St. Anthony of Padua - Portuguese friar & relative of Godfrey of Bouillon?
Originally published on my Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/HelenaBScott/posts/743555191102404
So today, I was in downtown Waterford, Ireland’s oldest city founded in 914 AD, the Viking City of Vadrarfjord (windy fjord, one of few fjords in Europe and where I spend a lot of time). I always like to go into the “Cathedral of the Holy Trinity Within”, Ireland’s oldest Catholic Cathedral.
Once again, following my usual tradition and ritual to create a sacred moment when I’m downtown surrounded by people, I visited this beautiful place built on top of an earlier church and Viking remains as many of the old city walls were found here; the energy is definitely hard to ignore as well as the legends of the local banshee or for some, vampire that terrifies young handsome men still luring them to their deaths (see article in comments).
While in this holy place, though baptised a Catholic, I no longer follow the Church of Rome, but like the Knights Templar, follow the traditions of the earlier True church as followed by Jesus, Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist, which in essence fall under the umbrella of Gnosticism. While visiting, I spent a moment before the beautiful Orthodox style icon of “Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows” which reminded me so much of the Orthodox monasteries in Russia I visited and are so dear to me. I shared a few prayers with her and personal requests and walked around with my son, trying to still his mind and show him how important it is to take a moment out from the hustle and bustle of life, for our souls yes, but also to share thoughts, wishes and request healing and love for others, including for the world.
My eye caught St. Anthony, who is important to my father perhaps due to sharing the same name, so I stopped for a prayer for him. He lost a second dog a few days ago and though we rarely agree, and are not as close as we used to be, he opened the door into the fascinating world of history for me, as a father but also historian and published author. Following a short prayer, I took a photo to send to my father in Texas where he lives, and noticed the text. As always, everything leads me to the Templars…today was no exception. The little plaque under the statue claimed that the real surname of this Portuguese friar was “Bouillon”… What? Portugal and Bouillon? Well, well…more connections between Flanders and Portugal, as well as the Templars. I had not come across this before so have been doing some research since I got home as male saints are not really my thing. Most sources (see article below) tell us that St. Anthony, patron of the poor and who helps us find our way as well as lost objects:
“was the son of Martino de Bouillon, and Teresa Tavera, his wife, who were of ancient lineage and noble birth. Don Martino descended from the illustrious Godfrey de Bouillon, who led the first Crusade and was the first Frankish King of Jerusalem. He was the grandson of Vincenzo de Bouillon, who followed King Alfonzo I in his campaign against the Moors, and who, in acknowledgment of his deeds of valor was made governor of Lisbon. This office became hereditary in the family of De Bouillon; and Fernando, as first son of the house, was heir to it. And Dona Teresa was hardly less illustrious. Her ancestors had reigned over the Asturias in the eighth century, until the invasion by the Saracens.”
http://www.catholictradition.org/Padua/padua1-1.htm
However, despite 99% of sources telling us that St. Anthony of Padua is a descendant of Godfrey of Bouillon, I never take anything as a given because I found some conflicting information. And it is known that the Catholic Church heavily makes use of myths as fact (one could even argue that the bible entirely can be seen as a myth and the Gospel of Philip tells us that it should not be taken literally), which is also what happens with many of the “stories” in Freemasonry or even myths, which still matter today when applied to ourselves. We need to take a step back, to view the bigger picture and what the message is actually trying to tell us. Modern books seem to parrot the above and being a historian, I always prefer to rely on primary sources and work my way forward with secondary or other sources. Having said that, Ernest Gilliat-Smith wrote in 1926 “Saint Anthony of Padua according to his Contemporaries” which for me is one of the best books on the subject. In this book, he tells that the Dominican, Batholomew of Trent had a brief notice of St Anthony in his Liber epigolorum in gesta sanctorum and that this note was “concise, clear and, as far as it goes, accurate”, stating the following:
“Anthony, whom I have seen and with whom I was personally acquainted, was a native of Spain. He first embraced the Rule of Augustine, but afterward entered the Order of the Friars Minor, and by his word and example he brought back many who had wandered from the way of Truth. Moreover, he had a great desire to evangelize the Moors and receive the crown of martyrdom from them. He had the gift of eloquence and drew a multitude to Christ…”. While there are many accounts of Saint Anthony, what is noteworthy here is that Bartholomew is the only one who says that he was actually acquainted with him in person.
Gilliat-Smith further seems to agree with St Anthony being Portuguese and from a noble family and writes: ”The great Franciscan Saint, Anthony of Padua if not the greatest, at all events the most venerated and the most frequently invoked of all the saintly sons of the Seraphic Patriarch is so called, not because he was born in Padua or because Padua was at any time his home, but because he chanced to die there and there his bones were laid to rest. His Christian name was Ferdinand, of his family name we are ignorant and of his forebears only this can be said with assurance: His father was a citizen of Lisbon of a noble and powerful family, and he lived in a house befitting his rank, that stood within the shadow of the great West Porch of Lisbon Cathedral. In this house, in the year 1195, when both his parents were still in the first flower of youth, Saint Anthony was born, in this church he was baptized, in the school attached to it he made his first studies, and until he was fifteen years of age, he remained beneath his father's roof with the simple things of home.”
Gilliat-Smith further tells us that the author of " Benignitas " states that: ”St. Anthony’s father's Christian name was Martino and his mother's Christian name was Maria: he was a knight of Alfonso (Alfonso II seemingly, who reigned from 1211 to 1223) and she was a knight's daughter”.
Now, if we really dig deep and have a good command of French, which I do, we can find the element of truth in this myth or story on St. Anthony of Padua and link to Godfrey of Bouillon which a few have suggested was made up by the Franciscans. Just over 20 years prior to the publishing of Gilliat-Smith’s book on St Anthony, Monsieur Leon de Kerval (1852-1911) discovered in the Rosenthal MS. (at the time of writing his book in possession of the faculty of Protestant theology of the University of Paris), a very considerable portion of a legend of Saint Anthony by a Franciscan of Padua which was written in 1316 or thereabout and which he (Kerval) named the " Legend Benignitas." This isn’t really available anywhere as such, and I have not come across any reliable translations of Kerval’s works into English yet, only fragments mentioned in academic dissertations or other books. However, Gillian-Smith mentions that:
“In any case, as Kerval remarks, it is interesting to find that in 1316 (the date of " Benignitas ") Saint Anthony had not yet become a grandson or a great-grandson of Godfrey of Bouillon. Mark of Lisbon, who wrote more than two hundred years later, was the first to make this rash assertion, which so many subsequent biographers of the Saint have repeated as gospel truth and which the Abbe Lepitre in the first chapter of his Saint Antoine de Padoue together with some other genealogical glorifications has summarily and conclusively refuted.”
Now if we go over to Portugal and dig deep there and in Portuguese (which I understand as it is similar to the dialect spoken in Galicia, where my maternal grandfather was from), it would appear that the father of St Anthony was a lesser nobleman, Vicente Martim de Bulhão while his mother was Teresa Taveira; the daughter of well-known medieval Portuguese nobleman, poet and troubadour João Soares de Paiva (1140 - after 1194), often recognised as the first literary author in the Galician-Portuguese language, and therefore of Portuguese itself.
https://www.geni.com/.../Martim-de.../6000000011459330280
Heraldry/genealogy tells us that there is a connection with Burgundian Count Henri (Henry of Burgundy) who received the Kingdom of Portucale as a wedding gift through his marriage with Teresa of León, an illegitimate daughter of King Alfonso VI of Leon and his mistress Jimena Muñoz for helping and for me is among the initial founding knights Templar. See below:
“Ancient Portuguese family that, according to certain genealogists, would come from a relative of Godofredo de Bouillon, or B. or Bulhões, who might have come to help D. Afonso Henriques (Henry of Burgundy) in the conquest of the Kingdom. The oldest one to be found in Portugal is Vicente Martins de B., whose father was seen as Martim, as the patronymic indicates. He lived in the reign of D. Afonso Henriques and, perhaps, still in the time of Count D. Henrique. The Cathedral of Lisbon celebrated his birthday on the 14th of the calends of February, for which his son Martim de B. bequeathed his houses next to S. Mamede. This Martim de B. lived in Lisbon, near Sé, on the site where the church of Santo António is currently located. He was received with D. Teresa Taveira, daughter of Paio Soares Romeu, the last, and of D. Sancha Henriques de Portocarreiro.”
https://www.heraldrysinstitute.com/.../idc/601589/idt/en/...
Now if we do some research in Portuguese, we find:
It was through him that the Paiva surname was extended down the male line, since the descendants of his brother Paio took the name Taveira (like his daughter Teresa, mother of St Anthony of Padua).
See below:
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_Soares_de_Paiva
Myths always contain an element of truth. We just have to know where and what to look for. But sometimes we are also thrown red herrings, so trust nothing, question everything, and always follow your intuition. And perhaps, and maybe I’ll start doing this, say a prayer to St. Anthony to help you find that which you seek or lost knowledge, dormant in your spiritual DNA, which you need to remember in order to be able to read and decode places as the ancients did.
MERRY XMAS EVERYONE! Helena B. Scott
SOME ADDITIONAL SOURCES
F. Carlos das Neves, _Santo Antonio de Lisboa, o Grande Thaumaturgo de Portugal_, 2 vols., Livraria
Catholica Portuense, Porto, 1898/99.
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/.../Grande-Thaumaturgo.../plp
Gilliat-Smith, Ernest. Saint Anthony of Padua according to his contemporaries (1926). You can actually read this online below, fascinating read: