Chapter X: S. Xystus, Pope 489 (15)

Upon these remains Benedict built two oratories, one dedicated to S. John the Baptist, the first solitary of the new faith; the other to S. Martin, the great monk-bishop, whose ascetic and priestly life had edified Gaul, and reached as far as Italy.

Round these chapels rose the monastery which was to become the most powerful and celebrated in the Catholic universe; celebrated especially because there Benedict wrote his rule, and at the same time formed the type which was to serve as a model to innumerable communities submitted to that sovereign code. It is for this reason that emulous pontiffs, princes, and nations have praised, endowed, and visited the sanctuary where monastic religion, according to the expression of Pope Urban II., "flowed from the heart of Benedict as from a fountain-head of Paradise."

Benedict ended his life at Monte Cassino, where he lived for fourteen years, occupied, in the first place, with extirpating from the surrounding country the remnants of paganism, afterwards in building his monastery by the hands of his disciples, in cultivating the arid sides of his mountain, and the devastated plains around, but above all, in extending to all who approached him the benefits of the law of God, practised with a fervour and charity which none have surpassed. Although he had never been invested with the priestly character, his life at Monte Cassino was rather that of a missionary and apostle than of a solitary. He was, notwithstanding, the vigilant head of a community which flourished and increased more and more. Accustomed to subdue himself in everything, and to struggle with the infernal spirits, whose temptations and appearances were not wanting to him more than to the ancient fathers of the desert, he had acquired the gift of reading souls, and discerning their most secret thoughts. He used this faculty not only to direct the young monks, who always gathered in such numbers round him, in their studies and the labours of agriculture and building which he shared with them; but even in the distant journeys on which they were sometimes sent, he followed them by a spiritual observation, discovered their least failings, reprimanded them on their return, and bound them in everything to a strict fulfilment of the rule which they had accepted. He exacted from all, the obedience, sincerity, and austerely regulated life of which he himself gave the first example.

Many young men of rich and noble families came here, as at Subiaco, to put themselves under his direction, or were confided to him by their parents. They laboured with the other brethren in the cultivation of the soil and the building of the monastery, and were bound to all the services imposed by the rule. Some of the young nobles rebelled in secret against that equality. Among these, according to the narrative of S. Gregory, was the son of a _defender_--that is to say, of the first magistrate of a town or province. One evening, it being his turn to light the Abbot Benedict at supper, while he held the candlestick before the abbotial table, his pride rose within him, and he said to himself, "What is this man that I should thus stand before him while he eats, with a candle in my hand like a slave? Am I then made to be his slave?" Immediately Benedict, as if he had heard him, reproved him sharply for that movement of pride, gave the candle to another, and sent him back to his cell, dismayed to find himself at once discovered and restrained in his most secret thoughts. It was then that the great legislator inaugurated in his new-formed cloister that alliance of aristocratic races with the Benedictine Order which we shall have many generous and fruitful examples to quote.

He bound all--nobles and plebians, young and old, rich and poor--under the same discipline. But he would have excess or violence in nothing, and when he was told of a solitary in the neighbouring mountain, who, not content with shutting himself up in a narrow cave, had attached to his foot a chain, the other end of which was fixed in a rock, so that he could not move beyond the length of this chain, Benedict sent to tell him to break it, in these words, "If thou art truly a servant of God, confine thyself not with a chain of iron, but with the chain of Christ."

And extending his solicitude and authority over the surrounding populations, he did not content himself with preaching eloquently to them the true faith, but also healed the sick, the lepers and the possessed, provided for all the necessities of the soul and body, paid the debts of honest men oppressed by their creditors, and distributed in incessant alms the provisions of corn, wine, and linen which were sent to him by the rich Christians of the neighbourhood.

A great famine having afflicted Campania in 539, he distributed to the poor all the provisions of the monastery, so that one day there remained only five loaves to feed all the community. The monks were dismayed and melancholy: Benedict reproached them with their cowardice. "You have not enough to-day," he said to them, "but you shall have too much to-morrow." And accordingly they found next morning at the gates of the monastery two hundred bushels of flour, bestowed by some unknown hand. Thus were established the foundations of that traditional and unbounded munificence to which his spiritual descendants have remained unalterably faithful, and which was the law and glory of his existence.

So much sympathy for the poor naturally inspired them with a blind confidence in him. One day, when he had gone out with the brethren to labour in the fields, a peasant, distracted with grief, and bearing in his arms the body of his dead son, came to the monastery and demanded to see Father Benedict. When he was told that Benedict was in the fields with the brethren, he threw down his son's body before the door, and, in the transport of his grief, ran at full speed to seek the saint. He met him returning from his work, and from the moment he perceived him, began to cry, "Restore me my son!" Benedict stopped and asked "Have I carried him away?" The peasant answered "He is dead; come and raise him up." Benedict was grieved by these words, and said, "Go home my friend this is not a work for us; this belongs to the holy apostles. Why do you come to impose upon us so tremendous a burden?" But the father persisted, and swore in his passionate distress that he would not go till the saint had raised up his son. The abbot asked him where his son was. "His body" said he "is at the door of the monastery." Benedict, when he arrived there, fell on his knees, and then laid himself down, as Elijah did in the house of the widow of Sarepta, upon the body of the child, and rising up, extended his hands to heaven, praying thus; "Lord look not upon my sins but on the faith of this man, and restore to the body the soul Thou hast taken away from it." Scarcely was his prayer ended, when all present perceived that the whole body of the child trembled. Benedict took him by the hand, and restored him to his father full of life and health.

His virtue, his fame, the supernatural power which was more and more visible in his whole life, made him the natural protector of the poor husbandmen against the violence and rapine of the new masters of Italy. The great Theodoric had organized an energetic and protective government, but he dishonoured the end of his reign by persecution and cruelty; and since his death barbarism had regained all its ancient ascendancy among the Goths. The rural population groaned under the yoke of these rude oppressors, doubly exasperated, as Barbarians and as Arians against the Italian Catholics. To Benedict, the Roman patrician, who had become a serf of God, belonged the noble office of drawing towards each other the Italians and Barbarians, two races cruelly divided by religion, fortune, language, and manners, whose mutual hatred was embittered by so many catastrophes inflicted by the one, and suffered by the other, since the time of Alaric. The founder of Monte Cassino stood between the victors and the vanquished like an all-powerful moderator and inflexible judge. The facts which we are about to relate, according to the narrative of S. Gregory, could be told throughout all Italy, and, spreading from cottage to cottage, would bring unthought of hope and consolation into the hearts of the oppressed, and establish the popularity of Benedict and his order on an immortal foundation in the memory of the people.

It has been seen that there were already Goths among the monks at Subiaco, and how they were employed in reclaiming the soil which their fathers had laid waste. But there were others who, inflamed by heresy, professed a hatred of all that was orthodox and belonged to monastic life. One especially, named Galla, traversed the country panting with rage and cupidity, and made a sport of slaying the priests and monks who fell under his power, and spoiling and torturing the people to extort from them the little that they had remaining. An unfortunate peasant, exhausted by the torments inflicted upon him by the pitiless Goth, conceived the idea of bringing them to an end by declaring that he had confided all that he had to the keeping of Benedict, a servant of God; upon which Galla stopped the torture of the peasant, but, binding his arms with ropes, and thrusting him in front of his own horse, ordered him to go before and show the way to the house of this Benedict who had defrauded him of his expected prey. Both pursued thus the way to Monte Cassino; the peasant on foot, with his hands tied behind his back, urged on by the blows and taunts of the Goth, who followed on horseback, an image only too faithful of the two races which unhappy Italy enclosed within her distracted bosom, and which were to be judged and reconciled by the unarmed majesty of monastic goodness. When they had reached the summit of the mountain they perceived the abbot seated alone, reading at the door of his monastery. "Behold," said the prisoner turning to his tyrant, "there is the Father Benedict of whom I told thee." The Goth, believing that here, or elsewhere, he should be able to make his way by terror, immediately called out with a furious tone to the monk. "Rise up, rise up, and restore quickly what thou hast received from this peasant." At these words the man of God raised his eyes from his book, and, without speaking, slowly turned his gaze first upon the Barbarian on horseback, and then upon the husbandman bound, and bowed down by his cords. Under the light of that powerful gaze the cords which tied his poor arms loosed of themselves, and the innocent victim stood erect and free, while the ferocious Galla, falling on the ground, trembling, and beside himself, remained at the feet of Benedict, begging the saint to pray for him. Without interrupting his reading, Benedict called his brethren, and directed them to carry the fainting Barbarian into the monastery, and give him some blessed bread, and, when he had come to himself, the abbot represented to him the extravagance, injustice, and cruelty of his conduct, and exhorted him to change it for the future. The Goth was completely subdued, and no longer dared to ask anything of the labourer whom the mere glance of the monk had delivered from his bonds.

But this mysterious attraction, which drew the Goths under the influence of Benedict's looks and words, produced another celebrated and significant scene. The two principal elements of reviving society in their most striking impersonation--the victorious Barbarians and the invincible monks--were here confronted. Totila, the greatest of the successors of Theodoric, ascended the throne in 542, and immediately undertook the restoration of the monarchy of the Ostrogoths, which the victories of Belisarius had half overthrown. Having defeated at Faenza, with only five thousand men, the numerous Byzantine army, led by the incapable commanders whom the jealousy of Justinian had substituted for Belisarius, the victorious king made a triumphal progress through Central Italy, and was on his way to Naples when he was seized with a desire to see this Benedict, whose fame was already as great among the Romans as among the Barbarians, and who was everywhere called a prophet. He directed his steps towards Monte Cassino, and caused his visit to be announced. Benedict answered that he would receive him. But Totila desirous of proving the prophetic spirit which was attributed to the saint, dressed the captain of his guard in the royal robes and purple boots, which were the distinctive marks of royalty, gave him a numerous escort, commanded by the three counts who usually guarded his own person, and charged him, thus clothed and accompanied, to present himself to the abbot as the king. The moment that Benedict perceived him, "My son," he cried, "put off the dress you wear; it is not yours." The officer immediately threw himself upon the ground, appalled at the idea of having attempted to deceive such a man. Neither he nor any of the retinue ventured so much as to approach the abbot, but returned at full speed to the king, to tell him how promptly they had been discovered. Then Totila himself ascended the monastic mountain, but when he had reached the height, and saw from a distance the abbot seated, waiting for him, the victor of the Romans, and the master of Italy was afraid. He dared not advance, but threw himself on his face before the servant of Christ. Benedict said to him three times, "Rise." But as he persisted in his prostration, the monk rose from his seat and raised him up. During the course of their interview, Benedict reproved him for all that was blamable in his life, and predicted what should happen to him in the future. "You have done much evil; you do it still every day; it is time that your iniquities should cease. You shall enter Rome; you shall cross the sea; you shall reign nine years, and the tenth you shall die." The king, deeply moved, commended himself to his prayers, and withdrew. But he carried away in his heart this salutary and retributive incident, and from that time his barbarian nature was transformed.

Totila was as victorious as Benedict had predicted that he should be. He possessed himself first of Benevento and Naples, then of Rome, then of Sicily, which he invaded with a fleet of five hundred ships, and ended by conquering Corsica and Sardinia. But he exhibited everywhere a clemency and gentleness which, to the historian of the Goths, seem out of character at once with his origin and his position as a foreign conqueror. He treated the Neapolitans as his children, and the captive soldiers as his own troops, gaining himself immortal honour by the contrast between his conduct and the horrible massacre of the whole population, which the Greeks had perpetrated ten years before, when that town was taken by Belisarius. He punished with death one of his bravest officers, who had insulted the daughter of an obscure Italian, and gave all his goods to the woman whom he had injured, and that despite the representations of the principal nobles of his own nation, whom he convinced of the necessity of so severe a measure, that they might merit the protection of God upon their arms. When Rome surrendered, after a prolonged siege, Totila forbade the Goths to shed the blood of any Roman, and protected the women from insult. At length, after a ten years' reign, he fell, according to the prediction of Benedict, in a great battle which he fought with the Greco-Roman army, commanded by the eunuch Narses.

Placed as if midway between the two invasions of the Goths and Lombards, the dear and holy foundation of Benedict, respected by the one, was to yield for a time to the rage of the other. The holy patriarch had a presentment that his successors would not meet a second Totila to listen to them and spare them. A noble whom he had converted, and who lived on familiar terms with him, found him one day weeping bitterly. He watched Benedict for a long time, and then, perceiving that his tears were not stayed, and that they proceeded not from the ordinary fervour of his prayers, but from profound melancholy, he asked the cause. The saint answered, "This monastery which I have built, and all that I have prepared for my brethren, has been delivered up to the pagans by a sentence of Almighty God. Scarcely have I been able to obtain mercy for their lives." Less than forty years after, this prediction was accomplished by the destruction of Monte Cassino by the Lombards.

Benedict, however, was near the end of his career. His interview with Totila took place in 542, in the year which preceded his death, and from his earliest days of the following year, God prepared him for his last struggle, by requiring from him the sacrifice of the most tender affection he had retained on earth. The beautiful and touching incident of the last meeting of Benedict with his twin sister, Scholastica, has been already recorded (Feb. 10th). At the window of his cell, three days after, Benedict had a vision of his dear sister's soul entering heaven in the form of a snowy dove. He immediately sent for the body, and placed it in the sepulchre which he had already prepared for himself, that death might not separate those whose souls had always been united in God.

The death of his sister was the signal of departure for himself. He survived her only forty days. He announced his death to several of his monks, then far from Monte Cassino. A violent fever having seized him, he caused himself on the sixth day of his sickness to be carried to the chapel of S. John the Baptist; he had before ordered the tomb in which his sister already slept to be opened. There, supported in the arms of his disciples, he received the holy Viaticum, then placing himself at the side of the open grave, but at the foot of the altar, and with his arms extended towards heaven, he died, standing, muttering a last prayer. Died standing!--such a victorious death became well that great soldier of God. He was buried by the side of Scholastica, in a sepulchre made on the spot where stood the altar of Apollo, which he had thrown down.

The body of S. Benedict was carried by S. Aigulf, monk of the abbey of Fleury, from Monte Cassino, which had been ruined by the Lombards, into France, to his own monastery. This translation took place on July 11th, and is commemorated in all the monasteries of France on that day. Another solemnity, called the Illation, has been instituted in honour of the transfer of the same relics from Orleans, whither they had been conveyed, from fear of the Normans, back again to Fleury-sur-Loire. In 1838, the bishop of Orleans resolved on sending the relics to the Benedictine abbey of Solesmes, in the diocese of Le Mans, but the project met with so great opposition that he contented himself with sending only the skull to Solesmes.

The reliquary which was opened in 1805, by Mgr. Bernier, bishop of Orleans, was found to contain, together with the bones, several papal bulls authenticating the relics. It is, however, necessary to add that the abbey of Monte Cassino claims to possess the body of S. Benedict, and adduces a bull of pope Urban II., declaring anathema against all who deny the authenticity of that body. It is possible that if the relics in both places were examined carefully, it would be found that the portions missing in one place would be found in the other. It is certain that S. Odilo of Cluny sent one of the bones of S. Benedict to Monte Cassino out of France, in the 11th cent., and that it was received there with great joy, so that the monks there cannot have possessed the body at that date.

In Art, S. Benedict is represented with his finger on his lip, as enjoining silence, and with his rule in his hand, or with the first words of that rule, "Ausculta, O fili!" issuing from his lips, and with a discipline, _i.e._ a scourge, or a rose bush at his side, or holding a broken goblet in his hand.

March 22.

S. PAUL, _B. of Narbonne, 3rd or 4th cent._
S. APHRODISIUS, _B. of Beziers, 3rd or 4th cent._
SS. CALLINICA AND BASILISSA, _MM. in Galatia, circ._ A.D. 252.
SS. SATURNINUS AND IX. COMPANIONS, _MM. in Africa_.
S. BASIL, _P.M. at Ancyra_, A.D. 363.
S. LEA, _W. at Rome, circ._ A.D. 383.
S. DEOGRATIAS, _B. of Carthage, circ._ A.D. 456.
SS. HERLINDA AND REINILDA, _V.V. Abss. at Maeseyck, in Belgium,
8th cent._
S. BENVENUTUS, _B. of Osimo, in the Marches of Ancona_, A.D. 1276.
S. EELKO LIAUKMAN,_ Ab. of Lidlom, in Holland_, A.D.. 1332.
B. THOMAS OF LANCASTER, _M. at Pontefract_, A.D. 1321.
S. KATHARINE OF SWEDEN, _V. daughter of S. Bridget_, A.D. 1381.
B. NICOLAS VON DER FLUE, _H. at Sachseln, in Switzerland_, A.D. 1487.

S. PAUL, B. OF NARBONNE.

(3RD OR 4TH CENT.)

[Ancient Martyrology of S. Jerome; Gallican & Roman Martyrologies.]

Saint Paul, mentioned by the early martyrologies as bishop of Narbonne, and confessor, has been conjectured to be Sergius Paulus, the proconsul, converted in the island of Cyprus by the apostle Paul, when Elymas, the sorcerer, withstood S. Paul. There is no evidence substantiating this, nor does it appear to rest on any very ancient tradition.

The most ancient martyrologies do not assert it, though some of them say that he was a convert of the Apostle of the Gentiles. The Roman Martyrology mentions the report, but does not authorise it. The Acts of his life are not deserving of credence. S. Paul certainly lived much later than he is represented to have done.

Some relics are preserved in the Church of S. Paul at Narbonne.

S. APHRODISIUS, B. OF BEZIERS.

(3RD OR 4TH CENT.)

[Roman Martyrology, the Evora Breviary, and others.]

This bishop, an Egyptian by birth, accompanied S. Paul of Narbonne, in his mission into Gaul. A foolish legend[82] (_fabulosa narratio_ it is called by Henschenius) is to the effect that he was governor of Egypt at the time when S. Joseph and the B. Virgin went down thither with the Holy Child Jesus, to escape the persecution of Herod who sought the young child's life. On the arrival of the child Jesus in Egypt all the idols fell, and Aphrodisius, recognising in Him his God, bowed before Him in adoration, and defended the Holy Family from the rage of the idolatrous priests. After the Ascension he laid down his prefectship and went to Antioch where he was baptized by S. Peter, and afterwards sent with S. Sergius Paulus into Gaul. S. Aphrodisius, however, certainly lived much later than he is represented to have done.

[82] Related by Peter de Natalibus, lib. iii. c. 218.

S. BASIL, P. M. AT ANCYRA.

(A.D. 363.)

[Roman Martyrology. By the Greeks on the same day. In the Syriac Church, a S. Basil and his Companions are commemorated on March 1st, and another S. Basil and his Companions on March 8th, and S. Basil, P. M., on March 28th in the Coptic Kalendar. The Greek Acts are genuine, and were written by a contemporary. Other versions of the Acts exist, but they are corrupted by the intermixture of the Acts of another S. Basil, a frequent mistake, when there are several saints of the same name.]

S. Basil was a priest of Ancyra, very fervent in spirit, zealous in upholding the Catholic faith, and combating the Arian heresy foot to foot. An Arian synod of bishops ordered his degradation from his office, in 360, and appointed Eudoxius, a bishop, and an Arian, in his place. But Basil encouraged by the Catholic bishops refused to budge, but maintained his ground, and was indefatigable in stimulating the courage of the faithful, and encouraging the half-hearted. He was the means of restoring large numbers of those who had been taught by the Arians to disbelieve in the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father to full Catholic faith, thereby exasperating the heretics against him. He was one of those fiery enthusiasts of resistless energy, uncompromising with himself and others, a type as needful as the soft and gentle saint, winning through love. The burning faith of Basil carried him dauntless into danger, and made him regardless of opposition, and those spirits which looked to a strong nature for support found a rock in Basil.

As soon as Julian assumed the purple, paganism was revived; and if the Christians were not openly persecuted, every means which craft could devise of breaking their resolution were resorted to, and with such success that the mild measures of Julian proved more dangerous to the Church than the fiery persecution of Decius. But the patience of Julian gave way towards the end of his career, and it is certain that in some cases he encouraged, and in others connived at the resort to violence to punish the most zealous upholders of Christianity. The charges against those most obnoxious were not always their religion, but contempt of the edicts or seditious conduct. Basil worked so effectually in Ancyra to counteract the imperial policy that the pagan priests and governor were resolved to destroy him, hoping that, if the prop of the Ancyran Christians were removed, their faith would yield with a crash. Macarius, one of the priests of the idols, laid hold of Basil as he was publicly denouncing heathen worship, and drew him before the magistrate, Saturninus, on the charge of stirring up the people against the established religion. "What meanest thou," cried Macarius, "going to and fro in the city, agitating the people against the religion established by the emperor?" "God break thy jaws, thou bondslave of Satan!" answered Basil. "It is not I who ruin thy religion, but He who is in Heaven who confounds thy counsel and dissipates thy lies."

Then Macarius cried out to the proconsul, "I charge this fellow with making sedition in the city, stirring up the people to overthrow our altars and defy the emperor." "Who art thou," asked Saturninus, "who art so audacious as to do these things?" Basil replied, "I am the best of everything,--a Christian."

"Then why, if thou art a Christian, dost not thou behave as a Christian?" "I do," answered Basil; "it behoves every Christian to make bare all acts."

"Why dost thou make revolt in the city, transgressing good laws, and blaspheming the emperor?"

"I do not blaspheme the emperor or his religion. God is my emperor, and He will bring your petty established religion to naught in no time."

"So the religion of the emperor is not true!"

"How can I regard that religion as true, and that worship as true which consists in men running howling about the streets like rabid dogs with raw flesh in their mouths."[83]

[83] He is alluding to the Omophagic rites of Zeus Zagreus, in which the worshippers fell on a sheep and tore it with their teeth and ran about with the blood dripping from their jaws.

"Hang him up and scrape him," said the proconsul. So Basil was suspended by his wrists and ankles, and his flesh was torn with rakes. And as he suffered he cried, "Lord God of ages, I thank thee that I am deemed worthy to enter into the way of life through these torments, walking through which I may behold the heirs of thy promises!" Then he was taken down and cast into prison. And after that the proconsul sent to the emperor Julian, to announce what had taken place, and to ask further orders. Then the emperor sent three renegade Christians, and advised the proconsul to endeavour by all means to persuade and flatter Basil into apostasy. But though all efforts were used to shake his resolution they failed, and Basil remained in chains till Julian himself passed through Ancyra on his way east to the Persian war. Then Basil was summoned before the emperor, and Julian endeavoured to persuade him to conform to his religion, but the holy martyr blazed forth in righteous zeal against the apostate. "Thou renegade hast abdicated the throne prepared for thee in heaven," he said; "And verily I believe that Christ whom thou hast abjured will take thee and pluck thee out of thy dwelling, that thou mayest know how great is that God whom thou hast offended. Thou hast not thought of His judgments, nor venerated His altar where thou wast given salvation; thou hast not kept His law which often thou didst declare with thy lips; wherefore the great emperor Christ will not remember thee, but will take from thee speedily thy earthly empire, and thy body shall be deprived of a sepulchre, and thou shalt breathe forth thy soul in greatest anguish."

Then Julian ordered him to be taken away, and seven thongs to be cut daily from his skin. This command was given to Frumentinus, Count of the Squires (Comes Scutariorum.) And when this had been done, the martyr gathered up one of the strips of skin cut off him, in his hand, and besought that he might be conducted before the emperor. And as Frumentinus believed that he was about to make adjuration of his religion, he brought him into the council hall before Julian. Then he cried, "Dumb and deaf and blind are thy idols, Apostate! To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. He is my helper in whom I trust, and for whom I suffer. Here is meat for thee, Julian!" and he flung the strip of skin in his face.

Then the count, alarmed at having occasioned this scene, by suffering Basil to return into the emperor's presence, hurried him out and cast him into prison. On the morrow Julian departed for Antioch, without having seen the count, who feared that he had fallen into disgrace, and therefore vented his spleen on the martyr. He had iron spikes heated red-hot, and Basil thrown upon them, so that they burnt into his bowels. But Basil prayed, "Christ is my light, and Jesus is my hope, a calm port in tempest. I give Thee thanks, Lord God of my fathers, because thou hast saved my soul from the abyss; keep Thy Name inviolate in me, and make me an heir of eternal quiet, for the promise made unto my fathers by the great High Priest, Jesus Christ, our Lord; through whom I pray Thee receive my spirit into peace, persevering in my confession; for Thou art merciful and long-suffering and full of compassion; who livest and abidest through ages of ages. Amen." And when he had ended his prayer, as one overcome with slumber, he ceased and gave up his spirit.

S. DEOGRATIAS, B. OF CARTHAGE.

(ABOUT A.D. 456.)

[Roman Martyrology. Authority:--Victor of Utica. Hist. Persec. Vandalorum, lib. i.]

Carthage was taken by Genseric king of the Vandals in October, 439, and then began that fearful Arian persecution of the Catholics which almost surpassed those of the heathen emperors in horror. Bishop Quodvultdeus had been sent adrift along with his clergy in a broken vessel, and had been carried by the wind in safety to Naples. The church of Carthage was without a chief pastor for about fourteen years, till in 454, Deogratias was created bishop.

In 455, Genseric entered Rome, which he found undefended. Pope S. Leo met him at the gates and obtained from him that the city should not be burnt, nor should the inhabitants be massacred, but that the Vandal conquerors were to content themselves with the pillage. Rome was therefore pillaged deliberately during a fortnight, and then the Vandals retired carrying with them an immense treasure, amongst other things of value, the sacred vessels which Titus had taken from the temple of Jerusalem. They returned to Africa also encumbered with crowds of captives whom they sold to the Moors and amongst themselves. Wives were separated from their husbands, and children from their parents. The holy bishop, stirred to the depths of his soul by the misery that he saw, sold all the gold and silver vessels of the churches of Carthage, and spent the proceeds in redeeming those slaves whose cases were most urgent and distressing. And, because there was not found any other place sufficiently capacious to receive the ransomed multitude, he devoted to their accommodation the church of S. Fausta, and the new church, which he filled with straw and with beds. As there were many sick amongst this crowd, some who had suffered from sea-sickness, and others from the disorders consequent on being crowded together in small vessels, the holy prelate visited them at all hours, with medicines, and proper food, and ministered to their necessities with his own hands. He did not even rest at night, but walked up and down the churches visiting the beds, and seeing that order and comfort prevailed. The emergency gave the aged and decrepid man new strength. The Arians envious of his virtue, made several attempts on his life, but they failed. The labour and exhaustion consequent on this tax on his energies overcame him, and he died peaceably after having held the see only three years. He was secretly buried, whilst the Catholics were engaged in their churches at prayer, for fear lest the people, who loved him as a father, should carry off his revered body. After his death Genseric forbade the ordination of bishops in the whole proconsular province and in Zeugitania, where there were as many as sixty-four. Thus, by deaths and imprisonment, the number of Catholic bishops in thirty years was reduced to three.

B. EELKO LIAUKAMAN, AB.

(A.D. 1332.)

[Norbertine Martyrology. Venerated anciently at Lidlom, in Holland. Authority:--Life by Sibrand Leonius, Norbertine Canon, 1580.]

The blessed Eelko Liaukaman was abbot of the wealthy Norbertine house of Lidlom, in Friesland, at a time when the wealth of the abbey had tended greatly to the relaxation of discipline. The possessions of the abbey were far apart, and the lay-brothers were sent about to the different farms and cells to attend to the secular interests of the society. The abbot soon ascertained that these men took advantage of their being away from supervision to lead disorderly lives, drinking and not unfrequently falling into worse offences. He at once undertook to correct this scandalous conduct as far as possible, and visited the farms and places whither the lay-brothers had been sent at unexpected times; the consequence of which was that he sometimes caught them tripping, and as a necessary corollary, incurred their deadly enmity. The chief malefactors determined on his destruction, and planned to murder him when he was at his castle of Ter-poort. He had retired for the night, shut his door, "put on his night-shirt, drawers, belt and cap, gone to bed, poured forth his prayers, and composed himself to sleep,"[84] when the conspirators burst in through the window. Hearing the noise, the abbot rose up in his bed, and asked gently what was the matter. Then the disorderly lay-brothers began to shower abuse on him, and call him a hypocrite, a glutton, and a drunkard. "My sons, when saw ye me drunk?" "Oh, you put your tipple away up your sleeves, so as to drink on the sly," they said. "Go," said he, "shake my sleeves and see for yourselves." They did so, and a shower of red roses fell on the floor. Then rushing on him with sticks they beat his brains out, and drawing his body through the window flung it into the moat. Next morning a woman who was passing saw a portion of his white night gear above the water and gave the alarm. The body was raised from the moat. The murderers were afterwards caught and executed.

[84] "Clauso cubile, interula, caligis, cingulo, pileoque nocturno instructus, lecto sese colocat; fusis ad Deum precibus, somno se componit."

Before the so-called Reformation the B. Eelko was venerated as a saint, and represented in art shaking roses out of his habit.

B. THOMAS OF LANCASTER.

(A.D. 1321.)

[Inscribed in his additions to Usuardus by Herman Greven, in the German Martyrology of Canisius, and by Ferrarius in his General Catalogue of the Saints. Not mentioned in the Anglican or Roman Martyrologies, but it is certain that Thomas of Lancaster received veneration shortly after his execution, and that miraculous cures were attributed to his relics.]

There have been, as there probably ever will be, great differences of opinion as to the justice of beheading Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, cousin-german to king Edward II.

Edward of Carnarvon had received his father's final instructions before Edward I. died. Of these the principal were; that he should devote a certain sum to the succour of the Holy Land; that he should persist in the conquest of Scotland; and that he should not recall his favourite, Piers de Gaveston (a young Gascon, whom the king had lately banished), without the consent of parliament.

Every one of these commands were directly violated by the young king. His first act was to send for Gaveston; and to confer on him the royal earldom of Cornwall. The old ministers and judges were nearly all dismissed. Langton, bishop of Coventry, the treasurer of the late king, who had formerly reproved the extravagance of the prince and his favourite, was thrown into prison. Gaveston received the money left for the crusade, was made lord chamberlain; betrothed to Margaret de Clare, niece of the king; and presently, when Edward went to marry Isabel of France at Boulogne, left regent of England.

The jealousy of the great nobles was already excited; but when they beheld the king, on his return, rush into the arms of his favourite without regarding them; and when they saw Gaveston take precedence of them all at the coronation of Edward, their anger burst forth. Three days after the ceremony they called upon the king to dismiss his minion. Edward deferred the matter until parliament should meet, hoping by that time to soothe their resentment. All his efforts, however, was rendered nugatory by the pride and insolence of Gaveston, and the nobles insisted on his expulsion. Edward was obliged to give way, and Gaveston to swear that he would never return. The king, however, escorted him to Bristol with every mark of honour, and mortified his enemies still more by appointing the exile his lieutenant in Ireland.

From the day of Gaveston's departure the king laboured to effect his recall. He solicited the intervention of the pope; and having obtained a conditional abrogation of the oath taken by Gaveston, ordered him to return. Receiving him in person at Chester, he brought him to meet parliament. Here he induced the bishops and peers to consent that his favourite should remain in England; but they added,--as long as he conducted himself well.

In a very short time, however, the absolute ascendancy of Gaveston over the king, his ostentation and presumption, had revived the animosity of the barons. Lancaster and his friends refused to attend the next parliament. Edward, who wanted money, found it necessary to yield. He prologued the parliament to London, and leaving Gaveston in retirement, repaired to the capital. The great barons attended with such a military force, that Edward was obliged to grant all their demands. A committee of seven prelates, eight earls, and six barons, under the name of ordainers, was appointed, with full powers to redress the grievances of the nation. Gaveston was again banished and as speedily was recalled by the king in defiance of his parliament. The barons then took up arms, and captured Gaveston at Scarborough (May 19th, 1312), and executed him by order of Lancaster and the other insurgent nobles at Blacklow, near Coventry.

The news of this audacious deed affected the king with the most passionate grief, to which was quickly added a fierce desire for revenge. His anger was not diminished when the barons followed up the blow by a peremptory demand that the ordinances for the better government of England and the rectification of flagrant abuses should be carried into effect. A superficial reconciliation was however effected. The parliament assembled at Westminster hall, and Edward having taken his seat on the throne, the earl of Lancaster and his associates knelt before him, and solicited a pardon for the acts which had offended him. Taking each petitioner by the hand, the king bestowed upon him the kiss of peace, promised, and the next day published, a general amnesty.

Some time after the death of Gaveston, the ordainers had imposed upon the king, as chamberlain, a young man named Hugh le Despenser, son of one of the great barons. From an object of dislike, he soon became the favourite of Edward. With his father, he had ably supported the king in his resistance to the earl of Lancaster, and he had become especially odious to the earl's party. But, however loyal, the chamberlain was undoubtedly rapacious; and a harsh attempt to enforce the feudal law to his own advantage, excited the lords Marchers of Wales to arm against him. The earl of Lancaster soon joined them; and the united barons, marching upon London, decreed that the Despensers (who were both absent), should be banished. The bishops protested; but the king and his friends were forced to assent to this lawless proceeding. Two months after the king recalled the Despensers, and took the field against the barons. The earl assaulted the royal castle of Tichhill; but failing in his attempts, he hurried southwards to stop the advance of Edward at Burton-on-Trent. The king, however, forced the passage of the river, and the barons retreated hastily to Pontefract. There a stormy council was held. Lancaster was for making a stand at that point; but over-borne by his associate, he resumed the retreat. At Boroughbridge, however, he found the way barred by a strong force under Sir Andrew Harkeley, governor of Carlisle, and Sir Simon Ward, sheriff of Yorkshire. After a vain endeavour to gain the adhesion of Harkeley, who had formerly received knighthood at his hands, Lancaster resolved to force the passage of the bridge; but the earl of Hereford having been slain in the attempt, and an attack by a ford having been repulsed, earl Thomas took refuge in a chapel, saying, as he looked upon the crucifix; "Lord, I render myself to Thee and Thy mercy." He was, nevertheless, dragged out by the royalists, who, despoiling him of his rich surcoat, clothed him in a common livery, and conveyed him down the river to York, where he was received with every kind of insult. Thence he was taken to Pontefract Castle, which he at that time possessed in the right of his wife, the heiress of the De Lacys, and presented to the king.

The death of Gaveston was now to be avenged. The earl of Lancaster was brought a prisoner into his own hall; and there the king, with the earls of Kent, Richmond, Pembroke, the elder Spenser, and other of his party, condemned him to be drawn, hanged, and beheaded. Edward, however, remitted the more degrading parts of the sentence. The earl was at once delivered into the hands of a band of Gascons, who put an old cap on his head, set him on a lean white pony, and led him out to immediate execution. The presence of his confessor, a Dominican monk, who walked by his side, did not save the earl from the insults of the royalist rabble. They threw pellets of dirt at him, and derisively saluted him as "king Arthur." In this manner he was conducted to the summit of a hill without the town, where he was ordered to kneel, with his face to the north, and then his head was stricken off by "a villain of London."

A martyr to religion Thomas of Lancaster was not, but he was a martyr for the rights and liberties of English people.

He both furthered the cause of public liberty, and perished in its defence. Witness the part he took in framing the ordinances "for the common benefit of the kingdom, and the peace and prosperity of all the people generally." All his transactions show that the earl was a man of noble purposes, naturally averse to arbitrary power, and a lover of liberty in the true and rational sense of its value. The sentence pronounced against him was formally revoked by act of parliament; and the priory church at Pontefract, which claimed to have his body buried on the right hand of the high altar, became the scene of a series of miracles. There is a record in the Corpus Christi College at Cambridge "of the miracles God wroughte for Seint Thomas of Lancaster: wherefore the king lete close the church doors of Pountfret of the Prioree, for no man shall come therein to the body for to offeren." The veneration extended to London and became so prominent that a royal proclamation was issued denouncing and threatening the worshippers of the effigy: "Inimici et rebelli nostri fotue accedentes eam absque auctoritate Ecclesiæ Romanæ tanquam rem sanctificatam colunt et adsunt, asserentes ibi fieri miracula, opprobrium totius Ecclesiæ, nostri et vestri dedecus, et animarum populi predicti periculum manifestum, ac pernisiosum exemplum aliorum." This reverence therefore, however produced, was of a national and unauthorized character; but within five weeks after the accession of Edward III. a special mission was sent to the pope from the king, imploring the appointment of a commission to institute the usual canonical investigation preparatory to the canonisation of a Christian hero. In June of the same year a king's-letter was given to Robert de Weryngton, authorising him and his agents to collect alms throughout the kingdom for the erection of a chapel on the hill where the earl was beheaded. Three years later (that is in 1330) the embassy was repeated, urging the attention of the court of Rome to a subject that so much interested the Church and people of England; and in the April of the following year three still more important envoys were sent with letters to the pope, to nine cardinals, to the refendary of the papal court, and to the three nephews of his holiness, intreating them not to give ear to the invectives of malignant men who had asserted that the earl of Lancaster connived at some injury offered to certain cardinals at Durham in the late king's reign. It is affirmed that, on the contrary, the earl defended those high personages at his own great peril; and the reiterated demand for his sanctification appeals to the words of Scripture, "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you."

Of this strange story no continuation appears till fifty-nine years later, when Walshingham, the Benedictine monk of St. Alban's, chronicling the events of 1390 (the thirteenth year of Richard II.), writes, "_hoc quoque anno sanctus Thomas de Lancastria canonizatus est_." The same event is recorded by John Capgrave with the discrepancy of one year. Writing of 1389, he narrates: "And this same year was Thomas of Lancaster canonised, for it was seid commounly that he should nevir be canonised onto the time that all the juges that set upon him were ded, & all her issew."

Notwithstanding the distinct assertions of these two ecclesiastical historians, the festival of Thomas of Lancaster is not set down in any of the Salisbury Service books either printed or in manuscript. Nor does his feast come among those which Lyndwode speaks of as introduced in later years. Butler makes no mention of him in his _Lives of the Saints_, nor do the Bollandists give to him more than half-a-dozen lines, mentioning him amongst those whom they do not propose to notice.

A stone coffin found in a field not far from S. Thomas's Hill, near Pontefract, in the year 1828, which in local histories has been supposed to contain the bones of the earl, is still to be seen in the grounds of Lord Houghton, at Fryston Hall.[85] The heavy lid was removed in the presence of Mr. T. Wright, Rev. C. Hartshorne, and other members of the Archæological Association, and the bones taken out and examined. The head was found between the leg bones. All were of unusually large proportions. They were afterwards restored, with the exception of the skull, to their ancient resting-place. The skull is preserved in Fryston Hall.

[85] See Observations on the History of Thomas, earl of Lancaster, by Lord Houghton in the Transactions of the Archæological Association for 1863, and Notes and Queries for 1850; also "The Honour and Castle of Pontefract," by Rev. C. H. Hartshorne.

S. KATHARINE OF SWEDEN, V.

(A.D. 1381.)

[Roman Martyrology. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish Kalendar. Her office was sanctioned by Innocent VIII. Authority:--Her life by Ulph, a Brigittine friar, written thirty years after her death.]

S. Katharine of Sweden was the daughter of Ulph, prince of Nierck, in Sweden, and S. Bridget. At the age of seven she was placed in the nunnery of Risborg. Being very beautiful, her father contracted her in marriage to Egard, a young nobleman of great virtue; but she persuaded her husband to live with her a life of perpetual chastity. After the death of her father, S. Katharine out of devotion undertook a pilgrimage with her mother to various holy places, and came to Rome, where S. Bridget died in 1373. Katharine returned to Sweden and died abbess of Vatzen, in the diocese of Lincopen, on March 24th, 1381.

B. NICOLAS VON DER FLUE, H.

(A.D. 1487.)

[Venerated in Unterwalden, in Switzerland, whence his cultus has spread into France and the Netherlands. His life was written the year after his death by Heinrich von Gundelfingen, canon of Bern. See also Albrecht v. Bonstetten, Leben d. Selig. Nicolaus von der Flue, vom j. 1487 aus einer Nürnberger Handschrift herausgegeben v. C. Morel, Einsiedeln, 1862. The following account is condensed from Catholic Legends, Burns, London.]

Nicolas von der Flue was born in Unterwalden in the year 1417, near the village of Sachseln. He was descended from a race of good and pious shepherds, in whom were transmitted from father to son the ancient virtues of the Swiss, and who enjoyed during successive centuries the esteem of their fellow-countrymen. His parents had an honest competence; and, after the example of their fathers, they adhered stedfastly to the true and ancient faith, respected the laws of their country, and brought up their children in piety and virtue. They tended their flocks with unwearied care; and, after a life of tranquility, fell asleep in God, full of confidence; for they had walked before Him, like the patriarchs, to the borders of Jordan. The young Nicolas grew up beneath their salutary tutelage, and manifested always an obedient spirit and a love of virtue; gentle and pious even from the days of his childhood. It was often remarked by those around him, that after the hard labour of a whole day in the fields, when he returned home in the evening, he would disappear by stealth to pray in some secret place. His spirit began thus early to mortify the body, in order to give itself without distraction to elevated contemplation. When some one, out of kindness, warned him not to ruin his health in his youth by such severe fasts as he was accustomed to observe, he replied, with sweetness, that such was the will of God concerning him. Notwithstanding his fervent and austere devotion, his demeanour was cheerful and affable; and he discharged with fidelity all the duties which his condition of life imposed upon him. He entered upon manhood endowed with a noble firmness of soul, a penetrating intelligence, and great purity of heart. In his twenty-third year he took arms, at the call of the magistrates, in the campaign against Zurich; and again, fourteen years later, at the time of the occupation of Thurgau, when he commanded, as captain, a company of 100 men, and manifested such bravery, that his country decreed him a gold medal as a recompense. A yet more honourable circumstance in the same expedition was the saving of the monastery of the valley of S. Katharine, near Diessenhofen, which to this day reveres him as its deliverer. It was owing to his exhortations that the Swiss relinquished their design of setting fire to the abbey, in order to expel the enemy, who abandoned it soon after of their own accord. In battle he carried his sword in one hand, his chaplet in the other: he showed himself at once a fearless soldier and a merciful Christian, protecting the widow and the orphan, and not permitting the conquerors to perpetrate acts of violence against the vanquished.

Arrived at manhood, Nicolas married a virtuous young girl, named Dorothea Wysyling. They had ten children, five sons and five daughters.