Adjutor

ON SAINT ADJUTOR

MONK OF TIRON OF THE ORDER OF ST. BENEDICT, NEAR VERNON IN NORMANDY.

ABOUT THE YEAR 1131

Adjutor, near Vernon in Normandy (S.)

The town of Vernon lies in the farthest part of Normandy toward France, on the river Seine, distant from Rouen about eight leagues, which in the Middle Ages, though very small, From the Lords of Vernon gradually grew to greater extent, already then illustrious by the title of a Principality. For he who, about the middle of the eleventh century, restored the church of the Mother of God there, and had his burial in the same, William, is called in his epitaph Prince of Vernon. From his son John are believed to have been descended the Saint about whom we set out to treat, Adjutor, and Matthew of Vernon, he died before the year 1132 who is found in the year 1132 on the twelfth day of April, after the death of his brother Adjutor, to have recovered from the monks of Tiron the fourth part of the forest of Vernon, which together with his other possessions he had transferred to them. Mr. Joysel, Prior of Theruderia near Turny in the territory of Vernon, saw and transcribed the autograph instrument of that transaction, and sent it to John Theroude, Priest of the church of Vernon, who was writing about St. Adjutor; and at the same time made certain that the life of St. Adjutor could not be extended beyond the 30th of April of the year 1131.

[2] Nor indeed can the death be much anticipated either: since Hugh, Archbishop of Rouen, Hugh wrote the Life the third of this name, who was familiar with the Saint, from the discipline of St. Hugh of Cluny, was translated into England under William the Conqueror, to the government of the Priory of St. Pancras of Lewes; and then about the year 1125, having been made Abbot of Reading in the same England, did not come to the See of Rouen until after the year 1128, at whose end his predecessor died; nay, he does not seem to have been consecrated before September of the year 1130: as will be clear to one reading the History of the Archbishops of Rouen, recently published by our friend Francis de Pommeraye, Benedictine of the Congregation of St. Maur. This same Hugh is said to have written the Life of St. Adjutor. Saussaye in his Martyrology, the miracles of Walter and Hugh, Archbishops of Rouen weaving a very prolix eulogy for him, calls it only a remarkable charter, whose copy survives: which would that we had been able to obtain! but all the labor spent in seeking it at Vernon and Rouen was in vain. We shall therefore give for it Lections, received, as we believe, from it for the Office, from the aforesaid John Theroude; who afterwards expanded the same in French, and augmented it with miracles, written down there by Walter and Odo, Archbishops of Rouen, about the year 1200 and 1246: which we would wish to have equally from the autograph; now however they will be subjoined to the Life from the French, according to the edition of the year 1638.

[3] his cult in the chapel of St. Magdalene, What we shall note from this booklet concerning the Life and miracles themselves, will sufficiently prove his cult through the neighboring dioceses of Rouen, Evreux, and Chartres; from which and from other parts of Gaul pilgrims flow to the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, which is near Vernon; and that chiefly in view of St. Adjutor, who there led his last life, and equally with the aforesaid Saint had there an altar, erected above his tomb; on which tomb it is read inscribed in ancient characters, "Here lies St. Adjutor." But behind the principal altar, which is that of the holy Patroness of the place, a certain small grotto is seen, adhering to the same wall, which is said to have been for the blessed man as a cell. But also that the neighboring parish of Blaru had a fountain in the cemetery called St. Adjutor's, Mr. Jubert, parish priest of the place, suggested by letters to John Theroude; and he signified that several persons worthy of credit still survive, a fountain formerly at neighboring Blaru. who remember that a great number of wax candle offerings was sometime seen in the church, from the gratitude of those who had professed receiving grace from the drinking of that fountain. Which fountain, however, during the time of the civil wars, with diseases spreading, was obstructed, lest the throng of pilgrims, hoping for health from it, should hinder the well-being of its own residents: but it remains obstructed even now, after the round basin was uncovered by digging, with steps leading down around, of which three or four came into view.

[4] Moreover, to that very chapel which St. Adjutor had caused to be built, not quite a full league from Vernon, the chapel restored in the year 1404 there were also buildings joined, with the title of a Priory, dependent on the monastery of Tiron, which, together with the chapel itself, were destroyed through the wars blazing between French and English through the whole fourteenth century; so that only a single part of the larger wall survived; and in it the grotto of which I spoke, until the year 1404; when the Archbishop was admonished by a revelation to cleanse, restore, and reconcile the place: from which time onward, the Saint himself is seen there variously depicted, now in military habit, now in monastic, now even in Priestly. Yet the oft-named John Theroude thinks the Saint was without the Priesthood: to whom I would entirely agree, if it were certain what Theroude witnesses he read in a MS. written about the year 1426, that the miraculous arrival of St. Adjutor from Syria to that place happened in the year 1130; for it would follow that he did not live there even a full year. But this John Theroude does not admit, and to that MS. in this point refusing credit, he judges that the matter happened at least a year earlier.

[5] to which the Saint migrated in the year 1130 What if in that year indeed he came to Vernon, and began to inhabit that chapel of his; but before some years he had begun the monastic life among the Tironians? Thus St. Adjutor could have set out for the East with the first recoverers of the Holy Land, and after seventeen years of warfare, having been captured by the Saracens, spent some time in prison; then, having heard the fame of miracles of Blessed Bernard of Tiron, dead about the year 1117, he took up hope of obtaining liberty through his intercession: then indeed, having attained his hope, by a marvelous translation through the air, he soon turned his mind to entering the Order of Tiron: which he soon did, having delivered all his possessions to the religion on this condition, that from them a chapel and Priory under the title of St. Mary Magdalene should be built, in that place where the spirit had deposited him; having been made a monk among the Tironians some years before. finally, after ten or twelve years of religious life, with the good leave of the Abbot of Tiron, he withdrew into the Priory founded by himself, to preside over the same as Priest, if he truly was one; or to serve as sacrist, if he remained in the lay order; where he chose a cell for himself as a solitary behind the altar, the other Brothers leading a common life in the adjoined house. But three altars, erected in the same chapel from its first foundation, as Theroude teaches, make this conjecture in some way probable, since so many were not necessary for one solitary, and a lay one at that.

LIFE

From the Lections of the proper office.

Adjutor, near Vernon in Normandy (S.)

FROM A MS.

[1] Saint Adjutor, born of the illustrious ^a family of the Lords of Vernon, born in a noble place, was born at Vernon on the Seine. From his tender years, since by the example of his father John and his mother Blessed Rosemund ^b he embraced the pursuit of virtue, he made such progress he practices various virtues in his boyhood age that he easily surpassed the splendor of his family by the splendor of his virtues. His very boyhood age displayed by many tokens the coming perfection of the man: for by continual fastings and prayers he so attenuated and subdued his body, that the skin almost clung to the bones. In form indeed he was excelling, and in gentle aspect and sweetness of speech, but he shone most of all for his zeal for piety and the beauty of chastity. With age virtue grew; and strengthened by the powers of adolescence, zeal of religion so kindled in him, that, despising dangers, he set out with two hundred soldiers to defend the faith against the Saracens ^c. as a young man set out for the sacred war in Palestine,

[2] When in a certain Antiochene expedition ^d fifteen hundred enemies had rushed upon him, and his companions, dumbstruck with fear ^e, sought hasty flight, he, prostrate on the ground and turning to Blessed Magdalene, by her intercession obtained divine help in so great a danger. with a few soldiers he miraculously slays many of the enemy; He had scarcely finished his vows, when the enemies, a storm suddenly arising, struck with terror, with ranks disturbed, turned their backs. Then he, with his companions, strength recovered, rushed into the midst of the enemy's column, destroyed a thousand with slaughter, and put the rest to flight and routed them.

[3] afterwards captured But after seventeen years, Adjutor was captured by the enemy in the parts about Jerusalem: who cruelly cast him, bound with iron chains and fetters, into a dark prison. Then he was variously tormented by many and grievous tortures, and divinely freed with his fetters, is set in his homeland. that he might desert the faith of Christ. But at length after so many various pains, and cruel torments, and a long stay in prison, the Lord had mercy upon his servant, who was asking help through the intercession of Blessed Magdalene ^f and St. Bernard ^g of Tiron. For when afterwards he had been wrapped in sleep, those Saints drew him laden with his chains ^h from the prison, and carried him snatched through the air from those most remote parts into the nearby forest of Vernon ⁱ; and there, having deposited the man of God, they said to him: "Here is your rest for ages of ages."

[4] Blessed Adjutor, free from the bonds of the infidels, publicly gave thanks to God, with a chapel built, clothed as a monk, and in his honor took care that a chapel be built under the name of St. Magdalene in that very place to which he had been translated ^k. There, having rejected the empty delights of the world, giving all his goods to the monks of the monastery of Tiron, and taking the habit of the same Order under the rule of St. Benedict, with assiduous prayers and pious laments, mindful of the divine benefit, he spent the rest of his life. Intent entirely on solitude, that he might be fitter for the company of Angels, he shunned the society not only of women but also of men. From the time he was made a monk, he led a most holy and austere life, content with bread and water, and cabbages seasoned with only a little salt. Yet on solemn feasts, he leads a most austere life: or when certain nobles visited him, he relaxed somewhat from his austerity. He had a bed indeed, but that he might seem to have one in accord with the custom of other monks: for with his head reclined on the ground, he lay down on a slightly elevated part of the earth ^l; nor did he take off his garment, but with a hair shirt applied to his body he drove deep slumber and excessive quiet of sleep away from himself. The same garment, although worn through with age, led by love of holy poverty, he carefully kept.

[5] Asked by Hugh, Pontiff of Rouen,

why he led so mean a life, and wore out his body with so great austerity; he gave this answer: "In the first years of his life he tasted enough and more of the pleasures of the world; now it is needful that he repay what he took in excess." Stern to himself, kindly to others, he exercised hospitality: he reconciled the discordant minds of men, with hatreds put to flight. famous for various miracles, he frees a possessed man: Nor in vain: for God illustrated his sanctity with various miracles: namely he restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick. A certain man, named Hilgod Rufus, agitated by a demon, having entered the chapel by chance with great terror of those present, he, having begged the help of St. Magdalene, freed from demoniac fury.

[6] In the river Seine there was a very dangerous place, in which often men and ships perished. Moved by this, the holy man summoned the Bishop: who, when he had come, and the sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated, trusting in the sanctity of this monk, [shuts off a dangerous whirlpool in the Seine by casting in a part of his fetters,] entered the little boat with him. And when they approached the mouth of the whirlpool, Adjutor admonished the Pontiff to confer a blessing on the place, and to sprinkle holy water. Which done, he himself cast into the whirlpool a part of the chains by which he had once been bound in the holy land, saying these things: "It is as easy for God to free the people from this whirlpool, as it was before to free me from these bonds, by the intercession of St. Magdalene and Blessed Bernard." These things so performed, the whirlpool ceased to swallow waters, and thenceforth, free from danger, was no longer destructive to anyone.

[7] Hugh the Pontiff, in narrating the life of Blessed Adjutor, praises these things most in him: his bounty toward monks, his restoration of churches, his preservation of peace in them, his reconciling of Princes, his care of the poor, A synopsis of his virtues. his zeal for the best of morals, his correction of the young, his ornament to the old, his contempt of the world, his singular patience in adversities, his perseverance in abstinence, vigils, and prayers, his mercy toward the afflicted, his love of virginity, his solace for the continent, his vehement desire for the salvation of souls, his careful observance of God's commandments, and finally the excellent concert of all virtues. On account of all which he was very dear to God, and worthy of great veneration among men. ^m

[8] Piously undergoing a death foreseen by himself At length, since he had foreknown the end of his life, he had the Bishop and the Abbot of Tiron ⁿ summoned. Who, when they had come, found him lying on the ground in the habit of a monk, as was his custom: and they administered to him the holy Sacraments of the Church and the last Viaticum. He at length, rich in equal fullness of virtues and merits, rendering his body to the earth, his soul to heaven, reached the desired society of blessed spirits. His sacred bodily Relics were laid in the said church of Blessed Magdalene, is buried in the chapel built by himself: which he had built, behind the high altar. In which place by the intercession of St. Adjutor God displays many miracles, which offer the most certain testimonies of his sanctity to posterity.

[9] A certain apparitor of Rouen, Richard by name, whose eyes had been stabbed through with a knife ^o, hearing how great benefits God gave in the chapel of St. Adjutor to those fleeing thither, the blind recovers his sight by his merits: performed a novena at the Saint's tomb. Toward the end SS. Adjutor and Magdalene appeared to him in sleep: the former bearing oil, the latter anointing with it the eyes of the blind man: and afterwards, being wakened, he experienced the sight of his eyes restored to him. When the city of Vernon and its territory were being more sharply harassed by fires, and great storms at Vernon are calmed: much hail, and floods of water; admonished by a certain Albert, all the citizens betook themselves to the chapel of St. Magdalene, except for ten; and having implored the help of Saints Magdalene and Adjutor, vowing that each year in perpetuity they would go thither in procession, with the scoffers punished they were freed from these calamities: but those ten, mockers of this piety, perished with all their homes and possessions. [p]

[10] With the city of Vernon girded in siege, and grievously infested by much Greek fire [q] by enemies; when the citizens had implored heavenly aid, fires thrown against the besieged are divinely thrown back upon the besiegers. with the fires struck back upon the enemies, already known by name, then in very deed by the help of Adjutor, their patriot, and of Blessed Magdalene, it was proved [r]. So many afflicted with daily, tertian, or quartan fevers, and various other infirmities, approaching the tomb of Blessed Adjutor, and asking his suffrages with true faith and penitence, obtained health in that place.

ANNOTATIONS.

p The same says that Warin, Bishop of Evreux, testified to Walter, and adds that St. Rosimund was likewise invoked, and that the inhabitants of the villages of Passy, Gaillon, Estrepagny, and Longueville similarly hastened to the patronage of St. Adjutor, and deserved the same benefit. Afterwards Theroude says that procession was made on May 6, and had its beginning about the year 1180.

q Concerning Greek fire, invented in the time of Constantine Pogonatus, and much employed in sieges, see Zonaras in Pogonatus and Choniates in Isaac; they call it πῦρ ὑγρόν (liquid fire), because it consists of a wetted material, wherefore also in waters, for the burning of Saracen ships, Callinicus the architect, a fugitive from Heliopolis in Syria to the Romans, taught the besieged Constantinopolitans, in the year 672, to use it.

r It is said that the same grace was obtained by the inhabitants of Andely, Tourny, Pormor, and Pressigny in the same Normandy about Vernon.

MIRACLES

From the French of John Theroude.

Adjutor, near Vernon in Normandy (S.)

FROM THE FRENCH.

[11] John of Tourny, suffering from gout, was freed from it in the chapel of St. Magdalene. various sick are healed. Isemberga of Pormor, blind and shamefully contracted, there received both sight and the right form of her body. Peter of Pressigny likewise recovered his sight. Guy of Bakeville was cured of dropsy. John of Andely, wholly distorted, was restored to his natural state. Andrew of Tourny, deaf from birth, obtained the faculty of hearing. It would be long to relate individually such miraculous cures, obtained from St. Adjutor; let one comprising many stand for all, confirmed through Odo II, who, having been made Archbishop in the year 1246, held the See only one year, and wrote down several miracles of St. Adjutor. The town and suburbs of Vernon had been afflicted by the disease of angina, Vernon is cleansed of the disease of squinancy, commonly called "squinancy": which, when it had carried off many mortals, a procession was instituted from a vow to Saints Adjutor, Magdalene, and Rosimund: and from that time no one was any longer invaded by this sickness. Therefore, moved by the example of the Vernonians, citizens of greater cities—of Paris, Rouen, Chartres, and Evreux—sought the remedy of a like evil in this place with like piety; and rejoiced in like success: and many afterwards did not cease, after true confession of their sins, to obtain there the grace of health from their various infirmities.

[12] Hubert, an advocate of Rouen, for a citizen

demanding justice against an insolent soldier, his cut-out tongue is restored, so enraged his fury against himself, that being caught by ambush, by his command he was compelled to offer his tongue to be cut out, and likewise was reduced to mendicancy, deprived of the instrument for sustaining life. To him, longer continuing in such calamity with pain, counsel was given that he should go by vow to the chapel of St. Magdalene near Vernon. He went: and for nine days and as many nights continued his prayers there. But on the last night St. Magdalene appeared to him, and drawing with her fingers the small fragment of the tongue which had remained, and anointing it with an ointment from a box, she restored speech to him, on this condition, that he should undertake no case against the Church or any innocent person, but should serve the poor freely. He, waking up, and recognizing the faculty of forming voice restored to him, called by name the companions of his pilgrimage, awaiting the outcome of his prayer in a nearby place, and told them all: and so, with the fame running ahead into the city, where Hubert himself was very well known, very many ran out to meet him, and Archbishop Walter hastened to the same place, and led him processionally into the cathedral church to give thanks to God.

[13] The Archbishop is freed from enemies. The same Archbishop had a grave dispute with a certain powerful Baron: who, attended by about sixty of his men, surrounded the Prelate who had gone forth to visit his diocese. When the Archbishop saw these with drawn swords rushing at him and his unarmed men, he asked the help of St. Magdalene: and straightway, as if turned into stones, the ambushers all gave free passage to their captives; but others coming up, and perhaps deceived by the night's darkness, certainly blinded in their eyes so that they did not recognize their companions, thinking they had fallen upon the Archbishop's retinue, attacked the same, and so fell by mutual wounds. Whereupon he immediately came to the chapel, and visited the same each year as long as he lived; also testifying his gratitude by writing down the miracles which he had learned had been wrought by SS. Adjutor and Magdalene.

[14] Offspring are given to sterile spouses, Odo the Archbishop also reports that the Duke of Bavaria, having long been in sterile marriage with his wife Yola ^a, all human means tried in vain, when they had heard the fame of the miracles performed in the chapel of St. Magdalene, vowed themselves to her with a silver offering: and soon that same night they saw the Saint with great brightness, who awakened them equally as their chamber servants, entering to them and declaring that this affliction of theirs was a punishment for the unjust tyranny, by which he himself and his elders had until then oppressed the subject people: they should therefore do penance, and so hope for grace in her chapel. The word said, the deed done. They came as suppliants, and shortly after the Duchess, pregnant, saw the effect of her vow. Anselm de la Roche-Guyon and his wife Hauria, having lost by death a son whom they had begotten in the beginning of their marriage, afterwards lived in sterile bereavement: and having made a vow to visit the chapel, they likewise beheld the Saint promising children, whom they afterwards bore, three in number. The same benefit was obtained by Andras of Yoriacum, Guichard of Sacquan-ville, Ralph of Alezio, citizens of Vernon, and Peter of Orgeval, citizen of Louviers... ^b

[15] Certain persons are cured from contraction, shipwreck, paralysis, and a demon. Adiscardus, an inhabitant of the village of Pormor, seizing his sickle to reap the crops on the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, felt it stick to his hands, with contraction of all his limbs, nor did he, repenting of the deed, deserve to be restored except in this chapel. A merchant ship, going from Flanders to Italy, would have shipwrecked, unless, by a common vow to the chapel of St. Magdalene, the sailors and passengers had deserved the calm which was enough for them, to reach the desired port and to fulfill their vows on their return. Conrad, a citizen of Vernon, paralytic for nine years, was healed on the ninth day of his devotion. Matilda from the suburb of Vernon was freed from a demon by which she was possessed, when her mother brought her to the chapel of St. Magdalene. Aribert of Courtigny, with a sudden agony of the kidneys, by which he was prevented from walking either on horse or on foot, found remedy in the same place.

[16] The dread of confession is removed, Another knight, shame standing in the way, did not dare to expose his sin in confession, and yet was devoted to St. Magdalene: who, nine years afterwards, appearing to him, exhorted him to make a true confession by her example, she who had not feared to make hers to Christ in the presence of a multitude of banqueters. Finally, the inhabitants of that region, as often as from more abundant or scarcer rains or other adverse weather they fear damage to their fields and fruits, seasonable weather is obtained. are accustomed to assemble at this chapel, and having made confession of their sins there, to obtain the desired temperate weather of heaven. Which chapel, since it keeps the name of St. Mary Magdalene, therefore the miracles done there more often express her name than that of St. Adjutor: yet those things had to be referred here to the Life of St. Adjutor, because the common sense even now of the neighbors indicates that he and she are there invoked in common, and the miracles are referred to each.

[17] A certain man admonished by angelic song Therefore here too must consequently be reported, that when, on occasion of the wars blazing between English and French from the year 1338, the aforesaid chapel had been destroyed to its foundations, only a larger wall being left, which was led around the high altar in a half-circle and looks toward the Seine; in the year 1404 in the month of May, it happened that Robin le Jongleur, an aged vinedresser, an inhabitant of Pressigny-le-Superbe (that village is next to the chapel), a man of good and honest life, went there to search the nests of birds for his food: and when he had come to the place of the chapel, he heard a melodic concert as of those celebrating the divine Office. To which, astonished and turning himself, he saw a multitude of Angels and heard a voice thus saying: "The Office which you have heard was done in honor of St. Mary Magdalene, to whom this sacred place was once dedicated, under the power of the Abbot of Tiron in Perche, as the instruments kept by him prove. But we, in default of men who might here perform the sacred rites, have ourselves come hither by God's command for this. Go to the Archbishop and his Officials, that through them and through on the restoration of the chapel the people of this region the chapel may be restored in honor of St. Mary Magdalene, who here has ever shown herself propitious to all." Then William of Vienne held the See of Rouen: to whose ministers this good and simple man coming, and telling what he had seen and heard, seemed to them to speak deliriums: and therefore for constancy in affirming the truth, they held him in prison; meanwhile they were in no way concerned about visiting the archive of Tiron; and at last they dismissed him home publicly defamed by proclamation. Therefore again he betook himself to the same place, and again heard the same songs, saw the same Angels; to whom telling what had happened to him, and again receiving the same commands, he obeyed again, trusting in those whose commands he was executing. Nor in vain. For the matter came to the ears of the Archbishop: at last is heard by the Archbishop who, having heard the man, of sound senses in all things, thought the matter not to be in any way neglected: but sent to Peter, Abbot of Tiron, and asked him to come to the place whose patron he was said to be, bringing with him any instruments and memorials he might have pertaining to the same.

[18] The Abbot was present on the appointed day, and exhibited those monuments, who consecrates it restored in the year 1406. by which, written in the Latin tongue, it was certainly taught how St. Adjutor, miraculously freed from the servitude of the Saracens, had founded the chapel there. Which read and approved, the Archbishop gave a sermon to the people gathered there: then he ordered the place to be cleansed of brambles and shrubs. This done, an altar was found: which, duly covered with sacred palls, and surrounded with leafy branches of trees, fitted round and over to a certain form of a chapel, received the unbloody sacrifice with song. Which finished, the Prelate granted great Indulgences to all present and to all who would extend helping hands to the restoration; among whom William of Melun, Count of Tancarville, surpassed all others by his liberality: by whose expenditure and by the collected alms of the people, the place began to be restored: to which, with the work now completed, in the year 1406, on the 22nd day of July on the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, the Archbishop returned, and reconsecrated two altars, the first in honor of the said Saint, the other above the tomb of St. Adjutor.

[19] After the solemn Mass, having addressed the people, he commanded the aforesaid charters to be read out to them, and restores a confraternity, translated from Latin into French; a copy of which he left there, by the yearly repeated reading of which the people might be roused to the cult of that place. Which up to now is continued by certain citizens of Vernon, brought by boat: and thus the inhabitants of the surrounding villages of Pacy, Gaillon, Estrepagny, Longueville, and others, learn how their ancestors bound them by a vow of instituting a yearly supplication to Saints Adjutor, Magdalene, and Rosimund. There was also restored there by Archbishop's authority a Brotherhood from the citizens of Vernon, for the perpetual preservation of that holy place: which suffered no damage from the iconoclasts who despoiled and overthrew very many sacred places throughout France from the year 1565 to 1590, I think is to be ascribed to a greater benefit of God, as the chapel, situated on the bank of the Seine, was more accessible and exposed to injury.

ANNOTATIONS.