The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March

Many of these details of S. Chad's life are taken from Mr. Warner's excellent life of S. Chad.

4

The reader will here recall the account of Lancelot and the Sacring in the Tower by Joseph of Arimathæa, in the Morte d'Arthur.

5

Aleidis or Alice.

6

A pun in the Greek, impossible to translate.

7

The following is a specimen of the stories told by this author: Winwaloe had a sister at home, who was one day playing with the geese belonging to her father, when one of them flew at her, pecked out, and swallowed her eye. The parents were in despair. Then an angel appeared to the holy boy, Winwaloe, and told him of the trouble. Winwaloe at once hastened home, singled out the guilty goose, sliced open its belly, removed the eye of his sister from its crop, and replaced it in his sister's head, and she saw as well as before. The boy then miraculously healed the goose, and dismissed it to rejoin the flock. After this he returned to his master and studies.

8

He is called Guennole, or Vignevale, in French. At Montreuil-sur-Mer, of which place he is patron, he is called S. Valois. His name has also been corrupted into Valvais and Vennole.

9

The best account of the Manichæan tenets of the medæval heretics is in Hahn: Geschichte der Ketzer, vol. i.; the texts are given in notes, upon which he bases his opinion. See also Gieseler's Ecclesiastical Hist., 3rd division, chap. vii.; but Gieseler is less full and impartial than Hahn.

10

"Hæreticus ponit duo principia, diabolum dicens creatorem omnium visibilium." Pet. Vallium Sarnaii, apud Bouquet xix. p. 5. Reiner in Max. Bibl. xxv. p. 263. "Quorum finis est Manichæorum induere sectam et duos fateri Deos, quorum malignus, ut procaciter mentiuntur, creavit omnia visibilia." – Lucas Tudens. xvi., p. 240.

11

"Sathanam magnum Luciferum qui propter elevationem et nequitiam suam de throno bonorum cecidit angelorum, creatorem cœli et terræ, omniumque rerum visibilium et invisiblium, spirituum malorum creatorem et principem et Deum esse profitebantur ipsumque legem Moysi dedisse asseverant." – Chron. Gonfredi in Bouquet xii., p. 448.

12

"Erant alii hæretici qui dicebant quod unus est Creator; sed habuit filios, Christum et diabolum." Petr. Vall. Sarn. apud Bouquet xix. p. 5.

13

Petr. Vall. Sarn. ib., c. 2.

14

Ibid., p. 5.

15

Arch. Inquisit. Carcass. in Vaissette iii., p. 435.

16

"Dicebant in secreto suo, quod Christus ille qui natus est in Bethleem, terrestori et visibili, et in Hierusalem crucifixus, malus fuit; et quod Maria Magdalena fuit ejus concubina, et ipsa fuit muiler in adulterio deprehensa, de qua legitur in Evangelio. Bonus enim Christus … nunquam comedit vel bibit, nec veram carnem assumpsit, nec unquam fuit in hoc mundo nisi spiritualiter in corpore Pauli." Petr. Vall. Sarn. apud Bouquet xix. p. 5 "Quod Dei filius non assumpsit in beata et de beata Virgine carnem veram, sed fantasticam." Reg. Inquisit. Carcass. apud Vaissette ii. p. 372.

17

Petr. Vall. Sarn. ib. xix. p. 5; Reiner, in Mar. Bibl. xxv. p. 263; Lucas Tudens. ib. p. 241; Acta Conc. Lumbar. Bouquet xiv. p. 438.

18

Petr. Vall. Sarn. ib. p. 5, 6. "Dicunt quod anima hominis non est nisi purus sanguis," Reg. Inq. Carcass. Vaissette p. 327.

19

Lucas Tud. in Max. Bibl. xxv. De altera vita, p. 193-212.

20

Reiner, in Max. Bibl. xxv. p. 263. Petr. Vall. Sarn. apud Bouquet xix. p. 5, etc. "Sacrum matrimonium meretricium esse, nec aliquem in ipso salvari posse prædicabant, filios et filias generando."

21

"Dicunt quod simplex fornicatio non est peccatum aliquod." Reg. Inq. Carcass. Vaissette iii. p. 371.

22

Historia Inquisitionis, Amst. 1692, c. 8.

23

A large number of the sentences – all the most important – are translated and published in Maitland's Tracts and Documents, together with many of the letters, bulls, edicts, and controversial writings on the Albigenses.

24

Foulques was famous as a troubadour for his licentious poetry. His biography is given December 25: by an irony of fate, the commemoration of this firebrand is on Christmas Day, when "Peace on earth" was sung by angels.

25

See Dr. Lanigan's Irish Eccl. Hist. ii. p. 483-6.

26

Jacques II. of Bourbon, Count of la Marche and de Castres, married to Jeanne Q. of Naples and Sicily, was imprisoned by his wife, but escaped, and becoming a third Order brother of S. Francis, at Besancon, died there, Sept. 24, 1428.

27

These stocks, called Nervus, were a wooden machine with many holes, in which the prisoners' feet were fastened and stretched to great distances, as to the fourth or fifth holes, for the increase of their torments. S. Perpetua remarks, they were chained, and also set in this engine during their stay in the camp-prison, which seems to have been several days, in expectation of the day of the public shows.

28