CONCERNING ST. ROMANUS, ARCHBISHOP OF REIMS IN CHAMPAGNE
AROUND THE YEAR 533.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Romanus, Archbishop of Reims in Champagne (Saint)
G. H.
[1] Andrew Saussay in his Gallic Martyrology comprehends what is said about St. Romanus in this brief eulogy at February 28: At Reims, the deposition of St. Romanus, Bishop and Confessor: Eulogy of St. Romanus from Saussay this man, a cousin of Pope Vigilius, a monk of Jura, and the first Abbot of the monastery of Mantenay which he built in the diocese of Troyes, when he flourished everywhere with the praise of virtues, was raised, with Christ leading, to the Archbishopric of Reims, and governed the Church entrusted to him with an apostolic spirit. And after a prosperous and celebrated Pontificate, when he had illumined the blessed Leo, his pupil and successor in the governance of the monastery of Mantenay, with the exchange of his holiness, from which that man too became a Saint; and had entombed the blessed Queen Clotilde in the basilica of St. Genevieve, and King Childebert in the church of St. Vincent at the walls of the royal city; desirous of eternal rest, he departed to his heavenly dwelling. So says Saussay, which must be examined by us.
[2] Nicolaus Camuzat, Canon of the Church of Troyes in the same Champagne, in his Historical Miscellanies, also called a Saint by Camuzat and Des-Guerrois together with the Sacred Repository of the diocese of Troyes published, folio 358, in the Notes to the Life of St. Leo the Abbot, and Nicolaus Des-Guerrois, Priest of Troyes, concerning the Saints of Troyes, at the year 545, number 8, attribute the title of Saint to the same Romanus along with Saussay. In the ancient Life of St. Leo itself, to be given on May 23 or 25 (for the authors disagree about the day), both Leo himself called Blessed in the ancient Acts; was he a cousin of Pope Vigilius? and Romanus are called Blessed in the same way: which title alone Miraeus uses in his Belgian and Burgundian Calendar at February 28, on which he celebrates him, and before Saussay he had established him as a cousin of Pope Vigilius and a monk of Jura, following John Chenu in his Archbishops of Reims and George Colveneer in his Catalogue of the Archbishops of Reims published at the end of Flodoard. Vigilius was born of a most noble family, the son of John, a consular man, and was somewhat younger than Romanus, and died in the year 555. We have already treated above on this day of St. Romanus, the first founder of the monasteries of Jura: was he a monk of Jura? whose way of life this Romanus could have embraced under St. Eugendus the Abbot, and by his example (which very many others are known to have done from his Life) could have founded a monastery in a village he founds the monastery of Mantenay named Mantenay, two leagues from the city of Troyes, as Camuzat asserts is clearly evident from the Life of St. Leo, who, leaving aside the fuller history, extracted a brief Life of the same from the Breviary of the Church of Troyes: in which the following is read: This Leo, having been handed over to the schools, acquired with wonderful speed the knowledge of the psalms: and in all things and through all things he was educated in the regular doctrines. Therefore, when the blessed Romanus, Abbot of the monastery of Mantenay, was elected Bishop of Reims, the blessed Leo was made Abbot of that monastery. Camuzat then adds, from another history of the Life of St. Leo, that the aforesaid St. Romanus had obtained from King Clovis the Elder confirmation of the donation of certain estates he receives confirmation of a donation from Clovis I which Merobaudus the Patrician had most liberally bestowed upon the same monastery. Des-Guerrois says that monastery was built in honor of Saints Gervasius and Protasius the Martyrs. But now the town of Mantenay, on account of the body of St. Leo, which is most reverently preserved there, has assumed the name of the same St. Leo and is called in the French tongue St. Lye, as the oft-praised Camuzat testifies. Clovis I died in the year 509, so that it is necessary that the monastery had been built by St. Romanus before that date, and that Nicolas Des-Guerrois is mistaken when he reports that the confirmation of the donation made by Clovis was given not to St. Romanus, but to his successor St. Leo, who succeeded St. Romanus twenty years after the death of Clovis.
[3] Concerning the Episcopate of St. Romanus, Flodoard in book 2 of the History of the Church of Reims, chapter 1, records these few things: he becomes Archbishop of Reims in the year 530 It is reported that Romanus succeeded the blessed Remigius, Flavius succeeded Romanus, and after them Mappinius. We treated of the time of the See of these four Bishops on February 6, in the Life of St. Vedastus, Bishop of Arras, ordained by St. Remigius, and we showed on page 785, number 13, that St. Remigius died in the year 530, on January 13: and that St. Romanus was substituted for him, to whose See we assigned three years or at most four, and referred his death to the year 533 he dies in the year 533 or the following or the following. For his successor Flavius was present at the Synod of Clermont under King Theodebert, held on the 5th of the Ides of November, after the consulship of Paulinus the Younger, in the year 535. But Protadius the Archdeacon, sent by Mappinius, Flavius's successor, subscribed to the fifth Council of Orleans, in the thirty-eighth year of King Childebert, the year of Christ 547. Hence John Chenu, who asserts that Romanus was made Archbishop in the year 545, sat for eighteen years, and died in the year 563, needs to be corrected. The same things George Colveneer had previously written in his Catalogue of the Archbishops of Reims, and he adds these equally discordant details: He buried the body of the blessed Queen Clotilde in the church of St. Genevieve at Paris in the year 554, and the body of Childebert, King of the Franks, in the sacred church of St. Germanus at the walls of the city of Paris in the year 559. Which Saussay, cited above, transcribed without any intervening examination. But both the dates and the distinct kingdoms stand in the way, and the things done by St. Germanus, Bishop of Paris, are attributed to St. Romanus of Reims, who had long since died. he did not bury King Childebert Childebert died in the year 558, and, as Aimoin reports in book 2 of the Deeds of the Franks, chapter 29, was buried by St. Germanus in the church of St. Vincent, which he had built. St. Clotilde, moreover, died at the city of Tours, and was buried at Paris by her sons, Kings Childebert and Clothar. nor Queen St. Clotilde So says Gregory of Tours in book 4 of his History of the Franks, chapter 1, after having previously treated of the death of Theodebert, King of Austrasia, who was succeeded by Theodebald in the year 548. St. Romanus, moreover, was made Bishop while Theoderic, King of Austrasia, was still alive, under whom the city of Reims was situated.