Of the ancient Reliquary of St. Agnes, and how it was gotten.
In the same year 1461, George, the venerable Father of our House, asked
and obtained from the Canons of the great church at Utrecht the ancient
Reliquary of the most holy Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, and the beloved
Patron of our House, but her relics were not therein contained. It was
in her honour that our church was consecrated in the year of the Lord
1412, and on the Friday in Easter week, as is set forth more fully above
in the chapter entitled "Of the Consecration of our Church."
Two of our Brothers that were ordained to be Priests, namely, Brother
Henry, son of Bruno, and Brother Theodoric Wanninck, brought back this
holy Reliquary with them, journeying from Utrecht by way of Holland, and
across the sea, not without danger and fear, for the sea was turbulent.
Yet through the help of God, and the merits of St. Agnes the Virgin, they
were protected from these perils and reached an haven of safety. A few
days afterward, on the eve of the Feast of St. Scholastica the Virgin,
they brought the Reliquary to Mount St. Agnes, and our Brothers, with all
the Laics of our household, hearing this, did rejoice exceedingly.
The Reliquary was borne into the church with all devotion and reverence
and placed in the sanctuary of the choir near the High Altar and beneath
the arch in the northern wall. The bones of the Saint had rested for
nearly three hundred and fifty years in this Reliquary, which was an
humble one, being of wood and covered with plates of brass and gilded
work. But at last a new and most fair coffer of silver adorned with gold
was made for her by the Canons of the great Church of St. Martin at
Utrecht.
Likewise one should note that it was in the year of the Lord 1413, in the
time of Frederick of Blanckenhem, the Reverend Bishop of Utrecht, that
the relics of this most Blessed Saint Agnes the Virgin were removed with
all reverence from the ancient wooden Reliquary into this new one of
silver fairly gilt. This was done on the second of December, being the
day following the Feast of AEgidius the Abbot, by that Reverend man
Hermann Lochorst, Dean of the great Church of St. Martin the Bishop. He
it was, chiefly, who had procured that the holy relics of the Saint
should be removed in this manner; and a great while afterward George, our
venerable Father and Prior, earnestly begged for the ancient Reliquary,
which our House had long desired, and by the insistence of his friends he
obtained the same from the Chapter and Canons of the church. These
things were done in the year 1461, as is written above.
In the year of the Lord 1462, on the night of the Feast of St. Juliana,
Virgin and Martyr, died our beloved Brother John, son of Hessel of
Zuermont, who came from Utrecht. He was a timid man, and ready for any
lowly task; moreover, his will was always good to serve the monastery to
the best of his power. Yet through the weakness of his nature and pains
in his head, he often stayed outside the choir, but by his work without
he redeemed the time which he could not spend in devotion within the
church.
A few days before his death he said to certain of the Brothers that he
should die shortly, and indeed the end came somewhat suddenly to him, for
on the day before the Feast of Juliana the Virgin he was well and
cheerful, but in the night following some weakness, whereof we knew not,
came upon him, and he was found dead before the bed in his cell; being
clad in his under garment he lay prostrate upon the floor with his feet
stretched out and his arms close to his side, looking as though he were
commending himself to God and to the Holy Angels: for no man was with him
at the last to give him comfort, since none knew of his agony, but after
supper-time, because they saw that he was not present, certain Brothers
sought him in the cell where he slept, and they found that he was gone
away from this world, and had fled to Christ as we do piously hope and
believe. He came of very good and honest parents in Utrecht, and had
many friends and kinsmen that were living the Religious Life. And so at
length, after many labours and much pain of heart and body, he was taken
away from the miseries of this present life, in the fifty-fourth year of
his age, having spent twenty-nine years in the Religious Life. After the
office of the Mass had been said duly, and the Psalms and Vigils had been
recited, he was buried in the eastern side of the cloister, on the right
of Brother Gerard Wesep.
In the same year, after the Epiphany, there was a most bitter frost,
which lasted throughout Lent and longer, and the great drought was
hurtful to the pasture lands whereon the beasts were fed.