ON SAINT MANSUETUS MARTYR,
AT ARGENTAN IN NORMANDY.
CommentaryMansuetus, Martyr, at Argentan in Normandy (St.)
By D. P.
The Mount of the Martyrs, not far distant from the city of Paris, On occasion of our visit to the Mount of the Martyrs, is distinguished among other things for this: that to the men of our Society it is especially venerable under this name, because there this Religion had as it were its nativity, the first companions meeting there on the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin to pronounce certain simple vows, by which they bound themselves to the divine service in the future. There remains, and is shown, a subterranean chapel with an altar, at which the thing was performed; and above it a notable chapel, which meets those entering the temple on the right, adorned remarkably with paintings and marbles under the title of Saint Ignatius, by the care of Father Julian Bonnefons, a famous Writer among the ascetics at this time. When therefore we were returning from Rome through Gaul to Belgium, and were spending some time at Paris, intent on investigating the Acts of the Saints, we judged it unbecoming not also for the sake of devotion to go to the place, Notice of Saint Mansuetus offered; and to offer the eucharistic sacrifice for the benefit of our vocation to the Society, which had begun to be founded there: which duly performed, a very humane man named D. Prouverre, one of the Priests who were present, joined himself to us; and inquiring concerning the design of our work, benignly promised any help he could give: then not at all unmindful of his promise, in the year 1663, he sent from Argentan to Antwerp the following Instrument, which we render from the French into Latin in this manner.
[2] Whose body given to a certain Capuchin Father "We, Renatus Mahot, Priest Curate of the town of Argentan, and Dean of the said place of the diocese of Séez, in the province of Normandy, Licentiate in Canon Law and Apostolic Notary, give faith to all whom it may concern, that in the month of September last past there was given to the citizens and inhabitants of the said Argentan by the Reverend Father Louis Francis of Argentan, a Capuchin, first Definitor of the Order in the province of Normandy, a small fir-wood box, two feet long and almost one wide, in which was contained the body of the glorious Martyr Saint Mansuetus: namely the head whole and solid, six or seven bones a cubit long; and a great number of other bones remarkable in size and length, together with a Bull of the following tenor.
[3] 'Alexander Victricius, by the grace of God and the Apostolic See Bishop of Alatri, sent from Rome in the year 1650. to all who shall read these our present Letters we make faith and attest, how, while we were performing the office of Vice-gerent, at the request of the very Reverend Father Brother Richard of Ireland of the Order of Capuchins, we gave to the very Reverend Father Brother Louis Francis of Argentan of the same Order, the body or bones of the body of Saint Mansuetus Martyr, enclosed in a wooden box, bound with a cord and secured with the impression of our seal in red Spanish wax, together with Relics taken from the bodies of the holy Martyrs Celsus, Magnus, Celestinus, Victor, Justin, Felix, Pius, and Pacificus: and also in another smaller box, likewise closed under our seal as above, the arm of Saint Hippolytus Martyr: which bodies of the holy Martyrs at that time, by the mandate of Our Most Holy Lord Innocent Pope X, we extracted respectively from the cemeteries of Callistus and Calepodius: with other Relics of Saints, and we handed the aforesaid boxes as above closed to the said Father Brother Richard, likewise for the purpose of consigning or sending them to the aforesaid Father Brother Francis: to whom we gave the faculty of retaining with himself the aforesaid sacred body and Relics and arm, giving them to others, taking them out of the City, and exposing them in any church, oratory, or pious place for the public veneration of the faithful with the license of the Ordinary. In witness whereof we have ordered these presents, signed with our hand and secured with our seal, to be issued through our Secretary, in the beloved City, on the 10th day of June, 1650.
Alexander, Bishop of Alatri.
† Bernard Gasbarra, Secretary.'
[4] "And the aforesaid sacred body with the Relics attached to it, in the year 1658 recognized by the Bishop of Séez, given to this our parish church of Saint Germain, was deposited by the aforesaid Father Francis in the church of the Capuchin Fathers of this town, until the Lord Francis de Rouxel de Medavy, Bishop of Séez, should make the translation. Who in the year 1658, on 7 April, at the request of ourselves and all the parishioners, personally coming to the said church of Saint Germain, commanded Master Robert du Frische, his Grand Vicar and Provost of the cathedral church of Séez, to open before us and certain doctors and surgeons summoned for the purpose the aforementioned box: then, I, the aforementioned Curate of Argentan, clothed in surplice and stole, drew out one by one the head and the bones of Saint Mansuetus; all which were recognized by the doctors and surgeons as members of a human body. with a diocesan Synod convened But that the Translation of so precious a treasure might be more solemnly performed, the Bishop summoned a Synod of all the Curates of his diocese on Saint Mark's day at the church of Saint Germain: where, before all, while men marveled at his zeal and eloquence, he delivered a remarkable panegyric on the praises of Saint Mansuetus, which was followed by a general Procession from the church of Saint Germain to the church of the Capuchins.
[5] with solemn procession, "Four trumpeters led the pomp, followed first by thirty Capuchin Fathers, among whom were the very Reverend Father Provincial and the aforementioned Father Francis; then twelve Cordeliers, and about sixteen Preachers of the convent of Argentan. Then after the Episcopal Cross proceeded the secular Clergy, about four hundred of both Curates and other Ecclesiastics, all of whom bore candles in hand, with the rest of the column closed by another ninety Curates dressed in copes, among whom were fifteen Deans, and finally the Bishop himself with all his Officials. With these thus going before, the order of the people was such: the first place was held by the two confraternities of the citizens of Argentan called of Charity, namely of Saint Germain and of Saint Martin, each also bearing their candle: whom followed the Marquis of Grandsay, the Bishop's nephew, with all the Magistrates and Officials of Argentan, and a multitude of both sexes so great, collected both from the town and from the surrounding places within ten leagues, that there are those who say that more than twenty thousand were numbered of those who either processed in their order, or closely accompanied the side of those processing: and that without even the smallest confusion, by the care and vigilance of the military Officials appointed for the guard of the town.
[6] from the Capuchin church "After the Bishop with the entire Clergy had entered the church of the Capuchins, he ordered the chest to be opened anew, placed above the main altar, and drawing from it the bones of Saint Mansuetus Martyr, he transferred them into another wooden chest, magnificently covered with red Cremisian silk: which two Grand Vicars then raised on their shoulders, and an illustrious banner carried before them, on which the image of the holy Martyr was artfully painted, followed them and preceded the Bishop: and thus the entire pomp, in the same manner in which it had come, proceeded from the church of the Capuchins to the nearby Saint Martin's, where the Bishop, after some musical symphony, chanted the oration of one Martyr at the main altar of the said church: to the parish of Saint Germain, which was likewise done in the church of the Virgin Mary; and at length they came to the church of Saint Germain, where the Bishop, dressed Pontifically, chanted Mass, with his Vicars and several other Ecclesiastics assisting him. But when Mass was finished, the Curates were convoked, in the manner usually done in the cathedral on synodal days: after which followed solemn Vespers, with the Bishop himself officiating: and the often-mentioned chest by two Ecclesiastics
was placed in a lofty and conspicuous place, it was translated on 25 April, above the main altar, prepared for this purpose.
[7] "This ceremony was made more august by the Lord Patrick Plunkett, Bishop of Achonry in Ireland, conferring the Sacrament of Confirmation in the church of Saint Germain on the two following days to a great number of people: just as on the following Sunday he conferred the Order of the Diaconate there on Master John Tirmois. And on the same Sunday Father Louis Francis the aforementioned preached concerning the bodies of the Saints resting within the Roman Catacombs, which he asserted had been entered and carefully explored by himself; and concerning the holy Martyr Mansuetus he said that he had learned at Rome this above all memorable thing, that his tomb was found inscribed in rather large letters in this manner, 'Mansuetus faithful of Christ.' not without miracles, Moreover on the very day of the solemnity, several followers of the so-called Religion of both sexes in the hands of either Bishop abjured heresy: others also gravely ill recovered perfect health, with some testifying that they had been suddenly freed from an acute fever, or that the ready faculty of seeing, hearing, walking, which they had lacked for some time, had been restored to them. All which things, as they have been now reported, I affirm to be most true, as an eyewitness and present at each: in witness of which I have written and signed this verbal process, on the Kalends of May of the year 1658. and the feast renewed on the following Sunday, But the aforesaid Bishop decreed that the annual memorial of this Translation should be held on the Sunday after the feast of Saint Mark next free."
[8] Now Argentan, or, as Papirius Massonius in his description of Gaul calls it, Argenta, is a town of no small note, distinguished by the title of a Viscounty, and strong with a castle, and hangs upon a high hill toward the Orne, a river flowing past, which not far from there above the city of the Sesuvii or of Séez, four leagues distant from Argentan, arising, and at length entering the diocese of Bayeux, Argentan in the territory of the Sesuvii. flows through Caen; and there, augmented by the accession of the Odon, shortly after plunges itself into the British Ocean. What was done with the Relics of the other Martyrs, likewise then brought, or with the arm of Saint Hippolytus the Martyr, has not yet become known to us: nor does it much matter to know, since here it has almost already been said whatever can be known concerning them. But common to these and to others brought from Rome is that the Instrument of donation presupposes that the signs of Martyrdom in their extraction, and in distinguishing them from others who were once buried within the same Catacombs, were so evident and certain that there could by no means be doubt that those were truly Martyrs of Christ whose are these bones. Which although it is fair to believe, yet it would be desirable that even these signs come to the knowledge of posterity; so that there might be something to oppose later under a doubt perhaps to arise, such as could here be moved from the words of the sepulchral title, containing no mark of martyrdom; besides which however that good Capuchin Father cared to learn nothing from those who, being asked more, would have taught more.