Rioc

ON SAINT RIOC, MONK OF LANDÉVENNEC IN ARMORICAN BRITTANY

Fifth Century

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Rioc, Monk in Armorican Brittany (Saint)

Author: G. H.

[1] At Landévennec in Lower Armorican Brittany there is an ancient monastery situated in the inner harbor of Brest, where the river Aulne flows into the left side, toward Quimper, in whose diocese it is contained. Bertrand d'Argentré, in his History of Brittany, book 1, chapter 23, makes Grallon, the second King of Brittany, the founder of this monastery; others call him Gradlon, King of Cornouaille, whose capital is Quimper, or the city of the Coriosolites,

commonly called Quimper-Corentin after Saint Corentin, whom Saint Martin, Bishop of Tours, is believed to have ordained as its first Bishop at the request of the same King. Saint Corentin is venerated as Patron of the Cathedral Church and city on December 12, the day on which he is said to have died at the beginning of the fifth century. Under Saint Winwaloe, Saint Rioc lived: Saint Winwaloe, said to have been consecrated by this Bishop, was the first Abbot of the monastery of Landévennec, under whom Saint Rioc lived in the same monastery.

[2] Albert le Grand of Morlaix, in his Lives of the Saints of Brittany, on February 12, produces the Acts of Saint Rioc, From what sources this Life was composed, compiled in French from ancient codices of the monasteries of Landévennec and Douglass, from an ancient book as well, preserved for the use of the choir in the parish church of Plounéventer in the diocese of Léon, making use also of an ancient Chronicle of Brittany by an anonymous author, and assisted finally by the collections of Yves le Grand, Canon of Saint-Pol-de-Léon and Councilor of Duke Francis II around the year 1472. All this indicates the author's diligence; Nor sufficiently solid: it is regrettable that the particulars were not sufficiently examined, but many falsehoods were mingled with the truth. Only the Acts of Saint Winwaloe shed some light. According to the Acts of Saint Winwaloe. These were sent to us from a Breton manuscript by James Bernard, a priest of the Society of Jesus, divided into two books and an appendix of Miscellanea. In book 2, chapter 12, which bears the title "On the Resuscitation of the Mother of Saint Rioc," the following is found:

[3] "It was reported to Saint Rioc, a disciple of Saint Winwaloe, that his mother was ill. When he learned this, he wished to visit her. Having received permission from the Father (who, however, He raised his mother from the dead, by divine revelation, knew that she was already dead), he nevertheless set out, having received holy water from the Saint; and approaching his mother and thinking her alive, he sprinkled her with that water and said: 'May the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name my Master has worked many miracles, deign to heal you.' But all who were present laughed at him, knowing she was dead. Yet she arose as from a deep sleep, wiping away sweat, and sat upon the bed. At this, those who had mocked the Saint fell prostrate upon the ground and said: 'Truly he is near to God, through whose invocation his disciple, though the Master was absent, worked this miracle.'" So it reads there. In another Life from a manuscript codex of the monastery of Marchiennes, the same is read as follows: "A certain matron, the mother of one of his disciples named Hrioc, had fallen ill. When her son heard this, he wished to visit his mother; and carrying with him water blessed by his Master, Sprinkling with water blessed by the Master, he found her already dead for two days. As soon as she was sprinkled by her son with the blessed water, and the name of Saint Winwaloe was invoked, she was resuscitated." A third Life of Saint Winwaloe comes from a manuscript codex of Saint Saviour's at Utrecht, in which, without indicating the name of Saint Rioc, the same events are related from the first Life, though somewhat more briefly; and it is added that "when he had come to the place where the dead woman lay, he had cast out all who were around him."

[4] We also have a fourth manuscript Life, in which, the name of Saint Rioc being likewise omitted, the events are narrated somewhat differently in these words: "There was a matron in the neighborhood, worn down by a grave illness to the point of death, whose son was being educated in the monastery under the tutelage of the man of God himself. Compelled by filial piety, he sought to relieve her by his visit. But before going, he received blessed water from his Master, and approached confidently as though going to a sick woman; but she, already dead, had been led to the places of punishment, as was made known by divine revelation to the holy man who was intent upon prayer. Whom he still thought alive, Friends, however, stood weeping around the lifeless body, preparing the funeral rites. But the boy, arriving and still hoping to find her alive though she was already dead, sprinkled her with the sanctified water and said in a clear voice: 'May our Lord Jesus Christ heal you, in whose name my Master works so many remedies of healing for the sick.' At this voice, she arose as if awakened from sleep and, as if returning from labor, drenched in a great sweat, sat up in her bed. Immediately all who were present fell prostrate upon their faces and magnificently praised God, who glorifies His Saint by so great a miracle." So it reads there; the same is narrated in Surius, but in altered style. We shall give the complete Acts on March 3.

[5] Albert le Grand of Morlaix, in his Life of Saint Winwaloe, regarding this person as different from the Saint Rioc of whom he had treated on February 12, does not call him a Saint, though he is repeatedly so styled in the ancient Breton manuscript codex. He adds, moreover, that the mother's corpse had already been enclosed in a sarcophagus, which was opened at her son's command, and then the mother was raised. But how, as the Acts state, could Saint Rioc have thought his mother alive, or still hoped to find her living? Not enclosed in a sarcophagus, How could he have said "May Christ heal you" or "deign to heal," and not "May Christ raise you"? But lying on her bed: She lay therefore like one sleeping in her bed, and rose from death as from sleep, and sat upon the bed. The same Morlaix in his Acts of Saint Rioc asserts that his mother died a most pious death and was buried by her son when he was fifteen or sixteen years old -- which seems indeed to have been Rioc's age when his mother, about to be committed to burial, was raised. For he was being instructed under the tutelage of the man of God, which is characteristic of novices; indeed, he is even called a boy.

[6] This matron was raised in the fifth century of Christ, when more than a hundred years had elapsed after the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian and their successors and the peace given to the Church by Constantine the Great; yet under this same Constantine, it is said in those Acts, Saint Rioc was born, [Was Saint Rioc as an infant, born under Constantine the Great, said to have led an immense dragon?] and would have been devoured by an immense dragon, had not Neuenterius and Derienus, men of the first nobility from the island of Britain, returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where they had been received as guests by Saint Helena, mother of Constantine, come to that place and, having captured the beast by making the sign of the Cross, handed it to the infant Saint Rioc to lead, and at last commanded it to plunge headlong into the sea, freeing the region from its terror. His father, named Elornus, is said to have thrown himself into a river on account of the terror of the dragon -- a river therefore called the Elorn after his name -- on whose bank the lord of the Castle of Roche lived, and indeed, contrary to the pledge given to Neuenterius and Derienus, being hardened in the worship of idols, Was he expelled with his mother by his father on account of the Catholic faith? he drove from his house his wife and his son Rioc, who had been instructed in the faith and cleansed by holy baptism, and commanded them never to dare to return to his sight. So much for the father of Saint Rioc. But those noble Britons are numbered by Morlaix in the index at the end of the book among the Saints of his Brittany, and he assigns February 7 to Saint Derianus, as if that day were sacred to his veneration. On what foundation these things rest we cannot discover.

[7] The excellent woman, therefore, seeing herself cast out from her home without any hope of reconciliation, is said to have retired with her son Saint Rioc to a certain estate of hers called Aré-Forest, and to have spent the remaining days of her life there in a chapel she erected, in all holiness. After her death, Saint Rioc, having sold his goods and distributed the money to the poor, is said to have withdrawn to the inlet of the harbor of Brest, and to have chosen for himself a deserted place on the coast of Cornouaille, Did he live as an anchorite in the desert for forty-one years? nearly entirely surrounded by the sea, and to have led an anchoritic life in great austerity for forty-one years, content with herbs alone and small fishes, warding off the cold with a simple tunic made from woodland moss. This old man Saint Winwaloe is said finally to have visited, and to have brought him from that deserted place to his own monastery of Landévennec, And afterwards came to Landévennec? and to have invested him with the monastic habit of his Order, where after some years he ended his life with a great reputation for holiness, famous also for miracles after death. Saint Budoc, Bishop of Dol, having instituted a canonical examination, approved his being enrolled among the Saints around the year 1137. These things are narrated at greater length by Albert.

[8] But so that these and the other events previously related from the Acts of Saint Winwaloe may be consistent with one and the same person, the dates at which they are said to have occurred do not permit it. What if he is to be said to have lived as a young man under Saint Winwaloe at Landévennec, Perhaps he rather withdrew from the monastery to the hermitage? as the fourfold Acts of Winwaloe assert, and then at a more advanced age, as very many did in those times, withdrew to the solitude out of love for a stricter discipline, where he remained to a decrepit old age, and then, broken by illness and old age, returned to the monastery before his death? The insufficiently perceptive writer, confusing the chronology, may have inverted these events, following an old wives' tale which supposed that, just as Icarus gave his name to the Ionian Sea, What to make of the origin of the name of the river Elorn. so the father of Saint Rioc gave his name to the river Elorn, though it was previously called the Durdunus. We give on February 13 the Acts of Saint Ermenilda the Queen, whose husband Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, an outstanding propagator of the Christian faith, is fabricated by many writers to have had sons Wulfhad and Ruffinus, and to have slaughtered them with barbarous cruelty out of hatred of the Catholic religion -- the fanciful history of whose passion we also possess in manuscript, and we refute it on that day. On the exile of Saint Rioc and his mother, Whether in a similar manner Saint Rioc and his mother are said, not very credibly, to have been driven into exile by Elornus because they had devoted themselves to the Christian faith,

is not clear -- nor whether the immense dragon was added to complete the tragedy. More certain information can perhaps be drawn from the inhabitants of Armorican Brittany themselves, and from more careful investigators of the truth. And the dragon, what to think.

[9] At Beauport on the coast of the English Channel in the diocese of Saint-Brieuc, there exists a distinguished monastery of the Premonstratensian Order, which preserves among other relics the head of Saint Rion, The head of Saint Rion at Beauport. as the same Morlaix reports in his last index of those Saints whose Acts he was unable to obtain. Is this Rion the same as Rioc? Both names are absent from the Gallic Martyrology of du Saussay.