Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 1.djvu/483

CHAP XIX At the height of the horrors of the Albigensian Crusade, in the year 1212, Fulco, Bishop of Toulouse, was driven from his diocese by the incensed but heretical populace. He travelled northward through France, seeking aid against these foes of Christ, and came to the diocese of Liége. There he observed with joy the faith and humility of those who were leading a religious life, and was struck by the devotion of certain saintly women whose ardour knew no bounds. It was all very different from Toulouse. "Indeed I have heard you declare that you had gone out of Egypt—your own diocese—and having passed through the desert, had reached the promised land—in Liége." Jacques de Vitry is speaking. His friend the bishop had asked him to write of these holy women, who brought such glory to the Church in troubled times. Jacques was himself a clever Churchman, zealous for the Church's interests and his own. He afterwards became Bishop and Cardinal of Tusculum; and as papal legate consecrated the holy bones of her whom the Church had decided to canonize, the blessed Mary of Ognies, the paragon of all these other women who rejoiced the ecclesiastical hearts of himself and Fulco. Jacques had known her and had been present at her pious death; and also had witnessed many of the matters of which he is speaking at the commencement of his Vita of this saint.

Many of these women, continues Jacques, had for Christ spurned carnal joys, and for Him had despised the riches of this world, in poverty and humility clinging to their heavenly Spouse.

"You saw," says Jacques, again addressing Fulco, "some of these women dissolved with such a particular and marvellous love toward God (tam speciali et mirabili in Deum amoris affectione resolutas) that they languished with desire, and for years had rarely been able to rise from their cots. They had no other infirmity, save that their souls were melted with desire of Him, and, sweetly resting with the Lord, as they were comforted in spirit they were weakened in body. They cried in their hearts,