ON ST. GUTHAGON THE CONFESSOR,
AT OOSTKERKE NEAR BRUGES IN FLANDERS.
Perhaps Eighth Century.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
On the notice of the Saint, his age, burial, race, elevation, translation, and relics.
Guthagon, Confessor, at Oostkerke near Bruges in Flanders (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
The chief notice concerning St. Guthagon, otherwise Guthago, we owe to John Molanus, of never sufficiently praised diligence in collecting the deeds of our native Saints. He, in his Little Index and Birthdays, related almost everything From notices received from the Lord de Corte, which of the Saint, known only by name, can be commemorated with some verisimilitude, whence Canon John Cousin, author of the history of Tournai, volume 3, page 272, Gazet, page 394, and others everywhere took their material. What is sought from the Martyrologies, or the new collections of Saints, does not greatly illustrate the matter: the English, Scots, and Irish involve it more. Since from such monuments many doubts arose, I thought I should have recourse to Bruges, to my friend the very reverend and most well-informed Lord Louis de Wale, canon of the Cathedral church of St. Donatian and secretary of the most illustrious Bishop of Bruges; who, using the labor of the most noble and most learned man, the lord of Oostkerke, Louis Curtius, sprung from that race which has borne several learned men to the literary world, officiously suggested to me those things which I judged could not incongruously have a place in this our work, to supply the place of Acts, which were either never written, or long ago perished with innumerable other documents of that kind.
[2] To begin from the very place where St. Guthagon is venerated, which Molanus calls a Burgh (I suppose, from the ancient frequency of inhabitants), the praised Curtius describes it thus: Oostkerke is described. The village of Oostkerke is situated in the territory of the Franc between Bruges and Sluis, distant from each city a mile and a half, and was once very celebrated, namely where five thousand communicants were numbered, and there were two pastors and three chaplains. And no wonder, for there was subject to this parish church (while the affairs of the people of Bruges flourished) a little town called Munikrede (from the neighboring monks), of which now not even a shadow survives. But the aforesaid monks, by I know not what chance or at what time, departed hence, and now dwell in the fane of St. Quentin in Vermandois, but still possess the tithes and patronage of this and of several neighboring churches. This village too is among the most ancient (and I believe the aforesaid Saint was buried here for this reason, that Knokke at that time had no church), but not so populous as it used to be, since now not four hundred communicants can be found. Thus far the lord of the place, adding that he knew three villages of that name, namely near Bruges, near Furnes, and in Brabant near Tubise. It would be vain to adduce others; that homonymy sufficed to lead Ferrari into error, when he placed Oostkerke of Bruges near Furnes in the diocese of Ypres.
[3] The Saint seems to have flourished in the 8th century, not under Diocletian. The age in which St. Guthagon lived, in so obscure a tradition, there is no one who may easily find, for no memory of the Saint handed down in writing, which is older than the 12th century, has come to us. This Gerard, Bishop of Tournai, awakened, by elevating the sacred body in the year 1159, as will appear below from the Birthdays of Molanus. The Scottish writers dream, who write that St. Guthagon was an exile in Flanders for the faith under Diocletian. Thus the manuscript catalogue of the Saints of Scotland in our possession: St. Guthagon confessor, sprung of the royal blood of the Scots, is illustrious somewhere in Belgium in the year 299. And a little more distinctly, in the collection of the Saints of Scotland, likewise manuscript, from the Aberdeen breviary printed in the year 1509, cited elsewhere by us, in which these things are read: Of St. Guthagon, son of the king of the Scots, Confessor, an exile in Flanders for the Catholic faith under Diocletian, in the year 299, July 3. Better does the most noble Curtius judge, that the Saint lived in the 8th century, that very one, namely, in which several others from the British isles migrated into our Belgium, and there, illustrious for their excellent virtues and miracles, merited the honors of the heavenly ones.
[4] What the truer tradition bears. The constant tradition, persevering to the
times of Gerard of Tournai, bore this especially: that St. Guthagon the confessor, king of Scotland, a pilgrim for Christ, rested in peace, after he had for some time holily lived about the shores of the sea in the neighborhood of Knokke; and that he was buried with devotion by clerics and laymen at Oostkerke, in the western part of the cemetery. What besides has been added by some proceeded either from their own sense, or from I know not what convenience. Thus Ferrari, having set down this announcement, At Oostkerke in Flanders, of St. Guthagon the king, in his first note falsely asserts that that Oostkerke is scarcely a mile distant from Furnes, which we have refuted above. In the second, that he does not find such a king of Scotland. In the third, that perhaps he is Irish. In the fourth, finally, that on his Roman pilgrimage he settled at Knokke. I confess indeed that it was sufficiently received at that time for the English, Scots, and Irish to make pilgrimage to Rome, but the authority of Ferrari will not persuade me of this concerning St. Guthagon, unless it be propped up from elsewhere. Still less do I bear the liberty of Dempster, in his Scottish Menologium on the 1st of October thus feigning: At Oostkerke, of Guthagon the king's son, who in Lorraine, before undertaking the Roman pilgrimage, had stayed with St. Macra his sister; but returning from Rome, she having been martyred for the faith, he went to Belgium, and lived at Bruges in Knokke, etc. Thus the manuscript additions of the Carthusians of Brussels to Greven say that certain persons who had dared to overthrow their (Guthagon's and Gillo's) chapel perished of dysentery, which I could wish to be proved by other authority.
[5] It seems indeed beyond doubt that the frequency of miracles at the tomb of St. Guthagon The festivity taken not from the day of death, but of the elevation. gave occasion to the sacred cult, and afterward to the elevation made by Bishop Gerard, but by no one, that I know, have the aforesaid miracles, whether wrought before or after the elevation, been recorded one by one. The festivity of the Saint seems to have flowed not from the day of his death, which I observe to be unknown, but from the aforesaid elevation, although the Martyrologies do not express it, not even Molanus himself, in the additions to Usuard, thus reading in the first edition: Near Bruges in Oostkerke, of Guthago the confessor. A little more fully in the later ones: In Oostkerke, a burgh of Flanders, of St. Guthagon the confessor, king of Scotland, who there, a pilgrim for Christ, rests in peace. From the first Canisius took it. Willot copied his own from the praised Little Index of Molanus. Camerarius cites several, though he could have been content with Molanus alone. The aforesaid Scottish Menologium of Dempster, at his own discretion, preferred the day of the translation made in the year 1444, on the 1st of October, on which day the Birthdays of Molanus also affirm that the Saint is venerated, contrary to what Curtius expressly testifies in these words: But on the 1st of October no mention at all is made of the aforesaid Saint, nor ever of Gillo. Yet do not hence infer that in ancient times some commemoration of the Saint was not held also on the 1st of October.
[6] What the tables of Oostkerke hand down concerning Gillo you will briefly understand from Molanus, The disputes of the Scots and Irish for claiming the Saints for themselves, so that in no way are those things to be regarded which the Scots and Irish so confidently write of him. I here subjoin what I found in the ecclesiastical history of the Irish nation, or the ancient Scots, of our Stephen White, which exists in manuscript in our museum, where, under the title of the Irish Saints who were for the salvation and honor of Belgium, it thus has: Guthagon, king of the Scots of Ireland, inflamed with the ardor of eternal life, the kingdom despised, having joined to himself two holy companions, Gillo and Gildulf, chose to be an exile and a hermit and a pilgrim, which for a long time he was in the territory (he means the diocese) of Tournai, where he most holily rested, illustrious for miracles. Thence his sacred pledges were translated to Oostkerke near Bruges, where they are venerated with much veneration and frequency of the peoples. The feast of the blessed king-hermit is kept on the 3rd of July. Not sufficiently rightly here did White dispose his matter; neither of the companion Gildulf, any more than of the sister Macra, did our tables make mention; nor did the people of Oostkerke ever venerate with sacred cult that one, altogether unknown, nor Gillo, among whom St. Guthagon was always heard to be a Scot, not an Irishman. Prudently did Castellanus cut himself off from both nations, thus speaking in the Universal Martyrology: At Knokke, a maritime village of Flanders, of St. Guthagon the confessor, whose body, buried in the cemetery of Oostkerke, of the same diocese, was elevated by Gerard, Bishop of Tournai, and placed in a temple (understand a chapel) built there under his name.
[7] Nevertheless Wilson contends for the Irish in the English Martyrology of the year 1640, where, almost copying Molanus, which can be reconciled by reasoning. against the open opinion of the latter, he snatches our Saint from the Scots. For the rest, lest here again be composed the so often recurring litigations of the Scots and Irish, wondrously contending for their Saints, let the curious reader repeat what was said of the race and homeland of St. Rumold, bishop and martyr, apostle of the people of Mechelen, on the 1st of July, from page 181—namely that Scot among the Flemish-Belgians even today for the most part means the same as pilgrim, unusual, barbarous, so that from almost every age we have called Scots foreign nations, and those diverse from our manners, whom we did not otherwise know; just as of old among the Romans all were called barbarians who were not Italians or Greeks. So that consequently to pronounce some Saint a Scot by nation may be understood the same as if he be called a foreigner and plainly unknown to the Belgians. Thus we also call something Scottish which shrinks from our manner of acting; an exotic man, a Scot; an unfitting garment, Scottish; and other things of that kind: so that I do not at all fear to think that the appellation of Scot in our Legendaries or Chronicles, not older than the 11th century, indicates a foreign man, by which title it ought to be transferred no more to the Irish Scots than to the Scots of Albion, or to the English. But let this be said in passing and from mere conjecture, on the occasion of St. Guthagon, concerning whose origin and dignity I have no wish at all to dispute. Let us pursue our matter.
[8] Meyer treats only of the visitation of the year 1444. The first elevation of St. Guthagon Molanus describes from the lections which he signifies were in some way those of Oostkerke, received from the Lord Matthias Laurentianus, penitentiary of Bruges. There are cited for the said elevation, by Cousin, Miraeus, and Sanderus, the Annals of Flanders of Jacob Meyer, and the last two note the years 1062, 1065, and 1440; but wrongly. By whose error this was done, I do not inquire; certainly in vain did Curtius turn over those years and others, in vain did I turn them over, that we might find even a syllable which pertains to St. Guthagon. In the first place, or the year 1062 in Meyer, there is treatment of I know not what anonymous person, starved to death at Aldenburg, at whose death the bronze bells sounded of their own accord and as it were miraculously, which can by no means be referred to the present Saint. No more do the cited years 1065 and 1440 pertain to the Saint. The proper place where Meyer mentions St. Guthagon is toward the end of the year 1444, where he thus has: At Oostkerke in the territory of Bruges, the translation of the body of the divine Guthagon, by Nicholas, Bishop of Sarepta, of the Franciscan Order, suffragan of John, Bishop of Tournai, when he consecrated the greatest altar there, at the prayers of the Masters of the fabric William Malin, John Houcelin, Laurence Beyrs, Peter Valke, Nicholas van Dudzele, and Josse Perdicu, Dean of the Christianity of Bruges, together with John de Brabant and George Ballinc, presbyters and pastors of that place. The rest we shall presently hear from Molanus.
[9] What now survives of the relics, But as to what the same Molanus says, that the relics are now seen in the wall of the church through iron gratings, perhaps less decently, that indeed could have been so while Laurentianus wrote to him; but the raging madness of the iconoclast Calvinists a little afterward withheld its sacrilegious hands no more from these than from the other relics of the Saints throughout Belgium exposed to veneration: for nothing today, says Curtius, survives of the relics, except a tooth, of the testimonial letters of which I made the following copy: Charles Philip de Rodoan, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See Bishop of Bruges, etc. By the tenor of these presents we attest that we, in the visitation of the reliquary of the collegiate church of St. Salvator of Bruges, found in it a tooth with the following ancient inscription, The tooth of St. Guthagon. And since the pledges of the said Saint once kept in the church of Oostkerke, during the raging of the iconoclasts, perished, we have judged that the said tooth should be transferred to the aforesaid church of Oostkerke, and have transferred it, and enclosed it in a little silver vessel, made for this purpose, with another sacred bone found there, in the year of the Lord one thousand six hundred and thirteen, on the fifteenth day of the month of September. Signed, Charles Philip Bishop, and fortified with his seal.
[10] Many other things I had asked, pertaining to the veneration of the present relics of St. Guthagon, to his chief annual festivity, and how the Saint is venerated today. rite, and office: likewise whether he was patron of the church of Oostkerke, whether new benefits were obtained by his intercession? To which the most noble lord Curtius responded in this manner: The aforesaid tooth is still kept in the church of Oostkerke, and every year on the 3rd of July is exposed to the veneration of the people, and holy Guthago is venerated only on that day in the church, so that there is not even an obligation of hearing Mass, but once there was: nor is there a proper office, but there is read on the aforesaid day from the common of a confessor not a pontiff. The chief patron of the aforesaid church is St. Quentin the martyr, whose feast is kept as a Sunday; but Saints Blaise and Guthago are also invoked as patrons, and their feast is venerated, as I said, in the church. But of the miracles of St. Guthagon nothing further is narrated. And these are the things which of St. Guthagon of Oostkerke, with however great diligence applied, could hitherto be drawn out; nor is there hope that others will be found. It remains therefore that we subjoin from the Molano-Louvanian Birthdays the elogium already cited more than once, which can supply the place of Acts.
On St. Guthagon the confessor.
From the Lections at Oostkerke, which I received from the Lord Matthias Laurentianus, penitentiary of Bruges.
At Oostkerke, a burgh of Flanders, of St. Guthagon the confessor, king of Scotland, who there, a pilgrim for Christ, rested in peace. Having died at Knokke, he is buried at Oostkerke, This man, as antiquity has left to its posterity, is believed, while he lived, to have been of royal dignity; but considering that all things which are under heaven are vanity, he came into Flanders: where about the shores of the sea, in the neighborhood of Knokke, he lived holily for some time, and was buried with devotion by clerics and laymen at Oostkerke, in the western part of the cemetery. But the Lord working frequent miracles through him, the body was laid away near the church with greater veneration a, and a chapel built over him, where now is the bell-tower of the church. But Gillo, who had adhered more familiarly to the same Saint while yet living, could not be torn from him now dead; who also is believed to have been illustrious with miracles after death. For in the time of Gregory, curate of the said church, who afterward in the Order of Preachers
lived holily among the brethren, restored a withered hand to one imploring mercy from him: whence the said Gregory wrote in verse:
Gillo knows how to bring aid to a contracted fist.
elevated in the year 1159. But his body remaining in the earth, the body of blessed Guthagon, the Lord working many miracles through him, Gerard, Bishop of Tournai, translated from a lowlier place into a coffer befitting his merits, in the year one thousand one hundred and fifty-nine, on the fifth day before the Nones of July, there assisting him the venerable abbots of Ter Duinen b, Oudenburg, and Eeckhout. The same coffer Nicholas, suffragan of the Bishop of Tournai, reverently and devoutly opened and visited, on the first day of October in the year one thousand four hundred and forty-four, and found in it the testimonial letters of the said Bishop Gerard, fortified with his pontifical seal, which can still be seen there c. The feast is celebrated at Oostkerke on the third day of July and the first of October. But the relics are now seen in the wall of the church through iron gratings, perhaps less decently.