March II

Martyrs Under the Lombards

From St. Gregory, Dial. l. 3, c. 26, 27 t. 2, p. 337.

sixth age.

The Lombards, a barbarous idolatrous nation which swarmed out of Scandinavia and Pomerania, settled first in the countries now called Austria and Bavaria; and a few years after, about the middle of the sixth century, broke into the north of Italy. In their ravages about the year 597, they attempted to compel forty husbandmen, whom they had made captives, to eat meats which had been offered to idols. The faithful servants of Christ constantly refusing to comply, were all massacred. Such meats might, in some circumstances, have been eaten without sin, but not when this was exacted out of a motive of superstition. The same barbarians endeavored to oblige another company of captives to adore the head of a goat, which was their favorite idol, and about which they walked, singing, and bending their knees before it: but the Christians chose rather to die than purchase their lives by offending God. They are said to have been about four hundred in number.

St. Gregory the Great mentions, that these poor countrymen had prepared themselves for the glorious crown of martyrdom, by lives employed in the exercises of devotion and voluntary penance, and by patience in bearing afflictions; also, that they had the heroic courage to suffer joyfully the most cruel torments and death, rather than offend God by sin, because his love reigned in their hearts. “True love,” says St. Peter Chrysologus,¹ “makes a soul courageous and undaunted; it even finds nothing hard, nothing bitter, nothing grievous; it braves dangers, smiles at death, conquers all things.” If we ask our own hearts, if we examine our lives by this test, whether we have yet begun to love God, we shall have reason to be confounded, and to tremble at our remissness and sloth. We suffer much for the world, and we count labor light, that we may attain to the gratification of our avarice, ambition, or other passion in its service, yet we have not fervor to undertake any thing to save our souls, or to crucify our passions. Here penance, watchfulness over ourselves, or the least restraint, seems intolerable. Let us begin sincerely to study to die to ourselves, to disengage our hearts from all inordinate love of creatures, to raise ourselves above the slavery of the senses, above the appetites of the flesh and all temporal interest; and in order to excite ourselves to love God with fervor, let us seriously consider what God, infinite in goodness and in all perfections, and whose love for us is eternal and immense, deserves at our hands; what the joys of heaven are, how much we ought to do for such a bliss, and what Christ has done to purchase it for us, and to testify the excess of his love; also what the martyrs have suffered for his sake, and to attain to the happiness of reigning eternally with him. Let us animate ourselves with their fervor: “Let us love Christ as they did,” said St. Jerom to the virgin Eustochium, “and every thing that now appears difficult, will become easy to us.” To find this hidden treasure of divine love we must seek it earnestly; we must sell all things, that is, renounce in spirit all earthly objects; we must dig a deep foundation of sincere humility in the very centre of our nothingness, and must without ceasing beg this most precious of all gifts, crying out to God in the vehement desire of our hearts. Lord, when shall I love thee!

St. Ceada or Chad, B. C.

He was brother to St. Cedd, bishop of London, and the two holy priests Celin and Cymbel, and had his education in the monastery of Lindisfarne, under St. Aidan. For his greater improvement in sacred letters and divine contemplation he passed into Ireland, and spent a considerable time in the company of St. Egbert, till he was called back by his brother St. Cedd to assist him in settling the monastery of Lestingay, which he had founded in the mountains of the Deiri, that is, the Woulds of Yorkshire. St. Cedd being made bishop of London, or of the East Saxons, left to him the entire government of this house. Oswi having yielded up Bernicia, or the northern part of his kingdom, to his son Alcfrid, this prince sent St. Wilfrid into France, that he might be consecrated to the bishopric of the Northumbrian kingdom, or of York; but he stayed so long abroad that Oswi himself nominated St. Chad to that dignity, who was ordained by Wini, bishop of Winchester, assisted by two British prelates, in 666. Bede assures us that he zealously devoted himself to all the laborious functions of his charge, visiting his diocese on foot, preaching the gospel, and seeking out the poorest and most abandoned persons to instruct and comfort in the meanest cottages, and in the fields. When St. Theodorus, archbishop of Canterbury, arrived in England, in his general visitation of all the English churches, he adjudged the see of York to St. Wilfrid. St. Chad made him this answer: “If you judge that I have not duly received the episcopal ordination, I willingly resign this charge, having never thought myself worthy of it: but which, however unworthy, I submitted to undertake in obedience.” The archbishop was charmed with his candor and humility, would not admit his abdication, but supplied certain rites which he judged defective in his ordination: and St. Chad, leaving the see of York, retired to his monastery of Lestingay, but was not suffered to bury himself long in that solitude. Jaruman, bishop of the Mercians, dying, St. Chad was called upon to take upon him the charge of that most extensive diocese.* He was the fifth bishop of the Mercians, and first fixed that see at Litchfield, so called from a great number of martyrs slain and buried there under Maximianus Herculeus; the name signifying the field of carcasses. Hence this city bears for its arms a landscape, covered with the bodies of martyrs. St. Theodorus considering St. Chad’s old age, and the great extent of his diocese, absolutely forbade him to make his visitations on foot, as he used to do at York. When the laborious duties of his charge allowed him to retire, he enjoyed God in solitude with seven or eight monks, whom he had settled in a place near his cathedral. Here he gained new strength and fresh graces for the discharge of his functions; he was so strongly affected with the fear of the divine judgments, that as often as it thundered he went to the church and prayed prostrate all the time the storm continued, in remembrance of the dreadful day in which Christ will come to judge the world. By the bounty of king Wulfere, he founded a monastery at a place called Barrow, in the province of Lindsay, (in the northern part of Lincolnshire,) where the footsteps of the regular life begun by him remained to the time of Bede. Carte conjectures that the foundation of the great monastery of Bardney, in the same province, was begun by him. St. Chad governed his diocese of Litchfield two years and a half, and died in the great pestilence on the 2d of March, in 673. Bede gives the following relation of his passage. “Among the eight monks whom he kept with him at Litchfield, was one Owini, who came with queen Ethelred, commonly called St. Audry, from the province of the East Angles, and was her major-domo, and the first officer of her court, till quitting the world, clad in a mean garment, and carrying an axe and a hatchet in his hand, he went to the monastery of Lestingay, signifying that he came to work, and not to be idle; which he made good by his behavior in the monastic state. This monk declared, that he one day heard a joyful melody of some persons sweetly singing, which descended from heaven into the bishop’s oratory, filled the same for about half an hour, then mounted again to heaven. After this, the bishop opening his window, and seeing him at his work, bade him call the other seven brethren. When the eight monks were entered his oratory, he exhorted them to preserve peace, and religiously observe the rules of regular discipline; adding, that the amiable guest who was wont to visit their brethren, had vouchsafed to come to him that day, and to call him out of this world. Wherefore he earnestly recommended his passage to their prayers, and pressed them to prepare for their own, the hour of which is uncertain, by watching, prayer, and good works.” The bishop fell presently into a languishing distemper, which daily increased, till, on the seventh day, having received the body and blood of our Lord, he departed to bliss, to which he was invited by the happy soul of his brother St. Cedd, and a company of angels with heavenly music. He was buried in the church of St. Mary, in Litchfield; but his body was soon after removed to that of St. Peter, in both places honored by miraculous cures, as Bede mentions. His relics were afterwards translated into the great church which was built in 1148, under the invocation of the B. Virgin and St. Chad, which is now the cathedral, and they remained there till the change of religion. See Bede, l. 3, c. 28, l. 4, c. 2 and 3.

St. Simplicius, Pope, C.

He was the ornament of the Roman clergy under SS. Leo and Hilarius, and succeeded the latter in the pontificate in 497. He was raised by God to comfort and support his church amidst the greatest storms. All the provinces of the Western empire, out of Italy, were fallen into the hands of barbarians, infected for the greatest part with idolatry or Arianism. The ten last emperors, during twenty years, were rather shadows of power than sovereigns, and in the eighth year of the pontificate of Simplicius, Rome itself fell a prey to foreigners. Salvian, a learned priest of Marseilles in 440, wrote an elegant book On Divine Providence, in which he shows that these calamities were a just chastisement of the sins of the Christians; saying, that if the Goths were perfidious, and the Saxons cruel, they were however both remarkable for their chastity; as the Franks were for humanity, though addicted to lying: and that though these barbarians were impious, they had not so perfect a knowledge of sin, nor consequently were so criminal as those whom God chastised by them. The disorders of the Roman state paved the way for this revolution. Excessive taxes were levied in the most arbitrary ways. The governors oppressed the people at discretion, and many were obliged to take shelter among the barbarians: for the Ragaudev Franks, Huns, Vandals, and Goths raised no taxes upon their subjects: on which account nations once conquered by them were afraid of falling again under the Roman yoke, preferring what was called slavery, to the empty name of liberty. Italy, by oppressions and the ravages of barbarians, was left almost a desert without inhabitants; and the imperial armies consisted chiefly of barbarians, hired under the name of auxiliaries, as the Suevi, Alans, Heruli, Goths, and others. These soon saw their masters were in their power. The Herult demanded one third of the lands of Italy, and, upon refusal, chose for their leader Odoacer, one of the lowest extraction, but a tall, resolute, and intrepid man, then an officer in the guards, and an Arian heretic, who was proclaimed king at Rome in 476. He put to death Orestes, who was regent of the empire for his son Augustulus, whom the senate had advanced to the imperial throne. The young prince had only reigned eight months, and his great beauty is the only thing mentioned of him. Odoacer spared his life, and appointed him a salary of six thousand pounds of gold, and permitted him to live at full liberty near Naples. Pope Simplicius was wholly taken up in comforting and relieving the afflicted, and in sowing the seeds of the Catholic faith among the barbarians.

The East gave his zeal no less employment and concern. Zeno, son and successor to Leo the Thracian, favored the Eutychians. Basiliscus his admiral, who, on expelling him, usurped the imperial throne in 476, and held it two years, was a most furious stickler for that heresy. Zeno was no Catholic, though not a stanch Eutychian: and having recovered the empire, published, in 482, his famous decree of union, called the Henoticon, which explained the faith ambiguously, neither admiuing nor condemning the council of Chalcedon. Peter Cnapheus, (that is, the Dyer,) a violent Eutychian, was made by the heretics patriarch of Antioch; and Peter Mongus, one of the most profligate of men, that of Alexandria. This latter published the Henoticon, but expressly refused to anathematize the council of Chalcedon; on which account the rigid Eutychians separated themselves from his communion, and were called Accphali. or. without a head. Acacius, the patriarch of Constantinople, received the sentence of St. Simplicius against Cnapheus, but supported Mongus against him and the Catholic church, promoted the Henoticon, and was a notorious changeling, double-dealer, and artful hypocrite, who often made religion serve his own private ends. St. Simplicius at length discovered his artifices, and redoubled his zeal to maintain the holy faith which he saw betrayed on every side, while the patriarchal sees of Alexandria and Antioch were occupied by furious wolves, and there was not one Catholic king in the whole world. The emperor measured every thing by his passions and human views. St. Simplicius having sat fifteen years, eleven months, and six days, went to receive the reward of his labors, in 483. He was buried in St. Peter’s on the 2d of March. See his letters: also the historians Evagrius, Theophanes, Liberatus, and amongst the moderns, Baronius, Henschenius, Ceillier, t. 15, p. 123.

St. Marnan, B. C.

To his holy prayers Aidan, king of the Scots, ascribed a wonderful victory which he gained over Ethelfrid, the pagan king of the Northumbrian English; and by his councils Eugenius lV., who succeeded his father Aidan in the kingdom soon after this battle, treated all the prisoners with the utmost humanity and generosity, by which they were gained to the Christian faith. The Northumbrian princes, Oswald and Oswi, were instructed in our holy religion, and grounded in its spirit by St. Marnan, who died in Annandale in the year 620. His head was kept with singular devotion at Moravia, and was carried in processions attended by the whole clan of the Innis’s, which from the earliest times was much devoted to this saint. See the Breviary of Aberdeen, Buchanan, l. 5, in Aidano et Eugcnio Regibus, and MS. Memoirs in the Scottish college at Paris. St. Marnan is titular saint of the church of Aberkerdure upon the river Duvern, formerly much frequented out of devotion to his relics kept there.

St. Charles the Good, Earl of Flanders, M.

He was the son of St. Canutus, king of Denmark, and of Alice of Flanders, who, after the death of his father, carried him, then an infant, into Flanders, in 1086. His cousin-german Baldwin the Seventh, earl of Flanders, dying without issue in 1119, left him his heir by will, on account of his extraordinary valor and merit. The young earl was a perfect model of all virtues, especially devotion, charity, and humility. Among his friends and courtiers, he loved those best who admonished him of his faults the most freely. He frequently exhausted his treasury on the poor, and often gave the clothes off his back to be sold for their relief. He served them with his own hands, and distributed clothes and bread to them in all places where he came. It was observed that in Ipres he gave away, in one day, no less than seven thousand eight hundred loaves. He took care for their sake to keep the price of corn and provisions always low, and he made wholesome laws to protect them from the oppressions of the great. This exasperated Bertulf, who had tyrannically usurped the provostship of St. Donatian’s in Bruges, to which dignity was annexed the chancellorship of Flanders, and his wicked relations, the great oppressors of their country. In this horrible conspiracy they were joined by Erembald, castellan or chief magistrate of the territory of Bruges, with his five sons, provoked against their sovereign because he had repressed their unjust violences against the noble family De Straten. The holy earl went every morning barefoot to perform his devotions early before the altar of the Blessed Virgin in St. Donatian’s church. Going thither one day, he was informed of a conspiracy, but answered; “We are always surrounded by dangers, but we belong to God. If it be his will, can we die in a better cause than that of justice and truth?” While he was reciting the penitential psalms before the altar, the conspirators rushing in, his head was cloven by Fromold Borchard, nephew to Bertulf, in 1124. He was buried in St. Christopher’s church at Bruges, not in that of St. Donatian, as Pantoppidan proves. Borchard was broke alive on the wheel, and Bertulf was hung on a rack at lpres, and exposed on it to be torn by furious dogs, and at length was stoned to death by beggars while he remained on that engine. St. Charles’s shrine was placed by an order of Charles Philip Rodoan, fourth bishop of Bruges, in 1606, in the chapel of the blessed Virgin, and ever since the year 1610 a high mass in honor of the Trinity is sung on his festival. See the life of this good earl by Walter, archdeacon of Terouenne, and more fully by Gualbert, syndic of Bruges, and by Ælnoth, a monk of Canterbury and Danish missionary at that time. See also Molanus and Miræus in their martyrologies: Henschenius, p. 158; Robertus de Monte in Append. ad Chronicon Sigeberti ad an. 1127; Jac. Maierus, Annal. Flandriæ, l. 4, pp. 45, 46. Likewise Erieus Pantoppidanus in his Gesta Danorum extra Damam. Hafniæ, 1740 t. 2, sec. 1, c. 5, sec. 32, p. 398.

St. Joavan, or Joevin, B. C.

This saint was a fervent disciple of St. Paul of Leon, in Great Britain, his own country, accompanied him into Armorica, led an anchoretical life near him in the country of Ack, and afterwards in the isle of Baz. That great saint chose him coadjutor in his bishopric, when he retired a little before his death. St. Joavan survived him only one year. He is titular saint of two parish churches in the diocese of St. Paul of Leon, &c. See Lobinean, Vies des Saints de la Bretagne, p. 71, from the breviary and tradition of that church, though the life of St. Jovian, copied by Albert the Great, &c., deserves no regard.

¹ St. Pet. Chrysol. Serm. 4.

* The first bishop of the Merclans was Diuma, a Scot; the second, Keollach, of the same nation: the third, Trumhere, who had been abbot of Gethling in the kingdom of the Northumbrians; the fourth Jaruman.

 Butler, A., The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) I, 496-501.