(A.D. 1332.)
[Norbertine Martyrology. Venerated anciently at Lidlom, in Holland.
Authority:--Life by Sibrand Leonius, Norbertine Canon, 1580.]
The blessed Eelko Liaukaman was abbot of the wealthy Norbertine house
of Lidlom, in Friesland, at a time when the wealth of the abbey had
tended greatly to the relaxation of discipline. The possessions of
the abbey were far apart, and the lay-brothers were sent about to the
different farms and cells to attend to the secular interests of the
society. The abbot soon ascertained that these men took advantage of
their being away from supervision to lead disorderly lives, drinking
and not unfrequently falling into worse offences. He at once undertook
to correct this scandalous conduct as far as possible, and visited the
farms and places whither the lay-brothers had been sent at unexpected
times; the consequence of which was that he sometimes caught them
tripping, and as a necessary corollary, incurred their deadly enmity.
The chief malefactors determined on his destruction, and planned to
murder him when he was at his castle of Ter-poort. He had retired for
the night, shut his door, "put on his night-shirt, drawers, belt and
cap, gone to bed, poured forth his prayers, and composed himself to
sleep,"[84] when the conspirators burst in through the window. Hearing
the noise, the abbot rose up in his bed, and asked gently what was the
matter. Then the disorderly lay-brothers began to shower abuse on him,
and call him a hypocrite, a glutton, and a drunkard. "My sons, when
saw ye me drunk?" "Oh, you put your tipple away up your sleeves, so as
to drink on the sly," they said. "Go," said he, "shake my sleeves and
see for yourselves." They did so, and a shower of red roses fell on
the floor. Then rushing on him with sticks they beat his brains out,
and drawing his body through the window flung it into the moat. Next
morning a woman who was passing saw a portion of his white night gear
above the water and gave the alarm. The body was raised from the moat.
The murderers were afterwards caught and executed.
[84] "Clauso cubile, interula, caligis, cingulo, pileoque nocturno
instructus, lecto sese colocat; fusis ad Deum precibus, somno se
componit."
Before the so-called Reformation the B. Eelko was venerated as a saint,
and represented in art shaking roses out of his habit.