Henry of Saltrey, in Messingham’s Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum (1624) — translated from the Latin. The file contains Saltrey’s dedicatory letter and prologue, Messingham’s three-chapter editorial treatise on the Purgatory and the pilgrimage rites, Saltrey’s account of the knight Owen, the confirmation chapter, and Messingham’s concluding chapter — ending with the opening of Bishop Rothe’s preface to Jocelin (text breaks off).

Saltrey’s dedication and prologue #

To his father in Christ, the beloved lord Henry, abbot of Sartis — Brother Henry of Saltrey, least of monks, continual health: a son offering his father the gift of obedience.

You bade me, venerable father, send you in writing the account which I related in your presence concerning the Purgatory; and I undertake it the more gladly because I am the more strongly constrained by your fatherly command. For though I have long desired to have the writings of many men, let your fatherhood truly know that I have never yet read anything from which I could profit so much in the fear and love of God. And since we read that the blessed Pope Gregory said much about the things done to souls stripped of their earthly bodies — that he might terrify the minds of the negligent and more confidently inflame the desire of the just to devotion — you have asked me to write for the profit of simple souls. For in many of the examples he sets forth he says that at the soul’s departure good and evil angels are present, to draw souls to torment or lead them to rest according to their deserts. But he also declares that souls still in the body sometimes foresee many things concerning what shall come upon them, either by the inward reproof of conscience or by outward revelations; and he relates that souls snatched away and brought back to their bodies have told of visions and revelations made to them, whether of the torments of the wicked or of the joys of the just. And in all these he records nothing but what is bodily or like the bodily — rivers, flames, bridges, ships, houses, groves, meadows, flowers, black men and white, and such like as in this world are accustomed to be loved for gladness or feared for torment; and that souls freed from the body are dragged by hands, led by feet, hanged by the neck, scourged, cast down headlong, and many such things which do not repugn nature.

Now indeed there are many visions of how souls go out of bodies, where they go, what they find, what they suffer and what they endure — which, because they are hidden from us, are rather to be feared by us than investigated. But this is held certain: that a good life is not followed by an evil death; though merit remains until death and the reward is rendered after death, there is said to be a place after death which is called purgatorial, in which those who in this life lived justly in certain faults, yet were predestined to eternal life, are tormented for a time and purged; and as bodily pains are said to be prepared by God, so the places of those pains are said to be bodily places in which they are. Yet it is believed that the greatest torments, to which guilt rushes down, are in the lowest part, and the greatest joys, to which the ascent of justification mounts, in the highest — and between, good and evil together. Which seems to agree with this narrative of St Patrick’s Purgatory: that it is deepest beneath the earth or within the hollow of the earth, like a prison and dungeon of darkness — as is commonly believed and as this narrative asserts; and that paradise is in the east, as this narrative shows in the land of Syria — where souls freed from the penitential pains are said to abide for a while. And what St Augustine and St Gregory say — that the soul is tormented by corporeal fire — seems likewise to be affirmed by this narrative. But in the purgatorial region where they are purged after death, it is certain that some are tormented more and some less, according to their deserts — which cannot be defined by men, since they cannot be known by them; yet by those whose souls go out of their bodies and return again by God’s bidding, certain signs like bodily things are announced for the demonstration of spiritual ones; for unless in such and through such things they were seen by souls stripped of bodies, they could in no wise be made known by them on returning to bodies, to men living in the body who know only bodily things. From where in this narrative also spiritual things are said to be seen by a bodily mortal man, as it were in bodily form and likeness. But who related it to me, and how he came to know it, I will show at the end of the narrative. Here ends the prologue.

Here begins the Purgatory of St Patrick.

Of the name, the existence, and the place of the Purgatory — Chapter One (Messingham) #

This place is designated by various appellations among ecclesiastical writers: besides being called by the common name of the Purgatory, it is also called St Patrick’s Pit, and the Cave or Den by many. It is called the Purgatory from the effect of expiating and purging souls; but the pit and cave from the depth of the place — that is, the subterranean passage in which those to be purged are shut up.

It has not yet befallen me to visit the place itself, much though I have desired it; but the perils of the journey or the occupations by which I was detained have prevented it. Accordingly the things I have learnt of the place itself, of the time of the purgation, of the manner of purging or of performing that pilgrimage — the customs and examples of those who enter, which are accustomed to be related — I received from the report of others, but of such as I could not doubt: for I enquired of various authorities, both ecclesiastical and secular, both antiquaries and others who had visited the place and completed that expiatory pilgrimage more than once — some of those I consulted; and what, comparing their narration with what is contained in written monuments, I have found more certain or more credible, I set down briefly in this place.

And first of all it is to be observed that mention of a twofold Purgatory in Ireland is found among foreign writers: the one is that of St Patrick, situated in the northern part of the kingdom; the other is St Brendan’s, which Ralph holds to be in the western parts of the same kingdom.

Next, it is to be commemorated from the same Ralph that he distinguishes two Patricks, far apart in age and dignity: of whom the one and first was archbishop, the other and second an abbot. Patrick the First (as he says), among the outward signs of his works, is reported to have wrought two: one, that he cast all venomous animals out of the land with his staff; the second, that no Irishman shall look for the coming of Antichrist. Yet the memorable thing that is read of his purgatory is rather ascribed to the younger Patrick the Second, who was not a bishop but an abbot, who flourished about the year of the Lord 850 — of whom the Martyrology makes mention, saying that because the people rebelled against him, he left Ireland and ended his last day at Glastonbury on the very feast of St Bartholomew. So much for him.

That this Purgatory was discovered by Patrick — whether the first or the second (of whom more conveniently elsewhere) — the common sense and tradition of the Irish holds: for the people seem to have drunk it in with their nurse’s milk, and the very popular tongue asserts it as saving doctrine — as once the great Doctor and master of the Church, Augustine, said in a like case: “Here indeed we seek certain aids of persuasion and pious credulity, which have so prevailed over the whole nation that now is Catholic, that if you should obstinately maintain the contrary opinion, you would be hissed off by high and low and all alike as a new man and a bringer-in of new opinions” — whereby the Tantalean thirst of the curious may be quenched and the intolerable impudence of the heretics blunted.

First then, as a firmament of the received tradition, stands the constant and consentient reception of it by every age and memory of men throughout this whole nation. For it is not said without cause that which is established by the consent of nearly all, especially of pious, learned and prudent men, with none openly gainsaying.

Secondly, the suffrages of foreigners are added to the domestic testimonies: of Henry of Saltrey and Matthew Paris in the vision of the knight Owen to be described at length below; of Denis the Carthusian in his book On the Four Last Things (third part, articles 13 and 24); of James of Genoa the Dominican in the Life of St Patrick in the Golden Legend; of Ralph Higden the Cistercian in the Polychronicon; of Caesarius of Heisterbach in his Dialogues (books 10–11); of Mark of Naples; of Maurolycus the Sicilian in his Martyrology; and of others. To these may fittingly be joined John Chamberlin and others, who by conjecture are led to suppose that the poet Claudian applied these verses to this cave: “There is a place where Gaul stretches her farthest shore upon the ocean, where Ulysses is said to have summoned the silent people with outpoured blood; there is heard the mournful murmur of flitting shades, and the folk see pale shapes and images of the dead flit past” — though, to come nearer the truth, we grant the place was before Patrick was born, which the knight’s story to be told below also not obscurely insinuates; yet it was not fitted to the celebrated religious use before Patrick.

If therefore in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word is established, as Truth itself speaks in the Gospel — who but a most shameless man would dare to contradict the authority of a threefold ternary of most religious and well-approved historians?

A third proof is drawn from the office of the Church itself and the uniform consent of churchmen and of the Church of the saints who have flourished there for many ages — all whose authority and mutual concordance, as it is sufficiently expressed in the ancient breviaries and manuscript antiphonaries of all the provinces, whoever should not fear to despise, I for one would not excuse his rashness and audacity.

And that tradition is found both in ancient parchments and in printed books which the infancy of typography has handed down to us — so that there seems to have been one unanimous sentence of clergy and people alike, which they both privately held and publicly professed in those offices and rites of the divine and ecclesiastical worship which they most holily and religiously observed. But to cry out against a usage so received, so ancient, so approved — which was most frequent and most celebrated in the discourses and hearts of the faithful — who would dare, save one greedy of novelty and a despiser of antiquity and piety alike?

First objection and its solution #

But against all these confirmations, a subtle objector may urge that Gerald of Wales — that most diligent investigator of Irish antiquity, who describes exquisitely even the smallest and narrowest corners of Ireland — nowhere makes mention of this Purgatory; and although if you shape the reasoning to the strict and severe form of topics it does not conclude necessarily and dialectically, yet since Gerald set before his mind to bring all the notable places of Ireland out of darkness into the light of view, it seems hardly probable that he would have passed over so famous a monument had it been at that time either known or made illustrious by miracles.

But that no scruple of controversy may be left in this cause, I affirm to the reader that St Patrick’s Purgatory was known and published abroad in Gerald of Wales’s own time — and Gerald’s own writings not only signify but declare it, whose words it pleases me to transcribe; for thus he has it in the second distinction of his Topography of Ireland: “There is a place in the parts of Ulster containing an island of two parts, of which the one part is graced by a church of approved religion, made fair and lovely by the visitation of angels and the visible frequentation of the saints of that place beyond compare. The other part is rough and horrible beyond measure, said to be assigned to demons only, and stands almost ever exposed to visible troops and pomps of evil spirits. This part has in it nine pits, and if any by chance should presume to pass the night in one of them (as is known to have been tried by rash men), he is at once seized by malignant spirits and tormented all night with such grievous pains, so many and so ineffable torments of fire, water and every kind, that by morning scarce a spark of life or the remains of the wretch’s body are found. Here, as they assert, whoever has once undergone these torments in penance enjoined shall suffer no more infernal pains, unless he commits graver sins. This place is called by the inhabitants Patrick’s Purgatory. For when the holy man disputed with an unbelieving people concerning the infernal pains of the reprobate and the true and perpetual life of the elect after death — that so great, so unwonted, so unthought-of a novelty of things might be stamped upon the rude minds of the faithless with ocular certainty — by the efficacy of his prayers he obtained upon earth a knowledge, great and wonderful, of both things, profitable to the stiff-necked people.” So Gerald, who expresses both the place and the author clearly enough; of whose bitterness of style, which is his own, and of his censure of the rashness of those who approach those pits as penitents, this is not the place to treat. His too harsh censure is sufficiently refuted by the multitude and frequency of penitents who from his age onward, and every year, are accustomed to undergo those sacred stations with great zeal of devotion and feeling of compunction — so that they are not to be condemned as rash presumers.

Second objection #

But yet someone perchance will wonder why Jocelin, who described the life of St Patrick from infancy to death most distinctly, nowhere speaks a word of this Purgatory. But he will cease, I think, to wonder who reads attentively what we said above in the little preface to the Purgatory — to which (to delight the reader with variety) it pleased me to adjoin the answer of our Thurles in his book on the life of St Patrick; for thus he says: “The same Patrick, who was an apostle to the Gentiles, is by some ancient writers called an abbot; and by this error, sufficiently certain and widely spread, I think those men have been led astray who deny to the apostle the tormenting cave which the abbots ascribe to him”; and after he had proved by various testimonies that Patrick the apostle was also an abbot, he concludes thus: “That name of abbot, then, which our Patrick of Armagh frequently bore in the prerogative of the monastic life, has drawn some into error — so that they distinguished Patrick the abbot from Patrick the apostle of the Irish, and made his abbacy, of which we speak, the author of the Purgatory: which is plainly false, as has been proved.” Of their number, then, whom the name of abbot had led into error, we can not improbably say that Jocelin was one. These things for Catholic readers.

Third objection #

Thirdly it is to be noted that some suppose the cave itself or pit shown to St Patrick by Christ the Lord is either unknown and undiscoverable, or at least is not the same that pilgrims enter, who are shut in the den for twenty-four hours — but either it lies hid beneath, or is some paces distant. So it was told us from an old tradition by the Reverend Lord John Gamlin, abbot of Louth, and by John Fury, priest, seventy years of age. Others think the place lies hid and will not appear to men except at the end of the world — as the ancient Hebrews thought of the sepulchre of Moses and of the Ark returning from Babylon; the same is to be thought of this pit. And this opinion Thomas Mulchonry, a man of reputed piety, devoted to the study of antiquity and himself of great age, attributed to Father Eugene Dunne of the order of St Francis, in my hearing.

But James of Vitry in his Oriental History, chapter 91, speaks of this pit thus: “In Ireland a certain pit is held to be St Patrick’s Purgatory: whoever enters it, if he be truly penitent and contrite, is at once seized and vexed by demons, and never returns again; but he who enters it with a contrite heart and in faith, is purified by the experience — and he is proved by a thousand torments and demons. But he who has sinned more deeply is punished more harshly in the same place. But he who comes out purged from the aforementioned place can never afterwards laugh or play or delight in anything that is in the world, but ever weeping and sighing, forgetful of things behind, he stretches forward to those before.”

Now most of these things are supported by truth, and we are instructed by daily experience: for there are many who at various times have undergone the cave of the Purgatory and yet, returned, laugh and jest and engage in the world with secular men and transact the business of this world no otherwise than if they had never entered that place — otherwise we should have innumerable philosophers in Ireland of Heraclitus’s school; though indeed there are far more of Democritus’s household, prone to laughter rather than to weeping. There is moreover a man of the best faith who has assured us on a priest’s word that he saw fifteen hundred persons who all at once in the island kept three-day fasts and other severities connected with the place — some by turns making their stations in the pit. And if at one time the number of pilgrims was so great, what shall we think of the whole age — especially when access was freer than we now find it on account of the Protestant colonies round about?

But if Vitry speaks not of the present visible Purgatory but of that other secret and hidden one — if the report of Duffy, Gamlin, Conry, Regan and others on this head be true (whose opinion is however less received) — on the matter itself either way I now say nothing, nor do I think it rash for grave men to depart from the common opinion and persuasion, which seems to have obtained generally with most: that in the island of Lough Derg that cavern, which is still visible, vaulted with its low and humble arch, is the true seat in which the pit we seek is contained.

Moreover, from the doctrine of St Thomas this is to be noted concerning the place of purgatory: that where nothing express is found determined, that must be said which best agrees with the sayings of the saints and the revelations made to many. And thus the place of purgatory is twofold: one according to the common law — and so the place of purgatory is a lower place joined to hell; another is a place of purgatory by dispensation — and so in various places some are punished, either for the instruction of the living or for the succour of the dead, that their pain becoming known to the living they might be relieved by the Church’s suffrages.

Both members indeed of the distinction are already traditional — both that according to the common law and that according to dispensation — pertaining to the posthumous place of purgatory and to the pains to be paid after this life; but we now treat of satisfactory pains, which can also be meritorious in this life and in the way of this world which we run to the goal of our fatal decease from the sight and converse of men. And so we have distinguished a twofold purgatory: one vital or viatic, in this present life of wayfarers and pilgrims to the Lord; the other posthumous and preliminar, when the soul of the departed, wearied by the burden of mortal flesh and the toil and conflict of the world, is punished after death and purged in the porch, that cleansed from every wrinkle and stain and absolved from every guilt of venial pain and fault it may be admitted into the courts of the Lord and recline at the supper of the Lamb in the table of the heavenly Bride, who prepared and adorned it by grace in the way, that He might beautify it in the fatherland and clothe it with the stole of immortality.

Therefore, treating of this viatic purgation, it seems more agreeable to the sayings of the saints handed down and to the revelations to be cited below — and more consonant with the office of St Patrick — if we place the Purgatory, or place of purgation, in that point of the island of Lough Derg, in which this holy herald of the divine word opened the unbelievers’ understanding that they should follow after death the pains to come: as if to say that, while life remained, both they who then lived and they who should afterwards be born, and the born of the born, might escape the posthumous torments of eternal burning by a present purification which they should undergo in that wrestling-place of purgation, in which they could expiate themselves living, to prevent God’s severity in the future.

And to this the old antiphon seems to look, which the Irish Church, in memory of that thing, sang with a grateful and glad mind in praise of God and St Patrick, in these words: “Great are the wondrous merits of our father Patrick, to whom the Lord showed the place of the Purgatory, that those coming might purge themselves, his erring sons.” That purgatorial place, then — that it may sometimes be called the pit or cave — by that appellation designates not the whole purgation in the dark, but only a part of it, and that the harder part of the penance or penality undergone in this pilgrimage.

Of the manner and order of performing the pilgrimage of this Purgatory in these later ages — Chapter Two #

Now the manner of performing the whole journey is of this kind. A nine-day period is appointed, in which the rounds in the island itself must duly be completed — the island being surrounded by a stagnant water, very deep, like a certain estuary which is seen to separate it from other islands here and there; but this island of the Purgatory, with the neighbouring island of St Dabeoc — in which is the monastery of the Canons Regular of St Augustine, two or three furlongs distant to the west — is the most famous and celebrated of all. To it pilgrims are ferried in a hollowed-out single log, with oars prepared for the purpose. The whole time they remain in the island — that is, for those nine days — they must fast on bread and water: not after any fashion, but at one refection of unleavened bread baked under ashes or cooked on a gridiron, or at least of oatmeal unboiled, and of lake water — boiled, or at least warmed in a kettle — without salt or any other condiment; and even this lean and meagre nourishment, though the entrails gnaw, is to be tasted but once in the space of twenty-four hours — save that it is permitted to cool the parched throat more often when thirst urges. And such is the virtue of that water, though stagnant to the taste, that however much you gorge yourself on it you feel no burden — just as if it flowed from a vein of living spring; which they also report of the Spanish water issuing from an acid spring — that they who drank of it were without weight or heaviness of stomach.

The pilgrims are bound meanwhile to make the sacred stations thrice daily — morning, noon and evening; and wearied, they lie down under night on hay or straw, without coverlet, pillow or quilt, unless they wrap themselves in their cloak or put something under their head.

Now the stations themselves are performed in this order. On entering, under the direction of the Spiritual Father who presides over the Purgatory by institution of the Canons, the pilgrims strip off shoes and stockings and enter barefooted the church dedicated to St Patrick; and there, prayer made, they go the sacred rounds — seven times within the temple and as many times without in the churchyard. These done, they return to the penitential mansions or beds, which they call the penitential cells of the Saints; each of which they compass seven times — on the outside with bare feet, on the inside on bended knees; likewise they go round the cross in the churchyard and another cross fixed in a heap of stones. And these circuits done, in a rough and often rocky path they come to the lake, and on a marble stone under the water they set the soles of their feet — torn sometimes but always wearied — for a full half-hour or more, while they recite the Lord’s Prayer, the Angelic Salutation and the Apostles’ Creed; drawing strength of refreshment and vigour from the stone beneath their feet — on which St Patrick himself is said to have prayed and left the prints of his feet — so that they may be ready to make the second rounds, which is not permitted save after an interval of time.

This austerity repeated for seven days, on the eighth they double the stations or rounds to make satisfaction for that day and the following, on which the pit is to be entered; for on that day it is not lawful to go the rounds or even to go out of the den they are to enter, this ceremony being observed.

That company of nine, whose turns of entering the cavern have come, is convened before the Spiritual Father, who in a word of exhortation warns them of the peril if they enter with consciences unpurged, and of the reward if with purged ones; and in set words he recites horrible examples able to move the most stolid, soften the most rigid, and terrify the most audacious. When by this admonition penitence and constancy are stirred up — sacramental confession first made and the Eucharist received — he arms them against the princes and powers of darkness, against the spiritual wickednesses in high places. And now, contrite and resolute and refreshed with the most holy Eucharist, he leads them with the banner of the cross going before to the Penitential Exequies — that they may now pay the debts of a life negligently led, and may part from the old Adam with his deeds at the Funeral of Sins and the burial of the better purpose. And about to enter — sprinkled with lustral water at the mouth of the den, as in passage to another world and hastening from the way to the end in the pangs of death — they are seen groaning and sighing, offering pardon and peace to all and asking it for themselves, forgiving the whole world whatever it has offended in them; with sobbing, weeping and tears most of them enter the den, and the door being shut from without, they who accompanied the funeral depart.

Now the cavern itself is built of stone, with sides so narrow and a vault so low that a man of moderate stature could not stand upright in it, nor even sit except with bent neck; with difficulty it holds nine persons placed side by side leaning — and a tenth cannot be admitted save with the greatest labour. The den has a small window on the side, through which a slender light shines by day; the length and breadth of the pit is as much as would suffice to contain a man of just stature lying on his back; and the utmost part of the pavement is supported by a great rock — under which some assert the pit and chasm lies that God opened at the saint’s prayer when the earth yawned for the terror of the obstinate. And although in these our days, and within the longest memory of men, the floor of the den has been levelled and made even with the rest of the ground, yet it is the tradition of certain old men that at the first institution of the place it was deeper, and was raised by degrees with the bishops’ sanction and the Apostolic See’s assent.

And as the pit itself is set to the north of the island, so to the north of the pit are placed round about those mansions or cells which we have called the Saints’; but toward the west certain hovels or huts of brushwood and turf, which serve for the pilgrims’ lodgings.

After they have remained shut in that den, fasting for twenty-four hours — taking no refection at all at midday or any other time; for it is not lawful to taste anything in the pit itself, save perchance a little water to wet the palate — they are revisited by the governor of the pilgrims and led to the edge of the lake, and there are plunged naked into the lake waters; and purged by this lustral expiation, reborn and cleansed as it were new soldiers of Christ in the bath of penance, they go forth to the church, where thanks being given to God after the custom for the penance accomplished, they are renewed to the Christian warfare to be boldly prosecuted, and to bear the cross of Christ nobly. For they must not promise themselves security or cessation from the Christian conflict, though they have run this penitential agony — nor a truce with the old Serpent, though St Patrick cast the serpents out of Ireland (in memory of which casting-out there is shown in the island a bony knot of great size, said to be a fragment of a serpent’s bone of the venomous brood which the saint expelled); but while this way lasts, the wayfarers’ vigilance must last against the hidden ambushers and the open enemies, with whom there can be no peace or truce for godly men. No, as it is the work of a whole life to live well, so it is the work of a whole life to bear the cross — which is then most truly known when the faith itself is assailed and all those supports of integrity and innocence are denied us which serve to increase it, such as among many others are satisfactory works and the diligence of penance, by which both vengeance for past deeds is required and medicine and defence is gained for the future.

And since the place by its institution serves this end, experience itself has proved that the visitation, satisfaction and purgation custom to be exercised in it avails much and has ever availed in every age: which if it be made in summer — who knows not how grievous a confinement is that den, so narrow, so dark, so lasting, from the heat of the sun without and the inward-heating breath of panting and faint-ing men in the cave; and if in winter, how hard is the immersion in the water and the lying-in-ashes of penance; and whenever it be made, how hard the barefoot walking of so many days, the bruising of the feet, the rough walking, and the frequent kneelings in the penitential cells, the fasting, the tears, the sleeplessness, and the rest that stir to compunction, provoke weeping and draw out tears! So that for so little a space of the nine-day exile and pilgrimage, scarce any thought can enter save of weeping, sadness, penitence — of sins, in fasting, prayer, meditation of heavenly things, and abdication of all earthly solace. And accordingly, if James of Vitry speaks of the manner of the place and the pilgrims’ stay when he asserts that “ever mourning and sighing, forgetful of things behind, they stretch forward to those before,” he would not speak absurdly nor far from their own use and practice while they abide there; but that he extends it to the whole remaining life and to the time outside the island — it is certain not all are Driechhelms or Heracliteans, nor are their tears perpetual beyond the bounds of the red lake. Nor yet for that do I think the pious island is to be despised, but rather to be approached at a fit season by those to whom God has given the mind and strength to make the journey fittingly.

And this also is to be observed: though persons of both sexes may frequent the place, they are not shut up in the pit indiscriminately, but men separately and women in their turn. And if the multitude of pilgrims flocking together is great — as we said we saw 1,500 persons convened at one time — a numerous company cannot conveniently be expedited; the visitation of the pit is not assigned to a fixed stated day, but is dispensed at the governor’s discretion.

Now for what the popular tongue reports of the monstrous spectres that meet those shut in the den — omitting the rest I will relate only one thing, which I received from a learned and venerable man of the city, concerning a certain pilgrim, a Tirconnell man: while he was performing his pilgrimage and was now shut in the den, a fellow-countryman stole his draught-horse; and the thief himself, going into this island and being shut in the pit, there present and accompanying the thief — saw all the thief’s turnings and paths: the bridge by which he came, the halter he put on the horse’s neck, the place to which he led it, the hiding he took, and every circuit he made while leading away the stolen beast; which he also reported in the pit to the fellow-pilgrim sitting next him. And when he had come out and, returning home, found the beast missing, he at once accused the thief and charged him before Hugh O’Donnell, chieftain of the region; and when the man at first denied the theft, convicted by the pilgrim — inspired by the true Lord — through sure evidences of the time, the place, the instrument, the manner, the hiding and the shelter, and so of the rest, he yielded and restored the stolen thing.

Of this and other such things, though witnessed by many, I determine nothing rashly — since it is certain both that the guardian angels appointed to our keeping, and the powers of darkness lying in wait for our salvation, could have known these things and instilled them into the absent in that moment of time: yet if it is taken as revealed by the evil demon, it is not known except for destruction, trouble and deceit; but if by the good angel, for stirring up to virtue, for admonition to piety toward God, and to penitence for sins and greater confidence in the divine providence under which all things are ordered — who has the very hairs of His servants’ heads numbered — we should understand it was made known.

And let these things have been said, somewhat hastily, of this Purgatory of St Patrick — not in any wise whatever, but in the manner and rite in which it is accustomed to be visited now: of the den itself that is entered, of the time spent, of the penitential cells and stations that are made, of the fast that is performed. Nor do we now enquire whether any variation has succeeded to these in process of time, but of the thing itself and its origin, institution and continuance.

Of the finding of the Purgatory and the rite anciently observed in its pilgrimage — Chapter Three #

But in what manner the visitation of the Purgatory was celebrated some five hundred and fifty years ago by a certain penitent, you will learn from the following history, which you have described by Matthew Paris under the year of the Lord 1153 — who, taking from Henry of Saltrey, his elder by almost a whole century, seems to have borrowed it entire; and though his narration is somewhat more prolix, yet since the authors from whom it is drawn are not obvious to all, receive it whole in their own words — which I commemorate the more willingly because you may find the same written in summary and received as true history in Denis the Carthusian, book 4 On the Four Last Things, article 48, and in the colloquy on the particular judgement of souls after death, articles 24 and following.

When St Patrick preached the word of God in Ireland and shone there with many miraculous signs, he endeavoured to recall the infidels of that land from evil by the terror of infernal torments, and to confirm them in good by the promise of the joys of paradise. But they affirmed that they would not be converted to Christ at his flat speech unless some of them could see both the torments of the evil and the joys of the good, that they might be made surer by things seen than by things promised. So the blessed Patrick, devoted to God and then also devout in vigils, fasts and prayers for the people’s salvation and zealous in good works — while he was intent on such things for the people’s salvation, the merciful Lord Jesus Christ, appearing to him visibly, led him into a desert place and showed him a cave, round and dark within, and said: “Whoever, being truly penitent and steadfast in the faith, shall enter this cave and abide therein the space of one day and night, shall be purged of all the sins wherewith he has offended God in his whole life; and passing through it he shall not only see the torments of the wicked but, if he steadfastly persevere in the faith, shall see also the joys of the elect.”

And when the Lord had disappeared from his eyes, St Patrick was filled with spiritual joy both for the appearing of his Lord and for the showing of the cave — through which he hoped the wretched people of Ireland would be converted to the Catholic faith; and at once he built a church in that place, and introduced Regular Canons of St Augustine living the apostolic life; and he enclosed the aforementioned cave, which is in the churchyard beyond the east front of the church, with a wall, and set doors and bars, lest any should presume to enter it with rash daring and without licence; and he committed the key to the prior of the same church to be kept. Now in St Patrick’s own time many, moved by penitence, entered that pit — of whom some perished in it, while others returning testified that they had suffered torments and seen joys, whose relations St Patrick commanded to be recorded in the same church. By their testimony others began to receive blessed Patrick’s preaching; and because men are there purged of sins, the place itself is called St Patrick’s Purgatory, and the place of the church is called Lough Derg.

Here moreover it is to be known that it is the custom, established both by St Patrick and by his successors, that no one enters that Purgatory save he have licence from the bishop in whose diocese it is, and choose of his own will to enter it for his sins: who, when he has come to the bishop and made known his purpose, the bishop first exhorts him to desist from such a purpose, saying that many have entered it who never returned; but if he perseveres, having received the bishop’s letters he hastens to the place — which when the prior of that place has read, he at once dissuades the same man from entering the Purgatory and diligently admonishes him to choose another penance, showing him the peril of many therein. But if he still perseveres, he introduces him into the church, that he may spend fifteen days in it in fasts and prayers. Which being accomplished, the prior calls the clergy together, and when mass has been celebrated in the morning the penitent is fortified with the sacred communion and sprinkled with water blessed for that office, and so with procession and litanies he is led at last to the door of the Purgatory; but the prior, denouncing before them all the temptation and the perdition of many in the same pit, opens the door. If then he remains constant in his purpose, having received the blessing of all the priests and commending himself to the prayers of all, and impressing the sign of the cross on his forehead with his own hand, he enters; and the door is at once shut by the prior, and the procession returns to the church. On the next day it goes back again in the morning from the church to the pit, and the door is opened by the prior; and if the man is found returned, he is led with joy into the church, in which he remains another fifteen days intent on vigils and prayers. But if at the same hour on the next day he does not appear returned, all depart, the door being shut by the prior, despairing of his return.

Of the knight’s penance and his entry into the Purgatory, with the messengers sent to him by God — Chapter Four #

A certain knight named Owen, who had served many years under King Stephen, having obtained licence from the king, set out for Ireland to his native soil to visit his parents. And when he had remained some while in that region, he began to recall to mind his life so flagitious: that from his very cradle he had ever been given to burnings and plunderings; and what grieved him more, that he had been a violator of churches and an invader of ecclesiastical property, besides many enormities, sins that lay hid within. The knight then, moved by penitence, went to a certain bishop of that region; and when he had devoutly recounted his sins in order, the bishop rebuked him gravely, asserting that he had too long offended the divine clemency. Whereupon the knight, greatly contrite, resolved to do condign penance to God. For the men of that land have this as it were by nature: as they are more prompt to evil than men of another race through ignorance, so when they have known themselves to err they are more ready and more steadfast in repenting. And when the bishop, as seemed just to him, would have enjoined him a penance, the knight answered: “Since, as you say, I have so grievously offended my Maker, I will take upon me a penance heavier than all penances — and to merit the remission of my sins, I vow to enter St Patrick’s Purgatory.”

The bishop related the perdition of very many therein to turn him from this intent; but the knight, of manly spirit, consented not to the bishop’s dissuasion. Then the bishop counselled him to take the habit of canons or monks; but the knight answered he would on no account do so until he had first entered the aforementioned Purgatory. When therefore the bishop knew him to be truly penitent and inflexible, he gave him his letters to the prior of the place, bidding him deal with him as is accustomed to be done with those who ask to enter the Purgatory. And the prior, the letters seen and the other ceremonies performed as above, led the knight into the church, in which, after the custom, he remained fifteen days in fasts and prayers; which being accomplished, mass being celebrated by the prior in the morning, he communicated the knight with the sacred communion, and the brethren and neighbouring clergy being called together and the knight brought to the cave’s entrance, he sprinkled him with blessed water; and the door being opened, he said: “See, now you shall enter in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the hollow of the cave you shall walk until, coming out into a field, you shall find a hall most cunningly built; which when you have entered, you shall at once have messengers on God’s part who shall diligently expound to you what you are to do or to suffer. But when they are gone out and you remain alone in it, at once the tempters will come — for so it is reported to have befallen those who entered before you; but be you constant in the faith of Christ.” And the knight, bearing a manly spirit, feared not the peril of which he heard that others had despaired; and he who once, fenced with iron, had joined in the battles of men, now, harder than iron, armed with faith, hope and justice, trusting in God’s mercy, confidently went forth to the fight of demons; and commending himself to the prayers of all, marked his forehead with the sign of the life-giving cross and fearlessly entered the gate — which the prior, barring it from without, returned to the church with the procession.

The knight then, desiring to exercise a new and unwonted warfare, went on through the cave, alone yet boldly. As the darkness grew deeper and deeper, in a short while he lost all light; at last from over against him a little light began to show through the pit; and soon he came to the foretold field and hall — but the light there appeared only such as is had here in winter after sunset. The hall had no walls but was borne all round by columns and little arches in the manner of a monks’ cloister; and when he had walked a while about the hall, marvelling at its wondrous structure, within its enclosure he saw it yet more wonderful. Entering it then and sitting within a while, he turned his eyes here and there admiring its beauty; and when he had sat a little while alone, see fifteen men, as it were religious, newly shaven and clothed in white garments, entered the house and, greeting him in the Lord’s name, sat down. Then the rest being silent, one who was first and seemed their leader spoke to him, saying: “Blessed be almighty God, who inspired you with a good purpose to enter this Purgatory for your sins! Unless you bear yourself manfully, you shall perish body and soul. For as soon as we have gone out of this house a multitude of unclean spirits will come upon you, who, bringing grievous torments on you, will threaten to bring yet more grievous; they will promise to lead you back to the gate by which you entered, trying if they can in this way deceive you into returning. But if, overcome by the affliction of the torments or terrified by threats or deceived by promise, you yield assent to them, you shall perish both in body and soul. But if, strong in the faith, you set your hope in the Lord, so that you yield neither to torments nor threats nor their promises but despise them with a whole heart, you shall not only be purged from all your sins but shall also see the torments prepared for sinners and the rest in which the just are comforted. Have God ever in your memory; and as often as they torment you, invoke our Lord Jesus Christ — and by the invocation of that name you shall at once be freed from whatever torment you are in. For we may not tarry here longer; but we commend you to almighty God.” And so, blessing the man, they departed from him.

Of the coming of the demons and the first torment the knight suffered — Chapter Five #

The knight then, left alone by those men, began to prepare himself for a warfare of a new kind; and armed with the weapons of Christ he waited fearlessly for the demon who should first provoke him to battle — clad with the breastplate of justice, his head girt with the helmet of hope of victory and eternal salvation, his breast covered with the shield of faith; and he had also the sword of God’s word, devoutly invoking Jesus Christ, that by that royal defence he might be guarded and not overcome by the infesting adversaries. Nor did the divine mercy fail him, which knows not how to fail those who trust in it. The knight then, as was said, while he sat alone in the house awaiting the demons’ attack with unquailing mind, suddenly a tumult began to be heard around the house as if the whole world were shaken — for if all the men and all the beasts of earth, sea and air had shouted with one effort together, they would not have made a greater tumult (as it seemed to him); from where, unless he were protected by the divine power and the more commodiously instructed by the aforementioned men, he would have been maddened by the tumult itself. And see, after the horrible sound followed the yet more horrible visible aspect of the demons: for an innumerable multitude of demons of deformed shapes began to rush into the hall from every side, saluting him with mocking and saying as it were in reproach: “Other men who serve us come to us only after death; but you would so honour our fellowship, which you have zealously served, that you would not await the day of death like others, but living have delivered your soul and body together to us — that you might receive a greater reward from us. This you have done: you shall therefore receive abundantly from us what you have deserved; here you cam to suffer torments for your sins — you shall therefore have from us what you seek: tribulations and sorrows. Yet since you have hitherto served us, if you will acquiesce in our counsels and return, this we will do for you as your reward — we will bring you back unhurt to the gate by which you cam in, that you may live in the world and rejoice, nor lose all that is sweet to your body.” These things they promised him because they wished to deceive him either by terror or by flattery. But the valiant soldier of Christ was neither shaken by terror nor seduced by blandishment, condemning with the same mind them that threatened and them that flattered, answering nothing at all.

The demons then, seeing themselves despised, roared horribly at him and kindled in the hall a pyre of huge burning; and the knight’s hands and feet being bound, they cast him into the fire and dragged him with iron hooks here and there through the blaze, shouting. And he, cast into the fire, though at first he felt grievous torment, fenced with the defence of the true God and newly instructed by the aforementioned men, forgot not the weapons of spiritual warfare; but invoking the name of his most merciful Saviour Jesus, saying “Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” he was so freed from that burning that not one spark of the whole pyre appeared. Seeing which, the knight was made the bolder, firmly resolving in mind not to fear them thereafter whom he had seen so easily vanquished by Christ’s invoked aid.

Of the four penal plains to which the knight was dragged — Chapter Six #

Then the demons, leaving that hall with yelling and horrible tumult and parting one from another — certain of them dragged the knight for a long while through a vast region: for the land was black and the region dark, nor did he see anything in it save the demons who dragged him. A burning wind blew there, which could scarce be heard but seemed by its rigour to pierce his body. They dragged him toward the quarter where the sun rises at midsummer; and when they had come there as to the world’s end, they began to turn to the right and tend through a broad valley toward that quarter where the sun rises in mid-winter. As they went, the knight began to hear as it were the most wretched wailing and weeping of the whole world; and the nearer he came the more clearly he heard their cries and lamentations. At length, drawn by the demons’ traction, he came into a plain most wide and long, filled with misery and pain, whose bounds could not be seen by the knight for its great length. Now that plain was full of men of either sex and every age, naked and lying on the ground, who with their faces turned downward, transfixed into the earth through hands and feet with fiery iron nails, were wretchedly tormented. And sometimes for the anguish of pain they seemed to eat the earth, crying and wailing: “Spare, spare, have mercy!” — though there was none to spare or pity them. And the demons, running over the wretches, beat them with the hardest scourges; saying to the knight: “These torments which you see you shall feel by suffering, unless you yield to us to return to the gate by which you entered — to which, if you will, you shall be led back in peace.” But he, recalling to mind how God had elsewhere delivered him, utterly refused to believe them. Then the demons, casting him on the ground, tried to fix him with nails like the others; but when the name of Jesus Christ was invoked, they failed in the attempt.

Departing then from that plain they dragged the knight to another plain filled with greater misery. Between it and the former he noted this difference: that in the former plain the afflicted men had their faces turned down, but in this their backs clove to the ground. And fiery dragons sitting upon some, as though devouring them, tore them in wretched wise with burning teeth; fiery serpents also twined round the necks, arms or whole bodies of others, and impressing their heads into the wretches’ breasts, fixed the burning sting of their mouth in their hearts. Toads also of wondrous size, as it were of fire, were seen to sit upon the breasts of some, and fixing their deformed beaks seemed to strive to tear out their hearts. And the demons, running between and over them, striking with the roughest scourges, grievously tormented the wretches; and the men so fixed and afflicted never ceased from weeping and wailing. The end of this plain likewise he could not see for its length — he saw only in breadth as he entered and went out, for he passed through the plains in traversing them. “These torments which you see,” said the demons, “you shall suffer, unless you assent to us to return.” And when he had despised them, they tried as before to fix him with nails; but when Christ’s name was heard they could do no more.

Passing from there, the demons led the knight into the third penal plain. That plain too was filled with men of either sex and every age, who lay transfixed to the ground with burning iron nails — so that for the multitude of nails, from the crown of the head to the toes, no empty place was found in them save as much as the tip of one finger might cover. These could form a voice to cry out, but like men who are near to death they uttered their voice. These too appeared naked like the rest, and were tormented with cold burning wind and with the demons’ scourges. And when the demons would have tormented the knight here as in the other parts, he invoked the name of Christ and remained unhurt.

From there dragging the knight they came to the fourth plain, full of many fires, in which were found all kinds of torments. Some hung by fiery chains from the feet, some by the hands, some by the hair, some by the arms, some by the shins with their heads turned down, immersed in sulphurous flames. Some hung by their nails, with iron hooks fixed in their eyes, or ears, or jaws, or buttocks, or breasts, or genitals. Some were burnt as it were over frying-pans. Some, transfixed on fiery spits, were roasted at the fire, which some of the demons turned while others poured on them various molten metals. Nor amid the wretched weepings and wailings of all were the scourges wanting of the demons running through. There too he saw certain of his former companions, and knew them. All kinds of torment that can be thought of were seen there; and the cries and wailings he heard no tongue can express. Now these plains were full not only of men tormented but also of demons tormenting. “These torments,” said the demons, “you shall suffer, unless you will return at once to the gate by which you entered.” He despised their threats, and invoking Christ’s name went forth free.

Of the fiery wheel, the smoking house, the high mountain and the coldest river to which the demons dragged the knight — Chapter Seven #

Then the demons, driving the knight from that penal place, there appeared before them a wheel of wondrous size, of iron and fire, whose spokes and fellies were everywhere beset with fiery iron hooks, on which men hung fixed. Half of this wheel stood upward in the air, the other half sank down into the earth; and the flame of the foul sulphurous burning which rose from the earth round the wheel most wretchedly tormented them that hung thereon. “These things that these suffer,” said the demons, “you shall suffer, unless you will return — which you shall first see them endure.” So the ministers of Tartarus, some on one side against others, thrusting iron forks between the wheel’s spokes, turned it with such swiftness that of those hanging on it none could be discerned from another — for the wheel appeared, from the excessive speed of its course, like a circle of fire. And when they had cast him upon the wheel and lifted him into the air as it whirled, he invoked the name of Jesus and came down unhurt.

Going on from there, they dragged him toward a great house smoking horribly, whose breadth was great and length so great that he could not see its end. And when they were yet a little way off, he halted for the great heat that came out of it, fearing to go on. Then the demons said to him: “These are baths which you see — nill you, will you, you shall go on even there and be bathed in them with the rest.” And there began to be heard from that house most wretched weepings and lamentations. Led into the house, he saw a hard and horrible sight: the floor of the house was full of round pits so close together that scarce or no man could pass between them. Now each pit was full of various metals and boiling liquids, in which a great multitude of men of either sex and every age were plunged — some wholly immersed, some to the eyebrows, some to the eyes, some to the lips, some to the neck, some to the chest, some to the navel, some to the thighs, some to the knees, some to the shins, some held by one foot only, some by both hands or by one — as they are accustomed to be held in cauldrons. And all cried out for the anguish of pain and wailed miserably. “See,” said the demons, “with these you shall be bathed”; and raising the knight up they tried to cast him into one of the pits. But when Christ’s name was heard they prevailed no further.

Then departing from that house they went on into a high mountain, and showed him a great multitude of men of either sex and every age — in comparison of whom all whom he had seen before seemed few: all sat naked on the tips of their toes. These, as it were imploring death with trembling, walked toward the north. And when the knight wondered what that wretched multitude awaited, one of the demons said to him: “Perchance you wonder what this people awaits with such fear — unless you consent to us, you shall know what they await trembling.” Scarce had the demon finished his words when, see, a whirlwind came from the north, which caught up both the demons themselves and with them the knight and all that people, and cast them into a river fetid and most cold on the other part of the mountain, howling and wailing miserably — in which they were vexed with inestimable cold; and when they tried to rise out of the coldest water, the demons running over the water submerged them incessantly. But the knight, not unmindful of his helper, crying out the name of Christ found himself at once on the other bank.

Of the fiery pit and the most deep well to which the knight was led by the demons — Chapter Eight #

And while the demons grieved at the knight’s escape, they came and dragged him toward the south, where he saw a most foul flame, full of sulphurous stench, rising from a certain pit, and naked men as it were fiery, like sparks of fire, driven upward into the air and, when the force of the flame failed, falling back again into the pit and the fire. When they drew near the demons said to the knight: “This flame-vomiting pit is the entrance of hell; here is our habitation; and since you have diligently served us hitherto, here you shall remain with us without end — for all who serve us shall remain here for ever; into which if you once enter, you shall perish in soul and body for ever. Yet if you will still consent to us to return to the gate by which you entered, you may return unhurt to your own.” But he, trusting in the help of God who had so often delivered him, despised their exhortations and promises. Then the demons, indignant, plunged headlong into the pit and thrust the knight in with them. And the deeper the knight descended in it the wider he saw the pit and the more grievous the pain he felt in it. And in that pit the knight endured such anguish and such intolerable miseries that he long forgot the name of his Saviour; but by God’s breathing at last, coming to himself he cried the name of Jesus Christ as he could — and at once the flame’s force lifted him up into the air. Descending then beside the pit he stood a while astonished, not knowing where to turn. But see new and as it were unknown demons springing from the pit’s mouth said to him: “You, why stand you there? Our fellows told you this was hell — they lied: it is not so, know you. For it is ever our custom to lie, that whom we cannot deceive by the truth we may deceive by falsehood; this is not hell — but now we will lead you to hell.”

So the new enemies, dragging the knight with great and horrible-sounding tumult, came to a river most broad and fetid, all covered as it were with the flame of sulphurous burning and filled with a multitude of demons. They said then to him that beneath that river hell was. Now a bridge was stretched across the river, on which three things seemed all but impossible and much to be feared by those who cross: one, that it was so slippery that though it were polished none, or scarce any, could set foot on it; another, that it was so narrow and slender that none could stand or walk on it; the third, that it was so high and remote from the river that it was dreadful to look down. “you must,” said the demons, “pass over this bridge — and we, raising winds and whirlwinds, will cast you off the bridge into the river; and our fellows who are in it will seize you and plunge you into hell. For we will prove how safe it is for you to walk on this bridge — yet if you still assent to us to return, you may even from this jeopardy go back unhurt to your country.” But the faithful soldier of Christ, thinking within himself from how great evils his most merciful advocate Jesus had delivered him, invoked His name and boldly entered the bridge — and began to go step by step, feeling nothing slippery beneath his feet, walking firmly on the bridge trusting in the Lord; and the higher he mounted the wider he found the bridge — and see after a little the breadth of the bridge grew to such an extent that it showed the ampleness of a public road and could receive carts meeting one another. Now the demons who had led the knight, seeing him walking easily on the bridge and unable to go further, stood at the bridge’s foot as if awaiting the knight’s fall; but seeing him pass freely, they so struck the air with their horrible cries and profane voices that the horror of that deafening clamour seemed to him more intolerable than any of the pains he had endured from the demons. Yet seeing them halt and unable to go further, and mindful of his merciful guide, he went on secure. And other enemies below, running over the river, cast their fiery iron hooks at him but could not touch the knight. At last proceeding securely and finding nothing contrary to him, he saw the bridge’s breadth grow so great that he could scarce discern its ends on either side.

Of the heavenly glory — the earthly paradise shown to the knight, and his converse with the pontiffs — Chapter Nine #

The knight then, unscathed, now freed from the vexation of the unclean spirits, saw before him a high wall rising into the air — for the wall was wondrous, of incomparable beauty and inestimable fabric — in which he saw one gate, shut, adorned with various and precious metals and stones, shining with wondrous splendour. And when the knight had come near it, though still half a mile’s distance away, that gate was opened to meet him, and so great an odour of sweetness came out through it that, as it seemed to him, if the whole world were turned into spices it would not surpass its abundance of sweetness; and he received such strength from it that he reckoned he could now endure without trouble the torments he had suffered. And looking within the gate he saw a brightness surpassing the sun’s splendour. And when he was yet a little way off, there came out to meet him, with crosses, tapers and banners and as it were branches of golden palms, so great and so ordered a procession as in this world, he reckoned, was never seen. There followed the aforementioned, of either sex and every age and order of men: some as archbishops, some as bishops, some as abbots, monks, canons, priests and ministers of every degree of the church, clad in sacred vestments befitting their order. And all, both clergy and laity, seemed there clothed in the same form of vestments in which they had served God in the world. And they all received the knight with great veneration and holy joy, and with the harmony of a concert unheard in the world led him blissfully within the gate with them.

Then, the concert and procession finished, two, as it were archbishops, departing apart took the knight into their company and led him through that country and showed him its loveliness; who, speaking with him, first blessed God, who had strengthened his soul to endure with such constancy the pains he had suffered.

So the two pontiffs, leading the knight through the pleasant things of that country, carried him here and there through many more desirable and pleasant things than he or the most eloquent of men could unfold with tongue or pen. Now that country was so irradiated with clearness of light that as the light of a lamp is darkened by the sun’s splendour, so the midday brightness of the sun seemed to be obscured by the wondrous brilliance of that country’s light; night never clouds it, for the splendour of its fields is translucent with perennial clearness. And the whole country was as it were pleasant green meadows adorned with various flowers and fruits of herbs and manifold trees — of whose odour he said he would have lived for ever had it been granted him to live there. But the country’s end he could not learn for its great size, save only on the side where he entered by the gate. And he saw in it a multitude of men of either sex so great as he reckoned no one had ever seen in this life, or believed the residue of the world could contain — of whom some dwelling in these and some in other places, divided into conventicles; yet as they wished, some passed with gladness from these into those, and from those into other companies — and so it happened that some rejoiced in the visiting of others. Choir answered choir in places high and low, rendering praises to God with the sweet concert of harmony. And as star differs from star in brightness, so was there a concordant difference in the brightness and beauty of their garments and faces: some seemed clad in golden clothing, others in green, purple, hyacinthine, cerulean, white; yet the form of each one’s habit was the same as they had worn in the world — which showed the knight of what merit or order each had been, whose habit, of various colour, seemed of various brightness of splendour. Some went as crowned kings, others bore golden palms in their hands. Of such and so many, then, was the delightful aspect to the knight in that rest of the just — and no less the sweet and more ineffable hearing of their harmony: everywhere he heard the saints’ concert resounding God’s praises; and each rejoiced in his own felicity, yet each exulted also in the joy of others. And all who embraced the knight blessed the Lord for his coming and rejoiced together over his escape from the demons — and there seemed to be there, as it were, a new exultation at his coming. No heat, no cold did he feel there, nor anything that could in any wise offend or hurt — all things peaceful, all placid, all pleasant: many more things he saw in that rest than any man could speak or write.

These things accomplished, the pontiffs said to the knight: “See, brother, by God’s help you have seen what you did desire to see — for coming here you have seen the torments of sinners, and here the rest of the just. Blessed be the Creator and Redeemer of all, who gave you such a purpose, by whose grace passing through torments you have kept the faith. Now we wish you to know what those places of torment are that you saw, and what this country of so great beatitude.

“This country is the earthly paradise, from which Adam the first-formed was cast out for the fault of disobedience — for after he had despised God by disobedience, he could no longer see the joys you see, no, far incomparably greater. Here he had been custom to hear God’s words diligently, to enjoy the cleanness of heart, the height of inward vision, and the sight of the blessed angels. But when through disobedience he fell from so great beatitude, he lost the light of the mind wherewith he was enlightened — because he understood not the honour that was his, therefore he is compared to the foolish beasts and made like to them. And all his posterity, for his fault, received the sentence of death even as he. O detestable crime of disobedience!

“At last the most merciful God, moved with pity over the misery of mankind, ordained His only-begotten Son to be incarnate — our Lord Jesus Christ — by whose faith being received in baptism we have merited to return to that country free from debts, delivered from original sin. But since we have stained the robe we received in baptism, and have sinned through the frailty of the flesh, it was needful that by penance we should obtain the pardon of our deeds. For the penance which we took before death or in the last hour, and did not accomplish in life, we pay after the loosening of the flesh, in the penal places which you saw — some for a longer, some for a shorter space of time, according to the measure and quantity of our faults, suffering torments. For all of us who are here passed to this rest through those places; and all whom you saw in the several penal places — save those who are kept within the mouth of the infernal pit — when they have been purged shall come to this rest and be saved. And daily certain of them come purged, whom we receive as we received you and lead in here with joy. But of those who are in the pains, none knows how long each shall be tormented there; but by masses, psalms, prayers and alms, as often as they are made for them, their torments are either mitigated or transferred to lesser and more tolerable ones, until at last by such benefits they are wholly freed. And when they have come to this place of quiet, how long they shall remain here they themselves know not — none of us can know this of himself: for as in the penal places each is determined according to the quantity of his faults, so also we who are here shall abide in this rest more or less according to our good merits. See, as you see, we are free from pains and enjoy great quiet; yet we are not yet counted worthy to ascend to the supernal joy of the saints, and none of us knows the day or term of our promotion to the better — but after the term appointed to each we shall pass into the greater rest. Daily our fellowship in a manner both grows and wanes, while every day some come up to us from the pains and some ascend from us into the heavenly paradise.”

These things said, the venerable prelates, taking the knight with them into a mountain, bade him look upward and say of what colour the heaven seemed to him from the respect of the place where he stood — who answered and said: “It seems to me like gold burning in a furnace.” “This which you now see,” said they, “is the gate of paradise; by it they enter who are taken up from us into heaven. Nor should it be hid from you that as long as we remain here, God feeds us once daily with heavenly food — and what that food is and how delightful, you shall now feel with us by God’s gift in tasting it.” Scarce was the speech finished when, see, as it were a flame of fire descending from heaven covered the whole country; and as it were divided into rays, the flame settling upon the heads of each, entered at last wholly into them — and upon the knight also among the rest it descended and entered into him; from which he felt such a sweetness of delight in heart and body that he scarce knew whether he was alive or dead. But that hour passed in a moment. “This,” said they, “is that food wherewith we are fed once daily by God; and because it is taken into our bowels it is enjoyed without end.” The knight would gladly have remained there had it been granted him to enjoy those delights; but after so many joys, sad things are told him.

“Since therefore, brother, you have seen in part what you did desire to see — the rest of the blessed and the torments of sinners — you must now return by the same way by which you entered. And if after this you live soberly and holily, you may be secure not only of this rest but also of the heavenly mansion; but if — which God forbid — you live ill and pollute your life with the allurements of the flesh, you yourself have seen what torments await you. Return therefore secure: for whatever terror the demons instilled into you on your coming here, fear not the like on your return — for the demons will not dare to come near you, no, they will flee trembling from your sight; nor can the torments you have seen hurt you at all.” At these words the knight, astonished, began with weeping and wailing humbly to beseech the pontiffs that he might not be compelled to return from so great beatitude to the troubles of the world, saying: “I cannot depart hence, for I sorely fear lest through the frailty of human converse I commit anything that may hinder me from returning here.” “It shall not be as you ask,” said they, “but as He who made both us and you has disposed — for He best knows what is expedient for all.”

How the knight came out of the Purgatory, went to Jerusalem, and spent the rest of his life — Chapter Ten #

The knight Owen then, having received the blessing, unwilling and very sad returns by the same way by which he had come, and is led back by the prelates to the gate of paradise; and when he had gone out, the gate was shut behind him. Departing then from paradise, mourning and grieving that, another felicity lost, he had been compelled to return to this world’s misery, he came back by the way he had come to the aforementioned hall in which the demons had first set upon him. And the demons he saw on his return — but at his aspect they fled away trembling as it were; and the torments through which he passed could not hurt him. And when he had fearlessly entered the foresaid hall, see the fifteen men who had first appeared to him and instructed him at once met him, glorifying God who had granted him such constancy in the torments; and congratulating his victory they said: “Hail, our brother! We know that by the torments you have manfully endured you have conquered and art purged of all your sins. See now it is daybreak in your country and the dawn grows bright — ascend therefore as quickly as may be; for if the prior of the church, coming to the gate with procession after the solemnities of mass, finds you not returning, despairing of your return he will shut the gate and go back to the church.” The knight then, having received the blessing, at once ascended — and at the same hour at which the prior opened the gate, the knight appeared coming out from within; whom the prior received with joy and Christ’s praises, and led into the church, where he made him continue fifteen days in prayers. Then, marked with the sign of the Lord’s cross on his shoulder, barefoot and devout, he set out for the Holy Land, and sought the Lord’s sepulchre at Jerusalem with the other venerable places in holy contemplation. From there, having laudably fulfilled his vow of pilgrimage, he returned and went to consult Stephen king of the English, his lord, to whom he had formerly been familiar — that by his counsel, as of a diligent and prudent man, he might accomplish the rest of his life in the order of holy religion and henceforth serve the King of kings. And it befell at that time that Gervase, abbot of the monastery of Louth, obtained by King Stephen’s gift a site for building an abbey in Ireland; who sent his monk named Gilbert with certain others to the same king, to receive the site from him and found the monastery there. And Gilbert, coming to the king and being graciously received by him, complained much that he knew not the tongue of that land. The king, hearing it, said: “I will find you, God helping, an excellent interpreter”; and calling the knight Owen, the king enjoined him to go with Gilbert and remain with him in Ireland. Which command the knight most gladly received, saying to the king: “It is fitting, O king, that you should receive monks into your kingdom to serve God and you; for, to tell the truth, in the rest of the saints I have seen men endowed with such great glory as are the men of this religion.” And passing into Ireland they began to build the monastery — remaining together there two years and a half: Gilbert was cellarer of that monastery, and the knight was steward and devout minister in all outward things, and a most faithful interpreter. And taking the monastic habit he lived holily and religiously, as the same Gilbert testified. And whenever Gilbert was alone with the knight anywhere, he would curiously ask him concerning the state of the purgatory and the wondrous pains which the knight had seen and learnt by experience. And the knight — who could never hear of the whole purgatory without breaking into most bitter weeping — began to relate under the seal of secrecy to his friend for edification the things he had heard and seen and learnt by experience, affirming that he had saw all with his bodily eyes. And by this monk’s industry and diligence this knight’s account was reduced to writing, together with the testimony of the bishops of the region and other religious who bore witness to its truth.

The examination and manifold confirmation of this history — Chapter Eleven #

When the aforementioned Gilbert (these are Henry of Saltrey’s words) had related this narration before many, myself also hearing it — as he had often heard it from the knight himself — there came among the rest one who said he doubted whether these things had so befallen. To whom Gilbert said: “Then perhaps you suppose that, entering the hall, he was rapt in ecstasy and saw all these things in the spirit — which the knight most certainly affirms by no means befell him, but that he saw all things with his bodily eyes, and this he most constantly testifies.” ‘But I was also present in the monastery, and with my own eyes I saw a thing very like to this, and many with me. For there was in the monastery a certain very religious monk, at whose holiness the demons envied; and as he slept one night they carried him bodily out of the dormitory, and for three days and three nights he was vexed by them, the brethren meanwhile not knowing what had become of him. And after the third day he was found by the brethren in his little bed, scourged almost to death and horribly beaten by the demons. And he confessed to me that he had seen horrible torments. And he lived afterwards fifteen years — but his wounds could be cured by no medicine: for they ever appeared open and as if fresh, some of them a finger’s length deep. This monk, whenever he saw any younger man laughing immoderately or jesting or bearing himself in any way inordinately, used to say: “O, if you knew how great a pain awaits this dissolution, perchance you would amend your gestures and motions for the better.” This monk’s wounds I saw and touched with my own hands, and I myself buried him after his death. The report then of this man, so holy and so religious and so familiar to me, took away utterly whatever doubt I had of the former relation.” Thus far Gilbert.

“But I,” says Saltrey, “after I had heard all these things, consulted two abbots of Ireland that I might be yet more certain. One of them affirmed that all the things related were true, and testified moreover that many who had entered had not returned. And lately also I asked a certain bishop, the nephew of the third St Patrick — that is, of St Malachias — Florentian by name, in whose diocese (as he himself said) is the same purgatory; and when I curiously enquired of him, the bishop answered: “It is true, brother; that place is in my diocese, and many have perished in the same purgatory — and if by chance they return, for the monstrousness of the torments they have suffered they waste away in lasting languor or pallor. But if after death they have lived soberly and justly, they are certain not to suffer other pains for their sins.’”

This history of the knight Owen, which is in part Henry of Saltrey’s, we have taken from an ancient manuscript of the library of St Victor in Paris — in which it was formerly written in three various places and is still had in two; but the part that is Matthew Paris’s we have transcribed from his printed works. Which if anyone (as we think) refuses to believe rather timorously than firmly and piously, or wishes to impugn — let him read attentively the most holy Fathers St Gregory, the Venerable Bede and Denis the Carthusian, and the various revelations, visions and narrations like to ours related by them, which they feared not to set down nor presumed to deny as probable things.

Of the time and the matter of the purgation, and the subject purged in this Purgatory — Chapter Thirteen (Messingham) #

For the completion of this treatise on the Purgatory it remains to treat briefly of the time and matter of the purgation — to satisfy a subtle objection concerning the adequate matter of the expiation or the expiable subject in this Purgatory.

It is to be noted then that it is singular in this Purgatory that it properly touches living men still surviving, and not the dead — whereby a broad distinction lies between this privileged and, so to speak, vital purgatory and that other universal and posthumous one: the former being that which is undergone in this life, the latter that which is undergone only after death; and the former may be called viatic or pre-cursory, the latter posthumous or, to speak more significantly, post-vital. Thus we distinguish more fully than if we called the one extraordinary — this one which concerns the living — and the other ordinary, which regards the dead: for even after death there is an ordinary and an extraordinary, as we have produced above — when the purgation of souls loosed from bodies is exercised in the proper and defined place near the edge and margin of the damned’s abyss at the earth’s navel, it is said to happen in the ordinary Purgatory; but when outside those limits, in baths, caverns or corners and other recesses in which the souls being expiated can be heard or approached by mortals, that expiation is said to happen in an extraordinary place.

But if we refer those terms ordinary and extraordinary not to place but to time — so that the purgation which happens after death is said to be made at the ordained time, according to the ordinary course and measure of time, of which all who die in grace and have anything to pay after this life can and must be partakers; while that other purgation, extraordinarily granted as it were by privilege in this life to those who bind themselves to undergo that penitential cavern designated by St Patrick’s prerogative and prayers and defined by fixed terms — in that sense it may be called extraordinary as regards time — there seems nothing absurd in it.

And of this Purgatory — extraordinary as regards time, as has been said — the adequate matter of purging can be every guilt of pain and all stains or bonds whatever which can be blotted out or dissolved in the way by the virtue of penitence and the act of contrition. For they who are thus extraordinarily purged are not comprehenders or confirmed in grace or charity, but wayfarers in the stadium of way and of mortal life — placed also in a state of meriting and demeriting absolutely: though by the intercession of that titular saint of whom we have spoken, and trusting in his singular patronage, they can conceive a firm hope — if they fulfil their part and exercise the penance of their sins with due and fitting zeal — that they will be sustained and strengthened by greater aids of grace, lest either in life they fall into mortal sin or after life into damnation; or at least, if it befall them to slip through human frailty, that they should not pass out of this life unrepentant.

And this sentence on St Patrick’s Purgatory can be much illustrated by the opinion of certain doctors concerning the cemetery of St Andrew, consecrated and privileged by St Gregory — and likewise concerning the soul of Trajan freed by his prayers; which St Thomas seems to follow, though both are impugned by others — of whom it is nothing to our present purpose to discourse. We shall be content to uphold piously and modestly our assertion and our elders’, leaving meanwhile to others their own sense and judgement. For if we should wish to dispute too hotly, we might tender probable reasons and conjectures for demonstrations (which the subject matter suffers), or press and thrust in demonstrations propter quid for demonstrations — and so by men of more moderate wit be censured as immodest and too much self-confident.

[Here follows Messingham’s marginal note that the Purgatory was already ancient in the days of Theophilus and Sulpicius Severus’s compendium of church history — and the text then passes to the next item in the Florilegium:]

A Treatise on the Purgatory of St Patrick — now begins the Preface on the Conversion of the Irish, by the most reverend lord David Rothe, bishop of Ossory and Vice-Primate of all Ireland, with his most learned and accurate elucidations of certain chapters of Jocelin #

The Preface #

O Lord our Lord, how admirable is Your name in all the earth — who have crowned Your saint with glory and honour and set him over the works of Your hands! For these are the works of Your hands which we admire and look upon in the conversion of a whole nation by the unwearied labour and zeal of Your servant: for you did take up and perfect so holy and salutary a work, in which many before had laboured and spent their industry and zeal — yet him alone, as it were chosen above the rest for this, you did deign to mark out with signs and wonders, that he might polish the rudiments begun by others and consummate by building upon the foundations they had laid. These are Your works and Your miracles, O Christ, who are wonderful in Your saints — whom You so dignifiest to make illustrious that You make them wonderfully triumph over the enemy of mankind.

Hard and difficult it was to illumine the Irish nation, wrapped in densest darkness; to enchant a people bewitched by magical arts; to soften hearts hardened to stone; to disentangle, instruct and convert a folk entangled in innumerable errors to a better mind and draw them to the physician of salvation. Yet some attempted it without fruit: Palladius ploughed this field, but his plough soon broke — for in a very short time he was compelled to return from there, the nation being hard and intractable, and converted but a few to the faith. What others before him ploughed — whether any of the apostles’ own band, as some surmise of Peter, others affirm of James the Greater — they left fields indeed, but bristling with thorns, or stony and dry, until the time prefixed by the Father of lights, in which He ordained by His servant St Patrick to purge the whole land of thorns and enlighten it with the light of the glorious Gospel — which He happily accomplished when He willed, by whom He willed, and how He willed. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counsellor? Or who has first given to Him, that it should be repaid him? For of Him and through Him and in Him are all things — to Him be glory for ever.

“He has adorned the mighty works of His wisdom, which are from everlasting and for ever — neither is anything added to them nor taken away, and He needs no man’s counsel. How desirable are all His works, and how like a spark that one may see! All these live and abide for ever, and in every need all obey Him; all are double, one against another, and He has made nothing to be lacking; He has confirmed the good of each. And who shall be satisfied with beholding His glory?” — so says Ecclesiasticus.

Truly the Almighty has adorned the mighty works of His wisdom by exalting the lowly, by magnifying the little one in His own eyes, so that he should flash with signs and wonders and glitter like a star’s light in the very gloom and darkness — those bondsmen of the demon, bound to errors and held captive by the Prince of errors and darkness at his will. But the merciful God, whose every judgement is in number, weight and measure, so ordains simple things that He may pierce even double things, measuring one to one — filling all and fulfilling His good pleasure of all, making nothing to lack and nothing to be superfluous. As He armed and arrayed Moses against the magicians and sorcerers of Pharaoh, so He gave Simon Peter against Simon Magus; so against the enchanters and spell-weavers in Ireland He set the beneficent and salvation-bringing preacher, who by great virtue and power could overthrow all the munitions of the adversaries and humble every height that exalts itself against orthodox truth.

And because against portentous darklings the fight must be waged with portents and prodigies, and against the spiritual wickednesses with God’s powerful weapons, it seemed good to Christ’s wisdom — who had Himself decreed that, the conqueror having conquered on the wood, the enemy should also be conquered by the wood — therefore whom He destined to be blessed in glory He first illumined while he fought on earth by faith: so He illumined him while he served here on legation for his Lord, drawing others to the faith and reconciling the lowest with the highest, that there were not wanting signs of His chiefest love — enriched him with supreme favours, so that even yet set in the lowest place and a humble servant of His household, yet a citizen of heaven inscribed in the eternal ordinance above — though a stranger and sojourner on earth below — in labours… [the text breaks off here]