Baring-Gould’s sources: Modern Roman Martyrology. Authority: — The lessons in the Capuan Breviary.] S. Vitalian was an old bishop of Capua; and when he had reached the age of seventy, a party of his clergy thought that they had had quite enough of his rule, and grew impatient of his childish simplicity, and 61 Vitalian.

…weakness of government. Discontent manifested itself in insolence, and the poor bishop had much to suffer from their impatience to see him vacate the see. If he would not die, he might be forced to resign, and they sought every available means of making his life burdensome. One night some of them got into his bedroom and carried off his clothes, substituting for them a set of female attire. When the bishop heard the summons to matins, he tumbled out of bed, and in the dark dressed himself, with no small difficulty, — for somehow hooks and buttons would not come in the accustomed places. When he appeared in church, the clergy smothered their laughter, and let the poor old man proceed with the service till day broke, and the people assembled in the church, when he became an object of general derision.

The humiliation was too much for the old bishop, and he ran away from his see. But when he was gone, the skies remained cloudless arid brassy. Not a drop of rain fell; and the Capuans concluding that they were visited with a draught because they had expelled their bishop, sent for him back again. He returned, and then the rain fell. But he thought that he had had enough of ruling the see of Capua [a bishop’s “see” is his diocese, named from his seat (Latin sedes)], and he accordingly resigned it, and retired to a solitary mountain, where he might end his days in peace, and not run the risk of being subjected again to practical jokes. Years passed, and his tomb on the mount above Catanzaro was clean forgotten, when some shepherds played quoits one day with a stone on the hill side. Next morning they found that the stone they had thrown about the day before had returned to the spot whence they had originally taken it. This was of course miraculous, and demanded careful inve&tigation. One of the shepherds dreamed that under the stone lay the bones of S. Vitalism. Bones were sought there, and discovered. The story was brought to the ears of Pope Callixtus II. in 1122, and he made no difficulty in authenticating the relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] as those of the ol bishop of Capua, and from that time to this they have been indulgenced and venerated at Catanzaro.