Martini.Saint Ladislas, roi de Hongrie.
Vers 1326. Tempera sur bois, 45,5 x 21,5
Altomonte (Cosenza), Museo della Consolazione
SAINT LADISLAS
Roi de Hongrie
(1031-1095)
Saint Ladislas fut appelé au trône de Hongrie, l'an 1080, par la libre volonté du peuple. Bien différent de la plupart des puissants de ce monde, qui n'aspirent qu'aux grandeurs passagères, Ladislas ne recherchait que la vraie grandeur, celle que l'on acquiert par la vertu. Dès sa jeunesse il était admiré de tout le monde pour sa chasteté, sa modestie, sa piété, sa tendresse envers les pauvres.
Il n'avait pas seulement l'âme d'un Saint, mais toutes les qualités d'un roi. Nul, dans toute la Hongrie, n'était de taille plus grande ni de port plus majestueux que lui; les fatigues de la guerre, les graves occupations de la paix lui convenaient également. Il recevait tout le monde avec la plus grande affabilité, et les moindres de ses sujets pouvaient en confiance venir lui réclamer justice; ses jugements équitables, semblables à ceux d'un père plutôt que d'un maître, étaient agréés de tous; aussi la voix publique lui donna-t-elle le beau nom de Pieux.
La vie de Ladislas en son palais était fort austère; sa table, il est vrai, était royalement servie, mais il n'y prenait que ce qui lui était nécessaire; il jeûnait même souvent, se refusait l'usage du vin, couchait sur la dure, mortifiait son corps et, par ces moyens, triomphait des périls que courent les rois au milieu de l'éclat et de la mollesse des cours.
Ennemi des amusements frivoles, il donnait tout son temps aux exercices de piété et aux devoirs de son état, ne se proposant en tout que la plus grande gloire de Dieu. La religion était tout pour lui; fort conciliant quand il s'agissait de sa personne, il ignorait les demi-mesures quand il s'agissait de maintenir les droits de l'Église ou de défendre son pays. Pas un pauvre ne sortait de son palais sans avoir reçu quelque soulagement à sa misère: chaque genre de besoin trouvait près de lui un secours assuré.
Les églises magnifiques qu'il fit construire sont un nouveau témoignage de la religion de ce grand prince et de son zèle à favoriser le développement du culte chrétien chez un peuple encore à demi barbare et à demi païen. Du reste, Ladislas ne se contentait pas de travailler à la conversion des autres, il était le modèle de tous, une sorte de loi vivante, qui enseignait à chacun ses devoirs. Son palais était si édifiant, qu'on n'y entendait ni jurements, ni paroles inconvenantes; les jeûnes y étaient fidèlement observés; en un mot, on eût dit moins une cour royale qu'une maison religieuse.
Ladislas avait été choisi pour commander en chef la première croisade, quand Dieu l'appela à Lui, le 30 juillet 1095.
Abbé L. Jaud, Vie des Saints pour tous les jours de l'année, Tours, Mame, 1950.
SOURCE : http://magnificat.ca/cal/fr/saints/saint_ladislas.html
SOURCE : http://magnificat.ca/cal/fr/saints/saint_ladislas.html
Vie de saint Ladislas.
Manuscrit angevin de Hongrie. XIVe siècle.
Saint Ladislas de Hongrie
Roi de Hongrie (✝ 1095)
László, Lazlo ou Lancelot.
Sa famille régna sur la Hongrie du Xe au XIVe siècle.
Il était fils de Béla et frère de Geysa. André, son oncle qui avait la couronne royale, n'avait pas d'enfants. Il fit de Ladislas son héritier. Mais sur le tard, André eut un fils inattendu, Salomon. La Hongrie connut alors cinq rois en dix-sept ans: André, Bela, Salomon, Geysa et enfin Ladislas, qui avait vu se succéder sur le trône: son oncle, son père, son cousin et son frère avant d'y accéder lui-même. Son règne fut relativement calme. En 19 ans, il ajouta à ses États, la Dalmatie et la Croatie, il fonda des monastères et fut le père de son peuple, ami des pauvres, protecteur des malheureux.
Sage et vertueux, juste et magnanime. Il mourut à Waradin le 30 juillet 1095, à 44 ans. Tant aimé de son peuple, il devint, après sa mort, une figure légendaire.
Les miracles sur son tombeau le firent canoniser en 1198. Le 27 juin est l'anniversaire de la translation de ses reliques.
À Neutra (Nyjtic) en Moravie, l’an 1095, le trépas de saint Ladislas. Roi de Moravie, il rétablit dans son état les lois chrétiennes édictées par saint Étienne, il corrigea les mœurs, donnant lui-même l’exemple des vertus et, quand la Croatie fut réunie à la Hongrie, il travailla énergiquement à y développer la foi chrétienne et établit à Zagreb un siège épiscopal. Il mourut alors qu’il allait réprimer une révolte des Bohèmes, et son corps fut déposé ensuite à Nagy-Varad en Transylvanie.
Martyrologe romain
St. Ladislaus
King
of Hungary, born 1040; died at Neutra, 29 July, 1095; one of Hungary's national Christian heroes.
He was the son of Béla I; the nobles, after the death of Geisa I, passed over Solomon, son of Andrew
I, and chose Ladislaus to be their king in 1077. It is true that he
made peace with Solomon, when the latter gave up all claims to the throne of Hungary; however, later on he rebelled against Ladislaus,
who took him prisoner and
held in the fortress of Visegrád. On the occasion of the canonization of Stephen I, Ladislaus gave Solomon his freedom, but in 1086 Solomon, with
the aid of the heathen Cumans,
revolted against Ladislaus a second time; the latter, however, vanquished them,
and in 1089 gained another victory over the Turkish Cumans. In 1091 Ladislaus marched
into Croatia, at the request of his sister, the widowed Queen Helena, and
took possession of the kingdom for the crown of Hungary, where, in 1092, he founded the Bishopric of Agram (Zágráb). In the same year (1092), he also founded the Bishopric of Grosswardein (Nagy-Várad),
in Hungary, which, however, some trace back to Stephen I. Ladislaus governed the religious and civil affairs of his assembly of
the Imperial States at Szabolcs, that might almost be called a synod. He tried vigorously to suppress the remaining heathencustoms. He was buried in the cathedral of Grosswardein. He still lives in the sagas and poems of his
people as achivalrous king.
In 1192 he was canonized by Celestine III.
Bihl, Michael. "St. Ladislaus." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 26 Mar. 2015<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08737a.htm>.
Bihl, Michael. "St. Ladislaus." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 26 Mar. 2015<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08737a.htm>.
June 27
ST LADISLAUS OF HUNGARY (A.D. 1095)
If Hungary owed the establishment of its monarchy and the organization of its church to St Stephen I, it was almost equally indebted to another sainted king of the same house of Arpad. For Ladislaus extended its borders, kept its enemies at bay, and made it politically a great state. But it is not for such activities that men are canonized (if, indeed, Ladislaus ever was formally canonized, which appears to be doubtful); and it is for his private life and work for Christianity that reverence is due to his memory.
After a childhood and youth whose background was political intrigue and dynastic violence, Ladislaus (Laszlo) came to the Hungarian throne in 1077; but his rights were contested by his kinsman Solomon, whom eventually he defeated in battle. The young prince was said to be the embodiment of the outward graces and inner virtues of the ideal knight of chivalry. Towering head and shoulders above the crowd, he had the strength and courage of a lion, combined with a courteous affability that endeared him to all. His piety, which was as fervent as it was well balanced, expressed itself in his zeal for the faith, in the punctilious fulfillment of his religious obligations, in the strictness of his morals, and in the austerity of his life. Entirely devoid of personal ambition, he accepted the dignity thrust upon him from a sense of duty. In pursuance of a policy dictated alike by his religious and his patriotic instincts, Ladislaus allied himself closely with Pope Gregory VII and the other opponents of the German emperor, Henry IV. He espoused the cause of Henry's rival, Rupert of Swabia, and married Adelaide, the daughter of Rupert's chief supporter, Duke Welf of Bavaria. Within the boundaries of Hungary itself he had to face repeated invasions from the Kumans and others, but he successfully repulsed them all and did his best to win barbarian tribes to Christianity and civilization; at the same time he allowed civil and religious liberty to the jews and the Ishmaelites, i.e. Mohammedans. It was at his solicitation that King Stephen I, his son Emeric, and the martyred bishop Gerard were recognized by the Holy See as worthy of veneration as saints.
Ladislaus governed with a firm hand in both civil and ecclesiastical affairs, as was seen at the diet of Szabolcs and when, in 1091, his sister Helen, the widowed queen of Croatia, appealed to him for help against the murderers of her husband. He marched in, restored some sort of order, and established the see of Zagreb. But when Helen died childless he annexed Croatia and Dalmatia, in the face of remonstrances from the emperor at Constantinople, the republic of Venice and the Holy See. Nevertheless Bd Urban II looked for his help in organizing the First Crusade, and it was Ladislaus who was chosen by the kings of France, Spain and England to be the commander-in-chief of that expedition. However he was not destined to march with the rest, for he died rather suddenly at Nitra in Bohemia in 1095. He was fifty-five years old.
The body of St Ladislaus was taken for burial to Nagy Varad (Oradea Mare in Transylvania) -- to the city and the cathedral which he had founded. From the moment of his death he was honoured as a saint and a national hero, and his deeds have formed the theme of many popular Magyar ballads and tales. His relics were solemnly enshrined in 1192.
The Bollandists in the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. vii, print a set of liturgical legendae, accompanied with the usual historical dissertation. A more reliable source is probably the life edited by S. L. Endlicher, in his Rerum Hungaricarum Monumenta Arpadiana (1849), pp. 235-244, and 324-348. See also Archiv f. öster. Geschichte (1902), pp. 46-53, and an article, "St Laszlo" translated by E. Lindner in the Ungarische Revue for 1885. There are several lives published in Magyar, of which that by J. Karacsonyi (1926) is said to be the best. See also Revue archéologique, 1925, pp. 315-327, and C. A. Macartney, The Medieval Hungarian Historians (1953).
.June 27
St. Ladislas I., King of Hungary, Confessor
See Papebroke’s collections from the Hungarian historians, t. 5, Junij, p. 315.
A.D. 1095.
LADISLAS the First, called by the Hungarians St. Lalo, and in old French, Lancelot, was son of Bela king of Hungary, and born in 1041. By the pertinacious importunity of the people he was compelled, much against his own inclination, to ascend the throne in 1080, the kingdom being then elective. He restored the good laws and discipline which St. Stephen had established, and which seem to have been obliterated by the confusion of the times. Chastity, meekness, gravity, charity, and piety were from his infancy the distinguishing parts of his character; avarice and ambition were his sovereign aversion, so perfectly had the maxims of the gospel extinguished in him all propensity to those base passions. His life in the palace was most austere: he was frugal and abstemious, but most liberal to the Church and poor. Vanity, pleasure, or idle amusements had no share in his actions or time, because all his moments were consecrated to the exercises of religion and the duties of his station, in which he had only the divine will in view, and sought only God’s greater honour. He watched over a strict and impartial administration of justice, was generous and merciful to his enemies, and vigorous in the defence of his country and the Church. He added to his kingdom Dalmatia and Croatia, drove the Huns out of his territories, and vanquished the Poles, Russians, and Tartars. He was preparing to command as general-in-chief, the great expedition of the Christians against the Saracens for the recovery of the Holy Land, when God called him to himself on the 30th of July, 1095. He was buried at Waradin, where his relics continue “still to be illustrated by miracles,” says the Roman Martyrology, on the 27th of June, on which day, on account of their translation, it celebrates his festival. He was canonized by Celestine III. in 1198. 1
How useless and impertinent are the scenes and amusements of the world, in which so many squander away that time which was given them to prepare for eternity! How insignificant and capricious are the lives of many who make here the greatest figure! The saints filled all their moments with good works and great actions; and, whilst they laboured for an immortal crown, the greatest share of worldly happiness of which this life is capable fell in their way without being even looked for by them. In their afflictions themselves, virtue afforded them the most solid comfort, pointed out the remedy, and converted their tribulations into the greatest advantages.
Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume VI: June. The Lives of the Saints. 1866
