Viator

ON ST. VIATOR, CONFESSOR,

NEAR ORLÉANS IN GAUL.

Sixth century.

Viator, Confessor, near Orléans in Gaul (S.)

J. B. S.

Concerning this Saint Concerning this St. Viator (in French Viatre) and several other monks of Micy, under Maximinus the younger as abbot, reported among the pious by Menard in the Benedictine Martyrology and by Saussay in the Gallican on the XXVIII of June, so that the solemnity of them all is observed together on the Sunday within the octave of the Venerable Sacrament, our Predecessors treated not in passing in this Work among the Passed Over at the said XXVIII day of June, complaining openly enough and not undeservedly that neither Menard nor Mabillon took care to assign a fixed day — which surely was not difficult for them — on which the festivity of this holy Viator should be celebrated separately in that place, namely at Tremblevif (in French Tremblevy), where a church proper to his name has been built, as Saussay will presently teach, from whom Menard took his own material — few things indeed, such as could be handed down concerning the Saint's age, deeds, virtues, and miracles, as the praised Mabillon frankly enough confesses, when in volume 1 of the Acts of the Order of St. Benedict, about to treat of the holy Avitus, Laetus, Dulcardus, and Viator, from the number of the aforesaid monks, he thus prefaces on page 613:

[2] The deeds of these Saints are so obscure and entangled few things are known that I have no mind to report their Acts, whether written by hand or published, since they contribute little to illustrating our own affairs: let it suffice to taste only a few things observed in passing about them, the rest being left to the diligence of others. This at number 1; to which I have thought should be attached what he has in the following number 5 in these words: The Lives of Sts. Laetus, Dulcardus, and Viator are involved in no less darkness. For in the published Acts of Laetus in John du Bois, in the Library of Fleury; of Dulcardus in Philip Labbe in volume 2 of the Library; of Viator in Manuscript codices, to each of them is attributed a fatherland of Bourges, the care of sheep, monastic profession under abbot Treiecius, flight to the monastery of Micy, and thence a withdrawal into the desert with Avitus; so that you would not know what fits whom. No more do the things conduce to the clearing up of the matter which he has at number 6: Of Dulcardus and Viator we read nothing in the ancient Martyrologies (which is most true); yet those verses which we prefixed to the Acts of St. Maximinus, abbot of Micy, number them among the alumni of Micy. St. Viator is venerated at Tremblevif in the Perche, Dulcardus at Ambilly among the people of Bourges.

[3] besides his cult From these things it is sufficiently plain that only St. Viator's cult can here be treated of by us, which Saussay will teach, asserting it most expressly in the Annals of the church of Orléans, where, enumerating and praising those many holy Monks of Micy, he says: Only note in this place that all these flourished at nearly the same time (namely in the sixth century)… that Viator from here, and Laetus from there, came to Micy from the districts of Bourges by leave of Treiecius their abbot, and were renowned for many miracles both in the monastery of Micy and outside it. And Viator indeed died in the village of Tremblevif in the parts of Sologne, where now his body rests, which we ourselves handled with our own hands, and, God willing, by mandate of the lords dean, canons, and chapter of the church of Orléans, the episcopal see being vacant, on the first Sunday of August in the year 1597, transferred from an old casket into a new casket at Tremblevif… To St. Viator's memory at Tremblevif two spouses of Bourges, no less pious than rich, raised an elegant church, of whom the husband, stricken for ten years with paralysis, and the woman with blindness for fifteen years, had found at the Confessor's tomb a remedy for their despaired-of health.

[4] in the church of his name. Then, treating of St. Laetus, he adds the day, namely the V of November, on which his festivity is observed; which we wonder was neglected here in the case of St. Viator, so that at that time it must still have been doubtful — since indeed Castellanus in his Universal Martyrology marked him on the XXIX of May in these very words: In Sologne, of St. Viator, confessor, whose body is honored at Tremblevif in the church of his name. It must altogether be confessed that the day of his death is uncertain; so that I quite fail to understand what moved Castellanus to choose the day already marked before the others. Certainly the compilers of the Parisian Martyrology did not follow him, in whose edition of the year 1727 he is expressly announced on this day; whether this was truly the day of his death, there is no ground from which one may conjecture: this we gathered, with the aforesaid Martyrology as guide, that St. Viator is rightly placed here in our work today. The words are: Near Orléans, of St. Viator, monk of Micy, in whose name there stands a church at Tremblevif in Sologne, in which his body rests.