ON ST. HUGH THE PILGRIM, CONFESSOR,
AT NANVIGNES, OF THE DIOCESE OF AUXERRE IN GAUL.
About the year of the Lord [—].
Notice from the Auxerre Manuscripts and from Castellan.
Hugh the Pilgrim, Confessor, at Nanvignes of the Diocese of Auxerre in Gaul (S.)
J. B. S.
Claude Castellan, most often praised by us, in his general index of the Universal Martyrology, most expressly marks Hugh the Pilgrim, cultivated at Nanvignes, of the diocese of Auxerre, He is given from the Auxerre Manuscripts, referring to page 916 and the day 6 June. The noted page he calls the Supplement of the aforesaid Martyrology, in which there is not a word concerning St. Hugh, as neither among the day-less Saints,
nor in the corollaries. In the additions at last I found what he wished to indicate, in these words: At Nanvignes (the life expressly reads Nanvignes) near Varzy, in the diocese of Auxerre, the feast of St. Hugh the Pilgrim, born in Morvan; of whom it is said in the lections at Matins, on his feast day, that by his fasts he imitated St. Simeon Stylites, in whose honor a church there had been built; and that he never omitted to go to the church eight times a day; once at midnight, and seven times by day. Castellan without doubt took these things from the Auxerre Manuscripts, afterward communicated with us, as we have said elsewhere more than once: but why he noted the sixth of June, rather than this day, 6 July, as the other Martyrology or Calendar of Auxerre of Bargedé so clearly expresses, I by no means conjecture; let it suffice us here to have added a Saint, of whom elsewhere no memory recurred, just as we reported two other Saints of Auxerre, Felix and Moderatus, on 1 July.
[2] The Acts of St. Hugh have been rendered from the French of the already cited Bargedé; who is not known in the old catalogues. since no one has sent us the Latin, nor have we seen the proper lections of Nanvignes. The Lord George Viole, a Benedictine monk, collector of the Deeds of the Pontiffs of Auxerre, as is added toward the end of the life, wished to conjecture that St. Hugh was a contemporary of St. Censurius, Bishop of Auxerre, tenth in order, and thus that he died about the end of the fifth century, which Castellan plainly adopted. Yet is it not prematurely supposed that a temple existed at Nanvignes, dedicated to St. Simeon Stylites, who could have lived with Hugh himself, most probably dead in the year 460, as thou hast in the Acts of 5 January. How long St. Hugh was among the living, I cannot divine; but certainly nothing forbids to produce his life to sixty years; which if about the twentieth year of his age he sought the solitude of Nanvignes, namely in the year 460, he by no means found a temple then erected to St. Simeon. More shamefully would the writer of the life slip, if, as seemed to be insinuated in French, he supposed that in that place had lived Simeon Stylites, to which Hugh betook himself, Mandra of Antioch being ineptly coupled with the diocese of Auxerre. It must be confessed that the lections of the office, at least the life, as it is written in French, is adorned according to the piety of the author. We follow the aforesaid Office of Nanvignes, while we here give a place to St. Hugh, who in our other older Catalogues of the Saints of Auxerre is altogether unknown. Have the life from the cited Manuscript.
VITA
Rendered into Latin from the French Auxerre Manuscript.
Hugh the Pilgrim, Confessor, at Nanvignes of the Diocese of Auxerre in Gaul (S.)
FROM THE MANUSCRIPT.
Deserting his parents and country, St. Hugh the Pilgrim, born in Morvan, of the diocese of Autun, of poor but pious parents, passed with them the years of his childhood with the highest integrity of morals and innocence of life. When he had come to a greater age, he was moved by divine instinct to desert his parents, his country, and the scanty patrimony which he could expect. And so with bare feet, and according to the evangelical counsel, without purse and scrip, he enters upon his journey. On a certain day, making his way, vehemently wearied, he rested under a tree near a village which the author of the life calls in Latin Buriacum, distant not far from Varzy in the diocese of Auxerre.
[2] pressed by thirst, he restores sight to a blind woman: Here he was pressed with so great thirst, that he exclaimed: I greatly thirst. But a woman heard these voices, who bore with an even mind the blindness with which she had been afflicted for some years, and, moved by an affect of commiseration toward that pilgrim, whom from a light infused within she knew to be a great servant of God, said; if I were not blind, I would gladly lead thee to an excellent fountain, situated not far hence, where thou couldst relieve thy thirst. To whom Hugh, more solicitous for the divine glory and the salvation of his neighbor than for his own need, answered: O woman, if thou shouldst believe with thy whole heart, if with all thy strength thou shouldst love, if with thy mouth thou shouldst confess, that he who granted to the [man] born blind the faculty of seeing, can also illuminate thine eyes, thou wouldst see today marvelous things. But when the woman had answered that she acknowledged and confessed the omnipotence of him who for our salvation had been affixed to the cross, the servant of God, full of faith and hope, formed the sign of the cross over her eyes, which straightway were opened, to behold the light of the sun.
[3] thence fleeing into solitude, Wherefore she was affected with so great joy, that, after giving a thousand thanks, and the fountain of the aforesaid village being shown, she ran home, leaving the staff by which, blind, she was wont to direct herself, and narrated to the inhabitants of this place the benefit shown her by the servant of God. The neighbors, these things being heard, ask who he was, and seek him. But he, fearing vainglory, had already withdrawn himself, making his way through unknown paths, dense woods, and the steep windings of mountains, until at last he came into a horrid solitude, which is called Nanvignes, in which a small temple stood, dedicated to St. Simeon Stylites, and distant about two leagues from Varzy.
[4] That place pleased him, but much more the life which the patron of this church had led, whom he decreed to imitate with all his effort, he tries to imitate St. Simeon Stylites, in regular observance, but especially in fasts, vigils, and prayers, which were so usual to him, that he not only rose at midnight to recite Matins, and daily seven times betook himself to the temple, to celebrate the divine praises, but besides added many hymns, psalms, and other prayers, both mental and vocal, which, mingling them with tears, he offered to the divine clemency, that he might expiate his own and his neighbor's faults.
[5] with prayers, vigils, and fasts. As to the manner of his food; on the greater feasts and on the Lord's days he ate only pulse and wild herbs; but whether on other days he took food, is not written. Living thus, the whole region marveled, although he himself, a despiser of himself, desired to lie hidden. God manifested the sanctity of his servant by several miracles, both in the time of his life and after his death, which happened on the sixth of July; but the year is not known.
[6] He is cultivated at Nanvignes. The church of Nanvignes preserves his memory, and on that day celebrates the office of a confessor with proper lections, which furnished matter for the compendium of the aforesaid life. The Lord George Viole thinks he lived in the time of St. Censurius, tenth bishop of the city of Auxerre. His sepulchre is at Nanvignes, raised from the ground, at the side, near the high altar.
July II: 7 July
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