Poppo the Abbot

ON ST. POPPO THE ABBOT, AND BLESSED ADELWIVA HIS MOTHER, IN BELGIAN GAUL.

Year of Christ 1048.

Poppo, Abbot of Stavelot in Belgium (St.) Adelwiva his mother (Bl.)

From various sources.

[1] Stavelot, which they now commonly call Stabuletum, is a most ancient monastery in the Ardennes, built by St. Remaclus, Bishop of Maastricht, under the auspices of St. Sigebert, King of Austrasia; concerning its site, more may be found in the Life of the same St. Remaclus on September 3. The monastery of Stavelot: Here, among other monks illustrious for their holiness, St. Poppo the Abbot, nearly four hundred years after Remaclus, brought extraordinary splendor to that place. His name is inscribed in the Martyrologies on this day. For the Carthusians of Cologne, in their Additions to Usuard, some 120 years ago: "of Poppo the Abbot." Molanus in his Additions to Usuard: "At Stavelot died the Lord Poppo the Abbot." The modern Roman Martyrology, revised and augmented by Baronius: "At Arras in Gaul, St. Poppo the Abbot, renowned for miracles." The name of St. Poppo in the sacred Calendars: Menard says the same. He was indeed a monk and Abbot at Arras for some time, but he resided longest at Stavelot, and now rests there. Better is Wion: "At the monastery of Stavelot, of St. Poppo the Abbot, a man of admirable holiness." Benedict Dorganius: "of St. Poppo the Abbot, of marvelous holiness." The Gallo-Belgian Martyrology printed at Liege: "In the monastery of Stavelot in the diocese of Liege, St. Poppo the Abbot died, renowned for many miracles." Constantius Felicius: "Poppo, born of noble lineage in Listrogaugium among the Flemish, was first a soldier, but most devoutly religious; afterward also a monk and Abbot of Stavelot: which place he enlarged and dedicated to Saints Peter, Martin, and Remaclus on June 5, 1040. He died, renowned for miracles, in the 70th year of his age, the year of Christ 1048." That dedication occurred on July 7, as we shall say below. Saussay also celebrates Poppo with a lengthy eulogy, but expressed the place incorrectly: "At Stavelot," he says, "in the territory of Arras, of St. Poppo the Abbot," etc. Stavelot is far distant from Arras, with Hainaut, the territory of Namur, and part of the diocese of Liege lying between them.

[2] Although the name of Poppo was already long celebrated, yet public veneration first began to be accorded him only very recently, after his memory was recorded in the registers of the Roman Martyrology. Otherwise Molanus writes in his Index of the Saints of Belgium: "Poppo, Abbot of Stavelot, has not been canonized. He has not been canonized: Yet by what virtues and miracles he was distinguished can be learned from his history." And in the Feast Days of the Saints of Belgium: "It is remarkable that Stavelot, an imperial monastery, has not sought his canonization before the Apostolic See, since very many things are read concerning his virtues and miracles." Miraeus makes the same complaint in his Belgian Calendar. Yet Trithemius, to be cited below, writes that his feast is celebrated on the eighth day before the Kalends of February: he judged this, no doubt, from the Acts.

[3] But two years after Miraeus published those Calendars, in the year of Christ 1624, by the authority of Ferdinand of Bavaria, Elector of Cologne, Bishop of Liege, the body is elevated in 1624: and Abbot or Administrator of Stavelot, the body of St. Poppo was elevated and exposed to the public veneration of the people. This event was briefly described by Christopher Barbus, a monk of Stavelot, in a booklet on the virtues of St. Poppo published in the year 1630, in the dedication of which he thus addresses the same Most Serene Prince Ferdinand: "That we have dared to dedicate this brief study of the virtues of St. Poppo to Your Most Serene Highness was caused not by the dignity of the work, which (if it reflects upon us) is nothing, but by the duty of obedience and indeed the sheer necessity of avoiding ingratitude. For since we had for many years desired on many occasions that the elevation and due veneration of the holy relics of this most holy predecessor of yours should take place, it had to be done by your command, not another's, which had been deferred not without the great sorrow of all pious persons." His Most Serene Highness had amply performed what was due to his office, enclosed in a silver casket: and his piety so determined: a silver casket adorned with gold and gems, skillfully crafted and suitable for receiving the sacred remains; vestments moreover for sacred use of no small cost and beauty: all things indeed were bestowed with a magnificence worthy of a Prince and Prelate. Variously honored: A Confraternity of the faithful was decreed under the sign and patronage of the holy Mother of God and of St. Poppo; distributions of Indulgences were made; piety was inculcated to all. In short, nothing was omitted that either a pious Prince and offspring of ancestral faith ought to have established, or that could have brought any honor to the Saint himself, or benefit to the faithful people.

[4] So writes he, who also composed another booklet in verse on the miracles of St. Poppo and dedicated it to William of Bavaria, Count of Longwy, Baron of Hollinghofen, Coadjutor of Stavelot, together with an oration in praise of St. Poppo; and he marked the year and day of that elevation with this chronographic distich:

"On the first of August, what the earth grants to return, Poppo, seeking the heights above, had yielded his bones to himself."

But two years after this elevation, a more solemn translation appears to have been made, as the chronological distich of the same author indicates: again translated:

"On the day the Clergy celebrates distinguished honors for you, Poppo, In October there are eighteen days above."

[5] The Life of St. Poppo was written by Everhelm, Abbot of Hautmont in Hainaut, The Life written by Everhelm: who is said afterward to have become Abbot of Blandin at Ghent. Yet prefixed to that Life is a preface of the monk Onulph addressed to Everhelm himself, in which he professes that at his request he undertook to write the Life of St. Poppo. But perhaps he did not complete it (for that the man was inconstant is clear from Everhelm's narrative); or if he did complete it, it was perhaps less approved by Everhelm, who on that account undertook to compose another, or so reworked it himself that it ought to be regarded as his own work, not Onulph's. He himself acknowledges that the Life was composed by himself; and rightly so say Valerius Andreas, Possevinus, Surius, Miraeus, Molanus, and others.

[6] Whence it is here published: Surius published that Life, but with the style somewhat polished in places. We have restored the original phrasing from two ancient manuscripts, one from the College of the Society of Jesus at Paderborn in Westphalia, the other from the monastery of St. Maximin at Trier. The same Life, abbreviated from Surius, was published by Francis Haraeus, Zacharias Lippeloo, and James Doublet. Sigebert of Gembloux mentions Poppo in his Chronicle at the year 1048: "Religious men," he says, "illustrious for holiness, what others have written about him: fall asleep in Christ: Odilo, Abbot of Cluny; Poppo of Stavelot; Watho (rather Wazo), Bishop of Liege; Olbert, Abbot of Gembloux." We gave the Life of St. Odilo on January 1. Trithemius also mentions St. Poppo in his Chronicle of Hirsau at the year 1020: "Holy Poppo also," he says, "Abbot of the monastery of Stavelot of our Order, is held in these times to be distinguished for doctrine and conduct in the diocese of Liege and throughout all Gaul, and remarkable also for the performance of many miracles; he magnificently restored the monastic discipline which in his time had nearly collapsed. His feast is celebrated on the eighth day before the Kalends of February." And in book 3 on the illustrious men of the Order of St. Benedict, chapter 242: "Poppo, Abbot of Stavelot, a man learned in the divine Scriptures and most distinguished for the holiness of his conduct, left abundant memorials of his sanctity. His deeds are extant. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1020. His feast is celebrated on the eighth day before the Kalends of February."

[7] In the Necrology of the monastery of St. Maximin at Trier, at the eighth day before the Kalends of February, the following is found: "Poppo, Abbot of our congregation, who ordered two very precious crowns to be made for this church." From a certain old codex of the Charterhouse of Cologne, our colleague John Gamansius copied the following for us: "In the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 1042, the relics at Malmedy visited by him: with King Henry reigning, and the venerable Abbot Poppo presiding over this place, a general confusion arose concerning the relics of Saints Quirinus and Justus, through the ignorance of the people who supposed that we did not have them, some murmuring one thing, others another, now secretly, now in public. When the aforesaid Father of venerable memory learned of this, at the petition and common counsel of the Brothers and faithful laymen, June 12, 1042: he opened the caskets of the Saints on the day before the Ides of June; and not only did he find the relics that were hoped for, but also many others which were unknown, with us standing by; and leaving them as he had found them, decently arranged, he faithfully resealed them with his seal at that very hour as we watched; and thus both our faith and the people's temerity were made manifest. The relics, moreover, were these: two teeth of St. Peter the Apostle, what they were: the complete bodies with heads of Saints Quirinus and Justus, and very important relics of St. Nicasius, and of Blessed Scuviculus, and of St. Melantius, and of St. Audoenus, and his chasuble, and of other Saints unknown to us." Concerning the body of St. Quirinus the Priest, the arm of St. Nicasius, Bishop of Rouen, and the relics of St. Scubiculus the Deacon, brought to Malmedy under Charlemagne's reign, we shall treat at their feast on October 11. Concerning St. Peter the Apostle on June 29; concerning St. Audoenus, Bishop of Rouen, on August 24; concerning St. Justus, if he is the one said to have been killed in the territory of Beauvais under Rictiovarus, on October 18.

[8] We have joined the holy mother Adelwiva to her holy son Poppo, following Saussay and Menard; The memory of Blessed Adelwiva in the Martyrologies: the latter writes in the Benedictine Martyrology on this day: "At Verdun, Blessed Adunalwa, mother of St. Poppo, a recluse." In book 2 of his observations, he calls her Adunaliva or Adunalif. Saussay: "At Verdun, St. Adunalwa, widow, and at the exhortation of the aforesaid Blessed Poppo her son, a nun in the convent at Verdun; then a recluse in the monastery of St. Viton in the same city. Before she received the sacred veil, while still living in the world, she burned with such devotion that she lit an extinguished lamp by her prayer; and she shone with such purity after she devoted herself to the more perfect life that she conversed with the inhabitants of heaven, who frequently appeared to her while praying; to whose fellowship at length she departed joyfully."

[9] The most holy life of Adelwiva is narrated below in chapter 5 of the Life of Poppo. She is called Adalunif by Surius, her virtues: Adunalwa by Saussay and Menard, and also Adunaliva by the latter; Adelwis in the Paderborn manuscript; Adalwyf in the manuscript of St. Maximin. Adelwyf signifies in the Flemish, or Teutonic, language the etymology of the name: a noble woman. But if she was called Adeliva, as may be conjectured from Menard, as if Adel-lief, it signifies "noble love," or "dear to nobility," or "lover of nobility," or "noble beloved." If, finally, she was called Adelwis or Adelwys, it sounds like "noble wise woman," or "wisdom of nobility." It is remarkable that the names of Poppo and Adelwiva are absent from the Hagiology of Flanders by that most careful Antonius Sander.

LIFE

By Abbot Everhelm, from two ancient manuscripts.

Poppo, Abbot of Stavelot in Belgium (St.) Adelwiva his mother (Bl.)

BHL Number: 6898

By Everhelm, from manuscripts.

PREFACE OF THE MONK ONULPH.

[1] It is established by Apostolic and also monastic ordinances, already promulgated in all ages by their fame and renown, that no one should hold in neglect the precepts of his elders, not even by the silent nod of a murmuring spirit; but should forthwith obey the command of the one who orders with the inclination of a willing mind; and even though it should be to the detriment of his modesty, he nevertheless owes it to the tasks enjoined upon him by the good of obedience. At Everhelm's request, Onulph undertook to write this Life: Summoned therefore by the occasion of such an ordinance, I Onulph — nay, content with the name, not the merit, of those things which belong to the monastic profession — who ought to have obeyed you, my Venerable Father Everhelm, when you commanded, out of the duty of obedience, ought all the more to have assented to you when you asked, out of the duty of charity. Indeed, you set aside the command by which you have the greatest power over me and which I, as the servant of your holiness, ought to have obeyed; and you admitted a petition rather than a command to my insignificance, and humbly compelled me to write the deeds of the blessed man Poppo, in our days widely renowned for justice and faith. And how shall I praise your humility, by which, as has been said, you employed petition rather than command toward me, and excuse my ignorance for a task so humbly enjoined upon me by you? For in either direction I fail at the first attempts of undertaking: he excuses his own slenderness: because I am neither able to praise you sufficiently for the sake of humility, nor can I find how to excuse myself for the enjoined work on account of my frailty. Yet, with the tenor of equity rather carefully preserved, let reason thus proceed, tempered on both sides, so that neither is anything denied to you by me (God forbid), nor may my frailty suffer its own ruin in so arduous and difficult a work; and let this be accomplished by that labor of which it is said, "Unrelenting labor conquers all things," and by good will, than which nothing richer has ever been offered to God. For through these twin things, namely labor and good will, all things become easy to him who wills and runs, which seem difficult by their very magnitude. But since, as it is written, "it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy" Romans 9:16, let God's mercy from your prayers be joined to my will and running, so that He who gives the word to those who evangelize with great power may also give us the word in His power to narrate the virtues of the blessed Father Poppo. Psalm 67:12. Therefore this must especially be said to those who will read this: that they should not consider this booklet to be rejected among apocryphal books, but truly, although new, to be inserted among canonical and authentic writings, since there is almost nothing in it except what the experience of the faithful, with God working in so great a man, has learned by sight, and from that, those who had seen have lent their trust to us.

CHAPTER I.

The birth of Poppo. His pursuit of arms.

[1] Blessed Poppo, in our days most commended to God and the ages in every virtue, and as a second Nathanael, a true Israelite and most approved without guile, came forth into this temporal light from the region of Listrogaugium, from Christian and freeborn parents, already made pleasing from the very cradle by the infusion of the Holy Spirit. St. Poppo, of noble stock in Flanders: He was born of his father Tizekinus and his most illustrious mother Adelwyf, having come into this light in the seventh month of his conception, before the usual time of birth. Whence also the parents of the child were reduced to despairing circumstances regarding his life, and were anxiously troubled by so untimely and fragile an infancy, especially since he was tenderly loved by them as their firstborn, and scarcely any hope would remain of obtaining another like him if they lost him. Therefore it came into the mind of a certain matron — namely the grandmother of the same child — he is tenderly nurtured by his grandmother: by the counsel, as I believe, of the Most High, that he should be nurtured in the softest wool with skillful care for so long until the tender infant should be able to take his first steps. And it came to pass that the little one escaped the danger of his untimely birth, and became a joy and exultation to his parents.

[2] Meanwhile it happened that his father, second to none of his fellow soldiers in strength and daring, fell in the battle of Hesbaye, the infant is orphaned of his father: and in the fifth week after his birth left the child an orphan, with his widowed mother, bereft of his comfort. And although he was deprived of a father's comfort sooner than was fitting, yet he was not cheated of divine clemency: so that truly, had he been able and known how, he would have had occasion to glory humbly in that canticle which says: "My father has forsaken me, but the Lord has taken me up." Psalm 26; Luke 2. To his mother, moreover, as a testimony of true chastity, the perseverance of praiseworthy widowhood was pleasing, like that of the Evangelical Anna: in what manner she acquired for herself the fragrance of virtues from praiseworthy deeds, the reader will be able to observe in what follows, where he will know that we defer a few things concerning her to their proper place.

[3] But let us have regard for the life of the blessed man, whom the matter has now presented, and let us see what concerns him in the order of the narrative. For he, through the successions of time, gradually growing in the advances of youth, vainly strove to be armed with worldly cares, and to engage in them with his fellow soldiers in the pursuit of vainglory. Poppo gives himself to military service: In which, while for a time, as the military situation then stood, he excelled greatly in talent and daring, yet at last, seeing that danger and ruin would be detrimental to many on that account, he wished to withdraw the foot which he had placed at the entrance of the world; but being prevented by the occasion of military business, he was not entirely able to do what he attempted. Yet he did what he could in satisfaction of his vow, and wisely desisted from importunate plundering, and at length, that desire for unjust acquisition having been divinely exhausted in him, he turns out to be eminently pious: he abstained. In the course of time, becoming always better day by day, and advancing by the agreement of virtue and pious industry, although still unshorn under the lay and military habit he showed himself a recruit, and under Theoderic, at that time a most illustrious man, he bore the arms of military service; yet beneath the military belt he was putting on the armor of priestly religion and displaying by his deeds the marks of monastic devotion: so that in all things he was believed to prefigure in his deeds the future appearance of a Pastor, and a Priest in the temple of the Lord was already being prepared. He frequented the thresholds of the churches of God with solicitous approaches of his prayers, and ruminated upon all the nourishment of the divine Scriptures in the secret recesses of his mind — taking care, no doubt, lest the seed of the word of God should be choked in the field of the heart by the thorns of vices, but rather should be increased with a hundredfold fruit in patience.

CHAPTER II.

The pious pilgrimages of Poppo.

[4] It happened also that in the days of his military service, stirred by divine inspiration, he visits the Sepulcher of the Lord: he went to visit the places of the Lord's Sepulcher with men of pious testimony, Robert and Lausus, who mutually agreed with one another on this same purpose and accomplished the journey toward Jerusalem with God as their guide. For in those days, because human affairs, mixed with the confusion of their wickedness, had no prudence or moderation, and men, their sins demanding it, placed before their eyes the stumbling block of God's wrath, the supreme violence and hostility of the pagans closed that same way, and by whatever force they could, they prevented anyone from approaching the Lord's Sepulcher: and according to that saying of Isaiah, "The roads are destroyed, the traveler on the path has ceased." Isaiah 33:8. Yet he with the aforesaid men of holy memory dared to undertake that same way and, not without the hope of martyrdom, to enter upon the labors and dangers of his life. But with what perils both he himself he suffers much on the way: and those who were his companions on the journey were beset almost to the point of destruction, and how manifold scourges, shipwrecks, and even the insults of pagans exceeded all measure upon them, who could describe? But patience, which sustained Job when tested in many trials, surrounded them with the strength of constancy and the impregnable wall of faith, so that they even believed that the sufferings of this present time were not worthy to be compared with the glory that was to be revealed in them. Romans 8. Yet with God leading and that same patience accompanying inseparably on the right and on the left, they accomplished the stages of the journey which led to the Lord's Sepulcher with no small joy, as has been said. There he devotes himself to piety: Where, having been made partakers of their vow after insatiable longings, and content in pouring forth prayers and sighs in the satisfaction of their desire, they rejoiced in the light of the Paschal, nay heavenly, radiance descending each year upon that same Lord's Sepulcher, and were indefatigably stirred by love and wonder at it; and for them, according to that saying of the Wise Man, Jerome, Letter 13 to Paulinus: it was not praiseworthy to have been in Jerusalem, but to have lived well in Jerusalem.

[5] Meanwhile Blessed Poppo, having taken certain relics from the Lord's Sepulcher, was returning by the way he had come with the oft-mentioned men and arrived at the place called Hagiospater, which we may render "At the Holy Fathers," where in the time of persecution the Saints had withdrawn from the face of their persecutors and had retired into the caves of rocks and the dens of mountains; and by the hidden judgment of God at work, they are seen to this day by passers-by, immovable in the same postures of their bodies and in the same flesh in which they then were. These, held in both spectacle and reverence by the blessed man and his companions on the journey, were humbly entreated through their prayers to have mercy on them. He carries away relics of the Saints: From their relics the aforesaid man of God Poppo took for himself a small portion with no small faith, and meanwhile carried it home with him and with the above-mentioned men Robert and Lausus, and bestowed it for perpetual preservation in the oratory of St. Mary situated in the village of Dunsa.

[6] The aforesaid Robert assumed the habit of monastic life in the monastery of Wasloi, or called Beaulieu, under the venerable Abbot Richard, already celebrated in almost all ages for his justice and probity. But Lausus truly displayed the monk under the lay habit, the piety of his companions: and under the same resolve was completing the span of his life without the clerical tonsure, but not without the clerical life; and at Ghent in the church of St. John, which he himself had built, he had chosen for himself a place of funeral repose. And that we may meanwhile be silent concerning those whose life the knowledge of God alone better gathers, let us return with our pen to the life of the blessed man Poppo, which we began to write.

[7] He visits the shrines of the Apostles: After the labor of his long pilgrimage, not much time had intervened when, behold, divine grace inspired him to go on pilgrimage a second time and to visit the shrines of the Apostles Peter and Paul with the presence of both his soul and body. Made much more courageous by this inspiration, and having at last attained the fulfillment of his desire, which had grown by delay, he set out upon the road with the most noble Theoderic, under whom we have written that he served in the military, and was conveyed to the long and greatly desired shrines of the Apostles Peter and Paul; where, having attained the satisfaction of his vow — a satisfaction that knew no weariness — and having duly performed those things for which he had come, he returned.

[8] It happened meanwhile, as perhaps the occasion for a diversion then presented itself, he obtains heavenly health for his companion: that he put in at St. Theoderic; and that man whom we have mentioned, the most noble Theoderic under whom he had devoted himself to military service, had utterly failed with a daily increasing illness, and frenzy had come upon him, already in danger of his life, as the passage of time had brought. The blessed man Poppo detained him there for some days with the Brothers of that place, and obtained that he should be freed from the affliction of an unsound mind; and this he merited through his own prayers, with the merits of St. Theoderic concurring. He devotes a son about to be born to God: The aforesaid Theoderic, for the health of sound mind granted to him, of which he had long been deprived, burst forth with sudden gladness into great praises of thanksgiving, and immediately vowed to dedicate to God and St. Theoderic a son who, by God's gift, was to be born to him at a near turn of time. And it came to pass from the outcome of events that this was afterward so done. For the son whom he had received by the favor of divine providence, he had made a namesake of St. Theoderic and of himself, and, as he had vowed, had surrendered him by a solemn donation. After Blessed Poppo, as will be made perfectly clear in what follows, succeeded the venerable Abbot Bertram as Abbot in the monastery of Stavelot, moved by love of the same Theoderic, he sent for him and nurtured him at his side in all doctrine and knowledge, until he should make him in all things a mature man and fit for the Church of God; and at last he even sought that he should become his successor in governance at Trier at St. Maximin. But since the occasion of the narrative has now presented itself, who was afterward Poppo's disciple and Abbot: this brief digression has been made concerning the venerable Abbot Theoderic succeeding the blessed man Poppo in governance; the remainder is to be treated more broadly in its proper place, both how he was raised by him and how he was made successor.

CHAPTER III.

The worldly life rejected.

[9] Now we have judged it worthwhile to insert here the deeds which hold a place in the blessed man's life adjacent to those which we have set forth: namely, how he eluded the prince of this world with his forces and aspired to the purposes of the monastic profession. In those days, therefore, when Baldwin the Marquis held the supreme authority of the Countship Poppo is dear to the magnates: and ruled the peoples of Flanders with just laws, Blessed Poppo had very great influence, at the dictation of friendship, both with that same Prince and with the chief of his nobles, inasmuch as he was magnificently distinguished for religion, justice, and fidelity. It also happened that among others, a certain Frumold had attached himself to the side of that Prince in an almost foremost position and had applied himself with excellent counsel to the chief affairs of the realm. He dwelt at the place called Sithiu, and Blessed Poppo was held by his friendship more amply and more particularly than by that of others. For there was such a mutual agreement between them in all things he is invited to a marriage: that the same Frumold endeavored to join his daughter more firmly in marriage to the man of God — a daughter who seemed to him more excellent than the others he had — and was also busy prescribing certain of his own possessions for this purpose, and seeking to adopt him, as it were, as his future son-in-law.

[10] The man of God gave his assent to these wishes for a time; but afterward, recalled by the infusion of the Holy Spirit, he refused to let it happen. Indeed, suddenly wearied of the marriage, as one already touched inwardly in heart by divine inspiration, for some days he dissembled regarding the union with an uncertain response. But lest he entirely desist from the undertaking, he feared that it would become a stumbling block to his faithful friend, especially since both had already confirmed the agreement concerning the daughter's union by a pledge. Whence, as the time of the marriage was imminent, his mind hesitated and hung in doubt in both directions as to which way he should turn, preserving the counsel of both parties. At length he resolved to direct his journey to Frumold at Sithiu, preparing to contract the marriage: as divine providence was disposing, so that, as had been arranged, he might become the son-in-law of his intimate friend. But in order to do this quietly without commotion, spurning as one not without glory the use of a great retinue or equipment, he set out upon the road in the silence of the dead of night. Without delay, while traveling through the middle of the night, a light sent from heaven he is illuminated from heaven by night: shone upon him as he sat on his horse, which illuminated the whole man equally without and within. Trembling at this unexpected event, he cast his gaze about not without wonder, and saw the lance which he carried in his hand the lance seen to burn: radiant with an immense brilliance in the manner of a torch, as though burning with an inflamed point. Understanding therefore, as a man of loftier intellect, that this kind of portent regarded him, he called out to his companions on the road that he would by no means proceed further. "It is necessary," he said, "my fellow soldiers, to proceed with another intention and by another way: I see it is opportune to put an end to vices and these desires, and to strive with all effort toward that which is pleasing to the Divinity."

[11] He resolves to leave the world: After this, having cast away his military arms, he is clothed with the armor of God, and with his mind changed for the better, he returned home by a better way. No delay intervened; but immediately, straightway, he flew to St. Theoderic, of which we wrote before, to profess himself a monk. It happened that a certain Eilbert, a man of keen intellect, came to meet him, who was a brother in flesh and spirit of the Lord Gerard, Bishop of Cambrai, and who had formerly become known to the same blessed man Poppo when he had stopped there together with his aforesaid lord Theoderic, and was greatly loved for his holiness and praiseworthy life. He is encouraged to this by his friend Eilbert: For he himself too had long since escaped naked from worldly affairs, and there under the monastic habit had exchanged his lay condition, and had long since learned to be a monk in both office and name. He, himself likewise venerable, came to meet the venerable man Poppo, as we have said, and had been reading through the Psalter — which was very much his custom — having already reached the seventy-ninth Psalm. Touched in heart by the grace of the Holy Spirit, he put his hand upon it and added the antepenultimate verse in the aforesaid Psalm, which reads thus: "Let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, and upon the son of man whom you have confirmed for yourself." But since, owing to their long absence from each other, it was not easy for him to recognize the man whom he had nevertheless formerly known well in mind and body, he first learned from him who he was and why he had come, and then added the rest of the Psalm, saying: "And we shall not depart from you; you will give us life," and the rest following in order. Psalm 79:18; Psalm 79:19.

[12] Then, rejoicing at his praiseworthy vows and directing the whole marrow of his soul toward him, he said: "Truly, Brother, God has sent you to what you have come for, who has visited you entirely with this oracle of His mercy." And instructing him sufficiently on the exposition of the aforesaid verse, and thereby making him more courageous for the monastic vow which he was seeking, he communicated the reasons for his vow to the Abbot and the other Brothers, and concluded with evident proofs that God had truly sent him to this. What then? He becomes a monk: The Abbot, together with the Brothers, granted entry to him who asked, and having tested him in every point, as the monastic rule teaches, found him without blemish. Then, as Jesus set a little child full of innocence and meekness in the midst, he placed upon him the habit of monastic vigor. Matthew 18. For I would truly call him in a certain sense a little child, whom I have perceived to be without guile from the attestation of his deeds: who, although he was advanced in age and wisdom daily, yet in malice, as the Apostle says, he was a little child. 1 Corinthians 14:20. And to compare him truly with the earlier Patriarchs before the Law and under the Law: he passed from his land and his kindred with Abraham, at God's inspiration and command; and with Elijah and John he sought to be a solitary from the allurements of the world; whom, according to the Psalmist, Psalm 30:21 God hid in the secret of His face from the disturbance of men, and inspired him entirely by the Holy Spirit to this: that having left all that was in his power, he should escape naked from the world, to possess double in the land of the Saints for these things, and according to the Gospel promise, a hundredfold, with life that knows no end. Matthew 19:29. He is instructed by the same Eilbert: Meanwhile he began to be vigorously instructed in letters by the aforesaid Eilbert, afterward Abbot of Marrilly, and to be fully formed in all things that pertain to monastic training: so that in a short time, having run through all things that were profitable to knowledge, he reached the pinnacle of monastic perfection. Nor is it surprising, if by the gift of the Holy Spirit, as we truly believe, he was able to do this, who always set aside all delays in learning.

CHAPTER IV.

The miraculous healing of a leper.

[13] Under the oft-mentioned Eilbert of pious memory, who was at that time the porter of the monastery, He becomes the guardian of the poor: the care of receiving the poor in the hospice was given to Blessed Poppo by the Abbot of that same place, and the charge was committed to him as a sufficiently faithful steward or dispenser of the house of God. In this administration he maintained liberality with hospitality, and could truly say with Blessed Job: "The stranger did not remain outside: my door stood open to the traveler." Job 31:32. And again: "If I have eaten my morsel alone, and the orphan has not eaten of it." Job 31:17. On a certain day, among the others to be brought by him into the hospice and fed, he kindly receives a leper: a certain leper arrived, who on account of his deformity scarcely found any vestige of companionship with anyone. The man of God shrank from him not at all, but having brought him in with the rest, cared for and fed him with whatever attentiveness he could; and at last, when the shadows of night were breaking in, he detained him at his own side. But fearing that the man would be too severely afflicted by the cold of night, inasmuch as he lacked clothing, he was first anxious within himself as to what should be done about this; then, by the counsel of humility, he found a way to show mercy to the poor man. For with the coverlet and covers him at night with his own coverlet: which he himself used when lying in bed, he covered the man, both poor and leprous, shrinking not at all from his deformity, like a second Martin. But this humility mixed with compassion was not held in vain or fruitless in the sight of God: he miraculously heals him: because health in the leper and magnificence in the blessed man was assured. Covered with that garment, the aforesaid leper first broke out in drops of sweat, and straightway, with all leprosy put to flight, sudden health seized upon him; and in the morning he appeared healthy to the holy man coming to him, and for the double gift of piety bestowed upon him he rendered vows of thanksgiving. This struck the venerable man with astonishment and fear: astonishment, indeed, that God had wrought salvation in the poor man through his garment; fear, lest on account of this deed he himself should become publicly known, and popular favor should feed him to his own ruin. Yet, admitting his prayers, he urged him to depart without publicity about himself, and humbly begged him to give thanks to God, not to him, for this deed. Afterward he used that same coverlet in his bed, and did not disdain to be covered by it because he had covered a leper with it. He then uses the same coverlet:

[14] But the deed did not escape the notice of the aforesaid man of God Eilbert; however, he dissembled knowing it for a time, and confronted him regarding the garment provided to the man who was both poor and leprous; why he had provided his own and not another, he reproved — while dissembling, as we have said. He wishes this to remain hidden: But Poppo, prostrate on the ground, implored him for the sake of secrecy regarding the deed, and with the greatest oaths begged him not to make it public; imitating certainly the Lord, who out of humility and compassion touched and cleansed the leper whom the law had forbidden to touch, yet who Himself forbade the disclosure of that very deed. Matthew 8:3. Behold how much the humility of the blessed man merited, which had to become known first in his garments before it was known in himself. For it must not be doubted how much remedy he has in himself, who by the exigency of his merits has such power in his garments. Therefore let no one doubt that God can effect salvation through the garments of His Saints, since it is abundantly clear that He healed the woman suffering from an issue of blood through the fringes of His own garments. Matthew 9:21-22. Moreover, those who had learned of this deed in person from the aforesaid Eilbert had communicated it to me the writer (I call God to witness), lest this should seem incredible to anyone as having happened in our times, which is proved by the testimony of praiseworthy persons to have been done through Blessed Poppo.

[15] He is sent to Verdun: For in the time that followed, it happened that the Abbot Richard of holy memory came to St. Theoderic, and that the pious conduct of the man of God was made known to him. He immediately turned the eyes of his affection upon him, and as was easily made known by the mutually corresponding merits of both, he was entirely inflamed toward him by the fire of the Holy Spirit at work. Whence he also wished to take him away with himself, and applied to this end all the resources of his counsel. And first he inquired into the mind of the man of God on this matter; then he made his petitions to his Abbot. These the same Abbot refused, humbly declining for a long time; but at last, wearied by them, he granted his consent, albeit unwillingly. By his defined consent, the man of God departed thence in body, not in mind, and went to Verdun with the aforesaid venerable Abbot Richard. Where before all things, and for all things, he was put forward by the same Abbot for the testing of his obedience and patience, and was found in all things obedient, faithful, patient, in the measure of his service; and meanwhile among the other sons of his adoption, he was held in foremost esteem by affection, so that he was promoted to a higher place than he had held, and was also commanded to administer certain of the foremost affairs of his business. These he discharged both honorably and vigorously, and always increased them day by day under better auspices.

CHAPTER V.

The religious life of Blessed Adelwiva, his mother.

[16] He leads his mother to the monastic life: Meanwhile he revisited his mother, about whom we have also previously spoken, who had long been widowed of her husband, but not of her virtues; and in order to draw her away from the world with himself, he first sent ahead the plans of his intention. But since she, as she was always so agreeable in all counsels of virtue as she was unfailingly capable in each one, she praised her son for so amiable a persuasion, and departed with him to the path of monastic life, having put aside all that was in her power, both children and servants, and the revenues of her inherited estate. Her children and servants, like those bereft of the comfort of their sole mother and mistress, pursued her to such a degree with cries and inconsolable laments others opposing in vain: that even many of them nearly soaked themselves to the middle, pretending to wade across the river Scheldt, if perhaps by some means they might call her back to themselves, moved by compassion. But since no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God, she herself likewise began to experience the way to God which she felt had been opened for her under her son's guidance — not, like Lot's wife, with eyes turned backward. Yet she committed to God with firm faith those for whom she feared, and then with her son she gave full rein to her desire on the journey undertaken. Luke 9:62.

[17] She was led to the monastery of Elnone, that is, to St. Amand, she is encouraged in her resolve by a heavenly vision: together with her son, and there she obtained the assurance of her desire from the oracle of a heavenly vision. For while she spent the night in vigils and prayers before the relics of Blessed Cyricus, and after a little while was half-waking from her prolonged weariness — since the heavenly hearing had looked upon her — a vision divinely conveyed to her revealed the following. With a wondrous new aspect of things, she saw a great many Priests of Christ robed in white in their seats, whom the divine revelation had set on either side in the form of a crown as a spectacle for her: among whom Blessed Amand also, as the foremost of that place, seemed to sit more prominently and more honorably than the rest, and the gaze of all was suspended upon his judgment, as befitted him in that place. She also saw Blessed Cyricus gleaming entirely in silk and gems, imitating the countenance of an elegant boy, and holding conversation with each of the Priests, and pouring forth prayers for her who lay prostrate in their midst. To him St. Amand, together with the unanimous consent of those sitting with him, said: "Come, boy of good character, it is yours to extend the right hand of mercy, together with prayers, also to this widow, who does not cease to offer continual prayers before your most holy relics." She saw the venerable boy Cyricus, made certain by this authority, approach her and raise her entirely, as it were, from the ground where she had lain prostrate. And the vision had its end here; and the mother of Blessed Poppo, soon awakening, returned to herself.

[18] She related this vision to her son, and together with him, made more courageous regarding the truth of this same vision, At Verdun she becomes a nun, then a recluse, and lives a holy life: she betook herself to Verdun, and with the veil of pious life placed upon her by the counsel of the blessed man, she embraced the purpose of monastic life with justice and good conduct. In this, when she had learned to contend against the enemy of the human race, long waging war with her manifold virtue, and as it were to stretch out her arms against the torrent of vices, at St. Viton, as time went on, she began to be a solitary; and there, as a recluse, she completed the course of her life in peace, having triumphed over the devil with the forces of his strength. Nor will it be doubted that after her conversion she found a place with God for accomplishing what she had asked, since before the time of her conversion she had proved able to relight an extinguished lamp by her prayers and not by her hands: renowned for miracles: and this was an indication of miracle, that she could do similar things if the occasion demanded. Let these things said about the conversion and life of the mother of the blessed man suffice. Let those who desire what concerns him find in me a writer from the report of the elders.

CHAPTER VI.

The possessions of the monastery of St. Vaast vigorously managed by Poppo.

[19] Poppo moves to Arras: From this point, Marquis Baldwin replaced the oft-mentioned Abbot Richard at St. Vaast, Folrad having been removed from governance, because both the sanctity of that man and the assembly of the princes of his realm persuaded his mind to this decision. By the authority of the aforesaid Prince, the same Abbot Richard undertook the administration of the work enjoined upon him, and set the man of God Poppo second to himself in that place, because the occasion of managing affairs greatly detained him. He becomes Provost: And he had effected this not only by his own consent but also with the favorable consent of all the Brothers — since indeed the mind of those men was already conscious of the venerable man Poppo's virtues and had turned the gaze of their love upon him with unfeigned charity. Moreover, there were venerable men among them dear to the most proven monks: by whose singular affection Blessed Poppo had to be more greatly nourished above the rest — namely the Lord Frederick, who, having Duke Gozelon as his brother in the flesh, had accompanied the venerable Abbot Richard there; also Ludwin, who had exchanged his lay condition under a monastic purpose at that place, and in succeeding time, at the urging of the aforesaid Abbot Richard's favor, had succeeded him in governance. And just as the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, so the affection of these men had to be knit to one another by the bonds of pious love. 1 Kings 18:1. Whence it came about that he was appointed second by the oft-mentioned Abbot Richard, whom the love of such praiseworthy men, together with all the Brothers of that place, had touched.

[20] He reclaims the monastery's goods from laymen: But in administering the necessities of that place there was then a great difficulty, inasmuch as the resources of the monastery's stipends were for the most part diminished, and the soldiers of that place were possessing its properties, granted to them as benefices. Whence the same situation first caused sorrow to Blessed Poppo, although he was acting honorably with all his strength; but this departed from him quickly by the prudent counsel in which he excelled greatly. For with the approval of the aforesaid Marquis, he shrewdly and wisely reclaimed the monastery's properties from the soldiers and established by public archives that they should remain for the Brothers of that place. On account of this he also acquired a source of plots against him from those same soldiers, and entered into such a force of enmities among those from whom he had taken back unjustly possessed properties, that they occupied the passages of roads on every side, and also prepared ambushes to kill him. Psalm 62:10. But, as it is written, "In vain they sought my soul": he marvelously escapes their ambushes: because, fortified by the arms of righteousness on the right and on the left, he broke all the attempts of the wicked conspiracy, and passing through their very midst, both shattered the abundance of their stratagems and, with God leading, escaped the danger. He indeed, who passing through the midst of the Pharisees closed the eyes of those same men from knowledge of Himself, and being about to suffer bound them prostrate behind Him with the chain of His name — He also, to avert the danger of His servant, turned away from him every gaze of those lying in ambush. Luke 4:30; John 18:6.

[21] He sets out to the Holy Emperor Henry: Meanwhile the man of God had occasion for a journey to Henry, the Emperor of Roman power, as pious as he was great, the first successor after Otto the Younger by the counsel of the Princes of the realm. For he put in at Batua, lying near the Rhine river, where a certain revenue-producing possession of St. Vaast's was situated, which he also had to oversee from the administration of his Provostship for the use of the Brothers. There, indeed, a certain man known to the blessed man by kinship and familiarity had his dwelling, a man whose liberality with the greatest affluence had gained him fame together with resources, and who was especially obliging to the blessed man when the matter required. For having learned in advance of the man of God's arrival, he ordered whatever was fitting for a coming guest to be prepared for his household, and also for nets to be carefully lowered for the catching of fish. But those who long labored at this task were mocked by the difficulty of the labor, and were sent back empty from the shore to their master. When all hope of catching fish had been removed, [he is received by a friend, with fish caught not without the appearance of a miracle:] the holiness of Blessed Poppo, long known to that illustrious man, soon inspired him with its counsels even though Poppo was absent. For on this condition the same head of household ordered the same nets to be cast again: that if Blessed Poppo had any grace of holiness with God, the fulfillment of his wish in catching fish should follow immediately. What then? The nets are therefore lowered for a catch destined to be no less than the nets of Peter. For they straightway gathered so great a multitude of fish as they had in no way hoped would come before the catch, so that — as evidence and proof of the holiness of the blessed man — they could not be estimated in either number or measure. And behold, to Blessed Poppo, stopping with the illustrious man whom we have mentioned, it was made clear by a manifest sign how much he himself had merited with God through the aforesaid man. And first the man informed him that his servants had been frustrated in the catching of fish, but then that they had cast the nets in his name, and thus had caught as many as were then before his eyes.

[22] He obtains what he wishes from the Emperor: For the benefit of divine mercy thus bestowed upon him, therefore, he gave thanks to the Creator of all things, and completed the remainder of the journey which, as we have said, was to the Emperor, after a mutual exchange of true affection with his friend. By the Emperor he was received with both magnificence and royal honor, inasmuch as he had already obtained the first place of friendship among others with him; whose holiness had also so kindled the humility and gentleness of the aforesaid Emperor in love of him, that reverence dictating, he seemed rather to obey, as it were, commands from Poppo, than to wish to fulfill requests from another.

[23] It happened also that the imperial doors were occupied at that time by the shows of actors, and the King with his courtiers was being entertained by that kind of spectacle. He calls the Emperor back from dangerous spectacles: A certain man, his limbs smeared with honey, was also exhibited naked to bears, and there was great fear for his own peril, lest perhaps, once the honey was consumed, the same bears would reach his very bones. Moreover, the King, so captivated by the love of that spectacle in his eyes, was held and, ill-advisedly, feared little for the man's danger. Wherefore Blessed Poppo rebuked the King for so wicked a mockery of a Christian, and promptly restrained him and his nobles from this spectacle; he also freed the man from the danger of the bears, and by reproving and beseeching, dictated a sentence that this should never happen again. The Emperor Henry humbly obeyed both his entreaty and his correction, and he who had received him coming to him with honor, also dismissed him departing from him with honor. Poppo returned by the route he had come all the way to Arras, and thoroughly informed the Abbot Richard of holy memory about the Emperor's kindness toward him.

CHAPTER VII.

Proven humility. The governance of Beaulieu.

[24] He is divinely warned of his departure: After some days had then elapsed, during which he labored greatly for the affairs of that monastery, he had already learned by the oracle of a divine vision that he was to depart from that place. For he saw himself entirely adorned, as in the celebration of the solemnities of the Mass, with a chasuble which seemed to imitate the beauty of gratuitous greenness, and thus at last, with bowed head, he stood before the altar of St. Vaast, and repeated three times the following verse from the sixty-seventh Psalm, with the assembly of Brothers responding to him: "Blessed be the Lord day by day; the God of our salvation will make our journey prosperous." Psalm 67:20. After he had repeated it three times, as we have said, he immediately left the oratory; and here the vision came to its end. Nor indeed was this idle or without purpose, that the departure of the blessed man merited to be presaged by this verdure of the priestly garment, he who in his deeds did not lack the fruit of eternal greenness.

[25] He is sent back to Verdun: Not long after, such a vision found its fulfillment, and being ordered by the venerable Abbot Richard, he departed thence and returned to Verdun, the former place of his conversion. Where, for the testing of his patience after the supreme administration of the Provostship, he is exercised in lowly tasks: every obedience of the lowest affairs of the monastery was enjoined upon him by the Abbot; lest on account of his former promotion above the rest, he should perhaps be agitated by a spirit of pride, and thus be cast down from the former degrees of his virtues. But mindful of the saying, "The greater you are, the more humble yourself in all things," he maintained humility in the higher affairs of the monastery bestowed upon him, and did not lose it in the lowest, even in those where there seemed to be a kind of occasion for injury; because he knew neither how to be puffed up in prosperity nor cast down in adversity. Sirach 3:20. He therefore put into practice the twin maxims which say: "His stench shall rise, who magnifies his own works"; and, "The learning of a man is known through patience": because the one he feared out of humility, the other he sought out of patience. Joel 2:20; Proverbs 19:11.

[26] And because he anticipated every burden of subjection with humility and patience, and the Abbot saw that no labor sufficed to overcome his obedience, he not imprudently promoted him to the place nearest to himself, he is made Provost: and also ordered him to stand second in administering the chief affairs of the monastery's business. Moreover, he assigned to him the Abbey of St. Maurice, called Wasloi, with all the appurtenances of that place, and took care to admonish him to labor there in doing what was necessary. Having received it, because he found the monastery, which the pleasantness of its site had commended, to have become mean in its workshops and very narrow cloisters, he is placed over the monastery of Wasloi and rebuilds it: he demolished the monastery from its foundations together with the buildings adjacent to it, and rebuilt it with greater elegance than it had had, and ordered that, its former name being changed, it should be called Beaulieu from its own handsomeness. And indeed by that name it has been promulgated everywhere up to the present time, nor is it known to have been deprived of it in the days that have elapsed down to our time.

[27] He sets out for Strasbourg: Meanwhile, with the Emperor Henry whom we mentioned above treating of the state of the kingdom at the city of Strasbourg, and for this purpose consulting the counsels of his nobles both privately and publicly, it happened that this blessed man had occasion to journey to him once again, and thus to put in at Elsass with his companions. When he had stopped at a certain place, which a pleasant beauty commended, to take food, and had already sat down with the food placed before him, behold, he saw a wolf, thirsting then for human blood, he restores unharmed a man strangled by a wolf: rush from the hiding places of the forests, and violently seize by the bare neck a shepherd who was pasturing his flocks in the region opposite, and drag him through steep and broken places to locations suited to the desires of his savagery. Touched in heart therefore by a spirit of both astonishment and grief, the man of the Lord, who had always been entirely full of the bowels of mercy, said: "Behold, O God, You have permitted a man, whom You made in Your image and likeness, to become prey for wolves." Therefore he summoned his companions to bring aid at last to the wretched man, already nearly consumed, and admitting prayers, he himself meanwhile invoked the name of the Lord, declaring that the wolf would lose its prey before he himself would taste any food or drink. But since the intervening space of marshy ground made access to the rescue of that suffocated man not easy for his men, they took a way around and circled those marshy places, where from the traces of flowing blood they found the man, giving no signs of life in himself, and nowhere did they catch sight of the wolf. Soon, all hope for his life having been set aside, they placed him on a horse and brought him into the presence of the blessed man. He, not despairing at all of God's mercy for the same man, placed him near himself and invoked God for his recovery with a silent nod of his mind. Meanwhile he nourished him with the remedy of his blessing and gradually roused him from there; then he obtained the strength to rise from the sanctification of both his hands and his prayers, so that the man took food together with the man of God and thereafter was confident about his life. And no one doubts that he was preserved for life through the prayers of the holy man, from whose blessing and sharing of table those who were present saw him healed. After he recovered, he moved those who saw him by the spectacle of his scars; from whose testimony we ourselves have learned the same thing and have left it for posterity as evidence of the holiness of the blessed man.

CHAPTER VIII.

The governance of Stavelot and of St. Maximin. Adversaries punished.

[28] Meanwhile it happened that the Abbot Bertram of the monastery of Stavelot had paid his debt to death He is made Abbot of Stavelot: and had left the place for another to succeed him. Whence it settled in the mind of the Emperor Henry to appoint Blessed Poppo in his place; and for this to happen, he humbly approached the Abbot Richard, who was then engaged in counsels with him, to whom, however, he did not entirely reveal the plans of his mind, because he asked only that Poppo be given to him, but did not wish to declare the reason for which he was asking. With the venerable Abbot Richard at first resisting the imperial petition long and earnestly, and setting forth many reasons why he said he could not do without such a man, the aforesaid Emperor summoned St. Heribert, Bishop of Cologne, and having joined him to himself, took care still to press his entreaties upon the aforesaid Abbot; and at last he dictated the sentence of obedience upon him from royal authority. Lest he should seem to have spurned it, Richard accepted it out of subjection, not willingness, and, albeit unwillingly, granted that Blessed Poppo should be surrendered into his hands. He soon extended the pastoral staff of the governance of Stavelot, and directed that it should be conferred upon Poppo as the sign of succession, having joined to himself for this business Walbodo, Bishop of Liege, a man most illustrious in holiness and fidelity for vigorously and piously performing whatever needed to be done. They set out by the King's order to fulfill the commands given to them and to promote the aforesaid man of God Poppo in governance at St. Remaclus.

[29] Once promoted, he began, by acting well, to displease certain persons at that place whose morals he could not accommodate. He suffers grave persecutions: Whence such a force of enmities increased against both him and the Brothers who had come there with him, and the wrath of laymen who had conspired for this purpose raged with both open hatreds and sometimes clandestine plots, to such a degree that on a certain day the cloisters of the monastery were broken into by assault, and with drawn swords, the monks are miraculously preserved: the flocks of Christ were pursued through the Lord's enclosures. But — wonderful to say! — those who seemed about to be slaughtered by swords brandished against them were not harmed, the blows having been deflected not by a human but a divine shield: just as that bush seen by Moses seemed to burn, yet was harmed by no discomfort of burning. Exodus 3:2.

[30] When the report of so great an evil reached the ears of Blessed Poppo, who was then staying at Malmedy, he put on a spirit of contrition and grief at so execrable a state of affairs; especially since from those reporting to him he had learned that many of his men had perished, and that fear had thereby increased in those who had survived. Moreover, there were with him two men of secular military service, through whom it also happened that what had been done became known; one of these was called Adalbert and the other Boso. With the greatest speed they set out to the place the invaders are expelled and shortly afterward die: where that company had raged against the recruits of Christ; and by the power of God, not their own, they expelled, captured, and struck down that entire multitude alone; and everything turned out according to their wish, in whose hands — the merits of the blessed man obtaining it — He fought who does not save by thousands, or by the powers of chariots and arms, but in one can put a thousand to flight, and in two can rout ten thousand. Then it was brought about by divine retribution that no one, once a year had passed, survived from that conspiracy of the wicked. And thus all the confusion directed against the man of God returned to favor, and the love of all came forth toward him with equal consent.

[31] Two years had now elapsed, and he succeeded Hericho, the Abbot of the Treverians at St. Maximin, he becomes Abbot of St. Maximin: at the command of the aforesaid Emperor; where a similar, indeed a more grievous, envy of certain persons proceeded against him with forces of plotting — namely those whom the way of life had abruptly deflected from monastic and regular observances. When they perceived that under him what had been illicit was no longer permitted, and that what they were accustomed to could no longer have a place with them, they contrived many schemes for his death, by the sorceries of his rivals: and what they could not do openly, they attempted by certain treacheries of their enchantments. For this purpose (impious to say!) they violated the most sacred solemnities of the Mass, took them over with their divinations, and mixed what they believed to be prayers with their execrable incantations in the impurity and blood of their hands, putting, according to the Prophet, darkness for light and light for darkness. Nor would this alone suffice for the fuel of their evils; but adding still to sin, heaping sin upon sin, they were driven by so execrable and envious a frenzy that in the foods and drinks set before the blessed man they employed an admixture of their poisons. Isaiah 5:20. And is not harmed by poison: But the envy of the devil, through which death first entered the world, harmed God's minister with no death through the ministers of his wickedness: although through the hands of the wicked the demon more than once proffered poison to the blessed man, and he himself did not refuse to taste it as many times. For He, in whose eyes this Blessed Poppo stopped his ears lest he hear of blood and closed his eyes lest he see evil, also closed his inward parts from the harm of this poison, so that all the industry of the wicked was frustrated in extinguishing the lamp of His house.

[32] Nor was God's vengeance lacking against those conspirators for His servant: not one of them survived that year, they all die within the year: as though the flock had been gathered into one place of death; so that it was clearly established that those poisons had passed through the mouth of the blessed man into their own bowels, and that they had left from this an evidence of their malice to the rest. For them, poison indeed — temporal poison — was lacking for inflicting death; but in the sight of the eternal Judge, the poison of their malice served for their own destruction. Whence those who had survived by the occasion of sounder counsel had admitted both fear and love toward him; and thus from his holiness he began to be intimately loved by his subjects and to be feared from God's most recent vengeance upon those who had plotted against him. But he himself too, maintaining the tenor of unfeigned love, began more to benefit than to preside, so that he nurtured all in all patience and doctrine; and at last promoted many of them as Pastors of the Churches of God.

[33] When some time had meanwhile elapsed, he began to be exhausted by immense sicknesses: St. Poppo falls ill: whence it happened that he took to his bed, and that his people fell into despair and grief about his life. For, as we have said, the inmost affection of all sighed toward him in wondrous fashion; and therefore an intolerable affliction held them regarding him, for whose loss they feared. Among them a certain Ernest, formerly a layman but truly made a monk both in name and office, together with the rest, a certain one praying for him: indeed more than the rest, being then touched inwardly with grief of heart on account of the blessed man's illness, was pressing on with nocturnal vigils and prayers — in which he was accustomed to labor greatly as usual — and was now also devoting himself more than usual to the possible removal of the holy man's illness. And first he spoke praises before the Lord for having merited so great and such a Father from Him; then he placed before Him the goads of his grief and fear, by which he feared to lose such a one to the detriment of the Lord's flock, and had set aside all hope of recovering another like him.

[34] The prolongation of his life to twenty years is promised from heaven: While he spent the night in this contrition of spirit, and was commending the affection of his soul before the Lord with prayers, a voice glides down to him by a divine oracle, which is distinguished in these words for the laying aside of his grief: "This illness of Poppo," it said, "is not unto death, for whom there still remains the prolongation of living for twice ten years, unto the increase of his virtue." The oracle of this voice indeed cast upon him a spectacle of amazement, on account of its novelty, and wiped away every stain of grief from him: so that he who had previously been in doubt between hope and fear over the loss of his beloved spiritual Father now began to become all the more secure that he would not lose him, in proportion to how anxiously he had feared losing him before. 2 Kings 20. For in a wondrous manner, He who added three times five years to the ailing Hezekiah also added twice ten years to this blessed man: to the former, indeed, for the tears which he had poured forth before Him; to the latter, because that one used lamentations on his behalf who, from the fact that he had not previously had such a Pastor, and after his loss would not hope to have a similar one. Isaiah 38. And truly the holiness of both obtained this: because what this Ernest merited to hear about his spiritual Father, the Father himself, if he had prayed for himself, could similarly have merited to hear about himself. But since, like Martin, he neither feared to die nor refused to live, the other obtained for him what he himself, as we have said, could have found by his own merit. From the divine oracle, therefore, the matter found its fulfillment, and Blessed Poppo, soon recovering, completed twenty years afterward in the watch over the Lord's flock.

CHAPTER IX.

The episcopate declined, monasteries reformed.

[35] Meanwhile it happened that the Emperor Henry, whom we have already frequently mentioned, came to the end of his life, and that Conrad, remarkably distinguished both by nobility and by arms, succeeded to the realm. But since the thirst for possessing, which is never sated, St. Poppo reconciles dissenting Princes of the Empire: then all the more engendered occasion for dissensions among the Princes of the realm, Blessed Poppo, truly a son of Evangelical peace, accompanied by the power of God, labored long and earnestly to bring them back to the grace of peace, and at length found the satisfaction of his desire, and through his mediating holiness brought them all into one place of peace. But he himself also won the mind of the newly ordained King, about whom he had as yet established nothing certain, to love of himself by his prudence and holiness, so that the affection which Henry had formerly held for him did not perish, since he found a similar, indeed a greater one, in his successor. And since for many years past no small discord had grown up between the Roman Empire and the Franks, he himself brought to completion between both parties the grace of peace, prepared by his labor and industry, and recalled the kings Conrad and Henry to agreement; and the Emperor Conrad with the King of Gaul: of whom one, that is, Conrad, ruled the Romans or the peoples of the East; the other, that is, Henry, ruled the Western peoples of the Franks. For he had an equal place with both to obtain what he had asked, inasmuch as he had great influence with them at the dictation of friendship; and therefore the discord, which had dragged on between them like a kind of old age, was reduced to nothing through his mediation. Whence he also gave occasion for some to envy him, because he alone was able to accomplish what, though the attempt had been made in many, had long since failed of effect.

[36] Meanwhile the bishopric of the city of Strasbourg, prescribed for him by the command of King Conrad, he cleverly and humbly evades the episcopate: he declined as cleverly as humbly: because he dictated to the King an occasion for declining, namely saying that he was the son of a cleric, and that he would become liable to canonical sanctions if he had rashly presumed the office of the pontificate. At this pretense of excuse the King blushed somewhat, and as though challenged by a synodal ordinance, he fell silent on this matter for the present. But not long afterward, from Ermengard, daughter of the most noble Prince Godfrey, he learned that Blessed Poppo was not the son of a cleric, as he himself had pretended to the Royal Majesty, but of a layman distinguished by freeborn status and military service. Whence it happened that he afterward confronted the blessed man and reproached him for the excuse cleverly devised against his command. But Poppo, as one whom God had entirely imbued with humility and submission, humbly wiped away the royal objection against him, affirming that he was insufficiently suitable for that business, since he did not see himself equal to administering the Pastoral cares which then weighed upon him.

[37] Because his humility served the King as evidence of his other virtues, the King soon applied all the resources of his counsel to this end: that he should command Poppo to administer for him those abbeys of his realm he governs and reforms various monasteries: which he had seen from time to time deprived of Pastors. And so it was done. For as many as happened to be found widowed of their rulers, no delay prevented him from conferring them upon Poppo; although Poppo himself somewhat shrank from them out of humility and used excuses of impossibility against the command. And first Limburg, situated in the Vosges, he rebuilds Limburg: which had long since come into his hands by hereditary lot, the King had assigned to the blessed man with the attestation of trustworthy witnesses, and had directed his prayers toward building a monastery there in honor of St. John the Evangelist. By the edict of the royal prayers, Poppo, cultivating that same place — then a lair of wild beasts — with great labor, constructed no mean dwellings for the communities of the servants of God, and laid upon them the light yoke of Christ under monastic training; and he placed his nephew John over both that place and at St. Maximin in Trier.

[38] He establishes distinguished Abbots in various places: In very many monasteries of monastic institution, therefore, commanded by the aforesaid King, he was the first to succeed, and installed individual rulers: at Hersfeld, indeed, Ruodo, afterward Bishop of Paderborn; at St. Gall, toward the ridges of the Alps, Nortbert; and at Wurzburg, Volmar; and at Echternach, Humbert, a man of such illustrious life and conduct. In these he upheld the state of governance by the administration of both counsel and expenditures, and enlarged all things in each, and each in all, as was fitting and proper. Moreover, by the power of his prayers, Heribrand began to be held as ruler in the Cell of St. Ghislain, and Everhelm likewise at Hautmont. At Brauweiler, which he received from Elo the Count administering the Palatinate, he appointed Evo, having constructed all the dwellings of that place from the foundation; and at Busendorf, which had come into his hands by the grant of Count Adalbert, he had similarly gathered a flock of monks under Cono, whom he had appointed as ruler there.

[39] But he also received the governance of the monastery of St. Paul at Utrecht, which faces Frisia, from Adalbold, Bishop of that city, and there he commanded Heriger both to benefit and to preside. When that man was removed from human affairs, he gave two men in governance to succeed each other in turn. Not long after, moreover, the aforementioned Bishop Adalbold, at the exhortation of the blessed man, he trains the Bishop of Utrecht to piety: aspired to monastic training and committed to Poppo the entire administration of Pastoral affairs of his bishopric; which, however, he received back again at Blessed Poppo's direction, and in it remained under the monastic habit as long as he lived. Furthermore, at Villiers he appointed Theoderic, and at Metz at St. Vincent he appointed Heribert; at Waulsort likewise Lambert — which monasteries of monastic vigor divine grace bestowed upon him through Theoderic, Bishop of Metz. At St. Eucherius also in Trier, he strengthened Bertulf by promoting him in governance, which the Archbishop of Trier, Poppo, granted to him for the favor of governing.

p. Paderborn manuscript: did not abandon the monastic tunic.

q. Brawer: Nuvillario.

r. Concerning this monastery, we treated it on January 24 in the Translation of St. Felician.

s. Waulsort is situated in the County of Namur. Concerning it, above on January 21 in the Life of Blessed Maccallin, and more fully on April 30 in the Life of St. Forannan. In the history of the foundation of Waulsort, written in the year 1249, the following is recorded concerning St. Poppo and Lambert: "After the departure of this man (Rudolph), by royal decree (on account of difficulties that had arisen), the Lord Poppo, Abbot of Stavelot, who at that time governed the Church of St. Maximin together with Stavelot, and with it very many others, at the direction of the Bishop of Metz also took on this church of Waulsort to govern together with the rest. And because, filled with the grace of virtues, he strove to live without offense or scruple, he distributed to each church at appointed times its own property, and having engaged for this purpose knowledgeable and industrious administrators with him, he designated one for each. He died at last, buried at Stavelot, and is held as Blessed, around the year of the Lord 1056. While Poppo was still living, the Lord Lambert, removed from the Church of Trier, Provost of that same Church, was brought to Waulsort: to whom Poppo, extending the pastoral staff, with royal magnificence and episcopal authority, divested himself of this office of privilege."

t. Theoderic II, Bishop of Metz, was the son of Siegfried, Count of Luxembourg, and brother of St. Cunegund.

v. It takes its name from St. Eucherius, Apostle of Trier, of whom we treat on December 8.

x. Archbishop Poppo died on June 16, 1047, having occupied the see for 30 years and 6 months. He is wrongly considered by some to be the same Poppo who was the Apostle of the Danes.

CHAPTER X.

Authority vindicated for him by miracles.

[40] He returns to Stavelot: With John, therefore, the nephew of the blessed man, already promoted by him in governance at St. Maximin, as we have already mentioned, and with Poppo himself somewhat relieved of the weight of his burden, he went to Stavelot, where he first fixed himself more strictly in cultivating monastic institutions. Indeed, at the very entrance of the monastery, he was seen by a certain John, a monk in name but not in deed, and was assailed by him with incredible insults and blasphemies, so that the man wished Poppo to be carried in dead rather than presented alive to his sight; and this man, joining the consent of his wickedness to the blaspheming Pharisees (of whom the voice of Truth says: "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household?"), not once loosened his mouth in reviling the man of God, but repeatedly reiterated words of pride, wishing him death. A monk who slanders him is punished with a wretched death: Matthew 10:25. But because he wished for the death of the blessed man with disgust at seeing him, he himself acquired death for himself not long afterward. For, just as that fig tree in the Gospel once withered by the sentence of the Lord, so this man too, by the vengeance of God avenging the injuries of His servant, soon turned pale, withering entirely, and at the very moment of his blasphemies against the man of God, an unexpected death seized him, and thus a horrible pain overtook him to the very last instant of his life, until by a most wretched death he was likewise removed from their midst and made an end of blaspheming others further. Mark 11.

[41] Another, disobedient, and therefore seized by a demon: At another time also, after the evening assembly, Poppo was staying in his cell and drawing out a conversation, not without purpose, with some Brothers who were likewise present with him at that time; when he commanded one of them, named Adalbero, to close the upper door of the cell, and did not cease pressing him as the man repeatedly shrank back in horror of the nocturnal darkness. But the man, who had fallen into the vice of disobedience the first and second time, at last, being compelled, went off to carry out the command as tepidly as tremblingly, and alone arrived at the place where he had been ordered. Because the evil spirit had persuaded him, through the goads of disobedience, not to obey the man of God promptly, the spirit itself immediately seized him, so that with the shriek of an incoherent voice he summoned everyone from all quarters, and by the sudden spectacle of his unsound mind he moved those who had gathered. Bound, therefore, he is brought into the oratory and placed in the midst before them; where by the Brothers more earnest prayer is offered on his behalf, and then the exorcism of divine incantation against that pestilent spirit is employed. Nor indeed did the cause of what had happened escape Blessed Poppo, which had become known to him from the aforesaid Brother's disobedience. He frees him by a blow to the face: He straightway came with the greatest gravity to that Brother of unsound mind, and merely gave him a slap on the face, like a second Benedict, and without delay cast out the malignant spirit. Let no one doubt that he was able to do this without having first offered prayer, since, as Blessed Gregory asserts in his Dialogues, the Saints sometimes perform miracles from prayer and sometimes from power. Dialogues, book 2, chapter 30. And those to whom, according to John, God gave the power to become children of God — what wonder is it if through them miracles can be performed from power, who are children of God from power? John 1:12. For Peter raised Tabitha by praying, but struck down Ananias and Sapphira by rebuking them unto death: because the life which he conferred on the one from prayer, he took away from the latter who were lying, from power. Acts 9:40; Acts 5. These things being as they are, as evidence of this miracle, let the remaining things concerning the man of God provide delight to those who read.

CHAPTER XI.

The restoration and adornment of Stavelot and Malmedy.

[42] He restores and adorns Stavelot and Malmedy: Meanwhile he devoted his efforts to the renovation of both the places of Malmedy and Stavelot, in which, with God's help, the effect of his desire at last found fulfillment. And at Malmedy indeed he built a crypt from the foundations, as can easily be seen. At Stavelot, however, finding all the workshops with the monastery to have become mean on account of their smallness, he began to demolish them entirely from the ground up, and devoted a great amount of expenditure to the construction of buildings of a more ample site. But because the enemy of the human race, as usual, envied these things, he attached the snares of his stratagems, hoping perhaps to overtake the man of God in the work he had begun, or rather to delay him through the mishap of those who were then laboring at that same work. For upon a certain Hubald, through whose skill and labor the work had progressed considerably, he suddenly heals a man seriously injured in a fall: he brought about a fall from the scaffolding, so that his whole body was crushed, and all hope of strength, apart from mere breathing, was no longer to be found in him. When the man of God learned of his fall, he grieved greatly both for him and for the interruption of the work; yet he did not lack his usual powers of healing from his holiness and virtue. For he ordered the man to be transferred and placed in a more secluded area of his own quarters, and to be cared for in all things from his own resources, as was fitting. Then he himself sent to him something of the food and drink that had been brought to him, with an added blessing, and — marvelous to say! — straightway raised him to health. Whence it happened that the machinations of diabolical fraud were suddenly thwarted, and all grief over the injury of the aforementioned Hubald was wiped away: so that he who had struck despair for his life into those who beheld him now, with all his strength entirely restored for his former work, presented a pleasing spectacle and, on the contrary, joy to those who beheld him.

[43] He restores Stavelot over seven years: And now that work rose to a height, and surveyed from its vantage every place both far and wide, and with the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit cooperating, all its efficacy overflowed throughout seven years. Nor did the man of God believe this was sufficient; but for the increase of its beauty he adds other ornaments: he added many weighty ornaments. For he bestowed a chalice of marvelous size, magnificently fashioned of gold and gems, and expended no small preparation in a crown of gold and silver; to these, very many gifts through the blessed man then gave adornment in addition. And that these things may be briefly committed to writing, whatever in the altar panel, copes, palls, and remaining ornamentation are or have been at that place, had their beginning by the counsel and work of Blessed Poppo. He discovers veins of marble: He likewise found there marble columns for that same work — by truly divine provision — in a place where the nature of the site had never before allowed anyone to find marble. And truly, with Poppo himself having laid the foundation long ago, God built up the increase of the work once begun, so that he could say with the Apostle in both letter and spirit what the mouth of the same Apostle holds in spirit alone: "According to the grace given to me, as a wise architect I have laid the foundation; but another builds upon it." 1 Corinthians 3:10. Who, I say, builds upon it, except He without whose building, he who builds labors in vain? Psalm 126:1.

[44] Moreover, the administration of that same Church proceeded both elegantly and vigorously, and for its consecration in honor of St. Peter and St. Remaclus, the holy man deliberated with full counsel concerning its chrismation. Whence for this business he summoned Hermann, Archbishop of Cologne, and Nico of Liege, with whom the occasion of the same matter united many Bishops and Abbots; and that this might be more honorably commended, he invited the Imperial Majesty of Henry, to whom rightful succession to the Empire had come after his father Conrad. The appointed day indeed had dawned, he has the church solemnly dedicated, July 7, 1040: which shone on the Nones of July for the consecrating and chrismating of that same house of the Lord, where a large crowd gathered with the aforesaid men. How great the expenditure of supplies and gifts which he exhibited both to the Imperial Presence and to the remaining nobles then present, who could set a limit to writing of these things? Moreover, by the aforesaid Henry, a piece of land in his own right in Amel, extending to nearly twelve mansi, was confirmed by legal testaments for the use of that same place; and then he decreed that the same anniversary day should be celebrated further with an assembly of the people. Whence also up to the present day the custom has grown of people running together from every quarter to the aforesaid day. Furthermore, for Malmedy, which had always both pertained and been adjacent to the aforesaid place, so that it might more firmly be connected to that same place, the imperial ordinance imposed its sentence, with all things that seemed justly to pertain to that place also confirmed, lest anyone might further have the right to unjustly seek them. Blessed Poppo also established by a perpetual law that the monks of Malmedy should make the pledge of their profession at Stavelot; and thenceforth this rule extended to all their successors. The aforesaid church was consecrated and chrismated in honor of the Prince of the Apostles Peter, and of the holy Confessors Martin and Remaclus, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1040, in the eighth Indiction, and also in the second year of the Emperor Henry.

CHAPTER XII.

Rivals chastised. Miracles.

[45] He foretells the death of a certain Abbot: At the time when it happened that Blessed Poppo committed the monastery of St. Maximin to John to govern, it happened also that he himself learned certain things in a vision concerning the reception of that same governance. For a voice came to him by an oracle that was, as is truly established, divine, which caused him to hear that very sentence which, once spoken to Peter by Christ, foretold his passion thus: John 21:18 "When you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you shall have grown old, you will stretch forth your hands, and another will gird you and lead you where you do not wish." He straightway understood this to be effected by a divine oracle, and with the eyes of prophecy he perceived that it was signified in one way concerning himself and in another way concerning Peter. Meanwhile he delivered a discourse to the Brothers concerning the governance of the oft-mentioned John, and concerning things to come both in himself and in John, he wove words as though about things past. Yet this he frequently taught by inculcation: that the setting of death already regarded that same John from not far off. And so, after a short time, the matter found its fulfillment as the man of God had predicted, and John came to the end of his living in that very year. When he was removed from their midst, because Poppo was striving to decline somewhat the sentence of the heavenly oracle upon himself, out of humility, he ordered a certain Bernard to succeed him in governance. Who likewise, with scarcely two years elapsed, was removed from human affairs; and nothing was left thenceforth but fear and astonishment. Yet before the near hour of his own departure, Bernard dictated this sentence to the Brothers standing around him: that no one except the aforesaid man of God Poppo should be promoted in governance, lest he too should similarly perish at the very threshold of his succession or promotion. At length, lest the divine response should be rendered void in any way, Blessed Poppo was ordered by the imperial majesty to resume governance of that same monastery of St. Maximin. And thus, what he had vainly striven to decline, he then, though unwillingly, undertook: and as he had received in the vision, he extended his hands to pastoral duties, and was led by another where he himself did not wish.

[46] But Limburg, over which John had likewise presided while he lived, Gumbert, a monk of the holy man's profession and place, had undertaken to govern; but what he had rashly presumed, without the aforesaid Blessed Poppo's consent, Several Abbots who died quickly on account of their contempt for him: he had not long afterward lost together with his own life, so that with his bowels gradually being consumed, a prolonged plague of this sort dragged him to his death. After him Hagano entered, fearing nothing similar; whom likewise a grave fall seized unto death. Meanwhile, Godestenus, whose solitary life had already spread far and wide in holiness and fame, was carried away from his solitary and, as it were, eremitical purpose by the love of succession, so that he broke through the barriers of his seclusion, and alone, as though by his own holiness, presumed that he would do with impunity what his predecessors could not. But because he did not sense himself to be driven by the goads of his own cupidity — he whom fame had given all people to honor to such a degree — he was running into the grave road of death because he dared to presume as though upon his own merits. For reaching for the heights, he falls from on high: because on a certain day he fell from the top of a mountain into the lowest part of a valley, and thence found the occasion of death. And thus all who employed the stratagems of both supplanting and concupiscence against Blessed Poppo were gathered into one place of death, and gradually day by day the state of that monastery perished, and up to the present it does not cease to display the traces of its destitution.

[47] The man of God Poppo, therefore, residing at Stavelot, where "stable praise" is perpetually sung by the faithful, [A furious woman is healed by the water with which St. Poppo had washed his hands:] so that he might render sacrifices and praises with the fruits of almsgiving to God, it happened that a certain woman, deprived of her senses, came unknowingly to the aforesaid place, wandering and tearing herself through mountains and valleys, fields and forests. She could by no means be held in any inn or lodging, but by chance she then entered the aforesaid place and came as far as the sacristy of the man of God. The hour was one at which the man of God had completed the solemnities of the Mass, when the ministers had offered water for washing his hands and face. When that unfortunate woman saw this, she asked that the same water, which was customarily poured into the basin, should be given her to drink. Having received it, she no longer suffered the insanity of mind. God showed by this deed how great was the merit of this Saint before Him. For although the holiness of Blessed Benedict, the Father of monks, was unequal, nevertheless in this work his imitator became illustrious: because just as a woman returned healed to the cave of the former by his merits, so to the cell of the latter this woman also returned, cured by the water from washing his hands and face.

[48] A certain illustrious man named Stephen, joined to the blessed man by familiarity, having laid aside the belt of military service, betook himself to the above-mentioned monastery and pledged himself as a monk. Already weary with old age, he was awaiting his final day. Visited therefore by the Brothers, he said that he wished to die, His disciple, having received permission from him, dies: but that he could not without the permission of the Father. When the Father had been summoned, he obtained from him a blessing and the viaticum, and Poppo granted him what he asked; and thus they departed. The man of God returned to the cell from which he had set out, and Stephen entered the way of all flesh. Who would not marvel at such great authority of the Father, and the faith of the dying disciple? We see the deeds of the ancient Fathers renewed through this Saint.

"Pour forth your hearts in prayers; here rots the pious Abbot John. Alas, that heavy day, snatching you, Father, hence! After he had presided over this church for a few years, His soul enters judgment, his body the tomb. On the fifth Ides, while July burns in the fields, He who was translated is restored in the midst to the Lord. O merciful Almighty, lover of life, not death, Add him, at the prayers of those who ask, to your company."

In the manuscript Necrology of the same monastery, at the fifth day before the Ides of July, the following is found: "Everwinus, Abbot. John, Abbot of this place."

CHAPTER XIII.

The governance of St. Vaast and of Marchiennes.

[49] Meanwhile the ruler of the Atrebatensians, John, was withdrawn from this light; St. Poppo becomes Abbot of St. Vaast: and the opportunity of Blessed Poppo's holiness was presented to Marquis Baldwin for a successor. He labored long and earnestly over this, with messengers running to and fro, and, though late, obtained the assent of the holy man to this. Yet the imperial license, which the same Marquis saw still remained for this, did not allow it to happen immediately, especially since there was at that time great dissension and a powerful contention between the Eastern parties and his own. At length that same license was permitted by the King to Blessed Poppo, and so he was conveyed all the way to Arras. And first in the city of Namur he came together with Bishop Wazo of Liege, he is escorted by the Bishop of Liege: who had always occupied a place in his heart by reason of spiritual love, whom also, when he had once been driven from Liege by envy, Poppo himself had received, and had begun to care for him at his side with special attention; and then, after some days had passed, he recalled him to the place from which he had been exiled, and by his counsel and favor afterward assigned him to the episcopate. For during their journey, conversation about heavenly things arose, and their minds were equally suspended toward things above; when behold, Blessed Poppo, having taken the lead in his course, said: "Come, now I precede you" — whose death, and his own, he foretells: doing one thing, but wishing to signify another by the spirit of prophecy concerning his now imminent death.

[50] Having meanwhile received from the aforesaid Bishop those things which he then seemed to need for the time, he arrived at Arras, as we have previously mentioned. He orders the affairs of the monastery: Where he merited to be excellently received with the equal affection of all, inasmuch as his holiness had long been known to them by experience. Accordingly, matters were conducted for each one out of love for him; with Emmelin as his assistant: and what had been each person's own until then was placed before him, so that truly Apostolic times were found among them, since all possessions were laid before the feet of the Apostles by those who were of one heart and one soul. Acts 4:32. Thus he began more to benefit than to preside over them, and for the administering of their affairs with profit and honor, he appointed as head a prudent man named Emmelin, who was a brother in the flesh of the aforesaid Bishop Wazo, and the holy man's collaborator and, as is commonly said, his right hand.

[51] Things being thus, let us turn our pen to the departure of the blessed man from this life. Blessed Poppo, therefore, foreknowing that the hour of his departure from this flesh was near, on his departure he is generous to the Brothers: set out to direct his journey toward Stavelot, so that the place which had held him more strictly under monastic training should not be absent at his burial. Departing thence, he left the traces of his charity to his men, and ordered that a single drink should be given to each man for thirty days. This edict of charity took root among them for the same number of days. Having admitted prayers, therefore, he obtained the license of the Marquis for this, and so began to enter upon the way of his return.

[52] The aforesaid Marquis, however, assigned the monastery of Marchiennes to his guardianship, He places Baldwin over Marchiennes: and directed that at that very moment of his return he should attend to all things there. This burden he undertook more unwillingly than voluntarily, and he visited and cared for that place. Where a procession of monks, distinguished with elegance and gravity, came forth to meet him; which was a sign to those who saw it of how great was the affection for his holiness among them. He began meanwhile to provide for each one the individual things that would be useful, and like that Evangelical steward, to supply necessities without ostentation. Luke 12:42. But since the manifold occasion of affairs was drawing him elsewhere, and he saw that he alone did not suffice for all things, in the administration of these he promoted Baldwin, afterward Abbot of Arras, to be second to himself.

[54] And now, as the final time of his departure was imminent and he was indulging a little in sleep in his cell, the devil tries to terrify him in his sleep: dreams fashioned by phantasmal, indeed diabolical, illusions presented themselves, and showed the demon standing nearby, as it were, who, directing threats at the man of God, added that he would soon depart from that place. To whom the man of God said: "God, by whose will the governance of this place has come upon me, will see to my departure hence when He wills and how He wills." And forthwith the demon, making an assault, endeavored to attack him, and to cast upon him a grievous disturbance through the vision. Whence, constrained by the phantasmal illusion, he cried out by adding that verse from the one hundred and twenty-third Psalm: "Our help is in the name of the Lord." And at the sound of that cry, both he himself and those who had fallen asleep before him were startled awake; and the man of God beheld the lamp which used to burn before him at that time of night to be extinguished; and he understood by the evident sign of the preceding vision that the enemy had done this. Psalm 123:8.

[54] Nor should it be a wonder that the demon had such power against the man of God through dreams, he whom we know to have assailed by temptation not through dreams or enigmas but face to face the very true God and true man Himself, and to have led Him from place to place at the pleasure of his wickedness. For he is the one who fashions snares for the heel of the human race; and he wages the importunate wars of his malice against the Saints, now presenting himself in a somewhat visible manner to some, now thrusting himself upon others with the phantasmal horror of dreams. Sirach 34:7. Concerning which kind of dreams we also read this written: "Dreams have caused many to err, The various kinds of dreams: and those who hoped in them have fallen." And although we digress a little from the purpose, yet we speak of what has been suggested by the occasion of the matter proposed. It should be known that according to most authors six, and according to others five, kinds of dreams only are found. And indeed the six, as we read in the divine pages, we insert here not without reason: those which occur from fullness of the belly, from emptiness, from illusion, from thought together with illusion, from revelation, and from thought together with revelation. But the two which we placed first are known by experience; the remaining four, as Blessed Gregory attests, are found in the pages of divine Scripture. Dialogues, book 4, chapter 48. And indeed this blessed man of God Poppo was certainly tested by illusion, yet we truly believe that he was preserved from its harm by God's help, on account of his holiness. Those who desire to know the distinctions of the aforesaid dreams in only five kinds, let them read Macrobius on the Dream of Scipio, and they will find nothing different between the two systems if the meaning of each is closely examined. Macrobius, book 1, chapter 3.

CHAPTER XIV.

Death. Virtues. Burial.

[55] But with these things inserted on the occasion of the matter proposed, as we have said, let the remainder concerning the blessed man be commended in these writings, whom God was protecting with continual defenses from the pestilence walking in darkness and from the demonic assault. Making the sign of the cross upon himself, meanwhile, St. Poppo falls ill: and having completed the duty of divine service with which he spent the remainder of the night, he began to be exhausted by a powerful illness of fevers, and to be driven to the very end of his life by unrelenting pains. Whence, summoning the Lord Everhelm, Abbot of Hautmont, who had followed him there, he asks for extreme unction: and the rest of the Brothers together with him, he predicted that the day of his dissolution was imminent. Then he likewise admonished the aforesaid Abbot concerning the visitation and anointing of himself. He added moreover to the same man that he was to be carried after death to Stavelot, the original place of his profession, he wishes to be buried at Stavelot: and that his body, kept free from the harm of iron, should there obtain the place of his repose; foreseeing also for himself after death the individual resting stations on the way, which he himself, were he alive, would have chosen for the same purpose of lodging.

[56] When all things had been completed on his behalf, he went barefoot to the haircloth which he had ordered to be spread for him, he lies on haircloth upon the ground: and kissing the earth with both body and breast prone, he placed himself on his back; then, enjoining a responsory upon those standing around him, he began in this manner: "Come to his aid, O Saints of God; hasten to meet him, O Angels of the Lord." This injunction the crowd of surrounding Brothers took up and completed to the very end, together with the Litany also appended. After the completion of this, he himself in a wondrous manner, coming to himself, sat up again and gave a beginning to speaking thus: "Know certainly, Brothers, he disposes of all his affairs: that certain things remain to be done through me, and that God is granting me still a space for speaking to you." And not without reason did he say this upon coming to himself, because the things that needed to be done and which he had not yet fully accomplished, he subsequently committed to effect by speaking and acting. And first he admitted counsel concerning the distribution of the things that had been his until then: of which he sent some to the churches of God for their increase, and others he distributed to friends and the poor of Christ as a memorial of himself; and thus he wiped away every suspicion of avarice from the enemy, recalling that Apostolic saying: "We brought nothing into this world, but neither can we take anything away." 1 Timothy 6:7. Meanwhile he ordered that Theoderic, whom he himself had once nurtured in all doctrine, as we have said, should hasten to his men as quickly as possible, so that they might hurry to address the imperial presence on his behalf, and to undertake the pastoral care in governing the monastery of St. Maximin. When those standing by said to him: "What do you decree should be done regarding Stavelot?" he said: "I have nothing else to say to you about this than that I wish it to be commended to God alone. This, as I say, I commit surely to God alone, and I admit no other ruler than the one He Himself shall provide."

[57] At last, with priestly authority and stole, he bestowed upon the Brothers the pardon of their sins, and with hands extended he uttered the words of a prayer in this manner: He desires to die on the feast of St. Paul: "Grant, O God immense, ineffable, and great, that if I have truly been converted, I may have this sign of it: that I may pass from the flesh on the Conversion of St. Paul, which falls this very night; which I have always desired should happen, and have always begged of You, O God." And saying this, he ordered himself to be gathered again upon the haircloth, and made an end of speaking for the last time. When behold, at the moment of midnight, in a wondrous manner he raised his hands, he dies: and at the very last, at the time he had requested, when the morning office had been completed, he breathed his last. A cry was immediately raised by those standing around: "Behold, O Blessed Poppo, this hour is a sign of your holiness to all. Behold, how much the grace of your goodness has merited, God has made known to the world in His wisdom." Nor was it easy for anyone then to restrain himself from tears, since he had merited so happily to depart to Him for whom he had always lived: happily, I say, he departed, who had always increased virtues in himself under happy auspices. And this, lest we seem to pass it over as though from negligence, let us attempt to describe as evidence of so distinguished a departure, insofar as our powers suffice.

[58] For he had an abounding compunction of heart from the infusion of the Holy Spirit, of which also in the first time of his conversion he was so desirous His piety: that when he saw certain of the Brothers thereby stirred to tears and grieved that he himself could not do the like, he would take a stone and beat his breast with it, that perhaps by this means even a small drop of compunction might flow for him. Having been made a partaker of this desire of his after no long time, he obtained from God so great a grace of compunction that, on the day and night when he often bent his knee a hundred times while devoting himself to prayer, he would wash the entire pavement with his tears. In the celebration of the Mass, accordingly, he would moisten with tears the chasuble with which he was clothed; and during dinner he loved to be fed more by reading than by eating; and truly, on account of the tears which he was accustomed to shed thereby, he would have had occasion to say with the Psalmist: "My tears have been my bread day and night." Psalm 41:4.

[59] What shall I say moreover about the affliction of his body, and about the destruction and contrition of his flesh? His penance: Which he so wore down with fasts and scourgings, that whatever vice his flesh coveted against the spirit, he himself would wipe it out with scourgings secretly inflicted upon himself by his own hand, and on this account vengeance upon himself would proceed through himself. The use of baths was rare for him even in the illness from which he continually suffered; but never before his illness and after his conversion did he allow them for himself; and he also abstained from rich foods in every way. Nor did such abstinence alone seem to suffice him for the mortification of the flesh; his pilgrimages: but moreover, for crucifying himself to the world, he added upon himself the crosses of pilgrimage; frequently visiting the shrines of the Apostles, and frequently also — and, so to speak, more habitually — keeping watch at those of other Saints.

[60] His moderation: Nor can it be said how much he tempered every judgment of his own with discretion, and how much he adorned it with merciful justice. Job 29:15. And truly with Blessed Job he had been an eye to the blind and a foot to the lame, and had cared for the cause of the orphan and the poor as his own, his liberality toward the poor: indeed even more so; and besides feeding them with daily expenses, on the first day of every month he fully refreshed three hundred of Christ's poor. He also sent many gifts both of gold and of silver to those leading the eremitical and solitary life, and by giving counsel to very many rulers who had been removed from governance, he both relieved them with his resources and recalled them to their former place of governance. And that all the virtues of his probity may be reported in brief, other virtues: and may grant credibility to readers from the report of the ancients: he was firm in faith, long-suffering in hope, unfeigned in charity, nearest to each in compassion, and always most ready in mind and countenance for every good work. He corrected his subjects with clemency and endured them with patience; and if he wished to reprove anyone for any fault, first descending into himself, he lamented it as though it were his own, according to that saying of the Apostle: "If a man be overtaken in any fault, you who are spiritual, instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted." Galatians 6:1. And to pass over the constancy of his vigils and prayers (for it is fitting to pass over common things), he truly lived as an angel in the flesh, since he always fixed his mind on heavenly things, where the angels see the face of the Father. Matthew 18:10. And for this reason, let the miracles — both those which we have mentioned and those which are to be mentioned — suffice to establish faith among the faithful, and let them, with all the darkness of doubt excluded, satisfy concerning his holiness. When he died: He died indeed on the eighth day before the Kalends of February, in the year of the Incarnate Word 1048, in the first Indiction, in the seventieth year of his age, and the tenth year of the reign of Henry the Second.

[61] A sweet fragrance from the dead body: Meanwhile he was clothed with the priestly insignia, as he used to stand before the sacred altars; and from his sacred body there was perceived a fragrance of most pleasing sweetness, which had formerly been more fragrant to him when living in his virtues, and now did not cease to give off its sweet scent in his very flesh. The Brothers also took care to clothe that holy body in a white chasuble, whose soul had more happily merited to find the first robe in heaven among those clothed in white stoles.

[62] He was then placed in the oratory; that night was spent until the twilight of dawn with prayers on his behalf. He is transferred to Stavelot: When behold, having prepared those things which they had provided for transferring him, they secretly departed from the threshold of that land. And stopping at the same lodging places he is honorably received at Liege: which they had learned from him while he was living, they arrived at Liege, and having sent a messenger ahead, they made known the arrival of the blessed man to Wazo, Bishop of that city. He at first joyfully supposed that Poppo was coming alive; but when the messenger explained to him the circumstances of his death, he began to press himself inconsolably with cries and laments, and to grieve incredibly that he had lost such a companion of his love. After the laments, though not the grief, had somewhat subsided, such fame, which had now filled all of Liege, also by pontifical authority gave this edict to all the monasteries of that city: that the sacred body should be received with crosses, lamps, and censers, and that it should be followed with such honor as befitted such a servant of God. This indeed happened, with all mingling together, with both devotion and grief; nor was there anyone whom the compunction of heart for such things did not touch inwardly. And we indeed, who write these things about him, are ourselves likewise entirely absorbed in his funeral; how much more did those who were then present at his obsequies experience grief for the loss of so great and such a man? But if we must grieve because we have lost one whom we held dear, much more certainly should we rejoice that we have sent ahead an intercessor for us in the heavenly dwelling. Moreover, the aforesaid Bishop gave alms to the poor of Christ on behalf of the holy man, and accompanied those venerable obsequies with the rest all the way to Stavelot. Nor did the difficulty of the journey or the season weary the travelers even slightly, especially since the rigor of winter then occupied the entire surface of the earth — the power of God, beyond doubt, being at work there and invisibly favoring the translation of His servant.

[63] At length they arrived at Stavelot, as we have said, and the whole crowd of both laymen and monks of that place was surrounded with sorrows and wailings, so that the clamor of the mourners overwhelmed the voices of those chanting psalms, he is buried at Stavelot: and even in the little children, emotion provoked groaning. A burial was soon opened for him after the solemnities of the Mass in the middle of the crypt, where he himself while alive had chosen, and there that office was performed not without the presence of Angels. For to the aforesaid Bishop, Angels seen by the Bishop at the funeral: for whom it was easy to see this on account of his merits, an angelic vision appeared during those obsequies; and he repeatedly asked his attendant minister whether he too saw the same thing. But why no one was able to see what he merited to see, as we have said, on account of his merits, it is not for us to judge — unless perhaps because the holiness of none of those standing around sufficed for the aforesaid vision, or because the grace of God did not wish to reveal it to anyone except the Bishop himself. It breathes forth a sweet fragrance for a long time: And now the sun completed the sixth day around the funeral of the unburied body, and yet the original fragrance in it did not fail; so that certainly those who were present are witnesses that they perceived in him, as it were, the sweetness of aromatic powder. Moreover, certain exhortatory letters, once written to him in love by the venerable Abbot Richard, they placed upon his breast together with a chalice; and they also left a copy of those same letters in that monastery for posterity, so that the agreement and affection of both might be experienced in it, and what the grace of charity avails might be found therein by those who read. Let it suffice that we have said these things about the death and translation of the blessed man, concerning whose virtues and miracles let not faith be lacking to readers, especially since they are attested by witnesses who have learned them by the faith of their own eyes, and are more firmly corroborated in these writings.

CHAPTER XV.

Various miracles after death.

[64] Moreover, let no one wonder that miracles do not occur more frequently at his sepulcher, nor on this account doubt those things He never sought the grace of miracles: which we have truly said about him, since he himself, while still living in the flesh, attested in the hearing of many of the Brothers that he had never delighted in doing miracles, nor had ever presumed to ask God that this grace should be given to him. And although out of humility he feared the people's favor toward him in life, yet after death he did not lack the grace of miracles: because after death he was unable to be hidden, whom before death God had inspired to this — that he should wish to be hidden. A few things out of many, however, I shall insert here, and I shall recount the glory of God in His Saint, not without the wonder of readers.

[65] Hermann, a monk and also porter of that same monastery, about three months after the deposition of the blessed man, was seized by illness and came to the very end of his life; and he ceased speaking, suspended in his final agony, so that he did not seem to breathe in any way; nor was anything else estimated in him A man snatched away to judgment is restored to himself: than death itself. In a certain wondrous manner, after a space of nearly two hours, he returned to himself, and reported to the Brothers standing around him that he had been snatched away to judgment, and that when the stains of each of his sins had been wiped clean in confession, he had been challenged for only one thing: that he had sinned against the statutes of Blessed Poppo. For he said: "Know that I have made confession of the sins of each of my deeds, so that he might confess and expiate his disobedience: and have left only one to forgetfulness: that the pasture field which Blessed Poppo had entrusted to a certain person, my pride had formerly presumed to take away. For this I was snatched away to judgment, and was called to account for my temerity against the man of God; and at length by the intercession of that same holy man I was permitted to return here and to expiate a crime of this sort by both your prayers and my confession." When the Brothers asked many questions about the aforesaid man of God, with St. Poppo interceding for him, seen in glory: he added to all of them this concerning him: that he had seen him, commendable in honor and reverence, among the chief men of the heavenly court; and that there, by his intercession, he had received the occasion of returning, and that the hope of seeing him again had increased for him henceforth — if indeed their prayers were first sent up to God on his behalf, and thus what had been rashly committed by him against his statute were purged. He added moreover that no one could commit anything against the man of God with impunity, and that the matter was becoming clear in himself as an example of this. He dies again: Soon the Brothers pressed on in prayer for him, and were expiating by their prayers what he had transgressed against the statute of the man of God; when behold, without delay he breathed his last, so that it was clearly given to be understood that he had received the faculty of returning in the flesh for this reason: that what he had transgressed against the man of God might be wiped away by him here, and a true judgment concerning what he had said might be left behind. Rejoice therefore, O Church of Stavelot; St. Poppo is similar to St. Martin: rejoice, I say, in the presence of so great a man: because just as the city of Tours glories in its Martin for his marvelous deeds, so also in your Poppo the state of your affairs is magnified; since Martin raised a dead man while alive, and Poppo, after death, recalled to life a monk snatched away from himself to judgment. It is indeed a great thing to raise the dead; it is also great to recall to himself a man snatched away to judgment: since neither can be done except by Saints, who enjoy the presence of God in a wondrous manner. And truly in this it is clear that Blessed Poppo lives even after death, The boy Gozo, near death, is terrified by demons: and that he always bears the care of his own before God.

[66] At another time also, a certain boy Gozo, himself a monk of the man of God, still subject to the discipline of the school, was seized by a powerful bodily illness. He immediately asked to be visited and to be anointed with oil, and to be commended to God with psalms and prayers. While this was being done and the Brothers stood by him in prayer and visitation of his illness, he suddenly cried out that a phalanx of demons, imitating the faces of Aeneas and Turnus and other men from Virgil, was attacking him, and that he was being assailed to the very soul by those who had been of the greatest use to him in his studies. When the Brothers urged him to make the sign of the Cross before himself, He is aided by St. Poppo: and he responded that he could not, he immediately cried out that the Lord Abbot Poppo was present, and with bowed head he saluted him — while the Brothers did not know whom he meant. When the crowd of Brothers standing around him asked him what he saw, or whom he was greeting, he said: "Do you not see the Lord Abbot Poppo in your midst, and do you not perceive that at his presence the entire phalanx of demons has fled?" He added moreover that he had been snatched from their hands by the assistance of the aforesaid Abbot, and had obtained the remedies of security from them henceforth. While he was recounting these things, with both pain and trembling subsiding in him, he breathed his last, and dies peacefully: and displayed a sign of what he had said that was as true as it was manifest: so that he was truly believed to have departed thence with Blessed Poppo, and in him the same solicitude of the blessed man toward all the Brothers was understood. The body of this boy, surrounded by his age-fellows with both favor and grief, was buried before the schools, although some were unwilling; for whom also the groaning was so much the more intolerable, as the affection of all toward him during his life had been more lovable.

CHAPTER XVI.

Other miracles. Epilogue of the author.

[67] At the same time there was a certain master of carpenters, Thietmar by name, A man asks to die with St. Poppo and obtains his wish: who was held very dear by the man of God Poppo on account of the skill of his craft; for God had inspired him, like Bezalel, to complete the work in the house of the Lord according to the will of the man of God. This is shown to those who see it by the admirable structure of the present basilica. This man, when the evening assembly had been completed, came to certain Brothers in the cloister with no small sadness, as we shall relate; and behold, the nephew of the holy man, Everhelm, Abbot of Hautmont, was sitting there. He began to ask him what was the cause of his trouble. He replied that he had been deprived of the benefit which the man of God Poppo had conceded to him by perpetual right. And Everhelm said: "Your Lord Poppo is not dead, but he truly lives. Go as quickly as possible to him and tell him if you have anything." The man believed the word he had heard, and with swift course he arrived at the sepulcher of the man of God, and there, crying out most bitterly the words that follow, he prostrated himself upon the holy body: "Woe is me, Father and Lord, why do you permit me to live longer in the valley of weeping? I call you to witness by the Almighty, whom you faithfully served in this life, that you do not permit me to live in this wretched life for eight days." When therefore he believed he had been heard, he rose; he returned home; he cast himself upon his bed; he asked for and received the viaticum; and just as he had asked of the holy man, before the eighth day he was withdrawn from this light.

[68] Furthermore, the Lord works through him very many benefits of healings. Those with fevers, demoniacs, Miracles at the sepulcher of St. Poppo: and others who are ill are healed at his sepulcher, with God cooperating. One distinguished miracle, however, which is known to almost everyone, I shall bring forward, so that from this the faith of believers may be kindled. A certain man, long afflicted with the disease of dropsy, was brought from the western region and was placed in the basilica of the holy and Apostolic man Remaclus, the worker of wonders, [A man with dropsy, admonished by St. Remaclus to pray at St. Poppo's sepulcher, prays and is healed:] and in the presence of his body. He spent a week there, awaiting the long-desired health, and at last, exhausted, he was weighed down with sleep. And behold, he saw the most holy and God-beloved Remaclus standing beside him, radiant with immense splendor, and saying this to him: "Rise, and hasten to the sepulcher of Abbot Poppo, which is in this crypt; for through him health will come to you." The sick man, therefore awakened, rose and came there as best he could, and prostrating his whole body upon the mausoleum, he most devoutly implored the aid of God through his intercession; when suddenly all the poison which was being diffused through his limbs and vital organs, being gathered together — as once by the touch of St. Martin, or rather with God glorifying His servant and showing how great his merit was before Him — in the manner of a torrent, by a great vomiting, it inundated suddenly through the passage of his throat. And immediately the man rose well, who had arrived nearly despaired of; and giving thanks to God in His holy Confessors, he joyfully returned to his own home. Who would not be amazed at the occurrence of this extraordinary miracle, committing it to pen and memory for the benefit of posterity, so that the Lord may be magnified, who deigned to heal him through His servant?

[69] That same aforesaid athlete of God, while he bore the human condition on earth, served Christ and His most holy Bishop Remaclus with immense labor: whence he merited to be declared by this deed a citizen of the Saints and a member of God's household. O happy Stavelot, containing the remains of so great a Bishop Remaclus, to whom for the protection of that same place there has been joined the servant of God Poppo, an impregnable shield against all plotting enemies. For it is not an accidental name that has adhered to you, but an essential one: "Stable Praise" — [Candles are not extinguished in the open air, despite the blowing wind, at the funeral of St. Poppo:] the vulgar name "Stabolaus," which arose from ignorance, having been cast away — because your "Stable Praise" will never be extinguished, just as the lights of candles in wintertime, with winds blowing in the open air, could not be extinguished when the body of Blessed Poppo was received by the Brothers of the aforesaid place.

[70] I therefore, Everhelm, Abbot of Hautmont, while residing at the monastery of Blandin, Everhelm at Ghent writes this Life: have briefly summarized this booklet in writing — not so as to comprehend all things that ought to be said about the blessed man. When I had arranged to bring it to the aforementioned place, I took as companions of my journey in this little volume he writes it and brings it to Stavelot: Onulph the monk, who is mentioned in the little preface of this book, and Odulf, chaplain of Count Lambert. While we were diligently conversing on the way about our life and the hope of future things, Odulf also frequently went through this book with me, calling blessed the blessed man who had thus escaped the shipwreck of the present age. What more? At length we arrived at Liege, where at that time the martyrdom of St. Lambert the Martyr was being commemorated. Departing thence after the solemnities of the Mass, in order to hasten to the tomb of the man of God, Onulph, deceived by the counsel of Odulf, refused to complete the journey he had begun with me, citing I know not what concerning the merits of the holy man to the other. Therefore both say: "Continue your journey; we shall await your return at the monastery of St. Trudo." To these words I, considering the weakness of their faith, said that they would repent of it shortly. And proceeding thence, I arrived at the tomb of the blessed man, content with the company of one boy alone. Drawing out therefore the booklet edited about his deeds, Those who detract from the merits of St. Poppo are punished: I deposited it, not without contrition of heart, upon the burial of the most pious Father. On the next day, returning to my traveling companions, I found them excessively sad and mournful. For the one was grievously lamenting the loss of his horse, which had been struck down; and Odulf, afflicted with a lurid plague, was groaning more grievously. When I looked at him, he first began: "Woe is me, my lord, why did I delay completing with you the journey I had begun? Behold, now struck by the disease of dysentery, or rather by divine power, I am perishing." Consoling him gently and mildly, I urged him to take the monastic habit. After this I departed; and he died not long afterward, leaving to posterity an example of his transgression, lest they presume to detract from the virtues of the man of God Poppo.