ON SAINT EXUPERANTIA,
VIRGIN AT TROYES IN GAUL.
CommentaryExuperantia, Virgin, at Troyes in Gaul (St.)
G. H.
[1] In a suburban place of the city of Troyes, which formerly was called Insula-Germanica, in the seventh century of Christ the monastery of Celle was built by St. Frodobertus its first Abbot, dedicated to St. Peter, At Troyes in the monastery of St. Frodobertus as we have said more fully in the Life of St. Frodobertus on January 8. There, among other illustrious Relics of various Saints, placed behind the high altar, is kept in the second drawer toward the Southern part the sacred body of St. Exuperantia the Virgin, the body of St. Exuperantia the Virgin is kept in an ancient wooden reliquary, but gilded and adorned with various images.
[2] Nicholas Camuzat, the author of the Promptuary of the Sacred Antiquities of the Diocese of Troyes, printed in the year 1610, in the Notes to the Life of St. Frodobertus, Memory on the 25th published Excerpts from the manuscript Calendar of the said monastery, and on folio 39 has these words: "On the 7th day before the Kalends of May, at Troyes, in the monastery of St. Frodobertus, the birth into heaven of Blessed Exuperantia the Virgin." But on the said day, the 7th before the Kalends of May, or April 25, and properly April 26, we do not find her memory in any Martyrology; whence we think it a typographical error in Camuzat, which Nicholas des-Guerrois corrected in the book which he published in the year 1637, on the Ecclesiastical History of Troyes, where on folio 22 he alleges the words thus reported from the ancient Martyrology of the Cellense monastery: "On the 6th day before the Kalends of May, at Troyes, in the monastery of St. Frodobertus, the birth into heaven of St. Exuperantia the Virgin."
[3] The same, but somewhat more briefly, is read in the manuscript Carmelite Martyrology, taken from the Troyes and Sens rites; likewise in the manuscript Martyrologies of St. Germain-des-Prés at Paris, of St. Gudula at Brussels, and another perhaps of Bruges; as well as in the Florarium manuscript. Furthermore, in the Martyrology printed at Cologne and Lübeck in the year 1490, in Greven's Supplement to Usuard, and in the German Martyrology of Canisius, the Italian of Felicius, likewise in Maurolycus and Molanus: to which two being alleged, the name is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology in these words: "At Troyes, St. Exuperantia the Virgin."
[4] The Translation on April 20. But the Translation of St. Exuperantia is indicated on April 20, in the Martyrologies of St. Germain-des-Prés at Paris, of SS. Timothy and Apollinaris at Rheims, and of St. Stephen at Dijon: but in this one "Exuperia" is wrongly written, at least in our copy. The rest concerning the manner of her life and death is altogether hidden, whence the aforementioned Des-Guerrois conjectures that she flourished in the first or second century of Christ: and he treats of her under the year of Christ 100, because all things then done among the Tricassians have remained altogether obscure. But very many things, even done long afterwards, perished in various wars and fires, or were not written due to the sloth of our forefathers.
[5] Arthur du Monstier in his Sacred Gynaeceum begins this day thus: "At Auximum in Picenum, St. Exuperantia the Virgin and Martyr." So, he says in the Notes, Another Exuperia "Ferrarius in the new Topography for the Roman Martyrology, under the word Auximum, from the Tables of the Auximan Church, whose sacred body is preserved in the Cathedral of Gaeta, testifies Ughellus in volume 1 of Italia Sacra in the Bishops of Gaeta." So there. But Ughellus, enumerating the sacred Relics of the city of Gaeta, asserts the body there to be that of St. Exuperia the Virgin and Martyr, not Exuperantia. But Ferrarius says that Uxuperantia is venerated at Auximum, of whom meanwhile he makes no mention either in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, and Uxuperantia is brought forward by others. nor in the general Catalogue, published sixteen years later. Then, in the year 1620, John Baldi, Canon Penitentiary of the Auximan church, published a book on Saints Victor and Corona the Martyrs and St. Leopardus the Bishop and other Saints buried in the already-mentioned church, with no mention of Uxuperantia made anywhere. We are therefore compelled to suspect that in that alleged place of Ferrarius some error lurks, or a mistake is underlying.