Gildard

ON ST. GILDARD, PRIEST,

AT LURCY IN THE TERRITORY OF NEVERS IN GAUL,

Perhaps in the seventh century.

A syllogue concerning the place, the cult, the date, and the faulty announcements.

Gildard, priest, at Lurcy in the territory of Nevers in Gaul (St.)

BY J. P.

Nevers, a city of Gaul, commonly Nevers, was described at some length by us in volume III of August, Various notices concerning the village of Lurcy at the XVI day, page 295, on occasion of St. Aregius or Arigius, who presided over the episcopal see of that city. Now in the territory of Nevers there is a place which in the common tongue in Blaeu's geographical map of that territory or Duchy is called Leurcy-le-Bourg; but by Castellain in the index of places to the Universal Martyrology which he published, page 1040, it is written in French Lurcy, and in Latin Luperciacum; and there it is distinguished from Luperiacum, commonly Lure, which is likewise placed there in the district of Nevers. Hadrian Valois in the Notitia Galliarum says: This is a place in the borders of the Ædui and in the diocese of Nevers, distant VI leagues from the city of Nevers, notable for a cell of SS. Gervasius and Protasius subject to Cluny, a village of no obscurity, and girt with walls, of the number of those which they call BURGI, called by our people Leurcy-le-Bourg. And Luperciacum took its name from Lupercus or Lupercius. From Luperciacum was made Loperciacum: from Loperciacum, two letters being taken away, Lorciacum: from Lorciacum, Leurcy, o being changed into eu; as, by adducing another example, Valois shows this to have been done; and presently he continues thus:

[2] Pope Paschal in letters given in the year 1109, and Louis, king of the Franks, in letters written in the year 1119, call it Luperciacum, are given: and reckon it among the cells or PRIORIES belonging to Cluny. Pope Honorius in letters of the year 1125, nearly 550 years ago, calls it by the vernacular name then already in use, Leurci. There was also formerly near Paris a village called by Latin writers Lupercianæ: concerning which the geographer praised above adds some things. But these abundantly suffice for the knowledge of the place in which our Saint is announced by us, following the new Paris Martyrology, of which the discourse will presently return. Further, that St. Gildard is deservedly reckoned by us in today's catalogue of the other Saints will be made plain from what we subjoin concerning his public veneration.

[3] The public cult of the Saint Among the Auctaria to the Martyrology of Usuard published by our Sollier there are recorded on this day various sacred Calendars in which this Saint is announced

together with St. Patricius the abbot, and separately, of whom also there is treatment on this present day. From the Centula codex this is recited in the aforesaid Auctaria: In the territory of Nevers, the holy confessors Patricius the abbot and Gildard the priest. From the Victorine codex and that of the Queen of Sweden, number 130, as is there marked: In Gaul, in the city of Nevers, St. Gildard, priest and confessor. From the Reims codex of SS. Timothy and Apollinaris: In the territory of Nevers, the holy confessors Patricius the abbot and Gildard the priest. From Greven: Gildard, elsewhere Gildeldus, priest and confessor. Both these Saints likewise are found in the Auctaria which I mentioned, from the codex of the Queen of Sweden, number 428, and in the Lübeck-Cologne edition; but in the latter it is Geldeldus: whom our manuscript Florarium also reports, where nevertheless for Gildard is written Geldard. To these add the Paris Martyrology, published in the year 1727, in which among the addenda and corrigenda, page XII, where after the announcement At Nevers, St. Patricius the abbot, etc., which had been given in that Martyrology at the XXIV day of August, this is prescribed to be added: Likewise in the territory of the same city, at the stronghold of Luperciacum, St. Gildard the priest, in whose name there existed within the diocese an abbey in the time of the emperor Charles the Fat.

[4] is established, In Labbe's Hagiology of Franco-Gaul, which is noted as excerpted from the ancient Martyrology of the abbey of St. Laurence of Bourges, volume 2 of the New Library of Manuscript Books, page 702, he is likewise praised, but with a dislocated name: In Gaul, in the city of Nevers, St. Gildradus, priest and confessor. Master Le Beuf, Canon and succentor of the church of Auxerre, in a letter sent hither in the year 1715, says: He has a church of his own name near the city of Nevers, which Castellain, in a note on St. Gildarius \ of Reunvisium at the XXIX of January (which was published together with February in the year 1705, page 453), wrongly thinks to have been so called from the said holy abbot: for it is a member of the abbey of St. Laurence of the Whites of our diocese, as is clear from the grant which Mabillon indicates in volume 5 of the Annals at the year 1097, page 387. And in fact in the Calendar of the aforesaid Ritual of that Chapter, at the XXIV of August, is read:* Bartholomew the Apostle, double. Of Gildard the confessor, a memoria. But mention had before been made in the said letter of the Calendar of the Ritual of St. Laurence, written, as is added, in the year 1286.

[5] And these indeed are the things which we have been able to gather concerning St. Gildard. The Saint's deeds unknown; his date. Of his deeds we have hitherto nothing ascertained. And we wonder that he was unknown, even so much as by name, to Castellain, otherwise so sagacious an investigator of Saints, so far as we could gather from the index of Saints and its supplement to the Universal Martyrology, where we found nothing. Nor is the age in which the Saint flourished ascertained by us from ancient documents. The Paris Martyrology cited above attaches him to the seventh century in a marginal note; but on what author's, on what witness's authority? Since nevertheless it may be believed that some token suited to the fixing of that time shone before the compilers of that Martyrology, we too have above set down the seventh century with the adverb perhaps, because we know nothing determinate about him from elsewhere.

[6] A corollary to the above announcements of the Saint. After we had written these things, some others presented themselves to us on another occasion, which may be added by way of corollary to the announcements of St. Gildard recited above from the sacred Calendars. Florentinius in his notes on this day says: A Gallic antiquary, and perhaps of Fontenelle, in the front of the autograph from which our codices flowed, appended the memory of St. Audemus, or rather Audoënus, which the Corbie Martyrology set at the end as something added: "IX Kal. Sept. At the city of Nevers, the deposition of Patricius the abbot. In the city of Rouen, the deposition of St. Audoënus, bishop and confessor. In the territory of the same, at the village of Luperciacum, the deposition of St. Gyldard, priest and confessor. In the territory of that city, the deposition of St. Eptatus, priest and confessor." Where you see that, by a faulty addition or transposition whereby St. Patricius of Nevers is separated from St. Gildard by the interposed announcement of St. Audoënus, the latter is falsely marked as in the territory of the same, which there must wrongly be referred to the city of Rouen, since it immediately precedes; and to that also St. Eptatus, as he is there called, will belong, who seems to be Eptadius the confessor, of whom there is treatment on this day, and who is elsewhere announced by us. Concerning the faulty announcements of St. Gildard in other copies, see with us in today's saints Zenobius, Capitulinus, etc.

\* Gildas.