Eubertus

ON ST. EUBERTUS, BISHOP, AT LILLE AND SECLIN IN FLANDERS.

Fourth Century of Christ.

Eubertus, Bishop, at Seclin in Flanders (Saint)

By I. B.

[1] At Lille, a large and wealthy city of Flanders, St. Eubertus the Bishop is venerated with a double Office on the Kalends of February. Concerning him, Molanus in his additions to Usuardus writes: St. Eubertus is celebrated in the Martyrologies, "At Lille, of St. Eubertus, Confessor, who, although his life is known to God and unknown to men, is nevertheless believed to be of distinguished merit. Whose body rests in St. Peter's." Hermann Greven: "Of Eubertus, Bishop and Confessor." Canisius: "At Lille, of St. Eubertus, Confessor, whose body rests in St. Peter's." Ferrarius: "At Lille in Belgium, of St. Eubertus, Bishop." Balduin Willot: "At Seclin, a town near Lille, the deposition of St. Eubertus, Bishop and Confessor, who was afterwards translated to Lille, to the collegiate church of St. Peter, where he is venerated on this day." Our Andreas Boetius, Ghinius in his Natal. of the Holy Canons, Miraeus in his Fasti of Belgium, and others also commemorate him on this day. More fully, Saussay: "On the same day, at Lille in Flanders, of St. Eubertus, Bishop and Confessor, otherwise called Eugenius, who, setting out from the city of Rome while Diocletian was raging, together with St. Quintinus, Lucius, Crispinus and Crispinianus, Piato, and others, to preach the Gospel in Gaul, greatly advanced the kingdom of God in Belgium: and having endured great labors for the faith, ennobled with many trophies, he at last fell happily asleep in the Lord. He rests at Lille in the collegiate church of St. Peter, which was founded by Balduin, surnamed the Lillois, Count of Flanders: and there, and at Seclin, a celebrated municipality of Flanders, he is venerated with great devotion."

[2] The Acts of St. Eubertus were either not committed to writing, or have perished — perhaps in the devastation wrought by the Normans, as Molanus suspects. a companion of Piato, The readings of the Breviary of Lille, printed in the year 1533, are taken from the common office. Tradition holds that he was a companion and helper of St. Piato, or Piaton, the Apostle of Tournai, whose Life we shall give on October 1. Piato, born at Benevento, and imbued with letters and piety, was sent by the Roman Pontiff into Gaul together with Dionysius, Bishop of Paris, Quintinus, Chrysolius, Crispinus, Crispinianus, and others, to preach the faith of Christ; then, having been ordained Bishop by the same Dionysius, he preaches at Tournai and elsewhere: he was the first to announce the religion of Christ at Tournai and in the neighboring places; and at last, crowned with martyrdom, he was buried at Seclin; where, three hundred and fifty years later, his body and the instruments of his martyrdom were found by St. Eligius, Bishop of Tournai. His companions in this illustrious expedition, therefore, were Chrysolius and Eubertus. We shall treat of Chrysolius on February 7. Our Jean Buzelin, in his Annals of Gallo-Flanders, book 1, testifies that neither the homeland nor the lineage of Eubertus is revealed by any source, but that he is believed to have been endowed with episcopal dignity.

[3] Moreover, concerning the deeds of both, he writes thus: "Chrysolius and Eubertus would sometimes assist Piato at Tournai in cultivating the souls of men and in carrying out matters pertaining to the episcopal office: and sometimes extend their labor more widely outside the walls of that city, in leading very many mortals to the faith of Christ." Then, after mentioning the death of Piato and Chrysolius, he adds concerning Eubertus: "It does not depart from the truth that Eubertus and Eugenius escaped the hands and swords of the persecutors, he escapes the hands of the persecutors: so that they might bring help to the Christians who were laboring, and afterwards devote their efforts to leading many people to the sacred rites of Christ: inasmuch as it is believed by almost all that Eubertus died a natural death; and the ancient records provide nothing anywhere concerning the contest of Eugenius. Some believe that Eubertus flew to heaven through illness at Seclin: buried at Seclin; because his bones formerly rested there, before they were carried to Lille, and merited veneration in that parochial church which was once renowned by his name, and now preserves its fame only in ruins." Whether he presided as Bishop over the Nervii at Tournai or elsewhere, after the divine Piato flew from earth to heaven, was he Bishop of Tournai? "is not easy for me to determine, because it cannot be derived from any records." Thus Buzelin.

[4] Why they join Eugenius with Piato and Eubertus, we have not found a reason: for neither his relics, nor any church, nor any other monument of his exists anywhere in Belgium. Jean Cousin, in his History of Tournai, book 1, chapter 23, and Miraeus in his Fasti of Belgium, is he the same as Eugenius? consider Eubertus and Eugenius to be one and the same person. It is indeed reported that among the companions of St. Dionysius was St. Eugenius, Bishop of Toledo in Spain, but crowned with martyrdom in Gaul after Dionysius; a portion of whose relics was brought from the monastery of St. Denis in Belgium to the monastery of Brogne, as we shall say on November 15: but he was not known among the people of Tournai.

[5] In the place where Buzelin reports that the church of St. Eubertus once stood near the exit of the town of Seclin, on the road to Arras, Cousin testifies that there now stands a great linden tree, The Tree of St. Eubertus at Seclin, commonly called the Tree of St. Eubertus. The same author asserts that his memory is recalled daily in the Divine Office by the Canons of Seclin; and veneration: and indeed that in Lauds the following versicle is recited: "Behold a true Israelite, in whom there is no guile." Ghinius writes that not only the Canons of Lille and those of Seclin celebrate his feast, but that they also have a daily commemoration of him. Whether the daily commemoration at Lille is of St. Peter, as Patron, or also of St. Eubertus, is not clear from the Breviary. Antonius Sanderus in his Hagiologion of Flanders writes that St. Eubertus suffered martyrdom together with Saints Piato and Chrysolius, which does not agree with what others report. Nor does what Saussay states above — that he came to Gaul under the Emperor Diocletian — agree: since he must have come considerably earlier, namely in the consulship of Decius and Gratus, AD 250, if he was a companion of St. Dionysius and the other Apostolic men sent by the Pope into that vineyard; or some years afterwards, was he not a Gaul? if he was sent as a reinforcement for that first Apostolic cohort — unless, as we suggested above, he perhaps joined himself as a companion to Piato while already in Belgic or Celtic Gaul: for the name Eubertus is not Roman. Nor is any Lucius mentioned as a companion of Saints Quintinus, Crispinus, and Crispinianus, except by the same Saussay above and by Miraeus in the Fasti of Belgium. More correctly, others add St. Lucianus, Apostle of the Beauvaisis, of whom we treated on January 8.

[6] Molanus suspects that the Acts of St. Eubertus perished at the time when the Normans were ravaging Gaul, the Acts are lost: and adds that he remembers reading somewhere that his body was carried away to Boulogne, or to Sithiu. We rather suspect it was brought to Saint-Omer, within whose city walls the monastery of Sithiu of St. Bertin was not yet enclosed. In the deeds of the Normans before Rollo, found in Chesne, under the year 845, when they were returning from a certain monastery named Sithiu, which they had plundered and burned, with ships laden with spoil, His relics and those of other saints were brought to Saint-Omer in the year 846. they are said to have been so blinded by darkness or stricken with madness by divine judgment that scarcely a very few escaped to announce the wrath of Almighty God to the rest. "In the year of the Lord 846, the Danish Pirates, arriving in Frisia, devastated the provinces and churches, and killed the people in them. Hearing this, the Flemings, and the Bishops and Abbots of the neighboring cities, came with the relics of their Saints to Saint-Omer, because its precinct was fortified by a strong wall and towers, by divine providence. These are the Saints who gathered together on account of that persecution: St. Wandregisel, and Saints Wulfram, Aubert, Bavo, Wasnulf, Piato, Barcius, Winnoc, and St. Austreberta, and they remained there for forty years." But Jacques Meyer writes that the bodies of Saints Bavo and Pharahild were translated from the castle of Saint-Omer to Laon in the year 853, out of fear of the Normans. The remaining bodies of the saints were preserved either there or in other fortified places, until the fury of that barbarous people had subsided. Who, moreover, is this St. Barcius? Unless we are mistaken, it is our Eubertus. It is common among our countrymen to divide and halve proper names, especially compound ones, as most names of Teutonic origin are: (and was then perhaps Bartius) by which reasoning he who is Eubertus could be called Bertus, or Bertius, and also Bartius, because the letters a and e are customarily interchanged and substituted for each other, especially before the letter r; a practice also employed by the ancients, as our Arnoldus Boecop shows in his Discussion on the Name of St. Hubert, and as is very common here at Antwerp and among the Dutch. Our conjecture is supported by the fact that he is placed together with Piato, since the bodies of both were at that time resting in the same town, so that it seems certain — even if the historian were silent — that they were brought to the same place together.

[7] The same bodies and those of other saints were brought to the dedication of the church of Hasnon in the year 1070, as Meyer records in these words in book 3 of the Annals of Flanders: To Hasnon for the dedication of the church in 1070 "Balduin converted the college of Canons at Hasnon in Ostrevant into a Benedictine monastery. He restored the old church, and caused it to be dedicated on the third day before the Nones of June by the Bishops Lietbert of Cambrai, Ratbod of Noyon, and Rayner of Orleans. At that dedication I find the following bodies were present: Saints Marcellus, Piato, Salvius, Amatus, Donatian, Vedast, Amandus, Audomarus, Ghislain, Vincent, Bertin, Winnoc, Wandregisel, Bavo, Evrard, Eubertus, Landelin, Hugh, Achard, Eusebia, Rictrudis, Aldegund, Ragenfred, Regina, and Waltrude." Buzelin mentions this dedication in book 4 of his Annals; Miraeus in the Origins of the Benedictines of Belgium, from Meyer and Iperius; Ferreolus Locrius in his Belgian Chronicle — who, however, writes that it took place on the third day before the Nones of March. Hasnon is situated in Hainault on the river Scarpe, on the very borders of Flanders, between Amandopolis and Marchiennes.

[8] To Audenarde for the sick Count of Flanders in the same year: In the same year, the same Balduin of Mons, "when he fell ill at Audenarde," says Meyer in the same place, "summoned the priests with the relics of the saints, and the chief men of Flanders and Hainault to his side... and departed this life on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of August, and was buried at Hasnon, leaving behind the greatest longing for himself." It is probable that the same bodies of the saints which had been brought to Hasnon shortly before were brought to Audenarde; and especially those from not far away, such as those of Piato, Eubertus, Bavo, etc.

[9] The body of St. Eubertus was translated to Lille, Molanus says, "either in time of war, or, as others think, at the dedication of the church." Balduin the Pious, father of Balduin of Mons, had enclosed Lille with a ditch and wall, and adorned it with the church of St. Peter and other buildings, around the year 1055, To Lille out of fear of enemies; as Locrius proves in his Chronicle from the records of that Church, in which Fulcardus, the first Provost of that Church, is reported to have died on the day before the Nones of April in the year 1080, in the 25th year of the foundation of this Church and of his administration. But by whatever reason or at whatever time the body of St. Eubertus was brought there, "when it was demanded back," says Molanus, nor were they returned: "the people of Lille preferred to give the Clergy of Seclin the celebrated tithes of the parish of the Holy Cross, rather than to be deprived of the holy body."

[10] visited in the year 1229. In the year 1229, when Walterus, Bishop of Tournai, had come to Lille, in the church of St. Peter, as Buzelin writes, he opened, at the wish of the Canons, the casket in which the body of St. Eubertus the Bishop was contained. Present among others as witnesses of this event were Wilelmus, Abbot of Laon, Guilelmus, Dean of St. Peter's, Petrus, Cantor of the same Church, Wilelmus, Treasurer there, and the Provost of Cassel. And then the bones of the saint were found intact, on the third day before the Ides of February. Molanus recites the testimony of this event (though not in full), which, having been inserted in the casket at that time, he reports was copied out one hundred and forty years ago, when the casket needed repair. The memory of this event is repeated by the people of Lille, as the same Molanus attests, on the eighth day after the saint's feast, in these words: On the same day, the reposition of the relics of St. Eubertus, Bishop and Confessor, by the venerable Father Walterus, Bishop of Tournai, in the present church, and the octave of his deposition.

[11] Furthermore, as the same author states, the relics are carried in procession every year, on the very day of the Purification of the Blessed Mary, exhibited annually. and are left on the high altar throughout the Octave. The same is attested in the Ecclesiastical History of Belgium by Guilielmus Gazaeus.