Gerald the Abbot

ON ST. GERALD THE ABBOT, FOUNDER OF SILVA-MAJOR IN AQUITAINE.

YEAR 1095. PREVIOUS COMMENTARY.

Gerald the Abbot, Founder of Silva-Major, in Aquitaine (St.)

BY D. P.

§ I. Canonization of St. Gerald. Office composed by Stephen, Bishop of Tournai. That Gerald, by others called Giraldus, Giraudus, and Gerardus, St. Gerald first Abbot of Silva-Major in the territory of Bordeaux, and Founder of the Congregation of Silva once most widely propagated, was not inscribed by Arnold Wion in the monastic annals of the Benedictines, we wonder all the more, the greater the authority by which we recognize him ascribed to the catalogue of the Saints, and prove it from the Bull of Pope Celestine III, elected on March 29 in the year 1191, of which the tenor is this, sent down to us from the archive of the said monastery. Celestine, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, to all the faithful of Christ by Celestine III established throughout the province of Bordeaux, greeting and Apostolic benediction. As the golden phials of perfumes, full of the prayers of the Saints, in the sight of the Most High, for the expiation of the corruption of our crimes, send forth an odor of sweetness: so we believe it to profit our salvation greatly, if we hold upon earth a celebrated memory of them, commemorating their merits with solemn praises, by whose assiduous intercessions in heaven we hope to be aided. Indeed, when our dear sons, G. and P., monks of Silva-Major, had come to the Apostolic See, and had fully instructed Us concerning the holy conversation, life, and merits of Blessed Gerald, Founder of the said monastery, both through the letters of our venerable Brothers the Archbishop of Bordeaux and his suffragans, and of others, namely Abbots and Nobles, he is ascribed to the catalogue of the saints, and had offered to Us and Our Brethren many certain indications of these things; and through our venerable Brothers the Archbishop of Rouen, the Bishop of Châlons and certain others (who more fully knew the miracles which the Lord works through the merits of that holy man), we had been made more certain; having also heard the signs of his virtue and miracles, and that among carnal men he had had a spiritual, among men even an angelic conversation: him, who being corporally dissolved deserved to be with Christ (lest we seem in some way to detract from the honor and glory due to him, if we should permit one sanctified by the Lord to lack any longer the veneration of human devotion) by the counsel of Our Brethren we have canonized, and decreed that he should be numbered in the catalogue of the Saints. Since therefore his lamp has so burned in this world, that by the grace of God it has already deserved to be placed not under a bushel, but upon a candlestick; that, burning in itself through works of charity, it may shine to others through example: we ask, admonish, and by the authority which we exercise, in commanding, command your universality, that being devoutly and salutarily moved to venerate him, you honor him with solemn festivity, on the day appointed, each year: that the same, struck by votive prayers, in the year 1197 may intercede for us with the Lord. Given at the Lateran on the fifth of the Kalends of May, in the seventh year of our Pontificate: which was the year of Christ 1197.

[2] The Archbishops then were: of Bordeaux, Elias de Mala-morte, elected in the year 1182, and the same Legate of the Apostolic See in the parts of Aquitaine until the year 1206; of Rouen, Walter of Coutances, already from the year 1184 translated from the bishopric of Lincoln in England to this metropolis, surnamed the Magnificent, for the magnitude of his deeds, a synopsis of which may be seen in the Sainte-Marthes in Gallia Christiana: who also show that the insignia of Châlons were then held by Rotrodus, son of the Count of Perche, a young man more illustrious by blood than by morals, consecrated in the year 1190. Moreover, the chief agent and curator of the whole business was Peter de Laubese, tenth Abbot of Silva-Major, who also obtained from the same Pope Celestine the confirmation and amplification of that bull by which Alexander III in the year 1169 had confirmed many churches and possessions to that monastery. when Peter was Abbot, He obtained it in the very year in which the canonization took place, as the most accurate catalogue of Abbots has it, compiled from a collation of original documents and to be given after the Lives: in which, although that Peter is said to have died on the Ides of January in the year 1197, yet we have no doubt that this is to be understood according to the French custom, and so that death must be referred, for us who begin the year not from Easter but from the Kalends of January, to the following year 1198. The same one took care to obtain a proper Office for the newly Canonized Saint from him, who being solicitous about composing the Office, who, although far distant at Tournai in Belgium, yet from being Cantor and Canon at Orléans in the church of St. Evurtius, first secular, then Regular, was known to be of much avail in this genre; from Stephen, I say, Bishop of Tournai. Therefore having heard that Stephen, then still Abbot of St. Genevieve, had judged an Archdeacon of Bordeaux, established at the schools in Paris, worthy of his affability and acquaintance; he obtained from him letters of supplication to this man for that business: which are read among the letters of the said Stephen, inserted in the great Bibliotheca of the Fathers of Marguerin de la Bigne, number 231. In which letters the same Archdeacon (having begged on bended knee, in shame and trembling, pardon for his ridiculous presumption, that on pen and paper stammering he should dare to supplicate his majesty, as if a servant to his Lord, Davus to Oedipus, an elementary boy to a wise man) praises the said Saint and his monastery in these words. Indeed Blessed Gerald, he has him interceded for drawing his origin from the parts of Gaul (whose life flourished laudable to men, and whose comely and precious death in the sight of the Lord shines by the witnesses of signs and gleams with miracles: who coming to the parts of Bordeaux, both founded from the first stone the monastery of Silva-Major, and reformed it by regular disciplines) has this year been authenticated by the Lord Pope at Rome with the due solemnity of Masses, and deserved to be ascribed in the catalogue of Saints. But how, by the grace of God, in the said monastery, above the common rules of monks, order flourishes and is fervent; your greatness can be more faithfully and effectively taught by the proclamation of fame than by the office of the pen.

[3] by the Archdeacon of Bordeaux to Stephen Bishop of Tournai These words there, not Stephen Bishop of Tournai to the Archdeacon of Bordeaux, as the mistaken title indicates (for what reason is there that a Bishop of a most celebrated See in Belgium, and of the greatest authority throughout all Gaul, should so address an Archdeacon of whatever rank?) much less to an Archbishop of Bordeaux; (for how absurd is it that one so distant from Silva-Major by so great an interval of lands, should have so written to him under whose eyes both the miracles of St. Gerald and the discipline of his monks were, and whose monastery almost clung in the suburbs of his metropolis?) but the Archdeacon of Bordeaux to the Lord of Tournai (for so we judge the title should be restored, and the equitable reader will judge with us, if he should wish to attend to the other things which follow, from which it will also more clearly appear what was asked of Stephen). So then the writer continues the letter. Since your name is an oil poured out, most well-known throughout all Gaul on account of his learning, and the talent of your knowledge cannot be hidden, but rather like a greater luminary is diffused through the whole body of the Church, and in the odor of your lips and discourses old men run with younger men; the Abbot of the said monastery and the whole Convent ask, the whole diocese of Bordeaux proclaims, poured out at your feet, according to the grace which has been given to you, in Antiphons over the Psalms, and in Responsories over the Lessons, and in the Prose and Collect at Mass to be officiated; so that besides the suffrages of the Church, which will be perpetually due to you, your memory may thrive perpetually and live by blessing. Although they seem to sin against public advantages who strive to draw your hands entangled in so many actions, your ears due and bound to so many businesses, away: nevertheless bend yourself, pious Father, having taken ink and pen, to the praises and canticles of Blessed Gerald, and for a little time indulge in his service: so that if you have contracted any stain in secular poems by playing at times, now with the opportunity offered to you, offering the calves of your lips to the Lord and Blessed Gerald, you may more devoutly amend it. May your reverend Paternity fare well always and everywhere.

[4] Having received these letters, Stephen responded with a letter, which is numbered in inverted order 224: which we will more willingly put here in its entirety, so that what we said above about the author of the earlier letter may be made more manifest. It is inscribed thus: To the Abbot and Chapter of Silva, common prayers in the Lord. There came to us a certain young man on your behalf, ready in speech and erudite in knowledge, who promises he will do what was asked: Master A., asking with an ardent reminder of prayers, that we offer to Blessed Gerald the Confessor and your patron, who has recently been canonized in the number of Saints by the Roman Church, some calves of our lips, by which we may both proclaim the glory of so great a man and deserve his grace. You enjoin upon us a new and unusual thing, which if perchance we should attempt, it will be both a nuisance to the reader and a laughingstock to the hearer. They will judge an old man delirious, they will cry out that the Bishop is foolish, who, neglecting meanwhile the ecclesiastical sacraments and the due care of his parishioners, fitting uncomposed words to new measures, will seem to go mad. At times we have played in meter, perhaps even in prose: Nor is it shameful to have played: but not to end the play. But since charity conquers all, having meanwhile set aside other busy occupations, we shall take care to rouse up a similar zeal; and God willing, aided by your prayers and the prayers of the said Confessor, with stammering pen we shall attempt to fulfill what you have asked. Let him who will laugh: a good conscience and unfeigned faith will excuse us. This is the end of the letter, which, after the death (meanwhile while the letters go and return) of Peter, must have come into the hands of his successor Gombaldus, who held the government for the rest of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth.

[5] Having received so favorable a reply, the Abbot of Silva-Major and the whole Convent wrote back a letter to the Lord of Tournai, to which the Abbot of Silva-Major writes back, of which thus far only this beginning remains. Your fiery eloquence, Lord, vehemently, and your servants, whose hearts it has inflamed, love it. For to our hearing it has given joy and gladness… But after Stephen actually exhibited what he had promised; the same Abbot and Convent poured themselves out in giving thanks in words of this kind. and receiving the Office gives thanks, To narrate your grace and mercy upon us, how great, I say, is the multitude of your sweetness, which you have revealed to your little ones, and have perfected it for those who hope in you; and how great thanksgivings we owe to it, the tongue fails to say, and reason to grasp; and at such munificence of yours our consideration is astounded: which yet may not be kept silent, even if they cannot be explained. Therefore giving thanks to your dignity, through which we have deserved to receive whatever our soul had asked of you and desired in praise and proclamation of St. Gerald; composed with powerful words, and most fittingly arranged for devoutly praying to God, and easily occurring to clothe the thoughts; we not undeservedly exult with unspeakable joy in so great a matter of joys: we are refreshed and delighted in the Lord over the sweet measures of your tongue and the jubilations of the proclamations; where so quickly was there a speech of wisdom in so brief a space of time; and God himself so quickly a master; and both tongue and hand and grace sending the promised things, have been made the pen of a scribe swiftly writing.

[6] not without a pious little gift, Then, that they might exhibit some appearance of grateful affection in the matters themselves, they offer him plenary fraternity of their monastery, both in life and in death; and as a sign of devotion and pledge of perpetual service they send a little gift, namely a staff of cypress, which pastoral staff, as sent to him from distant parts, and congruous both with the Episcopal office and the quality of the mystery, and worthy of the quantity of the ministry, Stephen in the following letter 234 soon transmitted to the Elect of Orléans; but the Abbot and Convent conclude their letter to him in this way. but denies that the author's name could be silenced. Your name, which you forbade to be done, we have determined to exalt and proclaim in all things, according to that Gospel saying, The more he commanded them, the more they proclaimed, saying, He has done all things well. Mark 7:36 For we deem it unworthy that authority should be lacking to so great an ornament of words, and to recite as apocrypha things authentic; which ought to obtain more favor (for which we specially chose you) from the name of the author. For this secret will be kept for you, as regards the conscience within, as to God; but outwardly it shall be public to fame, as regards the neighbor. May your holy and most dear Paternity fare well always in all things in length of days. § II. Double Life of St. Gerald, Prelacy at Laon and Soissons.

[7] That fitting documents concerning the virtues and miracles of St. Gerald shone forth to Stephen, who was about to compose the Office of St. Gerald, and that these were supplied by the Abbot and Convent of Silva-Major, perhaps those very ones by which the canonization was obtained and perfected at Rome, Double Life can seem doubtful to no one. We have obtained a double Life of him, each composed within the first century from the Saint's death. One of them Hugo Menard had, from a Corbie MS., and abridged into an epitome. That we might have this whole and from the original, we sent letters to the monastery of Silva-Major itself: by which the most worthy Prior of that place, R. D. Gabriel Bellordeau, through a man most studious and knowing of domestic antiquities, Stephen Dulauva, so took care that satisfaction should be given to us, that we can scarcely desire anything more for illustrating the Acts of St. Gerald. Sent first of all was the Life that was asked for; the first written from a Silva MS. about the year 1140 in a style not very polished, but faithful, described by a monk of Silva, anxious that those things might be transmitted to the knowledge of posterity, which, he says, have been done in our days. For although he himself nowhere testifies that he had conversed with the Saint still living, yet he lived with those who could learn each of his deeds from the first companions in founding the monastery, and had the Saint himself as master of their religious life. One of these was Peter, who was older than the other of the same name, whom we saw to be solicitous for the canonization of St. Gerald; he was (as is said in no. 28) received as a monk by St. Gerald, was his Chaplain for very many days, and with his eyes closed, and already advanced in age, he succeeded him as the seventh in the dignity of Abbot, elected in the year 1121, and still surviving in the year 1135. The author indeed does not speak of him, as though still living when he was writing; yet it appears that he wrote not long after his death, because in no. 26 he cites as witnesses those who heard the Chartres monk, saved from shipwreck by the invocation of the absent St. Gerald, relating the same thing to St. Gerald: and in no. 32, having narrated the miracle performed concerning the son of that Augerius, who in the year 1079 had bestowed the possession of Silva-Major on St. Gerald, he concludes: These and the other signs which we relate, we have received from no others except from those who most certainly saw and heard them, or to whom they have been communicated. But in the prologue he gives a reason why he calls him a Saint, not yet canonized by the judgment of the Church.

[8] the other from a Corbie MS. written about the year 1190. But with the miracles increasing at the tomb of the holy Founder, it began to be dealt with concerning his solemn canonization, for the instruction of which business there was ordered a certain Christian, a monk of the same Silva-Major, to expound more succinctly and elegantly the virtues of the blessed man, and to add certain more illustrious miracles, performed after the writing of the first Life: which little work of his, in which it is remarkable that no mention is made of the prior Life, we received from the Corbie MS. in the year 1642 from the Reverend Father James Dinet, then Provincial of our Society throughout the province of France: which Life we have judged should be given in second place; concerning its antiquity there is no doubt, because nowhere does it mention the canonization obtained, or miracles, which as is fair to believe followed the same in greater number. Both Lives narrate how St. Gerald was sought as Abbot by the people of Laon among the monks in the monastery of St. Vincent, and obtained: both testify that he was Abbot at Laon. which must have happened after the year 1070, when Reginerius brother of Gerald and Abbot of that place was dead. How long he held that Prelacy is nowhere said: but it is agreed that, offended by the indiscipline of the monks, he renounced it, and with three monks of the same purpose as himself went away as a pilgrim.

[9] That he tarried for some time at Soissons, and there by the procuring of St. Arnulf, to whom he had attached himself, he was made Abbot, neither Life indeed indicates; indeed both narrate his departure from Laon as if there he had treated with the holy Solitary, and had received five soldiers as companions for undertaking the pilgrimage: we have however an irrefragable witness of this matter, Lisiardus, that then at Soissons he was substituted for St. Arnulf; Bishop of Soissons, in the Life of St. Arnulf (which he wrote ten or twenty years at most after St. Gerald's death), relating that when St. Arnulf from his solitude, in which he lived as a recluse, was drawn unwillingly to govern the Abbey of St. Medard, in the place of the pseudo-monk Pontius, about the year 1077, not long after, because he was unwilling to follow the royal service according to custom, had been ordered to abdicate the same; having convoked all the Prelates of the churches and communicated counsel, there was elected as Abbot a man of great learning and religion, named Gerald: to whom being not long substituted, suddenly Pontius flew in, bringing with him the Queen of the Franks, named Bertrada, who by royal force drove out Gerald. but soon expelled he departed into Aquitaine, Then having narrated the vain effort of St. Arnulf for maintaining the election, chapter XVI concludes thus in our two MSS.: But Gerald, repelled from it, gave place to wrath, and withdrew into the parts of Aquitaine; where, being graciously received by the Duke of that land, he built in Silva-Major an illustrious monastery: where he served God worthily, and with a blessed end rested in the Lord: whose life and death shone by the signs of virtues and the glory of miracles.

[10] The narration of the author, so present in place and time, cannot be suspect to anyone: and with all the Manuscripts, which are found very many, consenting to it, Menard doubts in vain of its truth, because the very Life of St. Gerald does not mention this matter: For how easy was it that a matter so dealt with in passing should be passed over in silence by the writers of Silva? and because the soldiers joined to Gerald were all of Laon, was it not easy to believe that they had been received also at Laon? Let therefore the Prelacy of St. Gerald at Soissons, no less than at Laon, but of a very brief time, remain undoubted; it cannot be doubted, indeed even let it be admitted as probable, that in the Life of St. Gerald no other Recluse ought to be understood than St. Arnulf: to whom with three companions from the Laon monastery Gerald had joined himself, with a desire of leading a solitary life under his discipline: which St. Arnulf, soon after seized for an Abbey, led the same men fervent in the newness of the spirit into his own monastery, and yielded its administration to St. Gerald: but compelled to yield likewise, he sorrowfully dismissed him, augmented by a new company of five penitent soldiers. Saussay in his Gallican Martyrology, weaving an elogium for St. Gerald from the said Life of St. Arnulf, nor whether he was a monk at Corbie, but borrowing from Menard the name of the homeland and of the monastery of Corbie; so confounds all things, that he seems most clearly to feign St. Arnulf Abbot of Corbie, and to attribute the whole institution of St. Gerald in Corbie to the magisterium of the same Arnulf: which we attribute not to any ignorance, but to the precipitancy of the man then still young in such matters. Bucelinus indeed cites Saussay as his author, and from him makes St. Gerald a disciple of St. Arnulf Bishop of Soissons: but how or where, he nowhere touches; and wholly dissembling that the disciple had been substituted for the master in the Abbey, and accepting all things from Menard, he shows that, admonished by this doubt, he the more readily withdrew faith from Saussay, because he noted in him so great a confusion of places and persons. and that he wrote there the Life of St. Adelard. Moreover, before Gerard departed from Corbie, he contracted to the moderate brevity of legitimate history the Life of St. Adelard Abbot of Corbie, which had been expanded by his successor St. Paschasius Radbertus with such verbosity of amplifications and affections that it was a nuisance to readers and inconvenient for the use of the church; in which form we gave it on January 2. He added also a book on his elevation and miracles: but which either he did not complete, being called away to Laon, or we have not yet obtained entire. For who would believe that he would pass over miracles performed at the invocation of the same Saint during the time of his monkhood? Indeed among them not the last ought to have been that benefit of recovered health which he himself had received from the Saint. § III. Double feast of St. Gerald, Relics and other things pertaining to his memory.

[11] We heard Pope Celestine III in the year 1197, more than a hundred years having elapsed since the Saint's death, Cultus on 13 October formerly more solemn, on account of the translation, commanding the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of Châlons to honor St. Gerald himself with a solemn festivity, on an appointed day, each year. These, with no regard had to the day of his death (since the holy man's body, which thirty, forty, or more years before had been translated with solemn pomp from the sepulchre in which it was first buried, through the care of Peter the seventh Abbot, as is said in the first Life no. 28) prescribed either the day of this or of another second translation after the canonization to be commemorated yearly, namely October 13: to which day the name of Gerald the Confessor soon began to be ascribed in the martyrologies of Usuard and indeed in the MS. of St. Germain-des-Prés, On the same day of the holy Confessors Gerald and Leobonus; but in the double Cologne printed edition and in the MS. Florarium only Gerald is placed with the title of Confessor: and in some places, for instance in the Brussels MS. of St. Gudula, and that which Molanus used for the Douai edition, for Gerald is written Gerard. But it argues his chief cult on the 13th of October, that on this day and no other he is found in the more ancient calendars and in various monastic MS. calendars, in which only one Saint, and that to be honored with ecclesiastical Office, is usually inscribed on each day: and in the MS. Martyrology of the Benedictines of Marchiennes at Tournai, he is placed before all others in the first place on the 3rd of the Ides of October. The feast of St. Gerald Confessor. In a similar phrase he seems to be inscribed in the Martyrology of Rouge-Cloître, which Molanus citing in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium, says, In Aquitaine, the feast of St. Gerard Abbot and Confessor, a man of wondrous sanctity: and lest you doubt, in the title he calls him Abbot of Silva-Major. Ferrarius in his Catalogue and others transcribed Molanus.

[12] But this day was not, as we have said, although formerly more celebrated in cult, now 5 April on account of his death. the feast day of St. Gerald, concerning which the author of the second Life, Christian, writes thus in no. 23, Mature in age, in good old age, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand ninety-five, on the Nones of April, he paid the debt of nature. I scarcely doubt that the Silvans, who indicated that they celebrated a double feast of the Birthday and of the Translation, now principally honor him on this day, since today he is set forth in the Benedictine Martyrology of Menard with an epitome of the life; whom Saussay and Bucelinus both followed with a prolix elogium. The author of the Chronicle of St. Maxentius, commonly called of Maillezais, ending forty years after the Saint's death, noted his death thus. In the year 1095 died Geraudus Abbot of good memory of Silva-Major, on the eighth of the Ides of April. On the same night on which he died, stars were seen to fall from heaven in the manner of a torch. Therefore he died in the middle of the night, whence it came that some noted the day as ending, others as beginning. We retain the earlier day, omitting the day of the Translation, which we have indicated was double; and on the second, we think, in accordance with the custom for those solemnly canonized, that the body was conveyed to the altar and placed beneath it; the head however being removed, which then for the first time we believe, for the greater ornament of supplications and for convenience, was separated from the rest of the trunk. Concerning which the most ancient tradition is, as Stephen du Lauva testifies, that some thieves by night stole it, took it out of the silver casket in which it was enclosed, finding and adorning of the head: and threw it away in a certain hidden wood, three leagues distant from the monastery: which the Silvan monks sought with the greatest diligence, and at length found, by the indication of the shepherds of that region, asserting that in that place an enormous and unusual splendor was wont to be beheld by them; and so they brought it back to their church with the greatest honor. But this, in the year 1669 in which we write, the most Reverend Father Gabriel Bellordeau placed the said head within a new silver half-length statue of the body, and set it upon an elegant casket, within which he had enclosed the holy man's hair shirt and breeches woven from goat's hair; and in the front part of the same casket, by means of glass adorned round with silver, there is seen a very small, blunt, and (if looked at by itself) most worthless little knife of the Saint; inserted in a precious piece of jet, a finger and a half long; with which, tradition received from the ancestors holds, entire trees were cut down by the Saint.

[13] reliquary placed on the altar: There is also still preserved in a decent place the old wooden casket, from which Abbot Peter drew forth the rest of the holy man's body: was it the first of this name, who raised the bones from the sepulchre; or the third, under whom the canonization was celebrated? We rather think it was the third: but that the wooden casket was the work of the first Peter. But the reliquary which now contains the sacred remains is also most ancient, and is adorned with many plates and small columns and statuettes, made quite elegantly of gilded and encaustically painted bronze. This one in the preceding year the said most Reverend Father caused to be placed on the vigil of the Virgin's Nativity on the right side of the main altar, behind the tabernacle of the Most Holy Sacrament (likewise made and gilded by his zeal) causing to be placed on the left side a reliquary similar to the former, prepared by himself for the custody of many Relics, whose names time had obliterated; and constituting in the middle of both caskets a wooden image of the Virgin Mother of God two cubits in height, a work most ancient, and of great veneration with all. These things the said R. D. Stephen, from whom also we have a distinct declaration of the other Relics in the same monastery, to which almost all a new adornment has accrued, through the care of the same man who accomplished the things said hitherto.

[14] We have also from the same man the Office composed by Stephen of Tournai for the feast day of St. Gerald, from which we shall give below certain things: and the Office for the day of the Translation, with the lessons of the first and second Nocturn taken from St. Augustine's City of God, namely from book 21 chapter 1 and book 22 chapters 10, 22, 23, and 30; which latter Office we think was arranged in the Silvan monastery itself. station to be made before it every Saturday. But the lessons of both feasts have now passed into disuse, and others drawn from the Life of the Saint have been substituted for some time, the same man taught us who taught the rest: adding that, for the Station which used to be made every Saturday before the altar of St. Gerald, the following Antiphon was prescribed with the following Collect. O guardian of Silva-Major, man greatest of the great, Holy Father of Monks, most pious Gerald: Sinners, who praise thee, from sins release: Let these prayers move thee, let the tears move thee, That with thee in good things our souls may linger.

PRAYER.

O God, whom thy true servant Gerald in spirit and in truth adored and worshipped, grant to thy suppliants, that we who with pious love embrace his venerable body, may be aided by his pious prayers before thee. Through our Lord &c. From which we understand that, before the reliquary of the sacred body was placed upon the high altar, it had its own proper altar, at which that Station was repeated every week.

[15] With these things which we have touched upon thus far, sent from Silva-Major, a full history of the Abbots and a catalogue of the Abbeys and Priories of the same monastery was promised, either once or even now, partly subject as to a head; partly united by a bond of fraternity and mutual communion of prayers. These things indeed were not very necessary to our plan, Other monuments in Silva-Major. yet to supply the defect of the Sainte-Marthes, in volume 4 of Gallia Christiana, dealing less fully with this monastery than with others, we wished to gratify men so benevolent and well-deserving and to insert these very things in this work: but above all we desired to obtain entire a certain writing of St. Gerald himself, notice of which had been given by the same man as above, with such a beginning of it indicated: I Gerald, by the grace of God Abbot, though unworthy, among these a writing of the Saint himself about his beginnings had long desired to be snatched from the worldly waves, by which I was battered more sharply than a frail soul could bear: moreover those subject to me less obeyed; nor could their iron hearts be softened: whom indeed worldly affairs had hardened more. At length by the divine mercy showing a harbor of salvation, it pleased my soul to seek the caves of solitude, where there was no worldly habitation of man. Therefore, having commended to the Bishop the care of the flock committed to me, I went out from the monastery, with a few accompanying, wholly ignorant whither the course of the journey might bring. But at length we came to William, Count of Poitou.

[16] The rest we were hoping for, when it was reported to us that a successor of wholly unlike disposition had been given to that distinguished zealot of Gerald's honor, D. Gabriel before mentioned: who disdained our work in this matter, and restrained the hands of his Religious ready to serve us, answering that there were in the Benedictine Order itself those who would take care of these things. It appears that he did not understand how our institute and theirs of writing about Saints, in many things diverse, can mutually help and be helped, nor does it matter in which work some monument first appears. And would that the things which he denied to us asking, he would not neglect to send to them, and about the rule in extreme age nor let the distinguished confirmation of the whole history to be had from the pen of the Saint himself perish entirely: who at the end of that MS. is said to speak thus: I, now descending into the defect of decrepit age, already desired to lay down the care of the monks, and less useful to yield to a better one: but the Lord Amatus, asked by our Brethren, although I resisted with all efforts, nevertheless commended their providence to me, testifying obedience on behalf of the Lord Pope. From which things D. Stephen du Lauva gathered that St. Gerald retained the Abbatial care to his last breath, and warns that the said D. Amatus was Apostolic Legate, who in the Council held at Bordeaux in the year 1080, forbade the Saint to withdraw from his office; Philip Labbe adds in the Synopsis of Councils, that Amatus, the President of the Council, was Bishop of Oloron: whom the Sainte-Marthes also write to have been translated to the Metropolis of Bordeaux in the year 1088, and to have discharged the office of Apostolic Legate both before and after.

[17] To the memory also of the things done by St. Gerald pertains his distinguished care for the deceased Brethren, of which in the book in MS. there this monument exists. Let all know, as well present as future, and by the suffrages decreed by him for the dead that I Gerald, Abbot of St. Mary of Silva-Major, although unworthy, providing for the advantage of the living and the dead, by the common counsel of the whole Congregation established, and that it may remain forever I commanded to be committed to letters. If any of our Congregation shall have departed from the world, and been buried with us, up to a year, bread and wine shall be bestowed upon the poor for him, and up to thirty days Mass and Vigils of the dead shall be celebrated in common by all: and this in such a way that the first seven Masses and Vigils are solemnly performed, with all bells rung: but each of the Priests shall go through seven Masses for him: he who is not a Priest, three Psalters: he who has not yet come to the Psalter, shall daily sing seven Psalms for up to thirty days: but he who does not know, seven times daily the Miserere: and he who not even the Miserere, seven times daily the Our Father… But if two or even more shall die together, they shall all be placed together as one: but if within two or four days or even more one has died, both being placed together, what is diminished for one at the beginning, shall be restored when the Office of the other is finished: but the whole Congregation shall sing Psalms prostrate for the first seven days, before the altar after Chapter… But if someone shall have died in a cell which is far from the monastery; everything shall be performed for him as for one present, except that bread and wine shall be established in alms in the cell where he died, up to a year, as already said.

[18] How these things were also extended to the Abbots and Brethren of other Congregations, and to the congregations spiritually federated associated with Silva-Major by a bond of special federation, is clear from the same MS. in these words. Be it known to all, both future and present, that D. Odo, Abbot of St. John of Angers, came into the Chapter of St. Mary of Silva-Major, and by the counsel of Lord Gerald the Abbot and all the Brethren, for the deceased Brethren they established mutually, that on the very day on which his letter should come, all bells being rung, a fullest Vigil should be held, on the morrow likewise Mass most fully; and up to seven days likewise, but without bells rung. But at Prime, with bells rung, the Psalm Verba mea, after Chapter: on which day the portion of bread and wine shall be given for him. The same is done for the Congregations of St. Benedict of Nanteuil, of Luçon, of the Canons of St. Mary of Pamiers, of St. Peter of Maillezais, of St. Maurice of Agen, of St. Mary of Deols, of St. Peter of Ferrières, of St. Savior of Charroux, of St. Michael of the Hermitage, of the Canons of St. Romanus of Blaye, of St. Vincent of Laon, of the Holy Cross of Quimperlé. Besides this, for the Abbots of St. John of Angers, it shall be done as much as for one of our Brethren. For the Abbots of the Congregations of Luçon and Maillezais a portion shall be given for thirty days. to some extent extended, For the Abbots of St. Peter of Ferrières a thirty-days' Office shall be completed, both in Masses and in Vigils. For the Monks of Charroux thirty days at each Hour the Psalm Voce mea at the familiar Psalms; and after Matins, Verba mea. For the monks of St. Paul of Cormery, having received the letter, after Chapter with bells sounding we perform an Absolution and through seven and seven full Offices with as many Masses; and through thirty days Verba mea, and Voce mea. Likewise we do for the Congregation of Uzerche, of Geneva, of St. Launomarus of Blois, of St. Peter of Chartres, of St. Mary of Guistres, and of St. Stephen of Bearn. Besides, on the day on which the letter of the Brethren of St. Launomarus of Blois is recited, a portion of bread and wine. For the Clerics of St. Martin of Rurici-court three Vigils and three Masses, only on the first day with bells rung. The same is done for the Sisters of St. Mary of Soissons, and the Monks of St. Peter of Solignac. For the monks of St. Martin des Champs after Chapter, an Absolution and one full Vigil and one Mass. For the Congregations of the monastery of Eu and the Canons of the See of St. Stephen of Agen, likewise for others associated. we shall perform seven Masses with Vigils, and shall bestow a portion, on the very day on which the letter is recited in Chapter.

[19] Concerning the Congregations of our society, either those which have received our society or are about to receive it, if any shall have died and a messenger shall come to us, we shall perform seven Masses and as many Vigils in common. The other three four, with the three. Yet so that on the very day on which the messenger arrives, after Chapter, with bells sounding, the Psalm Verba mea shall be sung for him; and he who is a Priest shall say Mass for him: the others one Psalter; he who does not know the Psalter, seven Psalms: he who not the seven Psalms, the Miserere seven times; and he who not even the Miserere, seven times the Our Father. The Congregations of our society are these: the Congregation of St. Sycarius of Brantôme, of St. Florentius of Saumur, of St. Faith of Conques. And here the enumeration of the said Congregations breaks off: which if more are not expressed in the MS., we shall easily be persuaded that all the above was established by St. Gerald, and begun to be described in this Codex, with the intention of inscribing there the other Societies, afterwards to be established by the consent of the Brethren. Perhaps also to the times of this St. Gerald pertains the pact entered with Marmoutier under such tenor: This is the indissoluble pact of the monasteries of Marmoutier and Silva-Major: namely, that for the Brethren of both Monasteries each chapter and every spiritual and temporal benefaction shall be common on both sides to all, and entire society through all things. For the deceased Brethren indeed once a year we shall celebrate a plenary Vigil and festive Mass; and having received the letter, soon after Chapter is finished, Verba mea, with its appendices, for the absolution of the Brethren who shall have been recited, with bells rung, we shall perform.

LIFE

By an almost contemporary author, a monk of Silva-Major, from a MS. of the same monastery.

Gerald the Abbot, Founder of Silva-Major, in Aquitania (S.)

BHL Number: 3417

BY A SYNCHRONOUS AUTHOR FROM MS. PROLOGUE

[1] Bearing the habit of the Christian religion, desiring the salvation of all the faithful of God, to the universal Church salvation in the Lord. Since I see many things done in past times committed to parchment, lest they be erased by oblivion; it has also pleased me, that what things have been done in our days should be transmitted by the office of our little wit to posterity. If indeed those our fathers, things which were done for the sake of mere boasting alone, with such labor took care to make known to us; how much more we, the things which are of God, lest they be suppressed by silence, ought to labor. Therefore let us turn their examples to good for ourselves: and what they did for human favor, let us do for divine glory. Let us therefore approach to narrate what we have begun, and not let it be sweet to us to stray any further from the work begun. First indeed we beseech the Maker of all and Redeemer, that to us, entering so great a sea, he may deign to extend his hand; that how the most blessed Gerald, first Abbot of Silva-Major, lived in the exile of his life, how great temptations the ancient enemy inflicted on him, how bravely, fortified by divine help, he fought against his temptings, and how great mercy the omnipotent Lord bestowed upon him, if not as would be fitting, yet at least in some manner explaining these things, borne by the keel of charity, with faith as the sail, the grace of the Holy Spirit breathing upon our sails, we may be able through the path of justice to reach the harbor of salvation. Wherefore let the reader imitate in the servant of God his constancy, in the weak patience, in the patient long-suffering, in long-suffering an unremitting course. Nor let him prejudice an excess in the things said; because neither can the fingers in writing, nor the tongue in words equal, as it is: especially since the same man could scarcely have reported these things, lest they should seem to be put forth to his own praise. Therefore let no opinion of false praise be noted in him: because this description was made not for his own, but for God's glory. Let it seem to no one grievous or unworthy, that so great a dwelling of the Holy Spirit should be called a saint: because if he knew and did justice, and saw marvels and great things, and besought the Most High; without doubt he is found in the number of the Saints. Whoever shall read or hear these things, let him pardon the ignorance of the Writer: let him attend not to what style, but to whom; and considering through whom the work is done; and let him not seek the artificer of the codex. For no one sound in wisdom ought to attend to the ornamented harmony of words; but whether what he attends to is catholic, to perceive subtly with the insight of the mind. Invoking the Lord as witness of this truth, let us come to the narration.

CHAPTER I.

B. Gerald's pious education in the monastery of Corbie, holy adolescence, long infirmity.

[2] Gerald a therefore, sprung from parents not unknown at Corbie, offered at Corbie as a boy, was handed over by his parents in the very monastery of Corbie to serve the Lord; where he so exercised the years of his boyhood in holy conversation, that from the delights of this kind which boys usually embrace, he seemed wholly alien; and was loved more than his contemporaries by all who were in this monastery. Boys loved him, because he invited boys to every good: young men loved him, because in him they took examples of all probity and patience: old men admired him, because they beheld him striving beyond the powers of his age. he was lovable to all What more? He was so loved by all who were in the monastery, as well monks as laymen, that God was proclaimed omnipotent and wondrous in him. Nor is it wonderful; because him whom God had poured out with grace, it was necessary that he should be loved by all. Indeed persisting in humility, which is proved to be the guardian and mother of virtues, likewise fortified with the arms of obedience, he strove to follow him who, obedient to the Father even unto the death of the cross, had descended into the exile of this life. Truly made a child of the Most High, as far as he could, he showed Jesus wonderful in himself. Who shall ever be able sufficiently to admire God's marvels? for nothing is difficult to God either in small or greater things, as it has pleased him to work; because whether a boy or at whatever age, it is necessary that all, if he shall wish and command, utterly serve him. We heard that St. Nicholas, still hanging at the breasts of his mother on Wednesday and Friday, sucked the breasts only once in the day; as St. Nicholas. and content with this turn, persevered the whole day; considering the works of God, we cannot be silent: but this boy, in our times so blessed, showing himself such to all that he was loved by all, we who hear, have not dared not to proclaim God's marvels in him. Let us praise the Lord in most holy Nicholas, let us magnify him also in this boy, so wonderfully filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit. We do not dare to equate him with St. Nicholas; but in both we wish to proclaim God's marvels: for God is wonderful in his saints, both now and always, through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.

[3] But in those times, the laws of death envying Abbot Richard b, Fulco obtained the inheritance of the same seat and honor. A youth progressing excellently, But after the aforesaid boy entered the years of adolescence, not forgetting what he had done in boyhood, he extended himself to higher things: and ascending from virtue to virtue by God's help, he showed himself a form and mirror to all good men. As a youth, not forgetting the justifications of the Lord not forgetting, from Him, that he might live, he sought understanding; who gives abundantly to those who seek with their whole heart's affection, and does not reproach. Truly indeed one of the husbandmen, to whom was committed the care of the Lord's vineyard, who in due time brought back the fruit to his Lord. Also meditating without ceasing day and night upon the gain of the talent committed, and fearing vehemently the sentence of that slothful servant, who hid his lord's money; he did not cease, happy, to ply the business; so that he might be able to bring back to his Lord, when He came, the talent multiplied. But when the Abbot, under whom he dwelt, saw him so, as we have said, admired by all; he began, he becomes a monk, as a wise man, to meditate within himself, that in him, if he lived, something of good would grow up, and devoutly to beseech God, whose gift he saw that he was, that he might be preserved and advance toward the better: at length summoning him to himself, and taking him on as a monk to his own service; he began, as he was accustomed, to run wheresoever for the responses of his church he had need, and to take him as his helper and, in what he could, provident counselor. & Procurator of the monastery, A youth of good character bodily gone forth from the cloister, and brought forth to the public, about to become to many an example of probity, he set up for himself as guardian the Holy Spirit, who kept him immune and a stranger to every secular concupiscence. For wheresoever he turned himself, as he was wont in the monastery, intent upon fastings and prayers, as time and hour permitted, he strove to render the whole burden of psalmody, lest at any time he should fall short of what he had promised to God. But when to his mother's bosom, the response diligently finished, and in that office bearing himself most religiously he was returning, lightly esteeming the things he had seen abroad, with vigils and prayers and fastings he strongly afflicted the flesh.

[4] Wonders succeed wonders: thus he was engaged in secular affairs so as not to lose the guard of his mind: and so he watched in fastings and prayers, that nonetheless he should run to and fro in every place for the benefits of the church. If we attend to the words of the Gospel, and most dear to his Abbot, it is not to be wondered at: for God promised, to all who should believe in Him, that He would be at hand: for He says in the Gospel, Fear not, for I am with you all the days of your life unto the consummation of the world, and elsewhere: Be of good cheer: I have overcome the world, and again. Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you, and learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart: and you shall find rest for your souls: for my yoke is sweet, and my burden light. Mat. 28, 20, John 10, 33, Mat. 11, 28 Which Lord's words the aforesaid youth understanding, devoutly acquiesced; and ran joyfully to Him, that he might fulfill those promises. Leaving behind pride and the pomp of the world entirely, he wholly humbled himself to his precept; and, like a gentle sheep, without hesitation he surrendered himself to the institutions of the Lord. So great was his subjection toward the Abbot, that the Abbot's love toward him surpassed all others: and so, though unequal to the honor, he was equal however to the burden, since he was everywhere present, just as that kind of ministry requires.

[5] on account of immoderate labors And because the place was somewhat destitute, by penury of the times and the storm c of wars; the Abbot began at all hours, with every effort, to press on in the relieving of it. Neither night, nor the heat of day, nor the hour of eating or drinking, delayed them from the benefit of the place. All former custom was changed, sometimes anticipating the hour, sometimes prolonging the fast, sometimes taking more than usual, sometimes less, and moreover transgressing the nature of sleeping unequally: which in no way could be done without grave peril. By this change therefore both incurred great infirmity: he incurs a most grievous infirmity of the head: but the young man the greater, because he was more immature in habits and age. For he incurred such and so great an infirmity, as no man could explain, not with tongue, not in writing, nor by any manner of treatment. For there was some measure of infirmity: which no mortal man could bear, unless aided by the clemency of God. It was in the head: how grave a place this is appears from this, that this part of the body is wont to direct the other members. This is some comparison of this infirmity, where namely, if it could be done, decapitation alone would seem a remission of pain. From the chin finally to the crown, not with iron, but, which was graver, bound by the entrenchment of the infirmity; nowhere could he carry his head, unless he could carry about the whole bodily machine. All the adamantine veins of his head were tormenting the young man without intermission: there was no respite from the pain; all hours of the day were unequal, every time untimely, every place an author of pains. For if he went out into the sun, he seemed to himself to see the whole world turning: if he looked upward at the sky, it seemed to him to be falling upon his head; below, if he rode, he seemed to himself fearful lest he fall headlong: if he sat in a roof or dwelling, it seemed to him as if he were sustaining the whole mass of the building upon his head. But he supposed he had incurred this infirmity, which evil long concealed namely by the unaccustomed change of food and drink and sleep: but, as will be shown in what follows, it was happening by the prejudicial will of the supreme judge. Although he strove to impute all these things to his own sins; and however it was happening, no one was aware with how great anguish he labored, except for one of his servants, his namesake: whom he had taken to himself with such familiarity, that he might help him in this prejudice. For there had remained in the young man a certain respect for shame: when all other things lay hidden, except those which the suffusion of the eyes and the sorrow of the languishing countenance portended. For he avoided to all intimating his own consciousness, lest she should become softer by the very detection of the infirmity. What then should he do? whither should he turn himself? It was to see misery and pain; namely the flower of first youth, not without grave damage, withering. For if any saw his eyes suffused with tears, and the face of the suffering one changing various colors; in vain he applies the cutting of the frontal vein: it would be no doubt to him, with how great anguish and sadness he was inwardly disturbed.

[6] At length being no longer able to bear it, he began to inquire the opinion of physicians: and because there are as many opinions as men, one asserted that he should be cured by incision of the frontal vein, another by applying potions and every kind of medicine: all which things he bore with a patient mind: for if he were to burn alive, he would count it as a remedy; since every skill and industry of the physicians was yielding to the contrary. For what should the medicines of men profit him whom God was reserving to be cured by the magnificence of St. Adalard? and despairing of human aid Spending therefore many things upon physicians without profit to himself, he began to consider, because God is not, as man; and whoever is physician, recovery is of the Lord. Wherefore with the infirmity growing worse, he takes away all his hope from man, and seeks God as physician of his infirmity. Finally, with the aforesaid servant alone aware, wheresoever he can, and whatsoever he can, he withdraws from his own mouth, and ministers in the poor to Christ. On occasion of the physicians he receives from friends whatsoever he can; and thence three poor men, he began to await the cure from God. in imitation of the Lord's supper, setting up for himself, he daily washes their feet, bathes them with tears, wipes them with his hair and shirt, sets out table and food; then casting himself in the same place before their feet in prayer, as if there present he saw the holy Trinity, Holy Trinity, he would cry with tears, take away from me this infirmity, which I cannot bear. Where, O God, is Your promise, In whatsoever hour you shall invoke Me, I shall say, Behold I am here? Where are so many mercies, so many compassions, so many of Your clemencies? but You bear it, because with pious intention You defer.

NOTES.

CHAPTER II.

St. Geraldus goes to Rome, to Gargano, to Cassino: at last at Corbie he obtains health from St. Adalard.

[7] Nonetheless entering upon a Roman journey, The incision of the wounds still being fresh, and with the most grievous burning of the arteries, Abbot Fulco, resolving to go to Rome, for the sake of ecclesiastical business and prayers, urges the aforesaid young man to go with him, as a faithful friend. And he willingly obeying, replies that he is ready; though in body, but not in good will, failing. But when it had been suggested to the Abbot, by those who saw his exterior, that for the youth so great a journeying would be dangerous; again, that he should rest, he lovingly urges him. But he wholly with humility resists, with this intention only, that if he should perish by human means, God would have mercy; but if by God's clemency he should come to Rome, from St. Peter, whose servant he was, he might implore the mercy of health. What then? Humility conquered in the one, friendship in the other: he preys upon friends, diligently snatches coins from them, with which along the way he may relieve the needy. Thus he enters upon the way, & what a most healthy person could scarcely do, the sick man undertakes. He labored with pain of the wounds from the excess of infirmities: with pains increasing while riding he does not yield, he always rode alone at the rear, because what should have been a relief, even the speech of his companions was heavy to him: inasmuch as he, unless God's clemency held him, was almost beside himself at times. When however he met the poor, with what strength he could, dismounting from his horse, coins and half-coins secretly he closed in their hands; and sweetly kissing them, as to the present Lord, as truly He was, with groans and tears crying, he would say, Lord God, help me in all Your mercies. And thus having mounted the horse he went stupefied, in his mind, which alone remained healthy, always cleaving to God.

[8] They come to where are said to be the a hospices of St. Dionysius, still celebrated from his name; and there the servant, to whom it had been deputed, having examined, as was his custom, the incisions; Alas my lord, he said, your affair daily goes from bad to worse: you will not be able to complete the way; it is necessary that you have counsel with our senior. Then he suggested it to the Abbot: the Abbot sadly summoned the Brother, but he obtains permission to go further: and that he should remain there, or with chosen men whom he might prefer return back, he wholly urges, entreats and counsels. But he was saying this, when still unaware of the interior infirmity, seeing only the exterior; for he had concealed, as from the rest, his condition from his Abbot; for this reason, namely, lest he should hinder the begun journey. Humbly resisting his admonition with all prayers, Not, he said, Lord, for the cause of going back, but for the cause of going forward (if God and you permit it) have I undertaken this journey. I came, obeying your order; besides that there also remains another necessity to be supplied. Wherefore I beg in the love of God your paternity, not to impose upon me concerning return an order which I could not contradict. At these things the Abbot seeing the perseverance of the youth, assented to his will and desire of good intention. But when they had come to the mount of Jove, he ascended the mount, not only of Jove, b but also of Bardon; neither on horse, but on foot; nor only for the sake of the soul, so much as for bending God's piety in recovering health. and landed in the City, So great was the force of pain, so great the love of obtaining health; in comparison of which had become worthless all things which the Founder of the globe had created. But when he ascended c Mount of Joy, walking with bare feet & with cowled head, he secretly fed his pain with tears and sobs until at last he came to Rome: burning with desire of which, with as many steps, as anguishes, he had sought it. Lodging is sought: they go to pray.

[9] He fervently prays to St. Peter Who could recount how many tears he there shed before his Lord? There is no need to recount; if any should wish to compare love and pain, desire and infirmity. They remained there for eight days, where the young man thought to satisfy his tears and his vow. But how could he satisfy, so long as so great anguish pressed him? He came daily to the church, and as if mouth to mouth he ought to converse with St. Peter, up to his loins he would enter into the chest of the sanctuary: where knocking with the piety of faith, not only with the affection of the heart, but also with the motion of the body, the little doors of the memorial being opened, with God & St. Peter as sole witnesses, he washed and bathed all there with tears and weepings. While the others slept, he watched, and secretly rising having gained over d the custodians he revisited St. Peter. But this was the sum of his petition, for recovering health: that if he did not deserve to obtain health, because his sins were hindering; at least Peter might obtain for him this pardon before the clemency of the supreme judge, that that little spark of sound mind, which still remained, he might not lose. O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how inscrutable are Your judgments, O Lord! You will not give at Rome through Peter, what You reserved for St. Adalard at Corbie.

[10] And so the eight days being completed, for the sake of ecclesiastical business the Abbot stretched further, following St. Leo the Pope to Mount Gargano, e St. Leo the Pope, who was then toward Mount Gargano, having followed. To follow him thither also, though the body fail, the young man's spirit yet grew greater; not by losing the infirmity, but by admitting it into the worse: whence, if before they were grave, afterwards he endured graver anguishes. For since among the Romans and the Apulians the storm of wars had raged more bitterly than usual, f with very great peril they rode, daily awaiting the outcome of fortune. Nor was the turn of fortune lacking; falling indeed upon robbers they lost all their goods. The Abbot, thrown from his horse, would anywhere on earth have then more willingly wished to be, than there. Geraldus also, as he always was accustomed, rode alone behind and hanging back; he also had with him the gold and silver of the Abbot. But what should he do? he is despoiled by robbers: how should he escape? he is attacked, thrown from his horse, torn, pushed, despoiled, and to the increase of his infirmity even gravely flogged. For his companions, as better each could, fled; thinking they had lost nothing, from this that they were still alive. But having recovered the horses through a certain soldier, they came to Monte Cassino: where the youth again bareheaded with tears sought out St. Benedict. And while he tarried there two days, to the Abbot g of that place by counsel he disclosed his own infirmity. Whom he with tears and sighs condoling, Alas! Brother, he said, at Cassino he is frustrated in the hope of health: under what peril you labor! The same infirmity which you suffer, one of our Brethren incurred; which the wretch with such affliction and such suffering bore a long time, until now at last all sense and all human intention ran out from him, not without the greatest pain. At this he stupefied, from whom he had hoped to depart consoled, withdrew having become more desperate.

[11] They come to Mount Gargano, as devoutly as he could he prayed to Michael the Archangel: and business in Italy finished, the drop of dripping water often sprinkled his head. But what more? The judgments of God are hidden. Not St. Michael on his Gargano, not St. Benedict at his Cassino, not St. Peter at his Rome, what St. Adalard deserved at his Corbie. Finding therefore Pope Leo, he strove in every way, that before him he might be able to unburden the pack of his sins: but since there was no opportunity of approaching, nor a particular time for tarrying; he began to be sorrowful and to burn, to see if somehow he could come to the completion of the matter. Meanwhile he sees a certain Pontiff named h Ubertus, to whom he lays open his whole conscience, opens the infirmity with which he labored; and how, leaving aside medicine, he had committed his whole hope to spiritual custody. Thus the business finished, both by the Pope being also made Priests, with his Abbot he returns to Corbie, not without great peril of his life. And already despairing of bodily health, he sought more attentively the health of the soul; he returns to Corbie, ordained Priest. to press on with alms, to serve the poor, to cleave to the churches; to celebrate Masses, because he had newly been ordained, frequently: at whose Eucharist also while he stood, he was rendered so stupefied from the anguish of his infirmity; that unless God's clemency, whom he held between his hands, guarded him, he would become wholly beside himself.

[12] Thus the year having been completed, after he returned from Rome, the custodian of the church, Made sacristan who was then, died the human death: whom Geraldus in obedience obediently succeeded, though he was impeded by the very infirmity; not allured by any i cupidity, but that by such obedience he might merit from God the grace of recovering health. Nor was occasion lacking for so great a will: k for the temple newly founded, was wholly deserted; it lay open to sheep and pigs and cattle, as if a piazza; with rain waters it was so full, that geese and ducks swam through it; having for pavement a cubit's depth of dung, it was a disgust to all; all passers-by shook their head over it. Upon this work the young man began to press, to see if in any way he could incline the divine regard to his commiseration; he cleanses the church, and though he was impeded by the penury of the times, yet with God providing for him he cleansed the temple, arranged it with seats, and adorned it above with columns with bases: he cleansed the choir & the crypt, and fitted out the walkways, with altars decently placed therein. Why do I delay more? The monastery, which already long had been abandoned by all, within a short time he so fitted up, that for serving God it seemed fit, and for so great a congregation very necessary. On a certain day the Brethren, who were of greater counsel in the cenobium, the bodies of the Saints are translated into it: seeing the monastery, as we said, excellently prepared, went to the Abbot, to see the things they had seen: they give counsel, that the bodies of the Saints, who were in the old monastery, should be taken up; and in the place, which Geraldus had caused to be cleansed sufficiently suitably, with the highest veneration l should be placed. The counsel was given, and approved; and whatever was lacking for this was sought; and all things, as we said, with joy and with the confirmation of the neighboring Bishops m and the firm attestation of the people are accomplished. And so the young man, more and more in the work undertaken sweating, with all necessary things adorned the place; with Him supplying, whose honor and love he was doing these things.

[13] He was indeed making progress in his vow, but he was not yet relieved by any remedy of his infirmity: he himself for obtaining health, nor did he desist on that account, and knocking at the sanctuary of supreme piety, he was doing violence to the kingdom of God. The opportunity also of the church and the presence of the oratory n held him constantly intent, with no measure existing for his prostrations; so much that on his finger-joints knots arose, and a callus harder than stone. For what measure was there of crying out to God, to whom there was no measure of making him infirm? Seeing at length that his prayers were so far profiting nothing, and that all his labors, as far as man was concerned, were going in vain; inspired by divine inspiration, he addresses St. Adalard, beyond all and above all, with every kind of petition; standing by his altar even to desperation, now confounded with the miserable humility of compunction, in all prayers he is rendered diffuse. But, with Him from above having mercy who draws near to the contrite of heart, he abridges the life of St. Adalard, he came to this, that if he had done it before, by God's clemency he would already have been freed. For to St. Adalard he vows a praiseworthy vow, namely that for his capacity he would always and everywhere magnify his glorious name, if to him he would bestow the help of his dignity. By which vow when he bound himself, little by little he began to feel the loosening of the infirmity: and thus by divine clemency animated more and more to the petition, after Mass o completed, before the altar pouring himself out in the affections of all prayers, even to sobs interrupting the words, he almost was melting into rushing waves of tears. At length the loosened voice found its way, and his groans loosened into these words burst forth: St. Adalard, friend of Christ, receive me wretched, before all and after all fleeing to you.

[14] thus freed from the disease Where therefore it seemed sufficient to himself to have instructed the suitable Patron St. Adalard before the judge Christ; he arose, wiped his face, and groaning returned to his bed. And while he sat there, still sobbing and senseless, from the side of the altar in a flashing appearance there flew a globe of splendor, which with its glitter illumined his eyes and his whole body. And he stupefied was fixed: when suddenly, the knots of the infirmities and as it were certain cords being broken, within the skin the head itself greatly cracked: and not bearing the pain, St. Adalard, help, with a pitiable voice he cried out: and soon he checked himself into silence, because with the very pain he felt the power wrought within him: and thus freed from that infirmity, by the desire for the freeing of which he had been so long wearied, he praised the liberator with a free voice, nor was lacking to the vow, which a little before he had vowed to the Saint: he undertakes to abridge the life of the Saint, for wherever he could he exalted his glory. Exalting him also in such wise, he magnified his life p, offending the minds of readers with elegiac apostrophes and superfluity. For he caused to be extirpated from it the thorns of superfluities, and plainly reduced to the flower of the mystical history, he adorned it with the hexameter of festivity. Too little something was being made of the memory: but with Antiphons q and Responsories composed, he made it be venerated with high and worthy celebration; nor without the envy of very many; whom nevertheless, with God and the Saint acting, the wondrous victory refuted! With many signs St. Adelard had illumined the eyes of those still living; which all things the negligence of the elders had handed over to oblivion; which also the youth diligently sought out from them, r those who had seen and in whom they had been done; and when sought out afterwards put them into writing.

[15] and remains grateful for the benefit. The man of the Lord therefore, when with the brightness receding he recognized himself freed from the infirmity, and by divine grace, as we said, so wondrously visited; mindful of the Gospel saying, He who perseveres until the end, this one shall be saved, showed himself untiring in God's service, and before St. Adalard's and the other altars of the church, more than before he had done, he began to immolate himself. Mark 24, 3 O man worthy of praise; whom neither infirmity for any time held back from God's service; nor health so wondrously recovered lifted beyond himself! O clemency of our Lord and Savior, everywhere to be preached; which in his infirmity sustained His servant, that he should not fail; and mercifully preserved him restored to health, lest he should become proud! The aforesaid man of God not exalting himself concerning the benefit, but always recognizing his own frailty, persisting in humility, did not deviate from the right path; but advancing to things before, set in spirit and conversation on the mountain of the Lord, he stirred himself up to desire s the palaces of heaven; for he had read the Lord in the Gospel saying; Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. Trusting in this word of the Lord the servant of God did not cease to ask, that he might receive; he strove to seek, that he might find; he was laboring to knock, that to him the Lord might deign to open. Luke 11, 9 Which also was done. For he was sick, as we said, with a most grievous infirmity, and at his petition divine mercy wondrously freed him: he sought that it would deign to visit him by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and he found it in the sight of the Most High: he did not cease to knock at His ears with prayers and tears, and He deigned to open the bowels of His mercy.

NOTES.

p Formerly written by St. Paschasius Ratbert, which on January 2 we gave, as also its epitome, made by St. Geraldus.

q Which, if they still survive, we would wish to have, as a supplement for January.

r Such is that, which he relates in chapter 6 and the rest under Abbot Richarius. Perhaps also he described the things done under Falco, which still lie hidden.

s Our transcription has capescendi.

CHAPTER III.

St. Geraldus sets out for Jerusalem, becomes Abbot of St. Vincent of Laon, withdrawing into Aquitaine founds a monastery.

[16] Stirred by a vision of Christ sacrificing, At a certain time it seemed to him in his sleep, that he himself stood before the oratory of St. Michael, which is in the same monastery; and the Lord Jesus Christ within, with the infinite multitude of Angels and Archangels and of all the Saints, was preparing himself to celebrate the mysteries of Mass. The Angels stood by, the Archangels ministered, and what was necessary for so great a mystery they were preparing: and when all had ministered; and on both sides, in the manner of Cantors standing in a choir, the Saints, who were with him, had been placed: the Lord Jesus himself began to inquire, whether all had come together, who ought to come together. And they answering and saying to the Lord, We are here; he said, No: because that Brother has not yet entered, who stands beside the outer door. And thus at his command he was brought in, and placed in the middle: and then, with the Lord proceeding to celebrate the mysteries of Mass, the office was begun, Gaudeamus omnes in Domino, and so brought through to the end. And thus that vision vanished, and the Brother waking, began to ponder with himself the things he had seen. He recognized however rather evidently, that in his deeds he was pleasing to God: and if before in His service he had kept himself devout, afterwards he began to check more severely the motions of body and mind.

[17] and by the appearance of the same crucified, At another time also he was, as it seemed to him, in the monastery of St. Peter at Corbie; and before the Cross, which is in the middle of the church, he stood; and such a multitude of men and women had come together, that, as it seemed to him, it filled the whole church: and thus, with him standing before the Cross, and all the people looking toward the Cross; the image of the Lord, which was on the Cross, descended from the Cross; and to him, who was in the middle of the people, drew near; and calling him gently and lightly by his name, began to stroke his head with his hand, saying, Be comforted, son, in the Lord and in the power of His strength: and so departing from him, with all seeing, as at first it had been, it ascended the Cross. Which done, the Brother awoke; and being much anxious for this thing which he had seen, began earnestly to beseech God, that He would make this vision prosperous to him. There came into his mind, that he wished to visit the places of the Saints, who rest beyond the sea, and at the Sepulchre of the Lord to adore Him in Jerusalem. he resolves to go to the Holy Land: And when he was turning over in his mind how this could be fulfilled: he heard that in the same place in which he dwelt, in a certain village, certain faithful men were preparing their journey, so that they could go to adore the Sepulchre of the Lord. Which being known, being made exceedingly joyful, he rendered thanks to God almighty, who ministered the counsel necessary for this which he wished: but because under an Abbot and a rule he was dwelling in the monastery, it seemed very inconvenient to him, if without his counsel and permission he should do what he was striving to do. He therefore went to the Abbot, opened his will, asking and much beseeching, that he would give him permission. But the Abbot seeing the intention of the Brother, and fearing lest somewhere in the journey he should remain as either an Enclosed or a Hermit, refused; and tried to recall him from such an intention, if he could. But because the planting which God plants cannot be uprooted; the oft-named man did not retreat from his intention; and what through himself he could not, afterwards by the prayers of many holy men he obtained. At length the Abbot assented; but on this condition, that if God granted him the power, he should without doubt return to him.

[18] The venerable man however, having received permission, undertook obedience: and thence returning he prepared his journey; by God's grace he visited the places of many Saints; he adored the Lord's Sepulchre, which above all things he desired; to his own, as he had promised his Abbot, he returned. How great torments of pains on the way he endured, it is not ours to expound: because to those things which among us God through him deigned to work, scarcely is the tongue sufficient to stammer. And so having entered the cloister of the monastery, he began in God's service to exercise himself; and the things which he had heard and seen of His marvels to bring back to memory. Meanwhile with a certain brother of his in the flesh having departed this life, he becomes Abbot of Laon who had undertaken the care of the Brethren in the monastery of St. Vincent near Mount Laon, he was advanced to the Abbacy; which unwilling and long resisting, he accepted: and although, that it was not a small thing to be over the Brethren, he recognized, yet willy-nilly, he obeyed. With so heavy a burden placed upon his neck, he did not hand himself over to oblivion; but as far as he could, he offered himself as a pattern and mirror to his disciples. But the Brethren who were under him, more intent upon earthly than heavenly conveniences, did not well agree with his character; but, as is read of St. Benedict, they felt contrary to his holy admonitions. And when he perceived them, as he wished, unwilling to acquiesce without their own particular foods; where having found better disciples, after the example of our most holy Father Benedict, he thought to dismiss them, and dwell with himself. But in his monastery there was a most holy man a Enclosed, from whom counsel, how he could dismiss those whom he had undertaken to govern, he sought: who gave him a sufficiently suitable, and very necessary one. But certain soldiers, according to the world not ignoble, had come to the same Enclosed, who after they had confessed their sins before him, complaining that they no longer wished to serve the world, had asked of him counsel how they might do it. But the holy man, knowing both the mind of the aforesaid Abbot, and understanding the desire of the soldiers, gathered all together into one, opened the counsel to both, and commended the laymen, as those receiving the rudiments of faith, to the providence of the most holy Abbot. O Christ's piety unspeakable! incomparable clemency of the Savior! To His servants, He renounces the Prelacy. seeking Him with all their heart, for overcoming the blandishments of the world He ministered a master, who would precede them; and to His servant, that he might more devoutly serve Him, He gathered companions and disciples. With such ones joined in the Lord, the Abbot not unmindful of the Brethren whom he had undertaken to govern, went to the Bishop b, from whom he had the burden of the Abbacy; and laid open to him what counsel he had sought; and the burden of rule, which from him he had, he left to his providence.

[19] In such wise the recruits of Christ are subjected to the most holy Abbot, and by the example of our holy Patriarch Abraham, from their land and kindred they go forth. and with companions of the pilgrimage, A joyful conjunction is made, a pleasant exultation is made; the disciples exult over their master, the master rejoices over his disciples: the Abbot exults over the company, so wondrously foreseen for him by God; the recruits of Christ rejoice because they see and recognize, not from man, but from God that what they desired all comes to them according to their will. And so the honor of the world laid aside, they enter upon the way, by which they follow Christ; and as far as the house of B. Dionysius c, which place they had chosen for themselves, they come from every quarter. Having therefore adored the clemency of the Savior at the tomb of the holy Martyrs, with the patronages of those Martyrs and of other Saints called to their aid, with Christ's providence as leader, to Orléans, to there adore the church of the Holy Cross d, they direct their steps. And when from there they had departed, and to Tours, where the body of the most holy Confessor Martin is known to rest, they had drawn near; they found pilgrims, who from St. Peter were returning from Rome; who by them, whence they were or whither they were going, or what they were turning over in their mind, in all things were scrutinized. Their desire therefore being made known, they go to the Abbot; asking that to their borders he would direct his journey, so that from their substances, in allodial lands, which they were arranging to give for God's service, he should establish a church: which also would have been done, had not God arranged their dwelling elsewhere. And because God so willed, the pilgrims went on their way: but the Abbot and his companions to Poitiers, God leading, came. e

[20] he is received by the Count of Poitou And when they had entered the city, behold the count of Poitou, f Guido the venerable, by God's providence came from the other side: which when the Abbot had recognized, hoping it would not be inappropriate if he spoke with him, he came to him, urging his companions that they should follow him. But when the Count beheld them, he returned the greeting; and whence they had come, or whither they wished to go, he diligently inquired. To whom the Abbot laid open all that he had in mind; and added, that having gone forth from their lands and their kindred, they were following the Lord. But the Count having understood their will and the divine providence in this, began to beg the Abbot and his men, that for Christ, for whose love they had begun, wherever in his land they might wish, they should remain; he himself moreover would take care to bestow his counsel and his help upon him in all things. But while they were speaking to one another about these things, behold a certain Provost of Bordeaux, by name g Radulphus, sent from God came: and indicated to the Count, if he were willing, that he would lead them to a suitable place. Whence the Count being made exceedingly joyful, and commended to the Provost of Bordeaux, committed the Abbot and his men to the custody of the same Provost, that he should guard them as himself, and whatsoever place in all his land they should choose for themselves, without any controversy, not doubting at all, by his authority he would grant. Why say more? The Provost Radulphus received them rejoicing, and led them to the place, which is called Silva-Major between the two seas; and showed them a small church, not of stones, but of earth built. But the forest round about had grown so dense with brambles and thorns, that no one could approach the church, unless with a sword or other iron implement he had first made a way. When the Abbot and his men had come to this church, so great love of remaining there came upon the same Abbot, that he promised he would not go elsewhere further, to God, if He should be propitious to him.

[21] he approaches the possession of Silva-Major: At that time the lord and possessor of that land and forest was a certain soldier Angerius de Riontio h, and with him many others, whose names he himself knows, who made them: with all of whom the Abbot so acted, that all should donate the place to God and to His holy mother Mary, and from all service should make it freed in perpetuity; and so Holy Father Geraldus, made cheerful, returned to the church, and thereafter caused a dwelling to be built for himself and his men. On a certain night he began earnestly to beseech God, that if their station there pleased Him, He would show it; and all their actions, according to the riches of His goodness, He would direct into good. And when praying tired he fell asleep, it seemed to him, that from the east a chariot, which two oxen drew, was coming: and he builds a monastery in it. but after some time the two oxen were changed into one horse; and the horse walked the same path that the oxen had gone. At length the horse turned into the Son of God, thus suspended, as for us He had been before on the gallows of the cross, the lower part of the cross touching the earth, the upper extending even to heaven. And when the most holy man beheld such things, from the place in which he was, he rose; & adored Christ, as He hung on the cross; animated by so great and so wondrous a vision, the servant of God awoke; and waking, long pondering with himself what he had seen, he recognized that it was a vision from God; & that, where the sign of the holy Cross had been fixed, there he ought to found a church, he understood: and at the same time he recognized that his journey and action were pleasing to God, by whose gift and grace it was, that he had so adored Him. These things therefore being accomplished, the soldiers, who with the Abbot had come, still clad in lay habit, the pilgrimage they had vowed to St. James, they undertook: and yet with the permission and blessing of the Abbot, without whose precept they promised they would do nothing. At length their pilgrimage accomplished, they returned to him; and the habit of St. Benedict, devout and committing themselves wholly to God, they received.

[22] The first monks there under him. But if anyone wishes to know the names of those, who first came with the Abbot; without doubt he can know who reads the subscribed page understanding. Geraldus the Abbot & three monks, who from the monastery, which he had previously ruled, from love of him came with him. Martin, One Martin, who afterwards ruled the church of St. Dionysius of the mount. Another was Ebroinus, Ebroinus, who going forth from the military habit, for God's love enclosed, up to death fought strongly. The third indeed i Alerannus, Alerannus, nephew of the Abbot himself. These three monks already made came, and in the same place, as the Rule of St. Benedict prescribes, they made profession. There came also another five, novices Berlegius, who still in lay habit clothed, as master and father for God's love followed him: of whom one was by name Berlegius k, a well-mannered man, prudent in counsel, distinguished in speech, strenuous in the probity of arms, joined in friendship to all the good, fervid in charity, well furnished with secular riches and with dignity: he was however Francigena, not the lowest of the royal soldiers, originating from Noyon l a city of France. He however as long as he was engaged in secular affairs, to all, who were with him, wherever, was always amiable above all: indeed he abounded in riches, & treated them liberally, not as their slave, but as lord. In his boyhood he was given by his parents to the studies of letters: but after he entered the years of adolescence, the study of letters dismissed he cleaved to the military: indeed, because noble and born of noble stock, he could not restrain his mind from such exercises; especially when he saw his contemporaries inclined to such affairs. Why many words? Having embraced military life and subjected to military arms, for a sufficiently long time he exercised himself in the military; until touched by the right hand of God, he recognized that he was not acting well, deserted arms, and again having been baptized in the flood of tears and in pure confession, following Abbot Geraldus into Silva-Major, as the Gospel word admonishes and commands, he renounced all things which he possessed.

[23] But another Wido from Montlaon a city of France (for so it is called) originating, Wido, a soldier of the Bishop, filled with riches, and sufficiently adorned with the nobility of the world. This man was a counselor of virtue, a strenuous director of his mind, and in all probity most elegant. The third Tezzo, Tezzo, indeed a youth, but strong in mind, and as long as he lived in the world he never ceded his arms to another, nor for fear of the military of one chief did he ever change the yoke; but always, wherever he was, he labored to acquire victory and the palm over all his companions. Walter, But the fourth was Walter, similarly from the city of Montlaon, a man military and upright, in work and speech discreet, prevailing in counsel, superfluous in nothing, and in all his work temperate. Litherius, The fifth was Litherius, m of Laon similarly, an honest and generous man, sufficiently valiant in arms, serving all, loving all, despising to be among the other soldiers inferior in probity, always raising himself to greater military exercises; & those things which he recognized as befitting an upright man, in all ways, as he could, in work and mind undertaking. All these, pricked by the finger of divine mercy, renouncing all things they possessed, and going forth from their lands and their kindred, followed Christ: and those who before shone in precious garments, afterwards went shabby clothed in the vilest garments: they become the strongest rooters-up of groves and forests, taken up from the military. they who before had been most strenuous warriors. In these therefore was fulfilled the prophetic saying, which says: And they shall forge their swords into plowshares, and their lances into sickles. Isa. 2, 3 These had never read the Scriptures, but yet what Scripture commands they fulfilled: and because before unlawful things many times they had done, afterwards from lawful things, beyond what is credible, they abstained; even from the very bread: many times in the day they did not wish to take even any water, that more and more in themselves the voluptuousness of the body they might bridle.

[24] the usefulness of the new monastery Therefore after B. Geraldus in the same place, as has been said above, where he had seen in a vision the Lord Jesus on the cross and had adored him, he founded the monastery; from day to day the work began to grow up and to advance for the better. No wonder; for to those who love God all things work together for good; and every plantation, which the heavenly Father plants, is not uprooted, but always prospers. O with how great reverence is that venerable day regarded by the inhabitants of this country, on which the blessed man sent by God, from distant parts of the earth came hither! In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand seventy-ninth n, with his companions Lord Geraldus came to Silva-Major, on the feast (as is said) of the Apostles Simon o and Jude. The fame therefore of so great a man through diverse regions spread itself more swiftly; in the second year the monastery was begun; on the fifth day of the Ides of May in honor of the Lord and of Blessed Mary the Virgin and of the Holy Apostles Simon and Jude. among rude peoples. The peoples gathered together into one, began to flow to him in droves; that they might enjoy his sight, and by the power of his preaching their hard hearts might be fitted with the seeds of divine grace. For he was angelic in appearance, chaste in body, devout in mind, eloquent in speech, adorned with diverse flowers of virtues, assiduous in prayer, and adorned by very many signs during his life. For before his coming, the inhabitants of this country, were rude and as it were rustic; and what of holiness and religion was good, they less recognized: but the elect servant of God, as often by example as by preaching, softened their savage spirits, and provoked many of them to penance and confession. For when the greatest multitude came often to him, to confess their crimes; this penance he enjoined upon all in common, in remission of their sins; namely that on Friday they should fast, and on Saturday abstain from meat.

NOTES.

CHAPTER IV.

Miracles wrought by St. Geraldus in life and after death.

[25] St. Geraldus invoked The opinion of the holy man being therefore divulged through diverse regions, a certain one from the Bishopric of Limoges with weeping besought him for his little son, who had twisted and very deformed feet; saying, O St. Geraldus, if those things which are said of you are true, take away the reproach of my house. With the father pursuing such things, by the merits of the servant of God the boy obtained most perfect health. a The father therefore, heals a club-footed one astounded at the miracle of so great a thing and rejoicing exceedingly, brought the boy himself into the presence of the man, and with much devotion for the received benefit gave thanks. Nor is that to be passed over in silence, that very many sick or feverish, if by chance they ate the bread sanctified by him, and also those who had drunk of the crushed stone, which the Brethren had prepared, from his tomb; returned to their homes unharmed, and giving thanks to God and to St. Geraldus, joyful.

[26] But while through the diverse nations of Gaul the fame of the aforesaid man of God spread, he saves from shipwreck, a certain monk of St. Peter of Chartres, hearing his illustrious deeds, in his prayers had frequently and earnestly asked, that he might not see death before he enjoyed the sight and conversation of the man of God. But when by chance he had resolved to cross the English sea, having entered a ship, with stormy waves rising, he suffered shipwreck. Therefore in the middle of the waves, with his companions submerged, the ship shattered and lost, the monk was tossed about, and spent the day with the following night in such peril. But when he was being dragged hither and thither by the swelling waves, and was expecting nothing else but imminent death; he remembered amid the very straits of the sea, of him whom he had heard to lead an Angelic life on earth, and whom he had so greatly desired to see: and from the depths of his breast drawing sighs, O Holy, he said, Geraldus, servant of the most high God, whom I so greatly desired to see, if you can do anything in the presence of God, help me, having pity on me. With him frequently reiterating such things, at once a ship coming in swift course, by the merits of the man of God, took him from the verge of death. These things also they related, who saw the monk afterwards to St. Geraldus, not without much weeping narrating such things.

[27] With such virtues therefore in life the man of the Lord happily prevailing, he dies after he drew many souls from the mouth of the bloodthirsty lion seeking whom he might devour; and like a lamp set upon a candlestick, led back very many submerged in the darkness of ignorance to the light of faith and religion, mature in years and happy in merits, on the Nones of April he passed to the Lord: and was buried in the church, which he himself had founded, at the right side of the altar of B. Mary. At his passing no small multitude of noble men, Clerics and laymen, farmers and women was gathered: with great mourning of the inhabitants who from towns and villages and also from the city of Bordeaux, having heard of his departure, had flowed together. These therefore with a cry raised to heaven, their cheeks torn, with great weeping, that they had lost their most pious father and teacher of the right path grieved; and the light of the whole country, from the inmost heart, to be extinguished, bitterly bewailed. So it is a long thing, nay impossible to explain, how great things the Lord through him deigned to work, how great marvels in his life to show, how many from darkness to the true light namely Christ were drawn. Of the many signs and virtues which he wrought after his death a few, lest we should seem entirely silent, let us briefly discourse: for those signs which he did in his life, through negligence for the greatest part have been handed over to oblivion. With the Lord therefore assenting, and with His Holy merits interceding, let our discourse, which in his honor we undertake to write, receive a good beginning and end.

[28] the body having been elevated, At that time when B. Geraldus still drew vital breaths, a certain one was received by him as a monk, Peter by name. He was for many days his Chaplain, and he himself closed his eyes, and honorably handed him over to burial with the other Brethren. This one, already aged, by the election of the Brethren, Seventh succeeded to the dignity of Abbot, and relating many of his marvels, in those his own days, testified that such a miracle had been wrought. The counsel sometime of the Brethren was, that from the tomb, in which first the man of God had been buried, he should be translated. A not small assembly therefore of Bishops, Abbots, Clerics and Nobles being gathered, they lifted, as was fitting, fearing men, the bones of the holy man. A great crowd of nobles was there present then, and a certain faithful man from the people, among the others also stood; greatly taking care, if somehow from the Relics he could obtain something. At length when the head of the Saint was shown to the people, the aforesaid man below extended his garment, a tooth is taken, and one of the teeth by chance fell into the garment itself. Seeing which the man, drew the garment to himself, hid the tooth, and believing himself to be well rewarded, departed from there. But when having gone out from the village he had proceeded a little, by divine nod stupefied, and is restored. hither and thither he wandered, unable to walk the right way. He understood at length by the merits of the Saint, whose Relics he bore, that his journey was being impeded: and returning, though unwilling, to the monastery, he related the matter to the Abbot and the Brethren, and brought forth the Relics, and so joyful departed.

[29] a soldier commended to St. Geraldus by his mother, The aforesaid Abbot Peter also narrated another kind of miracle: A certain, he said, noble woman, having two soldier sons, venerated B. Geraldus as much as possible, and often coming to his church, attentively commended both herself and her sons. But it happened on a certain day, that her sons with other Soldiers wished to proceed in the army; but when their mother could not detain them from the army, with them already prepared for setting out, with her knees placed on the ground, she is said to have said such things to her sons with groaning. O sons, to God I commend you; and to the custody of St. Mary and St. Geraldus of Silva-Major, whose handmaid I am, I wholly commend. And so when they had been set in battle, a certain one of the adversaries attacked one of these with a lance, by a miracle he is preserved unharmed. & struck him strongly on the body bare of armor: but by the power of God and by the merits of the holy man, to whom the mother had commended them, by striking he could do nothing harmful: for the iron of the lance, although with much effort the striker drove it into his body, as if it were soft wax, was folded back; so that the point of the iron, which before had been straight, afterwards was bent back toward the shaft. Hearing therefore the mother of such a wondrous deed, and her son by the intercession of the blessed man snatched from death, she came to his sepulchre to offer thanks with her sons, brought with her the iron of the lance, and for many days over the sepulchre of the saint that iron hung in testimony of his power.

[30] a dropsical man is healed, In the cenobium of Silva-Major a certain one of the Brethren, touched with bodily affliction, labored with grave sickness; for like a skin-bottle with skin inflated, he had become wholly greatly swollen, and was expecting nothing else but death alone. But when on a certain night being anxious he had given himself to sleep, he beheld himself assisting in a vision at the sepulchre of the blessed man, and at his tomb, as it seemed to him, laid open, often to sign his infirmity with one of the Saint's teeth. Waking however, and turning over with himself what he had seen, morning being come, although he was fatigued with grave weight of sickness, to the tomb nevertheless of the man of God he went; greatly imploring, that by his merits he might obtain for him the grace of health from the Lord: in such wise made whole, he faithfully related this to us. a dying man recovers: At another time also a certain Brother of the same monastery was sick even to death: for remaining almost three days without voice, all those who beheld him he had made to despair of his recovery. But when it had come to this, that the ministers should hurry to drag him from the bed to the ground, and place him on a hairshirt (as is the custom of the dying); being made exceedingly sorrowful, he turned himself to the wall; and began to pray the Lord to have mercy upon him, and to invoke holy Geraldus, as he could, to his aid: and as he himself testified, when he had closed his eyes as if falling asleep; behold suddenly a certain old man, of venerable b grey hair and comely in aspect, stood by him. Now it seemed to him, that it was no other than the holy man, whom a little before he had invoked. And when the same old man had touched the sick one, and had turned him to the other side; at once with the sickness receding, a great quantity of blood flowed from his nostrils: and so from the peril of death, by the intercession of the blessed man, he testified that he had been freed.

[31] Another miracle also, small indeed, but seasoned with piety, lost things are recovered: the same Saint wrought. When a certain woman from distant parts, all things which she had consumed, had come to his monastery; she often called on his name, and as if he himself living were present in the body, c carefully asked from him nourishment: and when now she was drawing near about to go out to the monastery gate, she found twelve coins lying on the ground: which taking, with giving of thanks she rejoicing departed. Nor unlike this was, that when one of the custodians of the monastery had lost a small key, and for a long time had sought about much, and had not found it; at length he went to the sepulchre of the blessed man, that in this necessity beseeching he would come to his aid: and at once as from the sepulchre he arose, he found the key before the altar, and sufficiently amazed gave thanks.

[32] A certain soldier perchance captured by enemies, Oliverius by name, namely son of that Augerius de Riontio, a captive, with the saint appearing to him, who had first given the place of Silva-Major to St. Geraldus, was led to the Castle, which is called Mons-Revellus d; and there loaded with great weight of iron, and naked, in the sun anointed with milk, that by flies more avidly he might be attacked, was placed. But not unmindful of the benefit received B. Geraldus, to him set in such confusion, not at night, but in the day, visibly appearing, said: How is it with you, brother? And he answered, Ill. Arise, said the Saint, arise. But he: And how, Lord, can I arise, pressed down by so great a weight of chains? Arise, said the Saint as quickly as possible: fear not. And when he had tried to get up, at once all the chains fell to the ground. And he astounded; Who are you, he said, Lord? Care not, said the Saint, to know, who I am: but taking your fetters, freed from bonds, to the cenobium of St. Mary of Silva-Major in haste go, and there give thanks to God. Seeing therefore the man, the custodians not far off, and also in the square very many walking about, feared to go. The Saint seeing, says to him: Be not afraid, for no mortal, until the place which I have foretold, will be able to hinder you. I beseech you, he said, Lord, that you deign to make your name known to me. And he: Know that I am Geraldus Abbot of Silva-Major. Which said, from the eyes of the beholder, at once he vanished.

Animated at last by the promises of so great a man, unobserved he returns to his home: from the town with none prohibiting, taking with him the fetters, as he had been commanded, he went out; and so joyful & alert he came to the cenobium of St. Mary of Silva-Major; gave thanks to God and to St. Geraldus; the miracle to the Brethren serving there in order he related. But they at once, with greatest joy, the bells having been rung, solemnly sang Te Deum Laudamus. These things and others which we narrate as signs, not from others, except from those who most certainly saw and heard these things, or to whom they have been related, have we received.

[33] Of the manifest signs also, at his tomb more frequently wrought, we must not be silent. likewise several others, e For very many men and also women, having lost their senses, when they had been led to his tomb by their parents or friends, the vigils of three or four nights being celebrated, were restored to their former health, and reported to the monastery an annual tribute. And so great a grace did the Lord deign to bestow upon him, that without number captives, strongly bound by iron, chains, and fetters by enemies, not only from nearby, but also from distant ends of the world, to depart free without delay he commanded: so much that even from the Norman regions some came to his monastery, proclaiming the benefit by fetters brought along. with chains and fetters and other kinds of instruments of torture, captives about to offer thanks; that they had seen him face to face, that by his nod and merits they had been loosed from bonds, faithfully professing; and with fetters hung above his sepulchre, and an annual tribute declared, they returned with joy into their own country. Many also from among the inhabitants of the country, touched by some pain, of head, of eyes, of hands, by many miracles his sepulchre shines. of feet or of other members; the name of him being invoked they often express waxen likenesses; which hanging over his tomb, they faithfully confess that by his merits they have received their former well-being. A ship also, made of wax by a certain shipwrecked man, hung at the sepulchre, we have often seen; who testified that being placed in great peril of the sea, by the sole invocation of the name of St. Geraldus he had been wondrously freed from death. But why do we speak of his wonders? when this alone suffices to declare his merits, that so great an example of religion shone forth in this country through him; that without number sinners left the world and escaped death; that in the cenobium built by him youths & f virgins, old men with the younger praise the name of the Lord. For the place, which formerly had been a den of robbers, a lair of wolves and wild beasts; with the man of God coming, a house of prayer, a place of sanctification and of religion and of peace, was made. Who he himself was, or of what holiness, or of what life, much better do his works than his words elucidate: but the end proves the deed. Therefore lest the prolixity of words should bring tedium to the readers, let us make an end of writing. Glorifying God above all things and in all things: who so outstanding a teacher, most blessed Geraldus, from distant borders, for the enlightenment of this region wondrously destined: to whom be honor and empire for ever and ever. Amen.

NOTES.

LIFE II.

By Christian Monk of Silva-Major.

Geraldus Abbot, Founder of Silva-Major, in Aquitaine (St.)

BHL Number: 3418, 3419

BY CHRISTIAN FROM MS.

PROLOGUE.

[1] The Lives of saints, being most efficacious as examples, Although holy and just men have no need of our goods, who having obtained the promises, have obtained diverse mansions in the celestial kingdom according to the demand of their merits: yet it befits the office of human profession, more devoutly to recount the humility, patience, and other virtues of those, whose by the merit of life it is trusted can bestow patronage upon suppliants. For while we pursue their happy deeds with the due honor of praises, we also profit ourselves: because having taken the example of good action, the mind often, however much pressed by the coldness of the body and of negligence, is kindled by the fire of divine love; & with iniquitous thoughts suffocated, often to similar things it is provoked. For as the contagions of the perverse are to be avoided, lest they corrupt; so the conversation of the good is to be embraced, that it may inform. they ought not be covered with silence: Besides in the book of Soliloquies concerning the Just there is by the Holy Spirit himself dictated a sentence in this manner: In eternal memory will the Just man be: and who will dare to gainsay him? It is established therefore that the memory of the just is eternal, which eternal human devotion ought to frequent. Ps. 111, 7 Elsewhere also the same Holy Spirit concerning the enemies of the just thus says: Those who hate the just shall offend. Ps. 33, 22 Indeed they are strongly convicted of offending against the saints and the just, and against their author the Lord Jesus Christ; who their praiseworthy life and holy conversation and continual cross, seem to bury in the cost of silence, as if they are found to envy their happy deeds.

[2] therefore the Life of St. Geraldus is written, We however not so; but intending to run summarily and briefly through the life of our Venerable Father B. Geraldus, who was found proved in the discipline of the monastic Order, to follow the naked truth, nor to aid our golden star with the aid of borrowed light. For this cause was the labor of this little work imposed upon me rude and simple, that in revealing to human understanding the justice of the holy man (for to the Celestials he is known through himself) I should not whitewash the wall with the trappings of words, which it is established to shine with the brightness of its own virtue: but rather in humility and patience, in a humble but truthful style, to one running through his deeds in humble style and in naked and simple words, it should not be permitted to wander beyond the limits of truth. I therefore desire my insufficiency to be supported by spiritual men; whose holy intercessions I seek, being distracted in many ways by the cares of temporal things, from the embrace of earthly things and the straying of secular actions, to be recalled to the ways of the commandments of God. But You O Lord of virtue, King of glory, virtue and wisdom of the Father, splendor of the Saints, to me timid and approaching the material of unaccustomed discourse, mercifully stand by; and deign to strengthen the trembling tongue with the Spirit of truth, who may burn away purely in me the dross of every superfluous word, and in every truth of the things to be said may introduce: so that concerning the life and conversation of the blessed man I may be seen truthfully to have embraced the history, may appear accepted to Your sight, and to the hearers in bringing forth the discourse, by Your gift, may I be found sufficient and faithful.

CHAPTER I.

The life of St. Geraldus lived in the monastery of Corbie.

[3] With our Lord Jesus Christ reigning in the church of the Saints, Born at Corbie and presiding in the hearts of His elect, there was in the region of Corbie B. Geraldus procreated from faithful parents: whose praiseworthy life, unblemished fame, and honest conversation, by the provision of supernal clemency, received the beginnings of grace in those more tender years themselves. For having been initiated in letters, as paternal solicitude determined, he was made teachable by God; and the more greedily outwardly from the teacher he drank the cups of doctrine offered to him, and piously educated, the more deeply amid the secrets of his heart he solicitously preserved what he had received: and he was a boy of such character, that in him puritia boyhood from puritas purity, not less by the efficacy of the matter than by the kinship of sounds, was perceived to be rightly derived. For He had taught him, who teaches man knowledge, who calls the things that are not as if they were, who from the mouth of infants perfects praise, and makes eloquent the tongues of the dumb. For the Lord called some from the womb, as Jeremiah and B. John the Baptist; some from the cradle, as Most Blessed Nicholas; Matthew from the tax-booth, another from the nuptials, according to which B. Geraldus, from the very rudiments of infancy. These things have therefore been premised, that the Reader may understand, that in the hand of God is every profession, every age, and without Him nothing is strong, nothing holy.

[4] And imbued with letters, B. Geraldus therefore obeyed the divine call, as if with the Prophet he cried out: In Your hands, Lord, are my lots. Ps. 30, 16 Thus divine grace, by discipline, character, and knowledge illumined him, so that his master marveled, that the life and genius of the boy far exceeded the care of his teaching. Therefore disdaining the wantonness of boyhood, which that age is wont to embrace, he exhibited both in deed and in bearing the gravity of a mature man. And that he might possess his vessel in sanctification, clean from the allurements of the world, and being made a monk, with the devotion of his faithful parents joining, he entered the cloister of religion; and choosing to be cast down in the house of God rather than to dwell in the tabernacles of sinners, he professed with an unshaken and stable vow the discipline of the monastic order in the monastery of Corbie: in which by the reception of the habit and cleanness of life he consecrated to the Most High the very rudiments of boyhood: where also not yet an adolescent he accustomed his tireless shoulders to bear the yoke of the Lord, with the fear of the Lord reverently embracing the observances and traditions of the Fathers. His countenance was downcast and humble: in prayer assiduous, in abstinence firm, fervent in order, austere in the affliction of the body, heavy only to himself, he was gracious and benevolent to all.

[5] then in other virtues Indeed wherever in church or outside, by the word or nod of his spiritual Father, to ministry or to other honest and necessary works he was called, there was in obeying a hastened, not impetuous, speed, providence not remiss; so that neither was the negligence of delay notable in his affection, nor should a sudden and improvident essay furnish the impulse of repentance. There was not in him, as often happens, murmur or varied speech or change of countenance, in a matter however burdensome and arduous, taking away the merit of obedience. then in obedience he excels. He did not wish through disobedience to contract the sin of divination; but through the increase of virtues in the sight of the Most High, to whom he had resolved to immolate himself, he rather panted to please. Hence it came to pass, that the more prone he was to obedience, more prepared for handling the business of the house, and more fit through sincerity for sustaining burdens; the more upon him by special mandate concerning the frequent ministry a heavier care of concern weighed. Whence often from the office of solicitude being corporally drawn from the citadel of prayer and contemplation, he expended his body on labors outwardly; but his mind preserved its purpose immovable, so that always, wheresoever obedience drew away his body, the meditation of his heart was in the sight of the Lord.

[6] he incurs grave pain of the head: And because the Lord scourges every son whom He receives; it happened that the man of God, while he abstained from food, while he continually occupied his mind with vigils and prayers, fatigued the body immoderately with labors; about the noble member, namely the head, he incurred a grievous suffering. And when most rejoice in their own successes, are troubled and depressed by adversities; he himself rejoiced in the anguishes of his infirmity, having become strong with the Apostle in spirit, as he beheld the insolence of the flesh being more tamed by the scourge of infirmity. 2 Cor. 12, 10 The Brethren bestowed on the patient one the affection of compassion, and in his visitation consoled the losses of their future desolation: but he himself dissimulating with what serenity he could the bitterness of the pain, strove to feign himself sound; that he might soothe the genital sadness of the Brethren. and the things which were given to him for remedy or solace, O wondrous virtue of patience! he covered up the symptoms of the disease, that he might defraud his condoling companions of participation in his pain. He arranged equally, that from those things which were ministered to him for the necessity of the body (from which, with God alone as witness and a certain servant of his, whatever he could, as cautiously as solicitously, he withdrew from that necessity) what was left over from the sustenance of his feeble limbs, he could abundantly distribute to the poor. Under the pretext also of acquiring for himself medicinal aid, at the nod and concession of his Abbot, he willingly extorted something from his paternal resources; and yet not applying carnal medicine to his body, he rejoiced to turn the devices of pious cunning into the nourishment of the poor. But particularly on each day he devoted himself to the refection of three poor men; he bestows upon the poor. & more studiously imitating the exemplar of the highest humility, by washing their feet and wiping them with the hairs of his head, he humbly recalled the mysteries of the Lord's supper. He adored in them, pouring out tears without measure, and more often bent with his whole body than with his knees, the essence of the indivisible Trinity, and the indulgence of a hastened propitiation he was praying. Thus he lived and in such things, in younger age grown up, old and mature in the time of puberty. Such was his conversation indeed.

[7] Meanwhile the aforesaid man, prudent and venerable, Abbot of that place, To the Abbot going to Rome. determined to visit the thresholds of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul; and also to Lord Leo, then High Priest of the Apostolic See, to go to lay open certain necessities of the house. But his life and character pleased him in B. Geraldus, and he judged that all things would turn out for the best, if on the way by which he was walking he should enjoy his desirable company. The Father communicates his purpose to him: he obeys and likewise prepares himself, wishing to bestow upon the Father the obsequy of devoted service: as companion he sets out. and although with assiduous languor he was wasting away, by God's grace and the merit of obedience he was made, than any healthy person, more prone and more sufficient for labor. The virtue of obedience supplied in him, whatever chronic sickness had withdrawn from him of natural vigor. Going forth therefore, the good Abbot was not cheated of his desire; for by the merits of the holy man, with all things duly accomplished, as he had hoped, unharmed to his own he returned. Returning however with him B. Geraldus, was growing and being strengthened in spirit and virtue, intent without intermission upon prayer; so indeed that on his knees and on the joints of his feet callouses growing up by assiduity of prayer he had contracted.

[8] thence returning with grave pain. And when he was already of advanced age, and on a certain day being invested with the Priesthood he was celebrating the solemnities of Masses, his disease suddenly so grew strong, that by the power alone of the Sacrament he remained on his feet. The ministry therefore finished, languishing he went to his little bed, asking with poured out tears and standing in the chamber his heavenly Father, that He would not permit his disease and pain of the head to grow so strong, that he should be rendered unfit for the Sacrament of the altar. Therefore he merited to be cured by the heavenly physician, who abhorred the hand of an earthly physician. A wondrous thing! For behold, from the right side of the altar, he obtains remedy from heaven. a fire under the appearance of a tongue ascending, illumined his whole body, and the bed on which he lay with wondrous splendor; and at once the languor of his head was entirely put to flight, and his well-being was wholly restored. He wished to cry out for joy, for scarcely could he contain the eager motions wishing to leap forth: nevertheless returning to himself and visibly recognizing the power of God, he wisely contained the vision. O just and pious judgment of God! In His poor the most pious Rewarder had felt the stipends paid to physicians, and therefore judged it fit that His servant should not be defrauded of medicinal aid. He becomes therefore vigilant and solicitous, the blessed man, not only to fulfill the vow of his profession with integrity, but lest he should permit the grace granted to him to depart in vain, he strove to work beyond it, in psalms, hymns, and canticles greatly exerting himself.

[9] At that time there fell by fate the Custodian of the monastery and the custody was committed to B. Geraldus, because upon the monastery day and night more frequently than the rest he bent himself. by divine visions once Whence when on a certain night his eyes had anticipated the vigils, and prostrate at the door, pouring forth prayers infused with tears to the Lord; he saw in a vision the Lord Jesus Christ, with the Angels and Archangels and the army of the celestial militia, enter the monastery and prepare himself to celebrate the solemnities of Masses. With individuals having been arranged, as was fitting for such most celebrated ministers, when to the altar to celebrate Mass came the King likewise and Priest, having asked whether all who ought to have been present at so holy a festival had come, the Lord Jesus said, that one still to be brought in was lacking, who at the door of the monastery was devoting himself to prayer. He was therefore brought in through the ministry of the Angels, and placed among the ranks of the blessed spirits: who at once, elegantly arranged in the choir, solemnly began the Introit of the Mass, Gaudeamus. But he stood stupefied from the greatness of the vision, and in his heart kept all things.

[10] At another time in a vision he saw, that to the monastery of B. Peter of Corbie a multitude of men had gathered: and again aroused, and while he himself among those, who invoked the name of the Lord, stood before Him, and for contemplating the benefit of the Lord's Passion his affection was subtly intent; the image of the Crucified One meeting him, before all most joyfully stroked the crown of his head with His hand, and consoled him saying; Be comforted, son, in the Lord and in the power of His virtue. And in these words departing, to his own place He returned. It was to be believed beyond doubt, that such most excellent visions in the blessed man should designate something of hidden mystery. But what else, he goes to Jerusalem: except that through the merit of faith, with those who conquered kingdoms and wrought justice, he was to obtain the blessedness of the promise? He was crucifying therefore his flesh with its vices and concupiscences, wishing to imitate and follow Him, whom for the salvation of men he knew crucified: whose image caressing him greatly under a certain enigmatic appearance he had contemplated. From this he also conceived in his mind, that, as some retribution for the familiarity and grace bestowed on him, he should go to the place where corporally the feet of Him had stood, where the Church of by His own blood, having expelled the material of the old Synagogue, He had formed: where namely in the middle of the earth through the gallows of the cross He had wrought salvation.

[11] Effect responded therefore to affection, and having obtained permission from his Abbot, and having adored the holy places, who grieved greatly to be left desolate by his presence, he sought whom his soul desired, going to Jerusalem, and fulfilling the vow which he had made. He knew indeed that it had been said by the Angel, He has risen, He is not here: and yet, not because he knew Him already to be contained within the straits of the monument, but because formerly He had been placed there, His majesty he adored; having within the man of God, through the indwelling grace, whose essence he adored in the heavens. He therefore offered many golden phials, full of fragrances, returning to Corbie, namely abounding with holy prayers: & having traversed with devotion the places of His nativity & baptism & fasting and others, which by His corporal step in dwelling there or by His working of miracles had been made authentic and celebrated, the Lord translated him through the great sea, leading him back to his monastery; where received with joy and veneration, to those who for hearing the voice of his discourses were hastening in step and spirit; not trifles, not fables, but the things concerning divine power toward His Saints, which in making his journey by sight or by faithful hearing he had learned, he related.

[12] But as he, confirmed in good works, delighted in the Lord, and did goodness, and by the ascents disposed in his heart went up from virtue to virtue, and his light before men so shone, he is created Abbot of Laon; that men seeing his good works gave glory to the Most High; not many days after his return it happened humanly to the Abbot of Laon that he died. But the Brethren of that place, gathered in one mind and body, elected and pre-elected him; happy if his yoke, which they had fitted to their necks, they could bear without resisting. He does not come, but is dragged, by the very fact that he shrinks from it to be brought: because in the securing of ecclesiastical Prelacy, as importunate ambition is condemned, so assuredly humility and the fear of the Lord are accepted. He began therefore in the office committed to him to be formed by examples of the highest Doctor, first fulfilling in himself what he exhorted others. He set before them in their midst the assiduous memory of the last things, the edifying sentences of the holy Fathers to be embraced, the bond of profession, the norm of the order, the debt of the vow and perseverance in virtue. Since therefore in those subject to him, the things which were adverse to the monastic profession, but wearied by the obstinacy of the monks, he could in no way uproot; he wisely turned his back from the unprofitable work, and dismissing those whom he could not salubriously govern, to governing the cloister of his own body, avoiding their suspect contagions, he turned himself lest he should encrust the sincere vessel even in a little. Let Silva-Major rejoice, he dismisses the Prelacy, because in this separation the mysteries of its conception are begun. Concerning himself or someone else does the most religious Father have this purpose of migrating? O B. Benedict, you he had in this and in other things as mirror and exemplar, teacher and tutor: who when you had seen in those subject to you, whom unwilling you had undertaken to govern, that your industry and more prone care could in no way prevail, to whom also you had predicted that their morals you could not abide; after the example of Divinity you dismissed them according to the desires of their heart: and then, as B. Gregory says, to the place of beloved solitude returning, lest perchance you should leave yourself and not find them, you dwelt with yourself.

CHAPTER II.

The foundation of Silva-Major: Miracles of St. Geraldus living, happy death.

[13] Therefore the Abbacy resigned into the hand of the Pontiff, as is customary, With a few companions taken, forgetting entirely the things which were behind, he extended himself to the things that are before, and having entered upon counsel with a certain most holy man, who amid the walls of a certain little dwelling had bowed his body for Christ, transcending the general observances of the monastic order by the fervor of religion, desired the wilderness: and determined to have no other sons henceforth, except those whom from new fecundity, with his humble midwifery, divine grace should bear for him. For relief and solace of the purpose conceived, that just man added to him four by profession laymen, remarkable in virtue; from whom, when to him for the sake of penance they had humbly come, the stains of diverse sins he had uprooted, and their hearts for receiving the word of God by the plowshare of exhortation he had prepared: who also with firm deliberation had decided, to Paris, in satisfaction of those things which they had committed, to embrace and follow poverty, and to abstain from their own rights.

[14] Subjected therefore mutually in the fear of Christ, the divine clemency invoked that it direct their steps, they intend through departing from the world to acquire the kingdom of heaven, and the house of B. Dionysius they make the beginning of their ways. thence he sets out for Poitiers: And when there praying they had asked to be helped by the merits of the holy Martyrs, to the city of the Poitevins at length by continuing their journey they come. But those new recruits, who were already veterans in secular militia, had made B. Geraldus leader and master, and were ruled in all things by his judgment. And when through a certain ward of the city they were going their way, as by the Spirit of the Lord they were being led, they met the Count of Poitou; and the Lord gave him grace in his sight, and greeted by them he returned at once to them the gracious greeting's address: and discerning in their habit certain indications of patience and humility, he asked what was the cause of the journey. he is received by the Count, They however not gold or silver, but a solitary place and suitable for religion they replied they were seeking. There came up a certain Provost of Bordeaux, who in those days had entered the Count's court; and understanding their purpose, rejoicing also that he had the Count propitious, To me, he said, Lord, let them be committed: for I with your good pleasure will designate for them a suitable place, and regarding their service I will faithfully bear your place.

[15] When therefore the Count committed them to the aforesaid Provost, and commended to the Provost of Bordeaux promising the help of favor and aid, and commanding the same minister, that he should hold them more sincerely commended, they departed from his presence, and did as the Provost commanded them, and came to the diocese of Bordeaux, and without delay in the land which they call Between-the-two-seas, a place is designated for them of vast solitude, which in distinction from lesser groves the inhabitants called the Greater-forest. he is led to Silva-Major, in the year 1079, For it was a forest spacious in length and breadth, and fenced round with trees of diverse kinds, impassable everywhere, unless a solicitous traveler smoothed a way for himself with axe and adze. Why more? the more that place was remote from the frequency of men and habitation, the more acceptable was it found to the blessed man & his companions. From the very speed of the deed is it conjectured, that it was of God's will, that what they wished quickly come to meet them. For there had been formerly there a certain little church, but now made into desolation it had fallen. The man of God came to the place, and began to measure individual things with diligent consideration: and already his spirit for preparing a habitation for himself by providence was borne: who however in this pilgrimage set only in body, in mind was dwelling in the eternal country. Behold a man, a true worshipper of God, was led into the desert; by the Spirit namely the Holy Spirit, who in his coming, both directed the crooked and smoothed the rough.

[16] and that place destined for his rest Already he was marking out in his mind where the church & other offices he would aptly arrange and place: already his work was before him. But in the year of the incarnate Word one thousand seventy-nine the Lord deigned in the coming of Blessed Geraldus to illumine the place of Silva-Major and the country. He asked a sign from the Lord, whether He wished him there to halt his step, and in His honor the proposed work to begin; or whether He was arranging that he should still travel abroad. And when longer persisting in prayer, taught by a celestial vision, the answer from the celestial counsel he awaited, as if made in ecstasy, behold the Son of God in the standard of the Cross offers Himself to the sight of His servant. But so great was the immensity of the Cross, that its lower part remained fixed in the earth, the upper penetrated the heights of heaven, and thus longer firm and stable it persisted. Not however materially was that cross seen, but it was a certain brightness formed in the manner of a cross, which illumined the whole place with the greatness of wondrous splendor. And so the man of God, awakened, conceived a sure sign from the greatness of the vision, that the habitation of that place the Lord approved. he founds a monastery, Lord our God, You were hearing him; God, You were propitious to him. Therefore the place, which befitted his conception, having been designated by sure limits, liberty also and the integrity of immunity having been obtained from the noble lords of that land, he began to work by the counsel of his hands; and in the place, in which he had seen the Son of God shining forth with the insignia of the Passion, a church, in honor of Him and of His most holy mother Mary, in the second year of his coming he founded; and living in holiness and justice before Him, he prayed assiduously, that the weak beginnings of his work with better outcome divine clemency might prosper.

[17] from which many others thence sprang; It is evident today that the prayer of our spiritual Zachariah was heard; because that little church, which he found broken with age, was as it were barren; and yet in that old age visited and made pregnant by grace, with the reproach of sterility condemned, was made fruitful in offspring, so that in Spain and in many parts of Gaul her, as their mother, roused up from her a filial a devotion reveres. But in the very newness of the new building, there were some who said of the blessed man, that he was a seducer, and that with his bags packed he would afterwards return to the places he had left. By occasion of this iniquitous suspicion, certain men stirred by a diabolical spirit, fourteen in number, who had come as enemies to destroy this, thought rashly to scatter the habitation of the holy man still new and tenuous: and taking up the arms, in which they trusted, about the evening twilight to the place they seize the journey, that, what they had conceived in mind, they might accomplish, if they were permitted, in effect. And when they had come nearer, so that by rapine and sacrilege, by the conception of which they had already polluted their mind, they might defile their nefarious right hand; suddenly the sound of the little bell being heard, which customarily was rung for the nocturnal offices, they fell to the ground, made blind and stupid; and were made through all their members so weak, that human affection, seeing them so miserable, could rightly condole. But in the morning when it was made the Brethren going out to their works, divinely punished, found them as it were half-alive, most quickly announcing to the Blessed one the novelty of that deed. And when the man of God coming had looked upon them, armed at the same time and powerless of their arms, he understood sufficiently with what spirit they had come; and yet he asked them, what the cause had been that had led them to the solitude of the desert. there they become monks And they calling themselves unhappy and wretched, confessed they had come for this cause, that they might destroy the place of his dwelling and utterly to despoil it: but prevented by divine power, they were enduring punishment for the rash desire. Pardon at last humbly asked, in the power of God the man of God commanded them to rise up, & henceforth to deny the office of robbers. But they straightway at the prayer of the blessed man, in the sight of all who were present, restored by the benefit of sight, when before they saw nothing, and their wonted health entirely received, there to serve God with constant and stable vow they betook themselves; and with divine grace operating, through the ministry of the servant of God, the wolf's rage was converted into the simplicity of sheep; so that under the discipline of the monastic order their life there afterwards happily in the Lord they ended.

[18] St. Geraldus shining with miracles. The neighbors had heard the praises of the holy man, & through all the mountains round about his reputation was divulged, so much that they flocked to him, and satisfied with the bread of life they ministered to him temporal things. For rude still was the religion of the Christian faith in the hearts of the inhabitants; they were old wineskins, & therefore were corrupting the wine of new grace. To those dwelling in the region of the shadow of death light arose for them: yet he was not that light, but gave testimony of the light. For all who had the sick came, namely souls sullied with the pollutions of multiform uncleanness; and with the Lord operating through the ministry of His servant, he taught them to do penance in remission of their sins, and so they were cured from their infirmities; and with their hearts made fit for receiving the seed of God by the plow of preaching, the shoot of virtues the spiritual husbandman inserted: therefore to him from diverse places they flowed, and heard him more willingly, because they held him as a Prophet. the place before deserted begins to be frequented. For he was in appearance angelic and in body chaste, in mind devout, eloquent in speech, vigilant in prayer, provident in outward things, cautious in exterior things, cheerful toward guests, a humble and benevolent dispenser to the poor: he was all things to all men, according to the teaching of the Apostle, that he might gain all for God; profiting not so much by the office of perfect preaching as by the example of immaculate conversation. Happy country, which in his visitation deserved to obtain the desired beginning of the promises of the Prophet Isaiah. He had said in his prophecy, The desert and pathless place shall rejoice, the solitude shall exult, and shall flower as a lily: and after a few words, he commanded loosened hands to be strengthened, and weak knees to be fortified. Is. 35, 1 All these things came upon her: for nowhere through the greatness of the desert and solitude, up to the aforesaid Father's coming, was free access open there; but then the crooked things were made straight, and the rough ways smooth; loosened hands were strengthened, and weak knees fortified: because among the other graces, which the Lord had bestowed on His Saint, He gave him also the grace of healings.

[19] a club-footed boy is healed: For the reputation of the blessed man being spread far and wide, a certain man from the diocese of Limoges, having faith in those things which were said of his life and holiness and brought forth in public, confidently acted toward him, humbly asking that by his intercession his son, who from birth had twisted and deformed feet, might obtain the desired health. And when without hesitation for a long time he persisted in such prayer, with his son perfectly cured, and restored both to natural form and to the office of upright walking, he felt that the protection of the blessed man had wondrously assisted him. Therefore not ungrateful for the benefit received, taking his son in testimony of the wrought miracle, he went to the presence of the holy man; & for the received health he rendered thanks to God and to the blessed man with devotion.

[20] a monk of Chartres shipwrecked Now the fame of the aforesaid venerable and always to be venerated man had reached even the parts of Gaul, and the praises of his life, there, whence he had once come, by happy reciprocation and not without much interest of virtues, it brought back. But a certain monk of the monastery of St. Peter of Chartres, having heard the fame of the servant of God, asked of the Lord, that he should not incur natural death, before he could behold his desired face, and be satisfied with his longed-for conversation. Meanwhile however it became necessary for him to try the English sea by ship, where by divine permission the contrariety of winds stirred up a most grievous storm, whence by the blow of the waves the ship was shattered, and the wretched shipwrecked man himself, in the middle of the waves without any support of wood or rope left behind, feared death either by submerging or by dashing, which he repeatedly from the conflict of the waves sustained, rightly dreading, ascending even to the heavens and descending even to the abysses; and even to the extreme division of death and life he was driven, almost for a day and night continuously. When the memory of B. Geraldus came to him, and crying out not less with the voice of the heart than of the mouth, invoking B. Geraldus he is saved: his protection he more earnestly implored, saying; Man of God, whom wretched and unhappy I had determined to visit, if true are the things which I have heard of the power of your working, be a help to one shipwrecked: obtain by your holy prayers from the Lord, that with the bonds of my life not disrupted by miserable death, the vow, which concerning your presence to be sought I had conceived, be not dissolved. Scarcely the words of his prayer had he finished, and behold as aid to his hope the blessed man was longed-for present, so that at his invocation a ship coming toward him took him up, and restored to the land liberated from the deep of the sea. In his vow therefore, with so great a benefit accruing, confirmed, he who already had approached even to the gates of death, restored to former life, devoutly sought his liberator; and giving thanks, how great things had been done for him by Him who is powerful through his merits, by suppliant confession he showed.

[21] But the man of illustrious reputation and grace, if at any time praises were recited to him, not to himself; very many are cured from fevers: whom he considered an unprofitable servant, but to the divine majesty humbly he ascribed them. Indeed there flocked to him from diverse parts very many, who either were molested by fevers or were held by other languors: who through penance first cleansed within, he ministered blessed bread; and frequently through his ministry, to those who were worthy, spiritual well-being followed his spiritual cure. Many also from the stone fitted for his burial, with a knife or in any other manner grinding it, mixed it with drinks; and by that very drink, with divine power operating, they were often cured of their infirmities.

[22] And when through many signs and prodigies his holy and immaculate life had more manifestly shone forth, He foreseeing death addresses his own at the end, at length the time of his dissolution, being at hand, he recognized by the Spirit revealing it, and with the Brethren gathered into one, he began to inform them with sacred exhortations, namely that after his death they should cautiously avoid contentions and schisms, preserving in every way in the bond of peace the unity of the spirit, and that they should not permit his traditions to be polluted with any superstition: but each one should know to possess his vessel in sanctification, that he might deserve to become a temple of the Holy Spirit. After they had been refreshed by their spiritual Father with the food of the word of God, and he had caused to be applied to himself the remedy of Extreme Unction: the most sacred Sacraments of the Lord's Body and Blood also received with all devotion, to prepare for himself the way of eternal salvation, he gave the kiss of peace to all: and with the blessing given leave, he commanded them to withdraw to one side, these dismissed that the companies of celestial spirits, through whom divine condescension was visiting him, with those others moved aside might more quickly enter in, & his assumed spirit lead to the place prepared for him by the Lord. At this voice they went out, amazed by the presence of the Celestials, rejoicing alike and grieving, while on one side the Father's dissolution made them sad, on the other the certainty of hope and faith of his crown through so worthy miracles refreshed them.

[23] he is visited by the Saints They are present therefore, the companies of the blessed; and death, a bitter thing, which naturally induces horror, with so great reverence of service bestowed around him, a certain glorious celebration of consolation and also of security makes festive. Therefore with so holy and venerable an assembly present, B. Geraldus, his house arranged, the cloisters and workshops in part composed, the fabric of the monastery erected to the greatest dimension of the walls, with the discipline of the monastic order formed and informed there, with certain and singular observances also added (which even to this day, and he dies in the year 1095 by divine power operating, with greatest zeal, with inviolable firmness are preserved) having served out his time, mature in age, in good old age, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand ninetieth b fifth, on the Nones of April, he paid the debt of nature: and with the separation of body and soul celebrated by the divine censure, he resigned his vital spirit, exulting in the Lord, to the bosoms of the attending Angels.

[24] But when his holy depositing was heard, a very great crowd from diverse parts of Clergy and people, and with many from all sides concurring he is buried the throngs of men and women, young men and virgins, old men with the younger, came together to celebrate his obsequies. They lamented inconsolably, and grieved that they were left desolate by his temporal presence: but him whom they had known on earth to have led an Angelic conversation, by his spiritual patronage with all confidence they hoped to be assiduously consoled in time to come. But because with the comforter taken away they feared the loss of imminent consolation, they commonly deplored the common inconvenience: and since there was common among them the matter for grieving, the same matter provoked them to weepings and tears commonly. His venerable body therefore was buried in that very church and on the north side; he is honored by miracles. and his sepulchre with manifold marks of miracles, to the praise and glory of the omnipotent God, is adorned as becomingly as reverently, according to the diverse benefits, which through his merits the devotion of the faithful experiences. We therefore, who with no doubtful faith believe him to have exchanged the earthly and transitory life for a better, and from this land of the dying to the land of the living to have been happily translated, give thanks to God, who a special pastor in His sight and patron B. Geraldus deigned with His immense clemency to assign to us: who is in His Saints wondrous, to whom be honor and empire for ever and ever. Amen.

NOTES.

CHAPTER III.

Miracles after the passing of B. Geraldus.

[25] A few out of many are written: Since to those who love God all things work together for good, by those piously believing there is no need to be much concerned about the inquiry into miracles: for we believe it was said by the Lord: A wicked and adulterous generation seeks a sign. Matt. 12, 39 Whence we believe miracles are for the most part given and shown for convincing the hardness of the unbelievers. But among those who perfectly believe, and in the faith of Christ firmed, have burned with the fire of mutual charity, it is more honestly and more safely to be judged, that omnipotent God in His own to magnify with works, who divides to each as He wills; than where holy life precedes, about miracles too boldly to inquire; or seeking to feel something worthy of correction. For it is enough that the Lord has led the just one through right ways, and has shown him the kingdom of God, and has given him the knowledge of the Saints; has honored him in labors, and has completed his labors. Nevertheless of the many miracles, which God through the merits of St. Geraldus deigned to work before the term of his dissolution or after, a few with devotion to be recited we have determined: because through negligence very many, known to God alone, are not held in the memory of men. Therefore although we believe his whole life to have been clear with miracles and miraculous on every side; yet some specious ones we write, lest by poverty we should be basely convicted of being poor.

[26] A certain noble woman having two sons, already fitted with the military belt, A soldier commended by his mother to the saint had placed so great confidence in the power of the holy man, that frequently with devotion she visited his tomb, and submitted herself and her two sons to his protection and defense. But on a certain day when she saw them girded and prepared for the battle, which casually was imminent near her dwelling, and that they could in no way be restrained; them with knees bent, tears poured out, to the patronage of B. Geraldus she commended, prayed and asked of him, that them to her safe and sound he would send back. Therefore with them proceeding, as precipitously they were being borne to the fight, he is freed from death. inflamed with the desire of exercising the military; a certain adversary of theirs from ambush, which secretly he had placed, upon them rushed unexpectedly, and one of them with a mighty blow sought to transfix with a lance: but the guardianship of the holy man prevailing, the point of iron, with the obstacle of the naked body blunted, could not harm in striking; nay the hardness of iron, by the softness of the flesh bent back, seemed toward the rigidity of the shaft as if it were waxen to be twisted back: and so the soldier by his guardian preserved unharmed, to his mother joyful and safe was restored. The mother however amazed by the novelty of the miracle and rejoicing, hastened to the sepulchre of the defender, leading her sons with her she brought the iron of the lance, that placed upon the tomb it might always hang in memory of the deed done.

[27] Peter, the 7th Abbot, bears witness, When the holy man diligently was fulfilling the office of humble Abbot, there was among others a certain youth, Peter by name, made a monk by him: who with the Lord inspiring in his pastor following the footsteps of holiness, so much the more received perfect instruction from him, the more by a more fervent life more diligently seeking it more eagerly he desired. This one therefore when around him in the office of Chaplain he had dwelt longer, of the holiness and immaculate life of the same had a fuller knowledge. But he related the above-mentioned miracle, and very many others, after he was by the canonical election of the Brethren in that house, according to the demand of merits and firmness, pastor of religion and seventh Abbot ordained. Among other things he also handed this down in writing and confirmed by his approved testimony. a certain brother from a troublesome swelling of the whole body In that very cenobium it happened that one of the Brethren labored with grievous sickness: for by disordered and excessive flux his whole body had swollen, and his skin become livid, through all the parts of the body sounding drum-like at any touch, was most violently stretched. Who believing that only the remedy of death remained for his languor, broken and oppressed by the bitterness of the pain, and affected by weariness of wretched life, as if a certain mass existing as an impediment to himself, awaited the end of hastened death. And when B. Geraldus, his patron, with vows as attentive as necessary he had implored for protection: accepting some rest with momentary sleep coming over, he had a welcome vision. For he thought before the sacred tomb of the blessed man himself to stand in reality, freed at the tomb of the saint. and from the tomb spontaneously opened to him to take one tooth from the holy and reverend body. With which making over himself the sign of the Cross, he felt himself most perfectly cured. Therefore excited with joy, he was desirous to experience in reality, what imaginarily he had contemplated. But morning being made, the mass of his body he drew with utmost difficulty to the tomb, & proceeding according to the form of the vision in individual things, through the merits of the holy man, against the confidence of human hope, perfect health he obtained.

[28] a dying man, with him appearing, is healed. At a certain time also a certain Custodian of the same monastery, had been so exhausted by the violence of grave infirmity, that set in the final examination of life and death, no signs of living spirit in himself, to those subtly calling him, he showed. But when the ministers & those standing by, were intent upon such things, and between certain and uncertain the minds of men were driven, except that to many the sentence for death seemed more certain; and they wished to do for him according to the custom of the dying, that they might lay him upon the ground; to be placed in ashes alike and in hairshirt, as is the custom; the same sick man, with what inmost affection he could, the protection of the holy man he invoked, of his merits and virtue trusting, and (as he himself bore testimony immediately freed) there was present to him personally in venerable grey hair the blessed man, who gently caressing him, wondrously by the imposition of his hands freed him.

[29] Oliverius also a noble soldier, son of Augerius de Rioncio, a noble man, from whose gift the place of Silva-Major the blessed man had obtained, captured by enemies, to the castle which is called Mons-rebellis, captured by enemies was in many beatings and affliction of body led. And when there he had been held for some time, bound with iron shackles and fetters, and naked poured with milk on a certain day was exposed to the sun's rays, that by flies he might be attacked more avidly, and by their stings more bitterly tortured: the mentioned man of God, not unmindful of the benefit, at midday showed him the service of personal visitation, and consoling him with the address of a gentle greeting, said to him: How is it with you, Brother? Lord, he said, ill, as you see. Rise, said the Saint; rise. Who replied, How can I rise, pressed by the weight of such chains? And having returned to himself, loosed from bonds when at the insistence of the holy man he had attempted to rise, at once all the bonds, by which he was bound, fell entirely dissolved to the ground. Feeling therefore that divine protection was at hand for him, he carefully asked his name; and seeing the guards near him not far absent, and many others walking about in the square, he feared to go. Whose faintheartedness the Saint reproving, says: Go, fear not, and taking in testimony the bonds, by which you had been bound, to the cenobium of B. Mary of Silva-Major without any fear carry them: for none of these, by the saint he is animated to flight, whom you see, nor anyone else, up to the place which I have foretold, will be able in any way to impede you. And know that Geraldus, once the Abbot of that place, has been your guide. Marveling therefore and rejoicing, and free comes to the sepulchre. not so much for his liberation as for the manifest visitation of the holy man, he went on his way, according to the word which the Saint had said to him, through the midst of enemies safe; and in the mentioned monastery received, in order he announced the things which had happened to him. Coming together therefore at once Clergy and people with the Brethren of that place in the church, with greatest joy, and pouring tears for joy, with bells rung the hymn to God, Te Deum laudamus, they sang, and rendered most plentiful thanks, and in memory of the wrought miracle, those iron bonds to the honor of God above the sepulchre of the holy man, with many others, long afterward hung.

[30] In the porch of the hospital, which near the gate of the monastery B. Geraldus while still living had constructed for receiving the poor, a paralytic woman coming to the same and the sick; a certain woman, by name Algare, originating from the village which is called Avaron b, between the vestibule of that house of alms as a paralytic lying, by the bitterness of suffering and continuous pain was sharply tortured. But on a certain night B. Geraldus appeared to the languishing woman, with his face shining with meritorious grey hair: and when he commanded her to rise, the woman at the sight of the man alike and at the word stupefied, inasmuch as for a long time she had lost the use of her members; yet by his frequent command stirred up and at the same time compelled, by a similar vision is cured arose. But as she rose, so great a crashing from the stretching of the nerves was produced, that she herself from the terrible voices, which she was heard to utter having been made stupid from syncope, the sleeping in the hospital she compelled to be excited, and with the doors opened to ask from her, what cause had compelled her so unusually and so terribly to cry out. She humbly laying open the order of the miracle wrought in her, asserted that she had been commanded by B. Geraldus, who had healed her, to hurry to the monastery to render thanks. Therefore leading her with them as she went with upright steps to the monastery they knocked at the door: which opened they entered and followed her up to the tomb of the blessed man with praises, magnifying God with reverence and fear, who through the merits of the holy man the woman wondrously freed.

[31] In another woman also, wholly destitute of all use of her members, whom a certain son of hers had led from distant parts to the same hospital place which we have mentioned before; likewise another paralytic, the same holy man by the showing of his presence, to the power of God manifest to all and to the glory of God, repeated this miracle of his healing: and because a similar thing was done elsewhere, in the recitation of it individually we have not thought it worthwhile to delay.

[32] and a certain lame man A certain lame man in the same hospital had been for a long time sustained, who about his thighs, feet and shins was entirely so weakened, that with natural vigor enervated, creeping to necessities, by the benefit of his buttocks and hands he was dragged. To this one B. Geraldus appearing in a vision, urged him that he should seek the church, and among others at the night coming, on which the solemn Vigils were being celebrated, he should spend the night praying and should receive health. He obeys, and drawing with difficulty to the church himself, near the tomb of the holy man he placed himself. And when according to the promise of the man of God the power of divine virtue he was awaiting; greater and more noble men who had flowed together to the same place for the sake of devotion were pushing him, desiring more closely to adhere to the tomb of the holy man. He excused as much as he could his own weakness, asking that they would sympathize with the afflicted one: afterwards the cattle-keeper of the monastery. but the more he was asking that he be spared, the more grew strong the clamor of those pushing against him. So by necessity compelled he was laboring to withdraw, and with hands extended to the steps of the altar of B. Mary, by the help of the blessed Confessor he rose, and stood upright on his feet, giving thanks to God and to B. Geraldus, whose promise certain and firm he had approved in effect: and entirely freed, he was a short time afterwards the aforesaid monastery's pastor cattle-keeper.

[33] In the elevation of the body But in the course of time, with the counsel of good men had and firmed, concerning translating his holy body, with Bishops and other religious men called together; when his glorious body from the place in which it had been placed, with due reverence and fear, was being transported to another place, where more safely and more secretly he might be kept; one of those standing by placed his garment studiously beneath, and one tooth wrenched from its place rejoicing he took. someone taking away a tooth cannot depart. Departing therefore, bearing an illustrious little portion of the reverend body, having gone out from the village, he was struck with such stupor, that having left the right way he wandered searching for the road, and the same places very often circling, for a long time in mind captured he wandered; and in going laboring, he could not further be removed from the holy man's monastery. At length when to himself by divine permission he returned, he noticed that his journey was impeded by the holy man's Relics, since he unworthy & unworthily bore them: and having conceived the purpose of returning, at once made master of himself he hurried to the monastery; and announcing the offense of pious theft to the Abbot and Brethren of that place, he resigned the Relics; & pardon asked for the thing committed, free and unharmed he was dismissed.

[34] a demoniac is freed, From the castle, which is called c Burgus, to the monastery of Silva-Major a certain demoniac woman was led; who although before the entrance of the monastery she was rending her garments, and raging forth insane words; at the very entrance so greatly was her fury turned, that from her the insanity wholly ceased, and for her recovery the protection of B. Mary and of St. Geraldus the Confessor she invoked. And when for several nights there she had been in prayer, and her vow was not satisfied, committing herself to the guardianship of the blessed man she was returning home. Indeed a little from the monastery she had withdrawn, and behold she had meeting her the Confessor; her withered shin is healed. who taking her right hand, put the demon to flight, and her restored to health. In the village of Silva-Major, a certain woman, whose one shin with the foot had withered, approaching his tomb, in hope of obtaining health, the man of God before the people miraculously healed, and more fit he rendered in walking than before she had been.

[35] a contracted beggar Having heard indeed of the power of the signs, which were being done upon those who were sick, there arose a concourse of peoples: and when to the patronage of the man of God was flowing together from diverse parts of the lands a multitude of the languishing, for the grace of obtaining health; there came among others a certain one originating from the city of Bordeaux, by name Peter: who with the nerves of shins and feet contracted and deadened bent over, with only the aid of his hands and knees in the manner of a quadruped walked. But being delayed concerning him, by the secret dispensation of the divine counsel, as to the remedy of healing, he was in the same place publicly begging for a long time, and sitting for alms. And when of the alms of mercy, giving as a usurer the alms given to him, which he had received, to usury he had proposed to lend, and by the conceived will he had already given effect: the man of God compassionating the most wretched man, (indeed by that piety with which he was wont to be specially moved, toward such languishing ones) making wondrous in him his mercies, with the effect of healing following, countered his so pestiferous disease of crime, lest by a double contrition he be crushed. But he appeared to him in a vision, and threateningly nodding to him he warned, he is bidden by repenting that pressingly his final day was impending: commanding that whatsoever from the contagious gain of usury his hands had touched, as quickly as possible he should return, and confessing of the sin he should repent, and beware henceforth; and so confidently to the monastery hastening he should pay his vows to God, there about to obtain most perfect health. Who at once individually what had been commanded him most devoutly fulfilling, to the sepulchre of the blessed man went, and with prayer to God premised, with his name invoked, was restored to him the perfect rectitude of his steps. Blessed through all things be God the Lord, who through the merits of B. Geraldus making the whole man sound, restored him chastised to the double health both of soul and body. to deserve health. But the aforesaid man having offered at the sepulchre for testimony the wooden instruments, by whose use supported he had before walked, giving thanks to God departed unharmed; and a few days later, according to the word of the holy man, he closed his last day.

[36] Since therefore it is too difficult and lengthy to describe, how great things the Lord through him deigned to work, how many also from the error of the evil way to the way of holy conversation and the piety of divine justice have been converted; yet with a few things recounted, from the very many powers of his miracles, of which part we have seen and known them, and part also have been taught to us by the faithful Fathers of our Order and announced to us, that they may be narrated to another generation; & of certain things they have borne testimony, and we believe their testimony to be true, to the end we have judged we must hasten. Testifying this assuredly to all who read, Many other miracles are not written, that according to the testimony of the preceding Fathers, and also according to the faith of our own eyes, he did many other signs, which are not written in this book: which not only through negligence, but also because of their frequency, and finally for avoiding prolixity have been passed over: and especially because we judge it safer and more honest, to stand far below the bounds of perfect truth, by leaving out many things; rather than to seem to have burst forth impetuously beyond, and too talkatively. Nevertheless this we can confidently affirm, there is a flocking to the sepulchre by the sick. that often we remember we have seen, people of both sexes for the diverse benefits of healings of which they had need, to the sepulchre of the holy man by their parents and friends led; and there in prayer and abstinence with the vigils of three or four nights celebrated, to entire health through the merits of the blessed man restored. Who afterwards in memory of the grace received, to the payment of a certain and annual tribute devoutly to the monastery and to the Brethren serving God there bound themselves; and visiting the place, at appointed times they paid it. Very many also from the parts of Normandy especially, and generally from diverse other places, even from distant parts, to the same monastery more often came; drawing with them and bearing diverse kinds of chains, which offering humbly at his tomb, they asserted that they had been at his invocation wondrously freed: and by the aforesaid manner they constituted themselves tributaries of the monastery. Which thing also we have very often seen by many and from distant parts paid to the monastery. Still indeed by the grace of God are frequented and vigorous through effect the marks of his miracles: still through him the Lord dissolves bonds and prisons, takes away plagues, empties fevers, puts demons to flight, governs the church which he founded in honor of B. Mary and of the Blessed Apostles Simon and Jude and of all the Saints, whose society all the days of his life in justice and sanctity he sought: to which may we deserve to be led, with Him directing our steps, who is the beginning without beginning, the end without end. Amen.

NOTES.

SERMON ON ST. GERALDUS,

By Stephen Bishop of Tournai composed for the Lessons of the proper Office.

Geraldus Abbot, Founder of Silva-Major, in Aquitaine (S.)

BY STEPHEN, BISHOP OF TOURNAI.

[I] The death of the Saints, always precious in the sight of the Lord, of Most Blessed Geraldus, St. Geraldus's birthday to be celebrated, both outstanding Father, and also excellent Confessor, the natalitial festivities commend: for by right I would call the day of his sacred passing from the world his natalitial day, on which he, emerging from the squalor of the worldly prison-house, merited to ascend to the palaces of the heavenly kingdom; and from the left translated into the right, the harsh laws of death for perpetual immortality he exchanged; and from the perishing and slipping world he was carried to heaven. Truly blessed, truly most worthy of every kind of praise, to whom it was proposed so to soldier in the world, that in perpetuity he might reign with Christ.

[II] who triumphing over the enemy Finally having followed the victorious arms of the eternal Emperor, and among robust athletes having given his name, bound by military oaths, not sluggish in the divine warfare did he languish, nor did he suffer the brand of a deserter to be imprinted upon himself: nay rather manfully engaging with the enemy, by the disciplined reason of battle, not only the adverse blows, fortified with the shield of faith, he eluded; but also the hostile attacks of the enemy, with enormous weight of virtue, the illustrious warrior crushed.

[III] he possesses heaven, Thus emerging victor of all, borne in a celestial chariot, to the heavenly capitol he led a noble triumph: and being bestowed with the palm of immortality alike and the laurel, he filled the starry companies with the privilege of merits: and there happily perpetual, and perpetually happy, himself reigning with Christ, dwells with the Angels, walks with the Archangels, finally with the thousands of all the Saints rejoices together. From there have flowed the dances of today's festivity: from there to the Christian people the joys of so great and so illustrious a solemnity have flowed forth: hence the Clergy sings together, hence the people applaud, the poor dance, the rich exult.

[IV] Comparable to any of the Saints, on account of his virtues Young men and virgins, old men with the younger praise the name of the Lord: by whose gift this man so great, so celebrated and so illustrious shone forth; that both great in the summit of holiness, and greatest in the abundance of miracles, he is preached by merit comparable to any of the Saints and in reward. For whose continence did he not equal by the zeal of singular parsimony? to whom was he unequal in the virtue of patience? than whom was he lower in faith, lesser in hope? whom finally in the advances of the highest charity did he not surpass? who his own and himself denied for Christ, that he might follow Him in the charity of God and of neighbor, taking up his cross daily, with the steps of feet and of acts: leaving parents and country, fleeing the summit of honor and human favors, and remaining in solitude, that with chaste services he might serve God; giving himself up to converting sinners, that he might free their souls from death, and gain them and render them to the Redeemer.

[V] But with what splendor of spiritual signs he shone to explain, and miracles; I judge superfluous: because they are so great, that by their greatness the notice of many, nay of all, they have easily claimed. If therefore so great things could the mortal do, we believe indeed, not with vain faith, much greater things will he be able to obtain as an immortal: if fighting such he performed, reigning with the Lord incomparably better he will perform. This man therefore to be justly numbered among the just, the deeds done through his life, the signs after his passing attest; works, while he lived, wondrous; after he departed, more wondrous.

[VI] Especially since to the one summit of holiness he changed diverse ascents: to the Martyrs also because there is not only one way, which leads to the kingdom of Your glory, O Christ. For what is harder, to bear the cross through times, than to undergo death immediately through wounds? What is inferior, to conquer the world, than not to fear the sword? One mortified for Your sake is not distant from one dead: since in both it is glorious, both not to wish to abuse what pleases, and not to wish to use what is permitted.

[VII] For it is equal, as we believe, not to acquiesce to allurements through rigor, inferior in nothing: not to yield to tortures through pain. Where the spirit is equal in loving, the Striker is lacking to faith, not the confessor. He willed to triumph, who soldiers, who does not cease to soldier, until he completes. But in these things let human fragility claim nothing for itself without Your help: for to Your gifts, Lord, must he impute, who has conquered: because by Your strength he bore certainly, what he endured. Him do You, highest God, before Yourself establish as intercessor for our crimes: whom by the gift of Your grace, both in life illustrious, and with the menace of death You made notable.

VIII and to be piously invoked by all, Him therefore we, so great and such a man, with the services of due servitude let us frequent; nor let the mind languish in the offices, if it does not wish to be frustrated in its vows: for Holy Geraldus asked will be at hand, interpellated will favor; removing all inconveniences, all conveniences he will provide. He will bend the Judge with prayers, for the guilty and frail he will intercede with the Author, he will obtain from God pardon of crimes, with the gift of immortality obtained he will give the consortium of rewards. With our Lord Jesus Christ prevailing, to whom be praise & perennial glory, unfailing victory, now and in all ages. Amen.

Lesson from the holy Gospel according to John. In that time Jesus said to his disciples I am the light who came into the world that everyone who believes in me in darkness may not remain etc. Homily of the Divine Augustine Bishop from tract 54 on John before the middle upon the same place.

Between the Lessons are interspersed rhythmic Responsories, of which one we add here for the dignity of the author.

Delight, Silva-Major, in the name of Geraldus: Who by the splendor of the true sun and the celestial light, Responsories and Antiphons Freed your shade from the gloom of death, And cleansed your groves from shed blood.

This is the first Responsory: the rest drawn from diverse parts and praises of his life, almost similar to this and not contributing to the knowledge of history. The Antiphons for the individual Psalms, both of Matins and of the vespertine office, are varied with equal beauty of meter and rhythm: which however for brevity's sake we omit. The Hymns to be sung in the same office we give here.

HYMN AT VESPERS AND MATINS.

Let Aquitaine exalt the praises of our Father, Whose presence it rejoices in and whose benefits it feels. In this solemn joy, let our devotion grow, That we may enjoy the propitious patronage of Geraldus. This one from tender age, amid the works of virtue, Neither feared harsh things, nor sought prosperous ones. A man illustrious, a man renowned, a vessel of the Holy Spirit, As Prelate and as subject, exposed to labors. Simple and upright in mind, pleasing to God and to neighbor, May he bring forth with inmost affection our prayers to the Most High.

AT LAUDS

Let us joyfully sing today a hymn of praise and glory, That as a sign of grace may be conceived the voice of joy. Geraldus clean from allurements, and celebrated by the world, Goes out from the hiding-places of the flesh, neither deadly nor funereal. Under the monastic rule free from wrinkle and stain, Through signs and miracles he broke the bonds of death. Running, but not in vain, he paid the debt of nature: Whose departure is commended by the merit of his course completed. Confessor equal to the Martyrs, be present to those confiding: Join us by your prayers as fellow citizens to the citizens of heaven. Be praise to the Father with the Son, and in the two to the Third: Whose simple connection, unity, and not union. Amen.

PRAYER

Grant us, almighty God, by the merits of St. Geraldus, Your Confessor and Abbot, to be cherished: so that him whom by many miracles You willed to manifest on earth, by his intercessions may we be commended in heaven.

EPITAPHS

composed by a Baldric, Abbot of Burgueil.

Geraldus Abbot, Founder of Silva-Major, in Aquitaine (St.)

BY STEPHEN, BISHOP OF TOURNAI.

Contemporary and familiar with St. Geraldus was Baldricus, made Abbot of Burgueil among the Angevins in the year 1089, but afterwards about the year 1105 Archbishop of Dol: whose historical poems, published from the MS. Codex of Alexander Petavius, Most Illustrious Man, are read in tom. 4 of du Chesne's Francica, and among these on page 270 the following Epitaphs.

Since the faithful are wont to pray for the dead, And for those dear to them to continue their tears; For Father Geraldus there is need of neither, Who lived as a citizen of heaven while an inhabitant of earth.

Silva-Major he dedicated to the monks and to the Lord, A voluntary exile from his paternal borders. France his native land became base to him, and he left her, Coming to the forest groves of Bordeaux. Behold the forest land buds forth colonists for heaven, Which through Geraldus the husbandman has flowered. Behold the happy soul rejoices in the hall of heaven: May the limbs here laid gladden the peoples.

Here lies the most holy Abbot of Silva-Major, Splendor of Abbots and monastic ornament: He cultivated the forests, and made new lands for Christ, That the lavender might bring forth the rose, the willow apples. This place first was a forest and savage earth, By his examples it is now the gate of heaven. Man of grey head, man of perfect probity, A citizen of the heavens he slept in the Lord. People of Aquitaine, embrace the body of so great a Father, Who still lives for you as the fragrance of religion. Gaul, rejoice together with Geraldus, whom you bore, And here venerate his holy ashes.

III

Dove-like in mind, severe in the fervor of zeal, Sweet in address, outstanding in character, Generous to the poor, sparing to himself, serene of countenance, Compassionating all with a bountiful heart, Abbot Geraldus lies here buried as to the flesh: For his spirit free obtained the heavens. The Gallic mother people gave him to the Aquitanian people, And he cultivated the old forests of Bordeaux: Who profited so much that land, and that people too, That now through him the people and the land bear fruit. Here is a rich place adorned with precious bones, May the honor shown to the bones profit the peoples.

White dove of God, with stains and wrinkles removed, Whom no blackness of his own fault harmed, As a veteran soldier snatched to the King's rewards, The Abbot's spirit claims the stars for itself. But what of earth as ashes is joined to the same; In this ground it rests, rightly called man. Here his native soil, which was to him sweet France, He willingly forsook, following Abraham behind: An upright guest of Silva-Major and its first inhabitant, He held these groves, and cultivated them for God, By name Geraldus, a strenuous man; he thirsted for the high, Here the body rests, the spirit holds the heights.

Prudent as a serpent, simple, Geraldus, as a dove; Angelic in appearance, a graceful swan in head; A man, a lion in zeal, a suppliant lamb in suffering; Mild, gentle, upright in religion; When with the divine plowshare you tamed this land, With countless Brethren gathered to you; At length drawn by the image of common death, You give your soul to heaven, your members to the bosom of earth. Pray for us, Geraldus, reverend Father, There is no need for us to ask anything else for you. To these can be added what Molanus writes is sung of St. Geraldus by the Church in the proper office: Whom Belgica bore, Aquitaine preserves for us, That he may serve the Lord in the Lord's servant: That land long happy, this one happier, by the master's Doctrine, signs, body, seat, prayer: He subdued the flesh by punishments, the enemy by virtue, The world by contempt, the other monsters by faith.

Where note that Corbie, the homeland of Geraldus, was situated in that part of Picardy, which anciently was reckoned to Belgica II: and in that sense the Saint is called a Belgian. Molanus, who had seen neither life, and received the eulogy to be set forth in the Natales only from the Acts of St. Arnulphus, suspected something more, namely because that St. Arnulphus was a Fleming, and many from Brabant and Flanders for love of him could have flocked to the monastery of St. Medard at Soissons; and among them Geraldus: and therefore he thought a place should be given him among the Saints of present-day Belgium; which also others have followed. But those light conjectures collapse when a more certain truth is produced.

CATALOGUE OF ABBOTS

Successors of St. Geraldus in Silva-Major. Collected by Reverend Lord Stephen du Lauva.

Geraldus Abbot, Founder of Silva-Major, in Aquitaine (St.)

With all things which were to be related of St. Geraldus completed, there remained the history of the illustrious monastery, founded by him, promised by us: in place of which we exhibit the simple catalogue of Abbots, collected by the aforementioned Lord Stephen; lest for a most diligent man some part of the fruit hoped for by us should perish; and so that the defect of the Sammarthani in this part may be supplied; whom we nevertheless wish to believe to have been as diligent as we in seeking the Abbots of that monastery; but having used worse fortune than we, to have run into someone similar to him, who succeeded the excellent Prior Bellordau, and by his surliness brought it about, that still something was desired by us, sought for the full completion of this matter and not obtained.

I St. Geraldus, concerning whom beyond the year 1089 no mention is made in the writings so far preserved with us: as neither of his successor any before the year 1097. But the life written by the Monk Christian, and sent from Silva-Major to Corbie, removes all doubt; expressly noting the year 1095, in which St. Giraldus died. II Achelmus Santius, from Archdeacon of the Metropolitan church of St. Andrew of Bordeaux, made a monk in Silva-Major, then substituted for B. Geraldus: of whom in the MSS. mention is made in the year 1097 & 1102. He died on the 11th day of the Kalends of December. He lies in the chapel of the Bishops: which still stands in our church, and serves as a Sacristy. III Aleramnus or Halarandus, nephew of B. Geraldus, and his companion from Laon this far, in the Necrologies called a man of venerable life. He died on the 4th day of the Kalends of April in the year 1107, in which he was succeeded by IV Gaufridus the First, called of Laon, who from the aforesaid year to 1121 presided over the monastery. He died on the 14th day of the Kalends of February, in the year, it seems, closest cited. V Rumaldus, died the same or the following year, on the 5th day of the Ides of June. He lies in the chapel of the Bishops. VI Gaufridus II, ruled the monastery from the aforesaid year until 1131, in which he was made Bishop of Bazas. VII Petrus de Ambasia, disciple and Chaplain of St. Geraldus, elected in the aforesaid year, was living in the year 1135, and died on the 14th day of the Kalends of May. VIII Petrus II de Didonia, was living in the year 1164, in which he obtained from Alexander III the supreme Pontiff a bull, in which many churches are confirmed to Silva-Major and several possessions, specifically in the year 1169. He died on the 7th day of the Kalends of October of the year 1184. He lies in the chapel of the Bishops. IX Raymundus, of pious memory, was elected in the year 1184, and was living in the year 1189; he died on the 4th day of the Nones of July. He lies at the gate of the monastery. X Petrus de Laubese, was living in the year 1190 and died 1197, on the Ides of January. He lies in the chapel of the Bishops on the side of the Chapter: he obtained in the same year 1197 a Bull from Celestine III, similar to the higher one, but a little more ample. XI Gombaldus, died on the 7th day of the Ides of January. He lies in the Chapter near the boys, on the side of the prior choir. XII Amalvinus, was living in the year 1208, died 1221, on the 5th day of the Ides of March. He lies in the cloister, beneath the image of the Blessed Virgin.

XIII Grimoardus, of this monastery (as also the higher ones) a professed, and its Abbot from the year 1221 elected, and afterwards made Bishop of Comminges; yet in such wise that he ruled the Bishopric and monastery henceforth together. In his time Gerardus, Bishop of Bordeaux, with Amanevus, Archbishop of Auch, assisting him, and the suffragans of both being present, and also a very great crown of Abbots, Clerics, and Nobles (letters of safe and secure conduct having previously been obtained from the Counts of Toulouse, Angoulême, Périgord, and other neighboring Viscounts) consecrated the church of Silva-Major, on the day sacred to St. Bartholomew, in the year 1231: and Indulgences, both Gerardus himself and other Prelates granted to those who would visit the same church within the Octave of the Dedication. Furthermore, Grimoardus was still living in the year 1235. He died on the 4th day of the Ides of September: he lies at Comminges. XIV Ramnulphus, was living in the years 1240 and 1242. He died on the 7th day of the Kalends of June: he lies in the Chapter, at the feet of the Crucifix. XV Bertrandus de Sancto-Lupo, was living in the years 1245 and 1249. He died on the 5th day of the Kalends of June; he lies in the Chapter, on the choir of the Abbot. XVI Guillelmus de Gonac, was the Pope's Chaplain, and was living in the year 1255. XVII Bernardus de Faja, of pious memory: was living in the year 1263. He died on the Nones of December: he lies in the Chapter, on the choir of the Abbot. XVIII Ioannes de Condomio, a religious and venerable man, was living in the years 1273 and 1274. He died on the 7th day of the Ides of October. He lies before the chapter, on the choir of the Prior. XIX Florentius. XX Barranus de Curton, of pious memory. He died on the 16th day of the Kalends of August. XXI Petrus Hugonis, of pious memory. He died on the 11th day of the Kalends of November. He lies before the Chapter, on the choir of the Prior. XXII Gualhardus de la Chassanha, of good memory. He died on the Kalends of December: he lies in the entrance of the Chapter. XXIII Balduinus, Prior of Neroville. He died on the 3rd day of the Nones of December. XXIV Guillelmus de la Tilheda, was living in the year 1339. He died on the 2nd day of the Ides of July: he lies in the chapel of St. John. XXV Guido de Ferreriis, was living in the year 1350. He died on the 6th day of the Kalends of June. XXVI Hugo de Marcenhaco, was living in the year 1370. He died on the 6th day of the Nones of May. XXVII Bernardus. XXVIII Guillelmus Guytardi. XXIX Geraldus de Burgoli, was living in the years 1390 and 1406. He died on the Nones of May. XXX Guilhermus, was living in the year 1426. He died on the 4th day of the Ides of July: he lies at Avignon. XXXI Philippus de l'Espinassa, was living in the year 1432. He died on the Kalends of July: he lies before the Chapter. XXXII Geraldus de Pedena, was living in the years 1438 and 1461. He died on the 11th day of the Kalends of May. XXXIII Benedictus de Guitone, Doctor of Decrees, was living in the years 1465 and 1485. He obtained on May 20 of the year 1478 from the King of France, that fairs and markets should be restored at Silva-Major. He died on the 8th day of the Kalends of March. XXXIV Ioannes de Chassaignes, of the family of Bresac. He died on the 8th day of the Kalends of February. XXXIV Ioannes de Larmendie, restored several arches of the church and the Abbatial chamber. He was living in the year 1513, and died on the 2nd day of the Nones of May of the year 1523. XXXVI Iacobus de Larmendie, Bishop of Sarlat, died on the 14th day of the Kalends of December in the year 1533. XXXVII Mattheus de Longue-joye, Bishop of Soissons, died on the 3rd day of the Ides of September in the year 1557. XXXVIII Elias de Gontault de Saint Genies, died on the Nones of March, of the year 1574. XXXIX Stephanus de Gontault de Saint Genies, Apostolic Protonotary. XL Franciscus de Fayolo, died on the 4th day of the Kalends of July in the year 1608. XLI Ludovicus de la Valette, Archbishop of Toulouse and Cardinal. XLII Henricus de Scoubleau de Sourdis, Archbishop of Bordeaux. XLIII Ludovicus de la Riviere, Bishop of Langres, still living.

Thus far that Catalogue, which since it is taken from the very ancient instruments themselves, deserves more trust than the Malleac Chronicle, even though written in the same time, when the first successors of St. Geraldus lived: whom it enumerates thus. "There succeeded Guillelmus (in another Achelmus) Alerannus, Gaufredus, likewise Goffredus"; with the intermediate Rumaldus omitted, whose prefecture was very brief. Peter, who succeeded Goffredus, promoted to the Bishopric of Bazas, is not named: either because it had not yet come to the notice of the author ending in the year 1134, or because Goffredus did not immediately upon his promotion abdicate the government of the monastery, which was removed from the city of Bazas by very few leagues, or finally because his very promotion was made later: for the catalogue of the Sammarthani, very full of gaps, deserts us at this place, and names no one who presided over the church of Bazas between Stephen known in the year 1103, and Garsia named in the year 1174; except the bare name of a certain Fortis, before or after whom, not only the aforesaid Goffredus, but several others could have presided.