Among the aerial migrations of the chapel of Loretto, it is possible that
our own country may hereafter be favoured by a visit of that celebrated
structure. In the mean time, as I am not aware that the contributions of
our countrymen to its history have been hitherto commemorated, the
following extract from a note, made by me on the spot some years ago, may
not be unsuitable for publication in "NOTES AND QUERIES." As I had neither
the time nor the patience which the pious, but rather prolix, Scotchman
bestowed upon his composition, I found it necessary to content myself with
a mere abstract of the larger portion.
The story of the holy House of Loretto is engraved on brass in several
languages upon the walls of the church at Loretto. Among others, there are
two tablets with the story in English, headed "The wondrus flittinge of the
kirk of our blest Lady of Laureto." It commences by stating that this kirk
is the chamber of the house of the Blessed Virgin, in Nazareth, where our
Saviour was born; that after the Ascension the Apostles hallowed and made
it a kirk, and "S. Luke framed a pictur to har vary liknes thair zit to be
seine;" that it was "haunted with muckle devotione by the folke of the land
whar it stud, till the people went after the errour of Mahomet," when
angels took it to Slavonia, near a place called Flumen: here it was not
honoured as it ought to be, and they took it to a wood near Recanati,
belonging to a lady named Laureto, whence it took its name. On account of
the thieveries here committed, it was again taken up and placed near, on a
spot belonging to two brothers, who quarrelled about the possession of the
oblations offered there; and again it was removed to the roadside, near
where it now stands. It is further stated that it stands without
foundations, and that sixteen persons being sent from Recanati to measure
the foundations still remaining at Nazareth, they were found exactly to
agree:
"And from that tim fourth it has beine surly ken'd that this kirk was
the Cammber of the B. V. whereto Christian begun thare and has ever
efter had muckle devotione, for that in it daily she hes dun and dus
many and many mirakels. Ane Frier Paule, of Sylva, an eremit of muckle
godliness who wond in a cell neir, by this kirk, whar daily he went to
mattins, seid that for ten zeirs, one the eighth of September, tweye
hours before day, he saw a light descende from heaven upon it, whelk he
seyd was the B. V. wha their shawed harselfe one the feest of her
birthe."
Then follows the evidence of Paule Renalduci, whose grandsire's grandsire
saw the angels bring the house over the sea: also the evidence of Francis
Prior, whose grandsire, a hunter, often saw it in the wood, and whose
grandsire's grandsire had a house close by. The inscription thus
terminates:--
"I, Robt. Corbington, priest of the Companie of Iesus in the zeir
MDCXXXV., have treulie translated the premisses out of the Latin story
hanged up in the seid kirk."