Columbanus

CONCERNING ST. COLUMBANUS, ABBOT, RECLUSE AT GHENT IN FLANDERS.

THE YEAR 959.

Columbanus, Abbot, Recluse at Ghent in Flanders (Saint)

By G. H.

[1] There were various Columbas, Columbans, and Columbins among the Irish or Scots, conspicuous for learning and holiness. The one of whom we treat here, fleeing honors, came to Flanders St. Columbanus, a recluse at Ghent and, enclosed in a cell, spent his life holily. Concerning his arrival, these few words exist from a manuscript codex of the monastery of St. Bavo, in Sanderus, book 4 of the History of Ghent: "In the year 957, Columbanus, an Irish Abbot, a most holy man, enclosed himself in the cemetery of the monastery of Ghent on February 2 In the year 957 February 2, leading a holy life there." On which day Molanus in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium, Sanderus in the Hagiologion of Flanders, Menard in the Benedictine Martyrology, Gazaeus in the Lives of the Saints and sacred tables of the Saints of Belgium, Colgan in the Acts of the Irish Saints, Under which date he is also inscribed in Martyrologies; others give February 13. and others treat of him.

[2] Henry Fitzsimon, in his Catalogue of the Irish Saints, places his birthday on February 13. Dempster, in the Menology of Scotland, inscribed on the same day St. Columbanus, Abbot of Sutri, surnamed the Recluse, with great confusion -- as we noted on that day among the Omitted -- in a few words. St. Deicolus, or Deicola, was Abbot of Lure in Burgundy, whom Wion calls the Abbot of Sutri on January 18, on which day we gave his Acts, in which frequent mention is made of St. Columbanus, or Columbinus, of whom Saussay writes in the Supplement to the Gallic Martyrology at September 13: "In Lesser Britain..."

St. Columbinus, Abbot of Sutri, and disciple and successor of St. Deicola. With greater error, Dempster, reading "Lutrensis" for "Sutrensis," joins to Columbinus a Columbanus surnamed "the Recluse," whom he suggests is the same person who was a recluse at Ghent, while he cites Molanus who treats of him not on the thirteenth but on the second of February.

[3] Concerning the death of St. Columbanus, the following is read in the same manuscript codex preserved by Sanderus: He died in the year 959. In the year 959, Columbanus the Abbot, a most holy man, and a recluse of the Church of St. Bavo at Ghent, died in that same monastery at Ghent; he rests buried in the crypt of the Blessed Mary before the altar of the Blessed Andrew, set slightly back beneath a stone arch. The same material, drawn more briefly from the same Chronicle, is found in Rosweyde and Mudsardus in the Ecclesiastical Annals of Belgium published in the Belgian language, and in Molanus and others. Moreover, Molanus cited above, and Rayss in his Hierogazophylacium Belgicum, treating of the Cathedral Church of St. Bavo among the people of Ghent, note that the death of St. Columbanus is recorded in the books of Rouge-Cloitre on the fifteenth of the Kalends of March, 25 February, that is, the fifteenth day of February -- although Columbanus was not enclosed or buried in the crypt of that church or its cemetery, but of the one which at that time was sacred to St. Bavo, where a citadel was later built.

[4] There exists a Processional adapted to the rites of the Roman Church, compiled by the order and authority of Mathias Hovius, Archbishop of Mechelen, and published at Antwerp by the Plantin press in the year 1602, and this, as Hovius notes in the appended letter, is intended for use by all the Belgian Churches inscribed in the Litanies of the Belgian churches which have received, or will in the future receive, the Roman usage. In this Processional, the Greater Litany is prescribed to be sung on the Monday of the Rogation Days, in which most of the Saints who flourished in Belgium are invoked, and among the Confessors who were not Bishops, the patronage of St. Columbanus is implored, that he may pray for us. Menardus, Gazaeus, Fitzsimon, and Colgan likewise distinguish him with the title of Saint; others call him a most holy man.