The Purgatory of St. PatrickCalderón de la Barca, Pedro
Religion
The Purgatory of St. Patrick
Calderón de la Barca, Pedro
Patrick, Saint, 373?-463? -- Drama
"D. Dionysii Carthusiani liber utilissimus de quatuor hominis
novissimis, etc.," Parisiis, 1551.
The account "De Purgatorio Sancti Patritii" extends from fol. 235 to fol. 237.
"Enrique Saltarense" is Henry of Saltrey, a Benedictine monk of the
Abbey of Saltrey in Huntingdonshire, who about the middle of the
twelfth century first reduced to writing the Adventures of Owain, or
Enius, in the Purgatory of St. Patrick.
Of him Messingham writes thus. Referring to his authorities, he says:--
"What you shall find under the letter B, is taken from Henry
Salteriensis, an English monk of the Cistercian order, who had been
taught most excellent Precepts of a good Life as well as good Letters
by Florentianus, an Irish bishop, and Gilbert de Luda [Louth, in
Lincolnshire], Abbot of the Cistercian Monks, who also, being himself
well instructed, used to teach others the fear of the Lord as the
beginning of wisdom. . . . . And hence it is that he wrote unto
Henry Abbot of Sartis one Book of the Purgatory of St. Patrick and
one Book of the Pains of Purgatory. He flourished in the year of
Grace 1140." -- "A Brief History of St. Patrick's Purgatory". Paris,
1718. Preface.
"Cesario," which carelessness or the exigency of metre has separated
from the "Esturbaquense," of the next line is Caesarius of
Heisterbach, a well-known hagiological writer of whom Adrien Baillet
thus speaks:--
"Un religieux Allemand de l'ordre de Citeaux nomme 'Cesaire de
Heisterbach', qui mourut du tems de l'empereur Frederic II. travailla
aussi a la vie des Saints." He adds in a note:--
"Cesaire se fit moine l'an 1198, au Val de Saint de Pierre, dit
autrement Heisterbach, pres de la ville de Bonne, dans le diocese de
Cologne, et ne mourut que pres de quarante ans apres. Il avoit ete
maitre des novices dans son couvent, et ensuite prieur de la maison
de Villiers." -- 'Discours sur l'histoire de la Vie des Saints. Les
Vies Des Saints'. Paris, 1739. T. i., p. xlvii.
"Mateo Rodulfo," printed as the names of one author in Calderon,
separate into two persons in Messingham and Montalvan. The first is
the well-known Mathew Paris, whose 'Relation of the vision of Owen
the Irish Soldier' is expressly referred to in these words by
Messingham, who also alludes to him more fully in his preface. 'What
you shall find under the letter C,' says Messingham, 'is borrowed
from Mathew Paris, an English Benedictine Monk, who had from his
youth consecrated himself to a Monastic life, and polish'd most
excellent talents of nature with exquisite Arts and Sciences, and
adorn'd the same with all Christian virtues; being an Handicraft, a
Writer, a good Painter, a fine Poet, an acute Logician, a solid
Divine; and (which is much more valuable) pure in his Manners, bright
in the innocence of his life, simple and candid. Pitseus, upon the
year 1259, in which the said Mathew died, gives him a great many more
encomiums, which for brevity sake I hear omit.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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