ON B. MACCALINUS, ABBOT IN BELGIUM.
Year 978.
CommentaryMaccallinus, Abbot in Belgium (B.)
From various sources.
[1] The Monastery of S. Michael is in the Thierache, or, as it is called in the life of S. Ursmar, Theoracia, a province of Belgian Gaul, on the river Aisne, above the celebrated village of Hirson, under the rule of the King of the Franks, situated at the farthest borders of Hainaut: over which B. Maccallinus presided in the tenth Christian century. It was founded by Eilbert, a most noble Count, the elder brother of Count Gerard of Aalst and of Count Heribert of Saint-Quentin, by whom Charles the Simple, King of Gaul, is recorded to have been held captive at Peronne about the year 927. The history of the foundation of Waulsort, written in the year of Christ 1249, which we shall give on 30 April with the Life of S. Forannan, reports the following about this: Struck therefore by such and so great events, The Monastery of S. Michael in Thierache, the venerable Count began to fear the misfortune of various accidents of body and soul, and remembering the enormity of his former conduct and the past actions of ancient defilements, he began by long meditation to meditate what he had done, and to confess himself guilty with a tearful voice and on account of past crimes. And while he mourned the loss of his son with the constant anxiety of grief, he supplicated turned the action of his intention to the Lord, and in the pursuit of this good will, from his own proprietary right, together with his most distinguished wife Herinsinde, Built by Count Eilbert, he founded a basilica in Thierache in honor of the Archangel Michael: and having gathered brothers at that place fighting for God under the rule of B. Benedict, setting an Abbot over them, he established no small provision for the daily necessities of food, and placed that site under the authority and governance of the Bishop of Laon. His venerable wife Herinsinde, subjecting herself to those serving Christ there, began by the grace of piety to frequent it, and diligently endeavored to provide the necessary things according to the sublimity of her probity. And because she desired a small dwelling for her own body to be made for her there, she implored the aforesaid Count by long and frequent entreaty to have a monastery of religious women built not far from the same place; And another of nuns: so that he who had raised the summit of a sacred building for the chief Provost of Heaven and leader of souls, namely S. Michael, should by his own effort and labor compose a venerable temple for B. Peter, the bearer of the keys of Paradise, where the handmaids of Christ by the frequency of their prayers might expiate the offenses of their past crimes. Compelled therefore by her entreaty and by the veneration of B. Peter, he laid foundations at a distance of two miles from the monastery recently built by him, at a place called Bocileis, and raising the structure, he completed the temple; in which a congregation of religious women was established by him, and everything that the rule of such orders requires. When many buildings had been constructed in order, he appointed an Abbess with the pastoral staff; and placed that site, like the former, under the governance of the Church of Laon.
[2] And below: At that time Countess Herinsinde, persisting in pious works His wife was buried there: and advancing daily in holy conduct, assiduously adhered to frequenting the said basilica of B. Michael the Archangel: in which not long after, having laid aside the flesh, she received her burial chamber. Before her death, however, Count Eilbert, as is narrated there, by his own effort had shortly before acquired for the basilica of S. Michael the Archangel the memorable body of B. Adalgisus the Confessor, The bodies of S. Adalgisus deposited there, and had placed it in it with immense devotion and magnificent honor. We shall give the life of S. Adalgisus on 2 June. The body also of S. Eloquius, which was granted to the Count by the venerable Rodoard, Bishop of Laon, was translated from that place with honorable worship and no mediocre devotion by the clergy from the episcopate together with the Bishop, the Count, the most distinguished Countess, and the people of the land; and they carried it, not without the assistance of great miracles, all the way to the basilica of B. Michael: And of S. Eloquius. in which it rested until the anniversary day of its deposition, which is celebrated on the 3rd before the Nones of December. But these things more fully in the life of S. Forannan, and of S. Eloquius on 3 December.
[3] Whether Maccallinus was then in charge of the monastery of S. Michael is not easy to determine; since it is not sufficiently established when S. Forannan first came from Ireland. There and at Waulsort, B. Maccallinus was Abbot, In the government of the monastery of Waulsort, B. Kadroe succeeded S. Forannan, of whom we shall treat on 6 March: after him came B. Maccallinus, or Maccalinus, as others write, Makalinus, Malcallinus, Malcallanus, Malacanus; which is an Irish, or Scottish, word, and seems to mean the son of Kilian, or Kalan, or Kalin. The same history of the Origins of Waulsort: There then arose from the same company of noble Counts (namely of S. Forannan) a man of praiseworthy life, named Malacanus, who by the assent of all, with the approval of the Bishop of Metz, was constituted Abbot in the Church of Waulsort, and there having been regularly enthroned, was blessed by the Bishop of Liege. And because by the testimony of his life he merited this, he also obtained the government of souls in the basilica of B. Michael at the same time, and the care of all things pertaining thereto, having obtained the name of Abbot with worthy veneration.
[4] He himself also, living in the conduct of good action, and watching eagerly over his charge, with an upright and sovereign spirit manfully governed the rule of justice: and lest the cunning enemy should cause loss to him from the sheep committed to him, A holy man: he commended the conduct of himself and of his subjects to the Lord. Exercising himself with such zeal, that divine fire was vehemently kindled in him by his meditation, of which the supreme Wisdom says: I came to cast fire upon the earth, and what do I wish but that it burn? Luke 12:49. Seized therefore in this ardor of faith, the course of his last declining day was closed; and in the year of the Lord's Incarnation nine hundred and ninety he passed from this world in the basilica of B. Michael, and was buried in the same by the brothers of that place, with a burial chamber honorably constructed, and with the utmost care.
[5] The Appendix to the Chronicle of Flodoard, published by Andre du Chesne in volume 2 of the Frankish writers, disagrees, and reports he died twelve years earlier: His death, In the year nine hundred and seventy-eight, it says, the man of the Lord Malcallanus, Irish by nation, on the vigil of S. Vincent the Levite and Martyr, left the transitory life that he held in abhorrence, and began to live happily with the living God, whom he ceaselessly served while he lived. The aforesaid Abbot, buried in body, rests in the church of B. Michael the Archangel, whose abbey, while he lived corporally in this world, he governed with pious moderation.
[6] In the Pithou edition he is called Malcallinus; and for vir Domini man of the Lord, forte Virduni perhaps at Verdun had been written in the margin, which many recklessly followed. The English Martyrology: At Verdun in France, the deposition of S. Malcallinus, Abbot and Confessor; who, Irish by nation, born of noble family, crossed to France, and there embracing the monastic life, being then made Abbot of S. Michael at Verdun, he shone by the sanctity of his life and by every kind of virtue, especially the observance of religious discipline, His memory in Martyrologies. and in a good old age about the year of Christ 978 yielded up his spirit to God. His body was deposited in the same monastery, where it is preserved with great veneration. Philip Ferrarius in his new catalogue of Saints: At Verdun, S. Malcallinus, Abbot. And with some things interposed: In Lorraine, S. Michael's. There, S. Makalinus, Abbot. He cites the English Martyrology and Flodoard for Malcalinus; for the other, the Calendar of the Church of Verdun, Flodoard, Wion. We have not found the name Makalinus in Wion, nor in the Breviary or Missal of Verdun, which however we believe are also cited by Camerarius when he writes thus on 4 October: S. Malcallinus. On him, the tables of Verdun. Which tables? Why is he inscribed in their calendar on that day, when it is established he died on 21 January? He continues, with the same reliability, as we suppose: He had governed, before leaving Scotland, the monastery of Rathmelfigi. Arnold Raissius in his Supplement to the Natales of Molanus on 30 April, on which day we have said S. Forannan is also venerated: In Thierache, in the monastery of S. Michael, the feast of S. Macalinus, the third Abbot of Waulsort on the Meuse, etc.
[7] Better, Benedict Dorganius on 21 January: S. Malcallinus, Abbot. And Hugo Menardus: In the monastery of S. Michael, the feast of S. Malcallinus, Abbot, illustrious for his sanctity. The same, in book 1 of the Observations, advises that some place him incorrectly at Verdun, since there is no monastery of S. Michael in that city, of which Malcalinus himself is said to have been Abbot. Unless we wish, he says, Another monastery of S. Michael in Lorraine, to understand the monastery of S. Michael that Wilfrad, the Mayor of the Palace of Hilderic, built in the parish of Verdun on the Meuse, according to Sigebert at the year 667. Which is situated in the town that the people of Lorraine call Saint Mihiel, that is, S. Michael, in the diocese of Verdun. But this conjecture sufficiently collapses from what has been said before.
[8] The Mayor of the Palace of Hilderic (son of Clovis II and S. Bathilde, who was killed in the year 667) was Wulfoad, says Sigebert at the same year. He founded a monastery of S. Michael the Archangel in the parish of Verdun on the Meuse. Richard Wassebourg, Archdeacon of Verdun, himself a native of the town of Saint-Mihiel, in book 2 of the Antiquities of Belgian Gaul, accurately describes the origins of that monastery, and recites a part of the testament of Wulfoad, whom he calls Wolfandus, in which he confesses that for the salvation of souls and with an eye to God, Built by Wulfoad, with God's help, he built a monastery and a congregation of servants of God, with a most devout spirit, from a new foundation, from his own proprietary right, in the district of Verdun, at the place called Castellio, at the border of the village of Windimiacum, where at the very foot of the mountain rises a little stream called Marsupia, in honor of S. Michael the Archangel, and of S. Mary, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, of S. Martin, and of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and also of the holy Martyrs, Confessors, and all other Saints. This donation was made in the monastery itself, in the presence of many good men, in the fifteenth year of the reign of our Lord King Childebert: this was the year of Christ 708 or 709. Wulfoad had withdrawn to Austrasia after the murder of Hilderic, where he was pursuing these and other holy counsels.
[9] Smaragdus, the fourth Abbot of that place (who lived in the time of Louis the Pious and wrote the Diadem of Monks), with the approval of the Roman Pontiff, demolished the monastery situated on a steep height, Renewed by Abbot Smaragdus. which suffered from a shortage both of water and of other supplies unless they were conveyed from elsewhere with great labor and expense; and founded a new one at the very mouth of the stream Marsupia where it flows into the Meuse, a league and a half from the former. Wassebourg recites the epitaph of Smaragdus, which still survives:
When the pious Louis held the reins of empire, Smaragdus flourished as Abbot of this place. Since this site was less suited to human needs, He transferred his seat from here to there afar. Yet when he merited to be called to the heavenly kingdom, He restored his limbs to the ancient place for cherishing. Scorpio was already pressing Phoebus in its twelfth division, When the stars lay open to the man of God.
[10] Who were Abbots there in the time of B. Maccallinus. Under Abbot Stephen (whom Wassebourg considers to be the same person who was made Bishop of Liege in the year 903 and held the see until 920), the building of a town near the monastery was begun. Stephen was succeeded by Halewin, Odo I, Sarouard, Odo II, Albert, and Nantherus, who lived in the times of the holy Emperors Henry and Conrad, and brought the relics of S. Callistus, Pope and Martyr, to his monastery.
[11] And from this you may refute what Ferrarius writes, that on this day the feast of S. Michael in Lorraine is observed, Ferrarius and Saussaius corrected. from whom a not inconsiderable town of S. Michael in the diocese of Verdun takes its name, and that S. Makalinus was Abbot there. But more disgraceful is the error of Saussaius, a Frenchman, otherwise learned and diligent, who in the Supplement of the Gallican Martyrology writes thus: In Lorraine, S. Michael the Confessor, whose name, long since given to a monastery and a not ignoble town of this region, perpetuates among the inhabitants a renowned memory of his merits and inspires a special veneration for his patronage. On the same day, S. Malcalinus, Abbot and Confessor, who, placed over the aforementioned monastery of S. Michael in the diocese of Verdun on account of the renowned lights of his sanctity, instructed the souls committed to him with divine conduct; and having fulfilled a most useful governance, he departed to the reward prepared for him by the Lord, whom he served with sincere affection. That monastery in the diocese of Verdun in Lorraine received its name from S. Michael the Archangel, not from a Michael the Confessor known to none of the ancients. Nor does B. Maccallinus the Abbot pertain to it, but to the monastery in Thierache in the diocese of Laon, named after the same most holy Archangel.
[12] For the rest, the monks of Waulsort in the province of Namur, who report that Maccallinus was their Abbot, do not honor him with any ecclesiastical office or indeed with any public veneration; except that in the catalogue of Abbots, the first two, Forannan and Kadroe, are called Saints; Maccallinus, Blessed; the rest, Lords. Arnold Raissius proclaims Count Eilbert himself as Blessed in his Supplement to the Natales of Molanus on 28 March. A certain other Maccallinus, or Maculinus, an Irish Bishop, is mentioned, whose life we have read in manuscript, but filled with wondrous and plainly incredible prodigies: and we have found his feast day expressed nowhere.
ON S. SYNALDUS, AT TRIER IN BELGIAN GAUL.
CommentarySynaldus, at Trier (S.)
[1] Johannes Scheckmann in his Epitome of the Deeds of Trier, booklet 3, title 10, enumerating the relics found on 13 April 1513 in the altar of S. Nicholas of the principal church, has among other things the following: Likewise an arm of S. Synaldus, Relics of S. Synaldus. whose feast is celebrated on the twenty-first day of January. We have found nothing else about him anywhere.