joyacum, in French Jouy, a Cistercian abbey in the diocese of Sens. Of the latter I have the document among our manuscripts received from Longpont, which I here subjoin. "I John lord of Montmirail make known to those present and to come, that for the remedy of my soul and of my ancestors I have given in perpetual alms to the church of blessed Mary of Jouy and to the Brothers there serving God the usufruct in the wood which is called the Commons of Pierrelatte; so that every day they shall for ever receive thence one cartload. And that this may be ratified, I have confirmed it with my seal. Done in the year of the Lord 1203." The word usuarium signifies the right of use, or of taking wood for their own uses in the said forest: but quadrigata means the load of a four-horse wagon, or the carriage of four horses. Perhaps, however, some fixed portion less than that load is meant; for in Du Cange's Glossary too it is read: "Quadrigata of wood for one horse"; and it appears too ample a grant, to receive every day out of that wood the load of a wagon or cart drawn by four horses. These are the things which I have been able to find about Bl. John's donations.

elsewhere Helvisa*

Joannes*

canonicus*

§ VI. Some deeds of the Blessed one are weighed, which are related out of the supplements to the Life.

[ ] He is said, while still living in the world, to have tormented his body Angelus Manrique in the Cistercian Annals relates various things about Bl. John which are not found in the Life, out of the additions to that same Life, and since I lack these, I have thought that they should be reviewed in this §. At the year 1184, chapter 4, no. 2, in the Additions §34, as he noted in the margin, he affirms that the following is read about the chastisement of his body while he still lived in the world. "Brother Odo, priest, monk of Longpont, said that when he was speaking with the venerable John about a certain holy abbot of the monastery of St. Benedict of Arras, and about the garments which he used, the witness who speaks said to him that he used a shirt (or undergarment) of haircloth, and haircloth breeches and hose. Hearing which, the said John asked the witness who speaks to prepare for him similar garments of haircloth. He therefore prepared three pairs, which the said John used until his entry into the monastery of Longpont."

[100] with haircloths Thus a writer unknown to me, from the report of Odo, or one who reviewed Odo's words. But Manrique subjoins: "It is true, however, that elsewhere" (in the margin he notes: in the Additions §9) "it is found that the breeches were rejected by the Man of God, because they did not allow him to ride." This same Odo was (on the same testimony of Manrique, no. 3) "his (Bl. John's) chaplain in the world, his companion in Religion, and in both his faithful helper in those heavenly works to which he aspired." On this head his testimonies would be of great authority with me, if it were established that they are his, which I cannot certainly affirm, because I plainly do not know by what author, or at what time, those supplements were added to the original Life. Yet that greater probability may accrue to the aforesaid, I observe that things agreeing with these are related by the biographer, who at no. 29 of the Life to be published says this about the Blessed one, when not yet a monk: "In winter time, held back by no harshness of the cold, clad only in a haircloth shirt and haircloth breeches under a cape" (this too is an old kind of garment even of secular laymen), "he was wont every night to go to church," &c.

[101] and with scourges; his forehead and knees The aforesaid Manrique in the same place at no. 3 recites again these things from the same supplements, §34: "This witness (Odo) said also that he had many times given disciplines to the same John at his own instance" (that is, had scourged him), "and that he had many times been affected with weariness because he insisted that so many and so great disciplines be given him." I could add another example of the same argument out of Henriquez's annotations to his Cistercian Menology; but since he used a certain abridgment of a Life, as he calls it,

suspect to me to say the least, I prefer to pass it over in silence, and go on with Manrique as he continues his discourse out of the cited supplements. "He (Odo) added also that lord John had swollen calluses on his knees from the frequency of his genuflections, and likewise a callus or swelling on his forehead from the frequency of striking his forehead upon the ground in prayer; and that he had many times seen these calluses and swellings, and his forehead covered with dust."

[102] This same thing about the callus of the knees Manricus afterward at no. 4, to have had them covered with callus from the assiduity of praying, citing the same supplements §4, confirms also by the testimony of another, saying: "For the rest, as regards the calluses of the knees, they are found to have hardened so far in the Man that another witness worthy of no less credit, Thomas abbot of the monastery of Cantimpré, said upon oath: 'That, if anyone wished to drive a needle into his knees, the needle would rather bend against the hardness of the knees than be able to enter.'" There flourished in fact at the same time as Bl. John a certain Thomas in the abbey of Cantimpré near Cambrai, who in vol. 3 of the reprinted Gallia Christiana, col. 162, is said to have been the third abbot of that place, and to have succeeded Matthew, who died in the year 1217, on the eighth of the Ides of February. To him therefore, before he was abbot, Bl. John, castellan of Cambrai and munificent toward that same abbey, may have been familiar enough, and in that way the aforesaid Thomas may have learned the aforesaid things.

[103] But since toward the end of the twelfth century another John was the first abbot set over the same monastery, for which I cannot vouch. to whom in Gallia Christiana the title of Blessed is added, and whose Life was written by Thomas of Cantimpré, in the early thirteenth century a member of that same monastery and afterward of the Order of Preachers, hence some fear arises in me lest perchance abbot Thomas said the foregoing about John the first abbot, or the other Thomas committed it to writing, and the same was then reported by another, who thought it said of Bl. John of Montmirail, among the supplements to his Life. Perhaps light could be shed by the aforesaid Life of John the first abbot, which we do not have, but which James Echard in vol. 1 of the Scriptores Ordinis Prædicatorum, p. 252, writes that he saw at Paris in the library of St. Geneviève, no. DD. 14. 4, in a paper manuscript codex, toward the end. Nevertheless it must be confessed that the aforesaid testimony of Odo altogether favours that the words of abbot Thomas too may be referred to our Bl. John.

[104] Of another kind is what Manricus at the place cited, He is said to have freed the castle of Oisy at no. 6, again copied out from the Additions §18. "It happened that the count of Flanders, having gathered no small army, attacked the land of the noble Man; and when he sat down with all his people before the castle of Oisy, the knights who were in that same castle, appointed by their Lord to defend it, were failing for fear, and chiefly because their Lord could bring them no succour of men at all; since the army of Flanders had been gathered from every side. Moreover so great a fear was in all that land that no one dared to mutter. But the Man worthy of God, armed with faith, with a few knights, namely with three and with his chaplain, came to the abbot of Vaucelles, who was at that time, and said to him: 'Lord abbot, I commend to you my castle of Oisy.' At which word the abbot, astounded, answered: 'My lord, what is it that you say? You cannot guard it, and how shall I guard it? I cannot even guard my own house.'

[105] And he said: 'I wish you to guard it for me.' The abbot, not yet understanding his faith, from the assault of the count of Flanders wondered still more at those words. At last the Man rooted in faith said to him: 'I know that, if you will, my castle will be excellently guarded for me by you, nor can it be guarded otherwise.' At length the abbot, understanding his faith, on the next day caused a Mass of the Holy Spirit to be sung by each of the priests; and straightway so great a hoarfrost arose from the earth that the count's men could not see one another. Wherefore, greatly astounded, they thought of flight. But being held back by the count, they could not accomplish in deed what they wished; until, God willing it for the faith of His Servant, so great a flood of rain broke out that, being turned to flight, they despaired of their safety, and cried, Helpe, Helpe" (these are Flemish words, which you may render in Latin Adjuva, "Help") "for fear. And so through the faith of His faithful Servant the Lord freed the people of all that land from the Flemish assault. This the said Engelbert firmly asserts, saying that it can be proved by the testimony of a thousand men."

[106] by divine power, This siege of Oisy does not seem able to be more fitly referred than to between the years 1197 and 1200, at which time Baldwin count of Flanders, afterward emperor of Constantinople, allied with the English against the French, harassed the districts of Cambrai and Artois. Now Oisy was situated at the entrance of Artois where it adjoins the district of Cambrai, in which also Vaucelles, a Cistercian abbey, had been founded by Hugh lord of Oisy, Bl. John's uncle. Yet how true that raising of the siege may be, and whether anything divine intervened, I should not venture to say; nor do I know who that Engelbert was, whose testimony is there alleged, unless perchance he be Ainglebert, of whom there will presently be mention in the following narration, which, to confess the truth, seems to me nothing but a fable. Receive it as it stands in the aforesaid annalist at no. 7, transcribed from the same supplements, §8.

[107] and to have saved an innocent man condemned to death, "At the beginning of the conversion of the noble man lord John of Montmirail, a certain man, Gunther by name, of Cambrai, by an accident, and not wishing to do it, killed his own wife. He was judged according to the laws of the city and condemned to death. When this became known to the noble Man, he rose at once, and, taking two of his chaplains, came to the place where the innocent man had been judged; and, prostrating himself at the feet of the aldermen, he humbly and devoutly begged that the innocent man be freed. And when he pressed his petition, and could in no way obtain what he asked, because sentence had been passed, he began by exhortations to fortify the soul of the condemned man, whose body he could not preserve for life, urging him to confession. The parish priest of the said Gunther was there, and received his confession, and so they led him to death, the noble Man following and ever exhorting him to snatch the condemned man's soul from eternal death.

[108] whom he had striven in vain to withdraw from punishment, The officers, fearing lest he had set an ambush in hiding-places, so as to free by force him whom he could not free by prayers, went forward armed with swords and clubs to the place; where, when the noble Man was, still fearing, they commanded him: 'My lord, you are our prince and castellan; do not be troublesome to us; for it does not befit you.' To them so speaking he answered: 'If I had wished to offer you violence, I should not have come alone with my clerks: but since I cannot have this man's body, I desire at least to save his soul': and, that he might not be present at the death, he withdrew with his clerks. But they, setting the condemned man down in a pit which they had made, and diligently covering him, riding armed over the pit, that he lying there might perish extinguished, guarded him for the space of three days, and so departed. After this Boissard Exctons, a clerk, passing through that place, by divine inspiration uncovered him whom the burghers had thought dead, and found him sound. And he, being freed, giving what thanks he could to his Castellan, said that he had been freed by his merits.

[109] Thomas and his brother Ainglebert, formerly provost of Oisy, swore to this, and marvellously preserved his life: who was then most familiar with the Prince, adding that soon after the condemned man had been drawn out of the pit he ate with the Castellan; and that he asked him how he had fared while he was in the pit. To whom he said: 'I endured no pain; but, being as it were placed in an ecstasy, I felt nothing, not even when the clerk drew me out of the earth. I know that the Prince's humility freed me.'" Thus Manricus out of the oft-mentioned supplements to the Life, whose authority and credit I wish to be better proved to me before I admit these things as true, and do not reckon them among fables. To this I am persuaded both by the very greatness and unwontedness of the fact, namely a man's life preserved though buried in the earth for three days; and by the circumstances of the fact; and lastly by the silence of others about it. Bl. John was Castellan of Cambrai, whose office it was to preside not only over the soldiery of the city and the subject district, but also over the administration of justice, and over the rest in pronouncing judgment and punishing the guilty. To what end therefore, if he knew the condemned man innocent, did he permit him to be condemned, or, when condemned, not free him by that authority which he had over the other judges, at least after he perceived that his prayers were vain?

[110] Then it is certainly little likely that those judges should have shown themselves inexorable for a man's life to him whom they acknowledged as their Prince and Castellan, and on whose command they depended. but I have read these things insufficiently proved. Frivolous too is what is said, that they armed themselves with swords and clubs lest the condemned man be snatched away by men set in ambush by their Castellan. As if he could not have freed him otherwise, in whose hands was power both over them and over the military forces. The three days' watch of the men of Cambrai at the pit also savours of fable. Or did they perhaps believe that so long a watch was needed, so that the guilty man should certainly have expired, whom they had put into a trench and had suffocated by earth thrown in and diligently packed down? Trifles. To these add the silence of the biographer to be published, and of abbot Galther, by whom Bl. John was admitted into the Cistercian Order, in his eulogy, partly given, partly to be given; of whom it is truly strange that they knew nothing of so signal a miracle, if it really happened, or were silent if they knew it. Let these things meanwhile be said by me, until surer credit and authority accrue to the supplements to the Life.

[111] The Cistercian annalist at the place cited, no. 11, goes on thus: The Blessed one's wonderful gentleness toward his subjects. "For the rest, with how great moderation in exacting tributes he acted (which virtue after justice most befits princes), so that even what was offered freely, if it was less than pleasing to his subjects, he not only refused, but also, having received it, restored it again, the following at length makes plain to all, which is thus." He here cites in the margin the Additions to the Life, §30, whence he excerpted these things: "When he had no money for expenses, without any exaction he received from his men, as is the custom of all lands, a certain sum of money. And when he had received it, the men began to murmur, who had given him the said money out of mere favour, and said: 'What is this, that our Lord, who is kindly, receives tributes from us, as if he were on campaign, or were going to tournaments?'"

"When this became known to the Man of God, he caused the said money to be restored by Angelbert his provost, lest on this account his men should murmur further against him." This action is indeed worthy of a holy Prince, and quite agreeable to blessed John's clemency and piety; but for the credit of the supplement, as I have noted, I cannot vouch.

[112] Uncertain likewise are the things which Manricus conjectured The same annalist at chapter 5 makes mention of a monastery founded and endowed by the Blessed one for his firstborn daughter, again following the supplements to the Life. "Presently," he says, "he persuaded his firstborn daughter to Religion, 'and promised,' as it is held in his Acts (in the margin is read: in the Additions §29), 'that, if she wished to be a nun, he would build an abbey for her, where she might serve the Lord with other nuns.' And she, as I conjecture, hearkening to her Father's commands, he fulfilled his promises, building and endowing the monastery of the House of God, of which in the same Acts a little below (in the margin, however, it is noted, in the Additions §21): 'Sister Aales, prioress of the House of God, which John himself built in his castle which is called Montmirail, and endowed with his own revenues,' &c." Whatever be the case about that plan of the Blessed one and about the promise made to his daughter, I cannot agree with the annalist's conjecture that the condition was accepted by the daughter and fulfilled by the Father, if he means that abbey to have been different from the hospice which Bl. John built near Montmirail. For, to say nothing of the biographer's silence in the Life to be published, I have found absolutely no trace of this abbey, no charter or memory of its foundation; nor did Machaut find any such thing, who diligently sought out documents pertaining to Bl. John and his family, and obtained various ones out of the very archives of the barons of Montmirail.

[113] about his daughter's monastic life. But if Manricus means only that to the hospice which John had built there was added by him a certain college of nuns who should serve the sick and the poor there, that this is so I have already proved above at §4. Further, from what has been said at §3 we know three daughters of Bl. John, Elizabeth, Felicia and Mary, and of these that the two last were married to husbands. Of the firstborn, Elizabeth, besides her name in the document of the year 1202, in which she is said to have consented to her parents' donation, I have found nothing, except that Du Chesne affirms that she died shortly after without children; but perhaps for no other reason than that he had read no mention made of her afterward. She therefore might be believed to have been one of the nuns who devoted themselves to the aforesaid hospice, did not the deep silence on this matter, both in the Life to be published and in the documents, rather persuade the contrary. Nay, not even this did the writer of the Supplement assert, but the aforesaid annalist merely conjectured it from his words. And these are the things which I have found noted in him about Bl. John's deeds before he took the monastic habit, out of the Supplements to the Life to be published, for whose credit I cannot vouch.

§ VII. His desire to fight against the Albigenses, then to embrace the solitary and at length the monastic life: the beginning of the latter at Longpont is more probably to be tied to the year 1210.

[ ] Wishing to fight against the Albigenses, The anonymous writer of Longpont in the Life to be published, at no. 13, writes this about Bl. John's purpose of fighting against the Albigenses in France: "Therefore, when worldly business had begun to be wearisome to the Servant of God, he turned over in his mind what he ought to do; and it seemed to him that he ought to set out into the land of the Albigenses, to fight for Christ." It is not the place here to record the foul doctrines and history of the Albigensian heretics, whose leader and head was Raymond count of Toulouse, and the wars waged against them by the Catholics; especially since, beyond a good will, John had no part in them, being hindered by his wife, as we shall presently see. This one thing therefore must here be noted for the chronology, which the biographer did not care for: that the sacred expedition against the Albigenses, which they call a Crusade, was proclaimed in France by the authority of the supreme Pontiff Innocent III, with the assent of king Philip Augustus, in the year 1208; and therefore in that year John must be said not yet to have put on the monastic habit, much less to have departed this life.

[115] But Manricus, who referred his death from a faulty transcript of abbot Galther to the year 1200, not against the Cottereaux, accordingly substituted for this another and earlier expedition, cautiously omitting the words by which the biographer had expressed the later one. And so at the year of Christ 1184, chapter 5, nos. 1 and 2, he says this: "Turning over what he ought to do, he thought that the sacred warfare against the heretics of France, laying waste the province of Bourges, of which we spoke in the preceding year, should be preferred by a man who was a soldier, and who might exert against enemies that strength of mind which as a young man he had too often misused against the household of the faith and of religion, not usurping to himself another's talents, which is the beginning of many evils, but labouring in his own as a faithful Servant. 'But wishing' (says the author of the Saint's Life, whose narration from this point I shall give continuously, neat and apt, and containing an excellent praise of Cîteaux) — 'wishing, I say, to carry very much silver with him, whereby he might more copiously relieve on the journey itself the want of the needy, he set out into the province of Cambrai,' &c."

[116] The heretics whom Manricus here records in the province of Bourges as Manricus believed, were military robbers, called Coterelli, in French Cotereaux, whose horrid and sacrilegious deeds, and the vast slaughter of them made by the Catholics, St. Antoninus relates in his History, and from him Cardinal Baronius in vol. 12 of the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 1183, as does also the aforesaid Cistercian annalist. And in this way indeed he avoided the argument which from the date of the expedition proclaimed against the Albigenses must presently have occurred to readers against the aforesaid opinion of fixing the Blessed one's death in the year 1200; but he did this against the plain words of the biographer, which, passing over in this place, he substituted the Cottereaux for the Albigenses. Nevertheless, that the biographer's discourse was not of the former but of the latter, is proved also by another passage of his, which Manricus himself recited in the same place at no. 8 and left unobserved. The biographer's words, which according to our division are read at no. 37, he reports at the place cited thus.

[117] he collects the necessary money; "John therefore on a certain day, having called together a multitude of the people, pretending that he wished to set out against the Albigenses… bade them farewell… But thereafter, taking a few companions with him, he went on to Longpont, a monastery of the Cistercian Order, there to serve the Lord." For the rest, I have no doubt that Manricus would not have thought of substituting the Cottereaux in place of the Albigenses, had he not been deceived by the faulty transcript of Galther concerning the year of the Blessed one's death, or if he had seen the documents of donations published by Machaut, from which it is beyond doubt that he lived many years longer. And so, that we may return whence we digressed, among the other princes who, after the sacred warfare against the Albigenses had been proclaimed in the year 1208, signed themselves with the cross, Bl. John too determined to give his name, and began to collect the money necessary for enlisting soldiers and for the other expenses of war. "But wishing" (so the biographer subjoins) "to carry very much silver with him, whereby he might more copiously relieve on the journey itself the want of the needy, he set out into the province of Cambrai, where he exchanged a certain part of his woods for the price of seven thousand pounds."

[118] but hindered by his wife, But these pious undertakings of the Man his wife Helvidis shortly afterward made void, the divine providence so permitting, that she might bring him to a far different warfare, namely to the monastic institute. "Further" (again the words are the biographer's), "when the buyers of the woods sought his wife's assent, she, refusing in every way to acquiesce, stood in the way that the said sale might not be made. Meanwhile a certain one of the servants of the Man of God, by whose relation we learned these things, who clave to him as a familiar in his holy purpose, addresses him with these words: 'My lord,' says he, 'if it seem right to you that you hearken to me, give up the purpose of this pilgrimage which you plan to make. For on your return your mind would be held no less entangled in the occupations of the world than at the present day… If it does not displease your … will, let us both seek the solitude of the desert, that we may be safely hidden from the tumult of men and the contradiction of tongues. Have me too as an inseparable companion and a faithful servant.'"

[119] he thinks first of the solitary, then of the monastic life, The same anonymous writer subjoins that the humble Lord was pleased with the pious servant's words, and that he was sent by him into the diocese of Liège, that he might seek out from the hermits of that region counsel and a place suited to his purpose. But they, on the same testimony, altogether dissuaded him from it as liable to dangers, and were the authors of his rather betaking himself to the Cistercian Order, then flourishing most of all. Obeying their admonitions, the pious Prince, after consulting the doctors of theology of the university of Paris, who advised the same, at length resolved, as soon as he could, to follow the Cistercian institutes; as may be read at greater length in the Life, and perhaps not without circumstances amplified according to the author's bent. For this he needed the consent of his wife Helvidis, which he must be believed to have obtained. Perhaps she showed herself not difficult in this matter; both because she was of a fairly advanced age, and had long ceased to bear children, and because the house was abundantly established with offspring of both sexes, and lastly because that humble and abject manner of living before men, which her Husband had followed from his first conversion, was displeasing to Helvidis. Manricus asserts besides that they already then lived separated by mutual consent from the marriage bed; which, although it be not expressed in the Life, yet agrees well enough with it.

[120] His wife's consent obtained, and the affairs of his family arranged, and he begins it at Longpont; he carried out what he had conceived in mind in the monastery of Longpont, taking there the Cistercian habit from Galcher or Galther the abbot on the day of the Lord's Ascension, as the biographer testifies, and all agree. Antoine Muldrac, senior of Longpont, in the manuscript Compendium of the Chronicle of that abbey, sent formerly to my Predecessors, entered this memorable event in these words: "On the day of the Lord's Ascension John lord of Montmirail, viscount of Meaux, castellan of Cambrai, and most dear to Philip Augustus king of the Franks, after many labours endured and triumphs won for king and kingdom, victor over himself, bids farewell to the world, and is admitted by the aforesaid abbot Galcher, with a certain servant intimate with him, named Amand, to the novitiate or regular probation at Longpont; as is established from the manuscript Life of that same John of Montmirail, and from other authentic writings."

[121] Concerning the year of his taking the habit, which the biographer passed over, [which Manricus wrongly placed in the twelfth century, others better in the year 1210,] there is no great disagreement among more recent writers, if you except Manricus, who, on account of his wrongly fixing his death in the year 1200, had to place his novitiate at least some years before the end of the twelfth century. But he is manifestly refuted both from the documents of donations alleged above, from which it is established that he, after the thirteenth century had begun,

was still living in the world; and from the beginning of Galcher's prelacy, which in the Catalogues of the abbots of Longpont is tied to the year 1200. Muldrac in the manuscript Chronicle wrote the year 1210 against the words just given, which afterward either he himself or another — certainly in different ink — changed into the year 1212; so that I do not know to which year he tied the Blessed one's entrance into Religion. Machaut in the French Life, book 4, chapter 3, assigned the year 1210, whom Baillet followed.

[122] On the contrary a certain anonymous writer, a monk, as I suspect, of Longpont, another tied it to the year 1212. in a manuscript which he called a Commentary on the Life of Bl. John, contends that he began his novitiate at Longpont neither later nor earlier than in the year 1212. He rests upon two documents: the first is the charter of confirmation and donation made to the monastery of Cerfroid "in the year of grace one thousand two hundred and twelve, in the month of March," which I gave above at §5, and which, since he ascribes it without hesitation to Bl. John, he lays down that the same was not yet a monk in the month of March of the aforesaid year 1212. The other charter is Helvidis's, given in favour of the monastery of Bl. Mary of Charmes, which I transcribe here from him. "I Helvidis, lady of Montmirail, make known that Ralph, surnamed le Vuandres, with my assent and will and that of John my son, gave in perpetual alms to the church of blessed Mary of Charmes one measure of winter motteangium grain in his terrage of Cariacum, which is held of me. And the witnesses of this donation are Carricus, chaplain of the same church, Alard knight of Saucy, Hugh knight Courobert, Calceius the notary… This was done in the year 1213, in the month of October." In the margin against the word Motteangii is read the note, in French Moitange, that is, half wheat and half rye mixed together.

[123] From this charter, further, the aforesaid anonymous writer rightly infers that Bl. John in the month of October of the year 1213 was already a monk; for otherwise Helvidis would have cited his consent, as of her Husband, not that of her son John. He proves that he was already a monk in the year 1213; But then, since from the aforesaid document of the donation made to the monastery of Cerfroid he had laid down that Bl. John in the month of March of the year 1212 was still living among seculars, and had it from the biographer elsewhere that he was clothed with the Religious habit on the day of the Lord's Ascension, he concluded that he began the monastic life a month later, that is, on the day of the Lord's Ascension in the year 1212; namely so that after the completion of a year's novitiate he might have pronounced his profession before the month of October of the year 1213, in which the aforesaid charter of Helvidis is read to be dated. This reasoning would plainly carry the point at least for the year 1212 or 1213, if it were equally established that the aforesaid charter for Cerfroid belongs to the year 1212, and is Bl. John's, not that of his son and successor of the same name, which I put off to be examined in this place, as I noted above.

[124] but it does not prove that it was not before 1212: The anonymous author of the little Commentary felt the difficulty, and objected it to himself, and there tried to remove it. "Lest anyone also object," he says, "that the donation or confirmation in favour of the house of Cerfroid was made not by John the father but by John the son. For that cannot be carried; but rather the contrary; since in the charter of that donation he is named John of Montmirail lord of Oisy; but John the son, while his Father lived, though a monk, that is from the year 1212 to the year 1218, is never read to be called of Montmirail, but only Lord of Oisy: whereas his mother Helvidis is always called Lady of Montmirail, as the charters of the years 1213, 1215, 1217 testify, already printed at the end of the Life of the aforesaid Bl. John of Montmirail, written in the vulgar tongue (in French by Machaut). Let it therefore stand beyond doubt (saving however a better judgment) that St. John made the aforesaid donation to Cerfroid in the month of March of the year 1212, and put on the monastic habit on the solemn day of the following Ascension of the Lord." Thus far he.

[125] for the charter of donation made in that year It is true that in the documents cited by him and published by Machaut, Helvidis is constantly called lady of Montmirail, but John her son Lord of Oisy, not of Montmirail, up to the year 1218, in which Bl. John the father had certainly already died, and in which there is read published in the same place at p. 456 a charter with this beginning: "I John lord of Montmirail and of Oisy." But it is equally true that Bl. John the father was not wont to call himself "of Montmirail" without adding the word "Lord"; as is manifest from his charters which I recited at §5, in all of which is constantly read: "I John lord of Montmirail, and Helvidis my wife"; or, as one of the year 1208 has it, "I John of Montmirail lord, and Helvidis," &c.: or lastly, as may be read in another of the year 1200, "I John lord of Montmirail and of Oisy," &c. But these two are very different: "John of Montmirail, lord of Oisy"; and "John lord of Montmirail," or "of Montmirail lord": since by the two latter phrases the lordship or possession of Montmirail is ascribed to John; whereas by the former only the family from which he was born may be indicated.

[126] on which he relies, Examples by which this may be proved are at hand. In Machaut at p. 426 and the following there stands a charter of confirmation which Matthew, the other son of Bl. John, who, as was said at no. 46, had received Ferté or Firmitas-Galcheri out of his paternal inheritance, granted to the nuns of the abbey of Bl. Mary of Soissons in the year 1230 in the month of March, whose beginning is this: "I Matthew of Montmirail, lord of Ferté-Gaucher." Again in the same place at p. 459 there is published a Charter of John the younger, made count of Chartres through his wife, and of the same Matthew, dated in the year 1236, which begins thus: "We John count of Chartres, lord of Montmirail and of Oisy, and Matthew of Montmirail, lord of Ferté-Gaucher." Both charters therefore were made when John the younger already held the lordship of Montmirail. Nevertheless Matthew, the brother of the same John, is in both called "Matthew of Montmirail"; assuredly for no other cause than that he was of the family of the lords of Montmirail, or born of Bl. John.

[127] But on the other hand in both Matthew is also called "lord of Firmitas or Feritas Galcherii," it is more probable that it is not Bl. John's, not simply "of Feritas Galcherii"; namely because he had the lordship of that place, just as John his brother possessed Montmirail and Oisy, and therefore is there named "lord of Montmirail and of Oisy." Compare now with the texts adduced these words of the document dated in favour of the house of Cerfroid in the year 1212: "I John of Montmirail, lord of Oisy," and you will recognize the same manner of speaking in both. Wherefore it is lawful to lay down thus. First, that John the son might call himself "of Montmirail," even though, while his Father was living as a monk, he always abstained from the title of "Lord of Montmirail," and meanwhile his mother Helvidis enjoyed it.

[128] Secondly, just as in the two aforesaid charters of the years 1230 and 1236 by these words "Matthew of Montmirail, but his son's, of the same name. lord of Ferté-Gaucher," it is certainly signified only that Matthew was born of a lord of Montmirail, not that he was lord of that place, so likewise it is lawful to lay down that by those words of the charter about which we dispute, "I John of Montmirail, lord of Oisy," on account of the entire similarity of the phrase, far more probably not the lord of Montmirail, but one born of the lord of that place, is indicated. And this being laid down, that charter, granted to the monastery of Cerfroid, must be referred to John the son, not to the Father, who, had he given it, would have called himself lord of Montmirail after his custom. Lastly, what the anonymous writer observes, that the title "of Montmirail" occurs in no other of John the younger's charters before the year 1218, proves nothing; since in no other of Bl. John's either is it read without the added word "Lord," and nothing stands in the way of John the younger, before he bore the title of Lord of Montmirail, having been able to be called "of Montmirail" no less than his brother Matthew.

[129] In vain therefore is this charter produced to prove From the charters of Helvidis too that Bl. John in the month of March of the year 1212 was not yet a monk, since it would rather prove the contrary. Wherefore it must now be inquired whether from elsewhere any light can be shed upon these matters. The aforesaid anonymous writer, after he had rightly proved from the charter given at no. 122 that Bl. John in the month of October of the year 1213 was certainly already living in the monastery, because Helvidis in it, without any mention of him, speaks as lady of Montmirail, objects to himself another charter of the same Helvidis, from which, lest the Blessed one's entrance into Religion be fixed two years earlier, he argues thus. "But if anyone object that the aforesaid Helvidis in the year 1210 also granted a charter, from which it is established that she gave a fulling-mill and the fishery of the ditch to the house of God below the Chaussée of Montmirail, as appears from the preceding §" (consult above at no. 72), "I confess that this is indeed so true, but that she did this by her Husband's consent, as is expressly held in the same charter."

[130] it is more probable that he was already living So it is; Helvidis in this expressly says that she makes that donation "with his consent," namely of her Husband John, whom she had named a little before, and therefore this alone cannot carry the point that John began the monastic life earlier than the year 1212. But perhaps the anonymous writer did not notice another made by Helvidis in the same year, which Machaut at p. 414 reviewed among her own donations in this way: "Be it known … that Philip of Metringiæ, with the will and assent of Auferic his brother and of Flandrina his wife, gave in perpetual alms to the house of God of Montmirail half a measure of grain… Whence I Helvidis, lady of Montmirail, in testimony and warranty of the said donation have ordered the present charter to be made … 1210." Now the editor observes that appended to this charter by a strip of white leather is the seal of Helvidis alone with this epigraph: "The seal of Helvidis, Lady of Montmirail." This therefore is an original, and on this head is to be preferred to the one just mentioned, which the same editor testifies was received only from a transcript.

[131] at Longpont in the year 1210, And so, since in this original document Helvidis, as lady of Montmirail, and making no word about her Husband or about his consent, confirmed the said donation and received it into her warranty or patronage, why should we not gather hence that Bl. John had already from the year 1210 passed over to the monks? Nor does that other charter, made in the same year 1210 by Helvidis with the consent of the same her Husband, prove the opposite: for since the month of the year is absent from both, perhaps this latter was drawn up before the feast of the Lord's Ascension, on which he was admitted to the novitiate, and the other after that same feast

was drawn up. Nay, there appears also a certain special reason for mentioning her Husband's consent in it, even if he had then been a monk. Namely, both those consorts had erected that hospice, and Helvidis had doubtless received it in charge from him when he bade farewell to worldly things, that she should promote the pious work with all her strength; and perhaps it had already before been agreed between them about setting up this fulling-mill for the uses of that house.

[132] to which year the beginning of his monastic life However that may be, since Helvidis made these two charters of the year 1210 by herself alone, while all the rest which Machaut produced before that year are read to have been made not by her but by her consort John with her consent, it seems to me most likely that John began his novitiate in the monastery of Longpont not later than in the aforesaid year 1210. Certainly, of the charters which are established to be his, Machaut brought forward none later than the year 1208, and nothing occurs in the Blessed one's deeds which carries the opposite, as I show in a few words. In the year 1208 or perhaps the following, eager to give his name to the sacred warfare proclaimed against the Albigenses, he began to sell certain of his woods to collect the money necessary for the expedition. But being presently forbidden by his wife, on the counsel of a certain servant he desired to lead the solitary life with him, and consulted hermits upon this matter. Being bidden by them rather to follow the Cistercian institutes, after consulting also the theologians of Paris, who thought likewise, and having settled, as it is fair to believe, his domestic affairs, he became a monk in the monastery of Longpont.

[133] All these things indeed do not require so long a time seems to be tied. but that they could have happened at least within two years; especially in a Man who had already for some time withdrawn his mind from human things and had ordered his life most holily amid worldly business itself. Nay, the biographer too in the Life to be published, although he relates many things between his fixed purpose of embracing the monastic state and the novitiate itself, yet at no. 18 clearly indicates that no long time passed between the two. For he speaks thus: "Which (counsels of the doctors of Paris) the Servant of God having heard with intent mind, from that day resolved that he would enter the Order of Cîteaux; which he by no means delayed to do: but before we begin to say how this was done, we must return to relate some of his deeds performed by him while he dwelt in the world in body, not in mind, which still remain to be told." Then presently in chapter 2 he reviews various deeds of his, and among these also certain ones done before his first conversion; namely, caring nothing for the order of time, he heaped together in that chapter whatever had been done by the Blessed one before he put on the monastic habit and had not yet been related in the first chapter.

[134] About Helvidis, the wife of Bl. John, I add here a few things. Helvidis remained in the world, but was buried at Vaucelles. That she thereafter remained in the world, the biographer writes in the Life to be published at no. 55, where John, now a monk, is said to have been once repulsed from her house with this answer: "The lady is sweating; wherefore it is by no means allowed you now to see her or to speak with her." There have been, however, some who said (Machaut testifying and disapproving) that she at the same time in which her Husband took the religious habit at Longpont betook herself for the same cause to the maiden monastery of St. Stephen at Soissons, now St. Paul's. The falsity of the assertion appears both from what has been said, and from the fact that in vol. 9 of the reprinted Gallia Christiana, col. 472, it is read that that house was first handed over to sacred virgins in the year 1228. Machaut adds in the same place that in the Notitia ecclesiarum Belgii it is said that she at some time withdrew into the abbey of Vaucelles in the district of Cambrai. But that abbey was of men, not of women; and in the aforesaid Notitia of le Mire at p. 504 I read indeed that Helvidis was buried there, but I do not read that she dwelt there. She may however have spent the last years of her life beside it; which I can neither assert nor deny.

§ VIII. The monastic habit conferred on the Blessed one by abbot Galcher; his testimony about his virtues: the death of the same Blessed one is to be tied to the year 1217.

[ ] He humbly asks for the monastic habit, Therefore from what has been said above, Bl. John, more probably in the year 1210, bidding farewell to the worldly goods in which he abounded, and to his titles and honours, set out to the monastery of Longpont of the Cistercian Order, and was there admitted on the feast of the Lord's Ascension into the monastic novitiate. Notice of the place I gave at no. 1 of this Commentary; but it pleases me here to review the fact itself out of the Life to be published, nos. 38 and following. "When therefore on the day of the Lord's Ascension, prostrate humbly in the chapter of Longpont, he had asked to be received as a monk, the venerable Galcher, at that time abbot of the same place, and who afterward was the praiseworthy governor of Cîteaux, as is the custom of that Order, began to forewarn him of the hardship which he must suffer in vigils, labours and the other regular observances; and that by him, who had been so great in secular glory and had been so delicately nurtured from his infancy, the roughness of the food could not be borne.

[136] and is clothed with it by abbot Galcher, To whom the humble John gave this answer: 'Know,' said he, 'that I never had so great joy in the world as if I should know that I was worthy to eat the bran bread which is thrown to dogs to feed on.' When his so humble answer was heard, those who were present, edified not a little, out of an affection of piety almost all began to weep. And that he said this not idly, but out of an exceeding ardour of charity, his subsequent manner of life plainly declared." Of the prelacy of Galcher, otherwise Galther (which is the same name), our manuscript Compendium of the Chronicle of Longpont has this: "The tenth abbot was Galcher, a most famous doctor, who presided from the year 1200 to the year 1219, in which, being elected abbot of Cîteaux, he left the monastery of Longpont; as is established from many records, both of the same Galcher and of others." With this the writers of Gallia Christiana agree at vol. 9, col. 475 and the following, in the catalogue of the abbots of Longpont, where they add to him the surname "de Ochies," and at vol. 4 from col. 992 in that of the abbots of Cîteaux, where many things are said in his praise.

[137] who left a signal written testimony Hence gather that Bl. John's virtues must have been most thoroughly known to Galcher, since he received him into his Order and monastery, and as abbot governed him until his death, which happened in the year 1217. For the same cause the testimony of so great a man, which he left written about the Blessed one his subject, is to be greatly esteemed; and the first part of it, which mentions honourably his secular life, I have already given at no. 65; the other, about his monastic life, I here subjoin. After the words reviewed at the number cited, Galcher goes on thus: "And he, that he might the more freely trample down harmful allurements, became a monk, mortifying his limbs with vigils, fastings and prayers, so intent, so humble, so god-fearing, that he was to all a mirror of sanctity and a pattern which others might follow.

[138] about his monastic life and his rare virtues, especially his humility, But we, who heard his most pure confession, and inspected with eyewitness faith the marks of his manner of life, say in the word of truth, an oath having been sworn, that although we have lived forty-seven years in the Order, and have seen many monks and lay brothers holy and religious and zealous for the Order, among whom to some there rather frequently appeared divine visions and hidden revelations; yet, having weighed the conditions which shone singularly in John, namely nobility, opulence, pomp and glory, in which he had appeared eminently among the palatines, and afterward humility, poverty, meanness and abjection of the world and of himself, to such a degree that he even embraced being despised; we believe that in comparison with him none of all those whom we have named is to be preferred. Whence according to the testimonies of the Scriptures we undoubtingly believe that he, taken up into the courts of the Lord, has been made like the Saints in glory."

[139] is preserved. Thus far the aforesaid abbot Galcher, the director of the Blessed one's conscience and an eyewitness of his virtues, most worthy of belief, who seems to me indeed to have left this testimony in writing, that, if ever the beatification or canonization of that John should be treated of, it might be of use. For the rest, with Galcher's words the Life to be published wholly agrees, in which among his other virtues the truly wonderful humility of the Man and his contempt of himself above all others perpetually appears; which was of so much the greater merit, and was the more marvelled at by Galcher, the greater he had been in the world and the more excellent than others in wealth as in blood and in worldly honours. Of his deeds I add no more here, because, if any need illustration, it can be abundantly done in the Annotations. This one thing I observe here, that nowhere in the Life is it indicated whether the Blessed one was advanced to any of the greater sacred orders. From the testimony of Galcher just given, however, it is sufficiently established that he was enrolled not among the lay brothers, whom they call Conversi, but among the monks specially destined to the divine ministry. For Galcher there expressly distinguishes monks from Conversi, and says of Bl. John: "He became a monk."

[140] I go on therefore to the year of his death, which, He died, not about the year 1167, like the rest that pertains to chronology, the biographer passed over. Very far indeed from the truth did the anonymous author of the fabulous Life of the same Blessed one wander here, which we have said was printed by Benedict Gonon, a Celestine monk of Lyons, out of the manuscript codices of the monastery of his Order at Soissons, in the Lives of the Fathers of the West, book 4, and at whose end this may be read: "At length Bl. John, conspicuous for sanctity and miracles, about the fourteenth year from the death of the divine Bernard (abbot of Clairvaux), weighed down with old age, passed out of this life at the monastery of Longpont." But St. Bernard died in the year 1153, as has been proved in our Work at the 20th day of August, on which he is venerated; wherefore, if we believe the fabler, Bl. John's departure from among the living must be placed about the year 1167, which how false it is, is from all that has been said above more manifest than that it need be set forth further.

[141] Angelus Manrique in vol. 3 of the Cistercian Annals at the year of Christ 1200, nor in the year 1200, chapter 5, hesitating in doubt about the time of his death, and at length concluding from the faulty transcript of abbot Galcher for the date just cited, argues thus: "That the precious death of the venerable John of Montmirail, once a powerful princeling, presently a humble monk at Longpont, whom we mentioned above, although many put it earlier (than the year 1200) and others later, fell in this year or about it, the testimony of Walter (or Galcher) the abbot persuades me, under whom he took the habit, and in whose lifetime he is said to have passed out of this life, before he was promoted from Longpont to Cîteaux, from the daughter to the mother and to the head of the whole Order. Now the testimony, sent to us long since from an ancient manuscript of Longpont, which we afterward saw published by Henriquez in his Menology, is this: 'The testimony of lord Walter de Ochies,

abbot of Longpont, who gave the habit of Religion to St. John of Montmirail on the day of the Ascension; and in whose lifetime St. John passed to the Lord: and afterward the same Galther was taken up as abbot of Cîteaux.'

[142] But toward the end it has these words… as from a faulty transcript of Galcher 'And he passed over on the third of the Kalends of October, on the day of the holy angels, at the first hour of the day, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand two hundred.'" Then the aforesaid annalist takes this up thus: "Thus far a rather certain testimony about the Man's death; but nevertheless not altogether irrefragable; since Walter was not taken up to the prelacy of Cîteaux before Conrad, who preceded him, was promoted to the Cardinalate, and thus after nineteen years at the least. And if he had still been presiding over Longpont when John died, he would doubtless have expressed it, as he expressed it about the time of his taking the habit. And what of this, that some things are related about John which seem to be later than this year." He objects also, and rightly rejects, the Blessed one's Life published by Gonon, and at last concludes with these words.

[143] Manrique laid down in the Cistercian Annals; "It is true," he says, "that in it (the Life which we shall publish) no time is fixed either for the Man's conversion or for his death; whence we have judged that recourse must be had to Walter's testimony alone, and then to those things which are said of the holy Man, which without doubt fit this time better than an earlier one." I suspect that some words have dropped out here after the word "judged," where these or the like are wanting: "both for fixing his death, and," &c. Now let us weigh the annalist's words. He rightly preferred Walter's or Galcher's testimony to the assertions of the rest, and yet did not judge it, such as he had it, altogether irrefragable, because "some things are related about John which seem to be later than this year" (1200). Certainly from the documents of donations reported above it is beyond doubt that Bl. John in the year 1208 was not yet a monk, much less dead. If Manrique had seen these, he would doubtless have confessed either that Galcher slipped in noting the year of the death, or that a fault lurked in his own transcript, which he had and which Henriquez published.

[144] but in the year 1217. That there is an error in them is proved by what has been said so far and by our transcript of Longpont, received from Muldrac, at whose end it is read: "And he passed over on the third of the Kalends of October, on the day of the holy Angels, at the first hour of the day *, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1218." Consequently upon this the aforesaid Muldrac in our manuscript Compendium of the Chronicle of Longpont noted his death at the aforesaid year, saying thus: "On the twenty-ninth of September, on the day of St. Michael the archangel, Bl. John of Montmirail, shining marvellously with the rays of all the virtues, but chiefly of humility and charity, departed from life, glorious for miracles after his death." This year being fixed, all the difficulties cease which I have adduced from the aforesaid documents of donations against the faulty passage of Manrique's transcript. Nor has that argument any force by which the same Cistercian annalist believed that from the same testimony of Galcher a suspicion could be raised for fixing the Blessed one's death not before the year 1219.

[145] Nor can his death be deferred His words, which I gave at no. 142, contain this reasoning: Galcher expressly notes that he was abbot of Longpont when Bl. John there put on the monastic habit; but he does not say that he died in the time of his prelacy. Already therefore Galcher was abbot of Cîteaux when John departed this life. But Galcher did not obtain the prelacy of Cîteaux before Conrad, abbot of that place, had been raised by the Roman Pontiff Honorius III to the Cardinalate: and since this first happened in the year 1219, Bl. John's death could not be placed before this year. That the emptiness of this argument may appear, it will help to have repeated Galcher's or Galther's own words. He began his testimony thus: "We brother Galter, abbot of Longpont at the time when lord John of Montmirail took the habit of religion, testify to all," &c. But of his death he says at the end: "And he passed over on the third of the Kalends," &c., as was said at the preceding number.

[146] to the year 1219, The former words admit a twofold sense; one, as though Galcher were saying that he was abbot of Longpont "at the time when lord John … took the habit of religion," but was so no longer when he wrote this. Secondly they may be taken thus: "We brother Galter, abbot of Longpont (already from) the time when lord John … took the habit of religion," &c.; and thus Galcher would be asserting that he was abbot of Longpont when Bl. John was admitted to the novitiate, and still was so when he wrote this. This latter interpretation is altogether persuaded by Galcher's silence about his prelacy of Cîteaux: for if he was already then presiding over Cîteaux, why does he not say: "We brother Galter, abbot of Cîteaux, formerly abbot of Longpont at the time when," &c.? But if he was also presiding over Longpont when he wrote the aforesaid testimony, the reason becomes manifest why he expressly said that Bl. John was admitted into the monastery while he was abbot, and did not add that the same died also in the time of his prelacy in that same place.

[147] For the first was necessary, that he might prove that Bl. John's virtues were well known to him from the very beginning of his religious life; as the aforesaid annalist doubted from Galcher's words, the other would have been quite superfluous: for since Galcher had said that he was abbot of Longpont when John became a monk there, and named himself still such, he sufficiently indicated that the same began the monastic life in the monastery of Longpont under himself as abbot and ended it with a blessed end. But granted that Galcher was, when he wrote this, abbot of Cîteaux, yet it is established from elsewhere that at John's death he was presiding over the abbey of Longpont. The biographer in the Life to be published, at no. 59, about to relate Bl. John's death, says: "On the vigil of St. Michael (whose feast day was the passing of the humble John…) such a vision is asserted plainly to have appeared to dom Hugh, who at that time discharged the office of prior." Then he sets forth the vision, and expressly adds of the same prior Hugh: "Who afterward was the venerable abbot of the said place," namely of Longpont.

[148] Again at no. 66, among the miracles obtained at Bl. John's invocation, he writes: the aforesaid annalist doubted, "It happened at a certain time that dom Hugh, venerable abbot of Longpont, he namely who, at the time when the servant of God John died, had seen a vision," &c. And this is the very Hugh whom both Muldrac in the manuscript Compendium of the Chronicle of Longpont, and the continuators of Gallia Christiana, vol. 9, col. 476, show to have succeeded to the prelacy of Longpont in the year 1219 when Galcher was promoted to the government of Cîteaux. Receive Muldrac's words: "The eleventh abbot was Hugh, formerly Prior, who presided from the year 1219 to 1231." Bl. John therefore died while Hugh was Prior and Galcher abbot of Longpont, and hence there is no reason at all against our transcript's assertion for deferring the same Blessed one's death beyond the year 1217. Lastly, that John did not survive to the year 1219 is taught also by the charter which John his son granted to the monastery of Longpont in the year 1218, and which stands in Machaut at p. 456, and more fully in our Longpont manuscript, out of which I here transcribe a little.

[149] "I John, lord of Montmirail and of Oisy, the contrary being proved also by a charter of the year 1218. make known to those present and to come, that I have granted to the church and brothers of Longpont, for the remedy of my soul, and for the soul of my Father and the souls of my ancestors, to receive one house," &c. "And that this may remain ratified and unshaken, I have caused the present page to be strengthened with the protection of my seal. Done in the year of Grace 1218." It cannot be denied that John the son, who already calls himself lord of Montmirail, numbered John his father among the dead in the year 1218 by this phrase "for the soul of my Father and the souls of my ancestors." For this cause also the aforesaid Machaut, book 4, chapter 3, tied the same Blessed one's death to the year 1217 or the next following, and rightly denied that it could be deferred beyond this: but I, from our manuscript transcript of Galcher's testimony, judge that the year 1217 is to be retained, which Baillet also marked.

[150] An answer is made to the argument, Yet there remains another difficulty, which may be raised for placing the year of his death some years earlier, out of what the Benedictine writers of Gallia Christiana, vol. 9, handed down about the prelacies of the aforesaid Hugh. At col. [ ], among the abbots of Signy, in the twelfth place is reviewed "Hugh de Oratorio, prior of Longpont, succeeded Giles. He is said to have ruled five years; therefore to the year 1215": for they had premised that Giles was in the year 1210 removed alive from the burden of his office. In the same place at col. 831, in the catalogue of the abbots of Froidmont, it is read thus: "Hugh, from prior of Longpont abbot of Signy, then of Froidmont, occurs in 1216 in the charters of Ourscamp, having died on the fifth of the Nones of March." Lastly in the same volume at col. 476, in the series of the abbots of Longpont, it is again said: "Hugh V de Oratorio, from prior of Longpont abbot of Signy, then of Froidmont, is at last elected abbot of Longpont, to whom Blanche countess of Troyes gave in the year 1219 a house at Ulchy," &c.

[151] which might be urged for fixing the Blessed one's death much earlier According to these things Hugh, of whom we treat, would already from the year 1210 have been promoted from prior of Longpont to the prelacy of Signy, and thence in the year 1215 or 1216 to the abbey of Froidmont, and thence at last in the year 1219 have become abbot of Longpont. This being supposed, Bl. John too would have to be said to have met his last day not later than the aforesaid year 1210, if, as the biographer expressly asserts, he died under Hugh as prior of Longpont. But as regards the abbots of Signy, their catalogue here is not so accurate that we must stand by it. William Marlot in vol. 2 of the History of the metropolis of Reims, in the Appendix, sets out another catalogue, in which Hugh's prelacy of Signy is tied to another time. His words are these: "Hugh prior of Longpont succeeded Giles" (whom he had premised to have resigned in the year 1202); "after five years of government he abdicates in the year 1207. But afterward he becomes abbot of Froidmont, and at last of Longpont."

[152] from his prelacies of Signy Nay, the writers of Gallia Christiana themselves at the place cited, namely col. 306, acknowledge that the opinion which extends Hugh's prelacy of Signy from the year 1210 to 1215 is not certain enough. "Hugh," they say, "de Oratorio, prior of Longpont, succeeded Giles. He is said to have ruled five years; therefore to the year 1215: whence Marlot would be false, who says that he abdicated in the year 1207, being afterward to be abbot of Froidmont and at last of Longpont. But that Marlot's reckoning is not so false, we show in Peter, who follows." After this they presently subjoin: "Peter, subprior of Longpont, is said to have been removed after two years; which must fall in the year 1217, if Hugh really ruled to the year 1215. But besides what we once cited in vol. 5,

col. 287, a transaction of Peter abbot of Signy given in the year 1213, we find the same Peter in the year 1211 in the Theodorician Tables." If these things be true, all difficulty on this side will vanish; namely, if it be said that Hugh about the year 1207 abdicated the abbey of Signy, and, having returned to Longpont, held the priorate.

[153] and of Froidmont, which are ascribed to Hugh, It remains that I answer the other part of the argument, which may be drawn from the time in which the same Hugh is asserted to have presided as abbot over the monastery of Froidmont; for, as I noted above, in the writers of Gallia Christiana, vol. 9, col. 831, it is read thus: "Hugh, from prior of Longpont abbot of Signy, then of Froidmont, occurs in the year 1216 in the charters of Ourscamp, having died on the fifth of the Nones of March." So there; and no more about him. But he is reviewed there between Henry I, who from a charter of John de Cardineto is said to have been still abbot in the year 1216, and in the year 1218 in a certain other charter to be called "formerly abbot"; and Albert, "to whom Theobald count of Blois and Clermont confirmed in the year 1218 the place in which the abbey is situated," &c. Hugh therefore would have presided over Froidmont from the year 1216, and would already have had a successor in the year 1218, in the year midway between which we have laid down that Bl. John died, and accordingly Hugh must have been holding the priorate of Longpont.

[154] To this I have two answers, one or other of which, on account of the authority of the biographer and of the documents which I have adduced, must altogether be given; under whom as prior of Longpont the Blessed one died. namely, either that Hugh abbot of Froidmont, if such a man then presided over that place, is another than the abbot of Longpont; or, if he be the same, that in the month of September in the year 1217 he was discharging the office of prior at Longpont anew. The first seems to me most likely from the very words of Gallia Christiana compared with Muldrac's manuscript Chronicle. In the former Hugh is so recorded among the abbots of Froidmont that he must be said to have met his death in that same prelacy: for who would gather otherwise from these words: "Hugh, from prior of Longpont, abbot of Signy, then of Froidmont, occurs in the year 1216 in the charters of Ourscamp, having died on the fifth of the Nones of March"? Likewise the same writers of Gallia Christiana ascribe another day of death to Hugh abbot of Longpont, at col. 476 in the series of the abbots of Longpont, where it is read: "Hugh, died on the seventh of the Kalends of February." Indeed these things indicate a twofold Hugh, one abbot of Froidmont, the other of Longpont.

[155] To these add that the prelacy both of Signy and of Froidmont of that Hugh who afterward was abbot of Longpont are ascribed. seems to have been unknown to Muldrac in the oft-cited manuscript Chronicle, since he mentions neither, but expressly says that Hugh was raised from Prior of Longpont to the abbey of the same monastery, saying: "The eleventh abbot was Hugh, formerly prior, who presided from the year 1219 to 1231." And so, that these things may be reconciled, let us suppose that at the beginning of the thirteenth century two Hughs flourished at Longpont, of whom the first, from prior of this place, was made abbot of Signy and then of Froidmont, and died; but the other from the priorate of Longpont succeeded Galcher in the abbey of the same place in the year 1219. Lastly, not to be longer, he to whom this doubling of Hugh is not pleasing, let him bring Hugh back from the prelacy of Froidmont to the priorate of Longpont before the 29th day of September of the year 1217: for that Bl. John died at that time, and with Hugh as prior, is from what has been said above far more certain than that it can be shaken by the aforesaid catalogues of abbots.

diei*

§ IX. The first translation of the Blessed one's body within the cloister of the monastery; the second, within the church into a magnificent mausoleum: the cult shown him there: the third, made into the relic-treasury.

[ ] The Blessed one's body from the common cemetery of the monks Of Bl. John's tombs Muldrac in the manuscript Compendium of the Chronicle of Longpont, at the year 1217, which I have said was his last among mortals, says this: "First he was buried in the common cemetery; then in a marble sepulchre, becomingly built and raised within the wall of the cloister or of the church; lastly in an honourable monument within the church at the side or Gospel horn." The two former burials the biographer also records, but not the third, namely because he wrote before it. But he indicates the former thus at no. 62: "It happened that the body of the servant of God John was translated from the place in which it had earlier been buried to another place," &c. Again at no. 64: "It befell also that the bones of the Servant of God were raised from the place in which his body had first been laid, into the cloister of the monks, a tomb having been built there in the wall, before which the monks used incautiously to sit upon wooden seats after their custom. And since this seemed to some unseemly, the prior commanded a certain monk to summon the lay-brother carpenter, Matthew by name, and bring him to the Saint's tomb, that he might cut away the aforesaid seats before it." And he says this was presently done, and that the same lay brother, or lay-brother, for that dutiful act of piety was then divinely freed from a grievous ailment of his foot.

[157] is translated into a marble tomb within the cloister; The cause of this translation was doubtless the known sanctity of the Man, whose blessed death had been foretold both to Hugh, at that time prior, and to a certain other lay brother of Longpont, by the vision of a burning taper lifted up into heaven on the day before he departed from life. Perhaps also some miracles had gone before, such as the biographer relates in chapters 4 and 5 that very many happened at the same Blessed one's tomb after this first translation. As regards the time of the translation, it seems to have been made neither in the first year from his death, nor yet very many years afterward. The first I gather from this, that when it happened his flesh had already been reduced to ashes, since the biographer in the words just given says that the BONES of the Servant of God were then raised "from the place in which his body had first been laid"; and again in him at no. 62 and the following it is read that a certain man who at the time when the first translation had been decreed blasphemed against Bl. John was divinely chastised, his mouth being terribly twisted, and after almost a month, coming a first and a second time to the tomb of God's servant John, at the touch of ONE BONE of the aforesaid Saint recovered fully from his infirmity.

[158] which seems to have been done not later than the year 1233. The other becomes likely from the same Life at no. 66, where it is said that abbot Hugh, during whose priorate Bl. John had died, being afflicted with an ailment of the knee and shin and with a grievous daily fever, ordered a burning taper to be set at the memorial of the man of God John, that by his intercession he might find help; and, this being done, came off free of both infirmities. Now by "memorial" he more likely signifies the Blessed one's marble tomb placed in the cloister, and thus the first translation would already then have been made; or if he means the first burial in the common cemetery, it is credible that the aforesaid Hugh was moved by that marvellous healing not to suffer the body of so great a Man, whose sanctity while living he had known and whose precious death he had learned by divine means, to lie longer in a common place. Further, that Hugh, according to the writers of Gallia Christiana, ceased to live two years later, and accordingly we think that this first translation happened between those years and the year 1217, which was the Blessed one's year of death. Of the same the biographer in the Life to be published seems also to speak at no. 71, when he says: "When his sacred bones were raised from the tomb by the abbot of Chaalis," &c. See the Annotations there at letter p.

[159] How long Bl. John's bones rested in this second sepulchre I have not been able to learn; Hence it was again translated into the choir of the church, but certainly in the same century they were thence translated into another and far nobler mausoleum, as I have begun to say above from Muldrac, and shall now set forth at greater length. "Lastly," says Muldrac, "in an honourable monument within the church, at the side or Gospel horn" (they are transposed), "artfully wrought and adorned with a double figure; namely of an armed knight on the lower level; but of a monk, clad in the ancient cowl of the Order, on the upper, with this epitaph engraved in golden letters around the tomb:

✠ At Longpont of his own will he chose to submit himself To the service of Christ — he who lies beneath this stone, Whose ashes are there, once the heir of Montmirail; By the right of God, grace is his name (that is, John). Thanks be to Christ, who has adorned us in him. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace."

[160] Machaut in book 4 of the Life, chapter 4, described this mausoleum a little more fully in French words, and set in a magnificent mausoleum, which I have here rendered into Latin. "It is situated at the Gospel horn of the chief altar within the choir; but what I say is singular in it, it is as it were twofold. For on the first level, nearest the ground, there is seen a Man lying stretched out, mailed after the fashion of that time, bearing a sword under his right hand, under the left a shield, marked with the family emblems of a golden lion creeping on a scarlet field; which, however, were expressed rather in colours than by the chisel, since today they no longer appear. Then there is as it were another storey of great stone, of the same size with the rest of the work, upon which the second statue of the deceased rests, likewise lying, clad in the habit of the Religious of St. Bernard, adorned with the greater garment of the Order, and his hands covered by it. Thus John of Montmirail is there beheld in a twofold condition, namely of a worldly lord and of a humble Religious, with a certain majesty which at the very first approach inspires devotion.

[161] The topmost cornice is a work of elegant and beautifully wrought architecture; which is described, nor are the other appurtenances lacking, the columns and buttresses necessary to support the levels, which leave a free space for the light, so that both burials may be conveniently seen from every side." Machaut also rightly says there that it seems to him that the reason for setting this twofold statue on the tomb was that the Man's sanctity, in which he shone in both states, might more clearly appear to the beholders from the diversity of the two conditions. He sets out both statues too, engraved on copper by John Baptist Picart; the first, namely of the mailed knight, at p. 80, the other of the monk at p. 174; but both show John not lying, as he had said, but standing. In the first the family shield is also lacking; and the hilt of the sword, which he had said was under his right hand, hangs beneath the elbow of the left; so that the aforesaid artist Picart must be said to have fashioned out of those two sepulchral statues two others, certainly in a different posture. Wherefore, though I had determined otherwise, I have judged not to give them to our engraver to copy.

[162] and is believed to have been made by Mary, the Blessed one's daughter, The same writer teaches that there are seen there thirteen ancient iron candlesticks fixed to the iron bars with which the mausoleum is girt, and below also some others with an ancient lamp, sure tokens of an ancient cult. He judges lastly that this noble mausoleum was erected at the expense of Mary, the daughter of the same Blessed one, wife of Enguerrand or Ingran III lord of Coucy; which is likely enough

from the piety of that lady toward her Father, and from her Christian life and munificence toward the abbey of Longpont, in whose church she also was buried, as she had wished, not far from that paternal mausoleum. Indeed there stands in Machaut a charter of hers written in French in the year 1271, in which, choosing her burial in the same church, she speaks thus: "Whereas I, for the salvation and security of my soul, and for love and noble memory of the good John, my holy Father, whose body lies honourably in the monastery of Longpont, have devoutly and humbly asked of the abbot and convent of Longpont a burial place for myself in their church, be it known to all that the abbot and the said convent, on account of my good will, with which for the aforesaid causes I favour them and their church, … have granted me burial in their church," &c.

[163] who lies buried beside it; The event answered the grant: for, on the same testimony, she too lies buried in the aforesaid church at the Gospel horn of the chief altar beside her Father's mausoleum in a magnificent tomb with this epitaph: "Here lies the noble Mary of La Fère; who, while she lived most holily, was liberal in alms, full of good works, devout in prayer; the daughter of that most upright knight and most devout monk, Brother John, formerly lord of Montmirail, the mother of Ingran of Coucy." Of the time in which the aforesaid mausoleum of Bl. John may seem to have been made, the anonymous writer of Longpont in the manuscript little Commentary already cited elsewhere argues thus: "It is credible that this translation of John's holy remains from the cloister to the sanctuary of the church happened in the year 1250, or thereabouts, in which that church, of all the monastic churches of France the most beautiful, was finished and completed. For already in the year 1252 Matthew, the second-born son and heir of this John, that he might venerate the sepulchre of his Parent, gleaming with a varied fame of miracles, in the month of June conferred upon the church of Longpont thirteen pounds of strong money (a notable sum at that time) of yearly revenue, to be received upon the toll of Tresmes, for the maintaining of a taper lit day and night before the tomb or sepulchre of Bl. John of Montmirail his father, as a sealed charter of the same Matthew testifies."

[164] but the year of the translation is uncertain. Matthew's charter, and others pertaining to the same, I shall presently recite: meanwhile I observe that this opinion of the anonymous writer about the time when the mausoleum was built seems to me likely enough, but not certain. For it is likely that at the same time in which Bl. John's bones were translated from the cloister to the new mausoleum in the church for veneration's sake, that taper too was added for the same cause. But since this reason does not carry the point, and since it is read both in Muldrac's manuscript Chronicle and in Gallia Christiana that the church of Longpont with its chief altar was dedicated already from the year 1227, that mausoleum may have existed some years earlier, and afterward the donation of the perpetual taper have been added by Matthew. Yet that the building of the same mausoleum be brought nearer to the middle of the thirteenth century is persuaded by the biographer's silence about it in the Life to be published. These things being briefly observed, I subjoin from the same anonymous writer the aforesaid document of Matthew, who after the childless death of his brother John had become also lord of Montmirail and of Oisy.

[165] "I Matthew, lord of Montmirail and of Oisy, Matthew, the Blessed one's son, founded a taper make known to those present and to come, that I, for the remedy of my soul and of my ancestors and successors, have given and granted in pure alms to the church of blessed Mary of Longpont, of the Cistercian Order, thirteen pounds of strong money of yearly revenue for a certain taper which shall burn day and night for ever before the tomb of my most dear lord and father John, formerly lord of Montmirail, to be received yearly at my toll of Tresmes before the feast of All Saints; yet so that the said money be in no wise turned to other uses. And I will and command that whosoever shall hold our said toll shall pay the said pence to the said abbey at the said term yearly without waiting for anyone's order. But if the said pence be not paid to the said abbey at the said term, I will that whosoever shall hold the said toll shall render to the said abbey, for every day on which he shall be in delay of paying the said pence after the said term, five shillings of strong money by way of penalty, provided however that he be sufficiently required by the messengers of the said abbey.

[166] And to hold firmly these and all and singular the aforesaid things, to be lit perpetually before it I bind myself, my goods and my successors; in testimony of which matter I have caused my seal to be appended to these present letters. Given in the year of the Lord 1252, in the month of June." The same document, but less entire, Machaut printed at p. 459 and the following; adding that Matthew's ordinary and secret seal, or that set upon the back of the former, was appended to it by a red silken strip. Of the barbarous words which are read in it, receive these few remarks. That libræ fortium and solidi fortium are of a purer coinage, Du Cange teaches in his Glossary at the word Moneta. Pedagium, from the French word péage, is a certain tribute due to the prince, and sometimes it is used also for the place or territory where it is to be paid. Tresmes, otherwise Trama, in French Tresmes, the place out of which the aforesaid pounds were to be paid, is "a village with a castle on the streamlet of the same name in French Champagne, and lately distinguished with the title of a duchy," says Baudrand in his Lexicon.

[167] Of the same donation Muldrac too makes mention in the manuscript Compendium of the Chronicle of Longpont, and both he himself, at the year 1252, where this may be read: "Matthew, lord of Montmirail and of Oisy, bequeaths thirteen pounds of strong money of yearly revenue to the church of Longpont, and assigns them upon the toll of Tresmes, for the having of a taper lit day and night for ever before the sepulchre of Bl. John of Montmirail, his father." The same the same Matthew confirmed in the year 1261, in the month of December, at which time Bl. John's body certainly already lay in the choir of the church, since the aforesaid Matthew says in French words (for the document is written in French) that he had given "in alms to the church of Longpont thirteen pounds for the providing of a taper, which shall burn day and night perpetually before the chief altar of Bl. Mary of Longpont and the tomb of my Lord Father." In the same document, which stands in Machaut at p. 461, and in our Longpont manuscript, he makes mention also of a chaplaincy founded there by himself, but does not say in whose favour or honour he did it.

[168] and his heirs confirmed the donation; but it is now extinct. That donation afterward Mary too, Bl. John's daughter, as I have said, and sole heir of her brothers, in the year 1271, and her son Enguerrand of Coucy in the year 1277, in the month of April, confirmed, as may be seen in Machaut at p. 463 and the following, where the charter of each, written in French but not entire, is set out; and in the latter John is expressly called Saint in this manner: "For a taper which shall burn day and night before the burial place of holy John." Likewise other documents of the years 1310 and 1348 Machaut briefly cites there, to prove that the aforesaid yearly revenues were paid for the same end also in the fourteenth century. But at p. 310 he premised that that taper was in his own time, that is in the seventeenth century, no longer lit, which he attributes to intervening wars and to the poverty of the abbey. But that besides it many others too were formerly wont to burn there is proved by those thirteen iron candlesticks which, as I said from him at no. 162, are still seen fixed to the Blessed one's mausoleum.

[169] The veneration of this tomb has been diminished, Yet Machaut confesses in the same place that that custom of tapers at the same, at least at fixed times and out of certain revenues, if ever it flourished, has likewise ceased. It will help to have recited his words in Latin out of the French. "Nor do certain persons," he says, "cease even today to bring tapers of their own devotion to the same burial place, that they may honour God in His Saint. This happens daily according to the measure of benefits which are obtained, or of the necessities which compel them to have recourse to imploring his help. But that great number of candlesticks, made for holding tapers, which fringe the iron bars by which the top of the work is closed, abundantly indicate with how great solemnity these honours were formerly shown him, and, if the times have interrupted that custom, yet they have not so abolished its traces but that enough remain to prove what our ancestors felt in this matter, and which may lead us to imitate them." Thus far he.

[170] after his body was enclosed among the sacred relics: And indeed it is no wonder that that custom of lighting tapers in so great a number at the Blessed one's tomb ceased, after his sacred bones, in which this veneration was shown him, were taken from that same tomb and enclosed among the other relics of Saints in the sacristy of the church. Muldrac in the manuscript Compendium of the Chronicle speaks briefly of this matter thus: "From this sepulchre too his sacred bones and head were raised, and, laid up in caskets, are piously preserved with the relics of the Saints in the said monastery of Longpont from ancient time; as is established from the procès-verbal of the most illustrious and reverend lord Simon le Gras, bishop of Soissons, the 21st of May 1639," of which more below. Consult this Commentary in the two following §§, where I shall recite the whole. But at what time, or upon what occasion, this last raising and depositing in the treasury was made, is not established, the characters of the documents which are believed to have been formerly written about it being corroded or almost obliterated, as the aforesaid bishop of Soissons testified in the procès, and perhaps also other records of the same matter having perished in the disasters of the monastery, which it is read in Muldrac's oft-mentioned manuscript Chronicle that it suffered in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries from the enemies of the kingdom, and in the sixteenth from the Calvinist heretics.

[171] Besides the sacred relics of Bl. John preserved at Longpont, some relics of his were given to others. we learn from the biographer and from Machaut that some are held in honour elsewhere too. The former in the Life at no. 71 writes that already then one bone of his, carried to the village of Voties, shone there with many miracles or benefits through a draught of water in which they had dipped that bone; but the latter, book 4, chapter 5, affirms that other particles of the same sacred body were given to many places, and namely that one is religiously preserved in the monastery of Bl. Mary at Soissons.

§ X. Certain uncertain matters about the process of his canonization, drawn up at the command of Gregory IX: the reform of the monastery of Longpont, and part of the procès-verbal made by the bishop of Soissons for obtaining the Blessed one's yearly festival.

[ ] Pope Gregory IX is said, letters having been given Angelus Manrique in vol. 4 of the Cistercian Annals at the year of Christ 1236, chapter 2, no. 4 and following, asserts that already from this year, which was the nineteenth from Bl. John's death,

steps were taken about placing him among the Saints, with the assent of Pope Gregory IX. "For the instituting," he says, "of Bl. John's feast, since both his no less frequent miracles and the Christian people, and chiefly of France, demanded it, Gregory in the same month of May gave these letters to the bishop of Paris and to the abbot of St. Victor of the same city.

"To the bishop and to the abbot of St. Victor at Paris. God is wonderful in His Saints, that He may wonderfully manifest the might of His power and mercifully work the cause of our salvation; His faithful, whom He always crowns in heaven, He honours also frequently in the world, and at their memorials works signs and prodigies, by which heretical depravity may be confounded and the Catholic faith confirmed.

[173] We therefore render, as great as we can, though not as great as we ought, to the bishop of Paris and the abbot of St. Victor thanks to almighty God, that in our days for the confirmation of the Catholic faith and the confusion of heretical depravity He evidently renews signs and powerfully changes marvels, making those to gleam with miracles who held the Catholic faith both in heart and in mouth and also in work. For, as our beloved son the abbot and the monastery of Longpont, of the Cistercian Order, of the diocese of Soissons, have intimated to us by their letters, the Lord has conferred so great glory upon brother John of Montmirail of pious memory, a monk of the same monastery, that He grants his sepulchre to gleam with so many and so great miracles, that it seems altogether unworthy that his suffrages should not be invoked among the other Saints: wherefore they have humbly besought us that we would cause testimonies to be received concerning the miracles which the Lord works through him.

[174] But since in so holy a business one must not proceed save with maturity and gravity going before, having full confidence in the Lord in your circumspection, to have ordered a process to be drawn up we command your discretion by the Apostolic See that, having called to you religious men who fear God, inquiring most diligently into the virtue of his manners and the truth of the signs, namely his works and miracles, you diligently preserve the depositions of the witnesses received, sealed up under your seals, until you receive upon this the good pleasure of our will. Given at Terni on the fourth of the Kalends of June, in the tenth year." Thus far the letter in Manrique, who noted in the margin that it is Gregory's 93rd letter. But would that he had indicated the collection, whether manuscript or printed, from which it was taken; for neither among that Pontiff's writings published in print here and there by various men do I find it; nor in Machaut and others who have treated of Bl. John's deeds have I read any mention made of this matter.

[175] about the virtues and miracles of Bl. John, Is there perhaps some Collection of the Letters of Pope Gregory IX published in print which has not come into our hands? William Cave makes one doubt, in his Historia litteraria, thirteenth century, p. 494, saying of the same Gregory: "All his Works appeared with the Notes of James Pamelius at Antwerp, 1572." With him agrees Francis Pagi, vol. 3 of the Breviarium Pontificum Romanorum, p. 287, the year of the edition however being omitted. John Albert Fabricius too mentions it in the Bibliotheca Latina mediæ et infimæ ætatis, book 7, under Gregory IX; but only from the review of others, writing thus: "The edition of James Pamelius, who is said to have published the Works of Gregory IX at Antwerp in 1572 with Notes, I do not remember having seen." That same edition certainly neither saw, nor believed ever to have been prepared by Pamelius, John Francis Foppens, graduate canon and penitentiary of the metropolitan church of Mechlin, since in his Bibliotheca Belgica, in whose vol. 1 he reviewed Pamelius's Works, he is deeply silent about the Works of Gregory with added Notes given by him to the press.

[176] and that there exists a process Besides this I consulted a most distinguished man, most versed in the printing trade of Antwerp, who, since he likewise asserted that that Work had never been seen by him, and had become known to him from no source but the writers alleged, I judged that the trouble of inquiring further would be useless. And so I plainly do not know whence and from what codex of what credit Manrique took that letter, in which too that unusual phrase occurs, "We command your discretion by the Apostolic See," whereas both the other Pontiffs and Gregory himself in his letters which I have read published were wont to use, in place of the words per Apostolicam Sedem, these: per Apostolica scripta. However that be, the aforesaid annalist goes on in the same place: "There is extant and is read a Process of the miracles of Bl. John, in which a hundred and more are proved, hearing, tongue, sight and the use of their limbs having been restored to the deaf, the dumb and the blind and the crippled, as soon as they implored the Saint's help. And that he was chiefly wont to give the desired health to those labouring under quartan fever, if they had recourse to him, the long experience of many has shown.

[177] containing more than a hundred miracles; Wherefore, being invoked more frequently for these fevers, he was recorded to have brought more frequent aid to the wretched and a more present power. Yet not for that did he cease from conferring other benefits, who requited any service whatever shown him, even by those who did not ask, by granting health if perchance they had need. I shall report one only, because it is pleasant, and a miracle not far from this time, which I read was wrought at his tomb while the inquiry was being carried on by his delegates at Gregory's command." He then recites the miracle or benefit which the biographer relates in the Life to be published at no. 78. But to me those things — the inquiry into virtues and miracles made at Gregory IX's command, and the process drawn up — are not a little suspect, because of the silence of others. For if the benefit just mentioned happened at the time in which the process was being drawn up, why, I pray, does the anonymous writer to be published — consequently contemporary with the thing done, or at least very near it in age, and who reports that benefit — why, I say, does he not mention even by a word that inquiry made and that process?

[178] The monks of Longpont too must be said to have known nothing of them, but of neither is anything established to me. when in the year 1639 they exhibited to Simon le Gras bishop of Soissons all the records and whatever they had found to pertain to proving John's sanctity and cult, in order to obtain from the Apostolic See a yearly feast and Office of the same Blessed one. The procès-verbal, as they call it, drawn up at that time by the aforesaid most illustrious prelate, I shall presently give; but in it there is no memory of Gregory IX's letter, none of a process formed before that time. There is like silence about them in Machaut and Baillet; like silence likewise in Muldrac in the oft-cited manuscript Compendium of the Chronicle of Longpont; like silence lastly in the anonymous Religious of the same abbey in his manuscript little Commentary, which I have said we have from him. But who would not marvel that a matter of such moment lay hid from all these investigators of Bl. John's affairs, and those for the most part of his own house, and came to the notice of Manrique alone, writing in Spain?

[179] And so, leaving these things to his credit, I pass on to more certain matters, Warnier the Prior restored the ancient observance of the Order namely to the process drawn up in the year 1639 by the most illustrious lord Simon le Gras, having premised some things out of the oft-mentioned Compendium of Muldrac which gave occasion for making it. At the year 1606 he noted the following about Julian Warnier, Religious prior of Longpont (for the abbacy of the place had long since passed to others in commendam, not without great loss). "Julian Warnier, truly beloved of God and men, who, being made prior in 1606, by the inspiring and helping grace of God, the patronage of most blessed Mary and of Bl. John of Montmirail having often been implored with tears, in the year of the Lord 1612, on the feast day of our holy father Bernard, began to restore the regular discipline of the Order, almost fallen at Longpont; to establish as far as he could abstinence from the eating of flesh, and the other like exercises of the Rule of St. Benedict and of the said Cistercian Order, and with his subprior alone, that most upright man Anthony Lahennier, to practise them with fervent mind.

[180] And three novices, Rochus Bovent, Robert Jeuniet and Albin Tellier, in the monastery of Longpont: natives of Crépy, having been admitted to monastic profession, with them both the aforesaid Prior and subprior in the year of the Lord 1614, on the vigil of the feast of the same our Father Bernard, renew again their vows, and promise in mind and by an authentic writing that they will lead their life until death according to the primitive observance of the ancient fathers of the Order. And this indeed, that it might be firmly established, is confirmed by the authority of the very reverend father of blessed memory Denis l'Argentier, abbot of Clairvaux." Before I pursue the rest, I insert a few things here. Their authentic writing, cited by Muldrac, Machaut printed at p. 539 and following. It is in French, but it will help to have rendered some of it into Latin. It begins thus: "To the honour and glory of God, of the most glorious Virgin, Mother of our Redeemer, of St. Benedict, St. Robert, St. Bernard, St. John of Montmirail, and to the salvation of our souls."

[181] being anxious to increase the Blessed one's cult, Then, after their vows made to God, "We beseech also," they say, "the glorious Virgin, Mother of Jesus Christ our Lord, Patroness and Protectress of our Order, lord St. Benedict, our lawgiver, St. Robert, our first founder, St. Bernard, our good father, patron and director, St. John of Montmirail, our father and preserver, … that they deign to intercede with our good God, that He may prosper all these things to His greater glory." I return to Muldrac, who goes on there thus: "Our fathers, hindered at last for the space of twenty-five years by many and those most grievous difficulties for that same observance, yet all of them being overcome, God favouring, and by the special help of the Mother of God and by the support of Bl. John of Montmirail, their labours having been endured, and advancing more and more in the number of their sons and in fervour of mind, not unmindful of the benefits received in so many and so great perils, think of enlarging the cult of the same Bl. John.

[182] ask the bishop of Soissons, They go to the most reverend Simon le Gras bishop of Soissons, they entreat him, they summon him to their monastery of Longpont on the 2nd of May 1639, they receive him solemnly with all honour and courtesy, and procure that a procès-verbal concerning the undoubted testimonies of the singular sanctity of the aforesaid Bl. John be made by the said most reverend bishop, which it has seemed good to insert here at length." There follows the aforesaid process, which Machaut too published from p. 378. "Simon, by divine mercy and by the grace of the holy Apostolic See bishop of Soissons, counsellor of the Most Christian king of the French and of Navarre in his councils, to all who shall inspect these present letters, greeting and grace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

[183] to draw up a procès-verbal, to be sent to Rome. Be it known to all that we, at the instance of the venerable and in Christ most dear Brothers, Marc Lespicier, priest and claustral prior, Robert Dieu priest, Giles Mareschal priest, Charles Bizet priest, Anthony Lahannier priest, Robert Jeuniet priest and porter of the monastery, Bernard Mettecoven priest, Philip Pillier priest, Anthony Muldrac priest and subprior" (this seems to be the very man who was the author of our manuscript Compendium, which I have often cited,

the author), "John Möet priest and cellarer, and John Cheron deacon, Religious, and of the convent of the most blessed Virgin Mary of Longpont, otherwise and in French de Longpont, of the Cistercian Order, of our said diocese of Soissons, having been humbly asked that we would deign to command and ordain that collations be made in writing, and signed by us, of certain original manuscript books, and of other books printed in type, for the purpose of sending them to the Roman curia and to the Apostolic See, with that desire and mind and holy purpose by which they are held, most humbly to beseech and ask the said Apostolic See that there be granted to them every year in their church the feast and memory of blessed John of Montmirail, formerly a professed Religious of the said monastery and abbey, according to the ancient and authentic testimonies which they have of his holy — as it is believed — life and sanctity in their said monastery, both in the writings of the fathers of the said Order and of other authors worthy of credit.

[184] To which holy petition and just intention, as we judged it pious and pleasing to God, He, assenting, comes to the monastery, assenting, we ordained and appointed the removal and coming of our person to the said monastery on Friday, the twentieth of the present month of May of the current year. On which day we came toward evening with ecclesiastical men and a secretary, taken up by us for this part, with the rest of our company, and at the first gate of the said monastery, with the Cross, were kindly and charitably received by the venerable said prior and the other Religious of the said monastery, and led in procession into the church, and, a solemn blessing having been given by us, and an exhortation delivered to the said Religious in the chapter, into which we had been led, we were received into the house and hospice of the said monastery; and on Saturday, the twenty-first of the said month and year, holy Mass having been celebrated by us at the high altar, the said prior, the other Religious of the said monastery assisting, offered and presented to us a certain book, written by hand on parchment, covered with a boarded cover, as we saw and recognized, ancient, the beginning and head of which book is contained in these words in red letters.

[185] 'Here begins the Life of St. Edmund , archbishop of Canterbury.' And below in black letters with capitals: and examines and gathers 'Orators of excellent wit and fertile eloquence used to record the grandsires and forefathers of illustrious men, as often as they prepared to set forth their virtues and merits as an example to the rest,' &c. At the end of the said book and on the last page, on the verso, these words are found: 'To these things Rictiovarus is said to have burst out with a great outcry into this speech: "Most unhappy of all men, do you affirm this man to be God and the Son of God, whom it is agreed was slain by the Jews, and died and was buried? Unless you adore the statue of Jupiter, who stirs the air, rouses the seas, and shakes out the lightnings, you shall not escape my hands. But."' Out of which book, which seems to be a Sanctorale, pertaining to the memory of very many Saints of Christ, containing two hundred and twenty-three leaves and one half, there has been extracted the writing, or extracted copy, which is contained affixed first to this present procès-verbal*, especially from leaf one hundred and thirty, which begins:

[186] 'Prologue to the Life of the humble John, formerly lord of Montmirail and of Oisy.' And below: testimonies 'It was the ancient custom that the victories of noble fighters should be committed to the memory of letters, that posterity, hearing of their victorious acts, cowardice being wholly put to flight and boldness of heart conceived, might be rendered great-souled and strong for fighting'; setting forth the life and deeds of the said John of Montmirail as far as the twenty-first leaf. Which copy indeed we have extracted, transcribed and collated faithfully and exactly according to the said original and from page to page, word for word, and we have found all the said leaves sound, entire, neither suspect nor interpolated with any faults or blots; and we have judged such an original manuscript worthy of belief from the antiquity of its own credit; which manuscript indeed we restored into the hands of the said prior and the other Religious." In a few words I observe that this Life is the same which I shall print, received from the same codex from father Antoine Muldrac.

[187] "On the same day" (so the most illustrious Simon le Gras goes on) "the aforesaid venerable prior and the other Religious, about his sanctity adhering to their aforesaid purpose, exhibited to us a certain book, printed at Paris at the shop of John Germon and John Billaine in the Rue Saint-Jacques at the sign of St. Benedict, in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and thirty-nine, with the king's privilege, whose name is A Martyrology of the Saints of the Order of the divine Benedict, illustrated with two books of Observations, in which are contained the Lives of many Saints never hitherto published, and other notable records of antiquity, by the reverend father dom Hugh Ménard, Benedictine Religious of the Congregation of St. Maur in France; in which book, divided into two parts, which the aforesaid author calls Observations, at the month of September, page seven hundred and four, in the middle of the said page, the aforesaid author begins thus: 'Of Bl. John. Bl. John of Montmirail, sprung from the royal stock of the Franks, a most illustrious prince, left to posterity a great specimen of humility,' &c.; which he continues from the said middle of the page to the end of page seven hundred and eight.

[188] from various manuscripts, Of which pages printed in the said book we have diligently and attentively collated a faithful copy word for word with the original autograph *, sound and entire, not suspect nor corrupted, and have affixed it to these presents as the second series of the said copies, and have restored the said book into the hands of the aforesaid venerable prior and the other Religious of the said monastery. Moreover the aforesaid venerable prior and the other Religious of the said monastery exhibited to us a certain book printed in French in folio, which among us French is called: 'Histoires genealogiques des maisons de Guynes, d'Ardres, de Gand, & de Coucy, & de quelques autres familles illustres, qui y ont été alliées, le tout justifié par chartes de diverses eglises, tiltres, histoires anciennes, & autres bonnes preuves, par André du Chesne Tourangeau, geographe du roy, à Paris chez Sebastien Cramoisy, ruë S. Jacques aux cicognes, mil six cens trente & un, avec privilege du roy.'

[189] and printed books, And on page two hundred and twenty-three, in the chapter which treats of the temporal lords of Montmirail, it runs thus in French: 'Jean seigneur de Montmirel & d'Oisy, qui se rendit religieux à Longpont, avoit une fille entre autres, appellée Marie de Mont-mirel, jointe de parenté aux plus grands du royaume,' &c." Lastly a few things must here be interposed. That genealogical history of the illustrious families of Coucy &c., written by André Du Chesne, I have already often cited, where the family of Bl. John was treated. The words just recited from it here in French mean in Latin: "John, lord of Montmirail and of Oisy, who became a Religious at Longpont, had among other offspring a daughter called Mary of Montmirail, joined by kinship to the chief men of the kingdom." These things being observed, I go on to review the words of the aforesaid bishop. "And the said author, pursuing the history of the said John of Montmirail, adds at page two hundred and twenty-six of his said book, toward the end of the said page, these words in French: 'Apres l'education desquelles leur pere Jean, seigneur de Montmirel, se rendit Religieux en l'abbaye de Longpont prés de Soissons, ou il vescut si pieusement & austerement, qu'enfin il merita d'etre mis au nombre des Saints.'

[190] historians, Receive these same words in Latin out of the French: "After the education of whom their parent John, lord of Montmirail, embraced the Religious state in the abbey of Longpont near Soissons, where he lived so piously and austerely that at length he deserved to be placed in the number of the Saints." The most illustrious le Gras continues there in these words: "From which pages of the said book we have extracted a copy and collated it with its printed original word for word and faithfully, and we found the said original sound, entire, not suspect, nor corrupted in any part, which we restored into the hands of the said prior who tendered it, and of the said Religious. Furthermore the aforesaid venerable prior and the other Religious of the said monastery exhibited the Chronicle of the Cistercian Order, first begun by St. Robert abbot of Molesme, afterward wonderfully increased and propagated by St. Bernard abbot of Clairvaux, by Aubert le Mire of Brussels, licentiate of sacred theology, canon and keeper of the seal at Antwerp, printed at Cologne at the charges of Bernard Gualtherus, in the year one thousand six hundred and fourteen.

[191] Which author indeed in the said Chronicle at page eighty-nine, at number two, has these words: chronicles, 'Bl. John the humble of Montmirail, in French Montmirel, born of a most noble race, flourishes as a monk at Longpont in the diocese of Soissons. There exists in that place his Life fully described by a contemporary.' And at page three hundred and seventeen of the same book, about the said Cistercian Chronicle, at number four, it runs thus: 'In the year one thousand five hundred and twenty-six there was published in print at Paris a Missal of the Cistercian Order, in which there is found toward the end this Catalogue of the Saints and Blessed of the same Order.' In which Catalogue indeed the aforesaid author, at page three hundred and twenty-one of his aforesaid book, at number eight, speaks thus: 'John, formerly lord of Montmirail, a monk at Longpont, whose wondrous acts are read'; and at the last page of his aforesaid book, in the Index and in the number which begins 'Saints and Blessed of the Cistercian Order,' he reviews among the aforesaid Saints and Blessed the aforesaid John in these words: 'Bl. John the humble of Montmirail.'

[192] All which things indeed from the aforesaid pages of the said book we have faithfully reported word for word, Catalogues of Saints reading and collation having been made, and have inserted here: which done, we restored the aforesaid book into the hands of the aforesaid venerable prior and the other Religious. Afterward there was offered to us by the aforesaid prior and Religious a certain book, which is called the Collection of the privileges of the Cistercian Order, printed at Dijon in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and ninety-one, on the fourth of the Nones of July, in ancient type, which they call Gothic; at the end of which, where the enumeration of the Saints of the Cistercian Order is treated, the aforesaid John is found according to the Order of the Saints in this series of words, namely in the twentieth line of the aforesaid enumeration: 'At Longpont John, formerly lord of Montmirail, a monk, whose wondrous acts are read'; which book indeed we restored to the said venerable prior and the other Religious of the said monastery.

[193] Moreover a Missal, drawn up for the use of the sacred Cistercian Order, and Missals. enlarged and revised, printed at Paris at the shop of Jerome de Marnef under the sign of the Pelican, on Mont Saint-Hilaire, in the year one thousand five hundred and six, diligently and carefully turned over, inspected and read by us, has and numbers, in the order and enumeration of the Saints and Blessed of the said Cistercian Order, the aforesaid John under these words: 'John, formerly lord of Montmirail, at Longpont

a monk, whose wondrous acts are read.' Which Missal indeed was restored by us to the said prior and the Religious of the said monastery. A Calendar too of the sacred Cistercian Order, containing the feast days of its chief solemnities according to the order of the months, printed at Dijon at the shop of Claude Guyot, royal printer, in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and seventeen, at the twenty-seventh day of the month of September under the letter D reviews among the Saints and Blessed of the said Order the aforesaid John in this order of words: 'John, a monk at Longpont.' Which Calendar indeed we restored to the aforesaid venerable prior and the other Religious." For the rest see the following §.

Machaut, Labennier*

the same, Jeunier*

elsewhere Emundi*

elsewhere autographo*

§ XI. The other part of the procès-verbal, comprising the tokens of cult: labour spent in vain for his Office and Mass; yet his cult is certain.

[ ] The same bishop visits the Blessed one's tomb, Lest the preceding § should grow too long against our custom, I was compelled to divide the aforesaid process into two parts, of which the former, which I have given, contains the testimonies of writers, but this the sure tokens of cult. And so the aforesaid most illustrious Simon le Gras goes on in the same place thus: "These things being thus done, carefully seen, examined and maturely considered, the aforesaid venerable prior and the other Religious of the said monastery, in the presence of the witnesses below written and subscribed, humbly asked us that we would deign in the presence of the said witnesses to see and behold the tomb or sepulchre in which the body and deposited remains of the aforesaid John the monk were once buried and interred; which we found to have been placed in the church of the said monastery on the right side, or set at the Gospel horn, raised from the ground with a stone tomb, partly white, partly black, beneath whose flat surface lies, in the manner of a sleeping Religious, the figure and image of the said John the monk; and that stone tomb is raised and set upon four columns, in the midst of which columns is represented, lying upon the ground, the image of the aforesaid John the monk under the figure of an armed knight, lying and sleeping.

[195] and testifies that beside it there are read on a tablet antiphons Around that tomb and beside its edges round about are inscribed these words in gilded capital letters:

At Longpont of his own will he chose to submit himself To the service of Christ — he who lies beneath this stone, Whose ashes are there, once the heir of Montmirail; By the right of God, grace is his name (that is, John). Thanks be to Christ, who has adorned us in him. Amen.

After the word Amen indeed there are these words inscribed:

Hail Mary, full of grace.

Which words, a sign of the Cross being interposed and impressed, are joined round about to the beginning of the words In Longo-ponte. At the part of the said sepulchre outside the choir toward the Northern side we found a tablet hanging, on which we read what follows. 'At the Magnificat, Antiphon. John rises into joy, entering the gate of the heavenly paradise, who, hearing the supreme Teacher, humbly preserved the honour of all. At the Benedictus, Antiphon. Glorious soldier of Christ, O most holy John, by your loving intervention wash away our faults, that we may be able to ascend to the seat of the heavenly kingdom. ℣. Pray for us, blessed John. ℞. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.'

[196] 'Prayer. O God, who didst will to call blessed John Thy soldier from the prison-house of temporal warfare to the everlasting pay of the heavenly court, and a prayer, and that votive offerings, &c., are to be seen grant to us Thy servants that by his merits and intercession, running without offence by the way of justice to Thee, who art the reward and the felicity of the Blessed, we may be able to attain unto Thee, who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.' Toward the aforesaid tomb and sepulchre, and on the right side outside the choir of the said church, we saw certain votive offerings and certain effigies and likenesses of human parts, namely of legs, feet, a human head, and iron fetters, which seem to set forth the memory of invocation formerly made to the aforesaid John for help and relief in diseases and infirmities. There lies also at the lowest parts of the said sepulchre outside the enclosure of the choir a wooden chest, very ancient, bound with iron, fixed by nails to the wall, which seems to have been placed there for receiving the gifts and charitable alms of the faithful who pray.

[197] Hence we removed ourselves, in the presence of the witnesses named and subscribed below, He visited likewise the bones and the head, enclosed in separate caskets to the sacrarium or sacristy of the said monastery, in which the relics and images of Saints are piously preserved in a cupboard made for that purpose, religiously and piously adorned; out of which cupboard the aforesaid prior and the Religious of the aforesaid monastery drew forth a long wooden casket, and set it before us to be looked upon; which being opened, we saw many bones and in great number, which were declared to us by men skilled in surgery and in anatomical description to be human; and the said Religious reported to us that they had heard from the ancient tradition of their fathers and predecessors, from all memory of time, which passes even beyond many centuries, and had retained, that they are the bones of the aforesaid John the monk, and are preserved in the aforesaid monastery, to this time, from when they were raised from the sepulchre and tomb, for the pious and holy memory of the aforesaid John, with his head enclosed and laid up in another wooden casket, adorned round about with certain images and gilded paintings skilfully made and painted.

[198] We saw also in the said wooden casket which contains the aforesaid bones certain parchment charters, with parchment documents, scarcely legible: exceedingly ancient, if it be lawful so to speak, on which certain forms of letters are still seen and read, although the text and series of the discourse, by reason of their too great antiquity which has blotted out the tracing of the letters, can scarcely be gathered. It is however most easily inferred by prudent, circumspect and lettered men that those parchment letters were formerly drawn up as a title and memorial of the raising of those bones and of the aforesaid head from the tomb, and of the depositing of the same in the said caskets, for the preserving and piously retaining of the aforesaid bones and of the said head. For we beheld and handled with our hands many silken cords still remaining, to each of which are appended and inserted seals and arms, either ecclesiastical or armorial, of noble and illustrious men, and chiefly of most holy archbishops and bishops, who could at that time have shown their presence and piety at the raising from the tomb of the aforesaid bones and of the said head, and at the depositing of the same in the said caskets — preserved through the injuries of the ages, of tumults and of wars, by the utmost care for many centuries and by the diligent piety of the abbots and Religious of the said monastery.

[199] about all which he gave written testimony: All which things indeed we testify that we have read both in writings, collated both in books, seen with our eyes, and handled with our hands, and of all these we make faith, together with the witnesses below written, subscribed, named, called and asked; namely dom brother Firmin Pingré, Religious of St. Denis in France, expressly professed of the Order of St. Benedict, prior of St. John at Blois of the diocese of Chartres; master Peter Morlière, priest of the diocese of Beauvais, prebendary canon of our cathedral church of Soissons; the noble man Anthony le Grain, royal counsellor and assessor at Soissons in the royal presidial seat; the noble man Stephen Pottier, lord of the temporal fief of Abancourt, citizen of Soissons and dwelling there; the noble man Paul de Lalain, royal counsellor * at Soissons; Anthony Oultrebon, practising the art of surgery at Soissons (Machaut here has: Outrebon, skilled in the art of surgery); together with master Isaac Moilin, priest, bachelor in canon law, apostolic notary, chaplain of our church of Soissons, taken up by us in this part for secretary. On Saturday, the twenty-first of the month of May, in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and thirty-nine, in the said monastery of the blessed Virgin Mary of Longpont of the Cistercian Order, of our diocese of Soissons.

Simon, bishop of Soissons.

Pingré. P. Morlière. Le Grain. De Lalain. Pottier. Oultrebon. Moilin, taken up for secretary.

[200] He made also another document Presently there follows another document, drawn up by the same bishop in the same year as a supplement to the foregoing, of which it is a kind of appendix, which runs thus. "In the same year (namely 1639), on the fifteenth day of July, the above-named Religious, the prior and convent of the aforesaid monastery of Longpont, by the hands of their prior, laid before us at our episcopal palace of Soissons parchment charters written in most ancient characters, containing certain testimonies, both in Latin and in French words, by which it may be established that many ages ago the aforesaid John of Montmirail lived and died in the fame of sanctity among our people of France and in our said diocese, and also in the aforesaid monastery; of which parchment charters a copy affixed to these presents was made by us, bishop of Soissons, word for word, faithfully and exactly, with its original.

[201] about other testimonies of his sanctity afterward found. And we make faith that we have read, seen and handled with our hands the aforesaid original in the presence of the aforesaid witnesses, called and asked to these things, and subscribed below with us together with the said Moilin, taken up by us in this part for secretary. Which done, we restored the aforesaid parchment charters into the hands of the aforesaid prior who presented them, in the year, day and month aforesaid, namely in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and thirty-nine.

Simon, bishop of Soissons.

Pingré. P. Morlière. Le Grain. De Lalain. Pottier. Oultrebon.

And below: By the command of the most reverend lord, the lord bishop of Soissons.

Moilin, taken up for secretary."

[202] Thus far the documents, about which Muldrac at the end of the manuscript Compendium of the Life of the same Bl. John noted these few things: Labour was spent for his Office and Mass "Most recently the most reverend Simon le Gras, bishop of Soissons, drew up a procès-verbal and authentic instrument of the undoubted testimonies of his sanctity, to be sent to the Roman curia, for the sake of obtaining leave to celebrate a feast of him; and this concession is hoped for from Alexander VII, now presiding over the Church, by the intervention of the most pious and most august Anne of Austria, queen of the French, mother of king Louis XIV." From these things gather that if, in the time which elapsed between the year 1639, in which the process was drawn up, and the year 1655, in which Alexander VII began to sit — if in that time, I say, labour was spent with the Apostolic See for obtaining an ecclesiastical Office of Bl. John, nothing was obtained from Urban VIII, nor from Innocent X, who succeeded him in the Pontificate in the year 1644. The same seems to be said of Alexander VII and the other succeeding Pontiffs. Certainly Baillet, who toward the end of the seventeenth century published the Lives of the Saints in the French tongue, knew nothing of any leave obtained of reciting an Office of him, when he wrote thus about his cult.

[203] "His body was buried in the cemetery of Longpont, to be obtained from the Apostolic See; but nothing was obtained: where God is said to have manifested his sanctity and blessedness by various signs. Which afterward moved the abbot and the Religious

to carry it first from the cemetery into the cloister, and thence into the choir of the church near the high altar. But afterward it was translated into the sacristy, where it is honoured with the other sacred relics, although in the choir his monument is still seen, in which he is set forth with a twofold figure, namely in arms and in the Religious habit. We do not know that anything besides has been done for his canonization; but the people are not forbidden to honour him as a Saint, and publicly to call upon his intercession with God. Nay, he has obtained a certain religious cult in the Cistercian Order, as appears from the Missals and other liturgical books composed for the use of that Order. Simon le Gras, who under Louis XIII held the bishopric of Soissons, made a procès-verbal concerning all the documents and other proofs which were had of the sanctity of Bl. John of Montmirail, and also concerning the constant opinion which has been preserved about it among the faithful.

[204] The Cistercian Menology, the Benedictine and the Gallican Martyrology record his feast on the 29th day of September; yet his ancient cult is certain; the first two with the title of Blessed; the last under the name of John the Humble; but very negligently, so that the history of Bl. John of Montmirail seems to have been unknown to its author." Thus Baillet; which words, as they indicate that Bl. John's cult persevered in his time, so they sufficiently intimate that even at that time no ecclesiastical Office of him was wont to be read: for what he says about the Missals and other liturgical books of the Cistercian Order seems to be understood not of a Mass or Office, but of John's name inscribed in the Catalogue of the Saints and Blessed of that Order, as the most illustrious le Gras testified above that he read it inscribed in them. A little younger than Baillet was Castellan, who published his Universal Martyrology some years after the eighteenth century began, and yet he called him only by the title of Venerable; namely because he was celebrated with no Office and Mass. Whether these were afterward obtained I have not found; but the things which I have so far brought forward about the ancient and continued cult of Bl. John of Montmirail prove that a place in our Work is due to him.

[205] whose other records probably perished in the disasters of Longpont. For the rest, that you may the less wonder that no more records exist about the Blessed one's ancient and continued cult, I add here a few things about the disasters of the abbey of Longpont, to which it must doubtless be ascribed. Muldrac in the manuscript Compendium of the Chronicle at the year 1355 has this: "In the time of the said abbot Thomas, about the year 1355, all the goods of Longpont, almost destroyed, perished in the devastations of the English; some granges" (that is, country farms) "were burned, others depopulated, the rest deserted. A hundred and forty men, monks as well as lay brothers, then serving the Lord there, were dispersed through the houses of the Order, only thirty being left, who, scarcely having sufficient bread, were compelled by the greatness of their want to sell eighteen chalices, three exquisite crosses and other like things with their silver furniture," &c. Again at the year 1414 he says: "In the time of the said Nicholas (abbot), on the 22nd of April, Peter of Tours, a knight, called de Menou, occupying Soissons for the enemies of the kingdom of France, thronged with many impious soldiers, attacks Longpont, drives the monks from the church, steals and lays waste everything, having plundered both the ornaments of the church and sacristy and those of the convent… As is established from an ancient manuscript of the library."

[206] Lastly at the year 1567: "About 1567, the city of Soissons having been taken and cruelly occupied by the heretics, Longpont is invaded by them, laid waste, overthrown, the relics of the high altar (as is related) are impiously burned upon its steps, the head, nose and hands are cut from the images, the seats of the chapel of the Bl. Virgin and other things are set on fire, the monks, twenty-six in number, avoiding the heretical savagery, flee to Ferté-Milon" (a town of France in Valois), "as appears from an ancient manuscript of the library of the said monastery and from the tradition of our elders." Certainly it would be no wonder if in disasters of this sort of the monastery of Longpont many tokens of Bl. John's ancient cult had perished. Now I subjoin the Life hitherto unpublished.

elsewhere it adds: & antigrapha*

LIFE

By an anonymous contemporary monk of Longpont.

From the autograph manuscript of Longpont.

John of Montmirail, of the Cistercian Order, in the monastery of Longpont in France. (B.)

BHL Number: 4415

BY A CONTEMPORARY MONK.

PROLOGUE.

The author, bidden by his superior to write the Life, It was the ancient custom that the victories of noble fighters should be committed to the memory of letters, that posterity, hearing of their victorious acts, cowardice being wholly put to flight and boldness of heart conceived, might be rendered great-souled and strong for fighting. Which has been set down first for this reason, that we too, after long delay in refusing, at length overcome by the prayers of very many of our fellows, and chiefly yielding to the command of him to whom our monastic profession binds us by the bonds of obedience ^a; we, I say, although we lack skill of speech and of learning, yet, being about to describe, with God's help, the Life and miracles of that most famous prince John of Montmirail, might usefully have said very many things about his secular soldiering and the greatness of his deeds and the abundance of his battles, right worthy of perpetual memory and recital.

[2] But since this can in no wise be set forth in few words, promises a few of his pious deeds, others being omitted. all those things which pertain to earthly and secular dignity being passed over in silence, we shall take care to explain, in simple and pure speech, not subtle or polished, only a few things concerning the spiritual virtues of this glorious Man and devout Servant of God, such as pertain to the common edification of all and are able to arouse the devotion of simple hearers ^b. It is indeed marvellous and hard to tell how that illustrious Man was accustomed powerfully to war down the adversaries of the kingdom of the Franks, triumphing gloriously; but far more gloriously must it be committed to memory how, directing the javelins of the virtues against the powers of the air, with God's power aiding, and using spiritual arms, he knew how manfully to subdue them to himself. Passing over therefore the rest, let us set our pen to relating some part of his religious acts.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

Born of an illustrious stock, he delights in arms and magnificence: turned to better things, he founds a hospice, in which he himself ministers: deliberating about a more perfect life, he resolves to enter the Cistercian Order.

[ ] John, a noble man, warlike and liberal, That admirable prince John of Montmirail ^a therefore, being gloriously exalted in the whole kingdom of France ^b by reason of the probity of his mind and body, and also by the royal nobility of his race, and being still a most fervent lover of arms, bore himself liberally in the distribution of his goods after the manner of the nobles of this world. For after he had taken the habit of religion, being secretly asked by a certain familiar of his whether he had ever spent a thousand pounds on a single tournament ^c, repenting with exceeding anxiety of heart he acknowledged it, saying: "It is certain that it happened to me, a sinner, as you say. I, a man living prodigally, was an extravagant squanderer of an infinite substance." But since like acts of his liberality, if they were recited one by one, would need a proper and very great volume, and since it is not expedient for cloistered men to dwell in meditation upon such things, we have resolved to pass on to other matters, noting first in the beginning of our narration how he left secular soldiering.

[4] being wholesomely admonished by a pious Canon Regular, Yet this we have judged should be premised about his worldly manner of life, that they who are to read the praiseworthy deeds of his humility and of his other virtues written below, calling these first things to memory, may render with due praises manifold thanksgivings to the divine clemency, which is wont thus to break the tall cedars, that is, wholesomely to humble the wrongly-lifted-up hearts of men. John therefore, when, his enemies being subdued, he was returning home in triumph, a certain Canon Regular, a very religious man ^d, had been wont to come to meet him, not with flattering or favourable praise, as the daughter of Jephthah is read to have met her father returning from battle ^e; but rather exasperating him and rebuking him, and speaking thus: "What gain, I pray, have you brought back with you from the tournament?" And rightly comparing empty glory to wind, "O what a shrewd merchant," said he, "who with such great expenses and fruitless labours — and not, I reckon, without the suffering of blows — purchases with care and diligent zeal nothing else but wind!"

[5] laying aside his former pride, he embraces the pursuit of the virtues. By these and like saving admonitions he strove to recall the aforesaid Prince from the vanity of the world. And when he had passed the times of his youth in warlike deeds, and was still thought to be bound by an indissoluble bond of love to the passing world, receiving with a humble and devout ear the pious exhortation of his spiritual physician, he began little by little in a wonderful manner to withdraw himself from his former manner of life, and, descending from worldly height into contempt of himself, by the steps of humility he came down from virtue to virtue, until he should deserve to contemplate the God of gods in Sion ^f. Purposing therefore, as a Soldier of Christ, to sow the example of his religion in all the land of his lordship, first indeed, like briars and thorns and harmful and useless thistles, that praiseworthy husbandman prudently strove to root out the synagogue of the Jews living under his power.

[6] He expels the Jews, erects a hospice, The Jews therefore being called from every part and set in his presence, when the time of reaping the crops was at hand, he offered to each of them three coins and a sickle in his hand, and thus compelling them to depart, he cleansed his borders for ever of their detestable manner of life ^g. He ordered besides that it be proclaimed round about by the voice of a herald that whosoever were bound to the Jews by debts of usury should be held absolved and free in every way ^h. When therefore the servant of God John, all the pride of secular soldiering being laid aside, had resolved in his mind to serve God alone, at Montmirail, his own castle, he caused a certain house to be swiftly built at his own charge, that the poor and strangers and pilgrims might be lodged in it, and that the sick might there be ministered to; revenues being assigned from which the poor might be sustained ⁱ. But it must be known that in that same house, as we desire to show below, he applied himself to works of piety and mercy, as if he had resolved to build it solely for this cause.

[7] in which he himself serving, For as often as it happened that the bodies of the dead were there, when they had to be carried to the place of burial, he was for this very thing the first and chief helper, and diligently observing the time at which it was to be done, the Servant of God showed himself ready to carry them. Further, if bodies of lesser weight and size were there, so that he could suffice alone in carrying them without another's help, permitting himself to be aided by no one, he carried them most devoutly by himself. Thus, thus the glorious Soldier of Christ, in place of the shield which he had once been wont to bear in the warfare of the world, the order being happily changed, in Christ's novitiate by no means blushed to become a bearer of corpses;

and, like a second Tobias, he expended a diligent skill of care in burying them. Moreover he carried the sick upon his own shoulders to what they needed, and in all things zealously ministered to them with a most loving affection.

[8] In the aforesaid house too a certain very poor woman was grievously sick. he kisses a foul ulcer; he takes in For from her breast * corruption with an exceeding stench continually ran; and the Man of God, seeing her wretchedly afflicted, had compassion on her distress, and, humbling himself, began upon bended knee to kiss that sore, so deformed that the rest could not look upon it without horror, upon the place where the corruption ran down, so that his lips were seen unseemly befouled by that corruption. Another woman too lay in the same house, who laboured under a most grievous disease. For from her side an abominable stench, intolerable to all, ran down without intermission: for which cause, lying in a secret place, she had been separated from the fellowship of the others. For so great was the stench of her side that it caused excessive trouble to all who drew near.

[9] And when the Servant of God had entered her dwelling, the intolerable stench into his own nostrils as victor, and could not endure so great a stench for long, he straightway went out: and, to speak in his own words, he said thus: "The intolerable stench has taken away my heart." And when a certain woman heard him *, the manageress of the sick and of the house, who for her religion was held very familiar with him, she began as it were to reproach and rebuke him for what he had said, speaking thus: "O what a knight, how upright, how spirited, overcome in a moment by that stench!" And she added: "It is your sins," said she, "that stink to you." But he, smiling a little, said: "Rightly you accuse me: for I cannot at all deny that I am faint-hearted." And without delay, reproving and rebuking himself, and indignant at himself, he returns to the place whence a little before he had gone out. And leaning his head down beside the sick woman's side, and covering the space which was between himself and her side, namely lest the stench issuing forth should be scattered through the air, but that he might receive it wholly into his own nostrils; and there he remained a very long time ^k.

[10] The aforesaid woman, coming to him, who before had called him faint-hearted, and he strives to master himself in all things. on the contrary began most harshly to reprove him, because he had been so cruel in applying his nostrils so long to so great a stench. To whom the holy Man answered: "Know, most beloved of me in Christ, that I am now sweetly delighted with that stench as with the odours of spices." And again, "You spoke truly," he said: "it was indeed my sins that stank." Moreover at all the time in which he stayed at Montmirail in the aforesaid house of the poor, as often as was needful, he had his head washed by that same woman who, being appointed to this office, was accustomed to cleanse the heads of the sick and the filth of the ailing; for he would by no means have permitted it to be done by another; and he had himself served in all things with the same comb with which the poor and the scabby sick were combed *, and with the same utensils which had been assigned to their uses.

[11] An image of the Bl. Virgin Mary turns toward him as he prays, At the same time, while the Servant of God was travelling in the territory of Cambrai ^l with a great company of his knights, it happened that he passed through a certain place where an image of the most blessed Virgin was set beside the road itself; but the Man of God, intent on other things, did not fully notice what this was. But when he had already gone some distance, he began to think within himself what he had seen a little before: and, recognizing that he had passed before an image of the glorious Virgin Mary, having no remembrance of her and showing her no reverence, and had left her unsaluted, he was greatly saddened; and straightway he leapt down to the ground from the horse on which he sat, and, that by a worthy satisfaction he might wash away the guilt of his negligence, returned on foot to the same. And when he had stood by the side of the image, he fell upon the ground, bending his knee in the very roadway, and there with great compunction and anxious affection of heart begged pardon. And behold, by a divine nod the face of the image was turned toward him, as though the glorious Virgin wished by an evident sign to show that she had assented to the prayers of him who besought her. This too many who were present deserved plainly to behold: but he, as though nothing at all of such a miracle had happened, rising from the place of prayer, hastened to return to the troop which awaited his coming back.

[12] He himself carries a poor woman in childbed to the hospice. Nor must that be omitted which John, worthy of God, did once at Montmirail ^m. When in that castle a poor little woman had borne an infant, and had no substance whereby she could be sustained in her own house, someone announced this very thing to the Man of God. Hearing which, he goes in haste to the woman's house. And when at his command that woman had been carried from the bed in which she lay into a vessel which is commonly called a basket, he carried her on his own shoulders to the aforesaid hospice of the poor — not indeed by night, but openly by day, the people looking on — that she might be ministered to as such a necessity required.

[13] His purpose of fighting against the Albigenses being given up, Therefore, when worldly business had already begun to be wearisome to the Servant of God, he turned over in his mind what he ought to do; and it seemed to him that he ought to set out into the land of the Albigenses to fight for Christ ⁿ. But wishing to carry very much silver with him, whereby he might more copiously relieve on the journey itself the want of the needy, he set out into the province of Cambrai, where he was to exchange a certain part of his woods for the price of seven thousand pounds. Further, when the buyers of the woods sought the assent of his wife ^o, she, refusing in every way to acquiesce, stood in the way that the said sale might not be made. Meanwhile a certain one of the servants of the Man of God, by whose relation we learned these things, who clave to him rather familiarly in his holy purpose, addresses him with these words. "My lord," says he, "if it seem right to you that you hearken to me, give up the purpose of this pilgrimage which you plan to make [p]: for on your return your mind would be held no less entangled in the occupations of the world than at the present day."

[14] about the state of life to be embraced To whom the holy Man answered: "What then will you judge better for us to do, or what kind of life do you decide by your own judgment should rather be chosen?" "If it does not displease your will," said he, "let us both seek the solitude of the desert, that we may be safely hidden from the tumult of men and the contradiction of tongues. Have me too as an inseparable companion and a faithful servant with you." To which the Saint: "Blessed are you, most dear one, and blessed is the speech of your mouth; because it is precious. Go therefore and diligently inquire whether you can find any holy hermits; if anywhere they may know a fitting place where we may dwell together more secretly and conveniently. Then be careful to report to us their answer, and whatever you shall find." And he straightway, taking with him what was needful for the journey, came as far as the diocese of Liège [q], and, having heard the fame of a certain solitary most famous for sanctity, without delay turned aside to him; and, a greeting having gone before, forthwith declared to him the cause of his coming.

[15] "By the lord of Montmirail," said he, "whose mind the Lord has lately deigned to inspire with His grace, he bids hermits be consulted by a faithful servant, I have been sent hither to you. I beseech therefore your holiness that to him, who desires to lead the solitary life, you would give sound and faithful counsel, as by longer experience you have better learned the order of this life." Hearing which, that man began to dissuade him, saying that it would be altogether unsuitable for him to seek the eremitic manner of life, which without doubt he would shortly repent of having chosen. And he said: "The Lord Jesus knows how great and how difficult troubles I and hermits like me frequently suffer from the malignant spirits; and struck by their frequent javelins we are sometimes even grievously wounded; and that threatening sentence too in which it is said, 'Woe to him that is alone, for if he fall, he has none to lift him up' — how true it is, we are very often taught by experience in ourselves. Whence if your Lord be willing to give me his assent, he will swiftly enter the Order of Cîteaux, to be preferred to the rest for the merit of its sanctity: for I confess that I know no straighter or safer way by which one may come to heaven.

[16] I dare to say besides, that if he consult the theologians of Paris and any diligent men whatever upon this, and himself consults doctors of theology; he will truly find that they by no means think the contrary, but that all alike agree in this opinion." Having heard these things, the messenger bade him farewell and departed. Yet the servant of God, wishing to be made more certain in his business, likewise addressed very many, of whom there is a plenty in those parts: who all in no way differed from the counsel of the first. But at last he returned to his Lord, to whom he reported in order all that had been said. And he added that he ought also to seek answers from the doctors of theology. When that holy and most fervent Lover of God had heard these things, desiring nothing more than to serve the Lord, without delay he took his way to go to Paris [r]; whom in his footsteps a copious throng of his knights and of a great household followed. And when he had entered the city of Paris, a very great assembly of skilled theologians having been gathered into one, first indeed he addressed to them words of greeting. But they, rejoicing greatly at the coming of so great a Prince, received him honourably with cheerfulness.

[17] After he had addressed them in familiar converse, who all persuade him, he said to them: "It is fitting, my lords, that our presence should turn to your advantage; we grant you therefore for the common expense of tomorrow the blessing of thirty pounds." And when they gave thanks, "Now," said he, "it remains that we lay open the secrets of our heart to your discretion, asking that first this be done, that from your company ten be chosen who seem to excel the rest in learning and religion." And it was so done. To whom again he said: "Of you also, who are ten in number, let three nevertheless be set apart together, excelling all, as has been said, in manners and in knowledge." Which done, leading those three most famous doctors apart from the others, he fell at their feet, beseeching them with humble supplication and saying: "O venerable men, I am a contemptible man and very wretched: for I have hitherto been devoid of all justice, and have never ceased from committing evils. Nevertheless, since I now at last desire in some small measure to return by the narrow way of penance to the heavenly country, from which by the committing of many crimes I have rashly strayed, I ask you the more urgently that, according to the doctrine of wisdom which you have received from God, you would be careful to teach me the most right path of whatever manner of life."

[18] to follow the Cistercian institute; which he also resolves to do. To this they, thinking a little within themselves, unanimously and as with one mouth gave answers to the Servant of God, saying: "We can teach you no better path at all by which anyone may be directed and led to the kingdoms of paradise than the Order of Cîteaux; if however so great a power of divine grace has been conferred on you that with perseverance

you be willing and able to endure its harshness for the Lord." "Now," said he, "let those seven doctors who were present a little before be brought in, that we may know whether they too think the same or otherwise." And when they had been brought in and questioned upon this, they were in nothing contrary to one another; but the opinion of all was one, saying in all things the same as those first three had spoken. Which the Servant of God having heard with intent mind, from that day resolved that he would enter the Order of Cîteaux; which he by no means delayed to do; but before we begin to say how this was done, we must return to relate some of his deeds, performed by him while he dwelt in the world in body, not in mind, which still remain to be told.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. The word propositum, which was wanting in the copy which I publish, I have supplied from the other Longpont transcript. Further, it is most likely that this is that servant who below at no. 46 is called Amand, and is said to have lived as a monk with the Blessed one himself at Longpont. Muldrac too in the oft-mentioned Compendium of the Chronicle, in the words given at no. 120 in the Commentary, writes that Amand, in whose service he was, put on the monastic garb there together with the Blessed one.

q. Commonly known is the bishopric and principality of Liège, whose metropolis is Leodium, otherwise Legia, to the natives Liège, in Belgium, but numbered in the Westphalian circle, whence it is by others placed in Germany.

r. That is, to Paris, the head of the French kingdom.

elsewhere autem*

elsewhere vidisset*

that is, pectebantur*

CHAPTER II.

His marvellous charity toward lepers and the poor: the austerity and piety of his life: his contempt of empty glory: his imprudence divinely rebuked: his warlike deeds before his conversion.

[ ] To lepers who met him he gives alms with a kiss of their hands, At a certain time therefore the venerable Servant of God, not yet having taken the habit of religion, was staying at his castle whose name is Oisy ^a with a copious multitude of his knights; and when from that castle, having with him the company of those horsemen, he was hastening to Aclimont ^b, to transact there the business of a certain suit, there met him on the road, beside the village which is called Sancy, twenty-five lepers. Who, when they knew that he was at hand, rejoicing greatly, began to beg the benefits of his alms. But he, straightway leaping down from the horse on which he sat, hastened, and, money having been received from his attendant who followed him, while all his company stood back — for they feared to come nearer because of the stench of the lepers — the Servant of God, glowing with the fire of divine love, most fervently thrust himself into the midst of the lepers. Then indeed, distributing to each the gift of five shillings, with bending of the knees and a most devout affection of heart he kissed the hands of each. But when the Man of God had gone a little way from that place, he met a leper; who was of that company to which a little before he had brought help by the bestowal of his gifts.

[20] and to another he gives even his own garment: For he, unable through weakness of body to follow the steps of those who went before, was awaiting there the coming of the Servant of God, hoping that he would receive something from him. And so the leper, perceiving that he whom he was awaiting was at hand, began to beseech him that by bestowing his alms he would deign to relieve his misery. But the Saint, having nothing of gold or silver about him (for he had distributed all his money to the needy), is said to have given the leper an answer of this kind: "I ask you," said he, "that you yourself bestow upon me your tunic." Hearing which not without wonder, the leper dared not refuse the Man of God what he asked, and held out his garment to him without delay. Which being received, the holy Man, putting off his own tunic, that he might not be detected by anyone, hastened to clothe the leper with it. Then also he clothed himself again with that same garment which he had before received from him; doing this nonetheless cautiously, namely that the thing done might lie hid and remain unknown to all. In which deed I should call that Man not undeservedly like to St. Martin; unless perhaps, if it be lawful to say so, his work was more praiseworthy. For he is known, stripped of his own tunic in winter time, to have offered the leper the whole of it, no part being restored to him; whereas blessed Martin, dividing part of his cloak to the needy, is read to have kept the other part for himself ^c.

[21] then amid business he is refreshed by a heavenly vision. But the Servant of God, coming to the place whither he was going, from morning to evening saw and heard in his presence those who were there wrangling with many outcries about secular business, where each defended his own side as best he could. But the holy Man, intent on other things, understood nothing at all of all that was said. And when some answer was sought of him, he nodded to his provost to speak for him; which he also did, when it was opportune. But being afterward asked why he had given no answer that day to those who asked, he acknowledged it, saying that his whole attention was turned to gazing upon a certain face which he saw in the air, in whose vision he was filled with so great a sweetness that no man's tongue could in any wise have expressed it. But after he had been refreshed with so great a delight, on that very following night, forsaking the tumult of his household, content with one companion only, he set out to a neighbouring house of religion *, and, that he might more freely give himself to God alone and gather the fruits of contemplation, lodged there.

[22] In the town of Provins ^d a certain leper was sustained by the alms of the people, He visits another leper, and ministers to him and gives to him. so deformed and steeped in so abominable a contagion of leprosy that no one could look upon him save with exceeding horror. When his fame, which was spread everywhere, had come to God's servant John, it entered his mind to visit the leper. Without delay, taking a journey long enough, he came at last to him; and entering his little cell, he greeted him, and, kissing him too upon bended knee, he did not neglect to follow his former custom. Staying with him also for the space of one day, devout and humble he ministered to him: but as he was about to depart thence, he bestowed gifts, supplying out of his abundance the want of the needy one. Moreover he consoled him, saying that he ought greatly to glory in this, that, being scourged by the Lord with this stripe, he deserved, as Solomon witnesses, to be counted in the number of the sons of God.

[23] But when on a certain day he was in like manner going about the holy places, He desires to be despised for Christ: he has the poor as his table companions, a copious troop of knights ^e who were of the same Saint's kindred met him; who, seeing him walking in a rather despised fashion, all reprove him, saying: "My lord," say they, "since you are the head of our whole lineage, and hold in all things among us the pre-eminence of rank, you do what is not becoming. For from this contemptible manner of life of yours a vast disgrace and no small confusion is bred for us who are of your stock." To whom the holy Man answering said: "Would that, O kinsmen, by the way of any disgrace whatsoever I might be able to come to the Lord Jesus!" At a certain time in his town which is named Crèvecœur ^f he was dining with a very great multitude of knights, and after his accustomed manner had many poor men likewise dining before him.

[24] And when they had been satisfied, there was present a certain blind man, one of whom, whose eyes he had once ordered to be torn out for his crimes, with manifold thanksgiving praising and blessing

God, and saying: "May you deserve to receive the blessing of the highest King, venerable John, who have now satisfied us with your goods: for many good things, which I could scarcely suffice to recount, have come to me through you." Hearing which, a certain man of the household began to ask him how so great goods had come to him through his Lord. To whom the blind man answering said: "When I was a robber, a malefactor, an adulterer and a sacrilegious man, and befouled with the stain of many other crimes, and was resolving with myself to commit far greater crimes, my eyes, which had been my leaders to those evils which I had committed and was still planning to perpetrate, that most just judge, your lord the blessed servant of God * John, tore out for me; and thus, snatching my soul, as I most certainly know, from the ways of hell, he freed me from perpetual death."

[25] humbly asks pardon of him. These things being said, without delay the servant who had heard them reported all in order to his Lord. When the Servant of God had heard these things not without anxiety of heart, rising from the table with such haste that all who were present wondered, he prostrated himself before the blind man, and with tears and compunction of heart asked pardon. To whom the blind man said: "My lord, you ask pardon without cause: for know that by such a deed I am bound to you by a far greater debt than you to me. For if you had spared me, I should now be very dry, condemned to the gallows." For which answer of the blind man the Servant of God was consoled and edified not a little, and relieved his want with copious gifts. But this we say at present, although by reason of his humble satisfaction it may seem to pertain to this Saint's praise, yet we have thought it should be inserted into this little Work, that men, considering John made as it were a Paul out of a Saul, and wine out of water, may be roused to praise and glorify God, who, showing Himself wonderful in His Saints, is known to have been the most loving worker of this change ^g.

[26] He was accustomed to lay the poor in his own bed. Therefore the Servant of God, as we have said before, never suffered the poor to be lacking at his feasts, and loved far more to dwell with them than the companies of the rich. And such was his custom, that when his whole household and all his knights had gone to sleep, he himself called the poor; and laying them too in his own bed, mercifully afforded them the rest of sleep. But he nonetheless lay upon the ground, and, content with such a bed, so remained the whole night. But when on a certain night he was staying in the aforesaid castle of Crèvecœur, and the excessive multitude of horsemen who were present did not allow him after his accustomed manner to grant the poor rest in his own chamber, a certain poor little boy, complaining in his stammering way as best he could, spoke thus to one of the knights and to Marie de Goigneliu ^h: "Certainly we would rather, my lord, that you and all your companions were staying elsewhere: for your presence is very troublesome to us."

[27] and himself to sleep on the ground: he sits on a leper's horse. And when the knight asked him for what cause they suffered trouble from their presence, the boy answered: "If you were not present, this night we should have slept sweetly in the bed of your lord John, as we were wont to do yesterday and the day before." The knight asking again where the Lord himself slept, the boy said: "On the ground before his bed he is wont to sleep every night." And in truth, even when the poor had not occupied his bed, he slept, as all his household testify, on the bare ground ⁱ. Another time, when the Servant of God was taking a journey, he met a leper riding upon a horse, a small one indeed and despicable; but having nothing of gold or silver at hand which he might bestow on him, he grieved vehemently. Nevertheless, desiring with fervent desire to exchange fleeting things for eternal, earthly for heavenly, he straightway gave to the leper the animal of great price by which he was carried *, and receiving from him the contemptible beast, he rode upon it before all the people and his own folk.

[28] But when he was held in derision by the children who followed him, like a second Elisha ^k, passing by humbly, meek and lowly he bore all things. In this deed too he imitated the Lord, who, about to enter Jerusalem, deigned to sit upon the back of a little ass. he bears mockery patiently: he visits lepers. Moreover, wherever he journeyed, if on his way he found the huts of lepers ^l, leaving his company he straightway turned aside to them, and then, on bended knees, kissing their hands and their most foul faces with a most loving affection of charity, he also liberally bestowed benefits upon them. And if it happened that he lacked money, he nonetheless gave them his own gloves *, or something else.

[29] Moreover in winter time, held back by no harshness of the cold, He tames his body, given to vigils, prayer and humility; clad only in a haircloth shirt ^m and haircloth breeches under a cape ⁿ, he was wont every night to go to church, and there was present at the nocturnal vigils, intent upon prayer without intermission, and watered the earth of his heart with a most holy rain, that it might be able to bring forth the most abundant fruits of the virtues. But when he was staying at Montmirail, on the celebrations of the greater festivals, rising at midnight to confess to the Lord, he went to a neighbouring house of religion which is named Bosc ^o, that, giving himself to sacred meditations and searching out heavenly things alone, he might more freely keep the feast day to the Lord, the tumult, namely, of horsemen and of a copious household being shrewdly avoided. It happened on a certain day that that military glory, with which the Servant of God had once been so famous, and would still have been, had he not chosen rather to fight for Christ — it happened, I say, that it importunately offered itself to his memory. And when a thought of this kind had been turning in his mind for some while, at last he ordered that his warlike arms be brought into his sight: and it was so done. But after he had looked at them for a very short interval, straightway perceiving what he had done, he became a most savage avenger upon himself, striving to wash away by the mourning of penance that he had given assent to such a temptation.

[30] At that time the Soldier of Christ, having set out to Soissons [p], he answers aptly one who urged empty glory upon him: asked of his host whether any religious person dwelt in the city, that for the sake of edification he might enjoy conversation with him. "Yes," said the host, "a certain woman for many days enclosed in a narrow dwelling for Christ's name, who for her sanctity is frequented by many." When he asked to be led to her, the other answered: "Far be it from you, my lord, that you should wish to go on foot through the streets and squares of the city to a poor little woman. That would be unseemly, nor does it befit so great a Man to make such a novelty." Hearing which, John, vehemently kindled with the warmth of faith, as though he had read or heard that the Lord answered Peter who counselled him ill, "Get thee behind me, Satan; for thou savourest not the things that are of God," began with an answer almost like it to rebuke his host, objecting to him and saying: "Alas, alas! what is the glory of the world, what are kings, what princes, what in short is John of Montmirail, but a rotting corpse, which certainly is to be consumed by worms?" At these words the man, knowing the Servant of God's virtue, was silent, and did not dare to recall him further from his purpose.

[31] When John entered the church to pray in it, After an imprudent speech he is seized by a pain in the side, he wished vehemently to be stung by some compunction for his sins: and when from the consideration * of his sins his mind could in no way be pricked by any sorrow, lifting his eyes to the image of the blessed Virgin which was there, "O," said he, "Queen of angels, refuge of sinners, would that I a sinner, your servant, might now obtain of you by prayers that you would open your mouth to speak, and would say to me that I was not to have your Son Jesus; yet so that this word should by no means be fulfilled; and thus at least my heart would be pricked, whereby its hardness might be usefully softened." When he had said this, he began to be scourged with an intolerable pain in the side, by which he was so vexed that he thought that, by occasion of the preceding speech indiscreetly uttered (namely in wishing that the Virgin Mary should speak a word and that it should not come to pass), some malignant spirit had by divine judgment received such power over him. And of that side he endured continual torment for four years; in which time indeed he consulted many diligent and religious men; but through them he could obtain no remedy of his distress.

[32] from which he is marvellously freed only four years later: But at length, having heard the fame of a certain religious woman, who is still alive and is called Marie de Goigneliu [q], he resolved without delay to visit her, that he might enjoy her spiritual conversation and be edified by it. Then, the journey being now accomplished, he went in to her, and, a greeting having gone before, said: "I ask you, woman, handmaid of Christ, that you fail not to tell me whether you have hitherto seen me or known me." "You, my lord," said she, "I have never seen in the body." She had said nothing more, and John, from this alone which he heard, perhaps understanding that she had at some time seen him in spirit, began to taste so great a sweetness of soul that that day put an end also to the distress of the side which he had so long endured, and thereafter he enjoyed the health he had wished for. But it must be known that in that aforesaid word, namely which John is recorded to have said to the Virgin Mary, he had a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Yet most justly does his pious intention of gaining compunction excuse him: in which indeed he is known to have had a zeal of God, but by no means according to knowledge, since the very uttering of the word was indiscreet.

[33] the author's reasoning upon this matter. But that, with the Lord's permission, he was scourged in the side in the order in which we have said, from this very fact the sense of the divine Scriptures and the certainty of faith do not seem to differ, since the apostle Paul confesses of himself, saying that there was given him a sting of his flesh, an angel of Satan, by whom he was buffeted. Nay rather that suffering of pain must be believed to have been a sign of his blessedness, Job witnessing, who says: "Blessed is the man who is corrected by the Lord." Moreover it was a token of divine love and election, as Solomon says: "Whom the Lord loveth He chastiseth, and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." Lastly, how much he profited by that suffering, and that he was in it not rebellious or contumacious, but patient and humble, is plainly shown, since by his own testimony he could before in no way be pricked with compunction by the memory of his sins, but afterward, at the end of the temptation, his heart was so capable of spiritual things and so devout that in the single speech of such a woman he perceived so great a savour of spiritual sweetness. Moreover the order of his cure was most right; since a praiseworthy simplicity thus drove away the distress of the side which an indiscreet subtlety had deserved to bring on.

[34] Serving under king Philip, he snatches him from great peril, It is also to be committed to memory that John, when he was serving under the glorious Philip king of the Franks [r], by whom he was called not, as by the rest, "of Montmirail," but "John Uprightness," was greatly loved by the king himself by reason of most just causes. And not undeservedly;

seeing that he was so often useful and necessary to him. Now he was in that battle of Normandy which the king of the Franks joined against the king of England [s] at the castle whose name is Gisors [t]: where, when the king had been forsaken of the help of his whole army and utterly abandoned by them, and was hemmed in on every side by his enemies, John, that prince worthy of praise, by his own valour with vast strength powerfully led him out from the midst of those who were seeking the king's life, and freed him from the peril of death. Then, coming into the parts of France, he gathered a copious multitude of men, with whom he returned in haste to his lord, prudently and carefully furnishing him with timely support.

[35] And so at last, through the mediation of John, that most faithful prince, and helps him; therefore he is dear to him: by virtues, king Philip, who a little before had almost succumbed to his enemies, wresting by force from the hand of the king of England the aforenamed castle, and also the whole land for which he was at that time contending, returned as victor into France honourably and with joy [u]. Doubtless for these causes he was greatly loved by the king, as has been said, and was very often adorned with gilded raiment. Nevertheless, from the time when he began to serve as a soldier of Christ the king, Christ Himself far more preciously and becomingly illumined his inward man with an inestimable comeliness of virtues than his outward man had before been adorned by the king of the Franks with any golden ornaments whatsoever. But above the other virtues which he had, he was always a vehement lover and a provident seeker especially of poverty and humility. For since he had been honoured in the world with riches and glory, which he knew to be the nurses of pleasure and vanity, setting contrary virtues against the contrary languors of the soul — namely poverty against riches, and lowliness against glory — like a most shrewd physician of his own soul, if it had been contaminated by any contagion of sin on occasion of wealth and glory, he strove vigilantly to wash it away with these healthful antidotes of the virtues.

[36] That he shone in the two aforesaid virtues and was perfect in them, and shines chiefly by love of poverty and humility. we prove by the argument of that most holy word of his which went forth from his mouth, when he said that he wished to be the son of the poorest or lowest man of all his land: and how truthful he was in saying this, the manifest tokens of his works declared. Now therefore let us see by how straight a path his lawful Soldier imitated Christ the King, humbly descending from the end of all loftiness to the end of all extremity, of poverty, of lowliness; who, although he was the head of many peoples and held the pre-eminence among them, willed to be changed from the first into the last, namely by wishing to be made lower than all in dignity. And because he thus followed Him descending to the lowest, he deserved to follow Him going to the heavenly kingdoms.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Suessiones and Augusta Suessonum, in French Soissons, is a city of France in the province of the Île-de-France, on the river Aisne, the head of the district of the same name, and episcopal under the metropolis of Reims.

q. Machaut, book 2, chapter 8, called her too, as above at letter h, Marie de Gonnelieu, and believed that she was so called either from the noble family which bears that name at Soissons, or at any rate from a village of the same name. He suspected too that she was that recluse whom above at no. 30 the Blessed one is said to have wished to visit, and yet does not seem then to have visited on account of the sudden torment of his side. I should not hesitate to call Marie de Goigneliu, named in both places, one and the same, were it not said in the latter place that she had until then never seen Bl. John in the body. Yet this reason does not carry the contrary, because the biographer reviewed other things too in a reversed order, as we shall presently see: but that Marie de Goigneliu was a recluse Machaut does not prove. For the rest, from the fact that he expressly says that she was, when he wrote, still surviving among the living, gather the date of the writer.

r. Here is designated Philip II, surnamed Augustus, who, while his father Louis VII still lived, was crowned king in the year 1179, and, his father dying in the following year, reigned in France until the year 1223, in which he died.

s. He was Richard I king of England, surnamed Lionheart, who, beginning his reign in the year 1189, left it in the year 1199, having died of a wound.

t. Of Gisors, commonly Gisors, I have given notice in the Commentarius prævius, no. 49.

u. Of all these things consult the same Commentary, no. 48 and following, where I noted that the biographer seems here to have mingled two warlike expeditions, of the years 1193 and 1198. It is certain also that these things are related by him out of place, and happened before John had seriously turned his mind to divine things; for from that time he abstained wholly from wars.

* that is, a monastery

elsewhere Dei* is lacking

elsewhere præbuit*

that is, chirotecas*

elsewhere recordatione*

CHAPTER III.

He begins the monastic life at Longpont: his deeds in Religion until his death.

[ ] Having bidden farewell to his people, to the monastery of Longpont John therefore, blooming with the beautiful flowers of the virtues, lived in the world but not worldly, and with spiritual spices, that is, with the most sweet odour of his name, sprinkled the whole region. Nevertheless, since he was still venerated by men, judging that he was doing less that was useful, he began to pant after better things, taking pains that, the vanity of the world being set aside, he might be joined to the college of the monks. This he thought within himself, that by fleeing transitory dignities he might deserve to obtain perpetual honours. On a certain day therefore, having called together a multitude of the people, pretending that he wished to set out against the Albigenses ^a, he began to speak to them of divine things, and to exhort them to advance to better things. And while some of them wept, he bade them farewell, kissing them all with peaceable charity. But thereafter, taking a few companions with him, he went on to Longpont, a monastery of the Cistercian Order ^b, there to serve the Lord.

[38] And it must be known that in the land of his own jurisdiction, under his own power, there were monasteries of the same Order; he hastens, humbly asking to be admitted among the monks; but he chose rather to obey the Lord's command, in which it was said to Abraham: "Go forth out of thy land and from thy kindred, and out of thy father's house." Moreover, if he stayed among his own people, he feared that greater reverence would be shown him by them than by strangers. When therefore on the day of the Lord's Ascension ^c, prostrate humbly in the chapter of Longpont, he had asked to be received as a monk, the venerable Galcher, at that time abbot of the same place, and who afterward was the praiseworthy governor of Cîteaux ^d, as is the custom of that Order, began to forewarn him of the hardship which he must suffer in vigils, labours and the other regular observances; and that by him, who had been so great in secular glory and had been so delicately nurtured from his infancy, the roughness of the food could not be borne.

[39] and being admitted, he shines with a marvellous abstinence in food, To whom the humble John gave this answer: "Know," said he, "that I never had so great joy in the world as if I should know that I was worthy to eat the bran bread which is thrown to dogs to feed on." When his so humble answer was heard, those who were present, edified

not a little, out of an affection of piety almost all began to weep. And that he said this not idly, but out of an exceeding ardour of charity, his subsequent manner of life plainly declared. For he was of so great abstinence that he restrained his appetite even in the meaner foods; and refused to eat as much as would have suited his need. In his broths too he was accustomed to mix cold water, lest he should be able to feel some little delight in eating.

[40] which the abbot moderating, On a certain day too it was announced to the abbot about John that he was afflicting himself indiscreetly with excessive abstinences. Calling him, the abbot spoke to him upon this and rebuked him greatly, ordering him more strictly that at least of the bread set before him he should eat as much as he could. Seeing therefore that he was constrained by a command of this kind, John, lest he should fall into the crime of disobedience, on that day — I do not say ate — but with exceeding difficulty, as best he could, swallowed the whole portion of the bread set before him, so that not the smallest fragment could be found of what was left of it. Knowing therefore that he could not longer endure the trouble of this command, coming to the abbot he begged with suppliant voice that he would absolve him from this command, which exceeded his strength, or at any rate would in some way temper so heavy a sentence, that it might become lighter to bear. To whom the abbot said: "As you ask, I shall so temper the sentence, that every day you eat one loaf: but of the rest, if you can, do not spare to eat." And again John: "As much as I can, I beseech you, leave this not to my own power, but rather to the judgment of your will." Overcome by his prayer the abbot was compelled to assent to the will of him who besought.

[41] he gives excellent specimens of obedience. At the same time it was likewise reported to the abbot that John refused to eat the pittances ^e. There was sent him therefore by the abbot a fish of no small size; to whom also on the abbot's part it was enjoined that, leaving nothing of it, he must eat it all. But he, compelled by the force of the command, coming to eat the fish as it were to a torment, took care to eat, not without great torment, whatever of the fish should have been spat out and was not fit for eating, and moreover the hard and very large bones, lest he should become a transgressor of the command: and so he endured far more distress bodily in consuming the points of the bones than he had advantage in eating the flesh of the fish. Spiritually, on the contrary, the sharpness of the bones was sweet to him, on which he fed willingly for the good of obedience, and the flesh of the fish bitter, which he ate unwillingly, since he feared to incur the peril of harmful pleasure in eating.

[42] At that time, on a certain day when the convent was going out to labour, He removes a stinking carcass from the road; he rejoices the servant of God John was there: and when on the way by which they walked the carcass of a dead animal lay, it caused excessive trouble to those who passed by with its stench, so that very many of the monks, unable to bear the stench, putting a hand or a sleeve before their nostrils, avoided the stench as best they could. Perceiving which, and having compassion on the convent, that most devout man John went aside to the carcass and dragged it to a part removed from travellers, that it might not thereafter be able to burden anyone with trouble. It is rightly believed too that this should be inserted, that John, having now taken the monastic habit , was staying in the city of Cambrai, having as his companion Gilo the cellarer of Vaucelles ^f. And when, going through the city, they wished to visit a certain recluse, they came to a certain place where they found many mockers working in the ditches of the city, who, seeing them pass by, all together with one voice, as though they were worthy of much derision, began to cry after their backs, "Hauy, Hauy" ^g.

[43] Hearing which, the cellarer, suffused with excessive blushing, at insults offered him: his saying to a woman passed by more swiftly: but the humble John, ready to endure every insult for Christ, turning to them, asked them with most insistent prayer that they would cry longer with this insulting ^h voice after the wretched John of Montmirail, a sinner worthy of every reproach and confusion. Not long after, the Servant of God was staying in the same city for the sake of restitution, if he had ill acquired anything from anyone. And he had already distributed everything, and behold, there came a certain woman, complaining of him and saying that by inflicting very many losses he had been very injurious to her. At which word the Man of God, having nothing of his own in his power, pricked beyond measure, humbly besought the woman that she would deign to remit those losses to one who could not repay them ⁱ. And when she, lacking all pity, could in no way be bent to grant pardon, he said with a most bitter groan of heart: "Know, O woman, that if from my eyes and nose and ears I could procure gold or silver, I would not delay to repay those losses in which, as you assert, I am bound to you."

[44] O who is not pricked in heart, having heard and understood the power of this word! asking satisfaction for losses once inflicted on her, Something was said before which it pleases us to recall to memory; namely that John once zealously sought after the wind of empty glory and superfluous adornments of the body at excessive expense of money; but let us now behold how he knew to cure contrary vices with contrary virtues, who, as was said in the preceding chapter, thirsted with so great an eagerness for confusion, which is the healthful medicine of empty glory. Here, as it were for a remedy of superfluous adornment, he would rather lose the members of his body more useful than the rest and dearer than the rest, namely the gates of three senses, that is, of sight, hearing and smell, than not pay his debts, which he was not even able to pay, especially since nothing is to be demanded of anyone beyond his power. What therefore ought we to judge how providently he cleansed himself from faults, in the purging of which he did not lack the power, when he was in those from which by his own power he was held absolved?

[45] O most faithful servant of God John, when in such a case you were ready to give up your members, with how willing a mind, as we believe, would you have undergone the suffering of martyrdom for the love of Christ? Therefore if it be true, as is said, that the will is to be reckoned for the deed, since in heaven you are to have the reward of a confessor, is weighed by the biographer. you will deservedly possess also the crown of martyrdom. Or at any rate — since through the aforesaid gates of the senses death is wont to enter, whence it is said that death enters through the windows, and through them the enemy of the human race is wont to hurl the deadly darts of evil suggestions at the hearts of men — John remembered that those bodily senses, like faithless traitors, had at some time delivered the mind their ruler into the hands of the adversary, and perhaps he would rather have lacked them than the other members, and wished to demand of them so bitter a vengeance that they should have been cut off from his body. Nevertheless, whichever of these is rather to be believed and chosen, in all things Christ is to be praised, who by His ineffable goodness deigned to confer so great grace upon His Servant.

[46] He does not suffer himself to be served: A certain monk of Longpont, who had been of the household of the humble John while he still dwelt in the world ^k, wishing to do him some service, on a certain night, secretly taking away his shoes, took care to grease them. But when the Man of God learned what had been done, he could not bear it, but, vehemently angered, straightway came to the prior, and, complaining greatly, spoke thus: "Lord prior, I indeed had resolved to dwell here persevering in this house; but I am compelled, as I see, to change my purpose: I am not permitted, as you see, to carry into effect that for which I left the world. For I did not come to be ministered unto, but rather to minister: and if it were to be thus, it had been better for me to remain in the world, where I could have possessed menservants and maidservants." The prior therefore, having sought out and heard the cause of his disturbance, soothing his mind with a gentle speech, said: "I pray, be not saddened for this matter; for I will give you sound counsel. When on the following night you know that brother Amand" (for such was the monk's name) "is asleep, go to his bed, secretly carry off his shoes with you, and as he did to you, do you likewise to him." Hearing which, John, his anger wholly assuaged, becomes very glad *, and on that very night, as though taking vengeance for the injury done him, with glad mind hastens to fulfil the Prior's counsel. Nor is there doubt that, since the Servant of God deigned so devoutly to grease the shoes of that monk, once his servant, his mind too deserved to be enriched with a spiritual anointing.

[47] he breaks his servant's anger by marvellous humility: Moreover, when at a certain time John was riding on some business, it happened that a boy, his servant, who followed him, grew hungry, and, turning aside to a neighbouring house of religion, he asked bread of those whom he found there with entreaties. And when he had been repulsed, being unable to obtain from them what he asked, angered beyond measure he returned to his Lord, whom he had left alone; swearing in his presence with exceeding fury, and moreover disparaging the dwellers of the said house. But straightway John, worthy of God, hastening to leap down from his horse, fell to the ground, humbly prostrating himself before his servant's feet, and, soothing the mind of that servant with a gentle speech, suppliantly besought him to grant them pardon and to cease from uttering such words. Seeing therefore so great a Man wrapped about his feet with so great humility, he is confounded within himself, and, the fury of his mind being laid aside, does not refuse to obey his Lord's will. In this deed it is plain to see of how great perfection that Saint was. For he showed himself a very strict judge of his own faults, who took care with such solicitude to wash away the excesses of others.

[48] The servant of God John had given in alms to the monastery of Longpont a certain house, he vindicates the rights of his monastery against his own son situated in the castle whose name is Gandeluz ^l; but his firstborn son ^m, refusing to assent to the donation made, forbade the brothers to carry on their own business in the said house. Nay more, he by no means permitted them to repair it. When he heard this, his father John, anxious in heart, coming to the aforesaid castle for the sake of repairing the house, hired workmen for it: but he himself too worked with them, as one of them. For he humbly carried on his own shoulders up onto the roof the tiles with which the House was to be covered. In the same castle too at that time the small tithe fell into the possession of the church of Longpont ⁿ: but the aforesaid firstborn son of John, frequently hindering its collection through his servants, also caused troubles to the brothers.

[49] The Father, the truth of this matter being known, came thither to collect the tithe. by marvellous works of humility. And he, setting himself as a wall between the brothers and his son, wished to try whether out of reverence for himself his son would desist from what he had begun, or at any rate chose rather to endure injuries from his son than that the harmless brothers should be unduly punished. Going about therefore through the streets, he went round the squares, collecting the tithe from house to house, and was its carrier. But certain of those whom they call Ribalds ^o

following in the footsteps of the Man of God, violently pulled off the garlic that hung from his back, and threw it over his head into the mud before his eyes: which again the Saint humbly gathered up out of the mud, and passing on with lowered head, cared not to look upon the author of the outrage.

[50] But on a certain day, John coming to Montmirail, [He is repulsed from his son's house: he rejoices to render mean services to the monks,] and having as the companion of his journey the prior of Longpont, went for the sake of lodging to his own house, in which, finding the servants of his firstborn son, he humbly said that he wished to lodge there that night. But they, seeking and alleging pretexts, by no means granted him lodging. Seeing which, the prior who accompanied him, holding out to him the shield of patience, said: "Be not moved; the Lord came unto His own, and His own received Him not." Best protected by this word, as by a buckler, the Servant of God, rejoicing that the Gospel sentence fitted him, gave thanks to the Lord; and so, departing with the joy of spiritual gain, they were received by strangers with great veneration. Moreover, of so great humility and so eager for spiritual gain was the servant of God John, that some faint-hearted men can scarcely hear without discomfort of certain of the virtues which he was able to practise magnanimously and with joy.

[51] For it happened that on a certain night a certain monk, through the distress of illness, was forced to vomit. and he contends that they should be undertaken by him before the rest Seeing which, he came to him at a swift run, and, taking hold of his head, supported him most devoutly. And when the monk wished to remove his vomit from the place, the Man of God would by no means acquiesce, but rather, heaping the vomit up with a little straw, hastened with his own hands to throw it into the sewer. At that time, when the prior of Longpont, and John, and another monk likewise were travelling together, the horse of that third monk carried a pack in which the garments of them all were kept. Considering this, namely that the horse of the monk, as of the lowest in dignity, was laden with the garments of all, John, conceiving a spirit of ardour and vehemently indignant, straightway leaping down from his horse to the ground, said in affirmation: "Know, lord prior, that I shall by no means go further, unless first the pack be taken down from the horse of this monk, far worthier than I am, and be laid on ours, as reason requires, to be carried."

[52] he strives: he secretly kisses a foul leper. But when they were unwilling to give assent to his will, John nonetheless remained immovable in his purpose. But at last, fearing to sadden the Spirit of God in His Servant, they yielded to him, permitting him to become the bearer of the garments: and so at last, the journey being resumed, they went on peaceably. On a certain occasion the convent had gone out into the fields for the advantage of regular labour, and it happened that a certain leper came to meet them, deformed enough and horrible to look upon. But John, who was present, seeing him coming and now drawing near to him, hastens to snatch a kiss from his most foul mouth; and straightway turning his face from him, walking with veiled and lowered head, he hid himself as best he could, that he might the more safely preserve the gain of his holy work.

[53] Most loving of humility, he grieves that he is honoured, At the same time, when the prior of Longpont, who afterward discharged the office of abbot there [p], and John likewise were holding mutual conversation together about divine things, the prior asked him whether it pleased his will that he had entered the Order of Cîteaux. To whom John answering said: "I should not wish that I had chosen another Order than this: nevertheless for the rest I should not become a monk, if I were now about to enter an Order." And he said this, grieving that everyone venerated him, while he reckoned himself viler than all, and that all showed him reverence, while he desired to minister and to be subject to all. When therefore the prior asked what then he would do, he answered that he wished to become a ribald [q]. Hearing which, the prior, wondering beyond measure, said: "Is it true what you say, that you wish to be of that flock of men contemptible before God and men, and to be counted in their number? Would it not then behove you, after the manner of such, to swear with them and often to forswear yourself, to play at dice [r], to carry a gaming-board, to lead a concubine about, and to be drunk most often?"

[54] and desires to be despised by all. "By no means," said John: and, to speak in his own words, "There are ribalds and ribalds: for very many of them are separated by a great distance of manners. For to some it is as it were an office to clean the stable, to carry dung, to submit humbly to doing and enduring any abject tasks, and to eat their bread in the sweat of their face: whose life, although it be reckoned by men vile and despised, is nevertheless praiseworthy and very precious in the sight of the Lord. Why therefore do you wonder that I have said that I wish to be likened to them?" The prior answered: "They would without doubt inflict most grievous persecutions on you, if you were unwilling to conform yourself to their detestable acts; nay, to speak more truly, to be deformed along with them." And John: "In enduring any injuries whatever from them I should greatly delight." Why say more? How great and what a lover of humility that Saint was, we can plainly behold in these words. Let those therefore commend, who will, expellers of demons, healers of corpses; your surpassing humility, which happily exalts you to the eternal joys on high, I praise and shall always praise, most blessed John, who, thus casting yourself down, humbling and despising yourself, like a lawful soldier were in all things a praiseworthy imitator of your eternal King.

[55] Nor ought we to pass over in silence that John, Repulsed from his wife's house, by his stepmother when on a certain day he had come to Montmirail on some business, turned aside to his own house. A certain man of the household of his lady, once his wife [s], noticing his coming, swiftly announced it. And, an answer having been received from her mouth, he returns to the Servant of God, saying: "The lady is sweating; wherefore it is by no means allowed you now to see her or to speak with her." To whom the Man of God humbly answering said: "May the Lord grant her a profitable sweat": and, irreverently driven out by his own, he departed going forth with all patience. And coming to the castle which is called Ferté-Gaucher [t], and having found the countess, who was his stepmother [u], he was received by her honourably and with a cheerful countenance. She also reproved him for this, that he had wished to turn aside elsewhere for the sake of lodging. Then John, not unmindful of the word which he had heard a little before about his wife, said: "You, my lady, are not sweating."

[56] While these things were being done, a certain robber was being kept there in prison, deservedly for his crimes; is kindly received, and obtains that a certain robber's punishment and the countess's sentence had already been pronounced, that a limb be cut off from his body, or at any rate that he be deprived of the light of his eyes. And when this had been made known to John, he began suppliantly to beseech the countess that the robber might not suffer loss of his body by the cutting off of his limbs, but that he might receive the sign of the cross, and set out to the lands beyond the sea [x]. "Take him yourself," said the countess, "and judge as it shall please you." To whom John again: "Far be this from me, my lady; it shall by no means be so: for reason requires that I be judged rather than judge others. But if it displease you not and seem right, as has been said, let the sign of the cross be given him, that he may set out beyond the sea, to fight so far as he can against the adversaries of the Christian faith, as he has hitherto assailed Christ by his guilt."

[57] Meanwhile at the countess's command the robber was led out of prison, be commuted into the sacred warfare overseas. and, his hands being bound behind him, brought into John's presence, and, falling down before him, he begged pardon. And behold, straightway the Servant of God, likewise prostrating himself before the feet of that robber, said: "Alas, man, why did you wish to do this? For I too am a sinner far worse and viler than yourself." And when he had raised him up, the sign of the cross having been given him, by his intervention he kept his body unharmed. But if anyone shall say that he ought by no means to have freed the robber from the punishment which he had justly deserved; why should he reprove in him that, when he was their judge, he exacted the due vengeance from wicked men deserving punishment? Let his justice rather be praised in the rightness of his judgments; but here, since he was a monk, let his loving mercy in the freeing of a sinner be commended.

[58] Let it suffice to have said these things about the life and manner of living of the humble John; The author's observation about what has gone before and what follows. not that all is comprised there which might usefully have been related about his sanctity, but that by the few plain works of his which have been told the beauty, purity and strength of his inward man may become more clearly known, and that it may be known how inseparably his spirit clave to the Lord, for whose love he so perfectly denied himself. For it would be long, and difficult for us, to relate one by one how the brave Athlete of Christ overcame the temptations of the demons, kept entire the institutes of the Order, was meek and humble of heart, given in all things to regular discipline, dried up with vigils, wasted with fastings, watered with tears, and made fruitful with very many other graces. Now therefore, how he came from this present world to the longed-for prize of eternal blessedness, and what the Lord wrought after his death, through his intercession and merit, in the curing of divers sicknesses, we shall thereafter strive to relate, as far as He Himself shall deign to bestow His help upon us.

ANNOTATIONS.

more to bestow on the aforesaid woman who came later; but it remains strange that he deferred the extinguishing of his debts until his monastic life.

p. He was named Hugh, who will recur in this very Life, and who was substituted at Longpont for Galcher or Galter abbot of Longpont, when the latter was promoted in the year 1219 to the government of Cîteaux and of the whole Order.

q. See what was just said at letter o.

r. Decii, in French dez, are in Latin dice or games of chance.

s. Helvidis of Dampierre, who, as I have already said above, when her husband John passed over to the monks after various children had been born of her, remained in the world.

t. Firmitas-Galcheri or Galteri, otherwise also Feritas-Galterii, in French called la Ferté-Gaucher, is a village of France in Brie, of which I gave notice in the Commentarius prævius, no. 30 and following.

u. That the Blessed one's mother was Hildiardis of Oisy I have said in the Commentarius prævius, §2; and she being dead, his father Andrew must have passed to a second marriage, but with whom is quite unknown. Further, the castle of Ferté-Gaucher, in which this stepmother of the Blessed one is said to have lived, belonged also to the family of the lords of Montmirail.

x. Namely into Palestine, to fight among those signed with the cross against the infidels.

read devitarent*

elsewhere monachali*

or nunc*?

elsewhere habere*

elsewhere lenis*

CHAPTER IV.

The Blessed one's death foreshown by divine means: a blasphemer chastised: various miracles or benefits obtained at his tomb: a bone of his renowned for benefits elsewhere.

[ ] [The Blessed one's death, on the day before it happened, to the prior of the monastery] On the vigil of St. Michael ^a (whose feast day was the passing of the humble John of Montmirail, blooming with not a few graces) such a vision is asserted plainly to have appeared to dom Hugh, who at that time discharged the office of prior ^b. That prior, when he was present at the vigils and had laid his wearied eyes a little to sleep, seemed to see that the whole choir of the psalm-singing monks shone with not a few fiery candles. But in the midst of so many lights was a certain taper taller than the rest, brighter than the rest, making clear the whole choir with its splendours and illumining it. But to the prior, who afterward was the venerable abbot of the said place, it seemed that that greater taper with its splendour ascended upward, and penetrated the upper vault of the oratory, and appeared no more. At its ascent the prior was saddened; for it left in all the choir an exceeding darkness, so that in the other candles a very small splendour seemed to have remained.

[60] Then the prior, roused from his sleep, began to think is foretold by a vision of a taper lifted on high: what such a vision meant; but of what thing it was the token he was wholly ignorant, until, when on the same day he was celebrating the solemnities of the Masses, the board was struck for God's servant John ^c. Then first the aforesaid vision came to his memory, and he understood that by the taper ascending upward the spirit of brother John was most certainly figured. It happened that on the solemnity of the angels, namely on that very day, his soul, loosed from the bonds of the flesh, like a brightening taper, bore itself upward, whom, as we believe, Jesus Christ, for whom he had faithfully fought, brought into the companies of the Saints and happily joined to them.

[61] A like vision offered to another religious. Within the interval of the same time, while lauds were being sung, the vigils having been celebrated, a certain lay brother ^d, Gerard by name, asserts that he saw an almost like vision. For it seemed to that lay brother that both choirs, of monks and of lay brothers, shone with innumerable tapers, and in the midst of those tapers a certain taper longer and loftier stood out. While the aforesaid lay brother beheld these things, there seemed to him a certain man of venerable countenance to descend from on high, whose form seemed to be such as the image of our Lord is wont to be painted by painters on glass. He, taking hold of the greater taper, straightway lifted it into heaven. But the said lay brother, greatly saddened at the taper's absence, because the brightness of the church seemed to be in great part diminished, was forthwith roused from his sleep. That taper therefore, as in the other vision it was lifted up on high, plainly denotes the spirit of the humble John, whom, gleaming with many graces, Jesus Christ by His ineffable mercy raised to the fellowship of the citizens above.

[62] The mouth of a man who blasphemed against the Blessed one being foully twisted, It happened that the body of the servant of God John was translated from the place in which it had earlier been buried to another place ^e. Hearing this, there were certain stone-cutters at Paci ^f, among whom was a certain blasphemer. For when the others said that the Saint would be placed in a bier, the said blasphemer answered that it would by no means be so, but rather that his bones would be set out by the monks of Longpont for dogs to gnaw. At which saying his companions rebuked the blasphemer more harshly, threatening him that for this he would incur the divine vengeance. But on the same day toward night the divine hand, which would not let the said blasphemy pass unpunished, most grievously scourged him in the member wherewith he had sinned.

[63] is restored through the relics of the same. For his mouth, by which he had blasphemed, was deformedly turned to one side, and he was also almost deprived of the light of his sight, so that it might be plainly clear to all who saw that the divine vengeance had punished this blasphemer, who had wickedly spoken against God's servant John. This sore, so deformed and striking no small horror into all who saw it — but most of all into a certain priest of his who from time to time fanned his face with a corporal ^h — he is known to have endured for almost one month. In which space indeed he visited many relics of the Saints, but for this he received no health, until, pricked in heart, coming a first and a second time to the tomb of God's servant John, at the touch of one bone of the aforesaid Saint he recovered fully from his infirmity.

[64] A grievous ailment of the foot taken away: It befell also that the bones of the Servant of God were raised from the place in which his body had first been *, into the cloister of the monks ⁱ, a tomb having been built there in the wall, before which the monks used incautiously to sit upon wooden seats after their custom. And since this seemed to some unseemly, the prior commanded a certain monk to summon the lay-brother carpenter, Matthew by name, and bring him to the Saint's tomb, that he might cut away the aforesaid seats before it. When therefore the monk had announced these things to the lay brother, he answered that he would gladly do it. And as they went on together and talked with one another, among other things the lay brother said: "Would that the servant of God John had as great a desire to obtain health for me from the Lord by his prayers, as I with willing mind desire to fulfil this command to his honour": for that lay brother was vexed with the discomfort of a grievous ailment in his foot. And when he had come to the place, the lay brother began to cut away the seats: the work not yet being finished, "Thanks be to God," said he, "and to Bl. John, by whose intercession I have recovered from my infirmity." Nor did he feel from that day the distress with which he had been wearied for no small time.

[65] There came also thither a certain monk who, and a torment inflicted on a rash man is taken from him when he repents. since he was not allowed to speak, began rashly to signify that the above-named seats ought not to be cut away, and, when others answered and said that this was done out of reverence for dom John, he by no means acquiesced, but with contrary signs disparaged what was being done. His rashness the Lord would not let pass unpunished, but willed to show the merits of His servant John. For on the same day the monk began to be tormented with an intolerable pain, and straightway, acknowledging the guilt of his presumption, he returned to the Saint's memorial, pouring out prayers with a humbled and contrite heart, that of the sickness which he had incurred by his own deserts he might receive health by his prayers. And forthwith humility drove away the anguish of pain which proud presumption had deserved.

[66] It happened at a certain time that dom Hugh, venerable abbot of Longpont, The abbot is suddenly freed from fever and a grievous ailment of the knee. he namely who, at the time when the servant of God John died, had seen the vision of the ascending taper ^k — it happened, I say, that he was tortured in the knee and shin with an anxious pain to such a degree that he was unable to move that knee. Moreover he was more grievously vexed with a daily * fever. Labouring under this twofold discomfort, at length yielding to the counsels of his attendants, he ordered a burning taper to be set at the memorial of the man of God John, that by his intercession he might find help. Yet a plaster bound on had been laid upon his leg by his attendants, but it in no way assuaged the pain. Perceiving therefore that his pain was not lessened but by occasion of the plaster increased more and more, and not enduring so great a torment, at midnight he had it removed. Which being removed, having confidence in the Lord, and that without carnal medicine he might be freed from both his sicknesses by the merits and prayers of the Saint, he swiftly obtained health both from the trouble of the fever and from the distress of the leg.

[67] In the village whose name is Nouroi *, not far removed from Longpont, [To a dumb man speech is restored through a draught of water hallowed by his relics:] a certain man dwelt, who, when he had begun to sicken with a most grievous disease, the sickness so prevailed that the sick man was deprived of the use of his tongue: for he could in no way speak. But when no long time had passed, by God's ^l nod he was released from his infirmity; but he nonetheless remained dumb, and so continued for not a few days. But hearing that through the merits of God's servant John of Montmirail the Lord was working very many marvels at Longpont, he hastened to his tomb, where his memorial was. And when he had come thither, he prayed a little with a devout affection of heart; and, a cup from the washing of one bone of the aforesaid Saint being given him to drink, he drank, and forthwith the bond of his tongue was loosed, so that

he spoke. Yet not fully within the space of one hour, but little by little he received the use of speech. Yet before he went out of that monastery, after an interval of only four or five hours he spoke most fully, as he had formerly been accustomed. Then he, after the faculty of speech was recovered, offering the firstfruits of his tongue, rendered him manifold thanksgivings, that through his most blessed servant John He had deigned to work so great a miracle upon him: and thereafter, greatly gladdened, he returned to his own home.

[68] A man with fever is twice healed at the Blessed one's tomb; Moreover a certain lay brother of Longpont had endured for a long time the distresses of a quartan fever. It was said to him by a certain monk that he would be made whole if he faithfully implored the suffrage of the man of God John: and the lay brother, giving credence to his words, when he had visited the holy Man's memorial a third time, lest the monk should be found a liar in his pious promise, as he had foretold him, the fever being wholly driven away by the prayers of the Servant of God, he obtained the gift of health. But after some space of time the same lay brother was grievously vexed with a tertian fever; but having experienced in himself the Saint's clemency and the power of his prayers, he hoped most certainly that he could swiftly be healed by his intercession. Nor was he cheated of his hope: for a prayer having been made at his tomb, brief indeed but devout, he straightway recovered.

[69] another is suddenly freed there from gout; A certain monk too and priest of Longpont, who had afforded that holy Man spiritual fellowship, so that he secretly procured for him ^m the haircloths with which that spiritual Man tamed his own flesh, on a certain occasion began to be tormented with an intolerable sickness. For in the joints of his limbs, in the knuckles of his hands and feet, so great a pain of the gout seized him that he could scarcely bend his knees, scarcely rise from bed, scarcely go anywhere. He therefore, hearing and seeing the many miracles which the Lord was working through His Saint, on a certain night, conceiving a hope of health, rises from his bed, and with tottering step most devoutly seeks the tomb of the holy Man, where the said miracles were being done; and when he had reached it with great labour and desire, he poured out his soul within him, beseeching the holy Man untiringly with repeated prayers that he would obtain for him from the Lord the health he desired. But thereafter, after many groans, he applies the aching places to the Saint's tomb. Nor was there delay: by the Lord's granting he feels the Saint's power: for on the spot he recovered and was restored to entire health.

[70] as also the abbot of La Cour-Dieu from a grievous infirmity, At another time the venerable abbot of La Cour-Dieu ⁿ, journeying on his own business ^o, turned aside at Longpont, and there began to be most grievously tortured with the distress of a certain pain. And when he could in no way bear so great a pain, being destitute of the strength of almost all his limbs, with groaning he asked that some medicine might help him. In which case a certain monk stood by him, who, having once laboured under a like sickness, had experienced in himself the working of the prayers of God's servant John. To whom he said: "Lord abbot, if you believe me," said he, "you will wholly refuse carnal medicine, and without delay will have yourself carried to the tomb of the Servant of God. When you have come there, trust and pray; because without doubt you will shortly recover." Hearing which, the abbot, supported on every side by four monks, is at his own petition led thither, and, offering a lighted candle, poured out prayers for a brief interval indeed, but devout, that he might receive the health he wished for. But thereafter, commending himself to the Saint's prayers, he is raised up by his attendants, to be brought back to his bed.

[71] And as he was returning, the pain began at once to be assuaged, and, little by little recovering the strength of his body, he pushed away his supporters from him, desiring to try whether he could walk [as he lodged there. A bone of the Blessed one is renowned for miracles elsewhere.] unsupported by their help. And behold, walking at a swift pace without stumbling, showing to the praise of his Physician that he had recovered, he said to the bystanders: "Know most certainly that for the price of a hundred marks I could not a little while ago have done what you see me doing now." Moreover in the monastery of Longpont, in which for that Servant of God to live and to die was Christ's gain, when his sacred bones were raised from the tomb by the abbot of Cercamp [p], it happened that one of his bones was carried to the village which is called Voties [q], and was there kept with due honour. When therefore the miracles which were done at the holy Man's tomb had become known, a multitude of the sick gathered in the said village, and, the bone of the Servant of God which was kept there having been washed, all were cured by a draught of that most sacred water, from whatever infirmity they were held. Whose cures we would write more fully, if we did not in all things aim at brevity to remove weariness.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Carus-Campus, to the French Cercamp, is an abbey of the Cistercian Order in the county of Saint-Pol, in the diocese of Amiens, not far from Hesdin, a town of Artois, founded in the twelfth century, of which see more, if you please, in vol. 10 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, col. [ ] and following. Further, the translation of which we here treat seems to have been the first of all, made namely from the common cemetery into the cloister of the monks. But why it was committed to the abbot of Cercamp I cannot say: perhaps, however, this was done for honour's sake.

q. Machaut, book 4, chapter 9, reading Votier, noted the following about this place in the French tongue: "I observe here in passing that it cannot sufficiently be discerned from the ancient manuscript whether one should read Voutier, a village of the parish of Faverolles, a league and a half from Longpont, or Voutiennes, three leagues distant, which place in old documents is read to be called Vallis signorum, which name would suit this history not ill." So he: but whatever be the case about the name Voutiennes, in all our transcripts there is read here Voties, which could more easily be changed into Votier than into Voutiennes.

elsewhere it adds positum*

elsewhere quotidiana*

elsewhere Nouroy*

CHAPTER V.

The remaining miracles or benefits obtained at his tomb and at his invocation.

[ ] A monk very badly afflicted in the legs is healed: There was a certain monk at Longpont who had continually a very great swelling in his shins and knees; which was so troublesome to him that it scarcely permitted him to walk. Moreover he had endured it for so long a time that by all he was called incurable. Seeing therefore that very many seculars were daily cured at the tomb of the Servant of God from various infirmities by his prayers and by the merit of their faith, but that he himself, although he had at some time asked him for his health, nevertheless remained in his sickness, he trusted most certainly that by the Saint's intervention he would swiftly be healed, if his own faith deserved to obtain this very thing. Reckoning therefore that the sick who were cured were of greater merit with God, but himself of less, being vehemently indignant with himself, he accused himself of tepidity of faith. With this humility therefore and with the greatest abjection of himself he the more devoutly implored the help of the Servant of God. And his prayer being heard, the swelling being wholly taken from all his body, he was so perfectly cured that he, although he was of advanced age, was in no way burdened by walking the space of a long journey. But afterward I myself often saw the same man, when he passed by the tomb of the Servant of God, prostrating himself privately, as though wishing, by way of thanksgiving, to show him a reverence beyond that of others.

[73] Nor does it seem that it should be omitted how a certain man received health from a daily fever. another lays down a fever, another a languor at his tomb. He lay in the infirmary of the poor [a] of the aforesaid monastery, and there was labouring most grievously under the discomfort of his fever. It was counselled him by a certain monk that he should go to the Saint's tomb, to seek suffrages of him. He acquiesced, and, going without delay to the Saint's memorial, a prayer having been poured out, he obtained what he asked: for thereafter he did not feel the troubles of his fever. In the aforesaid infirmary of the poor too a certain man languishing for a long time

lay wholly destitute of the use of his limbs. To him the lay-brother infirmarian ^b promised that he would take pains that on the morrow he should be brought to the memorial of God's servant John. When the sick man heard this promise he was made most glad, and all that night exulted with incredible joy, trusting most firmly that by the Saint's prayers he would obtain health from his languor. When morning came, therefore, the sick man is brought to the desired place, and there, a prayer having been completed with most devout affection, he deserved to receive the fullest health from all his languor. Then he with exceeding delight spread abroad on every side the Saint's powers and merits.

[74] There was besides a certain man whose belly and sides a vast swelling had for the space of one year, In one day, in the presence of many abbots, a sick man as he himself confessed, occupied on every side, which was also most grievous to bear: for, hindering the sick man's breathing, it by no means permitted him to speak save with the greatest difficulty. But hearing that at Longpont very many were cured of divers languors by the merits of the Servant of God, he hastened to his tomb, and, making prayer, fell asleep there a little. And when he had been roused from his sleep, raising himself he said: "Thanks be to God, and to you, most blessed servant of God John, by whose intervention I feel myself freed from my sickness." Nor do I think it necessary that anyone should say with how great exultation he everywhere proclaimed the praises of the Saint, by whose intercession he lost in a moment the languor which he had endured so long a time.

[75] But very many abbots of the Cistercian Order, making their passage through Longpont, and a man with fever are suddenly cured at the same tomb. were present when the said miracle was done; who, going together to the Saint's memorial, began to praise and glorify God, wonderful in doing so great signs through His Servant, and, asking the Saint's suffrages with most devout heart, commended themselves to his prayers. On the same day too a certain man, by the divine clemency helping through the merits of His Saint, obtained at his tomb the health he desired from a quartan fever which he had endured for a very long space of time. Which miracle being done, it was straightway announced by the prior of Longpont to the aforesaid abbots, who were still present in that house. Hearing which, rendering manifold thanksgivings to the Lord, they sowed abroad on every side, by faithfully proclaiming, what they had heard and seen.

[76] There was a certain monk at Longpont, on the lower part of whose face a very great swelling arose, A foul swelling of the face, a torment of the knees so that with the eye on that side he almost could not see; moreover he was greatly afflicted by the distress of the swelling. But he was wholly ignorant what he should do and what remedy he should seek for himself. But at length, having found sound counsel, he came in haste to the tomb of the Man of God. And when he had prayed there a little while for his own health, he felt the pain of his swelling straightway assuaged, and, departing from the place, he returned again on the same day: and again, prayer having been made, he was freed alike both from the swelling and from the pain of the swelling. Moreover a certain monk of the same place, a priest and of advanced age, was vexed with exceeding pain in the knees, so that he could in no way stand in the choir of those singing psalms. Compelled therefore by this necessity, he asked pardon in the chapter, that leave might be granted him of sitting * on the seats behind the choir.

[77] and colic pains are there straightway driven away. Wherefore he obtained what he had asked; but being more and more troubled by the pain, he placed himself outside the choir, meaning thereafter to seek the infirmary. Seeing which, a certain monk, weighing his distress, signed to him that he should go to pray at the memorial of God's servant John, and that without doubt he would swiftly be healed. He at once acquiesced in the counsel, went to the Saint's tomb, prayed there, received health, and on the morrow entered the choir whole. When too a certain monk of good repute, the confessor of the monks of Longpont, was on a certain night pressed with anxious gripings, he came in to the vigils with such a pain of the belly. And when he could no longer endure the said pains, he went out of the choir, and, touched inwardly with devotion of heart, hastened to the Saint's tomb; where, brief and devout prayers having been poured out, he obtained an entire assuaging of his gripings, by which he was greatly distressed; thereafter he returned rejoicing to those singing psalms.

[78] A monk for a small service receives health of his shoulder. At the same time a certain little child was going to the tomb of God's Servant, carrying a lighted candle in his hand, to offer it there to the Saint's honour; but he by no means found a place where he might set it. And as he knew not what to do, there came thither a certain monk and priest, who, beholding the little boy, had compassion *, and conceived the will to bring him help, whereby he might remove from him the difficulty we have spoken of. In which case, looking about, he saw not far from the place a shapely stick, which he took, and, as best he could and such as he could, took care to make of it a candlestick. In which he both served God's servant John and freed the boy from his anxiety. But the Saint would not deprive him of the fruit of his labour: for without delay in that same place he received the reward of his work: seeing that for a long time he had endured an anxious pain in his shoulder, so that with the arm of that side he could scarcely do anything, nor was he able even to move it a little without difficulty: but the pain being wholly assuaged, before he departed from that place he obtained the gift of health.

[79] The Blessed one's glory revealed to a certain pious woman. Moreover, when in the presence of the abbot of Cîteaux mention was made of God's servant John, and those who were present were relating his virtues, a certain abbot was there, who began thus, saying: "There was a certain holy woman in the parts of Normandy, who, with the other virtues which she had, was cherished by the Lord with frequent visitations and revelations. Of whom, when in familiar conversation I had asked about the virtues of the holy man John ^c, she added and said: 'Know, my lord, that that holy Man, who was a monk of Longpont, was held most familiar with us, of whose departure the Lord willed to ordain thus. For on the festival of the most blessed archangel Michael, when he was at the point of death, angels received his soul as it went forth from the body, as the Lord showed me. But because he carried with him some light negligences, which he had not striven to expiate by any penance, God so disposing, he was in purgatory for three days only ^d: which being passed, the spirit of the holy Man entered into the holy places, made like in glory to the Saints.'"

[80] A certain monk of Longpont was most troublesomely tortured with the exceeding distress of a certain affliction Megrim, which affliction is called migraine ^e. He asked God's holy John that he would implore the divine clemency for the recovering of his health; but he by no means obtained what he asked. And when he saw others recover from various infirmities by the Saint's prayers, while his own pain lorded it over him — while the rest humbled themselves in adoration when they passed before his tomb — the aforesaid monk said in his heart that he would show him no such reverence, because he was not, like the others, healed of his sickness. But after some space of time, being unable to bear the trouble of his pain, from the inmost affection of his heart he asked the Lord, saying: "Lord, if it please Thee and Thou judgest it worthy that I should pay to this Thy Servant, as to Thy Saint and a partner of Thy glory, reverence and honour alike, deign, for the making known of his sanctity, to free me from the pain by which I am tortured." And forthwith he was restored to his former health.

[81] A certain lay brother of Longpont was grievously distressed by the exceeding pain of a certain swelling a swelling of the throat, fever, diarrhoea which had arisen beneath his throat. He went to the Saint's tomb, and, prayers having been poured out to him, applied the place of his pain to the tomb: which done, the swelling and the pain of the swelling alike departed. It happened also that the venerable abbot of Les Châtelliers ^f at a certain time was passing through Longpont; who, when he had heard that the Lord had wrought very many signs by the merits of His Saint, labouring under a twofold infirmity, namely fever and another which is called diaria ^g, by which he was vexed far more than by the fever, began to ask the Servant of God that he would beseech the Lord for his health. Nor was there delay: from both his sicknesses he received an assuaging, and so departed with manifold thanksgiving.

[82] It happened besides that in harvest time the convent was led out by the prior of Longpont into the fields to reap. and pains of the head healed. And when a certain woman of religious habit had come thither, she said that she wished to speak with the prior. To whom the prior, being called, coming, began to address her, asking the cause of her coming. But she answering said: "I, my lord, am a woman long sustained by the alms of the venerable John of Montmirail." To whom the prior said: "You are sustained, O woman, by the alms of a holy Man, who lives with Christ in glory." And she added, saying: "Last night I was most grievously tormented with an exceeding pain of the head; and, trusting that by his merits and intercession my pain could swiftly be assuaged, going to his tomb, I laid my languishing head there a little while, and, the torment being straightway assuaged, I departed thence whole." Hearing which, a certain monk, a priest and of advanced age, said: "In all respects a like miracle the Lord deigned mercifully to work in me yesterday by the prayers of His servant John. For suffering an exceeding pain of the head, I went to the Saint's tomb; I laid my head upon it there, and, a brief prayer being completed, I straightway recovered."

[83] A monk, a disparager of the Blessed one, is seized with great torment, There was also there with the prior a monk who, since he had long been incredulous of the miracles which he had heard were done by God's Servant, uttering blasphemy with derision, said: "Do you believe that by his merits you have been cured of your pains?" And he added: "His tomb," said he, "being of marble stone, is naturally cold; is it any wonder if at the touch of it you felt refreshment in your heads?" At which saying one of the bystanders began to rebuke him more harshly, saying that for such blasphemy he must be punished by divine vengeance. Further, on the following night the aforesaid monk, entering with the rest to the vigils, began to be most sharply tormented with intolerable pain in every part of his body. And when he had long endured this pain, he could in no way stand in the choir.

[84] then repenting, is freed at his tomb, But feeling his distress increase more and more, he began to think within himself for what cause this had happened to him; and he perceived that on the preceding day he had rashly blasphemed, and had been incredulous of the miracles wrought by the merit of the Servant of God. But after the eighth Responsory (for it was the feast day of Bl. Peter in Chains ^h), pricked in heart and acknowledging his guilt, he went in haste to the Saint's tomb: and since the short space of time by no means permitted him to linger there longer, repenting of his sin he prayed briefly, and humbly asked pardon; and straightway, being freed from all distress, giving thanks, he returned into the choir sound and whole with joy ⁱ. And he too from that day and thereafter with so great

devotion toward the Saint as he had the longer indiscreetly delayed to give credence to the powers of the same which he had heard.

[85] The author's epilogue. Many other miracles too the Lord has wrought by the merits of His Saint, and He does not cease to work them daily in the place where his precious body remains laid up ^k. For there is an unceasing concourse of the sick held by divers languors, who, their health being recovered, return to their own homes rejoicing and cheerful, to the praise and glory of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, to whom be honour and glory now and always, &c.

ANNOTATIONS.

a. That is, a hospital.

elsewhere residendi*

elsewhere it adds ei*