ON ST. ANGELELMUS, BISHOP
OF AUXERRE IN GAUL.
Ninth Century.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
On the Saint's cult, age, and Acts.
Angelelmus, Bishop, at Auxerre in Gaul (S.)
J. B. S.
In our collections of manuscript Martyrologies and Calendars, volume 4, I find two things pertaining to the famous church of Auxerre; the one French in the form of a Martyrology, which we received from our Chifflet, in which are numbered a hundred and fifteen Saints. Held for a Saint, The other is a Latin Calendar of the church and diocese of Auxerre, directed to our Elders on the seventh of August 1662 by Louis Noël d'Amy, senior presbyter canon of Auxerre, in which are contained only seventy-one Saints or Blessed of Auxerre, a great and plain difference indeed. In this Calendar St. Angelelmus is unknown; in the former Chifflet one he is placed on this his proper day, with a brief elogium, taken from some life, which at last was suggested to us by a recent manuscript compilation officiously procured by the illustrious, of pious memory, Claude Castellanus in the year 1709, in which are contained the deeds of the Pontiffs of Auxerre, and of others pertaining thereto, collected by dom Georges Viole, a Benedictine monk, with a new Calendar of the Saints of Auxerre, by D. Bargede the Archdeacon, and likewise another of Saints in some way pertaining to the same diocese, the same Bargede being author.
[2] In the series of the Pontiffs, thirty-fifth in order is placed St. Angelelmus, the Catalogues of Saints, the Litanies, etc., show him with the express title of Saint, which the author asserts is attributed to him, in all the catalogues of the Saints of Auxerre, and in the very Litanies of that same church, although with a proper cult his birthday is celebrated neither on this nor on another day. Further, the Calendars of Bargede are not of one sort. In the first he does not mention St. Angelelmus, reporting other Saints altogether unknown to our above-cited Calendars. In the other most things are different from the first, and in this on his proper day St. Angelelmus is consigned. The praised Castellanus inserted the Saint into his Universal Martyrology, and before him Saussay, with so prolix an elogium that it can nearly supply the place of all the rest: At Auxerre, the deposition of St. Angelelmus, bishop and confessor. He, ruling that church after the blessed Aaron, to whose throne he had been advanced, notable virtue and doctrine leading, shone in its administration with an admirable splendor of piety and wisdom. He was a man of the highest charity, distinguished in almsgiving, and almost singular in his time, as ancient monuments hand down. So that sometimes out of love of largess he feigned sickness, that without contradiction he might lay out for the uses of the poor what he could have. But no less zealous for the beauty of the house of God, he enriched the church of St. Stephen, over which he presided, with various and precious ornaments, and conferred very many gifts on the other basilicas of his diocese. For the rest, having advanced to the extreme term of this mortality, he ran his course by an immaculate path, and in the church of St. Germanus, which he had enlarged with many benefits, as dying he had desired, was buried.
[3] The elogium from the history of the Bishops of Auxerre. We know no Acts of St. Angelelmus, separately published or in manuscript, except those which are handed down in the cited history of the Pontiffs of Auxerre by Viole, taken from the Manuscript Library of Labbe, volume 1, page 452: but these ought rather to be called a mere encomium than an ordered series of the deeds; whence it is easily gathered that no life of the Saint was written in ancient times, but various things received here and there, either from certain monuments or from tradition, were compiled by posterity into one, where concerning the Saint's age nothing more definite is had. In the reign of Charlemagne, he is said to have been elected by all and ordained bishop, but in his time, the Emperor Louis, a general assembly being held, to have imposed the regular life on the canons: by which is without doubt intimated the first Council of Aachen of the year 816. That you may find seventeen years of rule, say that he held the chair from the year 810 to 827 more or less. There are those who attribute to St. Angelelmus some Latin verses, composed in praise of St. Paschasius Radbertus, of which a brief fragment Menard reported on the twenty-sixth of April, in the observations on his Martyrology book 2, page 557. But he himself ascribes those little verses, fourteen in number, not to St. Angelelmus but to Engelmodus. But of these enough: it remains that we here subjoin the elogium itself, not from the manuscript, but as it was published by Labbe.
ELOGIUM
From the history of the Bishops of Auxerre, in the Manuscript Library of Labbe volume 1, page 452.
Angelelmus, Bishop, at Auxerre in Gaul (S.)
BHL Number: 0458
FROM MANUSCRIPTS.
The highest bounty in bestowing alms Angelelmus the bishop, a Bavarian by nation, of his father Obtelmus and his mother Hogarde, sat seventeen years. He, since he was a man of the highest simplicity and charity, was ordained presbyter and set as abbot of the basilica of the holy Gervasius and Protasius: and when the Pontiff Aaron died, Jeremias, Archbishop of Sens, by the order of the Emperor Charles, coming to Auxerre, gathered an assembly of clergy and people in the church of St. Germanus; there, general consent acceding, this same Angelelmus was elected by all as Bishop and ordained. The pontifical ministry therefore being undertaken, he poured himself wholly into the divine service, assiduous in prayers, frequent in tears, distinguished in alms, and almost singular in his time: for he is reported sometimes out of love of largess to have feigned sickness, that without anyone's contradiction he might lay out for the uses of the poor what he could have. The church of St. Stephen he enriched with no simple bounty; he compacted the altar of the senior church with silver plates everywhere; the altar also of holy Mary he no less adorned with a silver plate; the altar too of St. John the Baptist he adorned with a similar ornament; before the altar of St. Stephen he prepared three silver crowns of notable weight; around the altar he set ten very great and silver candelabra; he bestowed an excellent silver chalice with a paten, and marked it beforehand with his own name; and also he placed there a very great cross, which he most becomingly adorned with gold and silver, with the face of the Savior, setting before it an altar adorned with a silver plate.
[2] The same church he adorned with four very great and sonorous bells; and munificence in adorning churches; he made also a shrine of notable work, most elegantly adorned with gold and silver, where he laid the shrine of the most blessed Amator, with many pledges of the Saints. He also conferred very many excellent tapestries for adorning the seats of the basilica. In his time the Emperor Louis, a general assembly being held, imposed the regular life on the Canons, and for the protection of religion instituted the custody of the cloister, and ordained various and fitting workshops for their uses; with which authority the same Pontiff being delighted, he assigned the estate whose name is Pulverenus for the stipends, namely, of the Canon brethren. And because there were certain things held in benefice which could not be taken away at once, it was decreed that, on their holders dying, the Canons should straightway turn them to their own uses. The things too which had passed to him by his own right, both at Biliacum and at Amau, he assigned to their uses. He also placed very many and notable silver vessels in the treasuries of that same church; to St. Germanus he gave a silver chalice with a paten, of the same form as that which he had before made, designating a largess of this kind by the inscription of his name. To St. Amator also he gave a silver chalice with a paten of the same work, though of less weight; to St. Peter likewise.
[3] The altar of St. Eusebius he adorned with a silver plate, which extends to the whole diocese. gave a silver chalice with a paten, and also prepared a silver gospel-book with silver candelabra, and a silver censer no less; he bestowed also curtains of the altar, and some palls. In the monastery of the holy Savior he gave a silver plate with a most sonorous bell. Finally through the whole diocese of his power, to the village churches, for preparing a chalice and paten, he distributed three pounds of silver. But to his lesser chapels only, for a like work, he destined fifteen shillings; in the aforesaid villages too he bestowed a fitting quantity of silver, for adorning the crosses in the churches. Full of these and such fruits of good works, he departed, on the day of the Nones of July, and in the basilica of St. Germanus was honorably entombed.