Blessed Marie-Azélie “Zélie” Martin née Guérin (23 December 1831 – 28 August 1877) was a French laywoman and the mother of Saint Thérèse de Lisieux. Her husband was Blessed Louis Martin.
Marie-Azélie Guérin was born in Saint-Denis-sur-Sarthon, Orne, France and was the second daughter of Isidore Guérin and Louise-Jeanne Macé. She had an older sister, Marie-Louise, who became a Visitandine nun, and a younger brother, Isidore, who was a pharmacist. Her maternal family were from the Madré, in the neighbouring department of Mayenne, where her grandfather Louis Macé was baptised on the 16th March 1778.
The family house in Lisieux, called “les Buissonnets”
Zélie wanted to become a nun, but was turned away by the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul due to respiratory difficulties and recurrent headaches. Zélie then prayed for God to give her children and that they would be consecrated to God.
Later, she decided to become a lacemaker, making Point d’Alençon lace. She later fell in love with a watchmaker, Louis Martin, in 1858 and married only three months later.
Although Zélie and Louis had led a continent marriage for almost a year, they had decided to have children. They would have nine children, though only five daughters would survive infancy; all became nuns:
Pictured standing are Celine and Pauline. Seated are Mother Marie de Gonzague, Marie and St. Therese of Lisieux
Marie-Louise (22 February 1860 – 19 January 1940), as a nun, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, Carmelite at Lisieux.
Marie-Pauline (September 7, 1861 – July 28, 1951), as a nun, Mother Agnès of Jesus, Carmelite at Lisieux.
Marie-Léonie (June 3, 1863 – June 16, 1941), as a nun, Sister Françoise-Thérèse, Visitandine at Caen.
Marie-Hélène (October 3, 1864 – February 22, 1870)
Marie-Joseph (September 20, 1866 – February 14, 1867)
Marie Jean-Baptiste (December 19, 1867 – August 24, 1868)
Marie-Céline (April 28, 1869 – 25 February 1959), as a nun, Sister Geneviève of the Holy Face, Carmelite at Lisieux.
Marie-Mélanie Thérèse (August 16, 1870 – October 8, 1870)
Marie-Françoise-Thérèse (January 2, 1873 – September 30, 1897), as a nun, Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, Carmelite at Lisieux, canonised in 1925.
Alençon lace, point d’Alençon or it is sometimes called “Queen of lace”, began in Alençon during the 16th century and rapidly expanded during the reign of Louis XIV by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who established a Royal Workshop in the town to produce this needle-lace in the Venetian style in 1665. After the Reign of Terror, lace making was preserved by Carmelite nuns in Alençon. In 1976 a National Lace Workshop was established in the town to ensure that this lace-making technique survived.
After Zélie’s death, Pauline, Marie, Thérèse and Céline all became Carmelite nuns one after another along with a cousin, Marie Guérin. Léonie became a Visitandine nun after being rejected by the Poor Clares.
Marie-Azélie died of breast cancer on 28 August 1877 in Alençon, Orne, aged 45. She was survived by her husband and daughters.
Louis and Marie-Azélie Martin were beatified on 19 October 2008 by Jose Cardinal Saraiva Martins, the legate of Pope Benedict XVI in Basilique de Sainte-Thérèse, Lisieux, France.
Intricate lace panel made by Blessed Zelie Martin and offered to Pope Leo XIII for his Jubilee. Click image to view larger image.
Some commentators sustain that the Martin family were well off, and that Bl. Louis Martin’s assets in his later years were the equivalent of some US$50 million in today’s money. Husband and wife have been beatified, and their youngest daughter, St. Therese of Lisieux, is one of the great saints of the Church.
One more example, showing how sanctity does not exclude wealth, culture and refinement.
German King and Holy Roman Emperor, son of Duke Henry II (the Quarrelsome) and of the Burgundian Princess Gisela; b. 972; d. in his palace of Grona, at Gottingen, 13 July, 1024.
Like his predecessor, Otto III, he had the literary education of his time. In his youth he had been destined for the priesthood. Therefore he became acquainted with ecclesiastical interests at an early age.
St. Henry II and his wife St. Cunigunde of Luxemburg, with the Bamberg Cathedral.
Willingly he performed pious practices, gladly also he strengthened the Church of Germany, without, however, ceasing to regard ecclesiastical institutions as pivots of his power, according to the views of Otto the Great. With all his learning and piety, Henry was an eminently sober man, endowed with sound, practical common sense. He went his way circumspectly, never attempting anything but the possible and, wherever it was practicable, applying the methods of amiable and reasonable good sense. This prudence, however, was combined with energy and conscientiousness. Sick and suffering from fever, he traversed the empire in order to maintain peace. At all times he used his power to adjust troubles. The masses especially he wished to help.
The Church, as the constitutional Church of Germany, and therefore as the advocate of German unity and of the claims of inherited succession, raised Henry to the throne. The new king straightway resumed the policy of Otto I both in domestic and in foreign affairs. This policy first appeared in his treatment of the Eastern Marches. The encroachments of Duke Boleslaw, who had founded a great kingdom, impelled him to intervene. But his success was not marked.
In Italy the local and national opposition to the universalism of the German king had found a champion in Arduin of Ivrea. The latter assumed the Lombard crown in 1002. In 1004 Henry crossed the Alps. Arduin yielded to his superior power. The Archbishop of Milan now crowned him King of Italy. This rapid success was largely due to the fact that a large part of the Italian episcopate upheld the idea of the Roman Empire and that of the unity of Church and State.
On his second expedition to Rome, occasioned by the dispute between the Counts of Tuscany and the Crescentians over the nomination to the papal throne, he was crowned emperor on 14 February, 1014. But it was not until later, on his third expedition to Rome, that he was able to restore the prestige of the empire completely.
Before this happened, however, he was obliged to intervene in the west. Disturbances were especially prevalent throughout the entire north-west. Lorraine caused great trouble. The Counts of Lutzelburg (Luxemburg), brothers-in-law of the king, were the heart and soul of the disaffection in that country. Of these men, Adalbero had made himself Bishop of Trier by uncanonical methods (1003); but he was not recognized any more than his brother Theodoric, who had had himself elected Bishop of Metz.
True to his duty, the king could not be induced to abet any selfish family policy at the expense of the empire. Even though Henry, on the whole, was able to hold his own against these Counts of Lutzelburg, still the royal authority suffered greatly by loss of prestige in the north-west.
Burgundy afforded compensation for this. The lord of that country was Rudolph, who, to protect himself against his vassals, joined the party of Henry II, the son of his sister, Gisela, and to Henry the childless duke bequeathed his duchy, despite the opposition of the nobles (1006). Henry had to undertake several campaigns before he was able to enforce his claims. He did not achieve any tangible result, he only bequeathed the theoretical claims on Burgundy to his successors.
Better fortune awaited the king in the central and eastern parts of the empire. It is true that he had a quarrel with the Conradinians over Carinthia and Swabia: but Henry proved victorious because his kingdom rested on the solid foundation of intimate alliance with the Church.
That his attitude towards the Church was dictated in part by practical reasons, primarily he promoted the institutions of the Church chiefly in order to make them more useful supports his royal power, is clearly shown by his policy. How boldly Henry posed as the real ruler of the Church appears particularly in the establishment of the See of Bamberg, which was entirely his own scheme.
He carried out this measure, in 1007, in spite of the energetic opposition of the Bishop of Wurzburg against this change in the organization of the Church. The primary purpose of the new bishopric was the germanization of the regions on the Upper Main and the Regnitz, where the Wends had fixed their homes. As a large part of the environs of Bamberg belonged to the king, he was able to furnish rich endowments for the new bishopric. The importance of Bamberg lay principally in the field of culture, which it promoted chiefly by its prosperous schools. Henry, therefore, relied on the aid of the Church against the lay powers, which had become quite formidable. But he made no concessions to the Church.
Though naturally pious, and though well acquainted with ecclesiastical culture, he was at bottom a stranger to her spirit. He disposed of bishoprics autocratically. Under his rule the bishops, from whom he demanded unqualified obedience, seemed to be nothing but officials of the empire. He demanded the same obedience from the abbots. However, this political dependency did not injure the internal life of the German Church under Henry. By means of its economic and educational resources the Church had a blessed influence in this epoch.
Stained glass window of St. Henry II in the Church of St. Nicholas in Kuchenheim, Germany.
But it was precisely this civilizing power of the German Church that aroused the suspicions of the reform party. This was significant, because Henry was more and more won over to the ideas of this party. At a synod at Goslar he confirmed decrees that tended to realize the demands made by the reform party. Ultimately this tendency could not fail to subvert the Othonian system, moreover could not fail to awaken the opposition of the Church of Germany as it was constituted.
This hostility on the part of the German Church came to a head in the emperor’s dispute with Archbishop Aribo of Mainz. Aribo was an opponent of the reform movement of the monks of Cluny. The Hammerstein marriage imbroglio afforded the opportunity he desired to offer a bold front against Rome. Otto von Hammerstein had been excommunicated by Aribo on account of his marriage with Irmengard, and the latter had successfully appealed to Rome.
This called forth the opposition of the Synod of Seligenstadt, in 1023, which forbade an appeal to Rome without the consent of the bishop. This step meant open rebellion against the idea of church unity, and its ultimate result would have been the founding of a German national Church. In this dispute the emperor was entirely on the side of the reform party. He even wanted to institute international proceedings against the unruly archbishop by means of treaties with the French king. But his death prevented this.
St. Henry Catholic Church in St. Henry, Ohio, built in 1892 in honor of St. Henry II.
Before this Henry had made his third journey to Rome in 1021. He came at the request of the loyal Italian bishops, who had warned him at Strasburg of the dangerous aspect of the Italian situation, and also of the pope, who sought him out at Bamberg in 1020. Thus the imperial power, which had already begun to withdraw from Italy, was summoned back thither. This time the object was to put an end to the supremacy of the Greeks in Italy. His success was not complete; he succeeded, however, in restoring the prestige of the empire in northern and central Italy.
Henry was far too reasonable a man to think seriously of readopting the imperialist plans of his predecessors. He was satisfied to have ensured the dominant position of the empire in Italy within reasonable bounds. Henry’s power was in fact controlling, and this was in no small degree due to the fact that he was primarily engaged in solidifying the national foundations of his authority.
Bamberg Cathedral, where St. Henry and his wife are buried.
The later ecclesiastical legends have ascribed ascetic traits to this ruler, some of which certainly cannot withstand serious criticism. For instance, the highly varied theme of his virgin marriage to Cunegond has certainly no basis in fact.
The Church canonized this emperor in 1146, and his wife Cunegond in 1200.
FRANZ KAMPERS (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Nobility.org Editorial comment: —
It is hard to believe that a canonized saint “was at bottom a stranger to [the spirit of the Church].” The author of this post claims that St. Henry disposed of bishops autocratically and that he looked upon them as little more than Court officials.
Bishops at that time were also great feudal lords. They fulfilled their feudal duties and, as feudal vassals, were subject to the king, their suzerain. When acting honorably, kings did not interfere in the legitimate distinctions between the temporal and spiritual powers of these bishops, upholding the respective sovereignties of Church and State, which should work together, harmoniously, but each sovereign in its own sphere.
It appears that St. Henry II respected this sovereignty and labored his entire lifetime to maintain and augment the needed harmony. His behavior thus sets him diametrically opposed to the attitudes taken by his successor Henry IV in the Question of the Investitures.
Saint Mildthryth (694–716 or 733), also Mildrith, Mildryth or Mildred, was an Anglo-Saxon abbess.
Mildthryth was the daughter of King Merewalh of Magonsaete, a sub-kingdom of Mercia, and Eormenburh (Saint Eormenburga), herself the daughter of King Æthelberht of Kent, and as such appearing in the so-called Kentish royal legend.
Her sisters Milburh (Saint Milburga of Much Wenlock) and Mildgytha (Saint Mildgyth) were also considered saints. Goscelin, probably relying on a now-lost history of the rulers of the Kingdom of Kent, wrote a hagiography of Mildthryth.
Mildthryth’s maternal family had close ties to the Merovingian rulers of Gaul, and Mildthryth is said to have been educated at the prestigious Merovingian royal abbey of Chelles. She entered the abbey of Minster-in-Thanet, which her mother had earlier established, and of which she became abbess by 694. Suggesting that ties to Gaul were maintained, a number of dedications to Mildthryth exist in the Pas-de-Calais, including at Millam. Mildthryth died at Minster-in-Thanet and was buried there.
Her remains were translated to St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury in 1030, the translation is commemorated on 18 May. Mildthryth was apparently followed as abbess by Edburga of Minster-in-Thanet, correspondent of Saint Boniface.
Kateri Tekakwitha was daughter of Kenneronkwa, a Mohawk chief, and Tagaskouita, a devout Roman Catholic Algonquian woman. She was born in the Mohawk fortress of Ossernenon near present-day Auriesville, New York, in 1656. Kateri’s mother was baptized and educated by French missionaries in Trois-Rivières, like many of Abenaki converts.
Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha painted by Father Chauchetière between 1682-1693.
Her chieftain father, Algonquian mother and her brother died in a plague and, though the young Tekakwitha survived the ravages of her illness, it left her delicate for the rest of her life. The Mohawk community in Ossernenon was stridently anti-Christian, yet she held fast to the faith of her mother. At the age of 20, Tekakwitha was baptized on Easter Sunday, April 18, 1676 by Father Jacques de Lamberville, a Jesuit. At her baptism, she took the name Kateri, a Mohawk pronunciation of the French name Catherine. Tekakwitha literally means “she moves things.”
Father Jacques de Lamberville
Those who had charge of her hated the Christian missionaries, and Kateri was persecuted because she refused to give up her Christian way of life. “I want to be a Christian, even though I should die for it,” she said. Her foster parents deprived her of all food on Sunday because she would not work in the fields on that day. Beatings, continual criticism, sarcasm and mockery were her constant lot. They tried to force marriage on her, but she was inspired to remain a virgin, and after she became a Christian she took a vow of virginity.
In time, Kateri made her way to Caughnawaga, a community of Christians. There she led a life of intense Christian virtue until her death in 1680 at the age of 24. Her renown for heroic sanctity soon spread and many miracles have been worked through her intercession.
Statue of Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha on the outside of the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, Canada.
She is called “The Lily of the Mohawks,” the “Mohawk Maiden,” the “Pure and Tender Lily,” and the “Flower among True Men,” the “Lily of Purity” and “The New Star of the New World.” According to Rev. Lawrence G. Lovasik’s Kateri of the Mohawks, her tribal neighbors called her “the fairest flower that ever bloomed among the redmen,” which was engraved on her tomb stone.
St Francis Xavier Church, Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada, where Bl. Kateri is buried.
Kateri Tekakwitha followed the generation of Saints John de Brebeuf, Isaac Jogues and Companions thus bearing out the ancient Christian saying that “the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians.” She was beatified in 1980.
South American missionary of the Order of Friars Minor; born at Montilla, in the Diocese of Cordova, Spain, 10 March, 1549; died at Lima, Peru, 14 July, 1610.
St. Francis Solanus with a native of Tucuman and his violin on the ground by his right foot.
His parents, Matthew Sanchez Solanus and Anna Ximenes, were distinguished no less for their noble birth than for their virtue and piety. When Francis was twenty years old, he was received into the Franciscan Order at Montilla, and after his ordination, several years later, he was sent by his superiors to the convent of Arifazza as master of novices. In 1589 he sailed from Spain to the New World, and having landed at Panama, crossed the isthmus and embarked on a vessel that was to convey him to Peru. His missionary labours in South America extended over a period of twenty years, during which time he spared no fatigue, shrank from no sacrifice however great, and feared no danger that stood in the way of evangelizing the vast and savage regions of Tucuman and Paraguay. So successful, indeed, was his apostolate that he has been aptly styled the Thaumaturgus of the New World. Notwithstanding the number and difficulty of the dialects spoken by the Indians, he learned them all in a very short time, and it is said that he often addressed tribes of different tongues in one language and was understood by them all. Besides being engaged in active missionary work, he filled the office of custos of the convents of his order in Tucuman and Paraguay, and later was elected guardian of the Franciscan convent in Lima, Peru. In 1610, while preaching at Truxillo he foretold the calamities that were to befall that city, which was destroyed by an earthquake eight years later, most of the inhabitants perishing in the ruins. The death of St. Francis, which he himself had foretold, was the cause of general grief throughout Peru. In his funeral sermon at the burial of the saint, Father Sebastiani, S.J., said that “Divine Providence had chosen Father Francis Solanus to be the hope and edification of all Peru, the example and glory of Lima and the splendour of the Seraphic Order”. St. Francis was beatified by Clement X, in 1675, and canonized by Benedict XIII, in 1726. His feast is kept throughout the Franciscan Order on the twenty-fourth of July.
“Life of St. Francis Solanus” (New York, 1888); LEO, “Lives of the Saints and Blessed of the Three Orders of St. Francis” (Taunton, 1886), II 509-522; Acta SS., July, V, 847-901.
Photo of the bust of St. Vincent Madelgarius by Napoleon Vier.
Founder and abbot of the monasteries of Hautmont and Soignies, born of a noble family at Strepy les Binche, Hainault, early in the seventh century; died at Soignies, 14 July, 677.
That he was not of Irish descent, as stated by Jean du Pont and some Irish writers, has been proved by Mabillon and the Bollandists. About 635 he married the noble Waldetrude, also venerated as a saint, and by her had two sons and two daughters, all of whom are honoured as saints. Their names were: Landric, Bishop of Meaux; Dentelin, who died as a boy of seven years; Aldetrude and Madelberte, both of whom became abbesses of Maubeuge. It is probable that Vincent visited Ireland on a mission of King Dagobert I, who esteemed him very highly, though there is no historical basis for the statement made in his anonymous life, written about the eleventh century, that King Dagobert made him ruler over Ireland. He is said to have brought with him from Ireland a number of missionaries, chief among whom were Sts. Fursy, Foillan, Ultan, Eloquius, Adalgisus, and Etto. About 642 he founded the monastery of Hautmont, near Maubeuge, where he himself became a monk about 643, being invested with the religious garb by Bishop St. Aubert of Cambrai, while his wife took the veil and lived in a cell which later became the monastery of Mons. His holy life and his fame as a spiritual guide attracted to the monastery many of his former friends, who put themselves under his spiritual direction. In the hope of finding great seclusion he erected a new monastery at Soignies whither he withdrew with a few of his monks about 670.
LAILEU, Vie de St. Vincent Madelgaire et de Ste Waudrau, son epouse, princes et patrons du Hainaut (Tournai, 1886); Acta SS., III, July, 628-659; Mabillon, Acta SS. Bened., II, 643-5; Analecta Bollandiana, XII (Brussels, 1893), 422-440; O’HANLON, Lives of the Irish Saints, VII (Dublin, s.d.), 227-234; DU PONT, Memoriale immortale de vita et virtutibus S. Vincentii (Mons, 1649).
Grand Duke of Kiev (Kieff) and All Russia, grandson of St. Olga, and the first Russian ruler to embrace Christianity, b. 956; d. at Berestova, 15 July, 1015.
St. Olga
St. Olga could not convert her son and successor, Sviatoslav, for he lived and died a pagan and brought up his son Vladimir as a pagan chieftain. Sviatoslav had two legitimate sons, Yaropolk and Oleg, and a third son, Vladimir, borne him by his court favourite Olga Malusha. Shortly before his death (972) he bestowed the Grand Duchy of Kiev on Yaropolk and gave the land of the Drevlani (now Galicia) to Oleg. The ancient Russian capital of Novgorod threatened rebellion and, as both the princes refused to go thither, Sviatoslav bestowed its sovereignty upon the young Vladimir. Meanwhile war broke out between Yaropolk and Oleg, and the former conquered the Drevlanian territory and dethroned Oleg. When this news reached Vladimir he feared a like fate and fled to the Varangians (Variags) of Scandinavia for help, while Yaropolk conquered Novgorod and united all Russia under his sceptre.
The Murder of Yaropolk
A few years later Vladimir returned with a large force and retook Novgorod. Becoming bolder he waged war against his brother towards the south, took the city of Polotzk, slew its prince, Ragvald, and married his daughter Ragnilda, the affianced bride of Yaropolk. Then he pressed on and besieged Kiev. Yaropolk fled to Rodno, but could not hold out there, and was finally slain upon his surrender to the victorious Vladimir; the latter thereupon made himself ruler of Kiev and all Russia in 980. As a heathen prince Vladimir had four wives besides Ragnilda, and by them had ten sons and two daughters. Since the days of St. Olga, Christianity, which was originally established among the eastern Slavs by Sts. Cyril and Methodius, had been making secret progress throughout the land of Russ (now eastern Austria and Russia) and had begun to considerably alter the heathen ideas. It was a period similar to the era of the conversion of Constantine.
Vladimir I of Kiev
Notwithstanding this undercurrent of Christian ideas, Vladimir erected in Kiev many statues and shrines (trebishcha) to the Slavic heathen gods, Perun, Dazhdbog, Simorgl, Mokosh, Stribog, and others. In 981 he subdued the Chervensk cities (now Galicia), in 983 he overcame the wild Yatviags on the shores of the Baltic Sea, in 985 he fought with the Bulgarians on the lower Volga, and in 987 he planned a campaign against the Greco-Roman Empire, in the course of which he became interested in Christianity. The Chronicle of Nestor relates that he sent envoys to the neighbouring countries for information concerning their religions. The envoys reported adversely regarding the Bulgarians who followed (Mohammedan), the Jews of Khazar, and the Germans with their plain missionary Latin churches, but they were delighted with the solemn Greek ritual of the Great Church (St. Sophia) of Constantinople, and reminded Vladimir that his grandmother Olga had embraced that Faith.
The next year (988) he besieged Kherson in the Crimea, a city within the borders of the eastern Roman Empire, and finally took it by cutting off its water supply. He then sent envoys to Emperor Basil II at Constantinople to ask for his sister Anna in marriage, adding a threat to march on Constantinople in case of refusal. The emperor replied that a Christian might not marry a heathen, but if Vladimir were a Christian prince he would sanction the alliance. To this Vladimir replied that he had already examined the doctrines of the Christians, was inclined towards them, and was ready to be baptized. Basil II sent this sister with a retinue of officials and clergy to Kherson, and there Vladimir was baptized, in the same year, by the Metropolitan Michael and took also the baptismal name of Basil.
The Baptism of Saint Prince Vladimir, by Viktor Vasnetsov. Fresco in Kiev.
He then married Princess Anna, and thereafter put away his pagan wives. He surrendered the city of Kherson to the Greeks and returned to Kiev in state with his bride. The Russian historian Karamsin (Vol. I, p. 215) suggests that Vladimir could have been baptized long before at Kiev, since Christians and their priests were already there; but such an act would have humbled the proud chieftain in the eyes of his people, for he would have accepted in a lowly manner an inconspicuous rite at the hands of a secret and despised sect. Hence he preferred to have it come from the envoys of the Roman Emperor of Constantinople, as a means of impressing his people.
When Vladimir returned to Kiev he took upon himself the conversion of his subjects. He ordered the statues of the gods to be thrown down, chopped to pieces, and some of them burned; the chief god, Perun, was dragged through the mud and thrown into the River Dnieper. These acts impressed the people with the helplessness of their gods, and when they were told that they should follow Vladimir’s example and become Christians they were willingly baptized, even wading into the river that they might the sooner be reached by the priest for baptism. Zubrycki thinks this readiness shows that the doctrines of Christianity had already been secretly spread in Kiev and that the people only waited for an opportunity to publicly acknowledge them.
Statue of St. Vladimir of Kiev on a Monument, “Millennuim of Russia” in Veliky Novgorod
Vladimir urged all his subjects to become Christians, established churches and monasteries not only at Kiev, but at Pereyaslav, Chernigoff, Bielegorod, Vladimir in Volhynia, and many other cities. In 989 he erected the large Church of St. Mary ever Virgin (usually called Desiatinny Sobor, the Cathedral of the Tithes), and in 996 the Church of the Transfiguration, both in the city of Kiev. He gave up his warlike career and devoted himself principally to the government of his people; he established schools, introduced ecclesiastical courts, and became known for his mildness and for his zeal in spreading the Christian faith. His wife died in 1011, having borne him two sons, Boris and Glib (also known as Sts. Roman and David, from their baptismal names). After this his life became troubled by the conduct of his elder children. Following the custom of his ancestors, he had parcelled out his kingdom amongst his children, giving the city of Novgorod in fief to his eldest son Yaroslav; the latter rebelled against him and refused to render either service or tribute. In 1014 Vladimir prepared to march north to Novgorod and take it away from his disobedient son, while Yaroslav invoked the help of the Varangians against his father. Vladimir fell ill and died on the way.
St. Vladimir
His feast in celebrated on 15 July in the Russian Orthodox and Ruthenian Greek Catholic calendars, and he has received the name of Ravnoapostol (equal to the Apostles) in the title of the feast and the troparion of the liturgy. The Russians have added in their service books words referring his conversion and intercession to the present Russian Empire (rossiiskaya zemlya), but the Ruthenians have never permitted these interpolations.
Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury, b. in the latter half of the twelfth century; d. at Slindon Manor, Sussex, July 9, 1228. Although the roll of English churchmen has few names more illustrious, Langton’s fame is hardly equal to his achievements. Even among his own countrymen too few have an adequate knowledge of his merits and of his great services to his country and to the Catholic Church, although his labors were concerned with the two things specially dear to Englishmen, the Bible and the British Constitution. Little though they may think it, every one who reads the Bible or enjoys the benefit of civic freedom owes a deep debt of gratitude to this Catholic cardinal. If men may be measured by the magnitude of the work they accomplish, it may be safely said that Langton was the greatest Englishman who ever sat in the chair of St. Augustine. For Anselm was not an Englishman, and his triumphs were won in fields of thought and politics of less interest to Englishmen. Some churchmen, again, have been great as writers and thinkers, others as statesmen solicitous for the welfare of the whole people, and others as zealous pastors of their flock. It was Langton’s lot to win distinction in all three capacities, as scholar, statesman, and archbishop.
Closeup of Cardinal Stephen Langton statue on the Canterbury Pulpit at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Photo by Tim Evanson.
The Scholar.—The literary activity of Langton belongs to the earlier part of his life, and it is as a scholar that he first appears in history. Of his boyhood we have no details, both the date and place of his birth being matters of inference and conjecture. From the circumstances attending his election to the primatial See of Canterbury it is evident that he was an Englishman. His name itself is clearly taken from some English town, but it is not certain which of the several places so-called had the honor of giving its name to the family of the cardinal, though Mark Pattison confidently asserts that he “is known by the surname of Langton from the place of his birth, Langton near Spilsby in Lincolnshire” (op. cit. in bibliography). His father was Henry de Langton; his brother Simon de Langton—presumably his junior, seeing that he survived the archbishop twenty years—was Archdeacon of Canterbury, and took an active part in the ecclesiastical and political struggles of the time. There does not seem to be any evidence of kinship between the archbishop and John Langton, Bishop of Chichester in the following century. Stephen’s birth may be fixed approximately by the known dates of his election (1205) and his death (1228). For, since he was already famous as a scholar and had become cardinal before the former date, he can hardly have been then a mere youth, while the fact that he lived for another twenty years and more, and was engaged in active work until his death, would seem to show that he was yet in the prime of life when he was elected archbishop. His birth, therefore, could not fall very much before or after 1160 or 1170. On the same grounds it may be gathered that Langton went to the University of Paris at an early age, for it was his fame as a teacher of theology that led Innocent III to summon him to Rome and create him cardinal. This act of the great pope and the store he set by Langton’s learning may remind us how one of his predecessors wished in like manner to avail himself of the services of the Venerable Bede—another great Englishman, with whom Langton had much in common in the character of his learning and in his indefatigable industry as a commentator on Holy Scripture. Thus Pattison naturally mentions the name of Bede in his graphic description of Langton as “that great prelate, who, during a twenty-three years occupation of the See of Canterbury, acted in public a most prominent part in national affairs, and in the cloister produced more works for the instruction of his flock, than any who, before or since him, have been seated in that `Papal chair of the North ‘—who was the soul of that powerful confederacy who took the crown from the head of the successor of the Conqueror,—and yet, next to Bede, the most voluminous and original commentator on the Scripture this country has produced—and who has transmitted to us an enduring memorial of himself in three most different institutions, which after the lapse of six centuries are still in force and value among us—Magna Charta, the division of the Bible into chapters, and those constitutions which open the series, and form the basis, of that Canon Law which is still binding in our Ecclesiastical Courts” (ibid.).
Statue of Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, from the exterior of Canterbury Cathedral. Photo by Ealdgyth.
In this passage Pattison has incidentally touched on the chief and most enduring result of Langton’s industrious scholarship, the division of the Bible into chapters—or, in the quaint words of an old chronicler (Trevisa’s translation of Higden’s “Polychronicon”), “he toted the Bible at Parys and marked the chapitres”. This statement has been confirmed by recent researches of Denifle (see Kaulen, “Einleitung in d. Heil. Schrift”), which prove clearly that the division of the Sacred Text into chapters owes its origin to Stephen Langton. The importance of this work may be sufficiently gauged by its widespread adoption, for this division into chapters has not only passed from the Vulgate to all modern vernacular versions of the Bible, but has been applied with obvious advantage to the Greek New Testament and to the Septuagint. It is indeed one of the few cases in which Latin scholarship has affected the Eastern Churches. Yet more remarkable is it that the division has also been adopted by the Jews themselves, and that the hand of the English cardinal should leave its mark on the pages of the Talmud. While not abandoning their own system of division, the Jews saw the advantage of the Langtonian chapters, which are constantly used for purposes of reference even in purely Rabbinical literature, as may be seen in the Warsaw editions of the Talmud Babli and Midrash Rabba. The value of this change is practically illustrated in Ceriani’s facsimile edition of the Milanese Codex Syro-Peschitto, where the divisions wanting in the text are marked in the margin by the editor. The division into chapters has sometimes been ascribed to Cardinal Hugh of St-Cher, but his task was to subdivide Langton’s chapters into seven parts marked by the first seven letters of the alphabet. This method, used by old commentators and still surviving in our liturgical books, has for general purposes been superseded by the division into verses which we owe to Robert Estienne.
Although few of Langton’s original writings or commentaries on Holy Writ are known to students of the present day, Lingard is hardly warranted in stating bluntly that “his writings have perished”. Many of his voluminous works still happily survive in manuscripts, the number of which indicates the popularity his writings once enjoyed. Some of his letters have been printed by D’Achery in his “Spicilegium”; his tractate on the translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury is published by Dr. Giles in the second volume of his valuable edition of the life and letters of the blessed martyr, and, though slight, is sufficient to give the reader some notion of Langton’s Latin style. For the rest, it should be remembered that, though his commentaries are no longer read, the Biblical student of the present day still benefits by them at least indirectly, since here, as in other fields of sacred science, the scholars of each age build on the work left by those who went before them, and commentaries that were once in the hands of all must have had some influence on the later works by which they were eventually superseded.
Veni Sancte Spiritus, sometimes called the “Golden Sequence,” is a sequence prescribed in the Roman Liturgy for the Masses of Pentecost and its octave, exclusive of the following Sunday. It is believed that Cardinal Stephen Langton is the author.
The Statesman.—If Stephen Langton had spent the rest of his days in Rome, his great services as a scholar would give us good reason to regard him with reverence, and we might have doubted whether the studious cardinal were likely to accomplish much in the world of action and ecclesiastical administration. It was undoubtedly a severe ordeal to pass from a life of study to the anxious responsibilities of a primatial see and that struggle with kings and princes which was too often the lot of bishops in those days. Called to fill the See of Canterbury while the memory of Anselm’s banishment and Becket’s martyrdom was yet fresh in men’s minds, Langton’s case was at the outset worse than that of his two great predecessors, for, however much they had later to suffer, they were at least allowed to begin with some semblance of peace and of royal favor. Appointed to the see in the midst of a strenuous struggle and in direct opposition to the king’s wishes, Langton had to begin his episcopate with a long period of banishment. This quarrel, in full force before Langton’s name was suggested, has been graphically told by Lingard, following in the wake of Roger de Wendover and other old chroniclers. A dispute had arisen as to the right to elect the Archbishop of Canterbury, which was claimed both by the monks of the cathedral chapter and by the bishops of the province. On the death of Archbishop Hubert Walter in 1205, some of the younger monks attempted to steal a march on the opposite party by the nocturnal and surreptitious election of Reginald, their sub-prior, who was forthwith sent to Rome to seek confirmation at the hands of Innocent III. It appears to have been their original plan that the proceedings should be kept secret until the candidate’s arrival in Rome. Certainly there was little likelihood that the king would have suffered him to go free if the object of the journey had been known. His vanity, however, induced Reginald, when safe out of John’s dominions, to lay aside all disguise and assume the style of archbishop elect. The angry king lost no time in compelling the monks at Canterbury to hold another election and to place on the archiepiscopal throne his own favorite and prime minister, John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich.
Stained glass window in St Mary’s parish church, Staines, Middlesex (now Surrey). Photo by John Salmon.
A new delegation was then dispatched to Rome to ask the confirmation of this second election, and the pope had to decide between the claims of the rival candidates. On different but equally satisfactory grounds he rejected both elections. The first was void by reason of its irregular and surreptitious character, while, even apart from the pressure which robbed the second election of the necessary freedom, it was irregular because the first had not yet been annulled in a regular and canonical manner. On the question at issue between the monks and the bishops he decided in favor of the former, as the evidence showed that the right of election had belonged to them from Saxon times. And, as the field was now clear for a fresh election, he directed the monks then in Rome to choose a new archbishop, and recommended Langton as one well worthy of this office. This choice was duly made and confirmed by the pope, who made it known to the king in a letter warmly praising the merits of the new archbishop, while in a Bull to the prior and monks of Canterbury he called him “Our beloved son, master Stephen de Langton, a man verily endowed with life, fame, knowledge, and doctrine”. But neither the words of Innocent nor the merits of Langton could satisfy the angry king, who wreaked his vengeance on the Church of Canterbury and vowed that Langton should never set foot in his dominions. Thus began the memorable struggle between the worst of English kings and the greatest of the medieval pontiffs. Finding John deaf to reason and remonstrance, Innocent proceeded to take stronger measures, and placed the kingdom under an interdict. It seemed as if even this strong measure would be of no avail, for John remained obstinate for eight years.
At length, when Innocent proceeded to pronounce him excommunicate, and his powerful rival Philip of France was preparing to carry out the sentence of deposition, John, alarmed at the growing disaffection of his own subjects and recognizing that further resistance was unavailing, consented to open negotiations with the archbishop. Langton, who had done his best to guide and govern his flock from his place of banishment, was thus able to land once more in England. The king had in 1209 invited Langton to meet him in England, and had sent him a safe conduct for that purpose. But, as this was addressed not to the Archbishop of Canterbury but to “Stephen Langton, cardinal of the Roman see”, the archbishop firmly refused to accept it. Another invitation in 1210 proved equally ineffectual, but, when John at length yielded in his hour of danger and issued letters in due form, Langton lost no time in returning. He landed at Dover in July, 1213, and was met there by the king, who fell at his feet with words of welcome and submission. John had already on May 15, 1213, resigned his kingdom to Pandulph, the pope’s legate, and had received it back as a fief of the Holy See. It might have seemed that the long struggle was now over, and that the archbishop, after his eight years of banishment, could at length enter on a peaceful period of pastoral labor. But it is not likely that Langton himself cherished this illusion. The king’s apparent surrender to the pope had indeed changed the issue, and had gained its object of frustrating the schemes of the French King, since, as a vassal of the Holy See; John could now appeal to the pope for protection. But it still remained to be seen whether John would fulfils his promises, and whether, by ruling with justice, he would conciliate his disaffected subjects. The course he had taken since his submission to Pandulph gave ground for grave misgivings, and events soon showed there was as yet no room for peace.
But the conflict between John and Innocent was now to be succeeded by the momentous struggle between the king and his barons. And, though Langton’s appointment as primate had been the chief issue in the former strife, his part in the constitutional conflict, while not less conspicuous, was more active and commanding, for, in the words of Pattison, he was the “soul of the movement”. This appears from his strong action at the meeting held at St. Paul’s in London on August 25, 1213. “Its ostensible object”, says Lingard “was to ascertain the damages sustained by the outlaws in the late quarrel. But Langton called the barons aside, read to them the charter of Henry, and commented on its provisions. They answered by loud acclamations, and the archbishop, taking advantage of their enthusiasm, administered to them an oath by which they bound themselves to each other to conquer or die in the defense of their liberties.” When the king was going to wreak vengeance on the barons for their disobedience, Langton firmly insisted on their right to a lawful trial, and added that, if John refused them this justice, he would deem it his duty to excommunicate all, except the king himself, who took part in this impious warfare. Such was the archbishop’s vigorous line of action at the outset of the struggle which was brought to a successful issue two years later by the signing of the Great Charter at Runnymede. And, if he was the soul of the movement which led to these results, he may justly be regarded as the real author of the Magna Charta.
Plaster maquette of Stephen Langton by w:John Thomas (sculptor). One of 17 maquettes for life-sized bronzes representing the signatories of the Magna Carta. The bronzes decorate the walls of the Lords Chamber at Westminster Palace, London. As of 2013 this plaster maquette is in the Canterbury Heritage Museum, and the rest are unavailable to the public in Westgate Towers, Canterbury. Photo by Linda Spashett Storye book.
It is important to observe that in this constitutional conflict Langton was laboring for the liberties of England and seeking to check the royal tyranny, which was the chief danger to the Catholic Church in that country, and which in a later age was to be one of the main factors in bringing about the separation between England and the Holy See. In this war he was a bishop fighting for the Church, as well as an English man fighting for the liberty of his country. It must, however, be remembered that many issues were involved in the struggle. There were dangers of excess on either side. Nobles as well as kings have been guilty of oppression and injustice, and the common people often suffer more from many tyrants than from one. Bearing this in mind, we can understand how some may have regarded the struggle from a different standpoint. The pope, naturally more in sympathy with authority than with those in apparent rebellion against it, bound moreover by duty and interest to care for the rights of his vassal, and assailed with reports from the king’s side and misrepresentations of the archbishop, might clearly be expected to take a different course from Langton. Thus we find him remonstrating with the primate and the barons, declaring the confederacy void, annulling the Great Charter, and bidding the archbishop excommunicate the disturbers of the kingdom. When Langton, though consenting to one general issue of the sentence, refused to repeat the excommunication—partly on the ground that it was issued under a misapprehension, and partly because he wished first to see the pope himself—he was rebuked and suspended from his office. This sentence came to him on his way to Rome to attend the Fourth Lateran Council, and it was confirmed by the pope himself on November 4, 1215. In the following spring Langton was absolved, but was required to remain in Rome until peace was restored. This gave him a brief rest after all his struggles, and in 1218, when both Innocent and John were dead and all parties in England were united under Henry III, he returned to his see.
The Archbishop.—After his return from Rome in 1218 Langton devoted the closing ten years of his episcopate to peaceful and fruitful pastoral labor. It might be thought that there was little scope here for any great achievements comparable to his earlier work as a scholar and a statesman, and that there would be little to distinguish his life in this time of peace from that of other Catholic prelates. One who had already labored and suffered so much might well have been pardoned for leaving to younger and more fortunate successors any large works of reform. Yet he has left his mark on the history of Canterbury See by his code of forty-two canons published in a provincial synod. To quote the emphatic words of a recent biographer. “On Sunday, April 17, 1222, Stephen opened a church council at Osney which is to the ecclesiastical history of England what the assembly at Runnymede is to her secular history” (Norgate, loc. cit. infra).
Born at Mercatello in the Duchy of Urbino, Italy, 1660; died at Città di Castello, 9 July, 1727. Her parents, Francesco Giuliana and Benedetta Mancini, were both of gentle birth. In baptism she was named Ursula, and showed marvelous signs of sanctity. When but eighteen months old she uttered her first words to upbraid a shopman who was serving a false measure of oil, saying distinctly: “Do justice, God sees you.” At the age of three years she began to be favoured with Divine communications, and to show great compassion for the poor. She would set apart a portion of her food for them, and even part with her clothes when she met a poor child scantily clad. These traits and a great love for the Cross developed as she grew older. When others did not readily join in her religious practices she was inclined to be dictatorial. In her sixteenth year this imperfection of character was brought home to her in a vision in which she saw her own heart as a heart of steel. In her writings she confesses that she took a certain pleasure in the more stately circumstances which her family adopted when her father was appointed superintendent of finance at Piacenza. But this did not in any way affect her early-formed resolution to dedicate herself to religion, although her father urged her to marry and procured for her several suitors as soon as she became of marriageable age. Owing to her father’s opposition to her desire to enter a convent, Veronica fell ill and only recovered when he gave his consent.
Painting of Saint Veronica Giuliani indicating the places she received the stigmata.
In 1677 she was received into the convent of the Capuchin Poor Clares in Città di Castello, taking the name of Veronica in memory of the Passion. At the conclusion of the ceremony of her reception the bishop said to the abbess: “I commend this new daughter to your special care, for she will one day be a great saint.” She became absolutely submissive to the will of her directors, though her novitiate was marked by extraordinary interior trials and temptations to return to the world. At her profession in 1678 she conceived a great desire to suffer in union with our Saviour crucified for the conversion of sinners. About this time she had a vision of Christ bearing His cross and henceforth suffered an acute physical pain in her heart. After her death the figure of the cross was found impressed upon her heart. In 1693 she entered upon a new phase in her spiritual life, when she had a vision of the chalice symbolizing the Divine Passion which was to be re-enacted in her own soul. At first she shrank from accepting it and only be great effort eventually submitted. She then began to endure intense spiritual suffering. In 1694 she received the impression of the Crown of Thorns, the wounds being visible and the pain permanent. By order of the bishop she submitted to medical treatment, but obtained no relief. Yet, although she lived in this supernaturally mystical life, she was a practical woman of affairs. For thirty-four years she was novice-mistress, and guided the novices with great prudence. It is noticeable that she would not allow them to read mystical books. In 1716 she was elected abbess and whilst holding that office enlarged the convent and had a good system of water-pipes laid down, the convent hitherto having been without a proper water supply. She was canonized by Gregory XVI in 1839. She is usually represented crowned with thorns and embracing the Cross.
The remains of St. Veronica Giuliani. Her body remained incorrupt for many years until it was destroyed by the floodwaters of the Tiber River. Her bones remained. Her heart is incorrupt and is kept in a separate reliquary. Other relics of St. Veronica are located in the convent’s museum.
A virgin, very much revered in Belgium, who is said to have been sought in marriage by Charles, afterwards Charlemagne.
Continually repulsed, Charles finally attempted to carry her off by force, but though he broke her arm in the struggle he was unable to move her from the altar before which she had prostrated herself. The royal lover was forced to abandon his suit, and left her in peace.
St. Amelberga
Many miracles are attributed to her, among others the cure of Charles, who was stricken with illness because of the rudeness with which he had treated the Saint. She died 10 July, in her thirty-first year, five years after Charles had ascended the throne.
Acta SS., III, July.
T.J. CAMPBELL (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Nobility.org Editorial comment: —
Suffering defeat was not frequent with Charlemagne, but defeat he had at the hands of this virgin. She had given herself to the King of Kings, and would be loyal to Him regardless of whatever royal magnificence Charlemagne had to offer.
No earthly prestige or amount of gold could overcome her loyalty and fidelity.
Saints, martyred in Rome, in 150. According to legend, they were the sons of Saint Felicitas, and suffered martyrdom under Emperor Antoninus. Januarius, Felix, and Philip were scourged to death; Silvanus was thrown over a precipice; Alexander, Vitalis, and Martialis were beheaded. Feast, Roman Calendar, 10 July.
St. Felicitas, Martyr
St. Felicitas with her Seven Sons. Illustration from the Nuremberg Chronicle, by Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514)
The earliest list of the Roman feasts of martyrs, known as the “Depositio Martyrum” and dating from the time of Pope Liberius, i.e. about the middle of the fourth century (Ruinart, Acta sincera, Ratisbon, p. 631), mentions seven martyrs whose feast was kept on 10 July. Their remains had been deposited in four different catacombs, viz. in three cemeteries on the Via Salaria and in one on the Via Appia. Two of the martyrs, Felix and Philip, reposed in the catacomb of Priscilla; Martial, Vitalis and Alexander, in the Coemeterium Jordanorum; Silanus (or Silvanus) in the catacomb of Maximus, and Januarius in that of Prætextatus. To the name of Silanus is added the statement that his body was stolen by the Novatians (hunc Silanum martyrem Novatiani furati sunt).
In the Acts of these martyrs, that certainly existed in the sixth century, since Gregory the Great refers to them in his “Homiliæ super Evangelia” (Lib. I, hom. iii, in P.L., LXXVI, 1087), it is stated that all seven were sons of Felicitas, a noble Roman lady. According to these Acts Felicitas and her seven sons were imprisoned because of their Christian Faith, at the instigation of pagan priests, during the reign of Emperor Antoninus. Before the prefect Publius they adhered firmly to their religion, and were delivered over to four judges, who condemned them to various modes of death. The division of the martyrs among four judges corresponds to the four places of their burial. St. Felicitas herself was buried in the catacomb of Maximus on the Via Salaria, beside Silanus.
Martyrdom of St. Felicitas’s seven sons, painting by Francesco Coghetti.
These Acts were regarded as genuine by Ruinart (op. cit., 72-74), and even distinguished modern archæologists have considered them, though not in their present form corresponding entirely to the original, yet in substance based on genuine contemporary records. Recent investigations of Führer, however (see below), have shown this opinion to be hardly tenable. The earliest recension of these Acts, edited by Ruinart, does not antedate the sixth century, and appears to be based not on a Roman, but on a Greek original. Moreover, apart from the present form of the Acts, various details have been called in question. Thus, if Felicitas were really the mother of the seven martyrs honoured on 10 July, it is strange that her name does not appear in the well-known fourth-century Roman calendar. Her feast is first mentioned in the “Martyrologium Hieronymianum”, but on a different day (23 Nov.). It is, however, historically certain that she, as well as the seven martyrs called her sons in the Acts suffered for the Christian Faith. From a very early date her feast was solemnly celebrated in the Roman Church on 23 November, for on that day Gregory the Great delivered a homily in the basilica that rose above her tomb. Her body then rested in the catacomb of Maximus; in that cemetery on the Via Salaria all Roman itineraries, or guides to the burial-places of martyrs, locate her burial-place, specifying that her tomb was in a church above this catacomb (De Rossi, Roma sotterranea, I, 176-77), and that the body of her son Silanus was also there. The crypt where Felicitas was laid to rest was later enlarged into a subterranean chapel, and was rediscovered in 1885. A seventh-century fresco is yet visible on the rear wall of this chapel, representing in a group Felicitas and her seven sons, and overhead the figure of Christ bestowing upon them the eternal crown.
Certain historical references to St. Felicitas and her sons antedate the aforesaid Acts, e.g. a fifth-century sermon of St. Peter Chrysologus (Sermo cxxxiv, in P.L., LII, 565) and a metrical epitaph either written by Pope Damasus (d. 384) or composed shortly after his time and suggested by his poem in praise of the martyr:
Discite quid meriti præstet pro rege feriri; Femina non timuit gladium, cum natis obivit, Confessa Christum meruit per sæcula nomen.
Fresco by Paris Noggia of Saint Felicity, who having witnessed the death of her seven sons, during the persecution of Diocletian, is about to be put death as the Emperor watches.
[Learn how meritorious it is to die for the King (Christ). This woman feared not the sword, but perished with her sons. She confessed Christ and merited an eternal renown.—Ihm, Damasi Epigrammata (Leipzig, 1895), p. 45.] We possess, therefore, confirmation for an ancient Roman tradition, independent of the Acts, to the effect that the Felicitas who reposed in the catacomb of Maximus, and whose feast the Roman Church commemorated 23 Nov., suffered martyrdom with her sons; it does not record, however, any details concerning these sons. It may be recalled that the tomb of St. Silanus, one of the seven martyrs (10 July), adjoined that of St. Felicitas and was likewise honoured; it is quite possible, therefore, that tradition soon identified the sons of St. Felicitas with the seven martyrs, and that this formed the basis for the extant Acts. The tomb of St. Januarius in the catacomb of Prætextatus belongs to the end of the second century, to which period, therefore, the martyrdoms must belong, probably under Marcus Aurelius.
If St. Felicitas did not suffer martyrdom on the same occasion we have no means of determining the time of her death. In an ancient Roman edifice near the ruins of the Baths of Titus there stood in early medieval times a chapel in honour of St. Felicitas. A faded painting in this chapel represents her with her sons just as in the above-mentioned fresco in her crypt.
Santa Susanna in Rome
RUINART, Acta sincera martyrum (Ratisbon, 1859), 72-74; Acta SS., July, III, 5-18; Bibliotheca hagiographica latina, I, 429-30; ALLARD, Histoire des persécutions (2nd ed., Paris, 1892), I, 345- 68; AUBÉ, Histoire des persécutions de l’Eglise jusqu’=85 la fin des Antonins (Paris, 1845), 345 sq., 439 sqq.; DOULCET, Essai sur les rapports de l’Eglise chrétienne avec l’Etat romain pendant les trois premiers siècles (Paris, 1883), 187-217; DUFOURCQ, Gesta Martyrum romains (Paris, 1900), I, 223-24; DE ROSSI, Bullettino di archeol. crist. (1884-85), 149-84; FöHRER, Ein Beitrag zur Lösung der Felicitasfrage (Freising, 1890); IDEM, Zur Felicitasfrage (Leipzig, 1894); KöNSTLE, Hagiographische Studien über die Passio Felicitatis cum VII filiis (Paderborn, 1894); MARUCCHI, La catacombe romane (Rome, 1903), 388-400.
J.P. KIRSCH (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Nobility.org Editorial comment: —
Like St. Cecilia and many others, St. Felicitas and her seven sons share in the glory of the Roman Christian nobility that embraced martyrdom, shedding their blood, rather than renouncing the Catholic faith and their baptismal vows.
In martyrdom, these Roman nobles led by example. By faithfully following themselves in the footsteps of the Redeemer, they showed other Christians that neither life nor money are our supreme values. In baptism we acquire a special bond with Our Lord and this bond of faith is our greatest supernatural good. It is more precious than life, our greatest natural good.
A Belgian prelate and statesman, born at Brussels, 1820; died at Rome, 1874. The son of Félix de Mérode-Westerloo who held successively the portfolios of foreign affairs, war, and finances under King Leopold, and of Rosalie de Grammont, he was allied to the best names of France, — Lafayette, Montmorency, Clemont-Tonnerre, etc.; the Mérode family claimed saints like Elizabeth of Hungary, founders like Werner who endowed the monastery of Schwartzenbroch, and a long line of captains from that Raymond-Bérenger who took the cross at St. Bernard’s call, to Frédéric, Xavier’s grandfather, who gave his life for the autonomy of Belgium. Bereft of his mother at the age of three, Xavier was brought up at Villersexel, in Franche-Comté, by his aunt Philippine de Grammont, attended for a time the Jesuit College of Namur, then entered the Collège de Juilly presided over by de Salinis, whence he passed (1839) to the Military Academy of Brussels. Graduating with the rank of second lieutenant, after a short service at the armoury of Liège, he joined (1844) as foreign attaché the staff of Maréchal Bugeaud in Algeria, taking a brilliant part in the most daring engagements and winning the cross of the Légion d’honneur. In 1847, he abruptly resigned the military career and went to study for the priesthood in Rome, where he was ordained (1849). Assigned, after his ordination, as chaplain to the French garrison of Viterbo, he was being pressed by his family to return to Belgium when Pius IX, with a view to attach him permanently to his court, made him cameriere segreto (1850), an office which entailed the direction of the Roman prisons. The excellent work done by de mérode for the material, moral, and religious betterment of the penitentiary system in Rome is described by Lefebvre (Des établissements charitables de Rome, p. 245.) and Maguire (Rome, Its Ruler and Institutions, p. 238); de Rayneval, the French envoy at Rome, praised it in an official report to his government (see “Daily News “, 18 March, 1848); Joachim Pecci, Archbishop of Perugia, wanted the young cameriere to inaugurate similar work in his metropolis, and the Piedmontese, despite their bias against everything papal, found nothing to change in the regulations introduced by de Mérode. In 1860, when it became evident that the insincere policy of Napoleon III was a poor safeguard against the greed of Piedmont, de Mérode, much against the views of the Roman Prelature, headed by Cardinal Antonelli, persuaded Pius IX to form a papal army and succeeded in enlisting the services of Lamoricière (q. v.) as commander-in-chief and was himself appointed minister of war. The task assumed by de Mérode and Lamoricière was difficult and well-nigh impossible; yet,the disasters of Castelfidardo and Ancona were due, not to the incompetence of the chiefs, nor solely to the heterogeneous nature of the recruits and the lack of proper supplies, but to the treachery of the Piedmontese who, while feigning to curb the Garibaldian bands, led them to the assault of the Papal States.
The ensuing years of comparative quiet de Mérode spent in various public works; the building at his own expense of the campo pretoriano outside the Porta Pia, the clearing of the approaches of Santa Maria degli Angeli, the opening of streets in the new section of Rome, the sanitation of the old quarters by the Tiber, etc. His impetuous temperament and progressive views made him enemies among the old traditional Roman element just as the vehemence with which he branded the French Emperor’s duplicity turned against him the heads of the French army of occupation. Lamoricière’s death (19 Sept., 1865) became the signal of open hostility. Pius IX was forced to discharge his minister whose continuance in office, it was freely asserted, meant the withdrawal of the French troops. Reduced to a simple cameriere, de Mérode was not forgotten by Pius IX on Hohenlohe’s promotion to the cardinalate, he was given the vacant place of papal almoner and (22 June, 1866) consecrated titular Archbishop of Melitene. His new duties were to distribute the papal alms and to confirm children in danger of death and he acquitted himself with a liberality and zeal that won him the love of the poor and afflicted. At the Vatican Council, he showed the influence exercised over him by his brother-in-law, de Montalembert, and sided with the minority that deemed the definition of papal infallibility inopportune and even dangerous, but submitted the day the dogma was defined. After the capture of Rome by the Piedmontese (20 Sept., 1870) he followed his master into the retirement of the Vatican, leaving it only to fight the Piedmontese government’s pretensions on the campo pretoriano or to share de Rossi’s work in the excavations of Tor Marancino which resulted in the discovery of the Basilica of St. Petronilla. It is there he welcomed (14 June, 1874) the pilgrims from the United States and his last public utterances were for them. Speaking of his kinsman Lafayette, he regretted his defection from the purity of the Catholic Faith, but remarked that the country which the great general had so loyally served was yielding precious elements for the upbuilding of the Church; then, pointing to a Damasian inscription recently found, “Credite per Damasum possit quid gloria Christi”, he added with pathos that the edifying spectacle of American loyalty to Pius IX justified him in saying, “Credite per Pium possit quid gloria Christi”. He died of acute pneumonia in the arms of Pius IX, only a few months before the Consistory in which he was to have been made a cardinal. His remains were laid to rest in the Flemish Cemetery near the Vatican, amid a vast concourse of people, the poor he had so generously assisted mingling with the prelates, ambassadors, and princes. De Mérode, in spite of his faults, will be remembered as a model of unswerving loyalty to the Holy See. Such was his popularity that when Don Margotti, in “l’Unità Cattolica”, suggested in his behalf a world-wide tribute of prayers, the subscriber’s names filled a large album published at Turin, 1875.
LAMY, Monseigneur de Mérode (Louvain, 1874); BESSON, F. F. X. de Mérode, sa vie et ses œuvres (Paris, 1886); LE POITEVIN, Mgr. de Mérode in Les Contemporains (Paris, s. d.); VEUILLOT, Célébrités Catholigues Contemporains; FLORNOY, Lamoricière (Paris, 1904).
Founder of western monasticism, born at Nursia, c. 480; died at Monte Cassino, 543. The only authentic life of Benedict of Nursia is that contained in the second book of Saint Gregory’s “Dialogues”. It is rather a character sketch than a biography and consists, for the most part, of a number…
Distinguished Irish-American physician and medical educator, b. at Ballynahowna, near Aughrim, Co. Galway, Ireland, 21 March, 1763; d. at New York, 12 July, 1841. His ancestors were driven by Cromwell from the North of Ireland where they held large possessions to the wilds of Connaught. William James MacNeven was the eldest of four sons. At the age of twelve he was sent by his uncle Baron MacNeven, to receive his education abroad, for the penal laws rendered education impossible for Catholics in Ireland. This Baron MacNeven was William O’Kelly MacNeven, an Irish exile physician, who for his medical skill in her service had been created an Austrian noble by the Empress Maria Theresa. Young MacNeven made his collegiate studies at Prague. His medical studies were made at Vienna where he was a favourite pupil of the distinguished professor Pestel and took his degree in 1784. The same year he returned to Dublin to practise. A brilliant career opened before him in medicine, but he became involved in the revolutionary disturbances of the time with such men as Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Thomas Addis Emmet, and his brother Robert. He was arrested in March, 1798, and confined in Kilmainham Jail, and afterwards in Fort George, Scotland, until 1802, when he was liberated and exiled. In 1803, he was in Paris seeking an interview with Bonaparte in order to obtain French troops for Ireland. Disappointed in his mission, Dr. MacNeven came to America, landing at New York on 4 July, 1805.
In 1807, Dr. MacNeven delivered a course of lectures on clinical medicine in the recently established College of Physicians and Surgeons. Here in 1808, he received the appointment of professor of midwifery. In 1810, at the reorganization of the school, he became the professor of chemistry, and in 1816 was appointed in addition to the chair of materia medica. In 1826 with six of his colleagues, he resigned his professorship because of a misunderstanding with the New York Board of Regents, and accepted the chair of materia medica in Rutgers Medical College, a branch of the New Jersey institution of that name, established in New York as a rival to the College of Physicians and Surgeons. The school at once became popular because of its faculty, but after four years was closed by legislative enactment on account of interstate difficulties. The attempt to create a school independent of the regents resulted in a reorganization of the University of the State of New York. Dr. MacNeven’s best known contribution to science is his “Exposition of the Atomic Theory” (New York, 1820), which was reprinted in the French “Annales de Chimie”. In 1821 he published with emendations an edition of Brande’s “Chemistry” (New York, 1829). Some of his purely literary works, his “Rambles through Switzerland” (Dublin, 1803), his “Pieces of Irish History” (New York, 1807), and his numerous political tracts attracted wide attention. He was co-editor for many years of the “New York Medical and Philosophical Journal”.
FRANCIS, Life of MacNeven in GROSS, Lives of Eminent American Physicians (Philadelphia, 1861); GILMAN in New York Medical Gazette (1841), 65; BYRNE, Memoirs of Miles Byrne (Paris, 1863); MADDEN, Lives of the United Irishmen, series ii, vol. II (London, 1842-46); FITZPATRICK, Secret Service under Pitt (London, 1892-93).
Martyred at Norwich, 13 July, 1616. He was descended from the Tunstalls of Thurland, an ancient Lancashire family who afterwards settled in Yorkshire. In the Douay Diaries he is called by the alias of Helmes and is described as Carleolensis, that is, born within the ancient Diocese of Carlisle. He took the College oath at Douay on 24 May, 1607; received minor orders at Arras, 13 June, 1609, and the subdiaconate at Douay on 24 June following. The diary does not record his ordination to the diaconate or priesthood, but he left the college as a priest on 17 August, 1610. On reaching England he was almost immediately apprehended and spent four or five years in various prisons till he succeeded in escaping from Wisbech Castle. He made his way to a friend’s house near Lynn, where is was recaptured and committed to Norwich Gaol. At the next assizes he was tried and condemned (12 July, 1616). The saintliness of his demeanor on the scaffold produced a profound impression on the people. There is a contemporary portrait of the martyr at Stonyhurst, showing him as a man still young with abundant black hair and dark moustache.
CHALLONER, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, II (London, 1742); Third Douay Diary, X, XI (Catholic Record Society, London, 1911); FOLEY, Records Eng. Prov. S.J., XII (London, 1879).
Daniel Roche a French social and cultural historian.
From studying signatures of wills Daniel Roche has discovered astonishing figures of adult literacy in the capital at the end of the old regime [France, before the French Revolution of 1789]. In Montmartre, for example, where 40 percent of the testators belonged to the artisan or salaried classes, 74 percent of men and 64 percent of women could sign their names.
Map of France before the French Revolution, drawn by Rigobert Bonne in 1771.
In the rue Saint-Honoré—a fashionable street, but one where a third of the residents belonged to the common people—literacy rates stood at 93 percent. In the artisanal rue Saint-Denis, 86 percent of men and 73 percent of women made out and signed their own contracts of marriage.
[D]omestic servants, who also came from the countryside, were virtually all literate, able to read their contracts of employment. The ‘little schools’ promoted by the Catholic missions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had evidently done their work well. Around 1780, according to Roche, 35 percent of all wills made by the popular classes contained some books as did 40 percent of those in the shopkeeping and petty trades.
Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p. 180.
Written by Michael Whitcraft
On a recent trip to Fatima, I stopped to spend a night in the city of Obidos, Portugal. As I stood atop the walls of that medieval city, I felt almost as though I were breathing history…but not just any history. I was filling my lungs with a Catholic combative history.
With each arrow loop I passed, my mind’s eye could see a twelth century Portuguese knight, bedecked with armor, ready to risk life and limb to defend Christian civilization against hordes of Muslim invaders. I could hear the alarm bell calling the peasants from the fields to seek shelter behind the walls on which I stood.
Standing on the castle bulwark with these reflections rekindled in me a crusading spirit.
As my mind drifted back and forth across a threshold of 900 years, I compared the society I envisioned to our own. The stark contrast overwhelmed me. Medieval Christian man possessed a vision of the Church that has been all but lost in our days.
Unlike modern man who sees the Church and asks: “What is in it for me?” he saw the Faith and asked: “How can I serve?” Thus, he was willing to make any sacrifice and oppose any enemy in defense of the Faith.
While these reflections passed through my mind, I remembered a lecture Brazilian TFP founder, Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, once gave on the crusading spirit. In it he logically developed the theory that true adoration of God can only exist when one has the spirit of a crusader.
Original Sin and Self-seeking Friendship
Prof. Corrêa de Oliveira’s reasoning was very clear. After Original Sin, man’s tendency is to befriend only those who are pleasing to him, and furthermore to seek a personal advantage in such relationships.
The resulting friendship is based on self-love, not love of others. Thus, it cannot be considered true friendship.
Coupled with this self-seeking tendency, fallen man has a loathing of sacrifice. This tendency is so strong that it requires a tremendous effort to overcome.
Therefore, true adoration can only exist when one is willing to stand up for God and defend Him, even at the risk of losing his life. This willingness is the very definition of the crusading spirit.
A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed
However, to develop true friendship both of these tendencies must be surmounted. Thus, true friendship only exists when one is willing to sacrifice himself for his friend without seeking personal advantage. The more one is willing to sacrifice for his friend, the deeper and truer that friendship is.
Our Lord stated this on the night before His Passion, saying: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Thus, the greatest love one can attain is one by which he is willing to sacrifice everything for his friend.
Additionally, friendship is tested when a friend is threatened. Then one’s willingness to sacrifice is proven. That is why many veterans attest that the greatest friends of their lives were made during war. The daily sacrifice a soldier is expected to make for his friends, seals a bond that is almost unbreakable.
Adoration and the Crusading Spirit
Applying these principles to God, we are not called simply to be His friend. We are obliged to adore Him. If simple friendship cannot exist without a selfless spirit of sacrifice, adoration definitely cannot exist without it. Therefore, true adoration can only exist when one is willing to stand up for God and defend Him, even at the risk of losing his life. This willingness is the very definition of the crusading spirit.
With each arrow loop I passed, my mind’s eye could see a twelth century Portuguese knight, bedecked with armor, ready to risk life and limb to defend Christian civilization against hordes of Muslim invaders. Photo by Urban
Rekindling the Crusading Spirit
As I stood atop the walls of Obidos with these considerations running through my mind, I was able to put my finger on one main difference between the world of the Middle Ages and our own.
Medieval man had the crusading spirit. The Faith and God were of much more importance to him than technological advances or material prosperity. When the Faith called him to travel thousands of miles to a foreign land with little hope of return, without hesitation, he shouted a resounding: “Deus Vult!” (God wills it!)1
Could it be that the lack of this spirit has contributed, in large part, to the moral decadence of our days? If our society as a whole would stop living selfishly as though God does not exist and adore Him with the abnegated worship that characterized the Crusaders of old, society would undoubtedly be different.
Such reflections, standing on the castle bulwark rekindled in me a crusading spirit. I could only pray that Our Lady rekindle this crusading spirit among Catholics and thus establish the triumph of Her Immaculate Heart on earth.
Footnote
1. This was the response of the people gathered in Clermont, France when Blessed Urban II preached the First Crusade.
Born at Hondeforte-lez-Boulogne, c. 1049; died at Ghistelles, 6 July, 1070.
St. Godelina Painting by Jan Provoost
The youngest of the three children born to Hemfrid, seigneur of Wierre-Effroy, and his wife Ogina, Godelina was accustomed as a child to exercises of piety and was soon distinguished for a solidity of virtue extraordinary for one of her years. The poor flocked from all sides to the young girl, whose desires to satisfy their necessities often involved her in difficulties with her father’s steward and even with her pious father himself.
St. Godelina
By her eighteenth year the fame of her beauty and admirable qualities had spread far and wide through Artois and even into Flanders, and many suitors presented themselves; but, the decision being left with Godelina, she persisted in the resolution she had made of renouncing the world for the cloister. One of the young noblemen, Bertolf of Ghistelles, determined to leave nothing undone, invoked the influence of her father’s suzerain, Eustache II, Count of Boulogne, whose representations proved successful. After the wedding Bertolf and his bride set out for Ghistelles, where, however, Godelina found a bitter and unrelenting enemy in Bertolf’s mother, who induced her son to forsake his wife on the very day of their arrival, and immured Godelina in a narrow cell, with barely enough nourishment to support life. Even this, however, the saint contrived to share with the poor. Under the influence of his mother, Bertolf spread abroad foul calumnies about his bride. After some time Godelina managed to escape to the home of her father, who roused the Bishop of Tournai and Soissons and the Count of Flanders to threaten Bertolf with the terrors of Church and State. Seemingly repentant, he promised to restore his wife to her rightful position, but her return to Ghistelles was the signal for a renewal of persecution in an aggravated form.
Cropped panel from the Life and Miracles of St. Godelina, here showing her being strangled and her body being dumped in the river. The entire altar panels showing more of St. Godelina’s life is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Medieval Sculpture Hall. The altar panel was originally opened during Mass.
After about a year Bertolf, again feigning sorrow, easily effected a reconciliation, but only to avoid the suspicion of the crime he was mediating. During his absence two of his servants at his direction strangled Godelina causing it to appear that she had died a natural death. Bertolf soon contracted a second marriage, but the daughter born to him was blind from birth. Her miraculous recovery of sight through the intercession of St. Godelina so affected her father that, now truly converted he journeyed to Rome to obtain absolution for his crime, undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and finally entered the monastery of St-Winoc at Bergues, where he expiated his sins by a life of severe penance.
At his desire his daughter erected at Ghistelles a Benedictine monastery dedicated to St. Godelina, which she entered as a religious. Devotion to St. Godelina dates from 1084, when her body was exhumed by the Bishop of Tournai and Noyon, and her relics, recognized at various times by ecclesiastical authority, are to be found in various cities of Belgium.
F.M. RUDGE (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Nobility.org Editorial comment: —
Prof. Plinio Correa de Oliveira mentioned once that it is wrong to think that there were no sinners in the Middle Ages. Of course there were. There were sinners then, just as there are sinners today.
Not only did the Middle Ages have sinners, it had great ones.
But the difference between the Middle Ages and today, Prof. de Oliveira observed, is that in the Middle Ages one had more than just great sinners. One also had great contritions, great repentances, great conversions, and great penances for lives of sin, and this is what we lack today.
(AUFIELD, ALPHILDE, HAWFIELD, OFFELDUS; alias BADGER).
Stone marking the site of the Tyburn tree on the traffic island at the junction of Edgware Road, Marble Arch and Oxford Street
Priest, born at Gloucestershire; martyred at Tyburn, 6 July, 1585. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge (1568). He was afterwards converted and came to Douai College in 1576, but the troubles there compelled him to intermit his studies for four years, and he was eventually ordained and sent forth from Reims in 1581. Here he was associated with the celebrated mission of Blessed Edmund Campion and Father Persons, and he persuaded the latter to take as his servant his brother Robert Alfield, then recently converted, but who afterwards became a traitor of note. Thomas seems to have laboured chiefly in the north, where after a time he was arrested and sent to the Tower of London, 2 May, 1582. Here he at first made a “glorious” confession, and even endured torture; but being afterwards sent back to the north, he fell, and went to the Protestant Church. Upon regaining liberty he was deeply penitent for his fall, and returned to Dr. Allen at Reims to gather new resolution. Returning again to England he was induced by the famous seaman John Davis (about March, 1584) to make for him offers — presumably insincere on Davis’s part — of services to Spain. In August of the same year Dr. Allen’s celebrated “True and modest Defence” appeared in answer to Burghley’s “Execution of Justice”. To circulate such books as Allen’s was of the greatest service to the Faith. Alfield undertook the dangerous task with the help of a dyer by the name of Thomas Webley, and of one Crabbe. After some months he was again arrested, and again sent to the Tower, whence he was removed to Newgate and tried. Crabbe renounced the pope and thereby saved his life; the other two were hanged. A reprieve had, for some unknown reason, been granted for Alfield, but it arrived too late.
CHALLONER, Missionary Priests (Edinburgh, 1877); GILLOW, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., s.v. Alfield, Thomas; KNOX, Letters of Cardinal Allen (London, 1882); there are also several references to Alfield in the Record Office, London, many of which are given by SIMPSON in The Rambler, new ser., VII, 420-431.
It was about this time that the king appeared to attach himself to Mademoiselle de La Motte-Houdancourt, maid of honor to the queen….
The Duchesse de Navailles, lady of honor to the queen, believed herself obliged, in the discharge of her duties, one of which is the care of the maids of honor, to oppose the king’s sentiments. She spoke to him often as a Christian and an honest woman. At first the king merely showed that he did not like these disagreeable little harangues; on other occasions also he seemed ill-pleased; but this was shown in so civil a manner that she thought she had no reason to fear his anger.
Some time went by in this way; but at last the desire for victory, and the annoyance that opposition causes in the breasts of men, particularly those of sovereigns, made themselves strongly felt in the king’s heart. He let Madame de Navailles know that she was exposing herself to the danger of displeasing him, and he commanded her, through Le Tellier, not to meddle any longer with the behavior of the queen’s maids of honor; and he even had several methods proposed to her of accommodating his wishes under honorable appearances. She answered the minister that it would not be fulfilling her obligations to cease to do her duty; and that so long as the king was pleased to leave her in her office, she should do the functions of it in the best manner possible to her.
Then the king became angry in good earnest, and told her she ought to fear what he could do against her; and that she had better refrain from disobeying him, out of consideration for her own interests. She replied that she had already considered them, and saw all the evils that the loss of his good graces might cause her; and then, enumerating herself her offices and those of her husband, she told him that the withdrawal of all those benefits could not change the resolution she had made to satisfy the duty of her conscience. She conjured him to seek elsewhere than in the household of the queen the objects of his pleasure and his inclinations, inasmuch as he appeared to have done so already in the person of Mademoiselle de La Vallière.
The king grumbled, and seemed vexed and out of temper; but that evening, or the next day, Madame de Navailles being in the queen’s bedroom, leaning against the silver balustrade, the king came up to her and, offering his hand with a gentle and favorable manner, asked for peace. He did this action not only as a great prince, striving to vanquish himself by triumphing over his weakness, but also as a very honest man who had too much sense to refuse to give his esteem to one who deserved it.
Madame de Navailles acted after this for quite a time without constraint, and the king seemed satisfied. He continued, however, to meet Mademoiselle de La Motte-Houdancourt at the rooms of the Comtesse de Soissons, who fostered this passion in the heart of the king as much as she could. She hated the Duchesse de Navailles…
The king’s heart was filled with the human follies which in youth make the false happiness of many an honorable man. He let himself be gently led by his passions, and chose to satisfy them. He was then at Saint-Germain, and had taken a habit of going to the apartment of the queen’s maids of honor. As the entrance to their chamber was forbidden by the sternness of the lady of honor, he often talked with Mademoiselle de La Motte-Houdancourt through a hole in the partition, which was made of pine boards.
I was at this time in Paris, and had gone to the Val-de-Grâce in attendance on the queen-mother. There I met my friend, Madame de Navailles, and saw her anxiety. She told me of the position in which the king placed her by his eagerness for the girl, and said that she had just consulted a learned and pious man as to her duty in the matter, whose answer had been decisive. He told her she was bound to lose all her establishments rather than fail in her duty by criminal compliance. She seemed to me resolved to follow that advice; but it was not without shedding a great many tears, and feeling the anguish in which these two great alternatives threw her. On her return to Saint-Germain, she learned by her spies that men of good appearance had been seen at night on the gutters and around certain chimneys which from the roof could lead adventurers into the apartment of the maids of honor. The zeal of the Duchesse de Navailles was now so great that, without checking herself, or seeking means to prevent with less scandal the thing she feared, she at once ordered all these passages closed with iron gratings. By this action she preferred her duty to her fortunes, and the fear of offending God was greater in her than the desire to be agreeable to the king, which in the eyes of the people of the great world is the greatest pleasure to be enjoyed at a Court, when it can be done innocently.
It is not amazing that the king was now in good earnest irritated against the Duchesse de Navailles, saying that he only pressed the adventure in order to annoy her, and that her boastful virtue could no longer be borne. But as he had in all things a marvelous power over himself, he did not show at this time all that he felt about the iron gratings, and concealed his vexation under the ridicule and contempt with which he spoke of them. But he did not forget them, and his remembrance brought grievous results on those who had dared to resist him…. He complained to the Duc de Navailles for not restraining his wife from doing what might be disagreeable to him, and blamed him for seeming to approve of her conduct. The queen-mother valued the feelings of both husband and wife, and often told the Duchesse de Navailles to continue to act virtuously, assuring her that some day the king would praise her for it….
Shortly after, the king, followed by the queens and all the Court, went to establish himself at Fontainebleau for part of the summer. It was there that, on a mere word which the Duc de Navailles said to him in speaking of a matter of little consequence relating to the cavalry, the king showed anger to him publicly, and the ruin of himself and wife was determined. They received commands (June, 1664) to give in their resignation of Havre-de-Grâce, of the lieutenancy of the light-horse cavalry, and the office of lady-of-honor.
Memoirs of Madame De Motteville on Anne of Austria and Her Court, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley (Boston: Hardy, Pratt & Company, 1902), Vol. III, pp. 277-281, 296-297).
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 7
Sts. Willibald and Winnebald (WUNIBALD, WYNNEBALD). Members of the Order of St. Benedict, brothers, natives probably of Wessex in England, the former, first Bishop of Eichstätt, born on 21 October, 700 (701); died on 7 July, 781 (787); the latter, Abbot of Heidenheim, born in 702; died on 18 (19) December, 761. They were the […]
St. Edelburga, Virgin, also called St. Æthelburh of Faremoutiers. She was daughter to Anna king of the East Angles, and out of a desire of attaining to Christian perfection, went into France, and there consecrated herself to God in the monastery of Faremoutier, in the forest of Brie, in the government of which she succeeded […]
Blessed Pope Benedict XI (Nicholas Boccasini) Born at Treviso, Italy, 1240; died at Perugia, 7 July, 1304. He entered the Dominican Order at the age of fourteen. After fourteen years of study, he became lector of theology, which office he filled for several years. In 1296 he was elected Master General of the Order. As […]
Francis Patrick and Peter Richard Kenrick Archbishops respectively of Baltimore, Maryland, and of St. Louis, Missouri. They were sons of Thomas Kenrick and his wife Jane, and were born in the older part of the city of Dublin, Ireland, the first-named on 3 December, 1797, and the second on 17 August, 1806. An uncle, Father […]
At Belém they were all kneeling at his side: Paulo da Gama, his brother, with Nicolau Coelho and Gonçalo Nunes, his other captains and their pilots, Pero de Alenquer, João de Coimbra, Pero Escolar, Afonso Gonçalves; and likewise the “secretaries” Diogo Dias, João de Sá and Álvaro de Braga. Bartolomeu Dias was also there, for […]
Pope Blessed Eugene III Bernardo Pignatelli, born in the neighbourhood of Pisa, elected 15 Feb., 1145; d. at Tivoli, 8 July, 1153. On the very day that Pope Lucius II succumbed, either to illness or wounds, the Sacred College, foreseeing that the Roman populace would make a determined effort to force the new pontiff to […]
By John Horvat II This year, we celebrate the 250th year of our nation’s birth. Over all those years, we have lived, suffered and triumphed together. We have known good times and bad. Overall, we have much to show for our efforts. Never has a more prosperous nation existed in history. It helps that God […]
The 1986 Hereditary Register of the United States lists 109 hereditary associations, the oldest one founded in 1637 and the most recent one in 1976. Of course, some are more dynamic than others. They are normally described as cultural, historical, preservationist, and the like. From a certain point of view, the most important of these […]
From the funeral oration for Philippe-Emanuel de Lorraine, Duke of Mercoeur and Penthièvre, delivered in the metropolitan church of Notre-Dame in Paris on April 27, 1602, by Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Bishop-Prince of Geneva and Doctor of the Church: “It is always God Who grants us salvation; He is its great architect, but He […]
A new student once asked President Lee for a copy of the rules of Washington College. Lee replied, “Young gentleman, we have no printed rules. We have but one rule here, and it is that every student must be a gentleman.” What did Lee mean when he used the word “gentleman?” Found among his papers […]
By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira Le Nouvel Aperçu, no. 6, July-August 1994, published in French by the TFP Association Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, author of Noblesse et élites traditionnelles dans les allocutions de Pie XII, answers our questions Question: Two hundred years after the French Revolution, do you think that French society still has something to […]
But her best-known deed, and the one which made the greatest sensation, was that which is known as the incident of Achères. It was at Fontainebleau, during the hunt again, on Oct 16, 1773. The deer, being at bay, took refuge in a small enclosure of the village of Achères. Finding no issue thence, and […]
Claiming to lead “the people,” Bacon defied the government at Jamestown and demanded reform…. Endangered by their leader’s vacillation, Berkeley’s supporters chose to scatter…. but not Richard. He had the courage of his convictions. Richard believed all social order, including Virginia’s, was imposed by God and should be maintained, no matter the “zealous inclination of […]
Washingtonian Social Etiquette The wife of the chief-justice, and not the wife of the President, is the first lady in the land, and takes precedence of all others. She holds receptions and receives calls, but she alone is excluded from all duty of returning calls. The life of a lady in society at Washington is […]
by Plinio Correa de Oliveira The reader might notice…an apparent contradiction among the pronouncements of the different popes who dealt with the trilogy Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. This impression fades the more the reader bears in mind that, properly considered in themselves—and therefore in the light of Catholic principles—each of these words designates concepts worthy of […]
In his classic work on the French Revolution, Pierre Gaxotte shows the abysmal difference that exists between the respect shows by the Ancien Regime for the legitimate liberties of the individual and the family and the strong inclination of the modern State to meddle in the intimate lives of its citizens, a tendency which appeared […]
In its first sense, an elite* is a group of fine persons who stand out as individuals from the mass of people constituting a community. Isolated individuals unrelated among themselves, do not constitute an elite. Rather, we speak of an elite only when its constituents interrelate with sufficient vitality and diligence so as to create […]
With the installation of the aging Buchanan as President and the coming of young Lord Napier as British minister, society in Washington had taken on a brilliant luster. The lovely, cultivated Lady Napier was perhaps the most popular foreign hostess the capital had known, while the President’s niece, Harriet Lane, was as competent as any […]
The Inequality of Rights and Power Proceeds from the Very Author of Nature From Leo XIII’s encyclical Quod Apostolici muneris, of December 28, 1878: For, indeed, although the socialists, stealing the very Gospel itself with a view to deceive more easily the unwary, have been accustomed to distort it so as to suit their […]
1) Intellectual requisites of a leader The exercise of authority requires certain qualities. In the first place, the leader must have a clear and firm notion of the objective and the common good of the group he directs. Then he needs a lucid knowledge of the means and procedures to attain this good. These intellectual […]
This same union of material and spiritual dimensions is not limited to highly specialized projects like cathedrals; it can also be seen in products found in everyday life. The spiritual dimension introduced added value, culture, and warmth to the most common things. About such production, Lewis Mumford writes, “No article, even of vulgar daily use, […]
by Luiz Sérgio Solimeo We are witnessing a surge of popular outrage and even revulsion against an onslaught of ideologically liberal changes affecting the lives of millions of Americans. This outrage is fueled, among other things, by the following: • decisions of activist judges favoring homosexualist or private property-denying socialist agendas and showing complete disregard for […]
At the beginning of the revolutionary process that effected the independence of the thirteen colonies, the majority of the colonists sought neither separation from England nor a change in the form of government. Almost until the end of the process that led to armed revolt, Americans merely claimed rights and liberties considered common to all […]
The traditional elites in the United States, to preserve their aristocratic character in a world where non-aristocratic habits increasingly prevailed, formed exclusive associations in the intimacy of which they could leisurely display their high bearing and traditional customs. Writing in 1960, social historian Cleveland Amory explained: “In our own day the Aristocrat can best be […]
Marie Antoinette’s heart was ever compassionate. One day as she was riding through the forest of Fontainebleau in her carriage she came across an old man who had been wounded by a buck. His family was with him but had no means to take him home. The queen of France immediately descended from her carriage […]
by Antonio Borrelli Maria Clotilde of Savoy is one of the most striking examples of how to achieve union with Christ while remaining in the world in environments which by their nature lead instead to distraction, pride of power, luxury and a worldly lifestyle, things once usually abundant in the royal and imperial courts of […]
By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira On the right, (above) we have the Servant of God Maria Clotilde of Savoy (1843-1911), outstanding for her birth, her grand personal distinction, as well as for her virtue. She will probably be elevated to the honors of the altars, since the cause of her beatification is already under way. […]
In addressing the question of elites in the United States, we should distinguish between authentic and inauthentic elites. Inauthentic or artificial elites do not have a natural affinity with the best traditions and the deepest yearnings of the American people; indeed, at times, they oppose them. As indicated in the sociological studies previously cited, traditional […]
Simon de Montfort An Earl of Leicester, date of birth unknown, died at Toulouse, 25 June, 1218. Simon (IV) de Montfort was descended from the lords of Montfort l’Amaury in Normandy, being the second son of Simon (III), and Amicia, daughter of Robert de Beaumont, third Earl of Leicester. Having succeeded his father as Baron […]
St. Anthelm of Belley (1107 – 1178) Prior of the Carthusian Grand Chartreuse and bishop of Belley. He was born near Chambéry in 1107. He would later receive an ecclesiastical benefice in the area of Belley. When he was thirty years old, he resigned from this position to become a Carthusian monk at Portes. Only […]
St. Cyril of Alexandria Doctor of the Church. St. Cyril has his feast in the Western Church on the 28th of January; in the Greek Menaea it is found on the 9th of June, and (together with St. Athanasius) on the 18th of January. He seems to have been of an Alexandrian family and was […]
St. Irenaeus Bishop of Lyons, and Father of the Church. Information as to his life is scarce, and in some measure inexact. He was born in Proconsular Asia, or at least in some province bordering thereon, in the first half of the second century; the exact date is controverted, between the years 115 and 125, […]
Pope Saint Paul I Date of birth unknown; died at Rome, 28 June, 767. He was a brother of Pope Stephen II. They had been educated for the priesthood at the Lateran palace. Stephen entrusted his brother, who approved of the pope’s course in respect to King Pepin, with many important ecclesiastical affairs, among others […]
St. John Fisher Cardinal, Bishop of Rochester, and martyr; born at Beverley, Yorkshire, England, 1459 (?1469); died 22 June, 1535. John was the eldest son of Robert Fisher, merchant of Beverley, and Agnes his wife. His early education was probably received in the school attached to the collegiate church in his native town, whence in […]
St. Thomas More Saint, knight, Lord Chancellor of England, author and martyr, born in London, 7 February, 1477-78; executed at Tower Hill, 6 July, 1535. He was the sole surviving son of Sir John More, barrister and later judge, by his first wife Agnes, daughter of Thomas Graunger. While still a child Thomas was sent […]
St. Alban First martyr of Britain, suffered c. 304. The commonly received account of the martyrdom of St. Alban meets us as early as the pages of Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History” (Bk. I, chs. vii and xviii). According to this, St. Alban was a pagan living at Verulamium (now the town of St. Albans in Hertfordshire), […]
St. Etheldreda Queen of Northumbria; born (probably) about 630; died at Ely, 23 June, 679. While still very young she was given in marriage by her father, Anna, King of East Anglia, to a certain Tonbert, a subordinate prince, from whom she received as morning gift a tract of land locally known as the Isle […]
Feudalism This term is derived from the Old Aryan pe’ku, hence Sanskrit pacu, “cattle”; so also Lat. pecus (cf. pecunia); Old High German fehu, fihu, “cattle”, “property”, “money”; Old Frisian fia; Old Saxon fehu; Old English feoh, fioh, feo, fee. It is an indefinable word for it represents the progressive development of European organization during […]
St. John the Baptist The principal sources of information concerning the life and ministry of St. John the Baptist are the canonical Gospels. Of these St. Luke is the most complete, giving as he does the wonderful circumstances accompanying the birth of the Precursor and items on his ministry and death. St. Matthew’s Gospel stands […]
At age 16, George Washington copied out these 110 rules for morals and good manners and the manuscript is preserved at the Library of Congress. While some believe they were authored by Washington himself, it appears that they were originally written by French Jesuits in 1595. They made their first appearance in English in 1640, […]
