Baring-Gould’s sources: At Schiedam, formerly on the Thursday after Easter. Roman and Belgian Martyrologies on April 14th. Authorities A life by John Gerlach, a kinsman and attendant on S. Lidwyna. in Dutch. The same in Latin, by John Brugmann. O.M., a contemporary, with additions from oral accounts given him by Walter of Leyden, her confessor for eight years, and from the letter of the magistrates of Schiedam to John of Dordrecht corroborating the account of her infirmities. In the edition of the Bollandists, all these additions of Brugmann to the text of Gerlach are printed within brackets. A third life by the same John Brugmann, addressed to Dr. William Sonderdank, a physician. Brugmann was a writer of the worst taste and most pedantic style. His prologue opens thus: — •* Many incredible things have the poets feigned ot the immortal Gods, of Jove, Saturn, Mercury, Juno, Pallas, and of the deceptive beauty of Venus. Many scribes have filled books and parchments in extolling the greatness of Hercules. Hector, Troilus, Julius Caesar, the two Scipios, and others/' and so on. He laments that he has not the skill of Sonderdank in describing the sores and imposthumes of Lidwyna. " Would, O would that I, O Doctor William, most excellent, who art surnamed Sonderdank, and art of the medical profession... O would that of thy superabundant benedictions, one only had descended on me, and that 1 like thee had been permitted to see with my eyes of flesh that Pearl alive, to have heard her speak and reply, to have, maybe, squeezed her virginal hand.” A fourth life, condensed from the above, was written by S. Thomas>&Kempis, who died in 1471.] In the time of Albert of Bavaria, count of Holland and Zealand, there lived in Schiedam, a Dutch town on the Maas, below Rotterdam, a man named Peter, who was one of the city watch, making his nightly round with lantern and horn, to call the hours and guard the town. His wife was named Petronilla, a woman of Ketel, a village in the flats near Schiedam, a worthy, industrious Dutch woman, who bore him four sons and one daughter. The mother was at church on Palm-Sunday when the pangs of maternity came on her, and she hurried home to be delivered of a little girl, who was christened Lidwyna. The name — they little thought it at the time — was to be singularly appropriate; it foreshadowed that child's after life, for Lidwyna signifies the “ Friend of Suffering." She grew up a pious child, and when sent to take her brothers their luncheon (jentcuuium ) at school, she never returned without having visited a church for a few moments' prayer. In 1395, when she was fifteen years old, an accident happened which affected her whole after life. On the feast of the Purification of Our Lady, Lidwyna went out with some young girls, her friends, on the ice, wearing, as Gerlach tells us, the wooden skates then in vogue. One of the girls came swinging over the ice towards Lydwina, intending to cut a figure on her skates round her; but failing, tripped Lidwyna up, and she fell over a heap of iceblocks, broke one of her ribs, and was otherwise internally injured. A large abcess formed on her side, which caused her intolerable pain, so that unable to rest in her bed, she was moved from one to another. On the vigil of S. John the Baptist's Day, her father was sitting near the poor child, S. Lidwyna.
…attempting to comfort her, when she sprang out of bed, and threw her arms round his neck. The violence of the action ruptured the imposthume, which remained ever after an open sore. She was consumed by an internal fever, which parched her throat, so that she constantly craved for water. Her kinsman Gerlach says, that she would writhe like a worm along the floor towards the door, and out to the stagnant ditch that surrounded the paddock, for a draught, and at other times would go to the cauldron on the fire. For some while she moved about with crutches, or pushed herself along with a stool, but finally lost altogether the use of her lower limbs. Then she took to her bed, from which she did not rise for thirty-three years. Little that she ate would remain on her stomach, except “ a small quantity of sugar, cinnamon, dates, and raisins.” 1 She drank of the water of the Maas. 8 But after a few years she ate and drank scarcely anything “ nullo penitus cibo corporali utebatur vd potu” says Gerlach, who ministered to her, but Brugmann has improved this into her eating and drinking “ nothing-at-all” for many years. Her bones, from long lying in bed, broke her skin, and she became a mass of wounds, so that to move her in bed her nurses were obliged to pass a towel under her shoulders. To add to her sufferings, she was now attacked with that marsh-ague which is the scourge of the Low Countries. This came on her at the age of seventeen, first a burning heat and then an icy chill, which made her shiver in bed, whilst a cold perspiration dripped from her brow. It recurred every three days and lasted for half-a-year at a time.
If any one is interested in the horrible details of her 1 Sumebat modicum zucarae rcl cynnamoni aut daclylorum sire muscat*. Lord, that she was enabled to distinguish by taste the water of the Maas when the tide was up from that when It was down; for it is a tidal river/* and rery near the sea,— the tide rises there eight feet.
sores, the plasters applied to them, and the worms that bred in them, let him read the ample and disgusting details given by Brugmann and Gerlach. They cannot be inserted here; only, let the reader remember, as he shudders over the particulars recorded with Dutch exactness, and also with Dutch coarseness, that if it is revolting to read such things, it must have been far worse to have endured them. 1 An amusing story is told by Brugmann. Just before Lent [the forty days of fasting before Easter] the curate of Schiedam, Andrew, a Norbertine canon, had killed five or six fat capons, as he had invited the magistrates of the town to dine with him. Soon after, he went to the house of Lidwyna to confess her, when she begged him to let her have the fat of one of his capons to make a plaster of. The curate, a little taken aback, replied that he feared there was not enough on all of them for making the desired plaster. But this was an excuse; really, he did not want to cut up his capons for the extraction of the grease, till his dinner came off. “Then you will not give me the fat!” said Lidwyna. The curate repeated his excuse. “ Well, I hope the mice will eat your chickens,” said the sick girl And it was so; that night the rats and mice invaded parson Andrew's larder, and sadly maltreated the poultry prepared for the dinner next day. Now Master Andrew had in his parsonage garden a fine tree of mazards (poma qua dicuntur mdzers ) y and Lidwyna had heard that slices of apples were a good thing 1 Some particulars are curious, her plasters were made of honey and a paste of wheal flour, sometimes of cream and the fat of eels mixed with the charcoal made of the mead of a very old cow, reduced to a condition of cinder. Here isa specimen of the sort of details into which Gerlach and Brugmann delight to enter, ** Ex vehementia infirmitatum suarum p articulation evomuit pulmonem et hepar cum pluribus intestlnls, absque tamen ullo fcetore; imoquicunque ea manibus attrectasset, adeo suaviter manus ej us fere per diem redolebant, quasi species aromaticas tetigissct sicut multi eo tempore expert! sunt; ” and again, ** Quando emplastra propter mutationem auferebantur, remanebant in eis pauci vermes grisei, cum nigris capitibus, longitudinem fere unguis humani digiti habentes; nec emittebant haw emplastra vel vermes aliquem fcetorem, Bed magnam potius suaritatcm.” April uo 5 *. Lidwyna* 193 to place upon bad sores. So she sent to the curate to ask for some of his precious mazards. “ Let her have them by all means,” answered Father Andrew, “ or I shall have them all eaten up by the rats.”
It greatly distressed her in the first years of her illness that she was subject to drowsiness, which prevented her from attending to the offices of religion. “Like other folk,” says Brugmann, “ she was more troubled with drowsiness at the time of Divine Service than at any other time.” Her confessor [in old usage, a saint who was not martyred, or who suffered for the faith without being killed] recommended her not to resist, knowing her need of sleep, but to doze off whenever she felt so disposed. However, having struggled energetically against this temptation, one Easter Day, at the time of High Mass in the church, at which she desired to assist in spirit, she was never after troubled therewith.
Another of her afflictions was headache, and intense toothache; a sort of cancer formed on her face, on her lower lip and chin, and she lost completely the sight of her right eye, whilst the left eye became so weak that she was unable to bear the light In the year 1404 her mother died. Some Third Order Sisters seem to have been kind to her, for we read of linen skirts they made for her, adapted to her position in bed, and the necessities of her wounds. After her mother’s death she was obliged to give up her feather-bed, because the canvass was worn through, and the feathers stuck to her sores, and to lie on a straw mattress or on one of birch bark. The winter was bitterly cold; it was one of unusual severity; the poor cottage could not keep out the frost, and the fire was too far from her bed to warm her, so that she was often blue with cold, and her tears were found frozen on her cheeks.
Wiliam, count of Holland, and the countess Margaret, when on a visit to Schiedam, sent their physician to examine the invalid, and promised her an annuity of twelve crowns. One night she was in great peril, for her father having gone out oh his nightly rounds, her brother put the candle in a comer above the bed, and then either went out or fell asleep. The candle dropped on the mattress, set it on fire, and the flames communicated themselves to the pillow; Lidwyna, making a great effort, beat out the fire with her hands, and was providentially uninjured. The annuity of count William, and old age, caused Peter, the father of Lidwyna, to surrender his office of watchman to his son. But the old habit of going forth at night could not be abandoned at once, and he was wont to visit the churches on vigils. One evening he met a man whom he knew slightly, who persuaded him to walk with him outside the town, as there was abundance of time before vespers were sung. They walked on the dam till they came to a lone spot, where the fellow suddenly attacked him, flung him into the ditch, and ran away. Peter would have been drowned had not a wagoner passed that way, who helped the old man out of the water and laid him in his cart Rumour, of course, magnified the event, and kind female neighbours rushed into Lidwyna before his arrival, to assure her that her father had been drowned, and that his dead body was being brought home. The fellow who had done this deed was charged by the old watchman with the crime; but as he protested his innocence, Peter concluded that he had been attacked by the devil in the form of his acquaintance, and Brugmann is pleased to share his conviction. It is hardly necessary to add that the shock nearly killed his daughter.
The insufferable monotony of her life in the dark, with close drawn blinds and bed-curtains, varied only by her aches and pains, was now broken and brightened by pleasant dreams. How far these visions were sent from God •SI Lidwyna.
to soothe the sick-bed of His dear child, and how far they were the natural result of sickness affecting her brain, it is not for us to decide here. She became sensible of the presence of her guardian angel, and was borne by him in spirit to bright celestial regions; sometimes he led her to the church where she had knelt when she returned from taking her brothers their dinners; sometimes she assisted, invisibly, at High Mass, and heard the organ roll, and saw the priest and sacred ministers in their glittering vestments, and the smoke of incense ascend to the vault At other times she stood with her angel, hand in hand, knee-deep in a grassy meadow full of lilies, and was ravished with the beauty of the flowers. Pleasant dreams for the sick head, to cheer the aching heart, in the little dark room. In 1428, an awful conflagration burst forth in Schiedam, which consumed the greater part of the town. The relatives of Lidwyna removed the valuables from her house, and held themselves in readiness to carry her away in her bed should the flames reach her house. But providentially they expired, or were got under, before this became necessary. Lidwyna had possessed a cane with which to thrust aside the curtains, and tap on the floor when she needed assistance. In the confusion consequent on the fire the cane was lost But on the night of July 23rd, she was suffering intensely from the heat, and groped about with her hand, forgetting that her cane was lost, that she might push the curtains open to allow a breath of air to enter. Then her hand encountered a stick, and she exclaimed, “Nu byn ik wel bekfist!” “Now I am well cudgelled,” that is, provided with a cudgel, for the stick was rough, heavy, and not straight Next morning she asked her confessor to take it to a carpenter and get it planed into shape for her. He did so, and finding a carpenter who had lost nearly all his tools in the fire, asked him to smooth and polish it for him. The man began to plane it, and exclaimed at the beauty and fragrance of the wood. The curate and he examined it, and it seemed to them to be a bough of cedar. Then the priest took it to a better carpenter, who also admired the wood, and when he had shaped it into a rod, told the curate to ascertain whence it had come. The confessor asked the girl, but she was unable to say more than that she had found it in her bed; but one night, shortly after, she dreamt that her angel took her to Paradise, and there she saw a cedar tree by the side of a limpid river, and he pointed to a broken bough, and smiled. Then she knew that he had brought it to her from Paradise. On another occasion, after a long trance, in which she seemed to be in the heavenly Eden, on returning to herself, she put her hand above her head and found a wreath of blue and red flowers on her pillow; she remained holding this till very early in the morning, when she sent for the curate, and bade him take it to the church, and place it on the head of the image of the B. Virgin, above the high altar.
A most painful occurrence took place not long after this. In 1425, Philip of Burgundy entered Holland to claim the allegiance of the cities. He was followed by a body of Picardy mercenaries, men who feared neither God nor man. Some of these fellows, suigeons of the duke, being quartered in Schiedam, went to the curate and asked him to let them see the suffering damsel. He unsuspiciously conducted them to her house, when they burst into her dark room, tore aside the curtains, and held a candle to her face, saying they wanted to admire the features of the parson's favourite. Then they threw off her bed-dothes and proceeded to strip off her night-shirt, when Petronilla, the niece of Lidwyna, a girl of seventeen, threw herself between the ruffians and her aunt; but they flung her aside with April mJ S. Lidwyna.
such violence that she fell over a stool before the sick-room altar, and so injured her leg that she limped ever after. After rude jests about the dropsical condition of Lidwyna, the miscreants went away. The duke, on hearing of the outrage, offered to punish the guilty parties, but Lidwyna refused to give evidence towards their identification and conviction. Her father and Petronilla died the same year, and Lidwyna felt their loss acutely, especially that of the young girl, to whom she was warmly attached. Another of her afflictions was caused by the conduct of the curate, Andrew of Marienward, who regarded her as demented, and would not listen with patience to her visions and prophecies. On one occasion she showed him a wafer which she assured him had descended to her from heaven, and requested him to communicate her with it But he very discreetly answered, u If you want to communicate, I will go to the church and bring you a Host from the altar, which I know is consecrated. As for this one, I know nothing at all about it” Next morning at mass he requested the congregation to pray for a poor girl who had gone crazed and was tempted by the devil Then taking the venerable Sacrament, he went towards her cottage to communicate her, but on his way back, a crowd of zealots had assembled, who were most indignant at his having thought Lidwyna a prey to illusions, and he had to take refuge from them in the cemetery. The magistrates hearing of the disturbance came to him to know the rights of the matter, and the poor curate, in alarm, told a lie; he said that he had tested the miraculous host by putting it in the fire, and that it had been burnt When this was told the mob, a shout of indignation arose, and the frightened curate then pretended that he had thrown it into the water. But as the mob grew more uproarious and threatening, the magistrates turned to Matthias, suffragan [a bishop under the authority of an archbishop] bishop of Utrecht, and Dr. John de Clerh, provisor of Scheldtland, who was then in the town, and they conducted the curate “crying much” between them, followed by the hooting mob, to the house of Lidwyna, when the truth came out, and Lidwyna was able to tell her marvellous tale. She implored that the curate might be leniently dealt with, and the bishop and provisor, having pacified the multitude, Andrew was allowed to return home.
The death of Lidwyna took place in 1433. She had been gradually becoming worse, and was very sick. A little boy held a basin for her. After a violent attack of vomiting, she groaned forth, “Oh, my dear lad, I wish master knew how I suffer.” She alluded to her confessor, John Walter of Leyden. The boy asked her if he was to call the priest; but she being again sick, and unable to bring up the phlegm, began to choke. The boy frightened, and thinking she was about to die, ran away crying, and summoned the priest and the servants. When they arrived she was dying. Then the confessor, taking her hand, asked her to give him a sign if she were alive and heard him. As she made no response, he held a lantern to her face, and saw that she was dead.
She was buried at Schiedam in the parish church of S. John the Baptist, but the archduke Albert of Austria removed the body in 1616 to Brussels.