ON SS. ALTIGIANUS AND HILARINUS MONKS AND MARTYRS IN BURGUNDY,
In the year 731 or 732.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
New notice of these Saints from Mabillon, the arena of the martyrdom, the cult from an old Breviary, and the age assigned.
Altigianus, monk and martyr in Burgundy (St.)
Hilarinus, monk and martyr in Burgundy (St.)
BY G. C.
We indeed wonder that these two Martyrs set forth in the title are not inscribed in the Benedictine Menologies and in other Martyrologies, since nevertheless in sacred calendars of this sort there are recorded abbots and monks These two Saints, who about the same time were slain by the Saracens, whom some writers designate by the different name of Vandals, and certain by that of Agarenes or Ishmaelites. The most learned Mabillon seems to have been the first to dig out or revive the annual memory of SS. Altigianus and Hilarinus from ancient monuments, when in the Benedictine Annals, at the year of Christ 732, number 6, he reckons the various irruptions of the Saracens into Gaul, and in the following number, after narrating the devastation of Burgundy, thus makes mention of today's holy Martyrs: In the monastery of Sigestre of holy Sequanus, the monks Altigianus and Hilarinus are reported to have been put to the sword by the same men on the tenth of the Kalends of September; which time rightly agrees with the martyrdom of holy Porcarius, abbot of Lérins, who is honored on the day before the Ides of August.
[2] who were slain by the Saracens in Burgundy, Mabillon in the same Annals of his Order, at the year of Christ 525, number 24, on the occasion of holy Sequanus, had already assigned the origin and situation of this monastery in these few words: After having gone through in earnest the discipline of the religious life, having departed from him, he too founded a monastery, in which he so perfectly instructed the monks that all marveled in them at the continence of their purpose and their skill in the sacred Letters. The place, called by the ancients Sicaster or Sigester, in the district of Mont-Magne, set five leagues from the city of Dijon in a narrow valley, retains its name from the author holy Sequanus.
Hadrian Valois in the Notice of the Gauls, page 518, describes the place of the same monastery more distinctly thus: The monastery of holy Sequanus is an old one in the borders of the Lingones, not far from the sources of the river Seine, saint Sene… For the rest, this monastery Sequanus the presbyter, disciple of John, abbot of Réome, built; which from the place Sicaster or Segestrum (Sestre), in which it had been built, was first called the monastery of Segestrum, or Segestrum; then, from its author, of holy Sequanus. The place with the monastery is situated in the district or County of Mont-Magne, to which district gave its name Magnus Mons, or the town of Mont-Magne, once famous among the Lingones, the fatherland of holy Sequanus, distant three leagues from his monastery of Segestrum, now keeping nothing but the name: for it is called Maimont or Mesmont.
[3] In this place therefore each of those holy Monks underwent martyrdom today, they are recorded in an old Breviary, the notice of which Mabillon drew from an ancient Breviary of the monastery of Sigestre, which is reported in him in the Acts of the Saints of the Benedictine Order, century 3, part 1, page 527, and in which the following is read: Let the certainty of all present and to come know that the Vandal nation advanced into this land in order to overthrow the holy Church of God; by whose most atrocious infestation, when Burgundy was being depopulated on every side, it came at last raging to the abbey of holy Sequanus, situated in the County of Mont-Magne. Which nation, after very many outrages had been committed, to the heaping up of its own damnation delivered to death by the sword of its cruelty the holy men of God Altigianus and Hilarinus, made monks by the most sacred blessing of holy Sequanus, as our ancient fathers have reported, in the field of their blessed passion which is called of holy Hilarius, on the tenth of the Kalends of September. Whose blessed passion, although through the negligence of the men of that time it is not read in the divine page, they are not to be held of lesser memory, because, in surrendering their own blood for the love of God, they gave over to contempt the love of this life. But if anyone inquires where their bodies are held, let him know that they are laid up near the church of holy Sequanus. Now upon that testimony of the old Breviary we observe the following.
[4] upon whose text we annotate some things. First, here by the Vandal nation is understood the Saracen nation, which manner of speaking is usual with some writers, as we advised at the beginning of this Commentary, and as Mabillon testifies in the same place, page 525, from the Chronicles or historians. Secondly, the reckoning of time does not permit that these two Martyrs be said to have been initiated with the monastic blessing immediately by holy Sequanus himself, as the praised Mabillon in the same place, page 527, skillfully observes, and as will evidently be established from the Acts of holy Sequanus, which are to be illustrated on the nineteenth day of September. Thirdly, we judge that the silence of the Martyrologies is sufficiently supplied by this old Breviary, and that that testimony suffices to make us more certain of the immemorial cult of each of those Saints. Wherefore in this matter we have followed the example of Castellanus and of our Longueval, of whom the one in his universal Martyrology on this day, the other in the History of the Gallican Church, volume 4, page 254, call them Saints without scruple, and so we have judged that the same Martyrs must be inserted into our Work. But since certain chronologists place that martyrdom in the year of Christ 731, and others defer it to the following year, we have noted each of these years above in the margin: for about the year it matters little, since the thing itself is established, as the most learned Mabillon in the Annals of his Order, at the year of Christ 732, number 6, speaks of this very martyrdom.