ON ST. RAGENUFLA, VIRGIN,
AT INCOURT IN WALLOON BRABANT, BELGIUM.
SEVENTH CENTURY.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Ragenufla, Virgin, at Incourt in Walloon Brabant, Belgium (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
§ I. The Saint's birth, race, age, and cult.
A most illustrious man, most renowned for erudition, and, while he lived, our friend, Master James, Baron le Roy, in his Topography of Walloon Brabant, published in the year 1693, book 6, chapter 1, treating of the prefecture of Incourt, from Molanus, The place noted rather obscurely by Divaeus, Miraeus, Grammaye, and others tastes some things pertaining both to St. Ragenufla and to the chapter of which she is venerated as patroness; referring the rest to Papebroch and his successors, to be discussed a little more fully when they come to the history of the life of St. Ragenufla. The task recurring in order, I gladly embrace, although the history is offered of that kind of which we are often compelled to complain; unskillfully everywhere, and compiled many centuries after the events, to say few things with many words, and very often to connect those things which can most hardly be recalled to a right reckoning of the times. Of the present Legend it must be treated a little later; here we begin from the place itself, which Peter Divaeus more obscurely designated, Res Brabanticae, book 1, chapter 6. There is, he says, among the Romandui a notable village, Eincuria, renowned for the body and miracles of Lady Reginulfa, where they suppose that her father Ado, a most noble man in the palace of the Franks, dwelt, and gave the name to the place, so that it was called the court of Ado. Sigebert mentions Reginulfa in his deeds of the year 643. That these things may be more clearly understood, I thus explain the matter:
[2] it is described a little more clearly. That Brabant, as also Flanders, is wont to be divided chiefly into two parts, namely by that speech which the inhabitants use, is here commonly most well known; thus Brabanters and Flemings are simply so called, who use the Flemish or Brabantine tongue, which is the same, distinguished only by a slight dialect: but where the Gallic tongue is used, they are called Walloon-Brabanters and Walloon-Flemings; by a more received and more common word Walloon-Belgians. In that part which is called Walloon Brabant, between Louvain and Namur, situated at an equal distance of about four leagues, is the village Incourt, from Aio called Aiicuria, Aincuria, or Aiicurtis, or, as others will have it, from Ado, Adoniscuria or Adoniscurtis, whence formerly Aioncourt, etc. In ancient monuments it is heard of as a town not undistinguished, once enjoying the right of a city and various liberties; today still the head of a territory, prefecture, or bailiwick (commonly Mayerie) named from Aio himself, and in spiritual matters so joined with Rouxmiroir, Longueville, and Opprebais, that it makes a particular district, subject properly neither to the diocese of Liège nor to that of Namur, but under a particular archdeacon; whence to those four pastors is given in jest the Gallic appellation "mutins," which here you must render into Latin as "segreges" (set-apart ones), as being in some way separated from the common jurisdiction. He commends the village for the salubrity of its air, the Reverend Master Gilsoux, pastor there, having experienced it, an old man still of eighty-two years
still vigorous, since both he and his predecessor celebrated the jubilee of their pastorate, a rare example indeed.
[3] At Incourt, here described by us, which Grammaye, There the Virgin was born of Aio and Aia, after his manner, wonderfully adorned with various other titles, St. Ragenufla, Reginufla, or Reginulfa, in Belgian Raynoffle and Renofele, must have been born, educated, flourished in sanctity, been buried, and been venerated with constant and celebrated veneration from ages past; who was brought into the light in the time of King Dagobert, the most flourishing century of Saints in Belgium, namely the seventh of Christ, in which many holy women were either truly and closely joined by blood to blessed Pippin the elder, surnamed of Landen, as his daughters Gertrude and Begga, or at least are said to have sprung from his consanguinity, as Landrada, the two Amalbergas, virgin and widow, and several others. From that same race they record that Aio, or at least Aia his wife, the parents of St. Ragenufla, sprang, the writer of the Legend showing the way, when he asserts that she was born of the stock of the Carolides, and kin to St. Gertrude, of which matter I have no wish to move controversy. I would easily admit that one or other parent of the Saint touched blessed Pippin in some degree of consanguinity, and that she herself was born in that place, in the villa of Brombais, and that the village was called from her father's name Incourt, or Aiicurtis, as it were the domain or palace or praetorium of Aio, which he inhabited there in the reign of Dagobert.
[4] I here name the age, celebrated, as I was saying, for many Saints and everywhere noted in the Legends, in the reign of Dagobert, from whose various epoch, which the writer of the Acts thus depicted at the very beginning, so that what he means, one must attain almost by divining. Hear him: In the time when the renowned king of the Franks Dagobert wielded the scepter, Lodomirus and Sigebert his sons being taken into the kingdom or the fellowship of his labor, there arose in the parts of Hesbaye, in a villa by name Brumbasia, the renowned virgin of Christ Ragenufla. Not one hallucination is here of the good man; for instead of Lodomirus, a name plainly unknown, he ought to have read Clovis, who was never taken into the kingdom by his father Dagobert, but was left by him dying under the rule of Nantild his mother; so that of Sigebert alone is it true that, his father living, he was taken into the fellowship of his labor. Let us at least grant to the writer that St. Ragenufla was born after Sigebert took up the reins of the kingdom of Austrasia: whether you would have this done in the year 632, as those must hold who connect the death of Dagobert to the year 638, or about the very year 638, as we shall most easily admit, who have more than once supposed that Dagobert survived to the year 644; on either hypothesis the common and received opinion, that St. Ragenufla died in the year 643, is utterly overthrown.
[5] Let us follow for the time the former opinion, namely that Dagobert departed from kingdom and life in the year 638, it must be determined concerning her whole age; since six years before his father's death Sigebert obtained the kingdom of Austrasia, and so at least in the year 632; it will have to be said that the Saint was born about the year 633 or 634. From the same Legend let us admit that the Virgin was from her tender years renowned for sanctity, that she fled into the woods to avoid the marriage of a certain Ebroinus; then indeed the prayer poured forth by her to God, that she might as quickly as possible be joined to her heavenly bridegroom; there followed at last her most happy death. These things, I say, let us all admit; certainly her death cannot be recalled to the times of Dagobert, however much she be supposed to have died young; nor did she cease to live so much before 644, much less before 638: yet this will be true, which is inscribed or ascribed to the Chronicle of Sigebert at the year 643: The virgin of Christ Reginulfa is renowned for sanctity in Gaul. She flourished indeed, Dagobert being on the other opinion still alive, this only will follow, that she then lived; but nothing will forbid to prolong her life to several other years after 643, although one might contend that she did not exceed the twentieth year of her age, which seems to be deduced from the sense of the Legend.
[6] who is seen to have certainly flourished in the year 643. And indeed the writer of the Legend must altogether have thought that the holy Virgin survived some years after the said 643, if he wished to say anything by the introduction of the Saints whom he sets as contemporaries of the Saint, inasmuch as she in some way followed their footsteps, and among them names St. Gertrude by name; who certainly could not have shone before St. Ragenufla, if the latter died in the year 643. St. Gertrude we have elsewhere set as born in the year 631, so that even on the first hypothesis St. Ragenufla was older by at least some years, about the year 650 stripped of secular things, and under Iduberga or Itta her mother entered the way of perfection, whom accordingly our Virgin could have as a guide in keeping her purpose of virginity: to which Molanus plainly looked in the Natales, when in the brief elogium of the Saint he asserts that in the same purpose she wished to follow her cousins Aldegundis and Gertrude, who had gone before her; which displeased Baron le Roy only in this, that it supposed, with the more common opinion, that St. Ragenufla died in the year so often mentioned, 643. But since he committed the whole matter to us to be more accurately discussed, or was moved by the authority of the Legend alone, such as it is, to think with us, that the Saint of whom we treat prolonged her life beyond the year 650, why not even to 653.
[7] Her memory in the Martyrologies is more recent, Thus far let what has been said of her age suffice, in which I see nothing which does not rightly coalesce with the history of that time, although neither are such things as rest on undoubted faith: nor indeed of her cult, however most ancient at Incourt, are the testimonies in the Martyrologies so ancient, among which the first I find is the manuscript Florarium of the Saints, in which on this day it is thus had: At Aycuria in Gallic Brabant, the deposition of St. Ragenulpha the Virgin, of the stock of the Carolides. She, spurning carnal wedlock, and embracing with her whole heart the fellow-yoke of Christ, was by him, through an angel appearing to her in great brightness, invited to the heavenly nuptials. Hence doubtless Molanus received it, from him Canisius, Miraeus, Ferrari, Ghini, Saussay, Arthur, Fisen, and Castellanus. Let the elogium of Saussay stand for all: On the same day in Hesbaye migrated to Christ St. Ragenufla the virgin, who, sprung of renowned stock, from tender age kindled with the love of Christ, consecrated to him the undefiled flower of her virginity. And when Ebroinus, a noble youth, demanded her in marriage, and her parents urged her refusing, the day of the nuptials pressing, together with a little maidservant she fled to the hiding-places of a neighboring grove: and soon, called by the heavenly bridegroom, she happily flew away to the fellowship of the angels, whose purity she had striven to imitate. Whose sanctity God attested by very many miracles; for the splendor of which there was built at her sepulcher by her own parents a church, in which through long courses of times, benefits of help being published at her prayers, her precious merits shone forth.
[8] as also in the Proper of Namur; She obtains a constant cult through the whole diocese of Namur, in whose greater Litanies she is invoked with the other holy patrons, and has a place in the Proper Offices, published by the most illustrious bishop John Dauvin in the year 1619, where in the Calendar on this day, after St. Bonaventure, she is placed: And the commemoration of St. Ragenufla the virgin; but in the order itself: For St. Ragenufla, lesson IX, which we have thought should here be described also, lest the same things must the more often be repeated from Molanus, Miraeus, or others. Thus the aforesaid lesson has: Ragenufla the virgin, born in Hesbaye of noble and wealthy parents, from tender age performed senile works. When Ebroinus, a youth, demanded her in marriage, and her parents urged her unwilling, the day of the nuptials pressing, with one little maidservant she fled to the hiding-places of a neighboring wood. A little after, called by Christ her bridegroom, she who had striven to imitate the life of the angels, was carried up by their ministry to the heavenly paradise. Soon her parents, all things being known, honorably buried her body, and in the course of time built a church over her tomb at their own expense, by which, and by very many miracles, God willed the sanctity of his bride to be attested. You have here in few words all that of St. Ragenufla is much more verbosely recorded in the Legend, and from it in the proper Office of Incourt, which same the canons of St. James at Louvain use, whence we received it described, and from which some things here are to be culled.
[9] It bears the title, July 14, the Office of St. Ragenufla the virgin, patroness of the chapter of St. James. more ancient in the particular Office of Incourt, Our manuscript contains twenty-two pages in the quarto form, in a character not much pressed, distinguished with antiphons, responsories, and other things of this kind, and divided through the whole Octave, so that on the more solemn feast itself three lessons of the Saint are recited in the second nocturn; on the next day, the 15th, it is of the division of the Apostles, on the 16th of St. Bonaventure, his Office being transferred there to that day; on the 17th of St. Alexius the confessor; on the 18th it is again of the Saint, and three other lessons are had; likewise on the 19th three others; on the 20th St. Margaret is venerated with a double Office; at last on the Octave day, or July 21, occur the three last proper lessons, so that accordingly there are in all twelve lessons, which run through the whole Legend itself, if not in exactly the same words, at least in sense, except the prologue alone, to the very end, a clause being added at the close, to be examined below, concerning a barbarous nation forthwith rushing into Gaul, which was the cause of transferring the college of canons thence to Louvain, namely in the year 1454: likewise concerning the fountain of St. Ragenufla, from which the dropsical and many other sick very often received a remedy. There follows also a proper Mass under the Introit "Gaudeamus omnes," etc.
[10] I do not see it worth the trouble to describe here the several proper parts from that Office; some specimens of which are subjoined; a few little specimens will suffice, that from them the rest may be gathered. At Vespers and Lauds the first antiphon is: Flourishing in her first age, the virgin of Christ Ragenufla, like the flower of the field, shone forth, born of illustrious parents. At the Magnificat in first Vespers: Let the Church magnify you, blessed Ragenufla, who found refuge in God your salvation, virgin of Christ, victress of the world. Invitatory: Let us jubilate to our God: who brought blessed Ragenufla into holy rest. The first antiphon of the first nocturn thus sounds: In the glory and honor of blessed Ragenufla you have perfected praise, O Lord our God: thus further the responsory: Let the Church devoutly celebrate the solemnities of the holy virgin Ragenufla, who deserted the world: And merited to follow Christ. She denied herself, and took up her cross. And Christ. The same is the Prayer or collect, both in the Office and in the Mass: Be propitious, we beseech you, Lord, to us your unworthy servants, through the glorious merits of your holy virgin Ragenufla, that by her pious intercession we may be protected from all adversities. Through our Lord. These things concerning the solemn eight-day festivity at Incourt and at Louvain in the church of St. James.
[11] as also the changes made at St. James of Louvain. Moreover, in this church a certain change admitted not so long ago had been intimated to me by Father Holvoet, praised below, indicating that a modern Office had been printed for them in type. I asked therefore, that as he had sent me the old manuscript, transcribed by himself, so he would also make me a copy of that more recent one. He performed this not slothfully, so that accordingly it was permitted to compare both. I observed at once that the whole reformation consists in this alone, that into the present one two new Offices are inserted, which before were not celebrated in that church within the festive octave of St. Ragenufla. And so on July 16 it is of the commemoration of the solemnity of St. Mary of Mount Carmel; but on the 18th of St. Bonaventure, and on the 19th of St. Henry, so that it was necessary to omit the lessons which on the 18th and 19th were recited from the Saint's Legend, and so today there remain only three lessons of the second nocturn on the feast itself, and three on its Octave. But that these were introduced only about a decade ago, the very Reverend Master Francis Louis Deens, president of the Trilingual College, and canon of St. James, testified. For the rest, what was proper in the manuscript concerning the antiphons, chapters, responsories, etc., the same is preserved in the reformed one, as also the particular Mass, of which we lately made mention. Whether the people of Incourt and the neighboring villages above named use the ancient manuscript rite, or the printed one of Louvain, it matters little to investigate at length: now we proceed to those things which remain to be illustrated concerning the relics, miracles, fountain, the Louvain chapter, and the Acts themselves.
§ II. The relics of St. Ragenufla, her miracles, her fountain, the college of Canons translated thence to Louvain, and the Acts which are here given.
That they suppose the sacred body is kept at Incourt, That the sacred body of the holy Virgin was deposited at Incourt by her parents, and a church built over it, all hand down, and so that veneration followed from about that time, does not seem able to be called into doubt: that those sacred remains still survive there, our Bartholomew Fisen judged, when in the Flowers of the church of Liège, published in the year 1647, having narrated the grief of the parents at the hastened death of their daughter, led by repentance of the violence attempted, he records from the Life, both that they buried the lifeless body according to its dignity, and afterward built a sacred building over it, and then thus continues: But God, that he might make manifest his love toward his dearest bride, wrought prodigies for a very long time in that place. At Incourt the sacred body of the holy Virgin is kept and venerated; and a fountain retains her name, from which water drunk drives off dropsy and other diseases. Moreover, on the day before the anniversary procession on the feast of Pentecost itself, the inhabitants carry the sacred bier to the fountain, that they may as it were consecrate its waters by contact, and, blessed Ragenufla aiding, greater power be added for curing diseases. But the college of Canons, founded in her honor at Incourt, was translated to St. James at Louvain already from the year 1454. These things Fisen; which, explained a little more fully, will give sufficient material to this second paragraph.
[13] We begin from the said sacred body, which that it survives at Incourt to this day, not Fisen alone judged; from more recent and more certain notices, just as it has been handed down by others, that at St. James of Louvain the precious relics of St. Ragenufla, as of the foundress of that church's chapter, are held in great honor. But, a somewhat more diligent care being applied, I have obtained a little more of light, our Father John Baptist Holvoet procuring it, by the benevolence of the Reverend Father James van Eyl, Rector of the College of Louvain, who gave to the said Father power of inquiring into all things even at Incourt, whence he collected several notices opportune to our matter. From his answers therefore, and those of the Reverend Master Gilsoux, pastor of Incourt, to the doubts I proposed, some things here can be elucidated, which it will manifestly appear were not sufficiently examined by others: and this will be as it were a commentary on the text of Fisen. I premise in passing that Chapeauville, in his work on the Pontiffs of Liège, volume 1, page 83 near the end, adduces from the Harigerian codex of Orval a marginal annotation in these words: In the year of the Lord 644 the virgin of Christ Reginulpha is renowned for sanctity in Gaul, and is buried in the church of blessed Peter, which from the name of her parents Ayus and Aya is named Ayona curia, in the diocese of Tongres.
[14] That I do not labor over the difference of one year, I have already said enough: [it is established that, burnt with the church in 1599, only a part of the jaw was preserved.] for our purpose it suffices that St. Ragenufla was there buried, afterward duly elevated, venerated, and shone illustrious with miracles: this is today not rightly said, that the sacred body of the holy Virgin is kept and venerated at Incourt: for, by the testimony of the praised Master Gilsoux, nothing there survives except some part of the jaw, enclosed in an oblong shrine, of a height twice as great as it is here exhibited engraved in copper from the delineation of our Father Ferdinand Picart, who with Father Holvoet surveyed all things with care. And that little particle is the whole present treasure of the people of Incourt, the larger shrine, in which the body was laid up, being consumed by the flames. Hear the very words of the reporter. The church in which that reliquary, of which the writers made mention, was kept together with the body or bones of St. Ragenufla, in the year, as they say, 1599, by the fury of heretics, or of criminal men rebellious to their King, was burnt with flames; whence at once both the reliquary and the sacred remains perished, one particle of the jaw alone excepted, which was afterward enclosed in a shrine of cheaper price, made of bronze or copper, in the form which my companion delineated. The other things which are added concerning the present church, the altar of St. Ragenufla, and the burial of her parents, are by no means alien from our matter.
[15] The church, restored from the said fire, as it is seen today, considering the situation of the place not inelegant, though more august than the old, Of the church now restored exhibits the form of a cross, a tower rising in the very middle of the nave. The chief altar is consecrated to St. Peter the Apostle, the first patron indeed of the church; the right side is occupied by that which is inscribed with the name of St. Ragenufla: whose painting offers to the eyes the holy Virgin walking through the woods leaning on a staff. Thence not far, in a certain inner recess, before another small altar, one may behold two sepulchral stones, of a square figure of about one foot, distant one pace from each other on either side, on which the names of Ayus and Aya, who everywhere are said to have been the parents of St. Ragenufla, and are commonly believed to have been buried beneath, are inscribed in letters rude enough. Yet it is by no means probable that those stones remained from the time in which they are supposed to have been buried there, down to these our times. It can more easily be believed that they were, many centuries after, from the tradition of the people that they were buried there, set upon those sepulchers, which from the very impression of the feet are perceived to be vaulted. The form of the stones and the ruder characters AYUS and AYA are sufficiently understood from what has been said, so that to engrave such things in copper is not worth the trouble.
[16] it differs from the older one. The Reverend Master Pastor added in his letter that a conjecture of the magnitude of the former church could be made from the ruins still standing: moreover that there were once there many altars, or chapels, as they call them; and this is easily understood from the various names of them, of which in the ancient tables or their fragments mention is found. He names by name the altars or chapels of St. Michael, St. Peter the little martyr, St. Nicholas, St. Catherine, St. Thomas, St. John the Baptist, etc. But of these, he says, here is only the memory; the estates or revenues pertaining to them being translated to Louvain with the college of canons, of which we shall annotate some things below. And these indeed are certain enough: not likewise what in the same letter he asserts or supposes, that the migrating canons carried also the relics of St. Ragenufla to St. James, which, as the sacred remains of their patroness, they would venerate there too. But if this was then done, those sacred remains must have perished, for Holvoet, who explored all things more closely at Louvain as well as at Incourt, found in the church of St. James nothing except some wooden image of the Saint, and a painting, which represents her, just as at Incourt, walking with a staff, or fleeing into the woods for the sake of avoiding marriage. Whether in other places the relics of St. Ragenufla are found, although I have carefully inquired, I have not hitherto been able to learn.
[17] The celebrated anniversary consecration of the fountain, True are the things which Fisen narrates of the fountain, most recently confirmed by the Reverend Master Pastor and not carelessly described by the inspectors. We were led, they say, to the fountain. This is distant from the church only about an eighth of a league, in a certain sloping meadow: it is surrounded by a square wall, which contains in length 29½ feet, in height 5½. The well, into which one descends by nine steps, presents a right angle, of which one side comprises 12½ feet, the other 15. The water in the well itself is placid, no spring appearing to the eyes, rises from the bottom to 4½ feet, whence it glides into the neighboring meadows. The figure of the fountain a diagram here contracted exhibits, which together with the reliquary we caused to be engraved in copper. There still perseveres the ceremony of consecrating, as it were, those waters every year by the touch of the reliquary, as formerly of the bier, a procession being appointed for this, on the very feast-day of Pentecost after Vespers have been sung, accompanied by an immense throng of people, which is wont to flow together from every quarter, even from remote places. Yet in ancient times the procession was more solemn through the surrounding villages, whence for the most part it happened that, although a beginning was made at the eighth hour of the morning, scarcely was the procession finished before the second hour after noon.
[18] and the benefits from the drinking of its water. The fountain being soon consecrated, the sick are wont emulously to cast themselves in, as into the pool of Bethesda, of whom the first who leaps in is said also more certainly to obtain health. They drink from that fountain especially the dropsical and the feverish, who from their diseases seek, and are said to obtain, a remedy. Recent testimonies of the inhabitants are adduced, confirmed by oath, of men, nay even of whole surviving families, of singular benefits received from that water. So under oath related James Bouvy, who, oppressed a few years ago by a violent fever, wished to be led to the fountain, and, washed in its waters, suddenly convalesced; and likewise Maximilian Chentinne, his wife Frances Bargilez, and all their children, fixed to their bed by a like fever, having recourse to the merits of the glorious Saint, cast into the water of the fountain, felt all the force of the disease expelled, in the month of May of the current year 1722. It is reported also that in this same year, in the month of July, a certain girl of Nivelles, laboring with dropsy, who had been carried thither on horseback, two men supporting her on either side, was by those waters restored to her former health. Since all these things were so done, it is indeed to be lamented that greater care was not taken to note down benefits of this kind, and to strengthen them with fit testimonies, as Holvoet rightly observes. And this the more to be lamented, since the Reverend Master Pastor most solemnly testifies
that miracles of this kind happened frequently in the time of his long pastorate, among which he relates one singular, not unlike the other, of a dropsy cured, a vow of pilgrimage to the Saint being made, which he himself recently saw paid. And thus far concerning the relics, the fountain, and the miracles; it remains that we insert a few things concerning the institution and translation of the college of canons.
[19] That the church of Incourt was once collegiate we have already said: The translation of the college of canons from Incourt to Louvain they err who will have the chapter founded by the very parents of St. Ragenufla, by whom we admit the church was built: nor less does Grammaye go astray when he suffers Radulf and Gisla, the true founders of the chapter, to be confused with Aio and Aia, who preceded the foundation by almost four whole centuries. Moreover, that the aforesaid college of canons was truly instituted by Radulf and Gisla already from the year 1036, the diploma of Reinard, bishop of Liège, teaches, in Miraeus in the Notitia, chapter 85; to which, and to Baron le Roy in the place above cited, I refer those more curious about these matters: where from Grammaye they will learn that the canons once lived regularly; as was so much the custom, until the thirteenth century, in which, doubtless after the example of Liège, those congregations were dissolved, as we have shown at length, when it was necessary to treat of the church of Mechelen in the Corollary to St. Rumold. To this pertains what I find rightly noted in the most recent supplement to Miraeus, page 902, that the inheritance left by Radulf was so divided by the bishop of Liège, that the middle part went to the monastery of St. Lawrence of Liège, whose abbot to this day is patron of six prebends of the chapter translated to Louvain. Grammaye, in le Roy, discloses that it was reformed by Eugene IV in the year 1444: certainly that it remained in that place until 1454 is beyond doubt. But I would believe that a weariness of the place began to seize the canons, so that it might be permitted to migrate elsewhere, Philip the Good, prince of Belgium, not unwilling to this, as Lipsius sufficiently intimates in his Louvain, book 2, page 82. He was moved (Philip the Good), I suppose, he says, by the solitude or want of the town (of Louvain), thus also to be raised up: he was moved also by the sight of the Academy, which the canons would adorn with honor, and by which they themselves would be cultivated.
[20] And indeed, that all things were accomplished at his request and instance, the very Pontifical diploma of Nicholas V makes plain, in the year 1454, Pope Nicholas V approving, which from the archive of the archbishopric of Mechelen the Reverend Master Benedict de Ruddere, canon of the Metropolitan church and secretary of the most eminent Cardinal Archbishop, exhibited to me, whence I have thought these few things should be subjoined, lest from the last lesson of the Office of Ragenufla we should imagine that this was done in the almost Norman century on account of the incursions of the barbarians, since at that time the chapter did not yet exist in the nature of things. Thus the diploma has: Nicholas the Bishop … with a preface, after which he continues: Indeed on the part of the beloved son, the noble man Philip, Duke of Burgundy, a petition lately exhibited to us contained; that the collegiate church of the place of Eyncourt, of the diocese of Liège, subject to the temporal dominion of that Duke, stands in a country place, and much removed from good towns, in which incursions of men-at-arms often occur, and a people of rude enough condition dwells. On account of which the beloved sons the dean and chapter of that church, by various perplexities for the most part, cannot conveniently and securely reside at the said church, and serve the Most High in a tranquil state; nor can they decently have the things necessary for human use, on account of this distance, to the no small desolation of the aforesaid dean and chapter, and detriment of the divine worship.
[21] whether it was done on account of the incursions of the barbarians? This is the true statement; and there is subjoined the manner in which the enumerated inconveniences may be avoided, namely, if the college of the aforesaid church should be transferred to the parish of St. James of Louvain; the parish church itself should be erected into a collegiate church, and adorned in like manner with all the collegial insignia with which the church of Eyncourt exists decorated; this indeed would tend to the increase of the divine worship, and to the honor of the aforesaid town, and also to the salvation of very many; the aforesaid Duke also would thence receive great consolation. Wherefore on the part of the said Duke humble supplication was made to us, etc. The diploma was given in the year 1454, June 25; but the agreement between the chapter and the rector of the church of St. James of Louvain first followed two years after, whence that diversity occurs among the writers, that some mark the first, others the second year. For me it is enough to have found the true cause of the translation of the chapter, which in the said last lesson of the Office is very obscurely, not to say falsely, suggested in these words: When a barbarous nation (God permitting on account of the crimes of men) forthwith rushed into Gaul, the college of canons was thence translated to Louvain in the year 1454. It strikes me, "a barbarous nation forthwith rushing into Gaul" in the fifteenth century. Now receive in few words the things which pertain to the Legend.
[22] The Legend collected from the tradition of the common people It was taken, and by the care of Rosweyde described, from the monastery of Rouge-Cloître, part I of the Hagiology of the Brabanters, and collated by Bolland with another manuscript of Corsendonck of the Canons Regular near Turnhout, in which the prologue was lacking, adorned by the writer with comparisons fetched from afar, but where he sufficiently indicates that no ancient monuments left in writing shone before him, from which he might draw out his Legend, so that on that account he rather composed a discourse than an historical series of the Life. He says that he undertook to write of the life and conversation of the virgin of Christ Ragenufla, and to transmit some things to the memory of posterity, since to the full it is not easy, because both antiquity slipped by with the years has abolished the memory, or because thence no monuments, through the want of writers, have transmitted to us, or perhaps, transmitted, have been cast away by negligence, studies falling into carelessness. As if he said that he writes only those things which he had received from the surviving report of the common people. The title must be deformed by the fault of the copyist, when instead of Aiicuria or Aiicurte is read Tuchordia, for it is thus conceived: Prologue on the Life of Ragenufla the virgin, of the stock of the Carolides, resting at Tuchordia.
[23] The whole is divided, as you would not ill call it, a panegyric however inelegant, into ten brief chapters, which we have rendered by as many numbers, amplified a little more verbosely, as I have already warned, inasmuch as we have already given their whole marrow above in that single lesson of the Office of the diocese of Namur, in a ruder style it commemorates few things with many words. such as also, though in more words, the old Chronicle of Brabant, written in Belgian, exhibits, of which the edition with us bears the year 1512, than which one a little more ancient exists at Louvain, namely of the year 1497, but not differing from ours in price or elegance. Whether the writer took any material thence, or perhaps the compiler of the Chronicle from this, I cannot sufficiently conjecture; nor does any trace anywhere occur of who he was, or when he lived; unless we dare to suspect that in Rouge-Cloître itself the Legend was adorned by John Gillemann, a writer of the fifteenth century, as you have in the Bollandian Preface, chapter I, §4 at the end, or by Anthony Gentius, or by others, compilers or continuators of that Hagiology and of the Novale. The ten chapters themselves we have contracted into two, the rest also being arranged to our norm, and illustrated here and there with annotations, as you will now perceive.
A LIFE.
From the manuscript Brabantine Hagiology of Rouge-Cloître,
Collated with another manuscript of the monastery of Corsendonck.
Ragenufla, Virgin, at Incourt in Walloon Brabant, Belgium (S.)
BHL Number: 7056
FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS.
PROLOGUE.
The lives and acts of the Saints of God were therefore handed down to writing by the diligent industry of the fathers of both Testaments, and transmitted to our memory, The author premises that he writes things not seen, but merely heard. that in the sight of them the norm of life, as if rendered to the image from a certain mirror, we may take pains to measure to the beholding of it both the faculty of our littleness a. Wherefore we too have undertaken to write of the life and conversation of the virgin of Christ Ragenufla, and to transmit some things to the memory of posterity; since to the full it is not easy for us: because both antiquity slipped by with the years has abolished the memory, or because thence no monuments, through the want of writers, have transmitted to us, or perhaps, transmitted, have been cast away by negligence, studies falling into carelessness. For there happened perhaps of her life such a loss as the holy Church still grieves to have happened of the book of the just and of the wars of God. But nevertheless this very thing which we have learned of her life, not by sight but by the relation of certain of the faithful, we narrate after the example of sacred Scripture, since also the holy Evangelists Mark and Luke perceived the Gospels which they wrote, not by sight but by hearing b.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
The illustrious race of St. Ragenufla, her singular virtues from tender years, her aversion to marriage, and thence her grievous struggle with her parents.
Of renowned and piously Christian parents, In the time when the renowned king of the Franks Dagobert wielded the scepter, Lodomirus and Sigebert his sons being taken into the kingdom a or the fellowships of his labor, there arose in the parts of Hesbaye, in a villa by name Brumbasia, the renowned virgin of Christ Ragenufla, who drew the line of her nobility not only from her renowned parents of the race of the Franks b, but also, what is more excellent, from most Christian ones; whose father was called Ayus, but her mother Aya, as the testimonies of some of the faithful assert, who also say that the name was given to Ayon curia today from her father Ayon's name, because it is established that this was of his domain. There were also kin to her by relationship holy Gertrude and Begga, who were daughters of Pippin, son of prince Carloman, and of blessed Iduberga. But also several other men and women of her time, joined to her not only by consanguinity but also by a like conversation of purpose c.
[2] born in a century flourishing with many Saints, At that time the blessed mother Church rejoiced that she had many kindled lamps of holy confessors, who by their torch made serene the dark clouds of the world. For then Amandus prevailed with the priestly fillet of Christ, a man polished to the nail in every norm of virtues; but also Agrippina (Cologne) then admired blessed Cunibert, Pontiff of the city, as one offering her imitable exemplars of virtues; nonetheless holy Remaclus, called by King Sigebert from Aquitaine and exalted to the see of Maastricht, went before the flock committed to him in word and work by his doctrine, and license of leisure being thereafter obtained from the king, having relinquished the episcopal government and left blessed Theodard nearly his equal to himself, he, exercising the contemplative life in the monastery of Stavelot built by himself, pleased the Most High: besides, holy Foillan d, a true husbandman of Christ, leaving his kindred and his land Britain, like another Abraham Chaldea, sweating for Christ in the monastery of Fosses by the disciplinary norm, of the virgin of Christ Gertrude
sustained the stipends of mercy. Such virgins e at that time and very many others guarded the city of God, ready to set themselves as a wall for the house of Israel, and to stand in battle in the day of the Lord, if there had raged, as of old, the fury of some Decius. By the legions f of these the earth of the Gospel sowing being cultivated, with a hundredfold virginal sowing, filled the greatest granaries of the Church.
[3] she shone wonderfully with every kind of virtues. Through that same time therefore the virgin of Christ Ragenufla, of whom we have briefly foretasted, grew up under Christian parents by bodily advances. Her age indeed growing, she herself took pains to prevail by the probity of her manners, for setting behind boyish games, and mingling a masculine spirit with feminine tenderness, she now from a girl performed senile works; counting as nothing all earthly things, only by the grace of eternal salvation, with all effort and instance she took pains to climb the arduous and evangelical journeys which are on the right hand. She was therefore chaste in body, uncorrupt in mind, amiable to all, affable to all, beautiful in face, but more beautiful in faith, skilled in prudence, vigorous in fortitude, serene in temperance, severe in justice, perfect in longanimity, most bountiful in alms, most sparing in abstinence, endowed with patience and humility, filled with meekness and piety, replete with unfeigned charity, stable with robust faith, longanimous with unshaken hope. But the seedbeds of these virtues, Wisdom disposing all things, sowed in her soul, where before secular times she had destined to build her sanctuaries.
[4] When the virgin of Christ Ragenufla scattered such aromas of herself in the watch of her girlhood, Demanded in marriage, her parents urging in vain, a certain youth, by name Ebroinus, himself too not of the lowest, according to the pomp of the world and born of Christian birth, according to the solemnities of nuptials appointed by God from the beginning of the world, desires in every way to obtain her in marriage, the father and mother of that Virgin favoring him for this very thing. But when the virgin of Christ had been asked what her mind was; to such things, whether she would yield to the union of that youth, whom the tokens of manners commended, blooming with the flower of youth, and whom the ample emoluments of the world's goods furrowed, flowing from a proud lineage of blood? Touched inwardly by the fire of the Holy Spirit, who had predestined her before secular times to be for himself a future vessel of election; to those thus inquiring she brought the suffrages, nay the eulogies, of reasonings g: Neither to this one's, she says, nor to any other's nuptials do I aspire, but I languish only with the love of that bridegroom, that is, of Christ, whose lineage, according to the Prophet, is unspeakable, and whose estates are the vaults of heaven, and the liquid fields of the sea and the earth.
[5] The parents, thinking such words of the sacred Virgin were uttered from girlish levity, began indeed to incite her mind with the soft fomentations of exhortations, she persists most constantly in her purpose of virginity. saying by the testimonies of sacred Scripture that nuptials which are made only out of love of posterity do not abhor from the Christian religion; which namely it was established were instituted by God himself for this very thing. Yet the virgin of Christ, who had set her foundations upon the evangelical rock, those fomentations of words could not remove from the norm of chastity once seized. Wherefore they began thereafter to use an austere censure toward their offspring; inasmuch as she did not accommodate a patient ear to their commands. And when they beheld the Virgin's mind fixed in God, inclined to neither part, they resolved to use their free choice, and, even if she resisted, to join their daughter by the marriage bond of the aforesaid youth, a certain time being fixed when this should be done. Then indeed the holy virgin of Christ Ragenufla, and future handmaid of the Mother of Christ, began to waver with a various tide of cares, and to turn her swift mind through diverse things; for she feared now to act against the Apostle, who bids sons be subject to their parents, and in some way to loose the very statutes of the Lord himself, who from the beginning instituted the chaste commerce of spouses. But she hung in doubtful hope, whether she should use the appointed license; and, content to be saved with Lot in Segor, whether rather she should climb to the hundredfold prizes of virginity, and overcome piety toward her parents by a greater piety toward God. Yet leaving nothing to her own judgment, she committed the matter to be weighed to the divine examination, to which she had wholly devoted herself from a girl.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
Her flight into the woods, her holy exercises there, angelic consolation, most pious death, the burial procured by her parents, the building of the church, and miracles.
Amid the preparations of the nuptials, she hides herself in the woods: Amid these things came the day formerly fixed for accomplishing the nuptials, on which the bridal chamber was being arranged for the holy Virgin, the future, as was thought, wedded one; and while the hearts of the parents hang in suspense for the bridegroom's coming, and each thing befitting the nuptials is being prepared; Olympus now inclining, the evening draws nearer, and night, embracing the earth with a dusky mantle, rushes from the ocean a. But blessed virgin Ragenufla, having found this opportunity of time, provided for her by divine providence and indulgence, and now taught by the gift of the Holy Spirit to which part she ought more to apply herself; her parents occupied in mind about many things, and therefore attending less to particulars; content with only one little maidservant as companion, fleeing, she hid herself in the deserts of a certain neighboring wood. O Virgin devoted to God and worthy of the proclamation of all good men! O example of chastity left for the virgins of Christ to follow through her, and the form of sanctity set forth on which they may be imprinted b! Let the virgins of Christ therefore learn the love of Christ fervent in the girl, and reckoning the prosperous things of the world as certain dung: let them be incited to the fruit of chastity by the norm of the girlish example, and become accustomed to restrain the incentives of boiling nature. To be proclaimed is the laudable flight of this sacred Virgin, according to which the Lord exhorts through the prophet Jeremiah, that his people flee from Babylon. So Abraham went out from Ur of the Chaldees; so Lot escaped from burning Sodom. To be praised is such contempt toward parents, where namely the Lord is in the cause; for although any enemies whatsoever are to be loved for God's sake in this world, yet in his way parents and kinsmen contrary to us are to be hated; to him who strikes the cheek the other is to be offered, as the Lord himself says, but the foot, hand, and eye that scandalize us are to be cut off. Hence it is that through Solomon, through whom Wisdom itself willed to be sung, it is commanded in the Song of Songs that charity be ordered. For order is necessary in every affection c, that, father and mother being set behind, God may be loved. And if it be necessary that the love of God be compared with the love of parents; and if both cannot be kept, one must hold hatred toward one's own, love must be held toward God. The virgin of Christ Ragenufla had indeed at that time also some virgins who went before her to this purpose, namely holy Gertrude and Aldegundis, most holy brides of Christ the Lord: for they too, burning with desire of the eternal Bridegroom, despised to be joined by the marriage bond.
[7] When therefore the sacred virgin of Christ Ragenufla had withdrawn to the aforesaid hiding-places of the wood, where amid most pious exercises, her parents much dismayed in mind, and ignorant where their daughter lay hidden, she, having the best part chosen with Mary, tarrying there for some days, paid to the Most High the assiduous gifts of groans and prayers, became daily, according to the Apostle, a living sacrifice, kindling with sweet odor on the altar of her heart the libations of humility and patience. Instead of the breast-band, and instead of the fine and distinguished weaving of precious garments, she roughened the tender limbs of her delicate body with haircloth, inviting the angels with prayers, and appealing to the holy Apostles of God with frequent sobs, and wearying all the saints serving Christ with the instance of prayers: and, like Jacob sweating with God in the struggle of prayers, that God himself, who had sown in her the seedbeds of this purpose, by the pious intervention of his Saints, and by the grace of his ineffable munificence, might bring her beginnings to the end of the due action. For the Virgin most holy of God feared that example or punishment of the wife of Lot fleeing the burnings of Sodom; she dreaded the thousand devices of harm of the serpent lying in wait for the heel, who by his cunning, having despoiled the first parents, by the hope of divinity, of the glory of paradise, laid them down in this vale of tears.
[8] She herself also was on guard, lest, having beheld the ruin of Sodom, she should become a statue of insipid salt, lest, holding the plow, panting for the embraces of the heavenly Bridegroom, she should look back with her eyes on things fleeting, nor descend from the roof of virtues to seek her former garments, according to the interdict: of which matter anxious with this salutary fear, she now desired to be dissolved and to be with Christ, according to the Apostle, that the mortal which resisted the spirit might be absorbed by life. She grieved with the Psalmist that her sojourn was now longer prolonged, and that she dwelt with the inhabitants of Cedar, which is called darkness: and from these, like one coming from Egypt, she burned in mind to be saved with Israel, and to be led into the true land of promise, Jesus truly leading; frequently repeating with sighs that saying of the Psalmist: When shall I come and appear before the face of my God?
[9] But indeed the omnipotent God, most benign disposer of the fabric of his own right, refreshed by an angelic visitation, who through the Psalmist promises to his professors; Call upon me, he says, in the day of tribulation and I will rescue you, and in the accepted time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you; and who is near to all that call upon him in truth, deigned to accommodate as quickly as possible an ear open to hear her petitions; and just as, the Hebrews of old going out from the Egyptian servitude, he deigned to withdraw the wars from nearby, unwilling to lead them through the land of the Philistines, which was near, considering lest perhaps they should repent, if they saw wars rise up against them; so also now, lest perhaps the holy Virgin, if a longer delay of tarrying in this life had intervened, driven by some wind of temptations from her parents or her bridegroom, should even for a moment be moved from the seized purpose of chastity, although he was able to keep his handmaid unharmed even in the sweltering burning of the Babylonian furnace, yet deigning utterly to cut off this necessity, he decreed to reward her faithful d purpose with a peaceful and compendious end; unwilling that she should longer bear the burden of the day and the heat. For, no long delay of time intervening, she is invited to the heavenly kingdoms; for an angel of the Lord, descending from the ethereal citadel, illumined with radiance the place to which the holy virgin, as far as was permitted to a mortal, was intent in divine contemplation: Come, he says, O beloved bride of Christ, now, on account of the seals of faith faithfully preserved, about to enter the treasuries of your Bridegroom's unspeakable delights. Worthily the blessed Virgin merited to enjoy at once the angelic sight and address, who had striven to imitate the life of the angels; so she ought to be ennobled by the Lord God, for whose love she had contended by a long martyrdom. Worthily would I call
this virgin a martyr, although she felt not the executioner of a material sword: not only in confession is the shedding of blood reckoned, but the immaculate service of a devoted mind is a daily martyrdom. That crown is woven of roses and violets, but this of lilies. Whence also in the Song of Songs it is written, My kinsman is white and ruddy, and, in peace and in war, granting the same rewards to those who conquer.
[10] [soon she is dissolved, buried by her parents: and, a church being built, she shines with miracles.] After these things therefore that holy soul of the blessed virgin of Christ Ragenufla, refined above gold by the fire of the tribulations of the flesh, was loosed from the bodily prison of the flesh, which, carried up by the ministry of the angels, is brought into the heavenly paradise, where without end, by the hope of the Patriarchs, the society of the Apostles, and the fellowship of the Martyrs, the company of the confessors, the college of the Virgins, and of all the heaven-dwellers, she is delighted with perennial exultation. Whose parents, when they had learned of her most holy conversation and departure, taught in detail by the report of the little maidservant of the blessed Virgin returning to them, making satisfaction by a fitting penance for the injury committed against their daughter, devoutly came together there to entomb her most holy limbs: where also, in the course of time, they built over her tomb a church at their own expense; in which place, of what merit the remains laid up are held, the clemency of the divinity showed by frequent miracles, to glorify the tokens of his majesty; whose honor and glory remains for ever and ever. Amen.