Romanus

CONCERNING ST. ROMANUS, ABBOT OF THE MONASTERY OF JURA IN BURGUNDY,

AROUND THE YEAR 460.

Preliminary Commentary.

Romanus, Abbot of Jura, at Condat in Burgundy (Saint)

By G. H.

Section I. Three monasteries built by St. Romanus and his brother St. Lupicinus: his memorial in the sacred calendars: the written Life.

[1] We have the first more exact knowledge of ancient Gaul from the Commentaries of Gaius Julius Caesar on the Gallic War: from whose book 1 we learn that the territory of the Sequani was there, and that among them was a very high mountain called Jura, Among the Sequani on Mount Jura and between it and the river Rhone the path was narrow and difficult for the Helvetii who were trying to break into Gaul, and could easily be blocked. The name of the widely extending mountain still remains: in that part of it where the County of Burgundy is separated at this time from Bresse and Bugey, St. Romanus began the solitary life: before whom, says the author of this Life at number 2, absolutely no monk within the Gaul of the Sequani, St. Romanus was the first to live in solitude under the pretext of religion, had pursued either a solitary life or one of communal observance. The first to join St. Romanus as a companion was his brother St. Lupicinus: these, having gathered many monks to themselves, became Abbots of two monasteries built by them: [and with his brother St. Lupicinus built 3 monasteries; buried at Balma of the nuns, Lupicinus at Lauconnum] the first, called Condadisco, Condadiscense, Condadescense, or Condatiscense, had St. Romanus as Abbot: the second, which St. Lupicinus governed, was named Lauconnum. A third monastery of Virgins was added, over which these brothers' sister was placed, among rocks and caverns, which the author of the Life at number 19 says was therefore called Balma: in which also St. Romanus was buried and a basilica erected to him, as the same author reports at number 9: and in the Life of St. Lupicinus near the end, the same Author reports the following about the burial of both: By the inspiration of inborn piety, the dear children laid the fatherly body of St. Lupicinus in the very monastery of Lauconnum: so that since his brother St. Romanus was already illuminating the place of prayer at Balma, at the Condadiscense, St. Eugendus and the holy Eugendus was one day to illuminate the interior of Condadisco, in the meantime St. Lupicinus should instruct the monastery of Lauconnum with virtues, imbue it with examples, adorn it with patronage, and continually aid it with prayers.

[2] St. Lupicinus is venerated on March 21, but St. Eugendus on the Kalends of January, on which day we gave his Life written by the same Author, which after the Preface begins thus: The holy servant of Christ Eugendus, just as he was a disciple in religion of the blessed Fathers Romanus and Lupicinus, their disciple so also he was a native in birth and province... whom, as a boy from the home of his father, his father learned by a revelation that he should hand over to the Fathers Romanus and Lupicinus for education, offered to St. Romanus by his father while he was a Priest in the dignity of the presbyterate, by whom he was instructed in the elements of letters and was offered to St. Romanus as Father: and afterward he was made coadjutor Abbot by him whom the most blessed Romanus or Lupicinus had designated as successor in the monastery of Condat: admonished by the same and St. Lupicinus appearing, he was made Abbot and when that one departed, after the blessed Romanus, appearing in a vision with his brother Lupicinus, had girded his loins with a belt, he was made Abbot, and at length died in holiness. In his last illness, moreover, he consoled the weeping monks with this vision: My lords the Abbots, he said, Romanus and Lupicinus, presenting a bier before this bed on their own shoulders, and roused in his last illness raising me up also, kissed me and, having composed me, placed me on the bier to be carried away. And when they carried me, raised up, into the oratory, with you running together at the door, I was violently shaken off, and was carried back by you to this bed. And therefore I ask, if you grant anything to an old man, if anything to fatherly piety, that you not hold me here any longer, but at last permit me to pass to the Fathers. So the text reads.

[3] After St. Eugendus was buried in the church of Condat, the monastery began to be named after this Abbot, the Monastery of St. Eugendus: to which, having left the Archbishopric of Besancon, came St. Claude, and lived there as a monk, then as Abbot, and from him the monastery of Condat was called St. Eugendus and finally died on July 6: on which day, in ancient manuscript Lessons of the Church of Autun, it is said that St. Claude, fleeing crowds of citizens, betook himself, with the Lord guiding him, to the monastery of St. Agendus in Jura, a place of horror and vast solitude. Which in the Breviary of Besancon, administered thereafter by St. Claude as Abbot published by order of Archbishop Ferdinand de Rye in the year 1590, are expressed thus: He secretly withdrew from the city and betook himself to the monastery of the blessed Eugendus of Jura, a place of horror and vast solitude, so that there, with monks who contemplated only heaven, he too, a lover of the contemplative life, might serve God day and night. In the Life of the same St. Claude published by Jean-Jacques Chifflet at Besancon, part 2, page 144, the following is read: He left his city with its dignity, and came to the monastery of St. Eugendus, which is near the borders of the said diocese of Besancon, with all the Clergy and people of that city resisting and calling him back with tears, having been announced to the monks, as they say, by an Angel: and there he took up the monastic habit and life. Concerning the time when St. Claude came to the monastery of St. Eugendus, we said some things in book 4 of our Diatribe on the Three Kings Dagobert, chapter 1, and we shall give a more exact chronology on June 6. What St. Bernard thought about this monastery, he wrote in letter 291 to Pope Eugene, when it was oppressed by various injuries: The noble monastery of St. Eugendus, he said, formerly famous for its wealth and religious life, praised by St. Bernard if what is said is true, is near to ruin... The bearer of the present letters, a monk of the aforesaid monastery, and Archegaudus the Prior, a man loved by us from of old for his honesty and piety, will be able to inform you more fully of what they know... I have delivered my soul, but that is not enough unless the monastery also is delivered. In your hands are its death and life. So says St. Bernard. All the glory of the monastery not only returned afterward, now called St. Claude but was greatly increased, on account of the illustrious miracles that were thereafter performed there through the intercession of St. Claude, whose body is said to be preserved still intact: whence both the monastery and the town adjoining it, and the neighboring Jura mountain, have their present name from St. Claude.

[4] These things concern the places in which blessed Romanus lived, died in holiness, became famous for miracles, was inscribed in ancient sacred calendars, and is generally assigned to the territory of Lyon, situated in the diocese of Lyon since the monastery is still in the diocese of the Archbishopric of Lyon, although it is less distant from the Sequani metropolis of Besancon, and indeed quite close to the episcopal city of Geneva. In the ancient manuscript Martyrology of Centula, or St. Riquier, the following is found: In the territory of Lyon, St. Romanus the Abbot. In the ancient Martyrology preserved in the library of the Queen of Sweden, he is inscribed in these words: St. Romanus inscribed in sacred calendars on February 28 The birthday of St. Romanus, Abbot of Jura, who was the first to lead the eremitical life there. Similar things are read in the manuscripts of St. Maximin and of St. Mary ad Gradus at Cologne. But Usuard in manuscript codices of the best and most sincere reliability, Ado, Bellini, Notker, and along with many manuscripts, the Roman Martyrology: In the territory of Lyon, in the places of Jura, the deposition of Blessed Romanus the Abbot, who was the first to lead the monastic life there, and, famous for many virtues and miracles, was afterward the Father of very many monks. In many codices, for "locis Iurensibus" (places of Jura), with the first letters transposed, one reads "locis Virensibus" and more frequently "Virentibus": as also in the printed Martyrology of Bede, which should be corrected from the manuscripts of the monasteries of Richenberg and Suba. Concerning the place of burial, in the Martyrologies of Bede, Ado, and various manuscripts, as well as those printed at Cologne and Lubeck in 1490, this is added: His venerable body is situated on the borders of Besancon. A large eulogy is woven from the Acts in the Gallic Martyrology of Saussay. What is said in other Martyrologies about the Benedictine monastic life will be touched upon below.

[5] The Lives of Saints Romanus, Lupicinus, and Eugendus, as we have already indicated, were written in three small works by the same author, who says in his preface the Lives of Saints Romanus, Lupicinus, and Eugendus written by the same author that he sets forth as a threefold narrator the Life of the three Abbots of Jura. And near the end of the Life of St. Romanus he says that, having completed this first small work, he directs his discourse to the second small work about St. Lupicinus. And shortly before he says that he has reserved for the third booklet, or the Life of the most blessed Eugendus, what pertains to the rule or constitutions, as we note there from the Life of St. Eugendus. The writer was moreover a monk of Condat and a disciple of St. Eugendus, by a monk of Condat, a disciple of St. Eugendus and very familiar with him, as he asserts in his Life, number 5: Eugendus, however, frequently testified to me in the greatest confidence. Number 25: When, being ill, he was asked by us about his night's rest. And: When we kept a trembling silence. Then number 26: He finished his words amid our lamentations, etc. In the Life of St. Lupicinus, he narrates what Eugendus testified he had seen in childhood. And what, as he says, I do not doubt that the elderly perhaps remember. Below, however, in the Life of St. Romanus, number 14: What I remember, he says, my most blessed lord Eugendus was accustomed to relate. And then he narrates other things which became known through the most holy man Palladius, the companion of St. Romanus both in the monastery and on journeys. This Life of St. Romanus, as well as that of St. Lupicinus, hitherto unpublished, was extracted from old manuscripts by Pierre-Francois Chifflet, Theologian of the Society of Jesus, [here for the first time the Life of St. Romanus is given from a manuscript of the same monastery] and transmitted to us together with the Life of St. Eugendus. Jean-Jacques Chifflet, his brother, mentions the Life of St. Romanus in book 2 of his Besancon, Metropolis of the Sequani, in the entry on St. Celidonius the Bishop, and calls the very ancient codex of the monastery of Jura, from which these Acts were copied, by name. They were inscribed by the author to the brothers John and Armentarius of the monastery of Agaunum: what that monastery was like at that time, we investigated on February 11 in the Life of St. Severinus, Abbot of Agaunum, who flourished around the year five hundred and died in the year 506. See Section 1 of the Preliminary Commentary, pages 544 and following.

[6] We add an epitome of the Life concerning Saints Lupicinus and Romanus the Abbots, composed by St. Gregory, Bishop of Tours, an epitome of the Life published by Gregory of Tours: copied by others with which he opens his book on the Life of the Fathers. Among the Lives of the Saints published by Surius, the same is found at February 28: and it has been widely copied by others in collections of Lives of the Saints, as also recently by Simon Martin in the Flowers of the Solitude of the Holy Fathers of the West: to whom the prior Life was then still unknown.

Section II. Romanus, Lupicinus, and Eugendus flourished in the fifth century, not the sixth. This St. Romanus is different from the one who ministered to St. Benedict.

[7] The age of Saints Romanus, Lupicinus, and Eugendus, and indeed also of the author by whom we said their Acts were once composed, could easily be established, were it not that the reckoning of later writers had led more illustrious writers astray, on whose authority others think their own opinions can be confirmed. And first, Romanus the Abbot who is also celebrated on March 22 in the Roman Martyrology, The Romanus who ministered to St. Benedict who ministered to St. Benedict in the cave, and then, setting out for Gaul, having built a monastery and left many pupils of holiness, rested in peace; is reported in various Martyrologies to be none other than the St. Romanus about whom we treat today. is wrongly considered to be the Abbot of Jura who is venerated on this day Thus to the words of Usuard given above, the following is added in the manuscript of Anchin: This same man was also a helper and cooperator of St. Benedict at the beginning of his conversion. But the manuscripts of Brussels, Alberge, and other Martyrologies of Usuard augmented for the use of Belgian churches, as well as those printed at Cologne and Lubeck in the year 1490, add: This man is believed to have given the monastic habit to Blessed Benedict and to have ministered the necessities of food to him by the sound of a small bell: which is written to have been done under a cliff, as far as was possible, in the manuscript Ado of St. Lawrence at Liege. But this one, a full century younger, built a small monastery in a place called Fons Rogi, and after death was buried there. since he was a full century younger Whose body was afterward brought to the city of Auxerre and deposited in the church of St. Amator. In the course of time the monks of the monastery of St. Germanus of Auxerre obtained it for themselves under Bishop Heribald: and while the bones were being arranged, the Priest of the place called Bono-horto secretly took the crown of the head of the same Saint. Ansegisus of Sens, however, learning that the crown of the head was preserved in his diocese, obtained it from the said Priest and brought it to his own city. And not content with this part of the body, he obtained the whole from Hugh, Abbot of St. Germanus, through Abbo, Bishop of Nevers, and placed it in the monastery called Vallilias, or Val-de-Lis. Then, when the monastery was burned by the Normans, the body was carried to the city of Sens: and when at length another monastery was rebuilt near the walls of Sens, it was transported there again. All of which is established from the Acts of the Life and Translation of the body of this St. Romanus described by Gislebert, an ancient monk, and published by Jean du Bois in the Floriac Library; which we shall illustrate more fully on March 22.

[8] Others, and especially Benedictine writers, sufficiently distinguish the Acts of these two Abbots, but seizing upon an occasion for error, ascribe both to their Order, and wish him about whom we treat today to have flourished at the time when the other Romanus lived. nor was St. Romanus, Abbot of Jura, a Benedictine Wion indeed asserts that St. Romanus, about whom we treat, flourished around the year of our Lord 564, and inscribed him in the Benedictine monastic Martyrology on February 28, with a eulogy taken from Bede and Ado. Wion was followed by Menard, Dorgan, and Bucelin, who adorns him with a long encomium drawn from Gregory of Tours and places him as having flourished in the year of Christ 570. Others increased the error, nor did he live under Chilperic, King of the Franks while asserting that Saints Romanus and Lupicinus lived under Chilperic, King of the Franks. Thus Felici in his Martyrology, mentioning both on this day: but most especially Cardinal Baronius in volume 7 of the Annals at the year 579, number 29, while extolling the piety and other virtues of Chilperic, for which he praises him as having been raised through the murder of his brother Sigibert from a siege to greater splendor of the kingdom, then at number 30 adds: But that Chilperic merited to obtain so many and such great things from God, the prayers of St. Lupicinus, a man of remarkable holiness, seem to have interceded: for concerning him Gregory of Tours has the following in his Life, reported below at number 10: Lupicinus, now grown old, went to King Chilperic, who then ruled over Burgundy. For he had heard that he was dwelling near the city of Januba, that is, Geneva. After narrating Lupicinus's approach to the King and the latter's munificence toward him, he adds: Thus far Gregory. Thus sowing those carnal things, the King reaped spiritual things with a continuous harvest, namely the constant prayers of such great monks: from which he was also enriched with an abundance of temporal things, increased with a new kingdom, he who was already about to fall from his own. So says Baronius out of his affection for Chilperic, who did not dwell at Geneva, nor was he King of Burgundy whose piety the ancients by no means praise. I would not deny that Chilperic's beneficence toward the monks of Jura was magnificent and worthy that God should reward it with an abundance of temporal things and even divine gifts. But how could Chilperic, son of Clothar I, King of Soissons, have conferred that benefit, he who never ruled over Burgundy, nor had his royal seat at Januba or Geneva, and indeed did not possess either this city or any neighboring territories, since the kingdom of Soissons was situated far from there? The King of Burgundy at that time, in which both Geneva and the Jura monasteries were located, was St. Guntram, brother of the said Chilperic, both of whom succeeded their father Clothar I, who died in the year 561: Chilperic was then killed in the year 584; Guntram, however, died in the year 593. But Baronius, undertaking the almost immense work of universal ecclesiastical history, was not able to pause to examine each detail at leisure: otherwise without great labor he would have found that the Chilperic who was the author of this much-praised beneficence toward the monks was not Chilperic the son of Clothar, King of the Franks; but one of the more ancient Kings of Burgundy, whose kingdom Clothar obtained after driving out King Godomar, in the consulship of Paulinus the Younger, Indiction 12, in the year 535, first with his brothers, then after their deaths alone: to whom we have already said Guntram succeeded in the division. Benedict Gononus needs no new correction when, in his Lives of the Fathers of the West, in his note on the Life of Saints Romanus and Lupicinus published from the same Touraine author, he notes that they lived in the times of Childeric, King of the Franks, around the year 561, nor is this about Childeric, King of the Franks in which Chilperic, whom he meant to write, began to reign. Gazaeus also in these Acts published in French calls him Childeric and adds the year 565. Otherwise Childeric, King of the Franks, father of Clovis I, did live with these Saints, but did not have Burgundy or any neighboring territories: which were then subject to their own Kings.

[9] Having therefore rejected these opinions, we arrange the dates of Saints Romanus and Lupicinus from the Acts themselves as follows. St. Romanus born near the end of the 4th century They seem to have been born around the year 400, or some years earlier, especially St. Romanus, who was older than the other, and was the first to begin pursuing the solitary life in the forest of Jura at the age of thirty-five: to whom after many years St. Lupicinus came: then other companions were added and dwellings were built: which was imitated elsewhere by some following their example. Afterward, as is said at number 6, when their fame was heard, St. Hilary, Bishop of Arles, caused St. Romanus to meet him not far from the city of Besancon, ordained Priest by St. Hilary, Bishop of Arles, in the year 444 and ordained him Priest. The time is indicated as being when the aforesaid Hilary had deposed the venerable Celidonius, Patriarch of the metropolis of Besancon, from the episcopal See without any cause. Sirmond calls this a Council of uncertain location, in volume 1 of the Councils of Gaul, page 79. It was held in the year 444, in which when Celidonius had been condemned, he betook himself to Rome, as is written in the Life of St. Hilary on May 5, to Pope St. Leo, and Hilary also set out for Rome in the harsh winter to answer concerning the case of Celidonius: but having submitted his plea to Leo, impatient of delay, he did not wait for the outcome of the judgment. On account of which, says the author of the Life of St. Romanus at number 6, having been convicted before the most blessed Pope Leo at Rome of having acted wrongly, and with Celidonius also restored to the Episcopate, he was regularly reproved by Apostolic authority for his unlawful usurpation, in a letter written by St. Leo to the Bishops of the province of Vienne, sent with a Novel of Valentinian III to Aetius, given at Rome on the 8th of the Ides of June, in the sixth consulship of Valentinian Augustus, or the year 445. In the same Novel the deed of St. Hilary is reproved. Here is a certain chronological marker of the year 444, in which St. Romanus was ordained Priest, drawn from the bowels of history and fixed with infallible stakes. he died before the year 460 How many years after that St. Romanus lived is not expressed: many, perhaps twelve or sixteen, seem to be assignable to the things done afterward, and his death should be referred to the year 460 or to the years immediately preceding.

[10] At the time when St. Romanus was growing up, the Burgundians, who had previously dwelt in various places in Transrhenane Germany, held a part of Gaul adjacent to the Rhine, the Burgundians dwell in Gaul near the Rhine from the year 413 as Prosper and Cassiodorus following him report in the Chronicle, in the consulship of Lucius, who was a distinguished man. That year is 413. But in the consulship of Theodosius XV and Valentinian IV (that year is 435), Aetius subdued Gundicarius, King of the Burgundians, who was dwelling within Gaul, by war and gave him peace when he sued for it, as the same Prosper reports: who in another Chronicle published by Pithou, in the seventh year before the death of Theodosius the Younger, the year 444 of Christ, in which we said St. Romanus was ordained Priest, they obtain part of Savoy in the year 444 asserts that Savoy was given to the remnants of the Burgundians to be divided with the native inhabitants. There they settled thereafter, and gradually extending their borders through the neighboring regions, they obtained possession of the First Lugdunensis, Maxima Sequanorum, Viennensis, the Graian and Pennine Alps, and the Province on this side of the Durance, as Sirmond learnedly observes before the Councils of Gaul. There is no mention of the Burgundians in the ancient Acts of St. Romanus, [whether they received the province of the Sequani after the death of St. Romanus?] and perhaps they had not yet occupied the province of the Sequani and the neighboring territories: which seems to have happened when St. Lupicinus was then made Abbot of both monasteries, when he strove to defend the oppressed poor before the illustrious Patrician of Gaul, Chilperic, under whom the public law of the royal dominion was at that time administered. And then boldly stretched out his hand against the wicked oppressor to the aforesaid Chilperic, a man of singular intelligence and special goodness. Chilperic, Patrician of Gaul But the said Patrician was so delighted by the audacity of truth that he affirmed to the courtiers standing by, with many examples and much discussion, that this had happened by Divine judgment. Then promptly, with a sentence of royal authority promulgated, he restored the free to their liberty, and having offered gifts for the needs of the Brethren and the place, caused the servant of Christ to return honorably to the monastery. So says the contemporary author in the Life of St. Lupicinus. The gifts offered to him are listed below by the Touraine author at number 10. But when these things happened is indicated by the narrative immediately appended, with this opening: The illustrious Agrippinus, endowed with singular sagacity, and appointed Count of Gaul by the Prince on account of the dignity of his secular military service, considered King of the Burgundians, he dwelt at Geneva had been discredited before the Emperor by Aegidius, then Master of the soldiers, through cunning and malicious artifice... If, therefore, he said, my lord and superior Aegidius, there is nothing I need fear there being accused, I beseech you that the holy servant of God Lupicinus, who is present, may on this occasion become my guarantor in place of your nobility. That this contention between two illustrious men occurred around the eleventh year of the Emperor Severus, the year 463 of Christ, in the year 463 Idatius indicates in his Chronicle in these words: Agrippinus, a Gaul, both a Count and a citizen, being an enemy of Count Aegidius, an eminent man, in order to earn the aid of the Goths, betrayed Narbonne to Theoderic. He then went to Rome to the Emperor Severus and purged himself of the crime charged against him. Aegidius had already previously, under the Emperor Majorian, been appointed from among the Romans as Master of soldiers in Gaul, as Gregory of Tours reports in book 2 of his History of the Franks, chapter 11: who adds in chapter 12 that when Childeric, King of the Franks, was expelled for his luxury and debauchery, Aegidius was unanimously chosen as King by the Franks and reigned until the eighth year: and then Childeric was received back by the Franks, and from Basina, wife of the King of Thuringia, begot Clovis, who succeeded his father upon his death in the year 479, and defeated Syagrius, son of the said Aegidius, in the year 484. St. Clotilde's father or great-uncle Not long after this war, Clovis married St. Clotilde, imbued with orthodox religion and Christian morals, daughter of Chilperic, King of the Burgundians, who had previously been killed by the sword of his brother Gundobad. These were sons of Gunderic, to whom is also reported a brother named Chilperic: whom Sirmond thinks reigned at Geneva and was the benefactor of St. Lupicinus.

[13] Hugh Menard, in his preface to the Concordia Regularum of St. Benedict of Aniane, whose Life we gave on February 12, treats of St. Fructuosus, both the Bishop of Braga and this other Abbot, and investigates his Master St. Romanus, with this critique of the Chronicle of Maximus on page 63: But, to dissemble nothing, this Chronicle, as I noticed while reading it, contains many absurdities entirely unworthy of St. Maximus. which Menard rightly reproves For it has been stained with many errors by some scoundrel who has everywhere added many inept things to this Chronicle according to his whim, such as those things cited here about St. Romanus. For this St. Romanus, brother of St. Lupicinus, never came to Spain, nor did he die there: but in Gaul, and he was buried in the same region by his brother Lupicinus on a hillock above the monastery of Condat in the places of Jura, under Chilperic, King of the Burgundians, as can be seen in St. Gregory of Tours in the Lives of the Fathers. So says Menard, who is silent about one thing of the greatest weight, namely that St. Romanus, brother of St. Lupicinus, flourished a full century before St. Benedict: to whose Order, however, he seems to have ascribed him when listing him in his Benedictine Martyrology. Many things from the Life of St. Romanus, which Menard had not seen, can be opposed. as Tamaius de Salazar approves Menard's opinion, says Tamaius de Salazar, concerning some things contained in the published Chronicle, I willingly embrace, and especially concerning the clause "Lupicinus's brother," which is without doubt a mere gloss. And afterward he judges that those words should be expunged which are beyond doubt convicted of being alien to the hand of the blessed Bishop of Saragossa. Which other men, and they very learned, judge concerning the whole Chronicle. But Cardosus, a man otherwise careful, with some others dissenting trusting too much in this Chronicle of Maximus, brought St. Romanus from Gaul to Lusitania, with a long eulogy fashioned for him from Gregory of Tours, and would wish the ancient Martyrologies to be otherwise arranged, so that instead of these words: "In the territory of Lyon, in the places of Jura," one might read: "In the territory of Ourichio in Lusitania." Which Rodrigo Caro also notes regarding the Chronicle of Maximus.

[14] One could treat here under a particular heading of the St. Romanus whose body is said to be hidden among the Ourichians, Whether the relics belong to some Abbot and whose head is shown in the town of Panojo, as we said from Vasconcellius. For thus says Tamaius de Salazar: In Lusitania, in the territory of Ourichio, the deposition of St. Romanus the Abbot, who in his life, having performed the works of innumerable virtues, so filled the circuits of the region with marvelous signs that, upon his glorious passing, having multiplied his deeds, he demonstrated his supreme holiness: from which time his sacred relics, elevated and inscribed with a celebrated inscription, are still displayed for the veneration of the people and are preserved with due honor. In the Notes, besides the authority of the Chronicle of Maximus, already rejected, he brings forward only the words of Vasconcellius, and adds that the same is reported by Bernardo Brito, Ludovico de Angelis, and the author of the Triumphal Theater: or perhaps of a hermit who flourished in the year 714? from which nothing can be extracted about his Life. There is no mention of this Romanus in the Lusitanian Martyrology printed at Coimbra in the year 1591. Thomas de Herrera in volume 2 of the Augustinian Alphabet, page 329, wishes the Romanus thus far mentioned, whose relics are at Ourichio, to be a hermit who flourished in the year 714 under King Roderic, and for this purpose cites the author of the Triumphal Theater and Ludovico de Angelis in the Lusitanian Garden: to whom more weight should rightly be given, it seems, than to the cited Chronicle of Maximus.

[15] The already cited Tamaius de Salazar at February 28 published the Acts of St. Romanus, Abbot of Jura in Gaul, whose Relics he asserts are preserved in the monastery of Hornisga in Spain. [The monastery of Hornisga in Spain dedicated to St. Romanus: is it to the Abbot of Jura?] The Acts themselves, drawn from the Touraine author, he concludes thus: He flew to heaven on the day before the Kalends of March, in the year of our Lord 565 or thereabouts. Afterward, however, in another century, Chindaswinth, King of the Goths in Spain and Gallia Narbonensis, having built the monastery of Hornisga, where he rests buried with his wife Reciberga, caused other sacred relics of St. Romanus the Abbot and his brother St. Lupicinus to be transferred from Gaul, which together with those of other Saints are honorably venerated, enclosed in the high altar, and on account of the Abbot's translated relics he dedicated the monastery to St. Romanus around the year 648. Ambrose Morales in book 12, chapter 28 of his General Chronicle of Spain treats of the foundation of this monastery, built on the little river Hornisga, which soon flows into the Duero, between the cities of Toro (which some claim was called Sabaris by the ancients) and Tordesillas. He then asserts that in another chapel above the altar there is a square marble stone, on which this inscription is read: or rather of a monk, some of whose relics are there? Here are the Relics of a number of Saints: St. Romanus the monk, St. Martin the Bishop, St. Marina the Virgin, St. Peter the Apostle, St. John the Baptist, and of other Saints in number. Antonio Yepes in volume 11 of his Benedictine Chronicle, at the year 646, chapter 4, infers from this inscription that St. Romanus, to whom that Benedictine monastery was dedicated, was a monk of the Order of St. Benedict: but soon, with an error common to many, he brings forward the two Abbots thus far mentioned, the one of Jura, about whom we treat this day, and the founder of Fons Rogi, who had previously ministered to St. Benedict, and he thinks the relics of one or the other were placed in the altar. Morales thinks the same, citing manuscript Lessons of the same monastery, in which the relics of St. Romanus are said to have been brought from Gaul. Salazar asserts that in those Lessons some things are apocryphal and some true. Moreover, since neither Romanus lived in Gallia Narbonensis, and the inscription does not say relics of St. Romanus the Abbot, but of the monk; why should it not be believed that some Saint of this name existed among so many Benedictines illustrious for holiness of life in Spain itself, who might have been Spanish? whose relics the King could receive and place in the monastery he founded? or are there relics of St. Romanus the Martyr? Yepes adds furthermore that the writing of the inscription is difficult to read, and that there were those who in his presence murmured that one should read Romanus the Martyr, not the monk.

LIFE

by a contemporary monk of Condat, extracted from a manuscript codex of the same monastery by Pierre-Francois Chifflet, S.J.

Romanus, Abbot of Jura, at Condat in Burgundy (Saint)

BHL Number: 7309

By a contemporary author, from manuscripts.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

[1] That sacred, evangelical, and mysterious friend, while mystically teaching mortals that his compassion should not be denied, asserts that at dead of night the loaves of the Trinity will not be denied to a suppliant, if he knocks persistently. Luke 11:5 This great and secret mystery, with the bonds of obstinacy broken, suffers itself to be opened by the approach of compassion. Although this preeminently surpasses what is ineffable and divine, as we have said, in its sacrament, it nevertheless has within the dregs of recompense a gain, even when it is simply preserved in the letter. Whence you, O most pious brothers John and Armentarius, This preface for 3 Lives knocking upon a friend more vehemently with a twofold affection, if I should defer opening the gates of my mouth and heart, you pronounce me marked with the stains of obstinate avarice, written to two monks of Agaunum and that you cannot even take food with me, according to the Apostolic tradition. Therefore, breaking through the bashfulness of an unlearned heart, I shall set before you, as a threefold narrator, the Life of the three Abbots of Jura, that is, of the holy Fathers Romanus, Lupicinus, and Eugendus, in place of the aforesaid loaves. For that contemplative way of life and practice of yours, by which the former of you, following the ancient John, reclines above the urn of St. Maurice, that is, the head of the Theban Legion of Martyrs, just as that distinguished Apostle and fellow initiate reclines upon the life-giving breast of the Author; and the latter in the manner of a floating ark; while there in the monastery, content even with the enclosure of a private cell, he laughs at the storms of the world that beat upon him: yet neither of you can in any way carry this out inviolably without spiritual nourishment. Although therefore your Agaunum, in the Gallic and ancient tongue, is known to be the Rock of Peter by a truthful prefiguration, both originally by nature and now also through the Church: yet let your charity know that even among the pine and fir forests of Jura, that very thing was once found by the Psalmist in the fields of the wood with mystical signification, which is now trodden there by the holy Brothers with steadfast following, the riddle of the prefiguration having now been removed. And although the narrowness of speech may not discolor the breadth of virtues, yet I ask for the supporting votes of your charity: that, if the praise and worthy life of the venerable Abbots cannot perhaps be revealed as is fitting by an unskilled hand, since it gleams abundantly of itself, it may not be disfigured by the mouth of our garrulity. Psalm 131:6

CHAPTER I

The birth of St. Romanus, his eremitical life, the monastery of Condat founded. Other monasteries erected by disciples.

[2] Therefore I shall endeavor faithfully, in the name of Christ, to recount the deeds, life, and rule of the aforesaid venerable Fathers of Jura, as much as I have perceived there by my own observation or by the tradition of the elders. And first I shall set forth the most blessed Romanus, as truly the standard-bearer of the Lord's warfare, for your profession and the army of monks to follow with holy emulation. For this Abbot Romanus, the first of the three and first so called, is shown to have been a native of the Gaul of the Sequani, St. Romanus a native of the Sequani of a family not so small, as the lineage derived from his ancestors attests. Before him absolutely no monk within that province had pursued, under the pretext of religion, either a solitary life or one of communal observance. For though he was not indeed highly educated in letters, yet, what is more excellent, being outstanding in the gift of sincerity and the virtue of charity, piously brought up so that neither in boyhood was he bound by the frivolities of children, nor in the vigor of youth by human desires or the bond of a wife; around the thirty-fifth year of his age he was delighted by the solitudes of the wilderness. Leaving behind his mother, sister, and brother, at age 35 he began to dwell in the forest of Jura he entered the forests of Jura near his village, and going about here and there searching for places suitable and fitting for his profession, he at length found further on, among stony valleys, a spot open to cultivation: which, with the somewhat steep nature of the triple-ridged mountains on both sides receding a little, opens out into a small plain. For there, where a twofold nature runs together into one, the common people gave the place the name Condat, from the unity of the element already established. And when the new inhabitant needed a suitable dwelling, he found on the eastern side, at the foot of a rocky mountain, a very dense fir tree with branches extended in a circle, at Condat which, spreading with its broad foliage, covered its disciple just as the palm once covered Paul. Beyond the circumference of that tree, a flowing spring provided very cold waters. under a fir tree near a spring From which even today, with water channeled through hollowed logs further into the monastery, the streams are ministered to the monks as a kind of pledge of inheritance. This aforesaid tree, therefore, as we said, truly verdant with the grace of merits, from the heat of summer and the cold of rains, continually provided green shelter. and fruit-bearing trees There were moreover a few wild shrubs which provided fruits that were sour indeed to the pleasure-loving, but sweet to one at peace. The place itself, from the course of the united river, as the Saint entered it then, was separated from inhabitants by no small distances on account of the rarity of settlers: because the abundant cultivation far off in the plains had by no means allowed anyone through the succession of the forest to settle nearby. far from inhabitants Moreover, if anyone should deliberately, with rash daring, attempt to cross the trackless wilderness itself against the regions of horse-riding territory, besides the dense growth of the forest and the heaps of fallen trees, among the lofty ridges and the precipitous valleys of flat-horned deer, even a strong and unencumbered person could scarcely cross it in a long summer day. For to the right and certainly to the left, along the extent of that ridge, from the border of the Rhine or the blasts of the North Wind all the way to the furthest boundary of Mausat, absolutely no one could penetrate on account of the length and difficulty of the inaccessible terrain.

[3] Therefore, having brought seeds and a hoe, the most blessed man Romanus began there, amid frequent prayer and reading, to sustain the necessity of a meager diet he prays while also working to procure food by the monastic rule, through the labor of his hands: abundantly supplied, because he lacked nothing: dispensing enough, because he presumed to give nothing to the poor that needed dispensing, neither advancing his step further nor drawing back his foot, he prayed unceasingly as a hermit, and as a true monk labored, to be sustained by his own nourishment. For before he had taken up the profession of the religious life, he had seen a certain venerable man named Sabinus, Abbot of Interamna at Lyon, and his vigorous practices, he imitates the monks of Lyon and the life of his monks, and like a flower-gathering bee, having plucked little blossoms of perfection from each one, he had returned to his former home. From which monastery also, revealing nothing of his most holy ambition, he either elicited by supplication or obtained by purchase the book of the Lives of the holy Fathers and the excellent Institutes of the Abbots, he acquires the Lives of the Fathers and the Institutes with every elegance and effort.

[4] When therefore in the above-said place, Romanus, an imitator of the ancient Anthony, had long enjoyed an angelic life, and, apart from the heavenly gaze, enjoyed the sight of no one except beasts and rarely of hunters; his venerable brother Lupicinus, he receives companions: his brother St. Lupicinus who was afterward to be described as Abbot, being younger in the same brotherhood but not unequal afterward in holiness, admonished by night in a vision by his brother, having left for the love of Christ the sister and mother whom the most blessed Romanus had already forsaken, ardently sought his brother's hut and profession: destined without doubt, as the subsequent outcome of events proved, that in that little nest, that is, the solitude of the wilderness, like a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, they would spread their spiritual offspring, conceived by the inspiration of the divine Word, to the monasteries and churches of Christ in chaste parturition. At which time two certain young men, Clerics of the city of Lyon, having heard the fame and life of the Saints, not without danger, had not their faith been superior, came wandering uncertainly from that unbroken wilderness here and there to the abode of the holy men: and two others and the holy Abbot Romanus is said to have predicted their arrival to his brother the day before in these words: Tomorrow, he said, two young men are coming to us, drawn by the desire of imitation: of whom the elder, having lost his wife, lives in continence; the other, however, enjoys the privileges of virginity intact. And when that birthday, so to speak, of the Saints could scarcely encompass those who had increased, they build dwellings not far from that tree, on a certain gentle hillock, where now there is a place in memory of secret prayer, having carefully hewn and smoothed timbers, they both built dwellings for themselves and prepared them for those to come.

[5] Meanwhile the fame of the Saints had spread so far and wide that the fragrance of their good reputation, by detesting the horror and stench of the world, persuaded the crowds of believers to flee, [With many flocking, either to be inspired by their example or to be freed from illness] in order to preserve for the Lord the grace of renunciation and perfection. Some come to see the marvels of this way of life and to carry home the fitting gifts of example: others also bring those vexed by demons and other masks of the devil, to be cured by the prayer of the Saints combined with their own faith, both those powerless in mind and those bound in body, of whom many, having recovered their health, returned to their homes. But others, so deeply compunctioned, remained in the monastery in fasting and vigils, that by a wondrous exchange they afterward put the devil to flight, along with his satellites and ministers, from the possessed more quickly than can be said, various ones remain and seeing these things, they said: Truly this is the change of the right hand of the Most High. Psalm 76:11 When therefore the holy congregation, growing in united faith and charity with a twofold training, like a most fruitful crop destined for the Lord's granary, not yet marred by the vice of tares, had grown so much that the dwellings themselves could scarcely be seen to contain those received; from that time the venerable swarms of the Fathers began to spread out, and they erect new buildings like from a replenished beehive, with the Holy Spirit belching forth, so that not only the more secluded places of the province of the Sequani, but also many territories widely and broadly separated by tracts of land, were filled with monasteries and churches by the diffused grace of the divine offspring. Thus indeed, The purer institution remains with Saints Romanus and Lupicinus at that fountain from which the rivulets of the institutes were derived, the instruction of the masters always remained ancient yet purer and fresher. For both Fathers surpassed one another with mutual and necessary skill in ruling and governing. For as the blessed Romanus was most gentle toward all and most tranquil; so Lupicinus was stricter even toward himself in correcting and ruling the rest. Romanus, with unlooked-for forgiveness, readily pardoned those who offended: the latter, lest repeated leniency should lead to transgression, reproved most vehemently. Romanus imposed on the Brothers only as much abstinence as the will of the spirit dictated was possible: but Lupicinus, offering himself as a model in all things, did not allow anyone to reject what was possible with the help of God.

CHAPTER II

St. Romanus is consecrated Priest. The monastery of Lauconnum is erected for St. Lupicinus, and another nearby for nuns.

[6] For when the fame of those mentioned was heard, St. Hilary, Bishop of Arles, St. Romanus, summoned by St. Hilary of Arles, is ordained Priest having sent Clerics for the purpose, caused the most blessed Romanus to meet him not far from the city of Besancon, and extolling the incentive and life of the man with most worthy preaching, having conferred on him the honor of the Priesthood, permitted him to return honorably to the monastery. For the aforesaid Hilary, supported by patrician and prefectorial favor, claiming for himself an undue monarchy over the Gauls, had deposed the aforesaid Celidonius, Patriarch of the above-said metropolis, from the episcopal See without any existing reason. On account of which, having been convicted at Rome before the most blessed Pope Leo of having acted wrongly, and with Celidonius also restored to the Episcopate, he was regularly reproved by Apostolic authority for his unlawful usurpation. There exists finally from that time a regular letter of the aforesaid and venerable Pope to the Bishops of Gaul, with the examination of the proceedings inserted among the canons, in which he restored the ancient privilege of the Metropolitans throughout Gaul, having trampled upon the excess of Hilary. Therefore the most blessed Romanus, having returned to the monastery with the priesthood conferred, as we said above, mindful of his former profession, he strives for humility trampled upon the authority of the clerical office with monastic humility, so that when a solemnity arrived, he could scarcely be compelled by the Brothers to stand in the superior position for the sake of the sacrifice. On the remaining days, however, showing himself a monk to monks, he displayed nothing of sacerdotal eminence in himself. But as I recount this about the most holy man, there come before the eyes of my heart those who, established in monastic profession, when they have attained the office of the Clergy by rabid ambition, immediately puffed up with the buskin of pride, are carried above not only their contemporaries who are more worthy, but even above the old and elderly, being anointed and pampered young men, and not even imbued with the first and simplest elements, they strive to preside over seats of authority or the priesthood, who still for their pride and youthful levity need to be restrained with rods.

[7] But these matters are for another time. For us, hastening to the port of the right course, let obscene and devious speech be avoided. And since we have decided to be silent on those matters, let it now be appropriate to add this: the places near the monastery of Condat are barren how the location of the monastery of Condat, filled with a marvellously unprecedented number of monks, was providing food with difficulty not only for the arriving crowds but even for the Brothers themselves. For the cultivation of the place itself, hanging on hillsides or steep, among protruding rocks and heaps of rough ground, frequently weakened by washes, was not only small and difficult in extent, but had also become sluggish in its very crops with an uncertain yield. For just as in the harshness of winter those places are not only covered but buried in snow; so in the spring, summer, and autumn, they either burn with the alternating and neighboring heat of the rocks, or intolerable rains not only carry away in torrents the earth tilled with cultivation, but even the uncultivated and rigid ground itself, with its herbs and trees and shrubs, along with the very clod, is taken from the monks with the rocks on which it sat laid bare, and cast into the waters.

[8] The most holy Fathers, therefore, wishing to avoid this somewhat, in the neighboring forests, another monastery is built at Lauconnum on a nearby plain which did not at all disappoint in their flatness and fertility, having cut down and felled the fir trees, leveled them either with a scythe into meadows or with a plowshare into open ground, so that the places suitable for cultivation might relieve the poverty of the monks of Condat. In both monasteries, however, both Prelates were present. Father Lupicinus, however, spent more time particularly and freely at Lauconnum, for so the name of the place is said to be; so much so that after the death of the most blessed Romanus, he left there up to one hundred and fifty Brothers imbued with his own discipline.

[9] For also on account of the place itself, on a very high cliff which overhangs a natural rock, with a projecting ledge that also added very spacious caverns within, they appointed the Mother of the Virgins from their parental affection, and they report that she governed one hundred and five nuns there with the rudder of religion. a third one for nuns The place itself, just as it was cut off by an inaccessible cliff above and more extensively hollowed out by nature below the ledge, so that it offered no further exit from the ledge; so from the eastern side, with the narrow passages somewhat constricted, it opened out into a sudden exit on level and flat ground. There indeed, in the very jaws as it were, they built a basilica of the most blessed Father, which not only received the remains of the Virgins, but also merited to embrace in burial that hero of Christ, Romanus himself. For so strict a discipline was observed there in those times that whatever Virgin had entered there for the sake of renunciation, for whom there is a strict enclosure she was never seen outside thereafter, unless she was carried to the cemetery on the occasion of her final departure; and though in the nearby monastery of Lauconnum a mother might perhaps have a son, or a sister a brother, neither was known to communicate with the other either by sight or by message that they were alive in the body, so that each thought the other already buried: lest gradually the grace of natural remembrance, by a certain softness, should break the bonds of their profession. But let me now return to the most blessed Romanus and the monastery of Condat.

CHAPTER III

An old man who murmured about the multitude admitted to the monastery is corrected by St. Romanus. The flight of insolent and dissolute monks.

[10] While these things were being conducted with admirable way of life, the devil, enemy of the Christian name, indignantly bearing that the life of many was daily increasing through copious renunciation, dared to assail the most blessed Romanus under the guise of salutary counsel with the dart of ancient envy: St. Romanus is reproached by an old man through diabolic instinct and persuaded one of the elders, inflamed with the ardor of zeal, to compel him to speak thus: It has been a long time, holy Abbot, that I have been pondering suggesting certain more salutary things to your charity for your welfare and administration: and since the longed-for opportunity has brought privacy, for admitting monks without discrimination I ask that you permit me to reveal to you the wholesome words long enclosed in my mind. And when Romanus had granted him, as a senior -- not indeed in life or character, but solely in the age by which he was vainly puffed up -- license to give him counsel, he said: I grieve, my Father, that you daily delight in vain in the enormous number of converts, and that you thus indiscriminately shut up old and young, worthy and unworthy alike, in droves in the monastic profession; and do not rather carefully separate and distinguish the chosen and the proven, and for the rest, as truly degenerate and unworthy, expel and drive them from this our fold. Behold, if you should inspect with careful inquiry almost our sleeping quarters, or the wing of the oratory or guesthouse, by the indiscriminate multitude of monks, as I have suggested, there is now scarcely room left for anyone entering.

[11] Then the holy Father, prompted by Him who in the Gospels promised: "I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which your adversaries will not be able to resist," Luke 21:15 so seized the weapons of the Apostolic sword against the spirit of the ancient persecutor, as to cut off the head of the serpent-bearing enemy with the edge of the saving word by swift beheading. Tell me, said the holy Romanus, lover of our humility, to whom without doubt, if true counsel of piety is present, the salutary gift of discernment has also been committed: he refutes him because of the difficulty of discerning Can you so separate or divide all these whom you see around you in our congregation by such sequestration, that the fully proven and the lazy, those destined to perish and the perfect alike, may be individually sequestered by your examination before their end? Or, according to that judgment in which the hidden things of men, whether past or future, the Creator alone perceives, can you choose or condemn without damage and peril to your own salvation? Behold, that untiring and compassionate Majesty toward human frailty lifts absolutely no one before their end by the power of foreknowledge, saving the assumption of blessed Enoch or Elijah, to the felicity of the right hand, the end of life must be awaited or for the sake of guilt confines anyone for the present in the abyss of hell and the encircling chasm; and you, blinded by diabolical error, dare to separate or condemn those who are better -- justly without doubt by the humility of their conscience? Do you not read that Saul and Solomon were chosen by the Lord into the kingdom of the Israelite nation those who were good before may perish wickedly before they fell through their own sin, to say nothing of the rest? That Judas also and Nicolaus, elevated among others to the heights of sacred administration, perished, the one by the noose of heresy, the other by the halter of hanging? That Ananias and Sapphira, in that primitive and most pure crop of the Apostles, were punished, degenerate by the suffocation of tares, by unheard-of divine severity after the heights of election? Do you not remember and retain this? Do you not likewise marvel at, venerate, and look up to Paul, suddenly a preacher from Saul the persecutor? A disciple of Christ suddenly from Matthew the publican? A liberal son from the prodigal son? Now a son of the Patriarch from Zacchaeus the fraudulent and rich? and the wicked may be converted and saved Even the robber, hung up and condemned for his crime, suddenly enriched with the delights of paradise with the Lord? Moreover, how many, if I review them, do I find to have fallen from a height in the last moments, or some to have ascended from the lowest and meanest to the heights? How many monks, finally, do we bewail in debaucheries? And how many harlots and prostitutes do we read have leapt forth even to martyrdom by a sudden inspiration?

[12] And, to pass over the past, have you not seen some in this our monastery eagerly take up what they afterward trampled upon with slow and tepid completion? he demonstrates the same with domestic examples Or how often have some gone out from the monastery by diverse impulse? For how often have some of them returned from the world two or three times? And yet, having recovered their strength, they brought the profession they had long abandoned to the palm of victory? For some, returning blamelessly not to vices but to their former places, kept these institutions of ours with such love and zeal that through the love and affection of the faithful, they most worthily presided as Priests over monasteries and churches of Christ. And, that you may know by one more example, most familiar to you, if you do not deny it: did you not, as it were, just yesterday see in this our monastery Maxentius, who after an abstinence and nakedness unheard of in Gaul, after the continuity of vigils as well, and the unfailing urgency of reading, how, deceived by the evil of pride, he was seized by a most foul demon, and was much more insane and savage than those whom the day before, flourishing with the success of his merits, he had cured, and by those very ones whom he had formerly healed by the Lord's power, was bound with straps and cords, and was freed from the deadly spirit by the anointing of holy oil? Acknowledge therefore that you are being struck by this pride through the invisible instigation of the devil, and that you are not far from the fellowship of him whose similar envy and zeal inflames you, and whose merits you thus equal. to which the old man acquiesces When the brother had heard these things, he nearly fell down in consternation, but soon by the prayer of the blessed man he was made so much more compunctioned and reformed, having abandoned his presumption, as those who are captive in mind and possessed are accustomed to be restored purer and more cleansed through the servants of Christ by the expulsion of demons.

[13] Meanwhile, because the counsel of the ancient enemy had been enervated through the servant of Christ, the accustomed cunning turned to softer measures, and drawing adversity from prosperity, caused the Brothers to rise up not only against the rule but almost against the Father himself. from an abundance of fruits the monks become more insolent For the first occasion of this was the abundance and fertility of the crops; then the very abundance, making them stuffed, caused them to swell with daily relaxation; after this it even made them proud with a certain pretentiousness of knowledge. I shall therefore recount the matter itself, nullified with wonderful elegance by his brother Lupicinus, and with unprecedented severity. For at a certain time when an abundance of crops, as we said, had smiled upon the monastery itself beyond the usual, since it was still new in the cultivation of the land, and certain Brothers, trusting in the fertile abundance, having despised and scorned the Abbot, were eager to stuff their belly and throat more lavishly, not with what the rule or canon provided but what the abundance had furnished; and having been frequently reproved for this by the most blessed Romanus, as he was most kind, they became not only more insolent and more dissolute but even more dissolute from their excessive laxity; for the light and gentle staff necessarily called for the rod of fraternal severity. For having gone to his brother Lupicinus, he declared that those gluttons were now already rising up against his own humble person: since those given to pleasure and luxury were refusing to serve according to the rule. Abbot Lupicinus therefore commands his brother to return secretly, when St. Lupicinus arrives and announces that after about the sixth day he himself would arrive at that cell as if unexpectedly. And when the man of higher talent arrived and knew that the cause of all the insolence was swelling from the outrage of gluttony, he keeps silent for two days, until on the third day, as if overfull with disgust at the food after his more copious arrival, so that he might better receive food, he asks meanwhile for sour things to eat, and thus, with the Brothers themselves eating together, he cheerfully addresses Abbot Romanus thus: Let us live so, my lord brother, and not content with the customary porridge that you order prepared for us tomorrow for lunch only barley and unsifted porridge, and which also, because I eat this way most gladly, I beg your piety to command be served without salt or oil. And when no one dared to resist or murmur, the changed former menu is set before both the abstemious and the gluttons in common the next day. Which when Lupicinus and his brother had consumed without, as they say, a mirror for the belly, those gourmands departed entirely without supper: and Abbot Lupicinus, secretly laughing at them, said: If you grant anything to my pleasure, O most pious brother, I beg that until I return from your cell to Lauconnum, you order us to be satisfied daily with these delicacies. I confess to your charity, I am almost inclined to ask in entreaty that you go hence to Lauconnum to live, but that I should remain here forever and dine on such delicacies with the Lords our Brothers. Therefore, after the third day of testing with the little porridge, they flee by night all the windbags, along with their ringleaders, fled by the approach of night, nor did any of them remain in the monastery except those whom the gluttony of voracious eating had not corrupted. But in the morning when the most blessed Lupicinus saw that the swollen vapors had vanished from the monastery, he said: Come now, brother Romanus, the good remain and order the regular provisions, as is customary, to be restored: for people of this sort, as I see, had determined not to serve Christ the Lord, but their own belly. Therefore, with the chaff having been chased away and winnowed, now preserve the wheat, and with the jackdaws and crows having flown away, now feed in peace the most gentle doves of Christ.

CHAPTER IV

Miracles of St. Romanus. On account of the lepers healed, he is honorably received at Geneva.

[14] Concerning the wonders of signs which, fortified by divine grace, he is remembered to have performed in the expulsion of unclean spirits, I would now recount some, were it not that those things are surmised to be far more eminent which, for the sake of remaining hidden, he endeavored to perform with only the Lord as witness. St. Romanus, as in death, shines with miracles Whence, since the ever-kindled grace of merits cannot be extinguished, let the more diligent and devout reader seek these gifts of the Holy Spirit around his sepulcher: where, according to the faith or merits of those who seek them, each person sees more to believe than he perhaps reads to doubt. I remember, however, that my most blessed lord Eugendus was accustomed to relate that among those whom he had seen there in childhood being tormented in various ways but with one power of strength, he had seen a certain one of the unfortunates stretched out face down upon the urn of the blessed Romanus, as criminals and evildoers are accustomed to be beaten on the rack by sentence of Judges, and there, suspended about two cubits for almost half an hour, he was crying out and wailing, publishing the crimes and sins of the one possessing him. For so much, as we said, so also while alive did the most blessed Father strive to remain hidden in these wonders that he performed, that not even that would have come down to us without doubt, which he accomplished in the parish of Pontiana, while making a journey: that he restored a certain paralytic woman, he heals a paralytic woman numb with chronic debility, to youthful health -- had he not been unable to conceal this because the holy Brother Palladius was accompanying him.

[15] And since we have made mention of the most holy man Palladius, in whose faithful comfort the most blessed Romanus enjoyed, both in the monastery and on the road, as a companion of true charity, let me also recount this, at which the same Brother was present, and which, having been done and published to the city and peoples, could not be concealed. about to go to the Martyrs of Agaunum He determined, inflamed with the ardor of faith, to seek the basilica of the Saints, or rather, as I might say, the camp of the Martyrs in the place of Agaunum, as the narrative of their passion, set forth in order, testifies, which could not encompass six thousand six hundred men, I will not say with buildings, but not even (as I think) with the field there itself. And when, having departed toward Geneva, near Geneva his poor gait was entirely unknown to all, and certainly not wishing to be recognized or noticed in public, it happened that as evening approached he entered a cave where two lepers, a father with his son, were dwelling near an embankment. Therefore when these unfortunates, now happy with the entrance of mercy, had gone some distance away to collect firewood for their use, the most blessed Romanus, having knocked and opened the little lock, entered the cave: he turns aside to the dwelling of 2 lepers and when he had completed his prayer with devout observance, behold those laborers arrive carrying wood: and having thrown down the bundles of sticks in the vestibule, they regard the new and unexpected guests not without hesitation. But the holy Romanus, as he was conspicuous for his singular kindness, having most tenderly greeted and embraced them, kissed each one in the manner of Martin, he heals by a kiss with most holy faith and charity: and having received prayer with the rest of the ceremony, they eat together, remain together, and rise together, and as the twilight was dawning, giving thanks to God and to his hosts, he undertook his intended journey. Behold, O wondrous faith, as soon as he had departed, there appeared in the work a likeness, whose constancy had already preceded in the imitation.

[16] For those lepers, looking at one another with mutual regard through their conversation and recollection of their great guests, the people of Geneva, learning of it, seek him out with voices raised in joy, gloried to one another in their common health, and running eagerly to the city, because on account of their begging they were not unknown to many, they declared with open and personal testimony to the Bishop, the Clergy, the common people, and the greatest citizens, the proclamations of their health and the joys of this miracle. Then indeed, rushing in crowds in a wonderful manner to each one, they diligently inquire with searching eyes whether the author of the deed might be present somewhere. And when it was learned that, while the light was still uncertain, he had hastened away in speed, the Bishop orders chosen men from the Church, accomplished in holy investigation, to run out and guard the rocky narrows of the mountain of Brest, they watch for his return lest perhaps, on his return, shut out by the narrow and confined embankment, this invader of the heavenly kingdom could not be caught by the people of Geneva. Therefore when, having found him, they had bound him with the bonds of charity by a most cautious inquiry, as if to accompany him by a convenient occasion, one runs ahead and suddenly announces it to the city: the Bishop, Clergy, and people meet and lead him into the city and the rest so bind him with holy conversation that he had no suspicion, until, with the Bishop coming to meet him and the people beyond the walls, he found himself in their hands. Those indeed who had been, as we said, cleansed from leprosy, frequently approaching with tears, prostrated themselves and rolled at his feet. In whose joys also the entire city, weeping together, wiped away without doubt its own sins through faith, crusted over by the contagion of disease, just as those too had driven off the remnants of that dire calamity. The servant of Christ was therefore led, or rather seized, first by the holy Bishop, then by all the Clergy and citizens, and also constrained by the common people of both sexes, mixed in an enormous throng, with great earnestness for the remedies of salvation. All, however, to whom he does good he most fittingly blessed, truly as a servant of Christ, first exhorting those who were walking in religious life, admonishing the tardy on account of the uncertainty of life lest they should wish too late to change their course for the better: those in mourning he consoled with fatherly kindness: and returns the sick he restored to their former health according to their faith; and he returned himself to the monastery with all speed according to custom, lest, softened by the enticements of the world that flatters evilly, and by human conversation, he might perhaps be polluted by what he heard or saw.

CHAPTER V

The singular chastity of the Deacon Sabinianus, and his power against demons. The death and burial of St. Romanus.

[17] For the most blessed Romanus did not shine alone in these virtues in the monastery, for being a model of perfection and charity: all were such in their wonders The monks prevail against the devil as the example he displayed to all. For there frequently the poisons of serpents were driven out by many and the hordes of demons were expelled. On account of which also the ancient enemy so lay in wait for the Lord's flock there, and so raged unbridled around the folds of the Lord's flock, goaded by the sting of envy, that even abandoning the series of temptation, he strove to put the monks to flight with the monstrous and hostile physical assault of phantasms. I shall therefore recount how the enemy engaged with one of the Brothers there, so that the constancy of the rest in those times may be more easily made known to those wishing to learn.

There was among the rest of those men of virtues (as we said) a certain Deacon named Sabinianus, the Deacon Sabinianus is dreadfully harassed who in holiness of mind and body pursued Stephen, the Prince of this ministry, in purity, and as his fellow minister, and proved himself his disciple in virtue. For this man, for the sake of usefulness, diligently managed mills and fishponds in the nearby river below the very monastery of Condat for the brothers' use: and from that valley, not only at daytime but also at nighttime assemblies, he preceded all to the synaxis with rapid crawling. the roof of his hut thrown down The devil harassed this man with such raging on every single night and moment that he would not grant him even a brief period for rest. For besides the frequent striking of the walls, he so pierced through his little roof with the crashing of stones that the Brother could scarcely repair the nightly damages on the individual days. But when the most wicked one perceived that his external wickedness was being frustrated, one night, entering the little hut in the Deacon's presence, having drawn a brand from the fire and running here and there with hasty eagerness, he prevents a fire he strove to set the cell ablaze; which he would without doubt have accomplished had not the holy Deacon, being watchful, been on guard by the prompting of Divine compassion. And when he had driven him away by the invocation of the name of Christ, the following night the devil, having changed from a male appearance, a vision of young women presented came to lie in wait for the most chaste servant of God in the form of two young women, and, having broken open the doors, with the softest address the harsh tempter entered upon the one keeping vigil by the fire. But when, provoked in many ways by cackling on all sides, he disdained to look at the monstrous signs, the most wicked enemy devised, or rather added, things more detestable than what he had done. For pulling back the garments of the cloudy covering, he thrust female private parts in the face of Christ's servant, wherever the chaste gaze turned: he remains unmoved so that, insofar as he could not enervate the man's spirit, the cunning one might at least pollute his most chaste sight and gaze with such disgrace. armed with the Passion of Christ And when he knew it to be one monster under a twofold appearance, he said: Whatever you please to do, enemy, you will not be able to drive me from this place in the name of Christ: because my heart, armed with the standard of the Lord's Passion, you will be able neither to corrupt with pleasure nor to enervate with terror. Why do you so often thrust yourself upon me in various forms? Surely, most foolish one, you are ashamed, since you never see me, aided by God, alone and single, to be other than you have seen me.

[18] Then the devil, inflamed with fury, having withdrawn the phantasm of girlish wickedness, struck him with a very heavy slap with outstretched arm, he receives a slap from the devil so that he rendered his jaw not only swollen from the blow, but also foul, lacerated, and distorted: and in his usual way, shattered, he betook himself to the breezes of the air. But in the morning, when the brotherhood, astonished, inquired about the causes of the bruise and the sore, and he had explained the devices of the persistent ambusher, immediately anointing the jaw with the liquid of holy oil, he returned to his cell, and from that time the defeated tempter did not try in vain to cast him down. From this time forward, holy Sabinianus, when one day with the assistance of a brother, he wished to raise higher the channel of that torrent, by which the mill water was conveyed, having fixed stakes in a double row and interwoven them with wattles as is customary, and adding a mixture of straw and stones, for the course of the wheel machine, and while they were pressing the straw more densely within the fences, suddenly a huge serpent was blown out of the straw, a lurking snake and as soon as it showed itself, it hid. Meanwhile those Brothers, fearing the viper's poison, while they searched in vain for the lurker in the icy waters, consumed the hours of the day without any result of work. Then the holy Deacon said to the Brothers: Why are we so long suspended and suspicious, fearing the windbag of the ancient ambusher? Come, he said to one of the Brothers, and arm my hands and feet with the sign of the Lord's Cross. armed with the sign of the Cross And when the companion had completed this with a preceding prayer, the Levite, entering within the fences of that channel, said: Come now, our ambusher, he boldly tries to tread on it harm now and strike, if you can, the one treading upon you. Then the Brothers standing by said to one another: Truly our Levite is one of those to whom the Savior promised in the Gospel, saying: Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and above all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall harm you. Luke 10:19

[19] Therefore, although we have said very little about such great and important matters, our discourse now tends toward the end of the booklet, so that the reader's diligence may be concluded under the accent of desire rather than under the torpor of prolixity. I therefore admonish and beg, O rewarded Brothers, that weighing faith rather than words, let our garrulity not offend you, just as the rusticity of the holy Fathers was not disdained by the Lord. I warn you of this, however, that since I have likewise promised to compile their rule, you should know that I have reserved this for a third booklet, because this is more properly disclosed in the Life of the most blessed Eugendus, by whom those constitutions themselves, by the Lord's inspiration, were more elegantly embellished. Now, with this first little work completed, our discourse turns to the holy Father Lupicinus in the second little work.

When therefore bodily infirmity pressed upon this hero of Christ, as his passage drew near, with advanced old age granted; St. Romanus he also summoned his own sister, whom he had placed in charge of the convent of young women at that ledge or Balma, on his deathbed he summons his sister from the monastery, then his subject monks so called, I think, in the Gallic tongue, and being now secure about his passage by the Lord's revelation, he asked to bid farewell. There too, struck by severe illness, having summoned the Brothers to him, the peace of Christ, which he had always preserved with a pure and gentle spirit, whom he commends to St. Lupicinus he distributed to all, having imparted a kiss, as a great inheritance. Finally, kissing also his brother Lupicinus with a given prayer, he more attentively commended the entire brotherhood to be governed with pastoral love. And pure from fault, as free from crime, he dies looking upon death with joy, he breathed his last. When his little body had been taken away, he is buried; he becomes famous for miracles there in the basilica on the hilltop, as we set forth in our preceding narrative, the dear children from both monasteries laid him to rest. And that venerable place, by the testimony of his merits, and with signs and powers flourishing in successful succession, is more elegantly adorned day by day and moment by moment for the glory of his children. Amen.

ANOTHER LIFE

by St. Gregory of Tours, Book of the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 1.

Romanus, Abbot of Jura, at Condat in Burgundy (Saint)

BHL Number: 5074

By Gregory of Tours.

[1] The series of Evangelical discipline admonishes us that the money of domestic generosity, lent to the bankers at interest, should be restored, with the Lord dispensing, with the worthy fruit of multiplication: and should not be hidden, buried in deep pits, to our detriment; but, extended with reasonable dispensation, should grow to the profit of eternal life: so that the Lord, beginning to seek what He had lent, having received it back with interest, with the double satisfaction of his loan in talents, may say: Well done, good servant, because you have been faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things: enter into the joy of your Lord. Matthew 25:21 For it belongs to the predestined to accomplish these things with the help of God, who from the very wailings of their cradle, as is often read of many, merited to know the Lord, One must cooperate with the grace received from God and having known Him, never departed from His precepts, nor after the sacrament of baptism polluted that white and excellent robe of regeneration with impure deeds: who deservedly follow the Lamb wherever he goes: and whom the excellent brightness of that same Lamb has crowned with lilies of beauty, fading in no heat of temptation. Apocalypse 14:4 With these garlands finally the right hand of illustrious dominion, extended, provokes those beginning, helps those conquering, and adorns the victors: whom, marked with the title of His name, raising from earthly groans, He carries up glorious into the joys of heaven. From whose white number of the elect I do not doubt that those also belong who, traversing the shaded places of the wilderness of Jura, not only merited to become a temple of God, but also prepared tabernacles of the grace of the Holy Spirit in many minds, that is, Lupicinus and Romanus his brother.

[2] Therefore Lupicinus, seeking God with all his heart from the beginning of his age, and instructed in letters, when he had passed to the lawful age, at his father's compulsion, though he gave not the consent of his mind, was bound by the bond of marriage. But Romanus, still younger, he too wishing to extend his mind to the work of God, refused marriage. When their parents had left the world, Romanus and Lupicinus refuse marriage by common consent they sought the wilderness: and approaching together to be carried into those solitudes of Jura, which, situated between Burgundy and Alemannia, lie adjacent to the city of Aventicum, they pitch their tents: and prostrate on the ground, they pray to the Lord daily with the chanting of the psalter, they seek the wilderness seeking their sustenance from the roots of herbs.

[3] But since the envy of him who fell from heaven has always been accustomed to lay snares for the human race, he arms himself against these servants of God and strives through his ministers to call them back from the journey they had begun. For the demons did not cease pressing them with stones every single day: and whenever they had bent their knees to pray to the Lord, immediately a shower of stones, hurled by demons, fell upon them: they are assailed by a shower of stones from demons so that often wounded, they were tormented with immense agonies of pain. Meanwhile the still immature age began to fear the injuries of the daily enemy, and not enduring to suffer the pains any longer, leaving the wilderness, he resolved to go home. But what does the envy of the enemy not compel? But when, leaving the dwelling they had sought, having left the wilderness, they are admonished by a woman they had returned to the nearest villages, they entered the house of a certain poor woman. The woman inquired from what journey these soldiers of Christ had come. They replied, not without confusion, that they had left the wilderness, and they set forth in order the reason that had diverted them from the work they had begun. And she said: It would have been fitting for you, O men of God, to fight manfully against the snares of the devil, and not to fear the enmities of him who, often overcome by the friends of God, has fallen. For he is envious of holiness, since he fears lest from that whence he fell, worthless in treachery, the human race, ennobled by faith, should ascend. And they, compunctioned in heart and withdrawn apart from the woman, said: Woe to us, for we have sinned against God by abandoning our purpose. Behold, now we are reproached by a woman for our cowardice. And what kind of life shall we have hereafter, if we do not return to the place from which we were expelled by the heat of the enemy? Then, armed with the standard of the Cross, taking staffs in hand, they return to it; they conquer the demons they returned to the wilderness. When they arrived, again the snares of the demon began to press them with stones: but persisting in prayer, they obtained from the Lord's mercy that, with the temptation removed, they should persevere free and unencumbered in that service of divine worship.

[4] When these therefore persisted in prayer, crowds of Brothers began to flock to them from here and there, and to hear the word of preaching from them. And when the blessed hermits had, as we said, become known to the people, they built for themselves a monastery which they wished to be called Condat: they build three monasteries in which, having felled the forests and reduced them to level ground, they sought their sustenance from the labors of their own hands. And so great a fervor of the love of God had inflamed the neighboring people, that the multitude gathered for the service of God could not dwell together: and so they made another monastery, in which they established a swarm from a fruitful beehive. But when this too was afterward enlarged with the help of God, they placed a third monastery within the border of Alemannia. they train monks And these two Fathers went in turn visiting the children whom they had imbued with divine disciplines, preaching in each monastery those things which pertained to the training of the soul.

[5] Lupicinus, however, obtained the monarchy of the Abbacy over them. He was very sober, and abstinent in food and drink, so that he was usually refreshed only on the third day. When, however, St. Lupicinus, abstinent and severe as the necessity of the human body demands, thirst seized him, he had a vessel with water brought, in which he held his immersed hands for a long time. Wonderful to relate: his flesh so absorbed the water placed before it, that you would have thought it was being taken in through his mouth: and thus the heat of thirst was extinguished. He was moreover very severe in the discipline of the Brothers, and did not allow anyone not only to act but even to speak perversely. Romanus, courteous and benevolent He also greatly avoided conversations with or encounters with women. Romanus was so simple that he gave no thought at all to such things in his mind: but to all alike, both men and women, he bestowed the blessing requested, invoking the name of the Divinity.

[6] Abbot Lupicinus therefore, when he had insufficient means to sustain so great a congregation, God revealed to him a place in the wilderness where treasures had been hidden in ancient times. Lupicinus obtains hidden treasures Going to that place alone, he brought gold and silver, as much as he could carry, to the monastery: and from that, having purchased food, he refreshed the multitudes of Brothers whom he had gathered for the service of God: and thus he did every year. He did not, however, reveal the place to any of the Brothers, which the Lord had deigned to reveal to him.

[7] It happened, moreover, that at a certain time he visited the Brothers whom we said had been gathered in those regions of Alemannia: he throws various dishes into the same pot and arriving at midday, while the Brothers were still in the field, he entered the house in which food was being cooked for refreshment: and he saw a great array of various dishes, and a multitude of fish gathered together, and said in his heart: It is not fitting that monks, whose life is solitary, should use such extravagant provisions. And immediately he ordered a large cauldron to be prepared: and when it had been placed over the fire and began to boil, he put into it all the foods at once which they had prepared, both fish and vegetables and legumes, and whatever had been destined for eating, and said: From these many things let the Brothers now be refreshed: let them not devote themselves to delicacies which would impede them from the divine work. When they learned of this, they bore it very ill.

[8] Then twelve men, having taken counsel, inflamed with anger, left the place, twelve monks, offended, desert the monastery and went wandering through the wilderness, seeking the things that were delightful of the world. And it was immediately revealed to Romanus in a vision, and the Divine mercy did not wish to conceal from him what had been done. When the Abbot returned to the monastery, he said to him: If it was going to happen that you would go to the dispersion of the Brothers, would that you had never gone to them. Romanus reproves the severity of Lupicinus To whom the other said: Do not take it badly, most beloved brother, that these things were done. For know that the Lord's threshing floor has been cleansed, and only the wheat has been placed in the granary, while the chaff has been thrown outside. And he said: Would that none of them had departed: but now tell me, I beg, how many went away from there. He answered: Twelve men, proud and puffed up, in whom God does not dwell. by prayers he brings back the deserters Then Romanus said with tears: I believe in that regard of the Divine mercy, that it will not separate even them from its treasure, but will gather them and make them its profit, for whom it deigned to suffer. And having made prayer for them, he obtained that they should return to the grace of almighty God. each one builds a monastery For the Lord caused their hearts to be compunctioned, and doing penance for their transgression, they each gathered their own congregations and made monasteries for themselves, which persevere to this day in the praises of God.

[9] Romanus, moreover, persisted in simplicity and good works, visiting the sick and saving them by his prayer. It happened, moreover, at a certain time, while he was on a journey to visit the Brothers, that as the twilight of night was falling, Romanus washes the feet of lepers and heals them by his touch he turned aside to a little hostel of lepers. There were nine men. Having been received by them, immediately full of the charity of God, he ordered hot water to be prepared, and washed the feet of all with his own hand, and ordered a spacious bed to be made so that all might rest on one mattress, not shrinking from the stain of livid leprosy. When this had been done, with the lepers sleeping, he, keeping vigil amid the chanting of psalms, extended his hand and touched the side of one of the sick men, who was immediately cleansed. And with a healing touch he again touched another, and he too was immediately cleansed. And when they had sensed themselves restored to health, each one touched his neighbor, so that, awakened, they might ask the Saint for their cleansing. But when they had been touched in turn, they too were cleansed. When morning came, seeing them all shining with gleaming skin, giving thanks to God, bidding farewell, and drinking the kisses of each one, he departed, charging them that they should always both retain in their hearts and exercise in their works the things that were of God.

[10] Lupicinus, now grown old, went to King Chilperic, who then ruled over Burgundy: when Lupicinus enters the court, the King's chair trembles for he had heard that he dwelt near the city of Januba. When he entered its gate, the chair of the King trembled, who at that hour was seated at a banquet, and terrified he said to his attendants: An earthquake has occurred. Those present replied that they had felt no commotion. And he said: Run as quickly as possible to the gate, lest perhaps someone wishing to oppose our kingdom is present as if to harm us. For this chair did not tremble without a cause. And they, running promptly, found an old man in a garment of skins, and told the King about him. Who said: Go, bring him into my sight, that I may understand what kind of man he is. And immediately brought in, he stood before the King, just as Jacob once stood before Pharaoh. The King said to him: Who are you, where have you come from, what is your work, and what necessity do you have to come to us? To whom he replied: I am the father of the Lord's sheep, [the King commands that the requested provisions be generously supplied from the treasury] whom, while the Lord refreshes them with spiritual food in continuous administration, corporeal nourishment sometimes fails. Therefore we ask your power to grant something for the necessities of food and clothing. The King, hearing these things, said: Take fields and vineyards, from which you can live and supply your needs. He answered: We will not accept fields and vineyards, but may it please your power to assign something from the produce, because it is not fitting for monks to be puffed up with worldly possessions, but to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness in humility of heart. And the King, when he had heard these words, gave them a decree that they should receive annually three hundred measures of wheat, and the same number of measures of wine, and a hundred gold pieces for purchasing the Brothers' clothing. Which they are reported to receive from the treasury's revenues to this day.

[11] After this, however, when they were now old and of advanced age, Lupicinus the Abbot and Romanus his brother, Lupicinus said to his brother: Tell me, brother, in which monastery do you wish your tomb to be prepared, that we may rest together? Who said: It cannot be that I should have a tomb in a monastery from which women's access is barred. For you know that the Lord my God has granted to me, unworthy and undeserving, the grace of healings, and many through the laying on of my hand and the power of the Lord's Cross have been rescued from various ailments. Romanus is buried outside the monastery on account of miracles There will therefore be a concourse to my tomb, if I depart from this light. Therefore he was buried some distance from the monastery on a small hill: over whose tomb afterward a great church was built, to which an enormous throng of people hastens every day. For many miracles are now displayed there in the name of God. For the blind there receive light, and the deaf hearing, and the paralyzed the use of their limbs very often. Lupicinus the Abbot, however, upon his death, was buried within the basilica of the monastery, and left to the Lord the multiplied talents of the money entrusted to him, that is, blessed congregations, devoted in His praise.

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.