[September 9
BD SERAPHINA SFORZA
The least unsatisfactory Life of St Orner is that already referred to in the bibliographical note to St Bertinus, on September 5. The edition of that text by W. Levison, there spoken of, is accompanied by a discussion of the relations between the different lives printed in the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. iii.
ST BETTELIN
(EIGHTH CENTURY)
IN the history of Croyland which bears the name of the eleventh-century abbot Ingulf, though compiled after his time, we are told that the great hermit St Guthlac had four disciples, who led penitential lives in separate cells not far from their director in the midst of the fens of Lincolnshire. These were Cissa, Egbert, Tatwin and Bettelin (Beccelin, Berthelm). The last-named, after he had overcome a temptation which once came to him while shaving St Guthlac to cut his throat and succeed to his authority, became of all others the most dear to his master. When St Guthlac was near death he counselled Bettelin with such wisdom that " he never before or after heard the like", and in his last moments sent him with a loving message to his sister, St Pega. St Bettelin and his companions lived on at Croyland under Kenulf, first abbot of the monastery founded there by King Ethelbald of Mercia, and there died and were buried. St Bettelin (or another) was honoured as patron of the town of Stafford, which boasted his relics. But the story of his life as told by the chronicler Capgrave is, as Alban Butler says, " of no authority". It is, in fact, popular fiction, according to which Bettelin was a son of the ruler of Stafford who went on a visit to Ireland. There he fell in love with a princess, who ran away with him to England. While making their way through a forest the princess was overtaken by the pains of child足 birth, and Bettelin hurried away to try and find a midwife. While he was gone the girl was found by a pack of hungry wolves, and Bettelin returned only to find them tearing her to pieces. The loss of his bride and baby in so terrible a fashion drove Bettelin to offer himself to God in a solitary life, and he became an anchorite near Stafford. On the death of his father he was induced to leave his cell to help in driving off a usurping invader, which he did by the assistance of an angel sent from Heaven to oppose the demon who led the opposing forces. Then Bettelin returned to his cell and lived there for the rest of his days. Very little seems to be known of St Bettelin or Berthelm. In the Acta Sanctorum an account is printed from a manuscript source which is in substance identical with that preserved by Capgrave in the Nova Legenda Angliae. See also Stanton's Menology, pp. 389 and 666. Felix, the early writer on St Guthlac, mentions his disciple Bettelin by name; the Stafford story seems to be concerned with a St Berthelme whose relics were venerated at Fecamp: A. M. Zimmermann, Kalendarium benedictinum, vol. ii, p. 564; iii, p. 94; iv, p. 75.
BD SERAPHINA SFORZA,
WIDOW
(c.
A.D.
1478)
SHE was born at Urbino about the year 1432, the daughter of Guy, Count of Montefeltro, by his second wife, Catherine Colonna. In baptism she received the name of Sueva. Her parents died while she was a child, she was sent to Rome to be brought up in the household of her uncle, Prince Colonna, and at the age of about sixteen she was joined in marriage to Alexander Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. This man was a widower, with two children, and for some years she lived very happily with her husband. Then he was called away to take up arms on behalf of his brother, the duke of Milan, leaving his estate to the care of Sueva, and his
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