ON SS. PLACIDUS THE MARTYR AND SIGISBERT THE CONFESSOR,
IN THE TERRITORY OF CHUR IN RHAETIA.
Seventh or Eighth Century.
Sylloge from the Breviary of Chur and Ferrarius.
Placidus, Martyr in Rhaetia, in the territory of Chur (S.)
Sigebertus, Confessor in Rhaetia, in the territory of Chur (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Those two Saints, of whom we now treat, were unknown to all the Martyrologists, except Ferrarius in the General Catalogue, writing thus on this day: In the territory of Chur, of Placidus the martyr and St. Sigisbert the confessor: First inscribed by Ferrarius. but he cites the tables of the church of Chur, as celebrating them solemnly on this day. Those tables are the very proper Office of Chur, from which Colgan had once taken lessons, communicated by Kenet to Bolland, which he here left described by his own hand, but which Patrick Fleming inserted into the Commentary on the Life of St. Columban, number 81. Sirin, the editor of the aforesaid Commentary, in the Manuscripts often praised by us, which are preserved at Louvain in the convent of the Irish Friars Minor, cites the ancient author of the Life of St. Gall, in the monastery of Seligenstadt on the Main in Germany, recording these things: Columban, with the blessed Gall and Sigebert, in the time of Pope Gregory, leaving his country Scotland for Christ's sake, came into Ursaria (which is a city in Helvetia, also called Ursella and Urania) and built there a church, which even today is called St. Columban's. There he left Sigebert, a lover of the desert. But Columban and Gall, for the sake of preaching, come into Suevia, certain companions being joined to them.
[2] This writer does not seem to have suitably distributed the journeys of St. Columban, whether St. Sigisbert was left by St. Columban nor to be accurate enough in the rest; whence Sirin rightly subjoins: Which, that they may be fully true, must have happened when St. Columban, St. Gregory sitting, went that way to Rome, or returned into Francia: for long before the pontificate of Gregory he had gone out from Ireland; and six years had elapsed from the death of St. Gregory when, driven from Luxeuil, he sought Italy. Thus he, most rightly observing that the departure of St. Columban from Ireland long preceded the pontificate of St. Gregory; but I know not where he read that the same Saint more than once went from Gaul to Rome, or returned thence into Francia. The whole matter is more conveniently understood, if with the common opinion we suppose that St. Sigisbert, his disciple, was left by him in the parts of Rhaetia, when, a fugitive from Gaul and separated from St. Gall, he went into Italy to the place which, by the favor of Agilulf king of the Lombards, he obtained for building the most celebrated monastery of Bobbio, about the year of the Lord 612, where after about four years he completed the course of his most holy life, as will be more fully said in his Acts, to be illustrated on November 21.
[3] in the village of Disentis, which is described. To return to St. Sigisbert, it will not be out of place to understand the situation of the place where he built his monastery, which Francis Guillimann exhibits to us, On the affairs of Helvetia, book 4, chapter 2, where, reviewing the confederate communities of Rhaetia, he thus speaks, page 425: The first and most ancient is that of the monastery and village of Disentis, ample and wealthy, whose parishes are five: Disentis itself, Tremisium (Trums), Bregallia (Brigell), Actuatium (Tavetsch), Medullum (Medels). There are also several villages, as Camossum (Kemps), the highest village (Summitz). The founder of the monastery was St. Sigebert, disciple of St. Columban, by the wealth and aid of Placidus, a nobleman of that region, whose seat was at Tremisium, and who held all those things which are now called of the region of Disentis: while meanwhile Victor I, as we noted, ruled all Rhaetia. He, when he saw the increases of Disentis, began to claim it for himself; against whom, when Placidus, as founder, struggled, being seized by him, and on July 11, as a rebel, condemned to death, afterward distinguished by many miracles. The monastery situated on the left of the Rhine, where the former and middle meet.
[4] And these describe the place abundantly, which from the geographical tables themselves is not difficultly recognized, The lessons of the Breviary of Chur relate somewhat more; situated about 30 Roman miles to the west of Chur, near the source of the Rhine. Now let us weigh in a few words the history itself, as it was published by Fleming;
to which the same must be observed which we said above about the time of St. Columban's departure from Ireland, not to mention that the king of the Lombards is called Arnolphus, who could be no other than Agilulf, contemporary with St. Gregory the great. Thus it runs: In the time of Arnolphus king of the Lombards, blessed Pope Gregory presiding, Columban, with Gall and Sigisbert, leaving his Scottish country for Christ's sake, came to Ursaria, and built there a church, which is called Columba's. There he left Sigisbert, a lover of the desert; but Columban with Gall, for the sake of preaching, went into Suevia: but Sigisbert, in the Alps of a vast solitude, which is called Desertina, built an oratory of the Blessed Virgin; where he himself led the eremitic life, an imitator of Elijah and John the Baptist; whither many came to him for the sake of doctrine. Fleming warns that some things are here interposed about the cruelty and impiety of a certain tyrant in that province, named Victor; after which he subjoins a monstrous example of his cruelty, namely the glorious martyrdom of holy Placidus, the disciple of St. Sigisbert himself, in this manner:
[5] On a certain day Victor caused Placidus to be beheaded: but Placidus, beheaded, where concerning the martyrdom of St. Placidus by Victor the tyrant, like Felix and Regula, rises, and, the angels supporting him, took his own head in his hands, and carried it to the place where Sigisbert was. Then a woman met him, from whom he asked the veil which was on her head, to wrap his own head. Then she, terrified with excessive fear, threw the veil to him, and fled. Therefore the martyr of God Placidus, shining with the glorious sign of his triumph, came to the place appointed and prepared for him by God, with a wondrous and unwonted step; whom the servant of the Lord Sigisbert, marveling, weeping and rejoicing, received, and, praising together with psalms and hymns the God wonderful in his Saints, with worthy honor buried near the oratory of St. Martin, which was at the side of the basilica of the Mother of God; assiduously praying over him to God. Then after a few days the tyrant, not victor but vanquished, when he wished to cross the river Rhine, fell from a high bridge and died. But his son, named Tollus, when he was Bishop of Chur, accusing his father's tyranny, and dreading his end, diligently cultivated the memory of the holy Martyr, and largely honored it from his patrimony.
[6] The things which are here read about the head cut off and carried in the hands, let them avail as much as they can avail from the trustworthiness of the author: we have long since and often explained in what sense prodigies of this kind are to be expounded, which are recorded of several beheaded martyrs. whose son, Bishop of Chur, favored the Saints: Felix and Regula are here brought in, because in those parts they are more known; see Murer in Helvetia Sacra, page 55, where they are said to be venerated with Exuperantius on September 11. Another difficulty is not so easily explained, unless we confess that those things must be understood in the widest acceptation which we here see narrated of St. Sigisbert, as if he was a disciple of St. Columban. For if Tollus, or Thello or Thellus, Bishop of Chur, is truly the son of the tyrant Victor, since this man is said by Bruschius to have lived in the eighth century, and indeed to have departed this life in the year 784; who will sufficiently persuade us that times so disparate can be connected, namely that St. Sigisbert came with St. Columban into Rhaetia about the year 612, being now somehow of advanced age, inasmuch as he practiced the monastic life at Luxeuil with his holy Master twenty and more years; but that this man survived even to the eighth century verging toward its end, at which time the praised Bruschius most expressly hands down that Thello himself was bishop.
[7] but whose times cannot be connected with the age of St. Sigisbert. His words are: Thello, son of Victor the Rhaetian tyrant, who caused St. Placidus to be slain at Disentis; lived in the times of Pepin king of the Gauls. He founded and built the cathedral church of Chur, which even to these our times has remained unharmed and endured. He endowed the monastery of Disentis: but he died in the year of Christian redemption 784. But indeed parachronisms of this kind are not so rare among the unskilled Legendists, not at all attending to them, to whom this is especially familiar, to trace back their Saints to the most illustrious origin, so that they gladly make them disciples of the first patriarchs or founders of Orders, which I remember to have observed elsewhere also. To avoid these rocks, that plan alone remains, that we understand St. Sigisbert to have been a disciple of Columban in that sense in which those are wont to be taken who, even long after the death of the Master, glory in his name. The aforesaid Murer saw, I think, a knot not easily to be untied, treating of today's Saints in his cited Helvetia Sacra from page 175; but, lest he should sweat in vain over connecting those times together, he studiously passed over that whole controverted circumstance, in his whole elogium making not even a word about bishop Thello, or his munificence toward the monastery of Sigisbert. Now let us hear the following words of the Office of Chur:
[8] The death of St. Sigisbert and the desolation of the place. But after no long time the holy confessor of the Lord Sigisbert migrated from the earth to heaven, and was buried in the tomb of the holy Martyr, so that of those whose mind had been one in the Lord, the bodies of both were covered by one coffin. Thenceforth that sacred place was illustrated by the Lord with such miracles of signs, that even kings and princes deemed it worthy of the highest honor, and from far-off regions most illustrious men and matrons flowed together, and enriched it with the greatest gifts and possessions. After a little, says Fleming, he subjoins the desolation of the sacred place made by the Hungarians. After these things the impious nation of the Hungarians, drawn from the sheath of its cruelty, grievously raged against the holy servants of God who dwelt in Disentis: for all whom they found in the monastery they slew with the sword; and all things being carried off, they made the place, formerly habitable, a desert. Thence after some years an army of the Franks passing by, and finding the place deserted, incautiously shut their horses within the walls of the church, and in the morning found them dead; terrified by which sign, coming to the king, they announced what they had suffered, and roused the king's mind, not moderately, to inquire about that place.
[9] What furthermore that king, whoever he was, did; who afterward restored the overthrown monastery; The miracles of the Saints, and whether and how it stands today, I nowhere find handed down. Fleming adds of his own that he had received the things already described from that Breviary at July 11; with which he says agree the things which are read of the same Saints in a certain Manuscript codex of the same monastery. But their miracles are said to be copiously marked on the tables hung at the sacred sepulcher; from which how great the merits of those Saints were with God, the prudent reader may easily understand. And these things indeed generally and confusedly; but two distinct miracles the above-praised Murer expressed more distinctly: one in a certain poor blind man, named Paulinus, plainly destitute of earthly goods, but rich in faith and virtues, who, prayers being poured out at the sepulcher of the Saints, recovered his sight. The other in two demoniacs, Faginus and Murola, who, long and harshly vexed by malignant spirits, were freed by the intercession of the same. Thus far the published monuments of Rhaetia have led us, from which it could be conjectured that the aforesaid monastery still stands in the valley of Disentis, and so the religious cult of the holy Placidus and Sigisbert in its church, but which we could have wished more confirmed from elsewhere.
[10] and the cult persevering in the restored monastery. Opportunely there came to aid, and elucidated the matter more distinctly, John Peter Giussano, a noble presbyter of Milan, in the Life of St. Charles Borromeo, published by him in Italian in the year 1615, who, in book 6, chapter 12, describing the laborious excursion or mission of that Saint, apostolically instituted into the Rhaetian valleys, commonly the Grisons, records that a desire came upon his mind, to make a pilgrimage into the valley of Tisitis, as he calls it, or Disentis, to the relics of the holy Placidus and Sigisbert, wont to be frequented in the temple of St. Martin there; which matter the praised Giussano sets forth at length, reviewing in order the most courteous invitation of abbot Christian Castelberg, and the most holy Cardinal's journey on foot through the steep ridges of the mountains. This pertains to our intent, that St. Charles was received there with incredible joy of the monks and of the whole people, a most solemn procession coming to meet him, in which the sacred pledges, enclosed in precious little coffers, were carried by the monks, honored by the Saint with the highest piety and profuse tears, and again, amid the most sweet harmonies of psalms and hymns, carried back to the temple; where on the next following day, the sacrifice of the Mass being celebrated, the sacred relics were visited by St. Charles, and some parts of them were offered to him, that he might elsewhere expose them for veneration. To say it in a word; from the whole relation of Giussano it plainly appears that in that place both the Catholic faith and the cult of the holy Placidus and Sigisbert constantly persevere.