ON SAINT GONDEBERTUS THE MARTYR,
AT AVENAY IN THE TERRITORY OF REIMS.
7TH CENTURY.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Gumbertus the Frank, Martyr in Ireland (St.)
By D. P.
Flodoard, the author of the history of Reims, who wrote and flourished in the 10th century of the Christian era, supplies us with a brief and sufficiently accurate notice of those things which an earlier and more certain memory has preserved concerning the holy Martyr Gondebert, Guntbert or Gumbert, up to his own age. He teaches first that he was the full brother of Saint Nivard, Bishop of Reims after Lando: who Lando, since he had been
in the time of King Sigebert, With his brother Saint Nivard the Bishop, he flourished under Childeric II, as is said in book 2 of the aforementioned history chapter 6, it follows that Nivard himself, before the year 658 in which Sigebert died, entered upon the episcopate, which whether he held as a survivor until the year 672, as Charles le Cointe holds, or departed from life ten years earlier, as the Sainte-Marthe brothers think, we shall investigate on September 1, on which he is venerated. It suffices to be clear from what has been said that both he himself and his brother Saint Gondebert flourished in the time of Childeric II, who was taken by the Austrasians as King a little after Saint Sigebert's death, when he was a boy of only four or five years. Therefore Stephen Binet erred, who in his Life of him written in French, supposed that Gumbert and Nivard were born under Childeric III, the last of the Merovingian Kings, and indeed after the year 743.
[2] He contended with Saint Reolus the Bishop over fraternal property. After Nivard's death, Blessed Reolus, now placed in the episcopate (as Flodoard continues in book 2 chapter 10), "had a great dispute concerning the property of the aforementioned Saint Nivard the Bishop, with Gundebert the King's Nobleman, the full brother of this same Lord Nivard; Gundebert saying that the estates of his brother Nivo the Bishop, both from paternal and maternal inheritance, which Nivo on dying had left behind, were owed to him by legitimate right. But on the contrary Lord Reolus or his agents said that Lord Nivard had conferred all his property for the remedy of his soul to the holy places through his instruments... but while between both parties this contention was being turned, with peace-making persons finally mediating, they returned to peace of concord on this basis: that Gundebert should receive back into his power those things that were beyond the Loire of Emma their mother, and he divided them with the churches: without any claim from Bishop Reolus or his agents; but whatever other things the Lord Nivo of good memory had assigned to holy places through his instruments, the holy places should, entirely and in perpetuity, without claim from Gundebert or his heirs, possess them with God's help. Whence a conventional document drawn up at our place," says Flodoard, as a Presbyter of that very Church of Reims, "is still preserved, strengthened by the signatures of both parties": which, would that it still existed, with the year of Childeric's reign added, to more certainly settle the controversy which we have said exists among writers concerning the year of Nivard's death, and to bring us closer to the knowledge also of that time at which Saint Gundebert the martyr fell.
[3] Meanwhile it is sufficiently clear from Flodoard that this dispute of his with his kinsman Reolus concerning fraternal possessions, he endows from his own property the church of Saints Timothy and Apollinaris, was not born from any wicked affection, as if he grieved that they should be consecrated to God: for he himself was most liberal in pious largesses. For as is said in book 1 chapter 4, "To the Basilica of the Lord Martyrs Timothy and Apollinaris... Lord Gondebert, a most illustrious man, with his wife Bertha, gave an estate situated in the district of Vontise, named Pertas." Moreover, "there is at Reims a monastery for maidens situated at the gate which was formerly called Collaticia, namely from the bringing together of merchandise, now called Basilicaris... he built a convent for maidens, which monastery Lord Guntbert, an illustrious man, is reported to have built in honor of Saint Peter: and it is called Royal or Fiscal because up to modern times it was held in Royal power," says the same Flodoard book 4 chapter 46. And when Hincmar Bishop of Reims in the 9th century, as the aforesaid author has it book 3 chapter 27, wrote to Teutberga Abbess of Avenay, showing that "Nivard Bishop of Reims had built the monastery of Hautvilliers from the property of the Church of Reims: and that his brother had built the monastery of Avenay from his own property and what other good men gave to the same place, and that he had handed it over to the Church of Reims, whence charters existed clearly setting this forth."
[4] This last (where the body of Saint Gondebert himself, together with the body of Saint Bertha his wife, rests and is venerated, as will be said below) is between Reims and Épernay: in which that handing over to the Church of Reims, only his wife is acknowledged as foundress there, claimed by Hincmar, does not seem to have been acknowledged; and therefore distrustful of that ambiguous right, Hincmar's successor Lord Fulco (as is in Flodoard book 4 chapter 47), "obtained that this monastery or Abbey be granted from King Odo to the Church of Reims through a page of the precept of that King; and for the confirmation of it for this church, he obtained a Privilege of the Apostolic See from Pope Formosus." Wherefore someone might suspect that even the charters cited by Hincmar were suspected of being forged by those of Avenay: from which documents or opinions concerning this very monastery, Flodoard, in the place already cited, thus continues the narration he had begun concerning Saint Guntbert: "The aforementioned Lord Guntbert, therefore, leaving his wife and seeking maritime places, he himself founded another, where he was killed by barbarians, is said also to have founded a monastery there; where also he is handed down to have been beheaded by barbarians. But his widow Lady Bertha built a monastery for maidens at Avenay, the Lord showing her the place through an Angel."
[5] What Flodoard calls "maritime places" are said in the ancient Acts soon to be indicated to be "the people dwelling near the shores of Altissalium." near the Ocean among the Morini, What if an error of writing crept in, and it should be written "near the shores of the high sea alti salis," that is, of the Ocean? Thus it would be enough to dispatch Gundebert to the Morini and other peoples of present-day Flanders still barbarians at that time, at a distance of about 50 leagues. Nor indeed is the monastery to be set outside the limits of the Frankish Empire, to which maternal goods situated beyond the Loire, that is, in the very heart of Gaul, its founder assigned to it, as is said in the Acts. But if one wishes tenaciously to retain the name of the Altissalii, you will not therefore be able to excuse the monk of Saint-Remy, who, reformulating the Acts of Saints Gumbertus and Bertha in a more polished style, located the Altissalii near Scotia; though all later writers have followed him, and with them Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology.
[6] I know that in Saint Gondebert's age the island of Hibernia, which then still alone enjoyed the name of Scotia, was sufficiently known to the Franks, even to the Austrasians, or among the Altisalii by the Issel. and that to there the younger Dagobert, son of Saint Sigebert, was banished by the tyrant Grimoald: but this too I know, that that entire island was at that time most Christian, and as it were a school of virtue and letters for foreign provinces. But the name "Altissalii" is nowhere either in Hibernia or in British Albania or present-day Scotland, nor in any islands of the western sea near or far from Scotia, to be found—of this I am certain. Where then shall we seek it? Certainly in the outermost limits of Austrasia toward the North, where the Frisians dwelt, a barbarous nation and likewise to be called maritime, not only for that part which is now called Frisia, but also for the whole diocese of Utrecht on this and the other side of the Issel, on account of the arm of the sea bordering on it. There indeed is still found a city, called according to the variety of dialects Altenzel or Oldenzaal, an ancient seat of the Salian Franks; from which Salians even today the whole little region by the Issel, whose capital is Altisalia, is called Zallandia, that is, the region of the Salians. Proximate to these boundaries was also Saxony, still wholly pagan itself; so that in place of either name, Frisia or Saxony, the name of Scotia could have crept in upon the ignorant.
[7] Saint Bertha appears to her niece, accomplice of his murder, Wherever Gundebert was killed and first buried, his body was not long left there. For after his wife Bertha was also slain, as was said above, "To the niece of Lord Guntbert, named Montia, who had been an accomplice of this crime, at night as she was awake Lady Bertha is reported to have appeared and commanded her to take pains to bring back the body of Lord Guntbert to this place (namely Avenay), and to place it beside her own burial, and thus the Lord would forgive her the sin of being an accomplice of her murder. She, asking for a sign by which she might know that it had been forgiven her, heard that, as soon as she had fulfilled the command, she commands that her husband's body be sought out and placed beside her, blood would burst out of her mouth or nostrils. Which also was fulfilled; when the body of Lord Guntbert was deposited beside the pledge of Blessed Bertha... Finally, to show the honor and merit of these Saints, the Lord deigned afterwards to work many miracles, which through negligence have not been recorded. Moreover in whatever tribulations the congregation sought the Lord's mercy through their intercession, it merited to receive consolation mercifully bestowed upon it."
[8] Thus far Flodoard book 4 chapter 47, illuminated by the ancient Acts of Saints Gumbertus and Bertha, the tomb is reopened after 100 years, from which he did not omit to insert into the aforementioned chapter that "the body of this Lady Bertha, after about 100 years, was discovered intact; but her wound then flowed with fresh blood, as if they had been inflicted on her at that very hour while she was alive": perhaps as an argument of inviolate virginity: for nothing prevents one from suspecting that she had persuaded her husband, since he already had children from a previous wife, not to seek new ones from her, but by mutual consent to keep continence. These things happened around the year 800, from which time the blessed spouses began to have more public veneration at Avenay: [the bodies were translated to Reims in the 9th century and brought back to Avenay in the 10th:] and then I should believe the Life was first written, which we would wish existed in its sincere form, just as Flodoard had it, then writing when the sacred pledges of the Saints, which on account of the incursions of the Normans had been carried away to Reims in the 9th Christian century, still lay within the church of Saint Mary, deprived of due private veneration. They lay there beyond the year 948, in which Flodoard ends his history, and which was the 17th year of Bishop Artoldus; then afterwards by the already-mentioned Bishop, after a threefold revelation of the Saints made to a certain Bernard, they were brought back to Avenay: and for each Martyr (as is said in the Life of Saint Bertha polished by the monk of Saint-Remy) a peculiar Office was decreed and instituted, and every year celebrated at Avenay on the feast day, namely August 31, when the Lessons of this Translation were wont to be recited, to be given by us on May 1, because then it is more solemnly venerated with the Octave, by the mandate of the aforesaid Artaldus who died in the year 961.
[9] The Offices exist for the feast day of each, for the Octaves of the feasts and for the said Translation, with Antiphons, responsories, and prayers everywhere proper, A proper Office for each, but with Hymns for Blessed Gumbertus taken from the Common of Martyrs. Take a specimen from the first Vespers, where at the Magnificat this Antiphon is prescribed with the following prayer:
"Saint Gumbertus, illustrious in the array of the Franks, Joined in marriage to Bertha in the hope of having offspring, Scorned the slippery commerce of earthly life, With his wife as partner seizing for himself the heavenly realms. May we merit to be eternal partakers of them."
Let us pray.
Be propitious to us, we beseech, O Lord, unworthy your servants, through Saint Gumbertus your Martyr, who in
the present church rests, his glorious merits, that by his pious intercession we may always be protected from all adversities.
Similar nearly are the Antiphons and other prayers for the individual hours, also in the Office of Saint Bertha: from which (so that I may not seem gratuitously to have raised the suspicion about mutually agreed continence being kept) I add the Responsory after the Chapter at first Vespers, to be recited according to the Benedictine Breviary rite thus:
Resp. The blessed Spouse was joined to the blessed Spouse, A remarkable pair in their spirits, Bertha a companion to Gumbertus: Vers. Childless nevertheless, it lies hidden whether she was also inviolate.
Moreover in the Hymn which follows next about her it is read:
"Henceforth scorning the foul joys of mortal life, She converted her pious husband, who followed a celibate life."
[10] These things are from the booklet of the said Offices, together with the Office of Saint Tresanus the Martyr (whose body is also at Avenay and is venerated on February 7) printed at Reims in the year 1557, contains the Acts divided into lessons, by the care and expense of Louise de Lineange, Abbess, not only in Latin but also in French, for the greater devotion of the Nuns, so that those things which they sang and recited in the ecclesiastical language, they might see on the margin interpreted in their native tongue. Whether this edition is entirely similar to another edition of the year 1600, cited by Bolland in the Life of Saint Tresanus, I cannot say, nor does it greatly matter: rather from that first edition I observe that the author of the said Offices divided into two parts what previously had been undivided, the history of the holy spouses: and since those things which pertained only to Saint Gumbertus could not suffice for 24 Lessons, as many as he needed; first he took some things from the Life of Nivard his brother, but interpolated, and, with the name changed, applied them to his brother, then some particulars from Flodoard concerning the monastery built at Reims, finally mixing in amplifications of his own: but in so different a style and with connection so gaping, that it was not very difficult to reconnect what had been badly torn apart: which I have presumed to do here, having rejected those heterogeneous segments to the Annotations, lest anyone should have our fidelity suspect, or lament that the ability of judging these for himself was withdrawn.
[11] And these things indeed, pure up to after the ninth and a half century, then were read thus interpolated, until some monk of Saint-Remy, the same were afterwards more amplified in the 12th century, rewrote each Life with the style changed anew, not without errors; adding certain miracles not previously written, and where the death of Saint Bertha was to be treated, transferring that crime from her stepsons, sons of Gumbertus (whom he was unwilling to believe had existed in the nature of things), to the nephews whom Saint Gumbertus could have had from his two Brothers, Baldinus and Theoderamnus, named in Flodoard book 2 chapter 7 and probably older, and begotten before the marriage of Emma. But we give more credit to the Acts and Flodoard, who expressly name the stepsons: nor do we judge those Lives worthy, perhaps written in the 12th century, with which to increase the bulk of our work; especially since we do not have them pure even from Bellefortius, but with the style changed by William Duiatius, Canon Regular of Saint John of Soissons. They can themselves be read in the French language, and recently also in French by Stephen Binet, with the same type and year as above, printed after the aforesaid Offices. Which same things, however, since they seemed not yet sufficiently ample, Stephen Binet, a Writer of our Society equally elegant and pious, at the request of Frances de Beauvillier, Abbess of Avenay, reformulated them in the year 1625, and greatly expanded them with a character added for forming morals, weaving a panegyric rather than a history, which it shall here be enough to have indicated. This author indicates that the bodies are preserved in a twin and precious reliquary, doing nothing else for the history, except this alone, that they were most recently reviewed in the year 1612, at the instance of the aforementioned Abbess, and by mandate of Louis Cardinal of Lorraine, Archbishop of Reims, through the Bishop of Saint-Brieuc, and that the bones were found in great number sound and intact.
[12] Miracles common to both after death we shall give as Legends to be read with the Life of Saint Bertha, some miracles not correctly narrated, to which they are attached: the Acts to be given by us indicate that Gumbertus himself while still alive at Reims was also illustrious for certain miracles. But in the Life amplified by the Saint-Remy monk, certain things are described individually and at length; first, when Saint Gumbertus, at Reims, having entered the maiden's church built by himself for the sake of prayer, cured by a prayer made over her a girl paralyzed in her whole body and harassed with greatest torments, who had lain there for the seventh day. And this indeed could have been done thus: but what is premised about the countenance of the same Saint praying there being illuminated by a divine light, loses its splendor by the addition of another prodigy about a wax candle thrice divinely lit, as if that miraculous illumination of the candle, which occurred two or three centuries after the Saint's death, had been effected through rays proceeding from his face while living. For Flodoard thus speaks of it in book 4 chapter 46: "We saw here (namely in the church of this monastery) a wax candle also lit three times by heavenly fire: which candle, with wax contributed, certain citizens of Reims had made, who had recently set out to visit the thresholds of the Apostles." In the same place Flodoard says that "the Royal monastery itself, the Emperor Louis gave as a gift to Alpaida his daughter, wife of Count Bego, and assigned to the same sacred place a precept of immunity." Certainly according to the frequent usage of that time: but the miracle said to have been performed on the said Bego, with which the manuscript Life of Saint Gumbertus concludes, lacks all verisimilitude. For who would believe that the door of the neighboring church of Saint Michael was so low, that the Count entering with head raised had to strike his head; or that he was so furious that on account of such an event he not only angrily wished for the destruction of that church; but also, ministers having afterwards been sent for demolition, carried his impious vow into action, and therefore merited to be possessed by a demon, not to be freed except through the intercession of Saint Gumbertus, invoked by the Count's friends.
[13] because of the desolation of the monastery founded by the Saint. Such things, therefore, having been passed over, and the whole Life so badly put together being bidden farewell, let us be content regarding Saint Gumbertus' miracles to know only this which the Responsory of Lesson 10 has: "Through Blessed Gumbertus divine mysteries are performed, through his prayers the blind are enlightened, and on his birthday demons are driven off, and the sick are healed, forgiveness of sins is granted, and the bonds of the accused are loosed." Nor is it a wonder that this more recent author could gather nothing certain, chiefly concerning the things he did while alive: for the memory of these ought most to have been preserved in the first monastery founded by the Saint, but this seems to have already been desolate at the time he was writing: certainly it has long since ceased to exist, and there now remain there only the hall, the shrine, and the chapel of Saint Patrick; as is read in the Metropolitan Breviary of Reims of the year 1630. veneration in the churches of Reims, There is prescribed only one Lesson and a simple Office of Saint Gumbertus the Martyr, for April 29, by the authority of Louis Cardinal of Lorraine, then Archbishop of Reims. In the old Cathedral of the same city, now only the Collegiate Basilica of Saints Timothy and Apollinaris, an ancient Martyrology survives, which also proves an older veneration by these words: "At Avenay, of Saint Gumbertus the King." I judge that he is called "King" because he touched upon the very Kings of France by consanguinity or affinity. Better however Philip Ferrarius, and among the Benedictines. citing the Calendar of Reims: "At Avenay in Gaul, of Saint Gundebertus Count and Martyr": for to be called Counts or even Dukes, whose wealth and nobility and authority in the courts and families of ancient Kings was noted, is less repugnant to the usage of these times; although elsewhere it is not established that he bore such titles, then by no means hereditary as now. But that on the same day by the same Ferrarius it is again set down: "In Scotia, of Saint Gumbertus the Martyr," is gross ignorance, not knowing that the same man who is venerated at Avenay, is he whose Life René Benoît presents in French among other Lives of Saints; who indeed from the error already accepted believed Altissalia was a neighboring island of Scotia; nevertheless he nowhere says that Gumbertus was born from the territory of Paris, which Ferrarius foists upon him in his Notes. Hugo Menard and Gabriel Bucelinus in the Benedictine Martyrology and Menology have thus inscribed him: "On the same day, the passion of Saint Guntbertus the Martyr"; Bucelinus then adds a eulogy, in which, though he does not say openly that he was a monk, he nevertheless indicates not obscurely that he is referring to him as such, which we leave to him to prove.
Annotations* al. Vontinse,
* or Monnae, and Munciae,
LIFE
from the ancient Lessons of the proper Office.
Gumbertus the Frank, Martyr in Ireland (St.)
BHL Number: 3692
By D. P.
LECT. I, L. III, L. IV
[1] In the time in which the most powerful King Childeric ruled the Frankish scepters, Under King Childeric the most holy man Gumbertus a is known to have existed. And while the man of good disposition was being nourished by dear affection, he grew with a great increase of virtues, and studiously drank in the riches of Scripture. Now the kinsmen of the holy man and all his nephews were the most noble leading men, living in the King's palace, illustrious in courtly disciplines, and fervent in the disposing of many affairs: from whose lineage the blessed man had drawn his origin b. A generous spirit also was in him, and so great a grace of talent in his mind, excelling in nobility and virtue, that all wondered in admiration of him. For as in the painting of flowers a golden beauty rises up, so also in the features of his limbs had risen up the whole honor of his virtues, until, pleasing to God and men and transcending common grace, he merited to have the honor of chief rank among the first Palatines c. And when, now ascending from virtue to virtue, he had come to a perfect age, the throng of kinsmen began to incite him to the companionship of a wife, he is solicited by his kinsmen to marriage, lest they be without offspring from so great a parent. Hearing these things, the man of God, bearing Christ in his breast, did not easily give assent d: for he was piously wishing to serve God chastely, and to be of those who neither marry nor are given in marriage: but are as the Angels of God in heaven.
L. V, L. VI, L. VII, L. III
[2] Besought, therefore, by the addresses of his distinguished kinsfolk, and wearied by many reproaches, finally on a certain night, when he gave his wearied body to rest, by divine command it was shown to him that he should fearlessly give his assent to the petitioning groups of kinsmen e. And so there was joined to him in marriage a noble girl, named Bertha, from her very childhood years devoted to God alone: noble indeed by birth, but nobler in holiness. he takes Saint Bertha as wife, With what great virtues she afterwards shone, and with what great works of divine grace she was distinguished, the dryness of an unskilled speech cannot express. But when they were joined by divine dispensing grace, so great a force of divine love grew in them: that beyond human measure they surrendered themselves to obey God f. Now the aforesaid most constant soldier of Christ, armed with the zeal of piety, placed also on the earth,
but dwelling in mind in heaven, he contended with Saint Reolus for his brother's inheritance. desired to make heirs of Christ in this world through possessions belonging to him by paternal and maternal right; so that he might worthily be able to take the unfading reward with the cohorts of the heavenly citizens. Therefore after the death of the illustrious Bishop Nivard, his own brother g, wishing to divide the estates worthily coming to him through the companies of those serving God, he began to demand from the brother who succeeded him various municipalities of his ample inheritance. When he resisted and grudgingly granted anything, it came to assemblies of the nobles for the sake of counsel as to what should be done about this. But Lord Gumbertus, full of God's grace, said that his brother's estates were owed to him by legitimate right h. On the contrary Archbishop Lord Reolus said that Blessed Nivard had handed over to the places of the Saints everything belonging to him i. Finally, while this contention was being carried on between both parties, with peace-making men mediating, they returned to the concord of peace: namely, that the oft-mentioned k Gumbertus should possess in perpetuity, without any claim, those things beyond the Loire which had belonged to his mother, called Emma l, m.
L. IX, L. X, L. XI
[3] He began now to turn over in his mind, and with great zeal to ponder, in what place he might build a monastery which he would endow with his possessions. He builds a monastery, Wavering where to set the end of his vow, on a certain night, when he had given himself to sleep, there was shown to him a place suitable for those serving God. He, soon awakened, hastened to the regions shown to him by God, knowing himself to be on the verge of a great thought. n The place is situated at the gate of the city of Reims, which was formerly called Collectitia, namely from the bringing together of merchandise: but now it is called Basilicaris, either because it is said formerly to have abounded in Basilicas around it more than the other gates; or because it provided passage to those going to the Basilicas standing in the street of kind Remigius [nn]. But because Blessed Gumbertus built at the gate which had been that of death, a seat for the Father of all, therefore from Him who said: "I am the gate; if anyone enters by me, he shall be saved and shall find pasture," he merited to hear: "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord." Wonderfully indeed God almighty honored him in his labors: he became famous for miracles, and granted to him to perform in the same place works of wondrous power, reforming the deformed, and revivifying the joints of the weak o. The Oratory, of which we have already prefaced these things, he built there, and consecrating it in honor of Saint Peter, from the Doorkeeper of the heavenly court, made him Patron of that church [p]. Thus having become the possessor of his vow, he endowed the place with no small gifts; and lest, with habitation prepared by God's favor, it should be empty, he chose there very many consecrated women serving the Lord, leading a most devoted life under the rule of holy life [q].
L. XII, L. II, L. III, L. IV
[4] By such means the venerable man was leading a most holy life, and was strong in cleanness of heart and hands: so that by right he merited to be of those of whom the Lord says: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" [r]. For while dwelling among his fellow-soldiers in the royal court, he gave his work to holy actions, by beseeching, instructing, and showing forth innumerable virtues [s]. And when he now wished altogether to leave the world with all its pomps, and with his wife's assent, and with the ardor of pilgrimage wished to extend his foot beyond his paternal borders, that he might worthily be one of God's worshipers to whom the Lord says: "Whoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me": he left, with equal counsel, the aforementioned wife whom he had taken (not from the ardor of fulfilling lust, but from the love of posterity), with no small household. For that same holy and God-devoted woman bore the same in her heart, and burned with the same desire. Indeed the grace of God had its abode in the expanse of the holy man's heart [t]: who, trusting in the heavenly Author, where he had heard the error of paganism still to rage, there bore himself fearlessly. For at that time [u], the people dwelling near the shores of Altissalium were held by the madness of paganism. he set out to convert the unbelievers And so the holy one of the Lord, hastening to those parts, propped up by the protection of God, shone with the beauty of great virtues: because Christ lived in him, giving to him an inheritance in the holy Church, and dividing his portion among the twelve tribes: as in the number of the sealed, which the book of Apocalypse commends [x].
L. V, L. VI
[5] Moved by divine inspiration, with the counsel of the ministers attending him, he began to build among the savage peoples another monastery, and he founded a new monastery there, and from the resources which the glorious worshiper of God had brought with him, to endow the same place: and there he gathered no small multitude of those serving God. For he handed over the greatest part of the ample possession coming to him from his mother's side (as we have said before) to the same place; so that from it the soldiers of Christ might be nourished, the poor refreshed, and captives, according to the opportunities of the times, redeemed. The man full of God rejoiced in the increase of the flock; and as twin offspring, connected on one side by brotherly love, he nourished them; namely the monks of the Oratory which he had built at the gate of Reims, and those of whom is now the discourse. But the groups which he had gathered to God Almighty, he guarded with watchful care; lest the invisible wolf find entry by which he might be able to enter the fold of the Lord and snatch away some of the sheep.
L. VII, L. VIII.
[6] He himself by day and night meditated on the law of the Lord, and often alone, withdrawn from the crowds of men in the chamber of his heart, and finally was killed by the unbelievers, as if in a garden of delights, by assiduous prayers he asked the Lord of heaven and earth to deign to lead to the summit of perfection those whom he saw raging with malignant deceit. But [z] certain farmers of the surrounding places, taking ill that the man of God preached the idols they worshiped to be vain, and those lost who adored them or offered nefarious gifts: at the dictation of envy they tried to remove him from the place, which had been divinely shown to him [aa]. Therefore, when on a certain day he was offering the sacrifice of praise to the Father most high in the same monastery, surrounded by the faithless [bb], he was dragged down, scourged, bound with very hard thongs, and finally struck by the sword of one of the bystanders: and thus the illustrious soldier of God Gumbertus rendered up his spirit to the Lord, leaving behind to mortals an example of great holiness, and carried up to the heavens by the flowers of his virtues, he triumphs in the heavenly senate crowned with laurels among the Angels [cc], by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.