The Bollandist Peter van der Bosch translated the Italian back into Latin for the Acta Sanctorum (July, vol.
[7] His father died when he was an adolescent (his biographer presumes that to be fourteen),[8] and after receiving the permission of Bishop Hugh (1155–66), Raymond and his mother went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
His biographer refers to him as their "spiritual leader", though he notes that Raymond refused to contravene canon law by preaching publicly.
[14] He tried to persuade his wife to abstain from sexual relations so that they could devote themselves more fully to God, but she refused, saying "If I wished to be a nun, I would follow this advice.
[15] They had another child, a son named Gerard (Gerardo), whom Raymond secretly dedicated to Brigid of Kildare in her church at Piacenza.
Raymond then took vow a celibacy and, leaving Gerard and all his possessions (including his house) with his parents-in-law, left on a series of pilgrimages, which he planned to perform for the rest of his life.
While he was sleeping under a portico at the Basilica of Saint Peter, contemplating another pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he had a vision of Jesus Christ, who told him to return to Piacenza and "lead the rich to almsgiving, rival parties to peace, and those who have strayed—especially wayward women—to a proper way of life".
[21] He claimed that Christ had told him to wear a sky-blue, knee-length garment with loose sleeves and no hood, and to always carry a cross over his shoulder.
At Piacenza Raymond, then thirty-eight years of age, received the support of Bishop Theobald (1167–92) and the canonry of the Twelve Apostles gave him a large building next to theirs, where he established a xenodochium (1178).
[30] Raymond was also an opponent of knightly hastiludes (his biographer calls them "Trojan games ... [a] kind of gladiatorial contest [for "mounted men"] in which brawling, injury, and murder were commonplace"), which he sought to outlaw.
Raymond had a "keen sense of the social realities of poverty and marginality" and he once led a demonstration of beggars through the streets crying out for help from the rich.
His body quickly drew throngs of visitors, and Bishop Grimerio buried him in the canonry, where his tomb attracted suppliants even from Cremona.
[36] Rufinus records how a German living in the Piedmont, Ogerius by name, accidentally swallowed a bone during a Christmas meal, which lodged in his chest and caused him great pain.
[38] News of this spread throughout Lavagna until it reached a certain nobleman, Bernard de la Torre, and his wife Gelasia, who had a paralysed daughter named Mabilina.
[39] Rufinus also tells of a locally famous Pavian woman, Berta, who was possessed and tormented by three demons named Tralinus, Capricius, and Carincius.
[40] Rufinus also describes how a man named, ironically, Gerald Vitalis from Ripa in the county of Piacenza, suffered from "a hernia such that the intestines, sunken into his abdominal cavity, swelled to the point that he was unable to walk or engage in any kind of work".
[43] At about the same time there was in Acquense (the area around Acqui Terme) a man named Lomellus, who "had to bind his bowels with an iron belt", and his wife, who had "been confined to bed for an entire year".