May VII

St. Stanislas, Bishop of Cracow, Martyr

From his life, elegantly written by Longinus Dugloss. Also from Chromerus. Kranizius, b. 3, c. 12, 13, 14, &c. See Papebroke, t. 2, Maij, p. 198.

A. D. 1079.

Stanislas Sezepanowski was born on the 26th of July, 1030, at Sezepanow, in the diocese of Cracow. His parents, both of the most illustrious families of Poland, had passed thirty years together without issue, when this son was given them by heaven, after they had lost all hopes of children. They received him with thanksgiving to God, and devoted him from his birth to the divine service. The example of their extraordinary piety, charity to the poor, and constant practice of mortification, made insensible impressions upon the tender heart of their son, which were strengthened by their assiduous instructions. Young Stanislas, from his very infancy, showed an unusual affection for prayer, seriousness, and mortification, being very temperate in his meals, often secretly lying on the ground, and inuring himself to suffer cold and other inconveniences; in which acts of self-denial he was privately encouraged by his parents; who were far from giving into the preposterous fondness of many who, by a false tenderness, too often make themselves the spiritual, and sometimes also the corporal murderers of their offspring. Stanislas being sent to school, by his progress in learning surpassed the expectation and even wishes of his friends: yet was always more careful to advance in piety. He had no relish for superfluous amusements; the time allowed for recreation he abridged as much as health would permit, and the money which was given him for his pocket was always secretly employed in relieving the poor. When grown up, he was sent to pursue his studies at Gnesna, the first university in the kingdom, and thence to Paris. His mildness, modesty, simplicity, and candor, joined with his capacity for learning, gained him everywhere as many friends and admirers as he had masters and acquaintance. After seven years spent in the schools of canon-law and divinity at Paris, refusing, out of humility, the degree of doctor, which was offered him, he returned home; and, upon the demise of his parents, disposed of his plentiful fortune in favor of the poor. He received the holy order of priesthood from the hands of Lampert Zula, bishop of Cracow, and was by him made canon of his cathedral, and soon after his preacher and vicar-general. His assiduous sermons, animated by the Spirit of God, with which he was replenished, and supported by the example and sanctity of his life, produced a wonderful reformation of manners, and inspired many with a contempt of the world to follow Christ. Both clergy and laity had recourse to his advice in all spiritual concerns from every part of the kingdom: and his diocesan, desirous of having him for his successor, made an offer to resign to him his bishopric; but the saint’s opposition proved a bar not to be moved. However, upon the death of Lampert, he found himself unable to withstand the united votes of the king, clergy, and people, seconded by an express order they had obtained from pope Alexander H., for complying with their choice. Wherefore, not to resist the voice and will of heaven, he obeyed, and was consecrated bishop in 1072. This see, which had been formerly metropolitical, had at that time lost its archiepiscopal prerogative.

Stanislas, seeing himself vested with the character of a successor of the apostles, studied to be such in his spirit and manners. His house was always crowded with poor, and he kept a list of all the widows and distressed persons. He was indefatigable in his functions, especially preaching, and scarce knew how to set bounds to his mortification and the exercises of prayer. He visited his whole diocese every year, and no irregularity whether in clergy or laity, could pass unobserved by him. Boleslas II. was then king of Poland. This prince sullied the glory of his victories (having had great success against the Russians) by his unbridled lust and debaucheries, and by horrid acts of tyranny and injustice, which procured him the surname of the Cruel. Though married, he was not ashamed to offer violence to several ladies of quality: and from private crimes broke at last into the most public and brutish extravagances. Those who approached him durst not make him proper remonstrances: such was the dread of his fury. Stanislas, however, boldly laid before him in private the scandal and enormity of his conduct. The king endeavored at first to extenuate his guilt, and when pressed closer by the saint, made some show of repentance. But whatever impression his remonstrances might make upon his mind, it seen wore off, and the king fell into his usual disorders, and began to express his aversion against the good bishop, and to complain of his boldness; neither were flatterers wanting to inflame his resentment. The prince carried off, and kept by violence, a very beautiful woman, wife of Miecislas, a gentleman in the palatinate of Sirad, and had by her several children. The archbishop of Gnesna, and others of the episcopal order that had free access to the king’s person, were hereupon solicited by the nobility to carry their complaints to the king, and lay before him the enormity of his crime; but the fear of offending their sovereign stopped their mouths: and this their silence was construed by the people in no other light than that of a mercenary connivance. Stanislas was the only person that had the courage requisite to discharge this duty. Having accordingly recommended the success of the affair to God, he went to court at the head of several gentlemen and ecclesiastics, and once more conjured the king, upon the most pressing considerations, to put an end to his enormous and scandalous disorders. He concluded his remonstrance with telling him, that if he persisted in his crimes, he ran the risk of being cut off from the communion of the faithful by the sentence of excommunication. This threw the king into a violent rage, who, regarding the saint’s charitable expostulation as an insult not to be borne, gave a free loose to his passion, and vowed revenge. He had first recourse to calumnies. The saint having purchased, some years before, an estate of one Peter, a gentleman of Piotrawin, who was since dead, and settled it upon his church, the nephews of the deceased were inveigled to accuse the bishop, contrary to truth, that he had never paid for the premises. The cause was pleaded before the king, and the witnesses of the payment durst not appear, having been privately intimidated by the king’s agents. The Polish historians of later ages relate, that the saint, after three days spent in fasting and prayer, went, accompanied with his clergy, to the church of Piotrawin, which is in the palatinate of Lublin, and causing the grave to be opened, raised Peter to life, and brought him into open court, where he declared before the king and the assembly that the land was bought and paid for by Stanislas; after which, being led back to his grave, he again returned to his former state.

After this trial, the king seemed reconciled with the saint; but the succeeding acts of cruelty which he exercised upon his subjects, to whom he became a more inhuman tyrant than he had been even to his conquered enemies at Kijow in Russia, stirred up again the zeal of the holy pastor and when he could not be admitted into the king’s presence, he zealously applied himself to fastings, tears, and prayers for his conversion. Seeing no remedy applied to the evils he deplored, he made the king a third visit, and endeavored to open his eyes. But the prince, like a mad and desperate patient, who looks upon the physician that comes to cure him as his greatest enemy, threatened the saint with instant death if he continued to disturb him. Stanislas still thought it his duty not to abandon his trust, and left nothing untried to compass his charitable ends; but finding all measures ineffectual, he, after a fourth visit, excommunicated him. And having left orders with the canons of the cathedral to break off the church-office in case the king, in defiance of the censure, should attempt to enter the church while the service was performing, he left the city and retired to St. Michael’s, a small chapel at a little distance from Cracow. Thither the king followed him with his guards, whom he ordered to massacre him on the spot; but going into the chapel with this intent, they were struck with such a respect and dread at the presence of the venerable bishop, that they durst not attempt it, telling the king that a great light from heaven had affrighted them, and prevented their executing his orders. The like happened to a second and a third troop: upon which the king went in himself to animate them to perpetrate the murder. Yet no one durst strike the man of God, till the king himself, calling them base cowards, rushed forward and dispatched him with his own hand. Then his life-guards fell on, and cut the martyr’s body into pieces, which they scattered about the fields to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey. But eagles are said to have defended them, till the canons of his cathedral, three days after, gathered them together, and privately buried them before the door of the chapel in which he was martyred. Ten years after the body was translated into the cathedral in Cracow, in 1088, and honored with innumerable miracles. The barbarous king forbade all marks of sorrow or mourning for his death. Pope Gregory VII. excommunicated the tyrant and all his accomplices in this sacrilegious act, and the unhappy prince, tormented with the rack of his own conscience, and seeing himself detested by all his subjects, fled out of Poland into Hungary, and there perished miserably, some say by becoming his own executioner. Stanislas was crowned on the 8th of May, 1079. He was solemnly canonized by Innocent IV. in 1253.

Many, like this unhappy prince, employ the first part of their lives to render the other miserable. Those who in their youth imbibe the maxims of the world, and regulate their minds and conduct by them, plunge themselves into an abyss of the most fatal errors and dreadful miseries. By indulging pride, self-love, and spiritual sloth, they suffer their passions soon to grow rebellious, and when they become enslaved to them, fall into so strange a spiritual blindness as to be no longer governed by the light of reason or faith. How carefully are we bound to guard our heart even in our tender youth, that it may be a constant source of innocence and happiness! Who will discover to us all the illusions of our passions! all the snares they lay for us? We must watch these domestic enemies, and observe all their motions. In all our undertakings we must narrowly examine our own hearts, and ask them if some passion does not secretly steal into our souls, and seek some by-interest in what we do. We must particularly suspect whatever seems to lean towards our darling or ruling passions. These especially deceive us under a thousand disguises. Those which we mistrust most, put on the appearance of those against which we are less upon our guard. It is by this watchfulness to discover and curb their first irregular motions, by habitual self-denial and assiduous prayer, that we shall purify and cultivate our hearts, and keep our enemies under due restraint, which is the victory of virtue.

St. Benedict II., Pope, C.

He was a native of Rome, and having been brought up from his infancy in the service of the church, was well skilled in the holy scriptures, and in the ecclesiastical chanting, or church music, of which he was a devout admirer. To sing assiduously the divine praises on earth is a kind of novitiate to the state of the blessed in heaven, and an employment the most sweet and comfortable to a soul that truly loves God.* Benedict was always humble meek, patient, mortified, a lover of poverty, and most generous to the poor. Being ordained priest, he had a share in the government of the Romish church under the pontificates of Agatho and Leo II. Benedict was chosen pope upon the death of the latter, in 683, but to obtain the emperor’s consent, it was necessary to wait almost a year, till the return of messengers sent to Constantinople. On which account the see remained vacant all that time, and Benedict was only ordained on the 26th of June, 684. The emperor Constans II., grandson to Heraclius, had endeavored to establish in the East the Monothelite heresy during an uneasy reign of twenty-six years: but being slain by an Armenian servant at Syracusa in Sicily, in 668, his son Constantine Pogonatus, or the Bearded, ascended the throne, and put to death the man who had murdered his father, and who had been saluted emperor by the army in Sicily. Constantine was a most religious and orthodox prince, and reigned seventeen years with great glory. He concurred with pope Agatho in assembling the sixth general council at Constantinople, in 680. Pope Leo II. sent the decrees of the synod into Spain. After his decease Benedict II. pursued the same affair, and the Spanish bishops, in a council at Toledo, approved and received the definition of faith published by the sixth general council. They dispatched to the pope a copy of their decree and confession of faith with their subscriptions annexed, wherein they acknowledge two wills in Christ. Pope Benedict, however, observed in their confession certain obscure expressions, of which he desired a clearer explanation. For this purpose the fifteenth council of Toledo was held, in which they were expounded in a sense entirely orthodox. The bishops of Rome were anciently chosen by the clergy and people of Rome, according to the discipline of those times; the Christian emperors were the head of the people, on which account their consent was required. But while they resided in the East, this condition produced often long delays and considerable inconveniences. Pope Benedict represented this to Constantine, and that pious prince readily passed a law addressed to the clergy, the people, and the army at Rome, allowing that the person by them elected should be forthwith ordained, as Anastasius relates: nevertheless, some emperors still required to be consulted. Such was the veneration of this good prince for the holy pope Benedict, that he sent to him a lock of the hair of his two sons, Justinian and Heraclius, as a token of their adoption by him, according to the custom of those times. This religious emperor overcame the Saracens in a war of seven years’ continuance both by sea and land; he recovered from them several provinces, and obliged them to pay him an annual tribute. He died in peace, in 685. Pope Benedict labored much for the conversion of heretics, and in repairing and adorning churches. He did not complete eleven months in the pontificate; but filled this short term with good works. He died on the 7th of May, 686, and was buried in St. Peter’s church. See his letter, and Anastasius Biblioth. t. 6, Concil.

St. John of Beverley. B. C.

This illustrious saint was born at Harpham, a village in the province of the Deiri, which comprised Yorkshire, Lancashire, and the rest of the kingdom of the Northumbers, on the south side of the Tync; what lay beyond it being called Bernicia. An earnest desire of qualifying himself for the service of God drew him young into Kent, where he made great progress in learning and piety, in the famous school of St. Theodorus, the archbishop, under the direction of the holy abbot Adrian.¹ Afterwards returning into his own country, he pursued the exercises of piety in the monastery of men under St. Hilda, at Whitby; till in the beginning of the reign of king Alfred, upon the death of Eata, he was made bishop of Hagulstad, or Hexam. What time he had to spare from his functions he consecrated to heavenly contemplation; retiring for that purpose into the churchyard of St. Michael’s, beyond the river Tyne, about a mile and a half from Hagulstad, especially during the forty days of Lent. He was accustomed to take with him some poor person, whom he served during that time. Once in the beginning of a Lent, he took with him a dumb youth, who never had been able to utter one word, and whose head was covered with hideous scabs and scales, without any hair. The saint caused a mansion to be built for this sick youth within his enclosure, and often admitted him into his own cell. On the second Sunday he made the sign of the cross upon his tongue, and loosed it. Then he taught him to say Gea, which signifies in Saxon Yea, or Yes; then the letters of the alphabet, A, B, C, and afterwards syllables and words. Thus the youth miraculously obtained his speech. Moreover, by the saint’s blessing the remedies prescribed by a physician whom he employed, his head was entirely healed, and became covered with hair. When St. Wilfred returned from banishment, St. John yielded up to him the see of Hagulstad: but some time after, upon the death of Bosa, a man of great sanctity and humility, as Bede testifies, he was placed in the archiepiscopal chair of York. Venerable Bede, who received the holy orders of deacon and priest at his hands, gives ample testimony to his sanctity; and relates the instantaneous cure of the sick wife of a neighboring thane or lord, by holy water, and several other miracles performed by him, from the testimony of Bercthun, abbot of Beverley, and Herebald, abbot of Tinmouth, who had been eye-witnesses to several of them. St. John made frequent retirement his delight, to renew thereby his spirit of devotion, lest the dissipation of exterior employs should extinguish it. He chose for his retreat a monastery which he had built at Beverley, then a forest, now a market-town twenty-seven miles from York. This monastery, according to the custom of those times, he erected for the use of both sexes, and put it under the goverment of his disciple, Bercthun, or Brithun, first abbot of Beverley, then called Endeirwood, or wood of the Deiri. In 717, being much broken with age and fatigues, he resigned his bishopric to his chaplain, St. Wilfrid the younger, and having ordained him bishop of York, he retired to Beverley where he spent the remaining four years of his life in the punctual performance of all monastic duties. He died there the death of the just, on the 7th of May, 721. His successor governed the see of York fifteen years, was a great lover of the beauty of God’s house, and is named among the saints, April the 29th. The monastery of Beverley having been destroyed by the Danes, king Athelstan, who had obtained a great victory over the Scots by the intercession of St. John, founded in his honor, in the same place, a rich collegiate church of canons.² King Henry V. attributed to the intercession of this saint the glorious victory of Agincourt, on which occasion a synod, in 1416, ordered his festival to be solemnly kept over all England. Henschenius the Bollandist, in the second tome of May, has published four books of the miracles wrought at the relics of Saint John of Beverley, written by eye-witnesses.³ His sacred bones were honorably translated into the church by Alfric, archbishop of York, in 1037: a feast in honor of which translation was kept at York on the 25th of October. On the 13th of September, (not the 24th, as Mr. Stevens says,) in 1664, the sexton, digging a grave in the church of Beverley, discovered a vault of freestone, in which was a box of lead, containing several pieces of bones, with some dust, yielding a sweet smell; with inscriptions, by which it appeared that these were the mortal remains of St. John of Beverley, as we read in Dugdale’s History of the Collegiate Church of Beverley, who has transcribed them, p. 57. These relics had been hid in the beginning of the reign of king Edward VI. Dugdale and Stevens testify, that they were all reinterred in the middle-alley of the same church. Alcuin* had an extraordinary devotion to St. John of Beverley, and in his poem on the saints of York, published by Thomas Gale gives a long history of the miracles wrought by him from verse 1085 to 1215. Rabanus Maurus has placed Alcuin in his Martyrology on the 19th of May, and Henschenius on that day gives his life, and mentions several private Martyrologies in which his name is found, though he has never been anywhere honored in the office of the church.⁴ On St. John of Beverley see Bede, Hist. l. 5, c. 2, &c., his life compiled by Folcard, monk of Canterbury, published by Henschenius, with other monuments, t. 2, Maij, p. 168, F. Edw. Maihew, &c.

* The Cistercian Breviary calls this the principal end and function of that holy order; from an affectionate regard to which several monasteries take their name, as that of Laude, or De Laude Dei. &c. Is the cathedral of Tours there is this epitaph of Ouvrande, a pious master of music.

Laus divina mihi semper fuit unica cura:

Post obitum sit jaus divina mihi unica merces

¹ Bede, l. 5, c. 2, 6 See Britannia Sancta

² See Lynwoode, Provinciale 104.

³ P. 173.

* Alcuin, or Alcwine. that is, Allwin, (the same name in the original Saxon as Victor, and Vincentius In Latin; Nicetas and Nicephorus in Greek,) was a native of York, as he himself declares in his poem on the saints of that diocese. Foreigners not being accustomed to pronounce the w, he omitted it in his name; which he mollified into Albinus, prefixing to it in France the name of Flaccus. In his letters, he often styles himself Flaccus Albinus, never Albinus Flaccus, as many moderns falsely call him. Alcuin was nobly born, became a monk at York, and was made deacon of that church. He learned Latin, Greek, and the elements of the Hebrew language, and went through the sacred studies under Elbert and Elbert, who taught a great school in that city, till they were successively placed in the archiepiscopal chair. When Elbert succeeded Egbert in that dignity, in 766, he committed to Alcuin the care of the school, and of the great library belonging to that church. Eanbald, succeeding his uncle Elbert, sent Alcuin to Rome, to bring over his pall, in 780. Charlemagne, king of France, afterwards emperor, meeting him at Parma, earnestly desired to detain him; but the canons obliged him to return to his own church. However, that prince prevailed with the king of Northumberland and the archbishop of York to send him back into France. He appointed him to open a great school in his own palace, and generally assisted in person at his lessons with the princes, his sons, and other lords. He also, by his advice, instigated an academy in his palace, consisting of many learned men, who met on certain days to discourse on joints of sacred learning. In this academy Alcuin took the name of Flaccus, from Horace, the king that of David, Adclard of Corbie that of Augustine, &c. The king sent Alcuin his ambassador to king Offa, in 790, to adjust certain differences; he honored him exceedingly, and usually called him his master: by his advice he made several literary establishments, and consulted him in affairs of state. The ingenious Gaillard (Hist. de la Rivalite de France et l’Anglet. t. l. p. 73) says: The wise Alcuin disgusted Charlemagne from the passion for conquests, by discovering to him a new source of true greatness, far dearer to humanity. That prince, instructed by such a master, learned to set a just value on true knowledge: he placed his glory in protecting science, in perfecting the administration, and in extending, in every respect, the empire of reason. This it is that has principally rendered the name of that great prince immortal in the eyes of true judges. This great man assisted at the council of Frankfort, in 794, and at that of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 799, in which latter he confuted Felix of Urgel, who was present. Felix and Elipandus, another Spanish bishop, revived the Demi-Nestorian error, maintaining that Christ, as man, was only the adoptive, not the natural Son of God. Whence it would follow, that he assumed not only the human nature, but also a human person: which was the heresy of Nestorius. Elipandus reproached Alcuin for his riches, and the number of his vassals. Alcuin discovers his disinterestedness and spirit of poverty in several letters, as in that to the priest Eata, and in others. Writing to the bishop of Lyons, he justifies himself, saying: “Elipandus objects to me my riches, servants, and vassals, which amount to the number of twenty thousand, not reflecting that the possession of riches is vicious only from the attachment of the heart. It is one thing to possess the world, and another to be possessed by the world. Some possess riches, though perfectly disengaged from them in their hearts: others, though they enjoy none, yet love and covet them.” These vassals belonged to the several abbeys of which the king compelled him to undertake the administration; purely that he might establish in them regular discipline, and employ the surplus of the revenues in alms, according to the intentions of such foundations, as Lupus, abbot of Ferriers, (ep. 11.) and the anonymous life of St. Aldericus, archbishop of Sens, assure us: for the king had made him his general almoner to relieve the distressed, and appointed him a house for the reception of strangers. How tedious the hurry of a court is to a lover of learning or solitude, any one may judge who has read the genuine description of a court life in the time of our king Henry II., in Peter of Blois, or John of Salisbury. Alcuin never ceased to complain of its yoke and the dissipation attending it, and to solicit the king for leave to retire into some monastery till at length he obtained his request. He petitioned to go to that of Fulda, but the king would by no means consent that he should withdraw to so great a distance from court: at length he suffered him to retire to that of St. Martin’s at Tours, of which he had nominated him abbot in 796. He was still obliged often to wait on the king; and settled the reformation of St. Benedict of Anian in the houses which were subject to him. He had long alleged his age and feebleness, that he might be permitted to resign the government of the several great abbeys which had been committed to his care. At length his tears and entreaties prevailed, and, according to his earnest desire, he was reduced to the condition of a private monk. (others say regular canon, for he had secularized St. Martin’s abbey at Tours, and established canons in it.) some time before his happy death, which happened at Tours, on the 19th of May, 804, on Whitsunday, as he had begged of God See his life in Mabillon, Act. Bened. t. 4, p. 155; also in his Annals of that order, b. 25, 27; Ceillier, t. 18, p. 278; Hiogr, Britann., &c.

The best edition of the works of Alcuin was given in by the learned Andrew Duchesne, in three tomes, in 1617. His comments on the scripture consist in extracts from the ancient fathers. He has left us the aves of St. Vedast, St. Martiu, St. Riquier, and St. Willibrord. His letters, of which we have one hundred and fifteen published by Duchesue, sixty-seven by Canisius, several others by Usher. Baluze, and Mabillon, are curious, and are addressed to several kings, queens, prelates, and other great men. His moral works breathe a sincere piety: the dogmatic are solid and close. His doctrine in all points of faith is most pure, and he lets slip no opportunity of exerting his zeal in its defence. We are promised a new complete, and accurate edition of the works of this great man, by a monk of the congregation of St. Vanae

⁴ Henschenius, t. 4, Maij, p. 334.

Butler, Alban, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) II, 259-265.