“Acta et documenta ex quibus ejus patria et character episcopalis tunc innotuerunt, necnon ad patratorum miraculorum seu prodigiorum memoriam exarata, interierunt occasione incendii quo seculo xvii. Archivium Episcopale vastatum est. In quadam charta pergamena caracteribus Gothicis scripta, quae in Archivio Ecclesiae Cathedralis servatur haec leguntur:
“Marmoreis tumulis hoc templo Virginis almae Corpora Sanctorum plura sepulta jacent Martinus hic . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inde Thaddeus adest, quem misit Hibernia praesul Sospite quo venit saepe petita salus, Regia progenies alto de sanguine Machar, Quem nostri in Genua nunc Latiique vocant. Ingemuit moriens, quem Hiberno sidere cretum Non Cariense tenet, non Clovinense solum. Sic visum superis; urbs Eporedia corpus Templo majore marmoreo claudat opus. Hic jacet Eusebii testudinis ipse sacello, Pauperiem Christi divitis inde tulit. Hunc clarum reddunt miracula sancta: beatus Exstat: et in toto dicitur orbe pius. Huc quicunque venis, divum venerare Thaddeum Votaque fac precibus: dicque viator, Ave. Mille quadringentos annos tunc orbis agebat Atque Nonagenos: postmodum junge duos.
“Verbis illis _solum Cariense_ vel _Cloviense_ et _Clovinense_ designari a poeta civitates Hiberniae in quibus Thaddeus aut natus aut Episcopus fuerit, putandum est, forsan Clareh, Carrick.
“Quamobrem exquiritur utrum in Hibernia habeatur notitia hujus Episcopi THADDEI MACHAR—loci ubi natus fuerit,—ejus familiae, quae regia seu princeps supponitur in poesi,—civitatis seu ecclesiae in qua fuerit Episcopus. Desiderantur quoque notitiae si quae reperiri poterunt et documenta quibus illius vita et gesta illustrari possint; insuper utrum labente saeculo xv. aliqua persecutio in Hibernia adversus Episcopos facta sit, quemadmodum argumentari licet ex quibusdam Epistolis Innocentii VIII. circa immunitatem ecclesiasticam”.—(_End of paper_).
As our space precludes a literal translation of this paper, a summary may be acceptable to the reader.
On the 24th of October, 1492, died at Ivrea, in St. Antony’s Hospice for Pilgrims, Blessed Thaddeus, an Irish bishop, whose body was deposited under the high altar of the cathedral, in a shrine over the relics of the holy patron, St. Eusebius. At the time of death a brilliant light was seen round his bed, and at the same moment to the Bishop of Ivrea there appeared a man of venerable mien, clothed in pontifical robes. Several other miracles were also wrought through his intercession. The papers found with him showed he was an Irish bishop, and these, as well as other documents proving his great sanctity, religiously kept in the episcopal archives, were destroyed by fire in the seventeenth century. In an old parchment, written in Gothic letters, still preserved in the archives of the cathedral church, are these lines: