Messingham, Florilegium (1624) — translated into modern British English. This file holds the closing lines of the Life of St Burchard followed by Messingham’s appended apparatus on St Kilian and his companions.

[…end of the Life of St Burchard:] …we have held fast to the thread of the work; here let us set the term of the narration. Moreover, how the venerable pontiff first merited the public episcopal seat of Würzburg, and how he took away the martyrs’ bodies from the place where they had been indecently laid — in his life, as we are able, we shall endeavour to make manifest, to the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God for infinite ages of ages. Amen.

On the author of this History #

Serarius, as well as Canisius who published the same history, frankly confess that its author is still uncertain; Canisius however conjectures it was Egilward, monk of St Burchard’s near Würzburg — a man to whom Trithemius attributes a Life of St Burchard which is extant in Surius, tome 5, under 14 October. The reason he gathers this is that the author of this Life of St Kilian promises at the end the Life of St Burchard in these words: “In his life (St Burchard’s), as we are able, we shall endeavour to make manifest.” And whoever he was, all agree that he is most worthy of belief when he says: “We add nothing of the kind that we hold unverified.” Serarius further says that a Lord John of Erford translated the same history into verses 450 years ago, whose verses begin thus:

The holy fathers’ care, devoted to the saints,
Is custom to prick my mind, as pious zeal recalls them.

Fragment of the Chronicle of Thaddaeus, Abbot of the Scots of Regensburg #

Concerning St Kilian, St Virgil, and St Lull, etc. #

I, brother Thaddaeus, abbot of the Scots of Regensburg, at the request of Lord Conrad, provost in Münster, extracted these things written below from the Chronicle of the foundation of the Scots, folio twenty-nine, in the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and fifty-seven, on the eleventh day of the month of March, the fifth indiction.

In the time of Pippin king of the Romans there came an eminent bishop, a celebrated man of great virtue, from Ireland, Kilian by name, with his two companions Colonatus and Totnanus. They directed their way to Rome on pilgrimage in the manner of the Scots, escaping the great perils of the sea. To Flanders they came with a prosperous voyage, where it was revealed to the most blessed Kilian through an angelic vision that he should direct his way through Alemannia towards Rome; and so he reached Rome. Of so great grace was he before God that he could readily interpret to the peoples the meaning of any unknown tongue. The apostolic father, perceiving the holy man’s prudence and his understanding of sacred scripture, destined him into Germany, to the Franconian parts, to preach the word of life to the people serving idols — which he fulfilled until the time of his martyrdom at Würzburg, as is more fully held in his acts.

At the same time there came from Ireland an honourable company of saints, namely St Virgil the bishop with seven other holy bishops and many other free men, who had purposed to visit the footsteps of the Lord and the holy earth. In the more reverend manner of the Scots’ fathers, the angel of the Lord therefore spoke to St Virgil, saying: “It has pleased the almighty Creator that you should begin from hence to proceed to the apostles’ threshold; and may your resurrection be, stripped of the flesh’s burden, at the city of Salzburg.” Some of them were indeed afterwards scattered abroad through Bavaria, Kärnten and Styria in the Lord’s service. When the angel’s speech was fulfilled, St Virgil also was made bishop of Salzburg. The rest of his fellow-bishops remained at Salzburg in the ministry of the divine work until the day of their death.

Another companion of theirs, namely the blessed Lull, remained at Mainz, a lover of glorious works. And the blessed Dysibod with two others at Freising, and two others at Meckbach, commended their souls to the earth. And St Alto at Altomünster. And so the holy flock of most blessed men obtained their various seats of the eternal kingdom in various places.

From Usuard’s Martyrology, 8 July #

In the territory of Austria, in the stronghold of Würzburg beside the Main river, the natal feast of St Kilian the martyr and his two companions — who, coming from the isle of the Scots of Ireland, preached Christ’s name in the said places; and there, for the confession of the truth, were slain by a certain unjust judge named Gozbert, and afterwards by many signs were declared to be true martyrs of Christ.

From Marianus Scotus #

St Kilian, born of the isle of Ireland, is held to have been the glorious bishop of Würzburg.

From the Chronology of Cardinal Bellarmine #

St Kilian, an Irish monk, preached the faith of the Gospel to the eastern Franks in these times, and is called their apostle.

From the Martyrology of St Bede, 8 July #

In the territory of Austria, that is, New France — or rather a city, as it is called in the Teutonic tongue, Würzburg, situate beside the Main river — the passion of St Kilian, first bishop of the same city, and of his two disciples, namely Colonatus the priest and Totnan the deacon. Who, coming from the isle of the Scots of Ireland and having received authority from the pontiff of the apostolic see, preached Christ’s name in that place and round about. And when the same apostolic man was acquiring much people for the Lord by sign and word, he was killed by the duke of those places, Gozbert by name, because he strove to separate him from the marriage of his brother’s wife — by the faction of that most incestuous Geilana — together with his companions burning with the same zeal. At whose memorials many miracles continually shine; this poem, published by witnesses of their primeval fame, has commended them to mortals. For he who slew them as they lay in prayer in the silence of night, running here and there out of his mind, crying himself guilty of the saints’ murder and tearing himself with his own teeth — since he seemed to himself to be burned by the invisible fire of St Kilian — himself published his own crime. Geilana also, herself called Vernilda, a malign spirit invaded, and ended her undignified life by a most worthy death; but Gozbert his own servants killed with the sword. And his son the people drove from the kingdom. Moreover, to declare the increase of the martyrs’ sanctity: when after very many years they were dug up for translation’s sake, contrary to the nature of that most humid region, their books and all their garments buried with them in the earth were found so intact as if they had been enclosed in a chest set upon the ground.

From the Annotations of Nicholas Serarius of the Society of Jesus, on the Life of St Kilian, tome I #

On St Kilian’s name #

I find the name written variously: somewhere it is read Quillianus, elsewhere Chilianus, Chilianus and Kilianus; in his epitaph itself and certain manuscript codices, Kilena and Kyliena. But let it stand — the etymology is not to be sought.

Whether Kilian’s country was Scotland or Ireland #

Our author indicates that Scotland was St Kilian’s country; and Sigebert, Werner, Lesley, Trithemius and St Boniface himself assert the same — who in his letter to Zacharias the Roman pontiff calls him a Scot. Others assign Ireland to him. The words of Marianus Scotus are: “St Kilian, born of the isle of Ireland, is held to have been the glorious bishop of Würzburg.” It must be known that even today that part of Britain which borders England towards the north is properly called Scotland; yet formerly Ireland bore that name, as the venerable Bede shows when he says the Pictish nation came from Scythia into Ireland and there found the Scottish nation — “who, having come into the isle of Britain which is over against Britain, on the northern side of Britain”… and he relates next how they, rejected by the Scots, occupied the northern region of Britain, since the Britons had already occupied the southern parts, and the Scots coming to them admitted them into a part of the occupied region. And again, how the same Ireland has no creeping serpents — no, if its earth is carried into Britain and applied as a drink, it heals serpents’ noxious bites. At the end Bede concludes: “This nation, namely the Scots’…” — as we have said above — “…in Ireland, the strangers asked for a dwelling.” And he adds: “In the year of our Lord’s incarnation 684, Egfrid king of the Northumbrians, sending an army into Ireland under duke Berct, miserably wasted a harmless nation ever most friendly to the English nation — so much that the hostile band spared not even churches or monasteries.” And at once he calls the same Ireland Scotland: “How great a storm of darkness overshadowed the whole world, when… lest he should assail Scotland which had done him no harm, it was given him from the penalty of that sin…” In the martyrology also it thus speaks: “The natal of Kilian the martyr and his two companions, who coming from the isle of the Scots of Ireland preached Christ’s name.” The words of Marianus Scotus which I set down above are most clear; yet in the year 684 he places “Ireland” in the margin. For an old manuscript of Marianus — which the reverend and learned old man Lord John Latomus, dean of St Bartholomew’s church at Frankfurt, a man best deserving of the Catholic church, has at his house, and showed me with his annotations a few weeks ago when I visited him — proves that this name “Scots” is to be placed in that spot. Jonas moreover, St Columbanus’s biographer, says in his life, chapter 1: “Columbanus, who is also called Columba, was born in Ireland. The nation of the Scots, dwelling in that isle — though instructed in no gentile laws — flourished in the doctrine of the Christian religion, and excels the piety of almost all nations.” What need of more? The author of our history says: “Scotia, which is also called Hibernia, is an island with a small globe indeed but richer in the seed of virtues.” And where he deliberated whether he should depart, he says the nobility of his fatherland — namely the Scots’ race — held him back.

Furthermore, Caesarius in his book On Miracles hesitates as to the Scots’ homeland, saying: “St Patrick entered, and concerning the miracles performed more fully…” where he indeed confuses Ireland with Scotland, as is rightly noted in a certain margin — but let the reader consult that the same are Scotia and Hibernia. But Egilward, author of St Burchard’s life, teaches that he himself and St Boniface were from Anglia, that is Britain; but that the saints Kilian, Columban and Gall were from Scotia — and the foresaid St Boniface himself professes the same of himself, concerning both himself and St Burchard; but he asserts that Kilian came here into Francia from Scotia. Although therefore Thomson places St Boniface’s fatherland in the modern and more recent Scotland, in the town of Kirkcaldy, yet that was formerly, as we have heard, called Anglia or Britannia — and it claimed for itself the name of the Ireland of the Scots. But since a certain part of the Scots went out from Ireland and, in that coast of Britain which the Picts already held — as we said above — settled, they indeed at first were called Dalreudini from their leader Rheuda, as Bede says; afterwards however they drove the Picts themselves from there, and obtained all that region and gave it its ancient name, so that the Scots’ nation was one, but Scotia was made double — the one old and proper, in Ireland, the other more recent, in northern Britain.

On the time of St Kilian’s coming into Franconia and of his martyrdom there #

Our author relates that St Kilian came twice to Würzburg: first when he entered the fatherland of Germany; then when he returned from Rome, where he is said to have set out hence. And the time of this latter advent is established by our author in these words: “Honorius and Conon being pontiffs of Rome.” But this Conon was set over the pontificate in the year of the Lord 686, on the Kalends of November; and he held it eleven months, as Sigebert, Conrad and others teach — whom Onuphrius follows, so that in Marianus Scotus’s chronicle a slip easily appears, since to the same man it attributes one year. For Marianus himself adds that he died on the twenty-seventh of September in the year 687; therefore in that same year 687 Kilian, returning here, received apostolic authority from the pontificate of the same man. There are those who write that by Pope Benedict — who preceded John and Conon — he was created a legate in Germany, or duke, or knight, or bishop. But Sigebert, who seems more probable, relates nothing of the kind under the year 685, the time of Benedict’s pontificate; but uses these words only: “Kilian, bishop of the Franks.” For which reason — since he was then already bishop — but because he was afterwards bishop, and held among the number of the saints, therefore he is so named. But I should believe that in the time of this same Benedict he was already illustrious, because then first, by zeal of defending the faith, he left his country and travelled through many nations. The words of Marianus Scotus run: “At that time St Kilian the bishop of the Franks was celebrated in fame.” But all the annals unanimously hand down the year of the martyrdom at Würzburg as 689; likewise the saints’ epitaph itself, of which below, and St Burchard’s history, which distinctly says: “the 7th of July — in the year of the Lord’s incarnation 754, or rather 789 — the bodies of the saints, martyrs and companions, were translated to their monument in the year 785.” So that we may think Werner’s chronology of centuries mistaken, who refers the saints’ death to the year 694, and much more Sigebert, who places it at 697, etc.

What cause impelled St Kilian to this pilgrimage #

The cause our author himself indicates: “The Pelagian heresy,” he says, “had disturbed the integrity of the Christian religion, and Ireland was infected with a kind of interdict.” Ireland indeed had been infected with that pestiferous and condemned heresy, which could not be loosed except by the Roman judgement. The Pelagians had decreed that God’s grace is not ministerially necessary to man for salvation; that by original sin the human race is not held; that by nature’s powers alone we can keep the right and blessed course of life; that the Church’s prayers, whereby faith is either given to unbelievers or increased in the faithful, are to be despised — and other most absurd things of the kind, which Jerome, Augustine, St Prosper, the Venerable Bede and others refute and explode. That heresy began at once after the year of the Lord 400, in the times of Arcadius and Honorius, but began to increase greatly from the year 405; it is noted by the Church’s fathers and doctors — at Chrysostom and Isidore of Pelusium gradually; at Jerome in the year 410, and more openly still in the year 413 in the same author, and more and more thereafter. And since from that time to St Kilian’s consulate — an age of 280 years having run — the Pelagian heresy had not yet been wholly abolished and extirpated in Ireland, and its roots had struck deeper into Ireland the closer and more acceptable Pelagius was to his own — for he was “the Scots’ pudding,” as Jerome says, “most heavy with the porridge of the Britons, a man of a nation most near to the Britons” — and these things can indeed be accommodated to the Scots’ nation, of which we spoke, but when he calls him a Briton, they are rather to be accommodated to the fact that he lived in Britain. For, as we learn from Prosper, he first occupied southern and northern Britain, and not long from there crossed the sea into Ireland, as being wholly a Pelagian. From there indeed, as they think, this heresy was born — on account of which St Kilian wished to betake himself to the apostolic see, that as St Paul conferred his Gospel with St Peter, so he himself might receive from it the pure and sincere dogma of the Catholic faith, and by the apostolic authority be freed from that interdict of his province.

What manner of interdict it was upon Ireland #

There are three kinds of ecclesiastical censures: excommunication, suspension, interdict. Excommunication here it cannot be, because it cannot be conferred on a city, a community or any such body. Suspension and interdict it can be. The author does not seem to speak of suspension, since in one whom suspension touches it presupposes some fault; but St Kilian, being a Catholic, was bound by no fault of heresy, on account of which the interdict had been laid. Nor is suspension imposed on a whole province or whole people, but only on ecclesiastical persons; the interdict therefore remains, which is improperly called excommunication. Of a personal interdict there is no mention in the author, since it embraces no person by name; therefore it was a local one — and it bound all Ireland. It was therefore personal and local together, and that not particular but general — since it is not circumscribed by certain persons or places, but comprehended all the Irish, in whatever place it found them, although no proper delict of theirs was charged. For so an interdict is sometimes custom to be laid. And it is plain that in Ireland there were then many good, holy and Catholic men. For as by divine will the calamities of diseases, wars and tempests often comprehend the good and innocent also, so does this ecclesiastical interdict. But since by it only divine offices, the sacraments and solemn burial are forbidden — could not St Kilian, though touched by the interdict, bear the divine word? If he wished to be a minister of the Word only, as today’s heretics do, he could; but he wished also to minister the mysteries of holy baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist and the other mysteries of the Catholic church — and therefore he desired also to be loosed from the interdict. But in truth, before he came to Rome, do we think that all that time he was a priest? That his fellow-presbyter Colomannus performed no sacred rites? I think not — but that they performed sacred rites almost daily. And therefore I should rather think the interdict was enclosed in Ireland alone; yet that most holy men — lest any suspicion of heresy or of the Irish censure should adhere to them, lest any scandal be taken from any quarter, and that they might show their egregious observance in all things of the holy apostolic see’s commands — asked, whether present or certainly absent by petition, to be loosed from every such bond. And it is in an old breviary that St Kilian, going to Rome, left St Gall behind in Germany, weighed down with fever; but returning, he left St Columbanus in Italy.

On St Kilian’s companions #

Bede writes distinctly in his martyrology that there were two, and our author sets down these names and offices: Colomannus the priest, Totnanus the levite or deacon. And a lectionary-book of Mainz enumerates the priests Colonatus and Galion, the deacon Toinatus, and seven others.

What things were buried with the holy bodies #

They were books of sacred letters — catechisms, of prayers and of Christian rites, with which they performed the sacred offices; and there survives even today, in the first church of this city, a codex of the holy Gospel which the most holy martyrs used. The Centuriators write, and not long ago Arnold Wyon, that a volume against foreign cults was written by him — of which in this church I could learn nothing, neither by reading nor by asking. Lesley strenuously asserts that he refuted the heretics. But although he may have written no book, it could be done — in the Mainz volume thus: “The lectionary and the text of the Gospel, as well as the pontifical vestments, were laid with them in the sepulchre.”

Whether St Kilian was the first bishop of Würzburg #

Lampert, Marianus, the parchment breviary and certain codices call St Burchard the first. But our author shows that this praise is to be claimed for Kilian — and similarly, when St Boniface speaks of constituting St Burchard in this episcopal seat, all the images and pictures in temples, places and works show St Kilian as pontiff. The cause however why St Burchard is sometimes called first is twofold. One, that from his episcopate the episcopal dignity and seat of Würzburg began and was constituted — since St Kilian was made bishop only for the utility of converting the people and for the function of the office undertaken, not to establish a throne at Würzburg which successors should hold, as St Burchard afterwards did by the authority of the supreme pontiff. The other, that when several names and titles of honour concur in one man, that which is principal is accustomed to be expressed. Since therefore St Kilian is both bishop and martyr, he is celebrated rather by the surname of martyr than of bishop.

On the miracles of the holy men #

Bede in the martyrology says of our saints that “for the confession of the truth they were slain by a certain judge Gozbert, and afterwards by many signs were declared true martyrs of Christ.” Our author refers only two. One, of brute animals, which showed honour to the relics of the holy bodies when — buried under a dunghill, contemptuously covered with vile planks or boards — they paid them honour. The other, of the divine vengeance on those who inflicted death — namely Geilana and the ministers and executioners of her cruelty. But in the former miracle — as to spit, void excrement or cast other filth on a place is accustomed to inflict ignominy and contempt, so in the place where the saints’ excrements [i.e. remains] lay hidden, not to void any filth whatever, however necessity might urge, is plainly a kind of honour and praise. It is only asked in what manner horses, endowed with no reason, could be affected by the sense of sanctity, so that what they would have done by nature’s impulse they did not do? I answer: they abstained in the same manner, and voided nothing at all, as the raven once venerated Elias, the lions Daniel, the cows the Ark, the viper St Paul, the fire itself the boys placed in the furnace, and the Egyptian frogs, flies, cynomyes, locusts and darkness respected the sons of Israel, whether set in their own Goshen or elsewhere. For all these things were done not by natural but by supernatural aid of the almighty and most high God — which concurs to miracles of this kind of beasts and inanimate things in two ways: for in it, toward the cult and veneration of holy things, they either do something which they would not naturally do, or do not do what they would otherwise do. Both kinds appear in the examples now enumerated. Just as the crow and the wolf venerated St Vincent’s body so as not to touch it even with the least bite, which they would otherwise have done with most greedy jaws, so also these our beasts — knowing St Kilian and his companions’ hidden relics — polluted them not with the least voiding of ordure or other excrements, from which they never abstained. For God either took care that no relics of food or drink should superabound, or subtracted the concourse so that they could void nothing of their own, lest fresh ordure should harm the recent receptacles; or caused some dissolution of another body in the act to happen before the need of voiding was present. For no word of any of these things is impossible with God.

But six other kinds of miracles are read in the commentary on Burchard’s history. First, the admirable fragrance of the saints’ bodies while they were being disinterred. Second, the integrity of the vestments and books buried with them. Third, so great a plenty of healings and various miracles that those wavering in the faith were greatly confirmed. Fourth, the divine vision of three burning candles, by which the place where they should be laid was indicated. Fifth — as the author speaks — at their sepulchres, or rather tumuli or confessiones, the most frequent cure of blind, deaf, lame, leprous and sick persons. Sixth, that which we heard by St Boniface’s authority, as the same man once related to our Franks: “Our master and apostle Kilian transmitted to our pastoral care the faith which, true testimony in this very place of martyrdom, he fulfilled. The erection of the tomb itself speaks the confession of whom and of his companions’ bodies — through healings and miracles the confirmation of faith is exercised among you. This grace Christ first wrought for me through a certain father of ours, Adelhelm the priest, whose eyes’ light, extinguished by God’s hidden judgement, he received again here beside the martyrs’ tomb by their merits. Then a numberless sanctity of signs was manifested in our diocese — so that they are not to be neglected by me or by all our brethren everywhere.” To these miracles the following epitaph looks — which, though in the ruder Minerva of those times, yet proposes the truth and the matter itself simply:

Epitaph #

In the years seven hundred and eighty-nine
Here lie Kilian and his companions near the spring:
And Colonatus, and also the blessed Totnan,
Who for their Saviour shed their blood.
Hence is salvation to him who piously seeks it here.
The blind, the dumb, the lame and the bound are loosed.
In the seven hundredth and fifty-second year,
The apostle Burchard consecrating,
They were lifted up and duly canonised.
Seek these devoutly, that they may pray for you.
In the seven hundred and ninety-first year
Burchard dies, and his body is buried
Beside the saints’ tomb, as it is written: see
The revered Melengard as his successor.

Another Hexastichon #

The following hexastichon is also of use to our saints; its author is Lord Engelhard Funk, doctor of decrees, who lived about the year of the Lord 1513, as John Gantzhorn relates in his antiquities of the new monastery.

Verses of the Epitaph #

Würzburg holds those whom you, Teacher, did teach
To worship the true God in religion.
Whom at last impious Geilana bade be slain,
And hid their bodies under this place.
Lest they lie without praise, unworthily cast away,
Burchard laid their bodies under monuments.

Whoever desires more concerning St Kilian, whether curious or useful, let him consult Serarius himself in his theological opuscula, from which we have extracted these few things. See also Trithemius, On Illustrious Men, book 4, chapter 17, and book 5, folio 131.