ON SAINT HOILDIS,
VIRGIN DEDICATED TO GOD AT TROYES IN CHAMPAGNE.
Century V.
PrefaceHoyldis, Virgin, in the diocese of Troyes, in Gaul (Saint)
D. P.
From those things which we premised in the Acts of Saint Pusinna, given on the 23rd day of this month, it is clear that Saint Hoildis, whose sister she was, is to be referred to the fifth century from Christ's birth. In which she is also called by another name Othildis, the same seems to be with Saint Hilda, and in an ancient Ms. of Saint Stephen at Châlons she is called Hourdis. From the affinity of name and history the same might seem with her, whom Alberic at the year 332 calls Hilda: "Saint Helena, mother of Constantine, died," he says, "her disciple was Saint Hilda the girl, who rests in the Bishopric of Troyes": and at the year 963, treating of Henry the Palatine, Count of Champagne: "It is not to be passed over from memory, that when the Prince himself had seen in a vision that he had fallen into a certain well, and was freed from the danger by a certain Virgin, named Hilda; he diligently inquired who Saint Hilda was: nor did he cease, until the body of the same Saint, having been found by a certain noble squire, diligently sewn into deer hide, he translated to Troyes; and not in gold and silver, but in an ivory vessel, he placed it in the aforesaid church of Saint Stephen which he had founded. This Saint Hilda was the handmaid of Helena, mother of Constantine." So he, certainly erring in this, that he says that she was in the school and service of Saint Helena the Empress, when between their ages an entire century had run.
[2] Perhaps in the age of Alberic, that is in the 13th century advanced to the middle, a monastery dedicated to her, when the bodies of Saints Helena and Hoildis were held at Troyes, and the birth and homeland of each was less known, the Lives not yet written, popular opinion was that each body had been brought together from the East: but afterwards, when it began to be known whence and who Saint Hoildis was, it began to be asked also about Saint Helena; and because nothing certain was found, occasion was given to fabricate Acts, such as we shall examine on May 4, and shall reject as fabulous, content to have the cult proved through miracles: leaving it in the middle, whether her body was brought from Constantinople, or indeed the Saint was French-born, but at length unknown through the defect of ancient documents. Each is attributed to the year 1530 by Des-Guerrois, in his French book entitled Christian Sanctity of the Troyens, the fire quieted, by which on May 4 more than sixty houses burned; and lest the voracious flames progress further, it is believed to have been effected by the sacred feretories from the churches of Saints Peter and Stephen being brought out by the Clergy as an opposition.
[3] Further, Hoildis, before she received from Saint Alpinus, Bishop of Châlons, the sacred veil of nuns, was with her other sisters under the discipline of a certain Priest Eugenius, who in the Life of her other sister Saint Lutrudis, to be given on September 22, obtains in Surius the name of the Saint. The body was translated by Henry Count of Champagne to Troyes, as we were just saying from Alberic, and was placed in the church of Saint Stephen. Des-Guerrois in the History of the Church of Troyes asserts this to have happened in the year 1159, namely under Pope Alexander III, Henry LVII the Bishop of Troyes, and Louis the Younger King of France, from an ancient Ms. of the Friars Minor of Joinville: which indeed is very probable, since Count Henry endowed the church of Saint Stephen founded by himself in the year 1157: before whom no other Henry, Count of Champagne, is known.
[4] In the Duchy of Bar, at the second milestone from the city of Toul, there is a monastery of Cistercian Virgins commonly marked with the name S. Houl, that is, of Saint Hoildis, and of the same holy Virgin
enriched with her arm: from whose Ms. Codex we give the Life which had been arranged in Lessons, received at Troyes, Ms. Life where it appears to have been composed from the miracles which are there narrated as having been done, perhaps in the 14th century. Yet of no lesser stature must miracles have shone in the aforesaid monastery, which made so great a concourse of pilgrims, that, the name of the first institution being antiquated, it was commonly called only from the Saint. But these things through the defect of writers have fallen from memory. Mention of Saint Hoildis is had in some monastic fasti on this April 30. In the Calendar of Dorgan in these words: "Finding and translation of Saint Hoylda the Virgin." In the Dijon one: "Oildis virgin nun in Gaul." In the Menology of Chrysostom Henriquez: "Also in Gaul Blessed Oildis the virgin, commemorations in the Martyrologies. who renouncing the world, and handing herself over to the Cistercian Order, firmly clung to Christ the Spouse of Virgins by purity of mind and the embrace of charity, to whom, illustrious with virtues and signs, she passed." Saussay has similar things; but by manifest error on the last day of March: which error was not corrected by Bucelinus in the Benedictine Menology, Arturus in the Gynaeceum sacrum, Lahierius in the Menology of Virgins. The same is referred to among the flowers of the Church of Liège, but without the title of Blessed and the mark of any day, among those whose Birthday is unknown. Moreover it is to be wondered at that Saint Hoildis is attributed by all these writers to the Cistercian Order, which first had its origin in the 11th century, her age is to be defined from the age of Saint Alpinus. Saint Hoildis pertaining to the fifth: for Saint Alpinus was a disciple of Saint Lupus of Troyes, and presided at the time when Attila, King of the Huns, being defeated in the Catalaunian fields, left the field and Gaul in the year 551 sic: 451. Her life and that of the other sisters is said to have been composed in Latin verses in Des-Guerrois by a certain Gervasius Amoenus of Dreux, after a book by the name of Camelius; he was the ninth Bishop of Troyes, and it is probable that the Holy Virgins died under his Pontificate. We have not yet seen that Poet, yet we suspect him to belong to the 16th century.
LIFE
From the Ms. Codex of the Monastery of Saint Hoildis
Hoyldis, Virgin, in the diocese of Troyes, in Gaul (Saint)
BHL Number: 3990
FROM MS.
[1] Noble birth of Blessed Hoyldis a "Blessed Virgin Hoyldis, as is written in her deeds, was most nobly begotten of illustrious lineage; but by virtuous morals, which ennoble the mind, in the laudable progress of her life, was sufficiently more nobly distinguished. Her father, by his own name Signarus, noble in race, more noble in faith, and more praiseworthy in the works of virtues, was Count b of Perthois: he had a wife, given to him by the Lord, a venerable Lady named Lentradis c, no less noble in her own way, both in race and in virtuous work. And so when both just without complaint walked equally before God in the justifications and precepts of the divine law, consequently the giver of all good things gave them a generous blessing of His gifts and presents: for they begot their noble offspring, by divine grace granting, and they had seven very beautiful and holy daughters; of whom the first is read to have been Saint d Ama, her sisters Saint Ama and Saint Manehildis and to have lived holily: of the intermediate was Blessed Hoyldis e; but the youngest was Saint Manehildis f; and their parents, solicitous with applied care, took care that they be duly nourished both corporally and instructed morally and liberally. And so the good little girls growing up together, morally and corporally, instructed by their parents and other teachers in the doctrine and discipline of virtues, were in due time fittingly made pleasing not undeservedly both to God and to men, not foolish virgins, but prudent: for they transcended their age in morals.
[2] with whom she vows virginity "It came to pass further, when they were already illuminated by the grace of the Holy Spirit, considering infallibly by certain sign that the whole world lay in the wicked one, the desires of the world and carnal marriages being spurned, to Christ alone to be married, and to serve faithfully, preserving virginity, and under Blessed Alpinus the Bishop of Châlons she takes the veil: all equally chose firmly and vowed. At that time Blessed Alpinus, Bishop of Châlons, visiting the churches of his diocese, came to the village, which is called Perta g; in which the aforesaid seven virgin sisters, offered by their parents, out of great devotion he made nuns, consecrated and veiled, with their desired and confessed, harmonious and devout voluntary consent. At length he informed them about the good of virginity, and departing commended them to their parents, namely that they should henceforth rule them not as their own, but should honor them as daughters of God, and love them more. From then on, according to the Rule of Blessed Alpinus, the seven virgin sisters, especially the three aforesaid, namely Blessed Ama, in which state she holily lives and dies. Hoyldis, and Manehildis, as good Nuns conversing virtuously, in preserved virginity living laudably: in the manner of holy Virgins fervent in the love of Christ, progressing in good unto the end of their life, passed to the Lord.
[3] "After these things, for very many years, the Count of Champagne named Henry, a most illustrious man and excellent Prince, most Catholic and devoted to God, when he had once had in a vision of a certain Holy Virgin named Hoylde, and it had seemed to him that he had fallen into a certain deep well, but Saint Hoyldis had freed him from this danger by her intercession; he caused it to be diligently inquired who, of what sort, whence or where Saint Hoyldis was; by Henry Count of Champagne the body is translated to Troyes and having found the body of the same Blessed Virgin, he honorably translated it h to the church, which he himself had built at Troyes in honor of the Blessed Protomartyr Stephen, many miracles being done in the translation of the aforesaid most holy body. In subsequent time the arm extracted from the most holy body, at the request i of the illustrious Lady Countess of Bar, was sent and translated and deposited in the monastery of certain Nuns of the Cistercian Order, an arm to the monastery of Saint Hoyldis now called by the name k of Blessed Hoyldis.
[4] "But for the praise and glory of the Omnipotent, and for the fuller declaration of the sanctity of Blessed Hoyldis, some miracles not to be concealed, by her merits rain is granted in a long drought which on account of her, as is piously believed, prayers and merits with God's favor happened in our times, I have judged worthy to relate by things faithfully narrated, so that they may become known to faithful posterity. On one occasion, at a time of excessive drought, which had already lasted almost three months, when the venerable men, guardians of the holy body of Saint Hoyldis, the Dean and Canons of Saint Stephen of Troyes, with the whole college gathered, and the people of the city called together, wished to begin to make a procession, as is the custom, and to carry the body of Blessed Hoyldis; and then especially devotedly they were doing this, so that they might more easily obtain from the Lord opportune rain through her prayers; immediately at the first stroke of the greater bell rung, for the first movement of the procession to be made, there appeared above the belfry a certain very white little cloud, like the fleece of a sheep, of modest size; which almost suddenly in a short time grew so much, that not without great admiration of those seeing it, before they could complete the begun procession, it poured down many waters; and there was a very great rain made, so occupying them that they could not return to the church together, all being most vehemently drenched from the abundance of the greatest rain. Rejoicing over so great a miracle, so evidently perceived from the virtuous power of God, and over the received benefit of the copious rain, they glorified and praised God in His Saint Hoyldis, whose intercessions having been heard by the Lord, as they firmly believed, the heaven had thus been covered with clouds, and the earth wondrously washed by a great rain miraculously.
[5] A certain man is freed from a long disease. "A certain man, a long grave disease coming upon him, became wholly weak, greatly debilitated, so that he could neither walk nor even work; when on the vigil of the feast of Blessed Hoyldis, forewarned by his wife, on the following morning he had himself carried to the church of the aforesaid Saint Stephen, having there made to the body of Saint Hoyldis an offering and devout supplication, with a fitting vow, for the following time, quite quickly cured of the said disease, by himself, without the aid of a staff or any other support of any kind, he returned on foot to his own house.
[6] Another from an abscess. "A certain very honorable woman, married to a man, who had recently given birth, labored gravely with continuous fever, having a gross dangerous abscess: on account of which indeed adjudged to death, by several physicians despairing of her impossible health, when through a certain Canon of the church of Saint Stephen aforesaid, her brother, she had been forewarned to make a devout vow to Blessed Hoyldis, whose feast was at hand nearby, commending herself to her; after a little time, on the same day through her mouth she expelled the abscess bountifully, recovering fully, divine grace granting, and the glorious virgin Hoyldis interceding. Therefore let the most holy Almighty God be praised by all in His Saints. Amen."