Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. Authority:—a life by S. Peter Damian written fifteen years after his death.
S. Romuald , who was destined to be the restorer of the religious life in Italy, came into the world, according to the most credible account, about the year a.d. 907, at a time when the universal lawlessness and corruption of life and manners which had overflowed Europe, had penetrated to the recesses of the cloister, and had filled the monasteries of his native land with unworthy monks, who made the religious profession a mere cloak for vice, or at best as a pretext for an idle self-indulgent life.
He belonged to the noble family of the Onesti, the Ducal race of the state of Ravenna; he is said in his youth to have been much given to sins of the flesh, but nevertheless to have been strongly drawn inwardly towards God. It is said that when in hunting he got separated from his companions in the woods, he would allow his horse to come to a standstill, and overcome by the peaceful beauty of nature, would give way to reflections on the happiness of those to whom it was given to live retired from the world far from the clash of arms, the whirl of pleasure, and the struggles of civil life.
The immediate cause of his forsaking the world was as follows. His father Sergius Onesti, a man of a proud and passionate disposition, and wholly given to worldly things, had a violent quarrel with a relative about the possession of a certain meadow; so resolutely determined was he to press his quarrel to the end, that perceiving Romuald to be but half-hearted in it, and more fearful of blood-guiltiness, than desirous for the victory of his house, he threatened to disinherit him unless he displayed more zeal in the cause. The relation being equally resolved, the dependents on both sides were armed, and a fight ensued; at which Romuald, in spite of his scruples, was obliged to be present. The relation fell by the hand of Sergius himself; and Romuald, horror-stricken at the crime, of which his enforced presence at its perpetration seemed to make him a partaker, fled to the Monastery of S. Apollinaris in Classe, intending there to expiate his guilt by a penance of forty days.
During the performance of this penance he was by some means attracted to the society of a lay-brother in the monastery, and in the intervals of his penitential exercises had many conversations with him. This lay-brother, a truly spiritual man, perceiving in Romuald signs of a vocation to the religious life, strongly urged him to forsake the world altogether and at once. For this, however, Romuald was not yet prepared, and, without absolutely rejecting the advice of his friend, yet resisted, and put him off from day to day. At last one day in the course of a talk upon the visions of the Saints, the lay-brother asked him what he would give for a sight of the blessed martyr Apollinaris, the patron of the monastery. Romuald replied that for such a favour he would consent to forsake the world. That same night watching in prayer in the monastery church, they beheld a supernatural brightness issue from the high altar and fill the whole church. This was the precursor of the appearance of the blessed martyr, who came forth from the midst of the high altar habited in priestly vestments, and with a golden censer in his hand; with this he went round the church and censed each altar in its turn; and having done this, retired as he had come, leaving the church once more in darkness. His friend immediately claimed the fulfilment of the promise. But even a second vision of the martyr failed to overcome his reluctance, and he still held off. But one day praying in the church before this very altar, a sudden access of the love of God came over his soul. In a moment all his fears, all his lingering affection for worldly things vanished; he hastened to the brethren, and humbly besought them to receive him as a novice. This, however, in dread of his father's resentment, they refused to do; Romuald, once resolved, would yield to no difficulties, and betook himself at once to the Archbishop of Ravenna, laid his case before him, and asked for his help. The Archbishop, moved by the earnestness and fervour of the youth, took up his cause, and on his assurances of protection against the violence of Sergius, the brethren consented to receive him; and Romuald entered upon the course from which throughout a long life he was never to swerve, in which his ardour was to know no cooling, and which was to end in peopling many of the solitary places of Italy with refugees from the wickedness and perils of, perhaps, the most troublous time which Europe has ever known.
He passed three years in this monastery in the strictest observance of S. Benedict [father of Western monks (d. c. 547), author of the Rule]'s rule, in the daily practise of mortification, and incessant prayer. The greater part of the monks, however, were of a different mind. They bitterly resented both Romuald's literal interpretation of the monastic vow, and the rebukes of their laxity and unfaithfulness, which he did not hesitate to address to them; and at length, in their rage, conspired to murder him, by throwing him out of the dormitory window, near which it was his custom to pray in the early morning, while they were yet in their beds, and the door of the oratory was not yet open. Romuald, however, aware of their design, prayed that morning just as usual, and by the mere power of prayer, without other effort of his own, he escaped the threatened danger, and saved the brethren from the guilt which they meditated.
Soon after, hearing by report of one Marinus, who was leading a hermit life in a desert in the Venetian territory, he resolved to retire from the fruitless struggle with the unfaithful monks, and to place himself under his guidance. He made known his desire to the abbot and the brethren, and craved permission from them to retire from the community, and this was granted with great alacrity. He immediately made his way to the neighbourhood in which Marinus dwelt, found him out, and was accepted by him as his disciple.
Marinus, who was a man of singular simplicity of character, and most rigid in his asceticism, took in hand the training of his neophyte in good earnest. His first task was to teach Romuald to read; for up to the time of his forsaking the world his literary education had been altogether neglected. Master and pupil would go forth together to roam about the wild, and recite the Psalter, sheltering now under one tree, now under another, and sitting always face to face at their work. Romuald, wearied by incessant poring over his book, would sometimes yield to the overwhelming lassitude which came over him, and seek a moment's repose; on which Marinus would strike him smartly on the left side of his head with a roll which he held in his right hand. At last, quite unable to bear the pain, Romuald one day said to him humbly, "Master, if you please, strike me next time on the right side of my head, for I am becoming quite deaf in my left ear," "On which," says the biographer, "Marinus, marvelling at his patience, relaxed the indiscreet severity of his discipline."
Before long they were joined in their solitude by Peter, Duke of Dalmatia, and a comrade of his, who had been moved to embrace the religious life. Romuald who, in time, had mastered the difficulties of the Psalter, kept so far in advance of his companions in devotion, and in the acquisition of every virtue, that they unanimously deferred to him in everything, and even Marinus, his whilom master, now became his scholar, and submitted to his direction in everything. The whole party maintained themselves by bodily labour, cultivating a piece of ground, all the time fasting most rigidly, but, as it would appear, living together in one common dwelling. However, reading one day in the Lives of the Fathers, that certain of the brethren in old time had lived a solitary life, fasting the whole week through, but on Saturdays and Sundays met together and relaxed the rigour of their fast, they at once resolved to adopt this way of life; viz., to live each in his own hut, apart from the rest, in silence and mortification, for five days of the week, and to allow themselves the solace of community life only on the Saturday and Sunday; and thus they lived for the space of fifteen years.
Once, during this time, it is related that Duke Peter came to Romuald with a piteous complaint that he could not subsist on the half-cake, [24] which formed the daily allowance of the brethren, and urging that his huge and corpulent frame really required more sustenance. Whereupon Romuald, condescending to the weakness of a brother, and willing to hold out a helping hand to save him from falling, increased his allowance to three-quarters.
Another occurrence tended greatly to increase the reputation of the hermit Saint. A peasant farmer in the neighbourhood, who had often ministered of his subsistence to Romuald and the brethren, was robbed of his only cow by the dependents of a certain Count, a proud and arrogant man. The poor man came to Romuald bewailing his loss with many lamentations. Romuald at once sent a messenger to the Count, beseeching him in all humility to restore his beast to the poor man. The Count turned a deaf ear to the message, sent back a haughty and insolent reply, adding moreover that he expected highly to enjoy the cow's sirloin at dinner that very day. But he had better have yielded to Romuald; for at dinner-time the meal was set before him, he inhaled its rich savour with a greedy joy, and at the first mouthful was choked and died miserably.
Romuald's sojourn in the Venetian territory was brought to an end, by the death of several of his companions. On this he returned to the neighbourhood which he had left years before, and erected a cell for himself, in the marsh of Classe, in the place called "Pons Petri," removing it subsequently to the locality in which afterwards arose the church of the Blessed Martin "in sylva." Here he experienced many and violent temptations of the devil, who plied him sometimes with terrifying visions, sometimes with distressing doubts about the reality of his vocation, and his hope of final salvation. But as a good soldier of Jesus Christ he combated the evil one with the spiritual weapons of prayer and fasting, and meeting him boldly at every turn, repelled all his assaults.
After a while, he removed again to another place, where he built a monastery in honour of Michael the Archangel, which he peopled with monks, he himself still living solitary in his cell. While he was living here, a friend one day sent him a sum of money, about £21 sterling, intending it as a relief to his bodily necessities. He immediately sent off a portion of the money to the brethren of a monastery which had been just burnt down, to help towards the rebuilding, and put the remainder away for some similar purpose. This coming to the ears of the monks at S. Michael's they were so enraged that they came down to his cell in a body, gave him a good beating, and drove him from the neighbourhood with insults and reproaches. Highly delighted with their exploit, they returned to the monastery, and made preparations to celebrate the occasion by a great feast. But their triumph was short; for the ringleader in the attack on Romuald, on his way to obtain some honey to make mead for the carouse, had to cross a bridge which overhung a furious torrent; in the midst of the bridge something tripped him up, he stumbled, and falling headlong into the stream, perished by the just judgment of God; and that very night the rest of the monks were all but buried in the ruins of their dwelling, which fell upon them as they were sleeping heavily after their banquet, and bruises and broken bones convinced them that they had made a bad bargain in revolting against Romuald's severe rule.
After this, the martyr Apollinaris appeared to Romuald in a vision, and commanded him to return to Classis, and assume the government of the monastery there. He at once removed to the vicinity, probably taking up his quarters in his old cell. At this same time the brethren at the monastery being without an abbot were desired by the Emperor Otho III. to choose one for themselves. Their choice fell unanimously upon Romuald. The emperor himself went to announce his election to him, and to obtain his consent. He did not arrive at the cell until nightfall, and was glad to accept Romuald's invitation to spend the night there. The next morning the emperor broached the subject of the Abbacy. Romuald at first refused to listen to the proposal; but Otho threatening him with "excommunication and anathema from all the bishops and archbishops and the whole Synod of Council," he at last yielded, at the same time telling the emperor that the matter was by no means new to him, for that he had had a divine intimation of it some time before, and accompanied him to the monastery, where he was duly installed. Before long however, the brethren took offence at the severity of his rule, and began to repent of their choice. Perceiving this, Romuald, as eager to lay down his office as he had been backward to accept it, hastened to seek an interview with the emperor; and in his presence and that of the Archbishop of Ravenna, broke his rod of office, and formally dissolved the monastery, probably judging the traditions of laxity which had grown up in the place too strong to be disturbed except by the extirpation of the community.
About this time, hearing of one Venerius, a holy man, who was leading a solitary life in great austerity, but not under obedience to anyone, Romuald sought him out and persuaded him to return to the monastery which he had forsaken in consequence of the persecutions of unworthy brethren, and seek permission of his abbot to live apart from the community. "If thou bearest the Cross of Christ," said he, "it yet remains that thou forsake not the obedience of Christ." Venerius took Romuald's advice, obtained leave from his abbot, and returned in great peace of mind to the beloved solitude. Romuald remained with him for some time, and gave him much needful instruction in spiritual things.
It is a good illustration of the reality and thoroughness of the religious sentiment at that time, that men of the highest rank were found to submit themselves readily to the discipline of the Church. It is related that the famous Crescentius, Senator of Rome, had incurred Otho's displeasure, and apprehensive of the consequences, had taken sanctuary. Thammus, one of Otho's courtiers, had induced Crescentius by an oath of safe conduct to leave the sanctuary, and so to place himself in the emperor's power. The oath was violated, and Crescentius perished by the hand of the executioner. Before long the pangs of conscience drove both the emperor and his satellite to unburden their souls in confession to Romuald. He ordered Thammus to embrace the solitary life and
a command which was unhesitatingly obeyed; while Otho himself accepted a severe penance for his share in the crime, which was avenged on him later by his victim's widow.
We now come upon a story which shows how Romuald's rule succeeded in training such as had the true vocation to be real heroes of the kingdom of heaven, and how the supernatural sanctity of his character impressed itself on his faithful followers.
Boleslas, king of Poland, had besought Otho to send him a missionary to convert his subjects, a people then, as ever, noted for a wild and lawless ferocity. Otho at once appealed to Romuald, who communicated the matter to his disciples, explaining to them the perils attending the mission, and saying that he would lay no command upon any of them, but that if any were willing to go and meet danger and death for Christ's sake, he would gladly send him. At once two of his monks, by name John and Benedict, came forward and offered to go. Before they had been long in the country, they were set upon at midnight in their hut, and murdered for the sake of treasures which they were supposed to possess. In order to conceal their crime, the murderers set fire to the hut, hoping to consume the bodies of their victims with the dwelling. To their horror the flames refused to approach the bodies of the holy men, and even the hut, built as it was of light and inflammable materials, could not be made to burn. Trembling and terror-struck, they then attempted to fly from the place; but an invisible power compelled them to wander round and round the scene of their crime, and held them enchained to the spot until daylight. The matter came to the ears of the king, who went with his guards and apprehended them. The soldiers would have put them to death at once, but the king prevented them, saying that the criminals should be reserved for the judgment of the martyrs. With their hands tied together they were dragged into the hut, and forced up to the couch on which the bodies yet lay, when in a moment their bonds fell off; and the king, saying that the martyrs had forgiven and acquitted them, ordered them to be set at liberty.
Meantime Romuald after vainly endeavouring to persuade Otho to lay down the sceptre, and retire from the world, and predicting his approaching death, which accordingly took place, had betaken himself into Istria, and built a monastery in the neighbourhood of Parenzo. Near this he lived, built into a cell, for two years, during which time he made great advance in piety and in knowledge of the Scriptures. At this time he experienced a great dryness of spirit, which caused him to long and pray earnestly for the gift of holy contrition. One day while in this state, singing the Psalter in his cell, the words "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way wherein thou shalt go, and I will guide thee with Mine eye," came upon him with a strange light and force; his dryness of spirit vanished in a moment, he dissolved into tears, and from that day forward he never again experienced lack of contrition.
His mission in Istria being accomplished, he prepared to return into Italy. But the bishop of Parenzo left no stone unturned to keep him in his diocese; when persuasion and entreaty failed, he resorted to force, and forbade anyone to let Romuald have a boat in which to make the voyage across the bay. Romuald, no way discomposed, sat down on the shore to wait, saying that other boats from Italy were on their way, and would soon come purposely to take him off. Before long the vessels made their appearance, with an invitation to Romuald to return; and in one of them the journey was safely accomplished.
Immediately on his arrival, he founded a new monastery, and filled it with monks; labouring meanwhile with great zeal and success for the conversion of the people in the vicinity. One day there, as Romuald and the brethren were sitting in chapter, the brethren who had been left in charge of the door came running in to give the alarm that a thief was breaking into one of the cells. The monks ran to the place, and caught the robber in the very act. They brought him to Romuald to know what was to be done with him. "Well but, brethren," said the holy man, looking pleasantly at them, "I really do not know what can be done with such a rascal. If we put his eyes out, he won't be able to see; if we cut off his hands, he won't be able to work; or his feet—there will be no more walking for him. Bring him in, and give him something to eat, while we consider what is to be done with him." And so says the story, "having ministered to his bodily wants, and given him a sweet and gentle reproof, he dismissed the robber in peace."
About this time intelligence of the martyrdom of the blessed martyr Boniface reached Romuald, and inspired by the desire to win for himself the martyr's crown, he at once formed a plan to take a missionary journey into Hungary. But, before setting out, he proceeded to consolidate his order by the foundation of three new monasteries, one the parent house in the Val di Castro, and two others. Having appointed an abbot and priors over these houses, he obtained a commission from the Apostolic See for the conversion of the Huns [nomadic invaders from Central Asia, led in the 5th century by Attila], and set forth on his expedition, accompanied by a party of twenty-four monks; and such was the ardour and zeal that burned in the breasts of all his disciples to encounter death for Christ, that he had great difficulty to reconcile to their lot those whom he had decided to leave behind.
Hardly, however, had they entered the confines of Hungary, when Romuald was seized with a mysterious malady, which arrested their progress; for as often as he attempted to renew his journey and push forward to his destination, his sickness so increased in severity, as to compel him to desist; whereas, whenever he only thought of giving up the enterprise and returning homewards, the symptoms abated and his strength returned. Judging this to be a divine warning, he resolved to retrace his steps. Two of the brethren returned with him; the remainder pursued their journey with Romuald's consent, though he warned them that the crown of martyrdom would be granted to none of them. Accordingly they met with all manner of persecution and ill-treatment from the barbarious Huns, but to none of them was it given to lay down his life for Christ.
On his return, hearing that some one had obtained the abbacy of the monastery "in Classe," which would seem to have been reconstituted, by perjury and simony, he made all haste hither to rebuke the intruder, and exhort him to lay down his ill-gotten authority. The bad abbot in a rage attempted to murder Romuald, who was only saved by the special interposition of Providence. He returned to the monastery in the Val di Castro, and occupied his cell in the neighbourhood. But before long he experienced one of the many afflictions which befel him in the course of his life through false brethren; for the abbot of his own appointment, an unworthy monk, annoyed at the daily rebuke of his own laxity, conveyed by Romuald's silent example of ascetic holiness, managed to procure his expulsion from the territory. He did not move far, however, but settled for a time at a place in the Apennines called Agua Bella, where the disciples gathered round him, and began to erect huts or cells for the hermit life. One day in the midst of this work a secular priest who was helping the brethren in their work was attacked by an intolerable toothache, and after bearing up against the pain for some time, was reluctantly obliged to excuse himself to the brethren, and to desist from his work. Moaning piteously he was making his way home, when he encountered Romuald, who, from age and infirmity, was unable to take any active part in the manual labour of the brotherhood, and in answer to an enquiry from him explained why he was leaving them. Romuald bade him open his mouth, and placing his finger on the offending tooth desired him to apply to it a rough-and-ready remedy much in vogue among the country folk. The priest proceeded on his way, but scarce had he traversed a rood of ground when the pain left him of a sudden, and he felt that he was cured. Forthwith he returned to his work, loudly declaring the praises of God, who had sent among them so bright a light, so eminent a worker of miracles, as Romuald; and with great difficulty could the disciples succeed in silencing him; for if such expressions reached Romuald's ears, great was his displeasure.
In connection with this story, the biographer mentions an occurrence which took place at Camaldoli; his cell there was overshadowed by a large beech tree, which, for some reason or other, he desired might be felled. The workmen began to cut it down, and were in the midst of their work, when it became evident that the tree must fall right across the hut and crush both the dwelling and its occupant. They all, with one voice, besought him to come out; but, making the sign of the cross towards the tree, he desired them to proceed; they obeyed, and to the amazement of all, the tree swerved and fell wide of the cell.
"They all, therefore, thunderstruck at so great a miracle, raised their voices to heaven in praise, and gave grateful thanks to God."
After setting everything in order in his monasteries in the Apennines, Romuald revisited Istria, where he is said to have lived, built up [25] in his cell, and in unbroken silence, for seven years.
"But though his lips were silent, his life preached," and innumerable conversions were the fruit of his sojourning there. As the infirmities of age began to creep over him, he became more and more austere in his acts of self-mortification, pressing forward incessantly to new victories over the flesh, and yielding less and less indulgence to even the most innocent infirmities of his lower nature. But there was no sourness in his asceticism; in the midst of his bitterest mortifications his countenance bore at all times the impress of an unruffled serenity and cheerfulness of spirit.
But the wanderings of Romuald's long life were not yet at an end. He made a further excursion to the north, and settled for a while in Styria. And these many wanderings, says his biographer, arose not from fickleness of spirit, as if he were unable to rest long in one place, but solely from the wonderful attraction which his presence exercised where-ever he went. No sooner did he erect his cell anywhere, than men flocked to him from every quarter to be guided by his teaching, and to be edified by his life; so that the most complete solitudes speedily become populous. And as soon as he had duly instructed those who came to him in the discipline of a holy life, he would form them into a community, appoint one of their number to be prior over them, and then betake himself to some other solitude, soon to people that also, and to be driven from it in the same way.
In Styria it is related that those who gathered around him, all lived so devoutly, that the rage for mortification reached even to the herdsmen and shepherds of the neighbourhood, who vied with the monks and hermits in all the exercises of the religious life, fasting, keeping silence, and administering the discipline to each other with great zeal and earnestness. On which Peter Damian ejaculates, "Oh! holy time of Romuald! in which, though the torments of persecution were unknown, yet there was no lack of spontaneous martyrdom!"
The whole career of Romuald from the time of his profession, is one continuous illustration of the two-fold force of reality in religion—a force of attraction on the one hand, of repulsion on the other. We see in him one, who in the depth and fervour of his penitence, stedfastly adhered through a long life to his first renunciation, not only of the pomps and vanities of this world, but of the most necessary and innocent refinements of life, and by the mere force of reality drew after him crowds of disciples of every class, and peopled the waste places of his native land with monks and hermits. We see, on the one hand, those in whom the grace of a true vocation responded to the example and teaching of their master, led on by degrees to vie with him in the fervour of his self-devotion; and those, on the other hand, who sought in monasticism only a coward's refuge from the temptations and trials of secular life, repelled almost at once by the stern thoroughness of his religion, and by their own unreality forced into rebellion against his rule.
At the age of 102 he visited the Apennines, seeking a new retreat, and one day falling asleep beside a fountain in a pleasant plain among the mountains, he dreamed that he saw a ladder set up between heaven and earth, up which his monks ascended in white habits. On awaking, he resolved to change the colour of the dress of his monks, and to found a monastery on the spot. It was the property of a gentleman named Maldoli, who at once gave it him, and the monastery was called Campo Maldoli, whence the order assumed its name of Camaldoli.
Romuald died on June 19th, 1027. He is said to have attained the age of 120, but this has been disputed with every show of reason by Bollandus and Baronius [Cardinal Baronius (d. 1607), church historian who edited the Roman Martyrology]. He died in his monastery of the Val di Castro, in the Marches of Ancona, and was there buried. The elevation of the relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] took place in 1467, and they were translated to the Church of S. Blase, in the town of Fabri, where they remain to this day. The Roman Breviary celebrates his festival on the day of the translation, which took place in the year 1481.
In Art he appears with his finger on his lips, and the ladder, he saw in vision, at his side.
