ON BB. JAMES AND PHILIP, MARTYRS OF THE ORDER OF FRIARS MINOR AT BEVAGNA IN UMBRIA, AT BEVAGNA IN UMBRIA.
In the year 1377.
CommentaryJames, M., of the Order of Friars Minor, at Bevagna in Umbria. (B.)
Philip, M., of the Order of Friars Minor, at Bevagna in Umbria. (B.)
BY J. P.
Mevania, commonly Bevagna, a city of Umbria on the river Topino, has been described by us at greater length in vol. IV of August, The death of the Blessed on the 23rd day of the same month, page 719, on occasion of Bl. James of Bevagna, of the Order of Friars Preachers, who in that same place closed his last day. But now there present themselves two other Blessed, who by their death ennobled the same city. Arthur announces them thus on this day: At Bevagna, in the Territory of Foligno, the passion of the blessed James and Philip, martyrs. They are praised also in Hueber's Franciscan Menology. Wadding at the year 1377, num. 1 and 2, thus narrates their martyrdom: In this turbulent time, in which the cities of Italy everywhere, and especially of Umbria, the March and Lombardy, behaved inconstantly, and refused the rule of their lords; Trincius, son of Trincius, a severe and harsh ruler, held Foligno. He had doubted of the fidelity of the people of Bevagna, who were subject to him, and at the suggestion of slanderers he sent men like himself, William of Foligno and Peter Coccoranus, as prefects of the most savage soldiers (a great part of whom were foreign heretics), who should severely punish the authors and conspirators of a defection they had devised. They filled everything with slaughter, blood, rapine, fire, with no distinction made of rank or sex.
[2] There were then in that town the aforesaid Martyrs, who, detesting the savagery, for justice' sake: their bodies cast into the river in the public square now piously exhorted the people to bear the vengeance perhaps sent by God for their sins; now boldly reproached the tyrants with their cruelty and with the unjust oppression of the innocent. The authors of the crime, indignant, ordered their satellites to rush upon the Friars as favorers of a rebellious people. Those men, after afflicting them with blows and insults, at last killed them toward the evening of the second day of September, and, the bodies having been ignominiously cast out for the terror of others, they decreed that on the following day they should be cast into the flowing river Topino. Some pious townsmen, having secretly taken them away by night and enclosed the corpses in a chest, were carrying them off to be buried; but, being surrounded by the soldiers, they left the pious spoil to the impious robbers, having suffered injuries and wounds. Without delay the cruel butchers committed the sacred deposit to the river. But He in whose sight the death of his servants is precious would not have them buried without honor in the waters, but, the order of nature being wondrously changed, he made the chest ascend against the impetuous course of the river, as far as the bridge named from saint Magnus.
[3] they are found, Those who were passing by, seeing the wooden mass drawn without sails, without oars, without a steersman, by some hidden force, suspecting something mysterious, partly afraid, partly eager, either to venerate something divine or to carry off gain, drew the chest to the shore in that place where now is seen the church of blessed Mary at saint Magnus. The lid being taken off, they saw the sacred bodies reverently laid out, gaping with a fresh wound, and breathing a most sweet odor, by which signs they judged that the pious Men had fallen for justice' sake.
[4] and are honorably buried. The matter being reported to the people of Foligno, the clergy went out to meet them, and with funeral pomp led the corpses into the city, presently to the cathedral church of saint Felicianus. But before the doors it was necessary to stop, for by no force, art or effort could they be brought into this church. Meanwhile, with an unwonted ringing, with no one pulling them, the bells of the Franciscan house resound; by which miracles all not undeservedly believed that it was sufficiently made plain that to these Martyrs a tomb was owed among the associates of their own institute. Thither accordingly the supplication of the whole people and clergy being directed, they were laid with great honor in a chapel at the right hand of the chief altar, in a noble tomb; where to this day they lie open to the veneration of the faithful. A little after, the Lord avenged the blood of his Servants; for Trincius perished miserably, cast down from a window …, and the authors of the butchery, who struck with the sword, perished by the sword.
[5] The tragic end of Trincius is described at greater length by the praised Wadding at the same year 1377, num. 22, among the wonders of Bl. Thomas, or Thomasuccio, after the episcopate had been foretold by him to a little boy: The tyrant under whom the Blessed were slain In that city of Foligno there ruled, by vicarial power granted from the Apostolic See, Trincius, the third of that name, son of Ugolino Trincius, a man of lofty spirit, of intemperate life, and of tyrannical rule. Him Thomas more than once fraternally corrected, and sometimes sharply rebuked. He, taking it ill that he should be so often reproved by a contemptible man, resolved to cast him into the fire; yet he said nothing to his servants, but under a feigned appearance of honor summoned the man. Thomas, foreknowing from heaven the danger prepared for him, went to a neighboring oven, and wrapped in his cloak a heap of live coals. When he came into Trincius's sight he spread out the burning coals, the cloak being unharmed, and scattered them over the pavement, saying: Behold the fire made ready: behold also the sacrifice: you resolved to cast me into the pyre; I shall gladly be sacrificed for the Lord. Astounded by the double miracle, both of the unharmed garment and of his secret thought being known, he held the man of God in veneration, and knew that he shone with a prophetic spirit.
[6] He wished accordingly to know from him (such is the curiosity of men, is punished in a wondrous manner. and their desire for length of life) whether his life would be prolonged for many years. To whom Thomas: You will live so long, until the brass, or the bell-metal which serves the common offices of the city, shall fall down broken, and calves shall fly over the tower. Reckoning both hard, Trincius promised himself a longer life; but by the clearness of the event the obscure mystery was unlocked; for the Florentines and the enemies of the Pontiff in this year 1377, having conquered the people of Camerino, under the leadership of Lucius Tedesco, stirred the people of Foligno to defection. As the people conspired, when they were summoning to arms with the sound of the brass, the bell fell broken, and the enemies set upon the tower their standards, on which two calves were painted. Presently they rushed into Trincius's palace, and, having thrown him out through a window, wretchedly killed him on the 28th day of September.
[7] It remains that we return to our Blessed, and prove their public and ancient cult. The public cult Wadding above at num. 4 said: To this day they lie open to the veneration of the faithful. From the same author at the year 1390, num. 9, it seems that it can be gathered that both were in great veneration in the 14th century, as friends of God and as having died with the odor of sanctity, from what is reported of Brother Paulutius preparing himself for death: He visited daily the tomb of blessed Angela his fellow-citizen, and of the holy martyrs James and Philip, … and prayed that they would intercede with the Lord for him, that, as they had lived together in the same fellowship, so they might reign together in heaven, and that those who served under the same leader might win the trophy in the same place. That great esteem of their sanctity thereafter persevered in the following centuries. For Mark of Lisbon, who is written to have died about the year 1568, in Wadding's Catalogue of the writers of the Order of Minors, affirms in part 2, book 9, chapter 33, §3 of the Chronicle of the same Order that the bodies of James and Philip, surnamed the Innocents, are shown with great veneration in the church of St. Francis at Foligno, and then indicates that they are there in a chest above the altar of the great chapel at the Gospel horn.
[8] is confirmed. The veneration of the same Blessed persevered in the seventeenth century: for Jacobilli, in vol. 2 on the Saints and Blessed of Umbria, published in print in the year 1656, besides other things which he gathered at the 2nd day of September about today's two Friars Minor, records that their bodies were placed in the church of St. Francis, and that they rest whole in a chapel of the same church, for public veneration, in a notable chest with the following inscription: The bodies of BB. James and Philip, martyrs. Our Daniel Papebroch, in the Ms. Diary of his Roman journey, undertaken in the year 1660, among the Foligno matters inserted by him in it, at the 18th day of December has this: We went to the church of the Franciscans, where in a chapel at the right hand of the choir, above the altar, rests the body of Bl. Angela of Foligno, through the glass sides of a gilded chest, which another, meaner, of wood covers. In a similar chest at the left of the choir are the bodies of the Bl. martyrs James and Philip of the Franciscan Order, and they lie with a palm in their hands. Of that Bl. Angela we treated on the 4th day of January from page 186. In the 18th century Benignus Fremaut, in the general Franciscan Legend, printed in Flemish in the year 1708, confirms the above, indicating that those bodies still rest there in a beautiful chest on the altar of the chapel at the right side of the high altar, both then also whole, as, he says, I myself saw and venerated them in the year 1682. From these things thus deduced we have judged that it is lawful for us, saving the decree of Pope Urban VIII, as it seems, to weave these two Blessed, together with the other dwellers of the heavenly court of this day, into our Work.