ON ST. DECUMANUS, HERMIT AND MARTYR,
IN THE COUNTY OF SOMERSET IN ENGLAND.
Sylloge concerning the place and the cult; the Life set forth with notes.
Decumanus, hermit and martyr, in the Duchy of Somerset in England (St.)
J. P.
Among the many other counties of England is reckoned one surnamed Somerset, The place in which the Saint died is described: commonly Somersetshire, which Camden in his Britannia, published at London in the year 1607, describes on page 161: The county of Somerset, he says, … is a broad, healthy, and wealthy region, beaten on the north by the Severn sea, bordering on the west upon Devon, on the south upon Dorset, on the east upon the counties of Wiltshire and partly of Gloucester … Toward the Severn sea … there occur first Porlock … and Watchet … Between these is set the castle of Dunster … Adjoining this castle lie two little villages, sacred to two native saints: the one is called Carhampton from Carantoc the Briton; the other St. Decombe's from Decumanus, who, setting sail from South Wales, landed here "in a vast" (as is read in the ancient Passional) "solitude, overgrown with thickets and brambles, spread out far and wide in the density of the woods, raised up by the eminence of mountains, and wonderfully broken by the hollowness of valleys": where, bidding farewell to the vanity of the world, and pierced through by an assassin, he obtained divine honor among the people. From these words of Camden we learn both the site of the place to which St. Decumanus gave his name and in which he lived, and his public and ancient veneration there after he departed this life. But the words which Camden asserted that he read in the ancient Agonale, as he called it, that is, the Passional or Legend, are found in Capgrave, as we shall see hereafter.
[2] We have thus far seen no ancient Martyrology his cult is proved, which mentions this Saint. It is otherwise with the more recent. Wilson indeed praises him on this day in his English Martyrology, in both editions. Ferrarius in the New Catalogue of the Saints reports this: In England, of St. Decumanus, hermit and martyr. Wion also mentions him in the Appendix to the third book of the Lignum Vitæ, page 413, and Castellain in the Index of Saints to his Universal Martyrology, noting him as omitted on the day XXVII of August. Alford likewise inserts him in the Annals of the Anglo-Saxon Church at the year 706, number 8, in which year, he says, a church was erected in his honor, and he cites the first edition of the English Martyrology, in which the thing is reported to have been done about that year: but why in the new edition the year of his martyrdom has lately been drawn back to the year of Christ CCCXX, he confesses that he does not know. The reason which moves us to number this Saint among the other citizens of heaven of this day lies in this, that from time immemorial before the decree of Pope Urban VIII he was in possession of public cult, which he is proved to have had from his Life in Capgrave, the compiler of John of Tynemouth: for John of Tynemouth lived in the fourteenth century, and Capgrave in the fifteenth; and whether the latter transcribed this Life of St. Decumanus from the former or from elsewhere, it remains true that here he holds an ancient possession from time immemorial, of which I was speaking.
[3] Here now are the following observations upon that Life. and various things are premised to his Life It is said, first, that the Saint took his origin in the western parts of Cambria, which is now called Wales. Baudrand says: Wales, otherwise also called Cambria, is the western part of the kingdom of England … It had been divided of old into three parts, which he there mentions. But now all Wales is distinguished into North Wales and into South Wales; and the same geographer presently subjoins the small provinces or counties of each. Secondly, what follows in the Life about Wales and England converted to the faith of Christ gives us occasion to discourse of the time. That letters for this cause were sent by Lucius king of Britain to Pope Eleutherius, Pagi writes in the Critique of Baronius at the year of Christ 181, number 3, after Ussher in the book On the Origins of the British Churches, chapter 4, where he discourses fully and diligently on this subject. Thus writes the author of the same Life: For that nation, before greater Britain, which is now England, had laid aside its barbarous savagery and forsaken the error of heathenism … presently submitted itself to Christ, and was counted worthy to be formed by the institutes of the Gospel. But the other conversion of England is most famous, to which perhaps the same writer here looked, when St. Augustine, at the close of the sixth century, was sent into England by Gregory the Great to bring in the Gospel of Christ: which he did with such success that he was deservedly called the apostle of the English. If it were certainly established that the biographer is to be understood of this conversion of England, the reckoning of the time of St. Decumanus in Alford, who recites his deeds at the year 706, might suitably be understood. But Wilson looked to times far earlier, as was indicated above. Why he did so we confess with Alford that we do not know; and we add that we have not ascertained the true and exact time in which the same Saint flourished.
[4] observations. Thirdly, that the castle Dorostorum, which is afterward set down in the Life, is now Dunster, Alford, cited above, indicates at number 9: of whose situation see above, number 1. Fourthly, St. Giles the abbot belongs to the day 1 of September. Fifthly, that vanga with which the Saint is said to have been beheaded is altogether unknown to us, and we have certainly not yet found it. Sixthly, that marvelous narration of the head carried away, which is afterward recorded in the same Life, ought to be proved from elsewhere by a testimony of better note, that the thought of suspect credit may be removed, and that it may be believed with historical truth to have so happened. Seventhly, mention is then made of St. Dionysius, who is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology at the day IX of October, on which day also a place will be given him in our Work. Finally, although we cannot prove from other and more ancient documents that St. Decumanus was a hermit and a martyr, yet we have so styled him above, following others who record with Capgrave that he was such. But at what time he died, since we have not ascertained it, we have therefore marked him above without chronological notes, marked only by the day XXVII of August, on which he is reported by others.
LIFE
By an anonymous author
From the New Legend of England in Capgrave, published at London in the year 1516, from folio 85 verso.
Decumanus, hermit and martyr, in the Duchy of Somerset in England (St.)
BHL Number: 2118
By an anonymous author.
The Saint's birth, his pious upbringing, Blessed Decumanus took his origin from an illustrious stock in the western parts of Cambria, which is now called Wales, of parents who were indeed foremost worshipers of the Christian religion. For that nation, before greater Britain, which is now England, had laid aside its barbarous savagery and forsaken the error of heathenism, being initiated with the life-giving sacraments, presently submitted itself to Christ, and was counted worthy to be formed by the institutes of the Gospel. In which nation very many shone forth, renowned in faith, notable in virtues, glittering with miracles. Among whom, chastely nurtured, instructed in the Catholic faith, endowed with all uprightness of manners, Decumanus shone like the morning star among the lesser stars. He, after he had at home passed beyond boyhood through the increases of an innocent age, began to be a youth of good disposition, and by no means, as is the custom, to wander in mind, but to be more studiously held in by regular discipline. Easily indeed do precepts pass into effect, where grace supplies help and obedience softens command.
[2] For his speech was pure, having nothing of wantonness, nothing, his virtues: so far as he could, of idleness, but was wholly for edification. In meat and drink he held the middle way of temperance, lest by abstaining altogether he should be charged with superstition, or by taking immoderately be weighed down with surfeit. And when blessed Decumanus's companions in age were held either by the pursuit of hunting, delighting in it in various ways, or occupied with the pursuit of whatever other arts, he, despising every carnal delight, compelled the flesh to serve the spirit, and, zealously wearing the thresholds of the churches, more ardently committed to memory the things which he heard from the divine Scriptures.
[3] Being very little skilled in the faculty of letters, he had given himself wholly to holiness, are recounted: so far as was permitted him: on account of the insolence of courtiers he had betaken himself to contemplation. For works teach better than the letter; holiness comprehends better than disputation, and he who loves more, knows more. Truly holy Decumanus, forestalled by the ardor of the Holy Spirit, was already at once turning over in his mind what afterward shone forth in effect. And then indeed he would have given way * to his pious desire; but he waited for the ebbing away of the tumultuous crowd and of his insolent fellow tribesmen, whom he detested with all his might. For no prophet is accepted in his own country, and a man's enemies are they of his own household.
[4] He withdrew therefore because of the scandal, and committing himself wholly to God alone, in a marvelous manner he crosses the waters to a place of solitude, he deferred to a later time what he had piously conceived beforehand. At length, watching for the time and finding an opportunity for a more secret flight, he went down to the Severn sea, unknown to all his own, and especially to those most intimate with him and to those who seemed to him more closely bound by the zeal of kindness, having Christ alone as the witness and the guide of his journey. What more? There was no fare, there was no ship,
and flight had to be hastened from the very footsteps of those following. The man of God, trusting in the mercy of God and by no means hesitating concerning his power, gathered into a bundle the rods which he found growing in a thicket beside the sea, and using such a vessel launched himself into the deep; and thus, by the governance of divine providence, he was carried over to the opposite shore near the castle Dorostorum. These, O Christ, are your works, who so make your Saints marvelous. Truly your ways are in the sea, and your paths in many waters.
[5] which is here described, as also his most severe At the time when holy Decumanus, led thither by God, came into England, there was in that territory in which he landed a vast solitude of desert, overgrown with thickets and brambles, and spread out far and wide in the density of the woods, raised up by the eminence of mountains, and wonderfully broken by the hollowness of valleys. This seat pleased him; this seemed suited to his pious purpose, so that by the very deed he seemed to say: This is my rest for ever and ever; here will I dwell, for I have chosen it. Thus therefore the holy man, exchanging his country for exile, the caves of the desert for the pomp of a palace, began to dwell there, to live upon herbs and roots, to give himself the more frequently to fastings and prayers, taming the flesh with a hair shirt, afflicting it penitentially with vigils; and the more rarely he took part in the fellowship of men, the more frequently was he soothed and cherished by the speech of angels. Leading the eremitic life under such a tenor, he had lived many years in the solitude already named.
[6] his manner of living in it: It is also said that he had a cow, by whose milk, for the necessity of the body, at least on the great festivals, he might be sustained rather than fed, as one reads of blessed Giles, who had a hind that ministered to him the benefit of milk. Nor did an urgent and inspired persecution fail the Saint. For all who wish to live piously in Christ suffer persecution. For this way Christ left to his coheirs, as we read in the Gospel: If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. And the Apostle also says: Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom. Since what the furnace is to gold, what the file is to iron, what the flail is to grain, that is tribulation to a just man.
[7] killed by a certain wicked man When therefore holy Decumanus flourished with manifold powers of signs, which through the negligence of writers have fallen into disuse, and for the greater part with us into oblivion — though otherwise, by God's gift, they would have been kept for edification — a certain man, but himself a man of Belial, fiercer than an asp, more savage than a viper, envying the holiness of so great a Father, in hatred of true virtue and in detestation of the Christian name, raving with a frenzied mind, ran up like a beast, and in the midst of the words of prayer and the petitions of holy devotion, sent the Saint of the Lord to the heavenly kingdoms by the cutting off of his head. By such a martyrdom therefore he passed to the Lord, after so many and so great hardships as he had laid upon his body, that he might show more evidently by his example that there is no passage from delights to delights; but that for those who wish to live according to the Gospel their whole life should become a cross and a martyrdom. For that soldier is too delicate who wishes to rejoice here with the world, and hereafter to reign with Christ.
[8] he is said to have wrought a marvelous thing. But neither is this to be passed over in silence, that, when he had been beheaded with a certain vanga, as is reported, the trunk of the mangled body raised itself up, and began to carry its own head in its hanging arms from the place of the beheading as far as a spring of most limpid water, in which he was accustomed to wash his head with his own hands: which spring to this day, in memory and reverence of him, is called the spring of holy Decumanus, sweet, needful, and healthful for the inhabitants to drink: in which place the head together with the body was afterward sought out and found by the faithful, and honorably given to burial. The ancient miracles are renewed, the signs sprout up again and live anew which the Lord deigned to work through the merits of the most blessed Dionysius of the Gauls, to the praise and glory of his most holy name: who lives and reigns through immortal ages of ages. Amen.
Annotationsperhaps facem* (a torch).