CatholicaMessingham, Florilegium (1624), ex Surio/Auberto Miraeo — the anonymous life of St Laurence O’Toole (Lorcán Ua Tuathail), abbot of Glendalough and archbishop of Dublin (d. 1180 at Eu, Normandy), by a brother of the Augustinian congregation of Eu; followed by the canonisation bull of Honorius III (1225). Translated into modern British English.
Benediction and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving, honour and power and strength be to our God, who makes fruitful His spouse the Church with a wondrous progeny — that she be never barren but ever gracious with a wonderful fruitfulness: bringing forth in the time of persecution the roses of martyrs, and in the tranquillity of peace the lilies of confessors — that the spouse may answer her beloved, who is white and ruddy [Cant. 5:10], in the redness of roses and the whiteness of lilies. For not in the outgoings of paradise were there pomegranates alone, but the fruits of apples are joined with them; nor nard alone, but spikenard with saffron [Cant. 4:13–14]; and the womb, or fruitfulness, of the spouse is compared not only to a heap of wheat but is said also to be set about with lilies. The man also who stood among the myrtle trees, mounted upon a red horse, was followed not only by red horses but by white [Zech. 1:8]; and from between the two mountains of brass there came forth not only a chariot of red horses but a chariot of white horses also [Zech. 6:1–3]. The Lord also, who made Arcturus with Arcturus, made not only the Orions but the Hyades [Job 9:9]. By Arcturus of the seven stars is signified the Church, radiant with the sevenfold Spirit’s light; the Orions, which rising in winter stir the storms, show forth the holy martyrs who, arising in the winter of infidelity, stirred against themselves the tempests of persecutions; the Hyades, the rainy stars rising in spring, signify the confessors appearing in the time of tranquillity, who watered men’s minds with the showers of doctrine. As therefore the Lord made with Arcturus both the Orions and the Hyades, so the Lord from the Church His spouse — that she be never barren but ever fruitful — sometimes begets martyrs, and at times also confessors; among whom, as an illustrious progeny of holy mother Church, shone the glorious priest of Christ and bishop of the church of Dublin, the blessed man Laurence — whose memory remains in benediction, noble in birth and distinguished in virtues, famous in deeds and magnificent in signs. For the Lord made him like to the saints in glory, and glorified him in the sight of kings. His life and virtues I — though unworthy, yet not an undevout little servant, joined in fraternal fellowship to the holy congregation of Eu — have taken care, for the praise of God and the glory of the holy confessor, for the stirring up of the devotion of readers, in a compendious style, the grace of the Holy Spirit invoked, to treat; and let these things which I have said by way of preface suffice. For it is foolish to flow on before the history, and to gird oneself up in the very narration of the history.
Chapter One #
The pontiff of God, Laurence, beloved of God and men, sprang with illustrious birth from the island of Ireland in the parts of the West. He was born of a noble lineage by the marriage of a king’s son and a queen’s daughter. His father in the mother tongue was called Muirchertach Ua Tuathail — in Latin, Mauritius; his mother In-Ibhrien, that is in her own tongue “daughter of a prince,” in the domestic speech. And the father indeed was of so great nobility that no small part of Ireland, which is called Leinster, pertained to him by hereditary right. Although herein there is least of all matter for glorying, yet neither is it altogether to be passed in silence: since therein is proved the greater virtue of that man, in that he was the more thoroughly freed from worldly vanity. To his parents after a manifold progeny the blessed Laurence was given as the last son; but although by birth of the flesh he was the latest-born, yet in that which pertains to the Spirit he shone forth as the first.
Chapter Two #
When the boy was born, his father — who had been at enmity with the earl of Kildare, Donatus by name — being afterwards appeased into a bond of peace and of friendship to be kept mutually, sent his son to the same earl that he might cause him to be baptized. And as the servants were carrying the boy there, there came a certain man who, as it is read of Mesphino, was held a prophet among them; for he was proved to foretell to men very nearly all things truly. He therefore, when he had learned the cause of the journey and what the boy’s father had commanded, at once at the prompting of the Spirit uttered an Irish verse, whose sense is this: “This boy shall be glorious and magnificent both on earth and in heaven, and shall profit many both rich and poor — and Laurence shall be his name; for so I bid him be called.” And when the astonished servants answered that they dared not disobey the father’s command, the seer said: “This night I will enter the father’s house, and I will render you sufficiently excused concerning the change of name.” They therefore pursuing the journey undertaken brought the boy to the city of Kildare, the seat of St Brigid; where, received by the earl with joy and baptized at once by the bishop of the city, he was called Laurence, as the seer had foretold. And in the foretold prophecy concerning the holy boy, the name also seems not without cause to have been prophetically chosen — the merit and the reward at once insinuated. For as Laurence (Laurentius) is named from the laurel (laurus), on account of the laurel’s perpetual greenness, it signifies the saint’s faith working through love — and so indicates the merit. If from laus resculata (“praise deferred”), it pertains to the reward. For to this saint both laus (praise) and aureola (a little crown of gold) are due: laurea, as to a triumphator — since “the life of man upon earth is a warfare” and “he shall not be crowned save he strive lawfully” [2 Tim. 2:5]; aureola, as to a preacher. And so his future greatness on earth is signified as regards merit, and in the same manner his glorious laurel in heaven is predestined for him as regards reward.
Chapter Three #
The boy therefore grew, and began to be a youth of good disposition; and being well nurtured, as was fitting, up to his tenth year, he profited above all his coevals with wonderful increase. But it befell that his father incurred the greatest hatred of King Dermot [Diarmait Mac Murchada], and feared from the furious king’s threats not only for himself but for his whole dominion, that it would be destroyed. Fearing therefore and dreading the perils of wars and dissensions, having taken counsel with his own, of the four sons he had he deputed the youngest, Laurence, as a hostage of peace. But the inhuman king, dealing cruelly with the boy, ordered him to be carried off bound into a stony and barren land where a meagre crop denied food — where he was deprived of the fruit of grain, wine, and oil; where “the little one asked bread, and there was none to break it for him” [Lam. 4:4]. There the holy boy, abiding some while, suffered manifold injury from hunger and nakedness — so that through the sparingness of those things which pertain to food, and the shivering blast of the north wind, he came to the squalour of beggars, and, stricken from the sole of his foot to the crown, in a certain manner wholly wasted away in the flesh. Which when it came to his father’s ears by the report of certain men, he, without delay, having seized twelve of King Dermot’s soldiers, threatened to slay them at once unless his son — over whom his paternal bowels had been moved — were speedily restored. Hearing this, Dermot, since he knew that his land was hostile, chose rather to restore the boy than to lose his soldiers; yet he restored him not to his father, but to a certain bishop of Glendalough — and this on terms of peace, that he should not restore him to his father unless his own soldiers were first returned to him. The soldiers therefore were sent to the bishop, who took care to send them back to the king; but the boy he kept with him for twelve days, and committed him to his chaplain to take charge of him who had fallen among thieves, like the good Samaritan. He indeed received the boy kindly and, like a prudent host, taking care no less of his spirit than of his flesh, studied not only to expend what might heal the body of its weaknesses, but also, supererogating for the cherishing of his spirit, in that so brief space of time instructed the little Laurence in the Lord’s Prayer and the first rudiments of the faith — that is, in the Creed, as he used to say. Thus the boy, recovering from his infirmities, made strong to endure greater things if the Lord should bid, having suffered exile for his country’s peace, returning from exile at twelve years of age, restored peace to the people and joy to the whole land.
Chapter Four #
After the twelve days, his father arriving solicited the bishop to cast lots to inquire which of his sons he should ascribe to the clerical militia and dedicate to the divine services. But the boy Laurence, already chosen by the election of divine predestination, hearing this, laughed and said: “There is no need, father, of casting lots. I, if you permit, of my own will choose the lot of the clerics” — as if already feeling what the Psalmist says: “The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup” [Ps. 15:5] — “but the rest, as vain, I leave to the lovers of the world.” And the boyish mind, hearing with wonder and sweetness — the father smiled; the bishop and all who heard wondered and rejoiced that a boy so tender, in contempt of the temporal inheritance which might have come to him, chose Christ for his inheritance with alacrity. The father speedily consenting and rejoicing, taking his right hand and despising as it were the dregs, offered him to God and devoted him to St Coemgen [Kevin], patron of the cathedral church of that region — commending him nevertheless to the care of the aforementioned bishop, that he might show him forth, who had of his own accord devoted himself to the divine ministry, a fit minister in letters and morals.
Chapter Five #
Given therefore to the holy Church to serve her perpetually — as it were another Samuel by Elkanah his father — he was under the bishop as under Eli a disciple, so long as the same bishop lived, who taught him by word alike and by example. But He who had chosen him, the Lord, taught him more fully in the school of the Holy Spirit, and adorned him with a manifold variety of virtues. He profited therefore in age and wisdom, and profited also in grace with God and men. For the grace of God was in him, and the natural increases of the body followed the augmentations of graces. And he was in heart fixed, gazing on heaven, renouncing the world and worldly things — fervent in hearing, retentive in repeating, prudent in discerning, solicitous in commending what he heard to tenacious memory. For “in the law of the Lord was his will, and in it he meditated day and night” [Ps. 1:2]. And the Lord gave him a heart to precepts, and the law of life and discipline — that he might afterwards teach Jacob the testament of the Lord and His judgements Israel. And the Lord’s elect, Laurence, once severed from earthly parents like fat from flesh, now lost his spiritual father — the religious man, the bishop of Glendalough, taken before him by inevitable death; at whose decease condoling like a pious son, he embraced the supreme Father of all with a greater ardour of devotion than before — thinking that everyone who is a partaker of sadness is a stranger to the word of justice. Therefore he bore himself an old man in morals, a stranger to all the wantonness of youth. There met in him honesty of manners and knowledge of letters; and from conjoined knowledge the sanctity of his life shone more splendidly, and that very honesty of virtues, joined to the Lord, consecrated the knowledge itself.
Chapter Six #
The Lord therefore, wishing in His servant to prove his skill in the talents committed, when he was destitute of the solace of his patron, took care at twenty-five years of age — the clergy and people of the church of Glendalough asking it — to promote him to be abbot. The name of this church, from its first foundation, was celebrated and famous throughout all Ireland. For its patron, blessed Coemgen, sprung of royal stock, is read to have shone in it of old with many miracles above the other saints of Ireland. In this church there was both a bishopric and an abbacy; but the abbacy — as regards temporal riches, with rare exception — was far wealthier than the bishopric, since there the people from of old chose nobles first of all to be a protection of the whole region. Therefore blessed Laurence, humbly administering the received rank of this dignity, began to exercise himself more and more in the worthiness of an honourable life, in chastity and sobriety, the divine grace going before. In the largess of alms and the other works of mercy he seemed, as was fitting, a minister rather than a prelate — that he might say with truth that he ever had that care of the poor: “They have made you a leader; be not lifted up, but be among them as one of them” [Ecclus. 32:1] — not elated by rule but withdrawn by solicitude; not proud of nobility of race, for it behoves to rely on virtue, not blood; not insolently swelling with the gifts of virtues or graces. In the first four years of his administration the servant of God had no rest. For there was in that whole region an intolerable want of things which denied men even the necessaries of life; but the scourge raged most of all upon the poor. Wherein the man of God (as he was greatly compassionate and bore pious bowels toward the afflicted) laboured to succour the needy with lavish hand according to his abundance — to none at least failing in the affection of commiseration, attributing with the will of a benign mind to Him who is omnipotent, that he might obey the Gospel. From false brethren also he sustained grave persecutions — who, kindled with the torches of envy, gnawed his sincere life with the tooth of detraction; but feeling like blind men the wall, they found no door whereby to enter to his just reproof. The dawn appeared among them, but they, blinded by the malice of envy, as blessed Job says, reckoned it the shadow of death. Their livid malice of death the man of God manfully overcame both by the caution of dissimulation and by the charitable bestowal of benefits.
Chapter Seven #
There was also in that land a certain robber, noble by birth but degenerating in this — that he bore himself the chief of cut-purses and plunderers, who, stealing from all at his pleasure, laid snares more especially for the subjects of abbot Laurence, raging now with fraud, now with open violence. For on a certain day that detestable man fell upon the abbot’s men who were carrying honey and grain from the neighbourhood for the relief of the people’s want; and rushing upon them with unspeakable fury, slew the laymen, stripped the clerics, and did violence to the women. Which when it was reported to the man of God, stricken with great grief of mind, he went up into the house of God and would take no food. For although he was strong in a numerous multitude of clients and carnal friends, he presumed not with proud rashness on divine vengeance, but turning rather to humble prayer, humbly besought the Lord mercifully to free the people from those robbers. For in the meekness of his faith the Lord had made him holy. From where he also said: “Vengeance is yours, O Lord; you know better the time of retribution and the measure” — which was fulfilled not long after his prayer. For on the third day that iniquitous robber, who was chief of the band of thieves, came by the Lord’s permission into the hands of certain men, who, having seized him — not daring, without the king’s licence, to deprive him of life, chiefly because he was said to be of royal stock — sent him away deprived of his eyes; who also was slain not long after.
Chapter Eight #
At the same time also three great chiefs of robbers, who presided over many malefactors, gathered to themselves three companies of satellites, and often inflicted manifold molestations and damages upon the religious persons and the churches pertaining to the protection of abbot Laurence of St Coemgen. On a certain day therefore, in the way which holy Coemgen is said to have built with his own hands across the marshes and springs of water, while they lay in wait in their dens should occasion of plundering offer itself — soon they perceived four priests passing by with a great crowd of men, who bore the Eucharist publicly with them as a safe viaticum and secure guide, as was then the custom of many. Rushing fiercely upon them, they stripped the priests with sacrilegious hand, showing no reverence to the price of our redemption — the Eucharist, that is; but rather handling it irreverently, presumed to touch and tear it with unspeakable teeth, and struck the rest even to death with sorely stripes. Hearing of this outrage, abbot Laurence, smitten with no small grief of heart — imputing to his own sins the injuries done to his subjects, and the more since he was called the father of the fatherland — in this consideration, not elated with pride of high honour, nobility of race, or secular power, humbly turned to prayer; and preferring that the sword of persecution should be turned against himself rather than against his people, enjoined upon himself a fast — that for one natural day he should take neither food nor drink; and entering the church with his clerics, besought the Lord without ceasing, like a faithful protector, for the deliverance of his own. But not long after, the divine vengeance overtook those sacrilegious men. For on the eighth day their aforementioned chiefs were seized by certain of the king’s ministers; and although all were taken far from the city of blessed Laurence, yet one of them — as if no gallows could be found elsewhere — by the compulsion of the divine will was led to the city of Glendalough, and on a most eminent rock, exposed to the eyes of those entering and leaving the church, was hanged and perished — that there they might acknowledge the just judgement of God where it was certain he had wickedly sinned against the liberty of the Church. The remaining two, his associates in wickedness, were hanged to death in that same way where they had perpetrated the sacrilege. They being removed, the tranquillity of the fatherland and the security of wayfarers was restored, and God gave rest to His servant from all enemies. Thus indeed the Lord made him like the saints in glory, and magnified him in the sight of his enemies, and in his words appeased monsters; He glorified him in the sight of His people — and the city of Glendalough, once of great name as aforementioned, irradiated with so great a star, attained no small honour and reverence in that whole region.
Chapter Nine #
These four years therefore being thus accomplished, peace was restored to the whole region, and a copious plenty of things marvellously supplied the want of the former time. From where abbot Laurence, fervent in charity and all girt to the works of charity, abundantly distributed the store of things brought to him for the nourishment of the poor and the building of churches; and when his wealth, although very great, did not answer to the expense of his benignity and charity, he distributed to the poor the whole treasure of his father which he had received to keep; and whatever his hand could find, liberally scattering it in manifold offices of charity, he transmitted through the hands of the needy to the heavens — that as of the holy levite and martyr Laurence, whose name he had received not without presage of merits, so also of him it might truly be said: “He has dispersed, he has given to the poor; his righteousness remains for ever” [Ps. 111:9]. Certainly if the elect of God amid the world’s scandals, amid the enticements of the ancient serpent and the blandishments of frail flesh, had been in anything at fault (for “there is not a just man upon earth that does good and sins not” [Eccl. 7:20]), the affection of charity which was eminent in him could cover a multitude of sins. For “charity covers all offences,” as Solomon’s proverb has it [Prov. 10:12]; and “if he has sinned much, it is forgiven him because he has loved much” [Lk. 7:47]. Moreover he healed many infirmities both by the laying on of hands and by the healthful breath of his mouth; and all who were ill, laying his hand on them, he made confess what they had previously concealed.
Chapter Ten #
Meanwhile it befell that the bishop of Glendalough who then presided came to the last day of his life, and the cathedral see was vacant by his death. It therefore being so destitute of a pastor by a common breath, the holy abbot Laurence was asked by all with great instance and concord for the throne of pontifical honour. He, after his custom, thinking humbly of himself, resisted the petitioning people, providently and wisely pleading his immature age. Nor did his humble excuse satisfy the devout instance of the petitioners — until the divine providence stood in the way which says, as it is written: “Withdraw, when a stronger calls you; for from there He will call you the more” [Is. 11:13?]. Which was done in blessed Laurence’s time. For the Lord, reserving him for greater and more useful things — because he had been a faithful and prudent servant over the talents committed to him, and he, constrained not by pusillanimity but led by humble fear, refused to be made bishop — afterwards honoured him with the bishopric of the island. For not long after, Gregory, archbishop of Dublin, was gathered to his fathers; and his see being vacant, very many blinded by ambition, swelling with nobility of birth and knowledge of letters, reckoned themselves worthy of that prelacy. But the Lord drove them back from the honour as unworthy — He who resists the proud — and to the humble and meek Laurence procured such favour with the electors that when they treated of choosing a pastor, suddenly by the breath of the Holy Spirit their minds were moved by the celebrated memory of abbot Laurence. For by the nobility both of birth and of morals he was most illustrious among them; and according to the apostle’s doctrine admonishing Timothy and Titus about constituting a bishop [1 Tim. 3; Tit. 1], he was a blameless steward of God: “not proud, not angry, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, but hospitable, benign, prudent, sober, just, continent, holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught” — that he might diligently offer himself an example of good works in integrity and gravity, that he who was on the contrary part might fear, and every mouth of them that speak iniquity might be stopped, since they had nothing evil to say of him. Therefore, all discord being soon lulled, the Holy Spirit forging the divided wills into one, they chose blessed Laurence to be archbishop and pastor — but greatly unwilling, long resisting, and weighing the burden in the honour. For burden bows down the weak, but honour lifts up the faint-hearted. In him, however, ambition did not lighten the burden of honour; rather the weight of the burden proved the honour to be declined. For he weighed the mountains in the balance and the hills in the scales — which few do. Admiring whose fewness Isaiah cries: “Who has weighed the mountains in the balance, and the hills in scales?” [Is. 40:12]. If we weigh mountains in their own weight, their weight is greater than their height: for their height can be surmounted and trodden underfoot, but who shall bear their weight? By mountains moreover we understand dignities, which have more of burden than of honour — which may indeed be despised, but who can sustain them? The hills also, if we weigh them in the balance, as great is their ascent as their descent will be found. So also in dignities, which are signified by hills: one ascends to prelacy, one descends to servitude. The weighing soul of the holy man therefore pondered mountains in the balance and hills in the scale — burden in the honour, and servitude in the prelacy; and so it happened that the consideration of servitude and burden turned away all appetite of prelacy and honour from his soul. Yet at last, trusting in the Lord, for desire of fruit he took up the labour; and by Gelasius, primate of all Ireland [Gilla Meic Liac, abp. of Armagh], in the church of Dublin itself, many bishops being present, the people giving thanks, he was consecrated.
Chapter Eleven #
Blessed Laurence therefore, having attained the pontifical rank, laboured with diligent zeal to be to his subjects a form of sanctity and an exemplar of all honesty — lest while preaching or teaching, a resisting conscience should gainsay him, but rather the sanctity of his life commend the preaching. For it befits the elder, and him who is first in the church, so to pronounce the word of knowledge according to doctrine that he impede not the music. But the melody of music is impeded if the Lord is praised in the sound of the trumpet and is not praised in the psaltery and harp [Ps. 150]. Let the Lord therefore be praised in the trumpet-sound of preaching, and let the psaltery be consonant and the harp accord — that there be one harmony or consonance of preaching, which is understood by the trumpet, and of the execution of the ten commandments which the ten-stringed psaltery signifies, and likewise of the mortification of the flesh which the harp signifies. Therefore as soon as blessed Laurence was invested with the stole of glory, he strove to be crowned also with the vessels of virtue. He girt himself then with the zone of justice; about his feet, that is, the femoralia, he set the hair-shirt — and putting on the shoulder-piece, a rough hair tunic reaching to the feet, he not only wore it but ate with it — by the asperity of which haircloth and the multitude of vermin growing in it the flesh of the holy pontiff was pierced; so that from the inner ardour of the spirit, the flame breaking out outwardly, his very flesh was cooked as in a frying-pan. And so, blunting nail with nail and repressing stings with stings, he ploughed his own little body — that is, from the flesh, with the primal curse laid upon it, he strove to cast out the thorns and thistles, that he might heap up a store of fruits in the barn for the future. So enkindling himself, the excellent shepherd laboured with all his heart to praise the Lord — assiduous and devout in the divine offices; and the more diligently he decorated the house of the Lord that he might amplify the sanctity of the divine cult, and, that he might show the due reverence to the altars, he took care to ordain fit men to the sacred ministry of the Lord — lest on account of the servants the services should displease the Lord, as it is written: “Offer you not vain sacrifice; incense is an abomination to me. The new moon and the sabbath and the festivals I will not bear: your ways are wicked” [Is. 1:13]. And therefore the holy and God-fearing man, a lover of honesty and a zealot for religion, gave diligence and applied industry to transform the secular clerics who were in the church of Dublin — instituted canons — into regular canons both in outer and inner man for the better. And that this might be confirmed by the supreme pontiff’s authority, he sent two of his canons to Rome for the use and custom of the Arroasian order; by whom the holy man’s study was fulfilled. And he made regular singers stand about the altar to praise the Lord’s name; and gave splendour in the celebrations, and made sweet modes in their sound.
Chapter Twelve #
That he might war the more securely for the Lord his God, ordaining soldiers of the spiritual contest and fortifying himself with their arms and ensigns, he received the habit of the regular canons and the norm of living, and studied to live suitably to it. For almost continually, when it was permitted him, he ate with those canons in the refectory; kept silence in fitting places and hours; entered the choir with them at matins nearly every night, and celebrated with them vigils and the praises of the Lord. And knowing it is written that “the vigil of honesty dries up the flesh,” with fervent devotion he watched in prayers and attenuated that flesh. For matins being finished and the rest returning to their beds, he remained in the church — though not ever alone, yet solitary — and went as was his custom before the sign of the Lord’s passion, where as in a mirror of life he contemplated the serpent lifted up on the stock of the cross [Jn. 3:14], and by his sweet memory was healed of his own sicknesses; and sang to the Lord with trembling — now standing, now sitting, now also bending the knees — resonating the whole psalter. It was affirmed moreover by the religious brethren who were more often insistent in prayers than the rest that the holy man held sweetest converse with the aforementioned cross — for which many marvels are related, frequented by the great veneration of pilgrims from ancient times. And day being made, he went out into the cemetery, and there walking awhile sang through the commendation of the faithful departed.
Chapter Thirteen #
But lest he should be ignorant of that of Ecclesiasticus, that “assiduous operations bow down the body” [Ecclus.], he exposed his flesh — dried up with vigils and fastings and ploughed with the asperity of the hair-shirt as aforementioned — to the lashes, drawing back the haircloth a little; and he wished to be scourged with rods at least once a day by some familiar who could keep silence. And by confession he shook off, the little brooms of the rods being adjoined, whatever dust of the world might cleave to the feet of his holy soul. But although with such chastisements of rods and vocations of the flesh he restrained the malice of the flesh, yet in all things he applied the measure of discretion, and scourged not the flesh without judgement on account of that saying of the Wise: “If you have no discretion in the scourge, you shall be confounded; for without judgement nothing is done” [Prov.?]. For the apostle, inviting us to the perfect mortification of the flesh, when he had premised “I beseech you by the mercy of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God,” added “your reasonable service” [Rom. 12:1] — namely according to measure, that nothing be done in excess. From flesh foods he abstained ever after he became a canon, and at all times from carnal desires. On the sixth day of the week he fed on bread alone and water — and frequently on that day took neither bread nor anything of bodily refreshment, fed only on the bread and water of sorrow for compassion of the cross of Jesus Christ, with whom he crucified himself in spirit. Often also he used to eat bread mixed with ashes, that he might say with the Psalmist: “I have eaten ashes as it were bread, and mingled my drink with weeping” [Ps. 101:10].
Chapter Fourteen #
He was moreover very liberal — hospitable and discerning not only toward the poor but also the rich, receiving each one as it befitted, succouring the want of the poor and inviting the rich by his benefits to the exercise of works of charity; so that rich and poor alike received from the one man not only temporal succour but also spiritual counsel. For so it became a good shepherd to feed his flock. In all things whereby he might excite the people’s favour he bore himself warily, shunning vainglory and wolfish hypocrisy as a pest. For though a macerator of his own flesh and a lover of abstinence, he showed himself splendid to his guests not only in breads but in variety of dishes and various kinds of drink; no, even sometimes sitting down with them amid many feasts, taking the coarser foods or feigning to eat, by a certain pious simulation he showed himself common to them. And — what was an argument of wondrous prudence — he was often believed to drink wine when it was not wine but water so tinged with a slight admixture of wine that it was reckoned wine by the guests. And every day he caused to be fed in his sight sixty or forty or at least thirty poor — besides the other poor of whom we shall speak below.
Chapter Fifteen #
The holy man was moreover of a very elegant nature. His dress was neither too neat nor too mean, but of a moderate and becoming habit. His outer garb, on account of the rude and servile people, bore before it the authority and reverence of the pontiff; the middle, that of a regular canon; next the flesh, the hair-shirt and penitent’s tunic. By these and other things the blessed pontiff, like a wise painter, first gave himself as an exemplar of good works in the likeness of a picture, and sculpted the seals of sanctity in his subjects, and varied his picture by his assiduity; and judged the congregation in the law of the Lord, and was proved in his faith and found faithful in his words. He turned the night into day, and his vigil profited the work; and in his days he strengthened the house of the Lord and corroborated the temple, and prevailed to amplify the city of God, and attained glory in the conversion of the nation. For in his days that new plantation of God prospered, that it might be true which is written: “The Lord has blessed the whole house of Israel.”
Chapter Sixteen #
It is not to be wholly concealed that when the blessed man was thus translated from the lesser office of abbot to the pontiff, the aforementioned king Dermot violently constituted a certain cleric as his successor, and against the wonted custom whereby both clergy and people there used to elect their abbot, irreverently intruded him into the abbacy of Glendalough, them crying out against it. But he, that the evangelical word might not go unfulfilled — “every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up” [Mt. 15:13] — was afterwards removed from the office with disgrace. And the right of election being restored to clergy and people, they concordantly elected a certain nephew of St Laurence, Thomas by name — a youth illustrious in morals and learning, and the more illustrious for the holy pontiff’s converse and fellowship — to be abbot of the church of Glendalough. In which deed the Lord was not wanting to His servant, of whom the scripture says: “The good man leaves heirs, sons and grandsons”; and again: “In the seed of the saints a good inheritance remains, and the seed of their grandchildren shall stand in the testament.” Him therefore, since he loved him — not for kinship of flesh but rather for charity of spirit — beyond the rest with especial love, and securely committed to him even the secrets of his life, he began from then on to frequent the city of Glendalough the more often, the more gladly he watched over it. For near the city, at three miles’ distance, was a secluded place consecrated by St Coemgen’s frequentation, which he chose the more specially above others inasmuch as he studied the more zealously to imitate the holy man’s virtues. That place is set not in the sight of men but in a wondrous solitude. For on one side a rock thirty cubits high, hanging from above, denies passage to this place; on the other a lake of no small circuit, descending as many cubits in depth, spreads out no great water in its own [?]. Nor is the place without the sweetness of a spring: for from the same rock a sounding rill bursts forth, pouring sweetest waters — furnishing no small solace to the dweller in the place, ministering continual greenness to the conifers or herbs; and by the same rill there is found a wondrous willow bearing apples most sweet even to the feast of St Mark in winter, so that they could scarcely be eaten even then; but as the Lord’s Nativity approaches they quickly ripen, to be reserved for the sick alone as a medicinal remedy. And the lower place, lying beneath that hollow, receives not the sun’s light from the twelfth of the Kalends of October [20 Sept.] to the eighth of the Kalends of March [22 Feb.]; no, a certain part of it is never illuminated by the sun’s rays.
Chapter Seventeen #
In that hollow therefore, which St Coemgen is said to have made with his own hands, blessed Laurence, frequently withdrawing, busied himself devotedly with the delights of contemplation, least of all solicitous about his body. But Thomas, not willing that he should want even in great necessity, supplied him bread and water only three times a week — sometimes also a little food — refreshed as it were with the sweetness of divine contemplation like another Moses. Abiding there therefore for forty-day periods, he admitted the company of no men save the aforementioned abbot, his nephew, who ministered to him such food as we have said; and to him he referred the causes and business of the people, and to the people the holy priest’s answers and counsels. The approach to him was by a ladder, whose lower part was set in water while the upper was held to the rock. Nor was it grievous to the holy man to go out from that same place if, urgent business requiring, he perceived it necessary for his subjects; but like another Moses in the entering in and going out of the tabernacle, a Rachel and a Lia, a Mary and a Martha, according to place and time, he changed various countenances in himself. So he fulfilled the office of a faithful shepherd and prudent rector — neither neglecting action for the instance of contemplation, nor postponing what was to be done for the pursuit of contemplation. And he seemed to the barbarous people to have horns after Moses’ likeness, from his frequent colloquy with the Lord. For his speech burned like a torch, darting fiery rays; you would have said goads and nails driven in deep. The holy man went through the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left [2 Cor. 6:7], cutting down the bloody battles of vices, incessantly preaching the word of God and doing the work of an evangelist — “in season, out of season; reproving, beseeching, rebuking with all patience and doctrine” [2 Tim. 4:2], lest the blood of the people committed to him and perishing should be required at his hand. For the people of Dublin was being led to death, or rather had already perished in the infamous charnel of vices — the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life [1 Jn. 2:16]. From which, as from poisoned springs, arise and flow the deadly streams of all iniquity: drunkenness and surfeiting, the cinders of the fire of lust, contentions, rapines, mutual injuries, and infinite other evils. With which vices when the blessed pontiff saw his citizens ensnared, he grieved exceedingly; and set as a watchman by the Lord, he stood upon his watch-tower continually by day and under his guard all nights [Hab. 2:1] — and what word he heard from the Lord’s mouth he announced to the people subject to him. For he saw and foretold that after the vices there would follow famine and pestilence and the sword — for fire devours even to destruction and uproots all the germens of the virtues — and that homicides would perish by slaying. For by those things whereby a man sins, by the same also he is punished [Wisd. 11:16].
Chapter Eighteen #
The sword of the Lord coming therefore — as the shepherd had often foretold — not long after, king Dermot, the aid of earl Richard [Strongbow] being adjoined to him, entering Ireland with a great company of English, took Dublin by great force, burned the town with fire, plundered the goods of the city, and slew the men. And so, according to the prophecies of the man of God, the Lord sent His wrath and vengeance among them, and rendered to them their iniquity. And blessed Laurence, like another Jeremiah, stood in the ruins of his people’s slaughter — where, also suffering many injuries, defending and fortifying their goods as far as he could, he feared not to expose himself, prostrate, to death. The bodies also of the slain the pious pastor snatched from the still-palpitating hands of the enemies, and like another Tobias hastened to give them Christian burial. Whomever he found surviving the massacre, he succoured with such faculties as he could. But he was moved with greater affection toward those whom he had first seen flourish with a more exuberant felicity, and — suddenly indeed, yet by the just judgement of God — cast down into uttermost misery. For among all kinds of evils, the supreme kind in miseries of unhappiness is to have been happy. He obtained moreover, not without great perils, that the clergy might remain in their places against the onset of the proud nation which had obtained the city; for whom also he took care prudently and strenuously to restore the books and ornaments of the church — whose goods, both temporal and ecclesiastical, the iniquity of the enemy had not spared but rather plundered or carried off wholesale.
Chapter Nineteen #
At a certain time the blessed man, setting out for England on his church’s business, came to king Henry at Canterbury; and there, as was fitting, being received in the church of the Holy Trinity by the monks, and keeping devout vigil through the night to obtain the suffrages of St Thomas the glorious martyr, the next day at the monks’ prayers he disposed to celebrate the solemnities of the Mass. And when the pontiff, vested in pontifical ornaments, had proceeded [here the source is damaged — the famous episode follows in which a madman, rushing in as the saint genuflected before the altar, struck him a grievous blow; the holy man bore it patiently and completed the Mass] — supplications, injuries to be repaid for injuries, and the wrath of God to be placated by the muniments of devotion.
[The text resumes with the saint on the return voyage, addressing the sailors in the storm:] “To His honour, I say, and to the honour of the Blessed Virgin His mother, let us build a new church; to the completion of which I bid you give of the fruit of His works who lavishes all things upon you; and so I promise you in the Lord the calm of the sea, which shall come to pass without danger to you or your goods.” At once they brought to the archbishop with eager and cheerful will many offerings — for that ship was laden with many riches. And he, rejoicing in the Lord, penetrated the heavens with a brief and devout prayer; the storm immediately subsiding and calm restored, all alike praised God and His holy pontiff.
Chapter Twenty #
Certain causes of his church pressing, the strenuous shepherd watching over the flock committed to him resolved to approach the supreme pontiff; and happily coming to Rome, aided by the Lord’s grace he fulfilled his purpose. And when he had pleaded well for the liberty of the Irish church — the benignity of his mind and his prudence being manifestly known — returning to his own, he was constituted legate of all Ireland by the lord pope. Returning from there successfully to Ireland, he laboured to execute the office of the legation committed to him with great liberty of the whole church. Whatever he deemed fitting to religion or the churches’ offices or the honesty of the clergy he sufficiently supplied; the superfluous he pruned away; the rightly disposed he wished to be observed inviolably; and he was in the zeal of God’s law as a fire, and as it were fat separated from flesh. And so greatly, as a defender of the church, did he execrate the uncleanness of chastity — and as a zealot of honesty so provoked them to continence — that all, both subdeacons, deacons, and priests, if convicted of incontinence, though as archbishop he could have absolved them, he would not, but sent them to the Roman church to be absolved by the supreme pontiff; so that on a certain occasion — wondrous to tell — he sent a hundred and forty priests convicted of incontinence to Rome to be absolved. For he desired to make all like himself; and the purity which was fixed in him he required also in his subjects — girding his loins not with a girdle of skins but with a rough hair-shirt, and bidding by word too that apostolic saying which his action declared: “Have your loins girt about with truth” [Eph. 6:14].
Chapter Twenty-One #
While he was thus exercising the office of his legation and striving to refresh the people with the food of the heavenly life, a want of temporal things miserably occupied all Ireland. The most humane pastor therefore — ever intent on works of piety and benignity, seeing an acceptable time, a time of mercy — was sanctified to the Lord while he pitied the poor; and wholly devoted to the commiseration of the needy, weighing their miseries and reckoning their want his own, he aided and succoured them according to the abundance of his faculties and the measure of his most lavish charity. For he sustained five hundred poor, oppressed with extreme want, with daily alms for three years — besides no fewer than three hundred others throughout his diocese, whom he furnished with clothing and maintenance, ministering to them all necessaries. Many women also, afflicted with want, exposed their little ones whom they could not nourish at his doors by a certain necessary caution; and others likewise in various places through which they knew he would pass. For they knew there was in him a maternal affection, nor could he be wanting to them — he who, spreading the bosom of his piety to all, denied himself to none. And he, not unmindful of the poverty and boyhood which Jesus Christ took on Him for us — who on the day of judgement shall say “What you did to one of the least of mine, you did to me” [Mt. 25:40], and who says elsewhere “Whoever shall receive one such little child in my name receives me” — showed himself a pious nourisher of boys; and commending them to men and his bailiffs in various places of his diocese to be nourished and more diligently kept, he supplied them all necessaries. And since theirs is the kingdom of heaven, he himself already exulting in the heavens took pity the oftener on boys on earth. There were moreover children of that kind about two hundred — sometimes more, sometimes fewer — besides the other poor of whom we have already spoken, whom the good and just man cared for in his house. And when these boys were now grown up and nurtured, he bade each one carry a wooden cross, which bearing in place of a sign they went about the province; and so from his estates and from others venerating the name of God and the pontiff, counsel and aid was afforded them for the sustaining of their life.
Chapter Twenty-Two #
In that time, evils being multiplied in the land, when the blessed pontiff on a certain day was making a journey from Dublin to Wexford, a certain one of the king’s soldiers, Wilhelmus by name, attached himself as his companion — lest, if he were alone, he should fall among thieves. And a certain scribe also with his wife and little infant joined them, as about to make the journey the more securely. As they entered a certain wood, the den of thieves, twenty-four mailed robbers came forth from their lairs and, feigning to wish to spare the pontiff and his company, asked that he would deliver the soldier to their will, while he himself with his clerics might go away unharmed. But the holy man answered that he would rather be slain than suffer the soldier to be given up to them for slaughter. Then they, driven with fury, rushed savagely upon his clerics, and, constantly breaking in, slew the aforementioned scribe. And the bishop, pitying his wife, afterwards perpetually supplied her with the things pertaining to food and clothing; and the boy he caused to be instructed in letters, and willed him to be numbered among his clerics as long as he lived. Moreover the robbers, brandishing a lance at the soldier, pierced the horse of the bishop, who mercifully interposed himself — and the soldier was snatched from their hands by the defence of the horse. And the prelate, his clerics being despoiled, himself smitten with various injuries, coming into the neighbouring city, admonished the robbers by intermediaries that, abstaining from their malice, they should obtain pardon; if they did not, he with all the priests of his city would pronounce the sentence of excommunication against them. They refusing all penitence and correction, he excommunicated them. And when they learned this, and inquired how an excommunication was made, they said: “Let us also excommunicate the archbishop!” And taking the entrails of an ox wickedly taken away, in place of stoles — and kindling faggots of wood in place of candles — they howled like wolves, mocking the clerics, reading an anathema, and in derision of the church quenching the same faggots in water. One of them on the following day, wrapped indeed in double clothing, perished frozen with cold after sufficient time. On the third day from there the leader of their malice was slain also; and so, one after another, they all perished within one year.
Chapter Twenty-Three #
A certain one of the archbishop’s ministers was once — not perhaps without his own fault — being dragged to the gallows in Dublin. And when he had already come to the place of hanging, report of the matter was brought to the archbishop. He arose at once and followed, that he might free him. But one of the executioners, seeing the prelate coming and fearing lest the unhappy man be snatched from their hands, struck off the wretch’s head. Seeing it, the bishop, grieving much that the man was snatched from him, hurled the thunderbolt of malediction against his striker. And when that man returned with his companions to Dublin, on the bridge in the same place he broke his leg, and from that wound shortly lost his life — by the manifest judgement of divine vengeance. Thus the Lord declared how great in sanctity and grace blessed Laurence was with Him, and that his words had weight.
Chapter Twenty-Four #
Two men of Dublin perpetrated robbery in a sacred place; but stricken by the Lord for their merits, they were at once made mad, and bound were brought to the church of the Holy Trinity and to the archbishop. When he saw them, moved with mercy toward them, he gave his blessing and ordered them to be loosed from their bonds. They, set free, fell on their faces and lay as if dead for a long time. At last rising up whole, they gave thanks to the man of God for the health received. Which, that they should not do, he forbade after his custom, and — modest and humble — exhorted them to give thanks to God alone.
Chapter Twenty-Five #
Once the holy man was hastening with two bishops and abbot Thomas his nephew to a certain assembly. And when he had alighted in a certain village to chant the hours of the Lord’s day, a certain man coming cried out to him: “Your presence, lord, is fitting not indeed to glory in a multitude, but to succour the sick and afflicted. For in the church of this neighbouring village is a certain noble woman, lately come there, vexed by an unclean spirit. To her therefore it behoves you to go, and pour forth prayers for her to the Lord, that He may deign to heal her by your merits.” Perceiving the simple man’s petition, the archbishop bade abbot Thomas go and pray for her; but he refused by all means even to approach the church’s threshold — so greatly did that kind of men horrify him. He commanded then the same to Malachy, bishop of Kildare. But he likewise excusing himself said he was not of such merit as to be able to expel demons. The man of God then bade Clement the bishop go — who answered that he would gladly go in his simplicity. He was a great man and bald. And when the demoniac saw him entering the church, she at once cast his baldness at him, adding also contumely through falsehood: “O basest baldhead,” she said, “who are ever joined in harlot fellowship — what do you seek of me here?” And at once seizing a stone she hurled it at him. And the bishop, not enduring the contumely and the horror, returned abashed with fear to the archbishop. Then at last the holy man, wishing to avoid alike simulation and arrogance: “I,” he said, “if it must be so, will visit her in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And when he came to the church’s door he signed both her and the woman with the sign of the cross. And when the wretched woman saw him she cast many reproaches and revilings at him. But he, the man of mercy, pitying her misery and not distrusting the Lord, commanded her to be bound; and when he had touched her, impressed the sign of the cross on her breast, poured blessed water into her mouth, and, prostrate on the ground, prayed to the Lord for her suppliantly and briefly. Departing from there, when he returned after three days he found her of sound mind and long awaiting his return. And she, at once approaching him with many prayers, retained him that night, honourably provided for him and all his companions, kissing his hands and feet in a sign of exceeding love, and giving thanks to almighty God that by his merits she was perfectly restored to hospitality.
Chapter Twenty-Six #
A certain marshal of the blessed man was wondrously swollen, his whole body corrupted. When all the physicians had cast away hope of his health, he was brought to his lord. He at once, laying his hands on him and praying for him, said: “Let him be led to his lodging, and when he is healed let him return to his former office.” He was led home therefore, and the next night all that corrupt humour flowed out; and after eight days, his strength restored, he returned to the man of God with alacrity and gave thanks for the health divinely bestowed on him through him. To whom the holy man said: “Be mindful to give thanks not to man but to God alone.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven #
In the church of St Martin at Dublin a certain priest named Galluuedius ministered. He was dear to the archbishop, who had nurtured him from youth and had had him as his cleric. He then, once stricken with grave infirmity, had come to the last extremity. For when he seemed to lack both sense and breath, very many reckoned him dead; some indeed judged him not yet lifeless but as it were set in ecstasy. From where it happened that for three nights and as many days they deferred giving the body to burial, set in the middle. At last St Laurence came, and approaching the body as to a funeral, moved with piety to tears, thus addressed the dead man: “You indeed, most beloved, if you could, would speak to me; but in all things be the will of God done.” So he said, and bending his knees prayed to the Lord. And what the affection of the prayer was, the effect of the Lord’s hearing sufficiently declared. For, his prayer completed — which He alone knows who approves it — the priest Galluuedius, as it were roused from deep sleep, rising whole, gave thanks to God and St Mary and blessed Laurence his lord; and opening his eyes upon the bystanders, asked what they were doing there and for what cause they had all assembled. And all, astonished and terrified at what they saw had befallen, answered him: “You, having for three whole days no sign of life but lying like a corpse, we purposed to bury.” And the priest: “The Lord knows,” said he, “that my soul was separated from the body; and as angels disputed for it, I saw my lord Laurence on bended knees before God and the glorious Virgin Mary His mother, humbly praying for me; by whose prayer the Lord, appeased, commanded my soul to be restored to the body.” Then indeed the blessed pontiff, in his familiar and humble modesty, forbade that priest under pain of excommunication to disclose this thing to any man so long as he lived.
Chapter Twenty-Eight #
[Chapters XXIX–XXXIII continue the saint’s last journey: summoned to England by king Henry on the Irish church’s business, he crossed to Normandy, found the king at Canterbury, was sent back with letters to Ireland; but stricken at Eu with fever, he made his last confession, refused the physicians’ draughts, commended his flock, and prepared for death. Whereupon an angelic voice was heard by a watching brother: “The king of heaven calls you” — and he asked that the body be buried at Eu. When urged about his see’s necessities he answered in Irish: “Insensate and foolish people! what now am I to do? Who will heal your wounds? Who will be your physician?” — commending his poor to God.]
Henceforth the happy Laurence, hastening to the port of salvation, offered to the Lord without ceasing the groans and sighs of penitence, revolving rather in mind than in mouth that Davidic psalm: “Have mercy upon me, O God; have mercy upon me, for in You has my soul trusted” [Ps. 56:1]. And those groans of penitence in no wise detracted from the holy man’s sanctity but rather confirmed it. For it is read that the great father Augustine said in familiar discourse that after the perception of Baptism even laudable Christians and priests ought not to depart from the body without worthy and fitting penitence. For which cause he had ordered for himself in his last sickness the Davidic psalms of penitence, which are very few, to be written out; and reading them wept abundantly without ceasing. And blessed Laurence ceased not to draw waters from the upper waters, nor yet despised the lower channel — marvellously lamenting his people to be left desolate by their pastor’s death, saying in his mother tongue: “Alas, insensate and foolish people! what now shall become of you? Who shall heal your wounds? Who shall be your physician?” Thus he fulfilled charity on the one hand, desiring the better part — to be dissolved and to be with Christ; on the other, kindling fraternal necessity for the people subject to him, desiring with the apostle to remain longer in the flesh [Phil. 1:23]. And the faithful God had appointed the reward of his labours to be rendered him already without delay. Therefore when the end of the sixth day of the week came, at the border of the following Sabbath, the eternal rest received the holy man’s spirit. And so the glorious confessor of Christ, Laurence, archbishop of Dublin and legate of Ireland, full of days, perfect and consummated in all good works, Christ’s co-heir, migrated to Christ on the fourteenth of the Kalends of December [14 November 1180].
Chapter Twenty-Nine #
His death and removal was declared beforehand by a sure proof, and exhibited to the veneration of those present by the Lord’s providence. For on that night in which the East sets as the sun goes down, with its setting the purer East arose for him: to a certain citizen of Dublin, Innocentius by name, it was shown in sleep — while he was in the cathedral church of that city — that the high altar fell and was utterly scattered. Troubled by which vision, in the morning he publicly told the dream, asserting with an oath that the lord archbishop had closed his last day. Which afterwards, on the messengers’ coming, was found to be true — that the pontiff had migrated on the same night on which this vision was offered to Innocentius.
Chapter Thirty #
It came to pass, the Lord ordaining, that at once after the holy confessor’s funeral rites were celebrated, Alexius, cardinal of the Roman church and legate of Scotland, arrived. In whose presence and that of many others the holy pontiff’s body was honourably and reverently committed to burial in the middle of the church of Eu. There it lay hidden, a precious treasure, four years and six months — hidden indeed, but in its time to be revealed. Of which future revelation there was no vulgar argument. For on that night in which Christ’s confessor left the darkness of this world — as the assertion of many made known — an admirable brightness upon the mount of the monastery of Eu was suddenly seen to shine, so that the beholders thought the abbey or some other neighbouring house was being consumed by lightning sent from heaven. Where the divine goodness deigned to reveal to us somewhat, what manner and how great was he who that night migrated from this world. Whose translation to the inaccessible light should be deemed not rash but pious — that a son of blessedness may so share it as the blessed and only mighty King of kings and Lord of lords lavishes it on His faithful at the opportune time; to whom be honour and glory and empire for ever. Amen. And the blessed man was enrolled among the saints by the supreme pontiff Honorius III on the third of the Ides of December [11 December 1225], in the ninth year of his pontificate.
The Canonisation of St Laurence, Archbishop of Dublin #
son of a king and queen of Ireland; and his enrolment in the number of the holy confessors, and the appointment of his feast to be celebrated yearly on the 14th of November.
Honorius III to all the faithful of Christ in the province of Rouen, greeting and apostolic benediction.
§1. The ineffable providence of God, dispensing fitting ordinances to each several time, begot His Church as it were from the womb in the splendours of the saints — while, glorifying them at the beginning of the nascent Church with frequent coruscation of miracles, and astounding the nations in the blaze of those miracles, He begot the predestined in the faith of Jesus Christ, in whose name and power they saw, and aggregated them to the number of the sons of adoption.
§2. Then, the number and multitude of the faithful growing — the people called out of darkness walking according to His prophecy in the light of the Lord their God — the wondrous dispenser made His lightnings to rain, while, signs and miracles being intermitted (which were no longer needful to believers), He raised up over the new peoples pastors to feed them with knowledge and doctrine, as He had promised by the mouth of Jeremiah [Jer. 3:15] — doctors of the Church namely, who, filling the earth of the faithful heart with the shower of doctrine, and the thorns of vices being extirpated, might render it fruitful for bringing forth the germen of virtues and the fruit of such work.
§3. But since, charity growing cold, the catholic grows torpid in the exercise of this good work; the heretic, a devious seducer leading him astray, wanders; the Jew is blinded, the veil still remaining upon his heart; and the pagan walks in darkness, the star of light not yet risen for him — the merciful Lord, who wills that none perish, sometimes renews signs and, marvellously moved, changes them, declaring the faith and merits of some of those whom He glorifies in the Church triumphant by miracles in the Church militant: that through them catholics, the torpor of mind shaken off, may be stirred to the justice of good work; heretics, their error dismissed, be led back from the trackless way to the way; and Jews and pagans, knowing the true light, may run from darkness and the shadow of death to Christ the light, the way, the truth, and the life.
§4. To the venerable memory therefore of Laurence, archbishop of Dublin — whose body happily rests in the church of St Mary of Eu in the diocese of Rouen, shining with illustrious miracles by the divine power — our venerable brother the archbishop and the beloved sons, the chapter of Rouen, together with the abbot and convent of the aforementioned church and many other archbishops, bishops, abbots, and religious men, making known to us by their letters the marks of his venerable life and his shining miracles, humbly besought that we would take care to inscribe him in the catalogue of the saints, that he who by heavenly signs and evident proofs appears honoured in the heavens might be worthily honoured by apostolic authority on earth.
§5. Although therefore those whom the divine condescension honours human devotion ought to honour with prompt affection, yet wishing in such a matter to proceed, after the custom of the apostolic see, with worthy maturity, we gave in charge to the aforementioned archbishop and to N. the dean and N. the treasurer of Rouen that they should most diligently inquire the truth concerning the said man’s life and miracles, and faithfully intimate it to us — that, the matter fully ascertained, we might the more securely assent to the pious petitioners’ desire.
§6. They, executing our mandate with diligence — since they could not be certified by men of those parts concerning the aforementioned man’s conversation and life, because passing through those parts he fell sick and lay down in the church, and within eight days migrated from this light — wrote to our venerable brother the archbishop of Dublin that he should intimate to us by his letters the truth inquired herein. He, being occupied across the Irish sea with the affairs of the illustrious king of the English and unable to inquire by himself, committed his functions in this business to our venerable brethren the bishop of Down [Dare, his suffragan] and the prior of Holy Trinity, Dublin; and sent to them a letter of his own, containing more fully the sanctity of the aforementioned man’s life and conversation, fortified with their seals — which, together with the depositions of the witnesses received concerning the miracles, they transmitted to us under their own seals.
§7. We gathered moreover from the course of those letters that the aforementioned man was the son of a king and queen of Ireland, and was instructed in sacred letters from infancy; and that he bore the gravity of an old man in youth, and alienated from himself the blandishments of worldly vanity from that age in which they are accustomed to insinuate themselves.
§8. Then, being taken up to be archbishop of Dublin, he so profited from virtue to virtue — assiduous in prayer, austere in the maceration of his own body, and profuse in the largess of alms — that he dedicated himself wholly to the Lord.
§9. And by the deposition of the aforementioned witnesses it is evidently established that his holy life is approved by consequent miracles, which make no small matter of history to him who wishes to write them severally. But we pass over how the lame recovered their gait, the mute their speech, lepers their cleansing, and those afflicted with various maladies their health, at the invocation of his name — and bring forward what shone among the rest as a greater miracle.
§10. The same saint — no, the Lord through him — wondrously raised seven dead men by his glorious merits, one of whom had been dead three days.
§11. Since therefore, by so many and such great miracles, the transition of the same most holy man is made certain — and we following the divine judgement, whereby He made him known to us by the most evident arguments of glorification — have inscribed the same blessed man in the catalogue of the saints and decreed him to be numbered in the college of the holy confessors and venerated among them by Christ’s faithful.
§12. We decree moreover that his venerable feast be solemnly celebrated henceforth yearly on the fourteenth of the Kalends of December [14 November]. And we admonish your whole body and exhort you in the Lord that, praising and glorifying God with devout minds, and profiting by the example of so great virtue, you may be aided by the suffrages of the same most glorious confessor with the Lord.