Magnericus

ON ST. MAGNERICUS, CONFESSOR,

ARCHBISHOP OF TRIER,

There in the monastery of St. Martin.

ABOUT THE YEAR 596.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

St. Magnericus, confessor, archbishop of Trier, there in the monastery of St. Martin.

BY THE AUTHOR J. P.

§ I. His cult, eulogies, proper Office; his birth, profession of life; his age.

Trier, or Augusta Trevirorum, by far the most ancient city of Europe in Belgica Prima, fruitful parent of very many Martyrs, and happy hostess of great Saints, is so everywhere known to all, [The memory of the Saint, passed over by the most ancient martyrologists, is given from the more recent ones] that it suffices even to have named it. Most copious notices of it, and of every kind, are exhibited by the Proparasceve, prefixed to the Annals of the same city, which our Christopher Brower published. Among the other sacred adornments which it enjoys, St. Magnericus, its most worthy archbishop, can with just merit be numbered; whose memory in the ancient Martyrologies I sought in vain. Various codices, enumerated by us among the additions joined to Usuard on this day, report him thus: "At Trier, of St. Magnericus, bishop and confessor." The Brussels codex adds: "who enrolled blessed Gaugericus in the clerical service." Greven thus announces him: "At Trier, of St. Magnericus, bishop and confessor; who, brought up by St. Nicetius, bishop of the same city, did not forsake him when he was driven into exile by Chlothar for his zeal for justice, and afterward worthily succeeded him." Of this succession it will be seen afterward. Molanus likewise added him to his own Usuard.

[2] The codices just adduced in the first place the Roman Martyrology follows, when it thus speaks: with the Roman Martyrology and the manuscript Florary. "At Trier, of St. Magnericus, bishop and confessor." There had preceded our manuscript Florary, which marks the Saint in this manner: "At Trier, of St. Magnericus, bishop and confessor; who, illustrious with many miracles, rested in the Lord in the year of salvation 618," afterward to be brought back by us to a truer reckoning of time. And these few things are at hand for establishing the cult of the Saint from the sacred Calendars, to which will be added certain other things, on occasion of the eulogies, presently to offer themselves here to us. Meanwhile it is of service to remember that from no ancient document perhaps can the most ancient cult of our Prelate be more clearly proposed and more strongly persuaded than from the altar erected at his sepulchre, the biographer attesting it from no. 53, and recounting the circumstances of the deed, which may be seen in him.

[3] Our Saint is everywhere praised by St. Gregory of Tours, He obtained as heralds St. Gregory of Tours, and Venantius, bishop of Poitiers. as Theodoric Ruinart observes in the notes to chapter 37 of book 8 of his history of the Franks, which, together with the other Works of the same, he published at Paris in the year 1699. Which praises are to be esteemed the more highly, the more they are of far greater value which are commemorated to our purpose by a contemporary, an intimate, and a holy prelate; of which account will be taken below in its place. Another distinguished and contemporary herald of his virtues too St. Magnericus obtained, namely Venantius Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers, who composed a poem on his praises; reported by our biographer, no. 50, and inserted by our Christopher Brower into his Annals of Trier, book 6, no. 91, and also into the edition of Fortunatus illustrated by him, book 3, poem 13.

[4] Thus, moreover, he speaks to our purpose in the notes, page 87: the last of whom composed a poem in his honor; which "This old poem, but ἀνέκδοτον (unpublished) hitherto and new, we give, drawn from the very Life of St. Magnericus, composed by the abbot Eberwin. It was found by me in the library of the monastery of St. Martin, which, according to the constant tradition of the elders, arose at Trier close to the Moselle from the house of the most noble senator Tetradius." If the most wise founder of the Ecclesiastical Annals, Baronius, had seen this Life, he would not have written in the notes to the Roman Martyrology, on this day, the following: "That of this (St. Magnericus) there exists a poem of Fortunatus, Molanus relates. But in the books of Fortunatus, lately published at Cagliari, not of Magnericus of Trier, but of Agericus of Verdun, a poem exists, book 3." It is to be observed that the praised Brower, when he affirms that he gives this poem hitherto unpublished and new, says neither nothing nor everything: for Molanus in the notes to this day proclaims this: "The Life of Magnericus was printed, at least in part, at Louvain in the year 1485 in the History of the Saints, with the poem of Fortunatus on the same bishop." That History I have before my eyes, to which our Rosweyde thus noted: "This book Molanus, on Usuard the 25th of July, in Magnericus calls the second part of the Legend, taking, I think, the Lombardic history for the first part of the Legend."

[5] However that may be, it matters little to us. This one thing pertains hither, is asserted by us to Fortunatus as its author. that at the end of the Life of St. Magnericus, folio 199 verso, it is there noted that of this Saint Fortunatus the bishop in his poem thus says: "The honorable summit, etc." But the fragment which is there given is completed in five distichs. And these may suffice for vindicating that poem to Fortunatus, as also the eulogy of our Saint contained in it. To heap up here various eulogies of more recent writers is of no avail; since no more weight can be in them than insofar as they are founded on the more ancient documents whence they were taken, namely St. Gregory of Tours and our biographer. They are in Cratepolius, On the Electors and bishops of Germany, page 255, in Saussay and Bucelinus on this day, and in the Sammarthani in Gallia Christiana among the archbishops of Trier, which may be seen there. Some things less rightly placed in them can be corrected below in their places. Now concerning the ecclesiastical Office sacred and proper to him, the following occur.

[6] [A certain fragment of the proper Office is brought forward, not sufficiently known to us:] After the copy of the Life which we have, from the Manuscript of the monastery of St. Martin of Trier, and the diploma issued in favor of the same monastery by Benedict VII, Pope, and other notices concerning the praised monastery added in the same copy, which therefore we shall afterward cite under the name of the Trier notices, these things are subjoined, which whether and how widely they were used in that diocese, or whether by the monks of the aforesaid monastery alone, and at what and how great a time, is altogether hidden from us. That they were accustomed to be recited on the day of his death is indicated in the course. Thus, then, they run: "On the festivity of St. Magnericus the archbishop. Antiphon. Glorious pontiff of Christ, Magnericus, on this day, on which you deserved to penetrate the heavens, we your little servants beseech that, at your imploring, after the course of this life we may deserve to receive the joys. At the Canticles, antiphon. In the wisdom of the Lord the prelate Magnericus ever abode; therefore his memory shall be in blessing, and every church of the Saints shall recount his alms. Responsory. Venerable prelate of God, Magnericus, who, at the departing of the excellent Nicetius, deserved to undergo the pontifical honor, we ask you to succor us with your assiduous prayer, that we may deserve to come to the shepherd of souls, you leading. With your."

[7] embracing the praises of the Saint; "Responsory. This holy Prelate of God strove to show himself such to all, that the faithful people ought to resound in his praise. Verse. Behold a great priest, who in his days pleased God, and was found just. That in his. Responsory. The signs of miracles are not to be specially considered in this holy Prelate: in whom the tokens of all virtues so shone. Verse. For as a shepherd he vigilantly pressed on for the flock committed to him, and assiduously took care to commend it to God. In whom. Responsory. The athlete beloved of God, Magnericus, illustrious in merits, full of virtues, pleasing and dear to all; who at last, seized by sickness, had closed the time of this pilgrim life. Verse. Whose sacred little body, commended in the destined place, grants the desired benefit to those who ask. Who at last. At Matins and Lauds. The honorable summit, and there follow twelve verses drawn from the poem of Fortunatus. There is then subjoined at the Gospel the antiphon. The most holy prelate Magnericus strove to render the sons begotten in Christ cautious by the evangelical sayings, more often exhorting them thus: See, watch, and pray, lest, when the Lord shall come suddenly, he find you sleeping."

[8] which has the ninth lesson in the Trier Office of the year 1645. "Another antiphon. Hear, eternal shepherd, the voices of those crying to you through the prelate Magnericus, pleasing to you, and by whose patronage you willed us to be governed on earth; by his merits graft the redeemed sheep into the pastures of paradise." In the Lectionary of certain Saints of the church of Trier, published in print in the year 1645, St. Magnericus has a proper ninth lesson; in which is treated chiefly of the temples built by him, and of his episcopal vigilance; but in it it is wrongly asserted that, for undertaking the episcopal office, he took his degree after Rusticus. And these indeed are the things which we thought should be said concerning the sacred Office proper to the Saint.

[9] [Certain things to be observed are proposed concerning his birth, education, profession of life,] Of his birth our biographer handed down nothing; nothing, so far as we know, St. Gregory of Tours; nothing Fortunatus: nor do we know of any other source to which to have recourse among the ancients, that we may be taught anything certain concerning it. Saussay and the Sammarthani will have it that the Saint was born of the lineage of the most noble senator Tetradius; and the Sammarthani add that the ancient calendars of the church relate this. If they had either produced those calendars, or it were at hand for us to inspect them, and to see of what time and note they present the tokens; they would perhaps procure some credit for their assertion: to which we shall then give credit, when we shall have seen it established from a suitable authority. The rest likewise, which regard either his parents, or the early age of the Saint, or his first education, we hold unascertained; except that St. Nicetius, according to the biographer, no. 1, had chosen him to be instructed by himself in ecclesiastical learning. Bucelinus, among all the Benedictine menologists whom I at least have seen, is strangely singular, when in him the Saint is said in the eulogy to have professed as a monk in the monastery of Limoges. But of the age in which he flourished, more certain documents are at hand.

[10] That the Saint flourished in the middle of the sixth century, and died at its close, and his age, in which he ceased to live, is beyond controversy. Let Brower be heard, at the year 596, no. 91. "To this," he says, "I find also that bishop Magnericus lived to this time, in an ancient writer of Epternach (Theodoric is indicated in the margin, book 2). And indeed that he departed in this very year, or at the latest in the following, the series of the annals demands." The cited Cratepolius assigns about the year 594; but I think that there he wished to mark the time of St. Gaugericus, of whom he there treats, the name of Magnericus being wrongly put for Gaugericus, who in him is less correctly written Gangericus. Nor does Le Cointe conflict, when at that year 597 he affirms that Magnericus reached to these times. The already-mentioned Bucelinus, somewhat anticipating the time of his death, fixes it as having occurred about the year of Christ 590. But our manuscript Florary defers it more than is fair, when it affirms that he rested in the Lord in the year of salvation 618.

[11] But now, since according to the credit of our biographer, no. 53, "when he was already of advanced age, he obtained the term of his life"; and began to live. the beginnings of his life seem to be able to be recalled sufficiently fittingly to about the year 520, and the sum of his whole life extended to 76 or 77 years of age. Accordingly, from what has been said, we judge to be altogether erroneous what is said in the notes to the Roman Martyrology; namely that "he lived about the year of the Lord 505." Into the same error Ferrari fell, in the new Topography at the word "Trier," when he accommodates to the holy Archbishop that same year 505. And these things indeed, said concerning the Saint's age, are as it were seeds, from the sowing of which there can arise and be arranged a little below the chronotaxis of his life; where we shall first have premised some things, by which other circumstances of the things done by him will be elucidated.

§ II. Men remarkable in dignity and integrity of life, contemporary with the Saint.

[12] Illustrious men contemporary not only with the Saint's age, but also with his very episcopate, the writer of the Life enumerates, no. 9. [The things which the biographer has concerning the emperors contemporary with the Saint are elucidated,] "This church," he says, "he most strenuously governed, namely in the times of the emperors Justin, Tiberius, Maurice." Justin the younger is marked as having reigned from the year 566 to 578, according to Labbe in the chronological Compendium; the beginnings of whose reign therefore concur with the episcopate of St. Rusticus, according to what is to be said below, but the end with the episcopal governance of St. Magnericus. Justin was succeeded by Tiberius Constantine from the year 578 to 582; and him Maurice from the year 582 to 601; and so, since our holy Prelate began to sit in the year of Christ 573 according to our chronotaxis, both the times of his see and of the reign of these emperors, joined by the biographer, rightly cohere among themselves. Let us see, moreover, whether the same can be affirmed of the other persons whom he presently proceeds to enumerate for us.

[13] to the Roman Pontiffs, and the kings of the Franks, And he connects the times of Vigilius indeed, Pelagius, Gregory, of the Romans, with the aforesaid episcopate. To Vigilius in the year 555 succeeded Pelagius I, who died in 559, and therefore the times of these and of him can by no means be combined. Judge otherwise of Pelagius II, who sat from the year 577 to 590, and his successor St. Gregory from the year 590 to 604, which in our case rightly cohere. Then the same author passes to the names of the kings Chilperic, Guntram, Childebert, wielding the sceptres of the Franks. Most well known is the partition of the whole monarchy of the kingdom of the Franks after the death of Chlothar I among his four sons, which the biographer here touches in part, and in which to Charibert, the eldest, fell the kingdom of Paris; to Guntram that of Orléans or Burgundy; to Chilperic that of Soissons; but to Sigebert, the youngest of all, that of Metz or Austrasia; the Austrasian kingdom together with the Burgundian being afterward devolved to Childebert, the son of this last.

[14] whom he recounts. And Charibert indeed the author rightly passed over: for whether he died in the year 570 according to Labbe just praised, or rather and more truly in the year 567 according to Le Cointe (which year he proves, against Sigebert, is to be held), Pagi also supporting it: neither year concurs with the see of Magnericus. King Sigebert, likewise here passed over, agrees with it, having died in the year 575. In Chilperic and Guntram the matter is clear; the former being taken from life in the year 584, the latter in the year 593. Nor can any controversy underlie concerning Childebert, who died in the year 596, leaving as heirs of his kingdom his sons, Theudebert indeed king of Austrasia, but Theuderic of Burgundy; the first of whom St. Magnericus received from the sacred font, and gave him the name of Theudebert, as the biographer narrates, no. 11; and long before him St. Gregory of Tours; as will be said below from him. But besides these men, illustrious in sacred and profane dignity, the same writer of the Life commemorates to us likewise others, joined in place and time to our holy Prelate. Let us give his words:

[15] To whom you may add SS. Wolfilaicus, "In the times also of this Priest we know that from Italy a man of God (Wolfilaicus), endowed with the grace of the highest holiness, dwelt in his diocese; and we have found that very many other servants of God, Paul, Ingobert, Disibod, Wandalin, served God in the Vosges in his bishopric… Then also a certain man of God, Carilefus, led there an eremitic life. Then too that famous Columban from Ireland with his Gall": where in few words he commemorates some of his deeds; thus proceeding to our purpose: "But also in the borders of the same Vosges, which lie next the city of Trier, some from that vast city, … seeking the secret of the desert, there also led an arduous life. Of whom a certain venerable presbyter from the same city, Bantus … and also another, his own brother, likewise a presbyter … Beatus … illustrious in holiness; of whose relics and signs in the said city, and of the benefit conferred on himself also, he makes mention." Wolfilaicus, above mentioned, is inscribed in the Benedictine calendars in Wion, Dorgan, Menard on the 21st of October, under the name of St. Wulfy, a lay brother; but St. Gregory of Tours calls him a deacon, history of the Franks, book 8, chapter 15: where he narrates his marvelous deeds from his own mouth; which doubtless lay before our biographer from no. 35.

[16] Of him too Mabillon treats in the Benedictine Annals, Paul, Ingobert, Carilefus, at the year of Christ 572; but his Life we do not then find among the Benedictine Acts. Meanwhile whatever pertains to him can be weighed at the said 21st of October. That St. Paul named by the biographer is bishop of Verdun, who is in the Roman Martyrology at the 8th of February, on which his Acts were illustrated by us. And indeed from the note of time affixed there, "about the year 649," nothing hinders his having dwelt in the Vosges under the episcopate of St. Magnericus, let us say about the year 590, perhaps at the age of 20. Ingobert and Carilefus are praised by Brower at the year of Christ 587 in these words: "About the same time also Carilefus and Ingobert … settled in the vast desert of Mount Vosges." Moreover, those lead too far afield who point out Aninsula, the seat of Carilefus, at Trier, since this one is different from that Carilefus of the domain of Le Mans … whose memory occupies the Kalends of July; and whom he distinguishes from that former one of the same name, both from a rescript of Nicholas, Pope, and from the Acts; whose Acts we illustrated at the said Kalends of July.

[17] Disibod we gave on the 8th of July; he, if he is the same as the one Disibod, whom the author of our Life above recounts to us (and indeed we know no other), his epoch, namely the year 684, assigned to him by us, does not agree with the time of the episcopate of St. Magnericus; no more than the chronotaxis of the Life, arranged in the preliminary Commentary, no. 23, in the same place. Various opinions meanwhile concerning the age of that Saint are there brought forward from no. 17. Nor likewise does the place agree: for that Disibod pertains to the diocese of Mainz, or the county of Spanheim, as we said at more length from Trithemius in the same place, page 581. And so, since the age more probably, and the very places too certainly, differ, do not join Disibod, designated above by the biographer, with the episcopate of St. Magnericus and the Vosges; or find me some other of the same name, who can be joined in both places, and to whom both the said episcopate of our Saint and the place of which here is the question can be fittingly accommodated: but if not, for these two causes we contend that Disibod pertains elsewhere, and was here wrongly intruded by the author of the Life with circumstances not his own.

[18] Wandalin, Wandelen, or Vandelin pertains to Trier alone. "To him," says Brower at the year 637, Wandalin, "from afar had betaken himself, with great ardor of piety, but more illustrious by fame from the wonderful works produced, St. Wandalin, a Scot by origin, and, as is given to fame, begotten of royal stock. Him, both by love of the heavenly fatherland, and by weariness of his native soil, that he might postpone to the desire of Christ what he despised, they report to have been carried into that region of Trier which we call Westerreich or the Western kingdom; there to have hired himself out to a nobleman, with the excellent zeal of conquering himself, for the feeding of swine, and, forgetful of his lineage and birth, to have not reluctantly put on the person of a swineherd; and, distinguished by various virtues, to have embraced the discipline of the monastery of Tholey. Wherefore it pleased the divine goodness that the name and fame of the Man should shine forth with the greatest brightness to the memory of posterity, and that the town built over his sepulchre and shrine, to be venerated by the name of the Saint, should be preserved to this very time: for posterity called it the town of St. Wendelin, and it obeys the bishop of Trier, to whose jurisdiction it still lies subject." And a few things being interposed concerning the miracles once done there, and the religious concourse of the people to him, he adds that St. Wandalin died on the 21st day of the month of October; his body being raised from the earth on the 5th of July, in an uncertain year.

[19] commemorating also, known elsewhere too; On the same 21st of October Molanus added him to his own Usuard. Wion, Dorgan, Menard note him on the 20th of that month with the title of abbot; on which day Mabillon too inserted him in the Calendar of Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, which is prefixed to the Benedictine Acts of the second saeculum. Wion wrongly asserts that he is found in Molanus on the 20th of October, as is clear from his notes to that day. But these and other things which pertain to this Saint can be treated elsewhere. It may suffice meanwhile to have observed in passing here that, according to Mabillon in the praised Annals at the year 623, to which he connects the beginnings of the monastery of Tholey, it is thought by some that St. Wandalin was the first abbot of the said monastery. But let us proceed to the rest of the men whom our author recounts.

[20] likewise Columban with his disciple Gall: Bantus finally and Beatus. The Life of St. Columban, whom he subjoins, Mabillon published, Benedictine Acts, saeculum 2, from page 5. He flourished at the close of the sixth century and the beginning of the seventh. In the Life of St. Gall, his disciple, at once

to be praised, it is thus said to our purpose concerning St. Columban: "He entered, with his companions, the desert which is called the Vosges." More will be said of him among us at the 21st of November. There follows in the biographer St. Gall, whose Life is in Mabillon, Benedictine Acts, saeculum 2, from page 230. He is venerated on the 16th of October. The name of Bantus, or Banto, is marked in the additions to Usuard on the 31st of July; but that of Beatus on the 26th of the same month, as may be seen in the additions published by us together with the text of that Martyrologist. What can be found concerning each, thither we refer. But all these things, which concerning the men contemporary with our Saint in dignity and holiness the biographer diffusely heaped up, although they have little affinity both with him and with the series of the deeds, we thought should be elucidated in this manner; following him as he wanders through long digressions; who would have done far better if, these circuits and byplays being dismissed, he had held the straight way before the oblique, closely reading the footsteps which our Saint had left to be observed; not those which other Saints, regarding other things, left. It is more to our interest to discern who ought to be fixed as the predecessor and successor of St. Magnericus in the see of Trier; which we shall discuss in the next paragraph.

§ III. The predecessor and successor of St. Magnericus in the archbishopric; the sacred places founded or restored by him.

[The Saint's predecessor in the episcopate is everywhere, with the biographer, said to have been St. Nicetius.] "At the departing," says our writer of the Life, no. 1, "at the city of Trier, of the most holy man Nicetius, bishop of the same city, Magnericus succeeded to the episcopate." This succession I do not find in Gregory of Tours: for in book 8, chapter 37 of the history of the Franks; likewise in book 9, chapters 10 and 12, he mentions indeed our Trier prelate Magnericus; but whom he succeeded, he does not say. And indeed in the praised history, book 10, chapter 29; in the book on the glory of Confessors, chapter 94; and also in the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 17, he treats indeed of St. Nicetius, but whom he left as successor in the see of Trier, no one mentions. That St. Magnericus succeeded him, the more recent writers think, namely Cratepolius, Saussay, the Sammarthani, and Le Cointe, not to mention Greven; whose words you have above; whether they fix this rightly or wrongly, this must be discussed by us in this place. For the patrons of this common opinion have supporting them, in the clearest terms, Venantius Fortunatus, certainly beyond all exception, inasmuch as he lived then, affirming it in the poem cited above.

[22] One single one, so far as we know, opposes this opinion, Brower, whom Brower, here deserving much credit, certainly a diligent searcher and illustrator of the antiquities of Trier; which he collected with great labor and zeal, the province of Trier being traversed, and all the archives searched, as is related in the Library of writers of our Society: so that on this account he seems to be esteemed greatly above others, that he could and ought to combine the antecedences, progressions, and consequences of things, persons, and times, both from the plan which he prefixed for himself, and from the ancient documents which he had at hand. He could likewise and ought to fit the particulars to his chronological reckonings, seeing here somewhat acutely, and deserving somewhat more credit than certain desultory encomiasts, who not rarely either copy others' work, or skim and mutilate texts, or do not sufficiently connect antecedents with consequents; so that no more credit is to be given to their Catalogues than insofar as they rest on the suitable authority of more ancient writers. And so we cannot but propose Brower, or rather Brower's reasons, and that from his own very words. At the year 564, then, he thus reasons: "To him (St. Nicetius) although they commonly suggest Magnericus as successor; we, however," he says, "relying on this constant and settled series of times, cannot assent to bare lists of pontiffs without reason: wherefore it has pleased us for the present to prefer Rusticus to Magnericus.

[23] "For that Nicetius governed this church from Theodoric the first king of the Austrasians up to Sigebert, is most clear. And thence it is equally attested that the whole pontificate of Rusticus runs through the years of king Sigebert. Wherefore it cannot be torn away from the age of his reign; especially since Magnericus sat longer than that Rusticus can be interposed between him and Nicetius: and yet Rusticus ought to be joined with king Sigebert, unless we would have the memory both of him and of all blessed Goar the presbyter utterly disturbed. We have perhaps that by which the histories may delay belief, namely those who mention Venantius Fortunatus making Magnericus the successor of his master Nicetius; to whom indeed, I confess, the abbot Eberwin too subscribes, substituting Magnericus for Nicetius in the memory of that man's life. How I could wish that man had written more fully of the origin and progress of Magnericus's episcopate; being indeed nearer to those times than we. But since he himself brings forth nothing very memorable which cannot be recalled to Gregory of Tours and others more ancient than he, we do not suffer a law to be imposed on us by him."

[24] So that Fortunatus joins Magnericus to Nicetius, those things being resolved which can be objected from Fortunatus. this you may take in such wise that, a common manner of speech being used, he did not therefore deny that he followed even at an interval: for what forbids that a disciple, and one who came forth from the very school of Nicetius, reached to that highest summit even later? Now, if it is true, which the provincial histories relate, that Rusticus, having abdicated the priesthood, shut up for seven whole years, washed away by penance the contracted stain; it cannot again be denied that his episcopate, whether administered by Magnericus himself at once, or by some other provincial bishop, and on account of that very blot of the disgrace committed, was in obscurity; and thus rightly too Magnericus is publicly given as successor to Nicetius, Rusticus being passed over. Although, while Rusticus lived, Wandelbert expressly denies that anyone was elected bishop at Trier (for after 7 years Goar was again demanded, as Brower notes here in the margin). And indeed Gregory, who was joined to Magnericus both by friendship and by every office of humanity, only after the times of Sigebert, under his sons, begins the deeds of Magnericus, then most celebrated in Austrasia.

[25] Brower's opinion This reckoning of the succession, therefore, rightly established by the praised Brower, and reconciled with the contrary Fortunatus (as it appears at first sight) by a sufficiently probable and likely exposition, we think should be altogether embraced, as one which seems to cohere more agreeably with the series of persons, of time, and of deeds, namely by enumerating these archbishops of Trier in the same order of succession in which they are placed in the chronological Index of the praised author, which is exhibited after volume 2 of the Annals of Trier. They are noted thus: 532 St. Nicetius. 564 St. Rusticus. 573 St. Magnericus. Him follows, no year being noted, Gundericus. 600 Severinus. 618 Sebaudus or Sabaudus, etc. But since the whole difficulty of the present controversy turns solely upon the succession of St. Rusticus, and here in the Life of St. Goar, produced by us at the 6th of July, from page 333, it plays a good large part; the things which we there said in the Commentary preliminary to that Life, from page 327, concerning the age of the same holy Goar, must altogether be consulted.

[26] and we subscribe. And then, page 328, certain points common to him and to St. Rusticus are connected with our chronological reckonings; and there again Brower's chronotaxis seemed to us preferable to others. Of St. Goar, summoned by the most urgent efforts of king Sigebert, but in vain, to the see of Trier in place of Rusticus, which was touched in passing above, it is treated in the Life, chapter 2. But of the history of St. Rusticus, and the deeds connected with it, it can be treated at more length on the day sacred to him, the 14th of October, and it can be discerned by our successors whether some better reckoning of the succession and time can be found than that which, both in the place cited elsewhere, and here, is brought forward by us. Meanwhile the things suffice abundantly which we have here arranged on occasion of the succession of St. Magnericus; from which we conclude that he was substituted immediately not for St. Nicetius, but for St. Rusticus. But what of the successor of St. Magnericus in the archiepiscopal see? Although, according to what has been said from Brower, it can now already be understood that it was not St. Gaugericus; yet at somewhat more length we undertake to elucidate this point.

[27] St. Gaugericus, bishop of Cambrai, did not succeed St. Magnericus. The Deeds of the people of Trier, to be cited afterward, thus have: "There succeeded Magnericus Gangericus, his disciple, who had been brought up in the castle of Ébly of the people of Trier." The Trier history, of which below, in almost the same words substitutes Gaugericus for him. "St. Gangericus (Gaugericus), since he was ordained bishop of Cambrai," says Cratepolius, "his master having died, is promoted to the church of Trier also, and was held worthy to preside over both." The Sammarthani, in the Archbishops of Trier, substitute the same for St. Magnericus; but they grope in the dark, both when they subjoin that "some write that he administered the bishopric of Cambrai," and when, treating of the Prelates of that see, having given him, as they ought, a place among them, they subjoin this: "He died in the year 594, having held the episcopate for thirty-nine years." But indeed from the Life of St. Magnericus, no. 13, when he was already bishop, and therefore not before about the year 573, St. Gaugericus was then a little boy, or a stripling. How then does the year of death 594 stand with 39 years of episcopate? How again does that year of death stand with the succession in the place of St. Magnericus, as though he had then departed from life and office; in which year, according to what has been said, St. Magnericus is not yet known to have departed from life? Le Cointe, at the year 597: "They hallucinate," he says, "who substitute for St. Magnericus Gundericus or Gaugericus, from the bishop of Cambrai. For which of the ancients wrote that St. Gaugericus, leaving the see of Cambrai, migrated to that of Trier?" More Brower, at the year 596, from no. 92; where with various arguments he sufficiently solidly overthrows the oft-mentioned succession, and proves that Gundericus, of whom above, is to be distinguished from Gaugericus. But let it suffice to have skimmed this matter, now still too premature, in few words, to be discussed by design on the 11th of August, on which St. Gaugericus is inscribed in the sacred tablets. His ordination meanwhile the new edition of Gallia Christiana, volume 3, page 5, extends to the year 580; but his death to about the year 619; but according to what has been said, is this sufficient?

[28] Now it will be of service to have explained the sacred places founded or restored by our Saint. The sacred places, the biographer reporting, founded or restored by the Saint "He," according to the biographer, no. 52, "since he was always most especially devoted to the patronage of St. Martin, built and consecrated several churches in his bishopric in his honor … Of which it is established that that is the chief in which he himself rests in body. Another on a mountain, in the district of Wavre, which he illustrated with the relics of blessed Martin. A third in a villa which is called Casta Domus, which we have learned by the relation of the elders," he says, "to be of his jurisdiction and property." The church recounted briefly in the first place by that writer Brower elucidates at the year

587, no. 74, thus writing: "And first indeed, near the river Moselle, where the city looks toward the West, the shrine of the holy Cross, formerly placed by the senator Tetradius, while Martin was yet surviving; but now fallen, whether by the destruction of the common city or by age, he restored at liberal expense; and there founded a monastery, to the honor of blessed Martin, in an altogether pleasant place, men outstanding in religion being brought from the discipline of St. Benedict: to whom he both benignly furnished opulent supports for supporting life, and set over them as abbot Isinger, or, as others prefer, Inger." But of that place more fully below.

[29] "Presently also another," as Brower proceeds, "on Mount Martius, are elucidated which toward the East once enclosed the Campus Martius, he built a temple to blessed Martin; which, however, by the injury of the times has now utterly perished. The last, at Caradon, a very ancient castle of the Romans, he consecrated a temple to the same Saint." Moreover, that in the district of Wavre the ancients attribute this kind of munificence to him, this needs a clearer explanation. For Ursio and Berthefred, conspirators, when they were sought for punishment by the army of Childebert, having escaped by flight into the borders of Trier or the district of Wavre, shut up themselves, their wives, children, household, and fortunes in the basilica of St. Martin. But that basilica was recently built at the villa of Wavre on the summit of a steep mountain; where anciently a castle had stood; which was fortified not by care, but by nature, Gregory of Tours mentions in his time; as he also seems to hint that that basilica was founded by king Childebert. Indeed I would relate that Wulfilaicus the deacon set it forth, dwellings being added, and Magnericus dedicated it, estates being added. For that this mountain was eight miles distant from the castle of Ivois or Éposium, Gregory writes; and that on this mountain a monastery or dwelling of the clergy was built by Wulfilaicus, with whom he lived.

[30] from Brower. "But the endowments of the basilica were such," he relates, "that the Franks, religiously frequenting it, recovered health by the patronage of St. Martin, and not many perjurers violated their oath there… Moreover, that this district of Wavre was formerly a district of Trier, many ancient monuments perspicuously attest. For Gregory himself relates that St. Wulfilaicus sought the territory of the city of Trier; and on a mountain which was near Ivois placed his dwelling by the basilica of St. Martin. But Ivois … was formerly in the power of the church of Trier, from which the counts of Chiny, having obtained the lordship of the place, retained it thence for many years … That the district of Wavre ran from Éposium to Chiny into the valley as far as the Alisontia or Marischana is clearly established; since the ancient tables of donations, when at Luxembourg they express Marischium or Merchium, confirm that it is situated in the district of Wavre. To these places, which lie round as if in a triangle of Marville, Montmédy, and Virton, I would not doubt that they are attributed to the territory of Wavre. For Juvigny, where even today is a seat of the Christianity of Trier, has an illustrious monastery of noble virgins of the Order of St. Benedict; which is related to have been founded, even from the age of Charles the Bald, in the district of Wavre, when there, by the aid and zeal of the empress Richildis, the body of St. Scholastica, sister of blessed Benedict, was brought from Le Mans." Of that body we treated long since on the 10th of February, from page 397; but nothing was then decided: but on the 21st of March a translation to Le Mans is given: whoever asserts a translation thence to Wavre, it is for him to prove it: of which we know absolutely nothing.

§ IV. A further elucidation of those places; the vicissitudes of the monastery of St. Martin of Trier.

[31] [The site of the monastery of St. Martin from Bruschius; who, as also Cratepolius,] Bruschius, in the Monasteries of Germany, folio 121 verso, describing the praised monastery of St. Martin, and most distinctly determining the site of the place, places it outside and inside, that is, at the very walls of the city of Trier below the most ancient stone bridge, on the right of the river Moselle. But on what occasion it was changed from the private house of Tetradius into a sacred building, in the year, as he will have it, about 406, by St. Martin himself, bishop of Tours, he sets forth in these words: "For when," he says, "he had come to Trier, and had freed from a demon the servant of the consul Tetradius there seized by an evil spirit, the consul, grateful for the benefit rendered to him, gave his house as a gift to St. Martin, on this condition, that the Man of God should make from it an oratory and house of prayers dedicated to the holy Cross … But afterward this very house of prayers and of discipline, desolated and utterly fallen by the frequent irruptions of the barbarians into Belgic Gaul and Germany, Magnericus, bishop of Trier, enlarged about the year of Christ 526."

[32] But he, according to what has been said, was then already dead for a good twenty years; concerning its beginnings he is corrected. and therefore Bruschius ought to be corrected, as also Cratepolius, who doubtless from him transcribed this same history, and inserted it into the cited eulogy of St. Magnericus; certainly that restoration which we just now reported from Brower, he himself, without anachronism, ties to the year of Christ 587. There will besides be those who, in the year about 406 joined above with the life of St. Martin, will require in Bruschius something of greater accuracy: for that Saint, according to Cardinal Baronius in the Annals, and Cardinal Bona, On liturgical matters, book 1, chapter 12, closed his life in the year 402: but according to Labbe in the chronological Library in the year 400; which same year Ruinart too gathers from St. Gregory of Tours, book 1 on the Miracles of St. Martin, chapter 32, in his most recent edition of the works of St. Gregory, in the notes to that place. Le Cointe inquires laboriously concerning the said death at the year 498; which controversy to decide is not of this place; it will be, moreover, on the 11th of November.

[33] But let us return to the churches founded or restored by St. Magnericus. It is discussed concerning the churches built or restored by the Saint; The Trier history, which is in the Spicilegium of d'Achery, volume 2 of the edition of the year 1723, column 212, mentions only three, with our praised biographer. But the Deeds of the people of Trier, published among the historical Accessions in the year 1698 by Leibniz at Leipzig, from an author who, as is said in the preface to the reader, lived in the twelfth century, commemorate four churches, as many as Brower assigned to us above, chapter 37. The first, second, and fourth are sufficiently understood not to differ from those which the biographer named. The third, which he places on the Jura mountain, which is called from the name of St. Martin, if it is different from that which Brower placed on Mount Martius, I neither find it elsewhere under that name; nor have I ready to determine whether and where it was situated on the Jura mountain. Most well known, moreover, is Mount Jura, separating the Sequani from the Helvetii; but concerning the asserted church there let an author only of the twelfth century avail as much as he can avail.

[34] But since among the churches founded or restored by St. Magnericus, and a fuller notice is given of the monastery of St. Martin, it is established that that is the chief, as the author of the Life rightly says at the cited number 52, in which he himself rests in body, namely the Trier one sacred to St. Martin, with the monastery of the Benedictines joined by his effort; the reader will give us this indulgence, that the things which remain to be said concerning the further notice of the same place we do not pass over, but subjoin those things which, both from Manuscripts and from printed documents, we could heap together. "That place," says the biographer, no. 55, "was always under abbots; because there, as in the other chief churches of the city, was the station, seat, and house of the Bishop." For what cause this happened, Brower not ineptly conjectured, book 7 of the Annals of Trier, no. 10 at the end, using these words: "If in history it is permitted to conjecture, I would believe that the palace, which today is the dwelling of the Pontiffs in the city, most ancient in Roman work and structure, was inhabited by Dagobert, the bishops then sitting at St. Martin's by the bank of the Moselle, or near the Basilica of St. Helena in the court." But let us proceed again to the biographer speaking at the same number 55:

[35] "But that church, having long before fallen with age, and of the abbot restored with the same church. and burned with the city itself by the Norman devastation, was committed by Radbod, bishop of Trier, to the abbot Regino … and by him repaired to its former state." The deed Brower ties to the year of Christ 898; whence it can briefly be elucidated, no. 42, thus: "After these things Radbod proceeded with more intent care to restore the monasteries at Trier, devastated by fire and other disaster; and among these he restored the shrine of St. Martin, using for this the effort of the abbot Regino, whom he himself had given to the monastery, on account of the tried probity of his life, as first rector after the incursion of the Normans; and he willed that the place, which even from the time of St. Magnericus had come into use, should henceforth be administered not by profane men, but by religious." Of this Norman devastation Brower treats at the year 883; in whom the praised Radbod is noted to have begun in the year of Christ 884; but to have ceased to sit in the year 918; within which interval his deeds and eulogies are given. But who was that abbot Regino? Since indeed the biographer adds to him a vague and indeterminate idiom, that the oft-mentioned church of St. Martin was committed to a certain religious and ecclesiastical man, and by him repaired to its former state; that man is to be sought elsewhere.

[36] It is investigated Bruschius, cited before, exhibits a catalogue of the abbots of that place, although, as he confesses, defective in some places; in which he thus speaks: "Regino … presided about the year of the Lord 888, appointed after the Norman devastation by Rathbod, archbishop of Trier, the third founder. But of him nothing more is found committed to writing." Which he says very meagerly, to be supplied from elsewhere. An abbot of the same name and contemporary, who, chosen in place of the abbot Farabert of Prüm, left a pleasing memory of himself among posterity, and also, by Radbod's command, composed two books on ecclesiastical discipline from the various councils of the whole Christian world; which Stephen Baluze published in print in the year 1671, and elucidated with notes; that abbot, I say, is read of in Brower at the year 893, no. 28, where he too is praised, both for a mind lofty in tolerantly and humanely bearing harsh and difficult things; and because, as is chiefly clear in his writings, as is there said, he was outstanding with signal praise of prudence and moderation; is he the same, or different, from the abbot of St. Martin of Trier?

[37] who he was. Mabillon asserts that he is the same, and rightly: for so many circumstances, namely the name, the time, the dignity, the erudition, the familiarity with archbishop Radbod, do not seem able to fall except upon one and the same person. Add from the biographer the epithet "ecclesiastical," by which he doubtless alludes to the two books on ecclesiastical discipline published by him. Of him therefore Mabillon treats in the Benedictine Annals, volume 3; where at the year 895, from Trithemius, he is said to have been present at the council of Tribur:

in the year 892, chosen abbot of Prüm; in the year 899, to have ceded the abbey to Richar, brother of the counts Gerard and Matfrid; and to have been created abbot of St. Martin at Trier, from Brower, whom Mabillon cites; and he says that he was buried not in that monastery, but in that of St. Maximin, where perhaps he spent the last days of his life. That he was still living in the year 905 is gathered from his Chronicle; which he completed in the year of Christ 908, as is indicated by his own express words in Mabillon at the said year. How long he survived, is uncertain to Mabillon; but consult the things to be said a little later. Meanwhile let us pursue the things which remain to be illustrated concerning the praised monastery of St. Martin.

[38] Of it the biographer suggests the following notices: "From the tradition of blessed Magnericus, Various afterward the abbots of that place used the pontifical infulae, and, only in his absence, performed the office of the pontiff at the divine Office alone"; concerning which matter Brower at the year 898, no. 42; "but," he says, "the Counts now, by the depraved license of that century, polluting sacred things, and, while they procured wealth for themselves, care being postponed for what religion or right demanded, the monastery did not retain that state longer than the abbot Regino was alive: at which time the goods, again fallen to strangers, were granted to the Counts in the manner of a benefice." Of the death of Regino we shall speak presently. By those Counts we understand Stephen, Odoacer, and, whom we named a little before, Gerard and Matfrid, prefects of the kingdom of Lotharingia, in Brower at the year 898, whom Zwentibold, king of Lotharingia, having experienced them as adversaries on account of their tyranny, despoiled of their honors and dignity, their provinces and counties being distributed at pleasure among his own men, and two monasteries, namely the Horreum of Dagobert at Trier, and St. Peter's at Metz, which had hitherto been in the power of the Counts, most opulent, being destined to the royal luxury. Who nevertheless, Arnulf exhorting and effecting it, were restored to favor and honors, as is there set forth.

[39] And thus indeed Brower undertook to recount the vicissitudes of the oft-mentioned place, this place relying without doubt on suitable documents for the present purpose, which he drew from somewhere out of the ancient archives. But it must be noted that between him and the writer of the Life there is not sufficient agreement, at least as it appears at first sight, in the manner (whatever be the substance) in which the goods of the monastery fell to the hands of strangers and seculars. Which the writer of the Life narrates otherwise. Hear him, no. 56: "At the death," he says, "of the abbot Regino, it was given as a benefice to laymen, and first to Bertoald, brother of bishop Rotger, then to others and others that little abbey was divided." But these seem to be reconciled sufficiently conveniently with the former, if you say that that division, through the mediation or giving of the aforesaid Counts, to whom the goods of the abbey had been granted in the manner of a benefice, fell first to that Bertoald as their vassal; or, if this conjecture pleases less, behold for you another, which you may choose, if this indeed pleases you more than that. For it could be said that some division of the goods came to Bertoald, others, far richer, being granted to those Counts in the manner of a benefice. And this explanation indeed coheres aptly enough with what Brower says at the year 921, where he narrates this:

[40] "About that time too, Regino, abbot of St. Martin, having died, that monastery, again laid open to the cupidities of noble men, afflicted with vicissitudes: the line of abbots as it were cut off, fell back into their hands; and first Bertoald, brother of archbishop Ruotger, by right of clientage occupied the estates of that place." Moreover, Ruotger, successor of Radbod, sat from the year 918 to 930, according to Brower. Finally the various and mournful scenes of the monastery of St. Martin, and also the profanation of the church, the biographer proceeds to narrate from number 57; how the cloudy times of vicissitudes most wretchedly lay heavy upon that place for about 60 years, until, arising about the year 975, the light of a happier fortune shone forth, which dispersed those long-lasting and, to that place, pernicious and fatal shadows, as will become plain from the next following paragraph. But who, pray, are that Albert or Conrad, in whose time, according to the cited number 56 in the biographer, "when there was often the greatest disturbance and sedition of the kingdoms, by the invaders of the holy church all the bishopric was so plundered, etc."? Brower, at the year 905: "Conrad," he says, "brother of king Louis (of Germany), who about Fritzlar had undertaken a most grievous war with his rival count Adalbert, sent his son Conrad, afterward king of the Lotharingians and of Germany, with a not contemptible band of soldiers to Trier, against the Counts of St. Maximin"; where it is also set forth how he devastated their estates and villas, etc.

[41] But what the writer of the Life confusedly wove concerning that desolation, the Trier manuscript notices, cited above, more distinctly narrate, which more distinctly from another source when they thus record: "The abbot Albric ^c being, a very industrious man of that place, yielding to nature, the monks being driven out, Henry, who then held the pontificate, and to each one better filling his hand for himself, granted some of those allods (which are premised in the same place), and thus appointed some village clerks there for the divine services. Which having been done more than once, that is, now the monks going out, now the canons coming in, in intervals of this kind the aforementioned goods were distributed, as we said, by the bishops, and to each avidly seeking them, the enemies of God. For thus, as we said before, that wealthy place was annihilated, and made a hissing to all passing by. But when almighty God willed that the aforementioned change, so indiscreet, should be settled with his wonted piety, and that the canons should not tarry longer, such a sign happened on the 4th of the Nones of July, which is on the very translation of St. Martin.

[42] "For at the rising of the dawn, when each had entered the church from his hiding-place, here are narrated. and had begun scarcely half-asleep to sing the matin hymns, suddenly there appeared among them a man of venerable hoariness, of middling stature, and with an episcopal staff, and, powerfully rebuking each, compelled them to go out. For he said, repeating it, striking those going out too slowly: 'Go out, you sluggards, Martin was a monk, not a canon.' As they thus withdrew, one was seized by a long infirmity, another was invaded by sudden death; and thus the place thenceforth lay subject to the pleasure of the monks." These things we skimmed thence, intermixed with other vicissitudes of the same place, not, however, in the due order of time; which here we restore to the fitting time with Brower and Mabillon; which history Brower here relates at the year 975, the same in substance; yet I do not find there those reproachful words, "to each one better filling his hand for himself." But that Henry is noted as having sat from the year 956 to 964 in Brower, in the cited chronological index; who subjoins at the same year 975: "Thence the place, exposed to the plunder of the provincial nobles, the worship of sacred things being neglected, again began to fall, and the temple, its roof being stripped, began to be passable even to cattle"; which agree exceedingly with the biographer, no. 57.

§ V. The same monastery brought to a better fortune; the diploma of Benedict VII, Pope, granted in its favor; a new storm against the monks of St. Martin.

At last, says our writer, led by the highest compassion, the venerable Theodoric, bishop of Trier, Theodoric, bishop of Trier, excellently restores it when he had already in his time recovered the place by authority, delivered it to a certain religious abbot Angilbert … to be governed, some possessions pertaining to the same place being granted to him, namely that … there should thenceforth be a dwelling of monks; nor should it any longer be granted as a benefice … but, serving God and his Saints, it should be subject to the lordship of the bishop, not of tyrants. Which abbot … gathered there a small but honorable congregation of monks serving God; and the bishop, rejoicing at his industry, when he went to Rome, brought thence an Apostolic testament, by which that place lately restored … might henceforth remain in its firmness … and the monks themselves … might have also the election. This deed Mabillon, after Brower, connects with the aforesaid year 975; and therefore it happened toward the end of the life of the praised Theodoric, who in Brower is marked as having presided from the year 965 to 977; in which place he is honored with a signal eulogy.

[44] But indeed how much that dignified Prelate of Trier conferred upon the monastery so often named, both for the security of its fortunes as its president, the monastery of St. Martin, and for the splendor of religion as an ornament, is most fully clear from the diploma of Benedict VII, Pope, issued in favor of the same place: whose copy, because I find it neither in Laertius Cherubinus in the Bullarium, nor in Labbe among the councils, nor in Brower, nor in Mabillon in his Annals; it seemed good to exhibit it here entire, as a venerable monument of antiquity, to the eyes of the lovers of antiquity, from our Trier manuscript notices of St. Martin, in which it is contained immediately after the Life of St. Magnericus. Thus, then, it runs:

[45] "In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Benedict, bishop, obtained from Benedict VII, Pope, servant of the servants of God, to all our most dear brethren in Christ, the bishops, and Catholic men of every dignity and order, namely present and future, perpetual salvation. Since, though unworthy, yet by the disposing grace of divine favor, we have undertaken the most sacred see of blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, and the pastoral ministry unto the care of the Lord's flock, we foresee it necessary and salutary for us instantly to have the most diligent solicitude of all churches, so that, by our diligence providing, to the increase of holy religion, they may possess, to the end, by our authority, peace, quiet, and defense against the machinations of all.

[46] "Whence we wish the holiness and industry of all, both present and future, to know in its favor that, when our most beloved brother Theodoric, archbishop of the holy church of Trier, coming to Rome for the sake of prayer at the thresholds of the blessed Apostles, we learned, he narrating it, that a certain monastery, where holy Magnericus rests in body, as it was of his see in religion, so in certain possessions had been up to his times despoiled by the enemies of God.

[47] by a diploma, "Which, renewing it in its former and all necessary possessions, and confirming the renewal by the excommunication of himself and of his fellow provincial bishops, that the state of holy religion might be made greater and firmer, he placed therein monks serving God, as before, setting over the same place the abbot Engelbert; by whose diligence not only might the place be repaired for the better, but religion daily more happily and more perfectly be increased.

[48] which here entire "Whence, because in the same place a laudable monastic manner of life is proved, lest that which our venerable brother and fellow-bishop Theodoric restored for the sake of holy religion and his own salvation, could through any of the archbishops succeeding there, or through the power of any earthly lordship, be destroyed; by the most valid constitution of this our Apostolic privilege and of the holy Roman synod, it has pleased us to establish a decree, that the same abbot and all his successors, about to serve God there in the monastic manner of life, may perpetually obtain the privilege of the infulae in the place of the bishop, which by the tradition of blessed Magnericus, as is read in his Life, is established as instituted for the abbots, and may possess the same place with all things there pertaining, namely churches, villas, and all appendages, without the contradiction or disturbance of anyone, with all peace.

[49] from the Manuscripts "But when he departs from this life, that an abbot be appointed for the monastery from the same congregation according to the regular admonitions of St. Benedict, it has pleased us to place, of our Apostolic sanction,

[50] to the people of Trier "Against this Apostolic constitution, therefore, which we have established for the abbot and the monastery, if any of men in any way whatever shall presume to act, and shall attempt in any point to infringe what has been justly and canonically decreed by us in a full synod, let him know himself, by the authority of God almighty and of the aforesaid most blessed Prince of the Apostles and of all the Saints, and then by our authority, condemned and anathematized, and perpetually pierced through by the javelin of divine wrath, deputed with all the impious to eternal punishment.

[51] is produced "But whoever shall faithfully strive to observe, keep, and fulfill this our very privilege, may he deserve efficaciously to obtain from the Lord God the grace of blessing and the fullness of mercy in the heavenly camps among the number of the elect. Written by the hand of Stephen, notary and regionary and keeper of the archives ^c of the holy Apostolic See, in the month of January, the 3rd Indiction. Fare well. Given on the 15th of the Kalends of February by the hand of Wido, bishop and librarian of the holy Apostolic See, in the 1st year, God being propitious, of the pontificate of the lord Benedict, most holy Pope, the most pious lord emperor ^d Augustus Otto, crowned by God, the great emperor, in the 8th year, reigning, the third Indiction."

[52] with our observations. Two other diplomas, or rather one entire, and likewise a fragment of another, granted by the same Pontiff, in the same year of his, the same Indiction, and the same month and day, and noted with the same clause at the end, almost to every single word, are brought forward by Brower at the year 975; and thence was transferred hither above the eighth year of Otto (who was the second of this name, crowned in the year 967), enclosed in brackets, which I suspect was added in the original copy to this diploma, as it is noted added in these two others; although it matters little whether that character be present or absent, since the others by which our diploma is marked suffice abundantly, yet now to be briefly explained. Here is noted the 18th day of January of the year 975, with which the 3rd Indiction concurs. Benedict VII began to sit in the year 975; according to Labbe in the chronological Compendium, elected on the 11th of May. In Alfonso Ciaconio, in the Lives of the Pontiffs, he is said to have been created on the Kalends of June; but Pagi in the Baronian Critical remarks, at the year 975, no. 3, proves from the subscription of another diploma granted by the same Pontiff that he began to sit in that year, and indeed before the 25th of March; who would not have deferred the beginning of the see after the 18th of January, if he had seen the three above diplomas, so neatly, aptly, and constantly agreeing in the characteristic notes of time, that in the caliginous shadows of that so obscure century they afford, in this deed, a light by no means uncertain or dubious, but clear and certain, and prove utterly the matter of which we discourse. But now let us return to the monastery.

[53] But such prosperous successes of this monastery a new storm again beclouded. The monastery of St. Martin I dispatch the matter in compendium from the manuscript notices several times cited: "In those times, when Henry, who is also called the Lame (Claudus), held the sceptres of the kingdom, and Leudulf governed the episcopal see of the church of Trier, there was a certain provost of St. Paulinus, by name Adalbero… This man wished to claim for himself the church of St. Symphorian, which the monks of St. Martin then possessed… For it was the custom on the feast of St. Symphorian that some part of the same monks with their apparatus should come together thither, and at the fitting time should abide there to celebrate the divine praises. On such a solemnity, then, Compline being finished, when the monks had now rested a third part of the night, suddenly a strong clamor of rustics arose … And so those brethren … the doors being opened, rush out … When suddenly the bishop enters, about to seek the patronages of the Saints. The aforesaid provost is present; he urges that the prayers be abridged… Counsel being taken, they carry off thence the crosses, palls, books, and all things … and direct them to St. Paulinus … But when morning came, the bishop arrived as if ignorant of these things, and amid the solemnities of the Masses, the brethren suggesting that the deed be investigated by excommunication, he, greatly blaming them, put them off with delays, as if to inquire into it more certainly."

[54] Meanwhile the oft-mentioned provost claimed for himself the church with its appendages for money, afflicted with a new kind of calamity, and, with the consent of the bishop, unjustly held it for St. Paulinus, as long as he presided there. And so, the plundered ones round about frequently crying out, the bishop was brought to the last of his life; who, though late, yet repented … greatly complaining that he had been deceived by the error of the man, and what he had unfittingly granted him, as soon as he should recover, he devoutly promises to restore to the Saint; but, prevented by death, he did not attain what he had promised. The matter Brower narrates at the year 1004. Henry, who was named above, is the emperor most well known for his deeds and holiness, whose Acts were illustrated on the 14th of July; and of the surname "the Lame" it was discussed there in the preliminary Commentary, §1, nos. 8 and 9; but of his age it was treated in §2.

[55] and the circumstances of the matter explained. Ludolf, according to Brower, sat from the year 994 to 1008. But Adalbero, brother of St. Cunegund, most celebrated for the virginity kept intact in her marriage with St. Henry (which endowment of chastity we vindicated against detractors in the same Commentary, §§8 and 9), is several times brought upon the scene in the praised Brower; but of his penance, while he languished in a grave illness, it is treated at the year 1014; and in the year 1038, while he still lived among men, he tried to wash away the filth contracted especially by rapines and ambition, by a diploma which may be read in Brower, as a monument of a truly penitent mind and a truly generous breast. Bruschius, above alleged, writes that "under the abbot Eberwin, Adalbero … of Luxembourg … about the year of Christ 1006 utterly overthrew the nuns' monastery of St. Symphorian, near St. Martin's." But the opinion of Brower is preferable, and seems more consonant with the narration immediately preceding. He, then, writes at the year 1004 that the convent of St. Symphorian, still flourishing in the age of the Franks and the Norman irruptions, was then uncultivated and destitute of a sisterhood of virgins, the church, of which above, however still surviving. Of the site, and of the Benedictine nuns there illustrious for sanctity of life, as also of the church afterward utterly destroyed except one column, by which it was formerly supported, Brower may be consulted in the same place.

§ VI. The day on which St. Magnericus died; his sepulchre, translation, chronotaxis; the author of the Life.

[The Saint died on the 25th of July, entombed in the church of St. Martin at Trier.] "The venerable and God-worthy Pontiff … obtains the term of his life on the 8th of the Kalends of August," the biographer being the author, no. 53. So clear is this expression of the day of death, that no doubt can remain to anyone that both from ancient times and now the same day, this 25th of July, has been both the birthday to a better life and that of his sacred cult; in marking which the more recent Martyrologies rightly agree altogether with the Roman, as we saw above. As for what pertains to the sepulchre: "his body in the church (of St. Martin at Trier) which we mentioned was entombed," says the biographer in the same place: nay, that it also rested honorably preserved in the same church up to his own times, we gather from him; for he adds, "where it is also now venerated with fitting honor." That it did not, however, always rest in the same place in the said church, but that from that in which it had before not conveniently enough remained, the sacred remains were translated to a better, seems able to be drawn from the writer of the Life there; although he says more expressly that the body was honored than that it was translated. But let us estimate the matter from his words. Thus, then, he speaks of that body:

[57] The cause, place, time, etc., of the translation. "Which, when it was buried some feet from the altar, in our times to a certain honorable man, by name Berengar, a monk of the same church, the holy Priest appeared through a vision, and commanded that he should fit an altar to the sepulchre: which Ruotbert, prelate of Trier, admonished by the repeated vision of the same Berengar several times, performed at his own expense, a pinnacle being placed above"; as is there narrated, no. 54. The deed Brower ties to the year 941, adding that from the former place already mentioned "into that in which now," he says, "the Saint's body is seen at St. Martin's, it was translated by Ruotbert"; by which we learn that it rested in the same place from about the middle of the tenth century up to the seventeenth. But he determines the place at the year 596, when he says that "afterward, when the body was translated into the place where now the subterranean crypt under the choir is preserved"; and that the Saint's tomb continued to be preserved in the same place, Le Cointe asserts in volume 2 of his Annals, published in the year 1666; when at the year 597 he relates this: "In the monastery (of St. Martin at Trier) today is shown the tomb of St. Magnericus in the subterranean crypt of the temple." Of the present state of the body nothing is at hand whence we may suggest anything certain.

[58] It now remains that to the things which we could scrape together for illustrating the Acts of St. Magnericus be woven on the chronotaxis of the Life promised above, A chronotaxis is given which we think can be aptly and congruously brought back to the following notes of years. Receive it meanwhile in the manner in which it is given, namely as a chronological hypothesis, according to which very many deeds of our most holy Prelate may be tied each to their own times without hindrance. And so he began to live, according to what has been said, about the year of Christ 520; in the year of Christ 546, at the age of 26, he came as a disciple to St. Nicetius; in the year 556, at the age of 36, he was ordained deacon, as he is expressly called by the biographer: not, however, by Gregory of Tours, according to our notes on chapter 1, letter e. To St. Nicetius, driven into exile by command of Chlothar, and forsaken by all, the single deacon Magnericus alone faithfully adhered in the year 561, at the age of 41. (The deed is set forth in the Life from no. 4.) Nicetius being taken from the living in the year 562 or 564, St. Rusticus succeeded in the see of Trier; and to him in the year 573, at the age of 53, St. Magnericus. In the year 584 or 585 he was saved from drowning at Koblenz (which is in the Life, no. 26): he restored Theodorus, bishop of Marseilles, from exile and captivity to his see about the aforesaid year 585, at the age of 65, of episcopate 12. The history is reported by our biographer from no. 16.

[59] To the year 587 refer Theudebert, received from the sacred font by St. Magnericus; in which the deeds of St. Magnericus are tied to their years, of whom our Life, no. 11. The most evident peril of life in the catastrophe of Guntram Boso, etc., happened in the year 587 or 588, at the age of 67 or 68, of episcopate 14 or 15 (the deed the Life unfolds from no. 27). To which years too we judge can be fitted the churches built by the Saint, ibid. no. 52; the visitations of the diocese; his acquaintance with St. Gaugericus, and the clericate conferred on him, and, one year or another later,

the diaconate (see the history of the matter from no. 12). What hinders that to about the same time be referred the marvelous austerity of life, practiced by St. Wolfilaicus, living after the manner of Simeon Stylites; but, according to the biographer from no. 41, repressed by St. Magnericus; who at last ceased to live about the year of Christ 596, at the age of 76, of episcopate 23?

[60] And by this chronotaxis, or at least hypothetical system of times, the confusion of the writer of the Life is met, neglected by the biographer. who did not arrange his matters distinctly and chronologically enough; being, namely, either little solicitous of the due order, or not sufficiently aware of it. But lest anyone think that that system, which we just now proposed, was thus adumbrated merely at our pleasure and discretion; let him consult the Annals of Brower, where he will find various deeds of our Saint tied each to their own years, which reckoning of time lay before us here, we candidly confessing that we gladly follow that guide, who, since he had it as his purpose to fit the affairs of Trier each to their own places, persons, and times, and attained this not unhappily, creates less danger of deviation. It remains that, the documents which properly regard the holy Prelate being illustrated, we do not neglect the author of the Life himself, representing him with his own characteristic idioms, and, as far as it can be done, in some sort brought to life again.

[61] His name, age, All the notice of the man which here offers itself to be sought can be recalled chiefly to five heads; namely if there be set forth 1. his name and native land; 2. his age; 3. his manner of life; 4. the endowments of his genius and his writings; 5. the value or merit of the Saint's Life which he wrote. Let us begin from his name. It is Eberwin or Euerbin, Everbero, Ebroin, Eurin, Ebrewin: that the name is thus variously expressed, we noted long since in volume 1 of June, page 87; to which may be added Evervin. He indeed does not express his own name in the Life, no. 60; but he suggests a sufficient notice of himself from the circumstances; as will presently be seen. William Eysengrein, in his Catalogue of the Doctors of the Church, printed at Dillingen in the year 1565, as also our own Antonio Possevino in the Sacred Apparatus, volume 1, write that he was a German. That he lived at the close of the tenth century and the beginning of the eleventh is sufficiently clear. Trithemius, in the Hirsau Chronicle, published at Frankfurt in the year 1601, at the year 1020, relates that he flourished in those times. Mabillon, in the Benedictine Annals, among the abbots of his Order places Eberwin of Tholey as present at the council of Seligenstadt in the year 1022, from Trithemius; whether he can be so called, will presently be discussed.

[62] in which he lived, But the biographer Eberwin survived further: for of the number of the seven hundred companions of Richard, abbot of Verdun, on the journey to Jerusalem, Evervin, abbot of Trier, is noted as having been one, in the cited Mabillon, at the year 1027. And indeed from the Annals of Gaul-Belgica of Richard of Wassebourg, and of the bishops of Verdun, printed in the French idiom, folio 220 verso, we have that St. Richard, about to go to Jerusalem, came first to Trier, and there took as companion of the journey a holy man, by name Eurin, abbot of the said place. Whose age is to be extended still further; as is concluded from this, that he composed the Life of St. Simeon, shut up in the gate of Trier (who died in the year 1035), and that in the years nearest to the Saint's death: on which matter consult our Acts a little before mentioned. But whether, and how long afterward, he survived, is not established for us from ancient testimonies; whatever Jacques le Long, presbyter of the Oratory, in the ecclesiastical history of France, published at Paris in the French idiom in the year 1719, book 2, page 270, may write, that he flourished in the year 1040.

[63] and how long. Moreover, from the diploma of Benedict VII, Pope, produced above, where, no. 48, it is said that the privilege of which there is treated is "from the tradition of blessed Magnericus, AS IS READ IN HIS Life, etc.," we conclude that no other Life seems to be indicated by these last words than the Eberwinian (that any other ever existed we do not know), and therefore that it was not written after the year of Christ 975, in which that diploma is marked as given. Our biographer, therefore, must have attained an altogether great old age: for suppose that he wrote it as a very young man; as one who then numbered at the least twenty years; to which if you add at least sixty years, until you reach the year 1035, in which we have shown him to have lived, the whole sum of his life will already grow to altogether 80 years. Possevino relates that he wrote the Life of St. Magnericus the bishop in the year 995; which assertion vanishes, because it is neither proved nor agrees with what has been said.

[64] Moreover, that Eberwin was a monk of the Benedictine Order He was a Benedictine monk, and abbot of St. Martin at Trier; is so agreed among all that it needs proof as little as that he presided as abbot over the monastery of St. Martin at Trier; especially since this is established from his own very words toward the end of the Life, no. 60. "And so that place," he says, "fortified by the Apostolic precept, when the aforesaid man (Angilbert) had governed it for some time, he happily departed from this light: after whom we, who write these things, though unworthy, undertook, with the bishop assenting, and with the election of the brethren, the ruling of the same cell, and until now, as we can, labor in the vineyard of the Lord …" From those words "with the bishop assenting," we deduce that he was before an alumnus not of the monastery of St. Martin of Trier, but of some other monastery within the diocese of Trier (perhaps of Tholey, on account of what is to be said a little later). For if he had been a monk of St. Martin of Trier, there would have been no need of the bishop's assent; which is clearly concluded from the words of the diploma produced above, in which, no. 49, concerning the abbot of the said monastery it is thus decreed: "The abbot departing from this life, that an abbot from the same congregation … be appointed for the monastery, it has pleased us to place, of our Apostolic sanction, a decree: that, if from the same congregation … a person suitable to the monastic institutes is by no means found, WITH THE CONSENT OF THE ARCHBISHOP AN ABBOT FROM THE SAME DIOCESE BE SET OVER IT." Moreover, as for the time in which Eberwin was set over that monastery; Bruschius, cited above, says: "Angilbert or Egilbert is written to have presided before and after the year of the Lord 961. Eberwin succeeded Egilbert: he presided in the year of the Lord 995." But these, as far as they regard the death of Angilbert, and the year in which Eberwin succeeded him, are too indeterminate for you to hammer out thence an individual time.

[65] From the diploma praised above, which was given under Angilbert, and this is proved it is clear that he still presided in the year 975; and that he governed for some time beyond, we have from the next words of Eberwin. From whose words likewise, "we, who write these things," you would say it is clear that he composed the Life after his death. Which, that you may reconcile it with the foregoing, in which we have shown that already then, in the year 975, the Life of St. Magnericus existed; we think it must be done thus, that Eberwin indeed before that year, in which the diploma was given, composed that Life; but afterward added that clause, no. 60; by which he both gave a fuller notice of himself, and added no small weight of credit to the affairs especially of his own monastery narrated by him. That there was an abbot at Trier in the monastery of St. Martin is so invincibly shown from his own words adduced a little before, that, although all other things were lacking, that single passage would suffice for this. Meanwhile the things too may be consulted which were long since adduced by us on that matter in volume 1 of June, page 87; where that title is vindicated to him from the most ancient manuscript codices.

[66] With reason here, as also in several other places, it is fitting to observe the hallucination of John Trithemius, against Trithemius; whom having opposed in whom, at the year cited above, is written "Euerbin, abbot of the monastery of Tholey, which, built in the diocese of Trier under the honor of St. Maurice and his companions, is distant," he says, "from the monastery of Spanheim, my own, almost nine German miles, in the borders of Lotharingia." The same error of the same writer is noted by us in the place just now designated, page 88. Nor can it be said that he presided over both abbeys successively, since no suitable testimony of antiquity is brought forward for this matter, and the contrary seems sufficiently deduced from what has been said. This error Mabillon somewhat timidly corrected, in the Benedictine Annals at the year 1027, in these words: "That Evervin … was abbot of St. Martin in the city of Trier is more probable than of Tholey, as it seems to Trithemius." Moreover, Mabillon was not always consistent with himself: for he not only wavered in his former opinion, but, that being almost openly changed, declares that he in some way inclined to the contrary, at the year 1035, when he writes this, yet determining nothing absolutely concerning the decision of the question:

[67] [he then somehow seems to have supported, or rather to have suspended his opinion, Mabillon.] "Of which place," he says, "this (Evervin) was abbot, of St. Martin in the city, or of Tholey, can scarcely be defined: for the authors draw in different directions. That favors Tholey, that Trithemius asserts he saw preserved there the Greek psalter of Simeon, which the writer of his Life, Evervin, had received from archbishop Poppo as a memorial, and four leaves of which, in the place of relics, he says he obtained from the abbot Gerard." Which, the contrary opinion being now so well established, to have brought forward is to have refuted; so that it is not necessary, by lingering longer over these things, to reweave their refutations. But now some other things concerning the praised biographer remain to be illustrated, which will be dispatched in the next following paragraph; where, the text of Possevino on Eberwin, in several points to be corrected according to what has been said, having been brought forward. It has thus: "Eberwin, a German monk, and abbot of the monastery of St. Maurice of Tholey … about the year 1040. He wrote the Life of St. Simeon of Syracuse … This is attributed by some to St. Eberwin, abbot of St. Martin of Trier; but the diversity of the monasteries, and the reckoning of times, cry out against it: for St. Simeon died in the year 1035; at which time the aforesaid Eberwin had already ceased to be among the living. The affinity of the names Eberwin and Euerbin bred the error." Would that he had shown himself a happier corrector of the error!

* elsewhere, Alberic * scriniarii (of the archivist) * principe (prince)

§ VII. The remaining notices concerning the biographer; the manuscript Life, which is here given; some matters occurring in it are confirmed from elsewhere and illustrated.

From Trithemius and Eysengrein a eulogy of the biographer is given; Euerwin was, if we believe the cited Trithemius, "a man most learned both in the divine Scriptures and in secular letters; who wrote the Life of St. Simeon, monk of Trier … to Poppo, archbishop of the same city. He wrote also the deeds of the same Poppo. Some treatises too on fasting, alms, and penance. He held a public school of theology for monks, and wrote many other things unknown to us." So he, at the cited year 1020. Among the "many other things unknown to Trithemius" which he wrote, without doubt was the Life of St. Magnericus; since he does not express it. Eysengrein, alleged above,

adorns him with this very eulogy: "A most learned man (Eberwin), and exercised in monastic discipline; an eloquent orator, and second to no one of the theologians." So indeed they, of the endowments of his erudition and his writings, the credit of which be with those who assert these things.

[69] Eysengrein adds: "The Lives of St. Magnericus the archprelate, [who heaped up many things, not aptly enough though faithfully, into the Life of St. Magnericus,] and of Simeon, monk of Trier, … he set forth abundantly and with the best faith in learned commentaries." Let us discern this one thing which pertains hither, namely what is the value and merit of the Life of St. Magnericus. In general let it be permitted to pronounce this to our purpose: that its author would have furnished a work of better fruit and performed the office of a more polished historian, if he had abstained a little more from the inductions, examples, and eulogies of other Saints; which properly did not belong to his plan, and fill a good large part of the Life. "How I could wish," says with reason Brower, alleged above, no. 23, "that he had written more fully of the origin and progress of Magnericus's episcopate"; the rest we gave in the same place. But this defect he himself perhaps wished to supply, seeming in more than one place to indulge in Commentaries as it were upon the Life, and, when he could not offer the marrow, to offer the bark. Moreover, his credit is commended by those two authors whom he followed, contemporary with the Saint, Venantius Fortunatus and St. Gregory of Tours, and the latter indeed an intimate of the same Saint. Of Venantius Fortunatus we have already spoken; of St. Gregory the same is established.

[70] Let Eberwin himself be heard, no. 47, where he has this: [in some things a contemporary. Whether he was the author of the other Trier notices, is uncertain.] "He himself too was contemporary and intimate with Gregory, bishop of Tours, so that those things which the same Gregory in his books commemorates concerning this Pontiff, he learned by his own relation: from which too we have culled these things." But he did not adhere in all things to the footsteps of these guides; which was the cause why in some place he even committed errors, to be corrected in our notes. Some things too he commemorates which, as is clear from the circumstances, were done in his own time, in which he deserves full credit. Let an example be the church of St. Wolfilaicus burned, and the bones of that Saint untouched by the fire, nos. 44 and 45; and other things in the course of the Life. But it can be asked by someone whether the same author is the author of the other Trier notices, as we called them above, where we also gave a brief idea of them; but we answer candidly that it is not ready enough for us to decide this question; which therefore we leave in the middle. But now enough has been said of the author of the Life: next let the discourse be set up concerning the exemplars of the Life.

[71] From what source that one was taken, from which the Life is here committed to print, and with what it was collated, will be said at the end of this Commentary. [From what instrument the Life is given; what in the History of the Saints printed at Louvain] But the division of the chapters and numbers is ours; for nothing of these did we find noted in our copy. The title, "The Life of St. Magnericus, archbishop of Trier," has nothing singular. We have a book which contains the histories of very many Saints, and is noted at the end as printed at Louvain in the house of John of Westphalia in the year of the Lord 1485. This book had been printed before at Cologne in the year 1483, as Rosweyde noted before the index prefixed to its text; which he says he gathers from Colvenerius on Flodoard, page 12; and it is, as Henschen noted on the Rosweyde note, of Corsendonck. This book Molanus, on his Usuard of the first edition, or of the year 1568, in Magnericus rightly calls simply the History of the Saints; but in the editions of the years 1573 and 1583 he names it the second volume of the Legend, taking, as we think, the Lombardic history for the first part of the Legend.

[72] is in part reported; but they suspect the whole is not yet published. Whatever it be, it matters little; we found, as far as pertains hither, in the praised book from folio 98, the Life of St. Magnericus printed, at least, as Molanus rightly says, in part: for it is nothing but a compendium of the longer Eberwinian Life, contracted into few things, several byplays being cut away; besides which, that any other Life of longer argument exists anywhere, which has been published in print, we do not know. And this is the cause why we suspect that we are now the first to make the Eberwinian one public in print. Possevino, in the Sacred Apparatus, volume 1, under the name Eberwin, rightly indeed says that he wrote the Life of St. Magnericus; but wrongly adds, "See volume 2 of Surius with the poem of Fortunatus on the same bishop": for in neither did we find it in that edition; although we well know that some things concerning St. Magnericus are interspersed in that author in the Life of St. Gaugericus at the 11th of August; so that Possevino doubtless confounded the Legend mentioned a little before with the Work of Surius. But our Life, the chief and greater elucidations having been premised in the course of this preliminary Commentary, we shall then exhibit to be read, when we shall first have confirmed and illustrated certain deeds, occurring in its course, chiefly from the words of St. Gregory of Tours; so that it seems better to place them here in a continuous series under one view, than scattered in the notes; especially since certain texts are longer than that they could equally conveniently have place there. And indeed both the waters are purer which are drawn from the fountain itself, and, presented under this title especially, they are wont and ought to be pleasing and to please, above the rivulets derived thence.

[73] A passage of our biographer is set forth In the first place, then, that which the biographer has at the beginning of chapter 2: "Hence it is that king Childebert, who after the death of Chilperic then held almost the whole kingdom of the Franks, etc.," can be thus explained from Hadrien de Valois, Frankish Affairs, book 16, where he thus writes: "But it is established that Soissons after the death of Chilperic (by whatever means this happened) was under the rule of Childebert; where Rauching apprehended the assassins suborned by Fredegund against Childebert in the year after the death of Chilperic, and consigned them to custody; and Childebert in the 14th year of his reign, that is, three years before Guntram died, sent thither his elder son Theudebert. Wherefore, if Chlothar recovered Soissons, and held it before the battle of Truccia (of which he had treated there a little before), surely it was not after the death of his uncle Guntram that he recovered it and the district of Soissons: since Gregory, who carried his history down to the thirtieth and penultimate year of Guntram's reign, often indicates that after the death of Chilperic Soissons obeyed Childebert; that it was recovered by Fredegund, or obeyed Chlothar the younger her son, he nowhere indicates."

[74] from Hadrien de Valois; "Therefore by the guile of one woman two men were conquered, and two armies of the Austrasians and Burgundians, with their leaders, were routed and put to flight. Nor much after, however, Childebert, troops being again sent, attacked the kingdom of Chlothar, and, as he was much stronger, occupied by arms Paris, the seat of the kingdom, and other cities pertaining to him. Wherefore our old historians write that Fredegund, with Chlothar her son and an army, immediately after the death of Childebert invaded the kingdom of Theudebert and Theuderic his sons, and occupied Paris and the rest of the neighboring cities: which cities, namely, Chlothar had before lost, doubtless from no other than from Childebert, and taken only after the death of Guntram, and after the battle of Truccia. Whence it follows that at one time Childebert, after the death of Chilperic, held almost the whole kingdom of the Franks, namely his own of Austrasia, his uncle's of Burgundy, and finally his cousin's of Soissons." But now let us again return to the biographer.

[75] What he there narrates of Theudebert, son of Childebert, as also others whom St. Magnericus, received from the sacred font, called by that name, St. Gregory of Tours thus reports, history of the Franks, book 8, chapter 37: "After these things a son was born to king Childebert, who, received from the sacred font by Magnericus, bishop of Trier, was called Theudebert: of whom king Guntram had so great joy that, immediately sending envoys, he transmitted to him many gifts, saying: 'For through this one God will deign, by the piety of his own majesty, to raise up the kingdom of the Franks; if for this one the father, or himself for the father, shall live.'" So St. Gregory; whose words, if the biographer had simply transcribed them, he would have been far removed from the error which we correct in him in the notes on chapter 2, letter f.

[76] That Theodorus, bishop of Marseilles, suffered much, the same writer of the Life says, no. 16; from St. Gregory of Tours; to which look those things which St. Gregory sets forth, book 8, chapter 12 of the mentioned history: "At length, when the king (Guntram) tried with the greatest intentness to persecute bishop Theodorus again, and Marseilles had now been recalled into the dominion of king Childebert, Ratharius is directed thither as leader on the part of king Childebert, to discuss the causes. But, the action being postponed which had been enjoined on him by the king, he besieges the bishop, requires sureties, and directed him to the presence of king Guntram, namely that he should be present, as if to be condemned by the bishops, at the synod which was to be at Mâcon. Nor was divine vengeance lacking, which is wont to defend its servants from the mouth of rabid dogs. For, the bishop going out from the city, at once he plunders the goods of the church; and some indeed he claims for himself, others he closes up under the guard of seals. And when he had done this, straightway a most savage disease invades his servants, and, exhausted by hunger, slew them; his son departed from this trouble, whom in the suburb of Marseilles he buried with grievous groaning: and such was the plague to his house, that when he departed from that city, he was scarcely thought to return to his own fatherland. But bishop Theodorus was detained by king Guntram. Yet the king did him no harm: for he is a man of excellent holiness, and assiduous in prayer: of whom Magnericus, bishop of Trier, related to me this: 'Some years ago, when to the presence of king Childebert thus under strict custody, etc.'"; the rest the biographer reports from no. 17, up to "he declaimed," "appeared," no. 20, and almost in Gregory's words; although he inserted some things of his own.

[77] It is said in the same no. 16 that the praised Theodorus suffered many injuries from the citizens, especially from a certain prefect Dynamius. from whom another too is illustrated. The matter St. Gregory of Tours thus sets forth, history of the Franks, book 6, chapter 11: "But at the city of Marseilles, Dynamius, ruler of the province, began grievously to lay snares for bishop Theodorus. But he, disposing to hasten to the king, being apprehended by him, is held in the midst of the city, and, grievously injured, was at last released. But the clergy of Marseilles were contriving a plot with Dynamius, that he might be cast out of the episcopate. But while he journeyed to king Childebert, he is ordered, with Jovinus the ex-prefect, to be detained by king Guntram. Which the clergy of Marseilles hearing, filled with great joy, that he was now held, was now deputed to exile; that the matter had now come to this, that he should never return to Marseilles, they seize the houses of the church, register the ministries *,

unlock the record-rooms, despoil the storerooms, and invade all the goods of the church, as though the bishop were already dead, uttering various charges against the pontiff, which, Christ being the author, are found false." But now certain other things remain, in which it also seems worthwhile to follow St. Gregory: for thus certain historical points will be set forth at more length, which our writer touched very cursorily.

§ VIII. Certain other historical points, related by the biographer, are explained from elsewhere.

Those things are explained by the words of St. Gregory of Tours, "Afterward, when before king Guntram Theodorus, bishop of Marseilles, was accused as guilty of treason, as though, receiving a certain Gundovald, an enemy of the king, he had introduced him into the kingdom as an enemy and invader, he was delivered to custody with Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia; and when both bishops, being produced and brought to the royal discussion, were found blameless, nevertheless after the discussion they are again received into custody, in which the blessed man Epiphanius departed from life: but Theodorus was deputed to exile, etc." So our biographer, no. 17; which, that they may be better understood, it is of service to hear again St. Gregory of Tours, who, book 6 of the history of the Franks, chapter 24, thus recounts the matter: "New wars again rise up against bishop Theodorus: for Gundovald, who said that he was the son of king Chlothar, coming from Constantinople, was conveyed to Marseilles: of whose origin it has pleased me to record something briefly. He, when he had been born in Gaul, and reared with diligent care … and instructed in letters, was presented to king Childebert by his mother, she saying: 'Behold,' she said, 'your nephew, the son of king Chlothar: and because he is held in hatred by his father, receive him; for he is your flesh.'

[79] which our biographer narrates concerning Gundovald, "Whom he, because he had no sons, receiving, kept with him. These things are announced to king Chlothar, and he sent envoys to his brother, saying: 'Send the boy, that he may come to me.' And he, delaying not, directed the youth to his brother. Which Chlothar seeing, ordered the hair of his head to be shorn, saying: 'This one I did not beget.' Therefore after the death of king Chlothar he was received by king Charibert. Whom Sigebert, having summoned him, again cut off the hair of his head, and sent him into the city of Agrippina, which is now called Cologne. He too, having slipped away from that place, his hair again let grow, went off to Narses, who then presided over Italy: and there, having taken a wife, begot sons, and came to Constantinople. Thence, as they report, after many times, invited by someone to come into Gaul, having landed at Marseilles, he was received by bishop Theodorus. And by the same too, horsemen having been received, he was joined to the leader Mummolus." And these indeed regard Gundovald: to which add the following concerning Theodorus and Epiphanius, subjoined in the place just cited:

[80] "But the leader Guntram, having apprehended bishop Theodorus, and concerning the bishops Theodorus and Epiphanius; thrust him into custody for this cause, reckoning why he had let in a foreign man into Gaul, and had wished through these things to subject the kingdom of the Franks to the imperial dominions." (And yet that very man had summoned Gundovald, according to Gregory of Tours, chapter 26; but, as Ruinart notes, he was a man of no faith.) "But he brought forth a letter, as they say, subscribed by the hand of the magnates of king Childebert, saying: 'I did nothing of myself, save what was commanded me by our lords and elders.' The priest, therefore, was kept in a little cell, nor was he permitted to approach the church… But after these things he was led to king Guntram with bishop Epiphanius, who then, fleeing the Lombards, was sojourning at Marseilles, namely because he too had been privy to this cause. Being discussed, therefore, by the king, they were found in no crime. But the king ordered them to abide under custody, in which, after many sufferings, bishop Epiphanius died." But who is that Epiphanius, whom Gregory here confusedly, but our writer names bishop of Pavia; but the more recent authors do not agree enough concerning him, going off in different directions?

[81] "It is an altogether probable conjecture," says Le Cointe at the year 582, and indeed who that Epiphanius was is not established enough from elsewhere. no. 12, "that this Epiphanius was bishop of Fréjus after Exspectatus, in whose name he had subscribed the fifth council of Orléans; which is noted at the year of Christ 549 in Labbe, volume 5 of the Councils, column 390." But Epiphanius, patriarch of Grado, mentioned by Paul the Deacon, book 4, chapter 34 of the Deeds of the Lombards, Alteserra interprets it, in Ruinart in the notes to book 6, chapter 24 of the history of the Franks of Gregory of Tours; but, as he rightly observes, the reckoning of time conflicts. For that same Epiphanius is noted in Ughelli, volume 5 of Sacred Italy, as ordained patriarch in the year of salvation 615. Who then is that Epiphanius of whom here we inquire, and a bishop of Pavia or Ticinum indeed? St. Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia, we gave on the 21st of January, page 364; but neither does his age square; and indeed, of one whose age would square, we find no Epiphanius among the bishops of Pavia in Ughelli. Let the biographer, therefore, see where he found that Epiphanius of his: who, while here he seems to wish to know more than his guide Gregory, could easily hallucinate: nay rather, if we rightly suspect, reading in Gregory of Tours that "bishop Epiphanius, fleeing the Lombards, etc.," he perhaps understood the bishop of Pavia of the same name, presently mentioned, and a holy one indeed; such as suited well enough, as he thought, his narration, since he attributes to him the title of "blessed," not observing perhaps that the time conflicts.

[82] Now some things offer themselves to us which need elucidation, Certain other things in the biographer need elucidation; to be sought from elsewhere than from St. Gregory of Tours: and indeed, because they consist of not a few words, it has seemed good to give attention to setting these forth rather in this place than in the notes, lest they grow too greatly. The writer of the Life, then, no. 22, thus speaks: "For signs are common even to the reprobate." Which he repeats yet more crudely, no. 48: "For why," he says, "is it necessary to require miracles in him, which FOR THE MOST PART are common even to the reprobate?" This last proposition is most openly false, if it be so understood that either the power of working miracles is equally common to Saints and to the reprobate; or thus, that by the reprobate miracles are more often, everywhere, and ordinarily wrought. This matter needs no proof, so does it at once at first sight strike sound understanding. But if that word "for the most part" be taken for "sometimes" (that it can also be so taken, though very rarely, you will find in the Thesaurus of the Latin language, and in the juridical Lexicon of the editions of the years 1610 and 1533), then both that second and the first proposition will be true, and will be so understood that to the reprobate too is communicated by God the faculty of working miracles, not almost always, more often, and as by a fixed law, but more rarely, sometimes, and in certain particular circumstances, as we are now about to explain; and in which or a similar sense our biographer doubtless understood his proposition.

[83] which is here done. For neither would we say that it conflicts with the divine goodness sometimes to work true miracles through depraved men: for the working of miracles pertains to the graces freely given, which are communicated both to the good and to the bad. Whence also that saying of Paul, 1 Corinthians 13: "If I should have all faith, so that I remove mountains, but have not charity, it profits me nothing." But in two ways a miracle can be done. 1. Without any respect to some truth, to be confirmed through it; but only for the sake of its utility, as for conferring health, or something similar. 2. A miracle is done in confirmation of some doctrine, to prove that it is true. And in the former way indeed it is true that God can work miracles through depraved men; although perhaps this happens very rarely: and when this occurs, it is rather from the faith of the receiver than from the power of the worker. But in the latter way it cannot be that a miracle be wrought in confirmation of falsehood; because otherwise God would cooperate with a lie, and would be its witness, as our own Francisco Suárez, On Faith, disputation 4, section 3, no. 10, rightly says. There may also be consulted paragraph 2 of our preliminary Commentary to the history of the conversion of St. Joseph the Count on the 22nd of this month, no. 18; where you will find that to that Saint even at the time when he was most obstinately hardening in Jewish pertinacity, the power of working a miracle was communicated by God, that in this way at last he might convert himself to the faith of Christ, and that he really freed a raging man from a demon. From what has been said, gather in what sense St. Eulogius the martyr is to be explained, when in book 1 of the Memorial of the Saints, volume 4 of Spain Illustrated, published at Frankfurt in the year 1608, page 244, he says: "But signs and prodigies both the Saint and the reprobate work."

[84] The catastrophe of Guntram Boso, But now St. Gregory of Tours recalls us, from whom the history of Guntram Boso condemned to death, briefly touched in the biographer, no. 27, will be thus better understood. "While these things were being done," says Gregory, history of the Franks, book 9, chapter 10, "again king Guntram sent to his nephew Childebert, saying: 'Let all delays depart, and come that I may see you. For it is a matter of certain necessity, both for the advantage of our life and for the public utilities, that we be seen by us.' Hearing this, he, having taken his mother with his sister and wife, sets out to meet his uncle. And there was present also Magnericus, bishop of the city of Trier. There came too Guntram Boso, whom Agericus, bishop of Verdun, had received on his faith: but that pontiff, who had gone surety for him, was not present, because it had been agreed that he should be presented to the king without anyone's defense, namely that, if he himself should decree that he ought to die, he should not be excused by the priest; but if he should grant him life, he should go free. But the kings being joined, judged culpable for various offenses *, it was ordered that he be killed."

[85] But those things which regard the manner in which, by threats as well as by blandishments, Guntram Boso most obstinately tried to extort his liberation through the patronage of St. Magnericus, briefly touched by the biographer, are so conformably recounted by Gregory and by our biographer, that this one need not be elucidated from that, up to these words, "let them set forth these things which I speak." But the rest, which the biographer pursues concerning the catastrophe of Boso, "When, therefore, the Bishop (Magnericus) could not go forth to intercede, nor were these things which he had commanded thus announced to the king, suddenly the house is beset by the enemies, etc.," you will understand more clearly from Gregory of Tours in the place just adduced: "Nevertheless," he says, "these things were not announced to the king as they were; but they said that he was here defended by the Bishop; whence it came about that the king, being moved, said: 'If the Bishop will not go forth thence, let him perish together with that author of perfidy.' Hearing this, the Bishop directed envoys to the king: who, when they had narrated this, king Guntram said: 'Cast fire into the house, and if

the Bishop cannot go out, let them be burned together.' Hearing this, the clergy, the door being broken by force, thrust the Priest out. Then the most wretched man, when he saw himself beset by strong flames on either side, girt with a sword, approaches the door.

[86] "But when, going out over the first threshold of the house, he set his step outside, at once one of the people, a lance being hurled, struck his forehead. it is produced from St. Gregory of Tours. But he, disturbed by this blow, as if out of his mind, trying to cast away the sword, was so wounded by the multitude of lances by the bystanders, that, the darts being fixed in his sides, and the shafts holding him up, he could not fall to the ground. There were slain also the few who were with him, and they were exposed together in the field. For whom it was scarcely obtained from the princes that they be laid in the earth." But the prosopography of Guntram Boso, indicated by our biographer, no. 30, in very few and almost general terms, Gregory of Tours thus severally describes in the same place several times alleged: "He was," he says, "in his conduct fickle, gaping after avarice, beyond measure desirous of others' goods, swearing to all, and fulfilling his promises to none. But his wife with his sons was given to exile, and his goods were conferred on the treasury. And a multitude of gold and silver and of various kinds was found in his stores. But also what he had hidden under the earth, his conscience of his own iniquity goading him, did not lie hid. He frequently used soothsayers and lots; by which, desiring to know the future, he remained deluded."

[87] The biographer is long in narrating the deeds of St. Wolfilaicus; as also some things concerning St. Wolfilaicus. to which, for greater credit, may aptly be added these from Gregory of Tours, history of the Franks, book 8, chapter 15, where he narrates those things which he himself received from his mouth, in these words: "We began to ask of him that he would narrate to us something of the good of his manner of life, or how he had come to the office of the clericate: for he was by lineage a Lombard. But he could not set it forth, wishing with all intent to avoid vain glory. Whom I," he says, "conjuring with terrible oaths, having first promised that I would disclose to no one what he related; began to ask that he would hide nothing from me of those things which I inquired. And when he had struggled a very long while, at last, overcome as much by my prayers as by my entreaties, he uttered this: 'While I was,' he said, 'a little boy, etc.'" We now subjoin the Life of our Saint; concerning which, besides those things which were premised above, we note the following, and they regard its printing.

[88] A forewarning concerning the Life which is given by us. It is given from the most ancient Manuscript of the monastery of St. Martin of Trier, as our Rosweyde noted with his own hand to our copy, which we commit to the press; which likewise was collated with the Manuscript of St. Maximin of the same city, as we found noted in another hand in the same our exemplar. Some variant readings in the Maximin one you have in the margin of the Life which we publish; the particle "al." (elsewhere), when it is added, indicates readings from St. Gregory of Tours, of the Ruinart edition; but "Brow." signifies that it is read otherwise in the Fortunatus of Brower. The few things enclosed in brackets [] were taken from the said Manuscript of St. Maximin.

* that is, the sacred vessels * elsewhere, "falsitatibus" (offenses / falsehoods)

LIFE

From the most ancient Manuscript of the monastery of St. Martin of Trier, By the author Eberwin, abbot of the same monastery; collated with the Manuscript of St. Maximin of Trier.

St. Magnericus, confessor, archbishop of Trier, there in the monastery of St. Martin.

BHL Number: 5149

FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS.

CHAPTER I.

St. Magnericus, faithful disciple of St. Nicetius, and worthy successor of the same in the see of Trier.

St. Magnericus was the disciple of St. Nicetius, bishop of Trier, At the departing, at the city of Trier, of the most holy man Nicetius ^a, bishop of the same city, Magnericus succeeded ^b to the episcopate, a man of laudable life, and venerable to all, and very like that great man in works and merits; inasmuch as, reared by him, he became through all things the imitator of his conversation and holy erudition and of his virtues, and was advanced to the highest honors of the ecclesiastical order. For this venerable father Nicetius was of excellent holiness, not only admirable in preaching of eloquence, but also everywhere famous and most celebrated in good works and wonders; who, first abbot of the monks of the city of Limoges, afterward pontiff of the city of Trier, among the many whom he had gathered to his discipleship, had specially chosen these, Aredius ^c and Magnericus, to be instructed by himself in ecclesiastical learning.

[2] With whom, as a man intent on God, he was more specially at leisure for sacred meditation and assiduous prayer: whose eulogy is given, who, conscious of a master of good virtues, desired also to emulate his holiness, that, as time went on, worthy sons might be worthy successors of a worthy father, heirs not so much of his dignity as of his merits and virtues. For the one became abbot of the monks of the aforesaid city; the other was priest of our city, that is, of Trier.

[3] And because we speak of the discipleship of so great a father, it remains as also of St. Aredius, likewise his disciple. that we speak first of Aredius, then of Magnericus, that we may know the good fruits of the good tree from what stock they proceeded. This Aredius, then, deserved so great a grace of healings by divine gift, that by touch alone and the sign of the cross, after the manner of the Apostles, he calmed diseases and infirmities, put demons to flight, produced water from the dry earth, restrained a tempest by prayer, being once so protected from the cloud of rains, that, his companions being soaked, not even a drop of rain fell upon him.

[4] But while holy Nicetius often rebuked king Lothair for his iniquitous works, and even excommunicated him ^d; St. Nicetius being driven into exile for excommunicating king Chlothar a man indeed who feared not at all the royal power, nay rather was to be feared [e'] by kings themselves; who would not be silent about justice, but rather did not hesitate to die for justice, saying: "Gladly will I die for justice"; when at a certain time he was being forced into exile for such zeal, and, destitute of all consolation, was left alone, this one man, that is, the venerable man Magnericus, then a deacon ^e, persisting alone in faith, specially adhered to his master.

[5] Wishing to explore the constancy of whose faith, the pious father said: "What do you now do? Why do you not follow your brethren, [the faithful Magnericus alone adheres, deserving to understand from him the imminent return;] that you may go where you will, as they have done?" Who said: "The Lord my God lives: for as long as the spirit shall be contained in [f'] these limbs, I will never forsake you." And he: "Because," he said, "you have said this, I will tell you what I have learned by the Lord's revealing. For tomorrow at this hour I shall both recover my honor and be restored to my church. But these, who have forsaken me, will flee to me." For the venerable Deacon awaited the promised thing, astonished, which he afterward [g'] experienced: for at the dawning of the next day suddenly [h'] there came an envoy of king Sigebert ^f with letters, announcing that king Chlothar was dead, and that he ought to undertake the kingdom due to him with the charity of the bishop.

[6] Hearing this, he, returned to the church, is restored to power ^g, and all being confounded, by whom he had been forsaken, received all in charity ^h. Whom, then, did this holy Deacon imitate, save him who, the time of the passion impending, professed with pious mouth to his pious master, saying: "Lord, with you I am ready to go both into prison and into death": and, the rest having escaped by flight, alone followed his master with pious step even to the cross ⁱ? Deservedly, therefore, as Peter received from the Lord and after the Lord the Church to be governed, so this imitator of Peter, because he had kept faith with his master, obtained also his church, as if by inheritance, to be ruled.

[7] So Joshua ^k, minister of Moses, while by ever adhering to him he faithfully obeys, is made leader of the Israelite people, comparing him with great men, and deserves to be gifted with his spirit. So Elisha ^l, because he poured water over the hands of Elijah ^m, while he keeps faith with the Lord, while he ministers to the prophet, while he was forbidden to follow him to the Jordan, answered, saying: "The Lord lives; for I will not forsake you"; as a son obtains the inheritable gift of prophecy from a good father, and is gifted with a double pledge of his spirit. So too this excellent Man, disciple of so great a father, while he follows his doctrine, morals, and instruction, is substituted in his place as his son, and the father's works are renewed and repaired in him.

[8] Of whom also Fortunatus, an excellent bishop ⁿ and ecclesiastical ^o author, in his poem [p] thus commemorates: and bringing forward his eulogy from Fortunatus.

"Illustrious by sacred merit, so great a master forming you, whom you restore, your work fructifying the place. Disciple of the excellent Nicetius, good Magnericus, by singing the auspice of your Great name, Whose rich follower, and keeping the holy footsteps, rightly acting as minister, behold, you are present as master. And you are held a worthy successor of your pious author, while he takes heaven, you take his place in the citadel."

[9] He becomes archbishop of Trier after Nicetius; and long Such a Man, therefore, after the passing of the aforesaid great pontiff, by the consent, as we said, of all the people and the princes, is chosen to the summit of the highest pontificate, is constituted head of the church, and is assigned as the God-chosen prelate of the city of Trier, and is enthroned [q] in the pontifical see, in which, happily residing up to the reverend gray hairs of an honorable life and a laudable old age, he most strenuously governed the church for no small [r] time, namely in the times of the emperors Justin [s], Tiberius, Maurice, and also of Vigilius, Pelagius, Gregory, the most excellent Roman Pontiffs, and also of the kings Chilperic, Guntram, Childebert, wielding the sceptres of the Franks.

[10] and with the highest praise he presides over and profits this church. Under the times of these, therefore, flourished in the aforesaid city the venerable Pontiff, lovable to God and laudable for the honesty and probity of his life, so that with reason what we sing in praise of a great priest may fittingly be ascribed to him: "Behold a great priest, who in his days pleased God, and was found just"; and the rest: which, although they may seem to pertain to several of the Saints, seem to pertain also not moderately to this very one: who was great in the dignity and authority of the priesthood, great in piety, great in preaching, great in the conversation of a religious life. Even as we cry out "great" of holy Paul in the Church, not so much from the grace of the apostolate as from the assiduous preaching by which he labored more than the rest.

ANNOTATIONS.

c St.

The Life of St. Aredius Mabillon published, Benedictine Acts, saeculum 1, from page 349; of whom at the 25th of August; when he is reported by Molanus, Galesinius, Ferrari, and the Benedictine calendars. p It is a fragment excerpted from book 3, poem 13, but with the order changed; and below the whole is produced. q In the year of Christ 573 according to our chronotaxis. r He presided surely for about 23 years, having died about the year 596. s Of the illustrious men, contemporary with the Saint, whom this author of the Life agglomerates, it is treated throughout paragraph 2 of the preliminary Commentary. * St. Maximin's, "verendus" (to be revered) * St. Maximin's, "intra" (within) * St. Maximin's, "with great shame" * St. Maximin's, "subito" (suddenly) * St. Maximin's, "prohibitus" (forbidden)

CHAPTER II.

The Saint gracious with the kings; he raises Theudebert from the sacred font; he instructs St. Gaugericus and ordains him deacon; he tries to relieve the miseries of Theodorus, bishop of Marseilles.

[The Saint prevails with the kings by grace and authority; he receives Theudebert from the sacred font;] And because he found grace before the eyes of the Lord, the Lord magnified him in the sight of kings; so that he found also very much grace with them, so far that they sometimes admitted him to their counsels, or loved him as a father and rendered him the highest honor, as to an apostolic Man. Hence it is that king Childebert ^a, who after the death of Chilperic ^b then held almost the whole ^c kingdom of the Franks at that time ^d, knowing the merit of the excellent Man, chose him for himself as godfather: for his son Theudebert this venerable pontiff Magnericus received from the sacred font ^e: of whom so great joy arose to the parents, that the great-grandfather ^f of the boy, king Guntram, rejoicing with his grandson, both sent gifts and commanded this, saying: "For through this one God will deign, by the piety of his own majesty, to raise up the kingdom of the Franks."

[12] and while he visits his churches, But no small solicitude for his churches did this blessed bishop Magnericus bear, but with pastoral care, by bestowing sound doctrine on all, he confirmed them in good work and in the faith of Christ. Whence, when for the sake of this matter he went round his parishes according to the statutes of the canons ^g after his custom, it happened that he came to a castle by name Ivois ^h, namely to ordain [i'] those things which pertain to divine worship or to the ecclesiastical rite. Then, calling the priest to whom he had committed the care of that church, he asks what clerics he had bound to the divine office.

[13] [on that occasion he learns the praises of the boy Gaugericus; and having summoned him] But he, answering, said: "We have, lord Pontiff, officials and scholastics: among whom also a certain little boy, by name Gaugericus ⁱ, delivered to the master at school, still most gladly studies sacred letters and learning, hearing the signal of the church, at prayer runs up first, earlier than the rest; the food which he is wont to receive with the other companions he assiduously distributes to the poor." And when the Pontiff had heard this, he ordered the boy to be presented to his sight. And when he had come into his presence, the pious Priest addressed him with a fatherly voice.

[14] ordains him cleric, presaging in spirit something great concerning him, And when, gazing on him, he had recognized in him I know not what divine thing, the Holy Spirit showing it, at once designating him to the office of the clericate and to serving the Lord, he tonsured him with his own hands. Being asked by him what lesson he had in the psalter, he thus answered: "Lord, most holy father, this office of the clericate, which you have deigned to impose upon me, I have received with great joy; but the beginning of my lesson is that in the second psalm: 'Ask of me, and I will give you.'"

[15] Hearing, therefore, that the Bishop, that he had devoutly received that tonsure, [and afterward promotes him to the diaconate: who heals a leper raised by him from the font.] and seeing in the boy good zeal and devotion, commanded that, when he should another time come to that castle, he should render him the psalter in full: which command of the Pontiff receiving most gladly, when at another time the bishop had come to that church, he recited to him the psalter from memory. Thereafter, retaining him with himself, and instructing him in divine learning, he promoted him to the order of the diaconate; in which, having conversed well and worthily, when at a certain time he was at leisure for prayers, he met a certain leper, whom, when he had learned to be without baptism, he led to the priest: by whom, being at once baptized, and received from the font by the holy deacon, he was thenceforth free from the leprosy of flesh and soul. These things we have said to demonstrate the good Man's industry in gaining sons.

[16] But of what charity and benignity he was, To St. Theodorus, bishop of Marseilles, who after persecutions and of how great compassion, as often elsewhere, so also in a deed worthy of memory concerning the venerable ^k man Theodorus ^l, bishop of Marseilles, he laudably showed. For this man, according to what the Apostle says: "All who wish to live piously in Christ shall suffer persecution"; since he was of excellent holiness and given to prayers, especially [j'] suffered many injuries from the citizens, chiefly from a certain prefect Dynamius ^m.

[17] Afterward, when before king Guntram he was accused as guilty of treason, was captured, and to be sent into exile, an occasion namely having been found, as though, receiving a certain Gundovald ⁿ, an enemy of the king, he had introduced him into the kingdom as an enemy and invader; he was delivered to custody with Epiphanius, bishop of Pavia ^o; when both bishops, being produced and brought to the royal discussion, were found blameless, nevertheless after the discussion they are again received into custody, in which the blessed man bishop Epiphanius departed from life; but Theodorus, deputed to exile, but first to be heard by king Childebert, is ordered to be led under such strict [p] custody, that when he should at any time come to some city, he was permitted to address or see neither the bishop nor any of the citizens, the malice of envious men and even of demons doing this, namely that he might be sent into foreign and barbarous regions; who, as is written of the just man, was grievous to them even to look upon.

[18] Coming, therefore, to Trier, it was announced to bishop Magnericus [when he had now come to Trier, and was to be secretly carried off; with great affection of commiseration] that this man, now placed in a ship, was being secretly carried off: and the Priest rose up sad; and swiftly pursuing, found him at the shore; and having reproached the guards, why there was so great impiety, that it was not permitted for a brother to behold a brother, at last kissed him. And having learned the causes of his miseries and calamities, he wept and consoled him with a few words, as much as the delays then permitted, and having bestowed on him something of garments, the guards now pushing off the ship, departed mourning.

[19] And the venerable Old Man, coming to the basilica of St. Maximin, prostrates himself before the holy sepulchre, he has compassion, and prays for him earnestly, the devil taking it ill. retaining in mind that of James the Apostle: "Pray for one another, that you may be saved"; and a prayer being poured out a very long while with tears, that the Lord would deign to help his brother , thus as he was, bathed in tears, he went forth outside. And behold, a woman, whom a spirit of error was agitating , both began to revile the priest, and to say: "O wicked one and inveterate of days! who pour out a prayer to the Lord for our enemy Theodorus. Behold, we daily seek how that Gaul * may be delivered from these; who consumes us with daily burnings: and you do not cease to pray for him? For it were better for you diligently to inquire into the goods of your church, lest anything perish for the poor, than so intently to entreat for this one."

[20] And she said: "Woe to us! who cannot vanquish him." And although demons ought not to be believed, yet what kind of priest he was, of whom the demon complaining * declaimed this, appeared. From which matter the merit of both is evidently shown, namely the holiness of the one, and the charity of the other, at which the enemy envied, is understood, and the devout humanity toward the poor which he always exhibited.

ANNOTATIONS.

a Childebert

II, son of king Sigebert of the Austrasians by Brunhild, king of Austrasia in the year 575; succeeded his uncle Guntram in the kingdom of Orléans or Burgundy in the year 593; died in 596; as you may see in Le Cointe. Moreover, this deed, which the biographer undertakes to narrate, we gave from Gregory of Tours in the preliminary Commentary, no. 75. p Which history our author here pursues up to no. 21, St. Gregory of Tours records, book 8, chapter 12, from the mouth of St. Magnericus. * St. Maximin's, "ordinaturus" (about to ordain) * St. Maximin's, "assidue" (assiduously) * St. Maximin's, "traditur" * elsewhere, "fratrem" (brother) * elsewhere, and St. Maximin's, "agitabat" (was agitating) * elsewhere, "Galliis" (the Gauls) * read "conquerens," elsewhere "condolens" (complaining / commiserating) * St. Maximin's, "utrumque" (of each)

CHAPTER III.

Theodorus restored to his see; the ship saved from destruction; why Guntram Boso was not liberated.

[21] But since mention has been made of Theodorus; that we may show another token of his holiness, let us use the testimony not of demons but of truthful writers, That Theodorus, dear to Magnericus for God's sake that we may accordingly attend what manner of man he was, whom Magnericus not in vain so solicitously sought out and took care to visit; who venerated not Theodorus, but him in Theodorus, who in his judgment will say: "I was in prison, and you came to me." For this man, when, as we said above, he was in custody, and shut up in a certain little cell, nor at all permitted to approach the church, on a certain night, while he prayed more attentively to the Lord, the cell shone with exceeding splendor, so that a certain count, who was his guard, was held with vast fear,

[22] And there was seen over him an immense globe of light for the space of two hours. and dear for his own merits: which love But when morning came, that count narrated these things to the rest who were with him, which he had seen ^a. But because there are some who, after the Jewish manner seeking signs, doubt of the holiness of certain persons unless they see signs, of this illustrious man, that is, the Trier Priest, who, I pray, would wish to doubt of such great merits? Who showed deeds more powerful than signs. For signs are common even to the reprobate ^b. And rightly Stephen, who did great signs and prodigies among the people, never wrought a more illustrious miracle than when, supported by charity, he prayed for those stoning him.

[23] But Paul too, whom before the signs of Stephen could not convert, is extolled with great praises, as the most excellent of virtues, the charity of Stephen alone, by praying, afterward rendered converted. Who, then, would doubt that the virtue of charity is to be preferred to all miracles, since, according to the Apostle, charity alone excels all faith, all virtue, the tongues of angels, the knowledge of prophecy and of mysteries, and the endurance of burnings?

[24] and here excellently practiced by our Saint: Relying, therefore, on this virtue, robed in this garment, Magnericus wrought a beautiful miracle, when to his brother and fellow-bishop placed in necessity, valuing little the royal edict, full of maternal charity he ran to meet, grieved with the grieving, had compassion on the suffering, gave to the needy, gave words of consolation, bestowed the help of holy intercession; fulfilling that Apostolic saying: "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?" Whose prayer, poured out with most intent entreaty to God, what effect it had, was at once made plain.

[25] For with Gregory, the most illustrious and ecclesiastical ^c man, bishop of Tours, [for together with St. Gregory of Tours he intercedes for Theodorus, and restores him to his see:] he went to the king at Confluentia ^d; that castle where the Rhine and the Moselle, two rivers together, flow together: where king Childebert stayed for some time: whom both the illustrious and supreme Pontiffs, going to, entreat for Theodorus, and intercede that he be restored to his church: to whose suggestion and petition the king at once assenting, directs an envoy, by name Felix, to his uncle in these words: "I beseech you, my Lord and father ^e, that you inflict no injury on bishop Theodorus. For if you do, at once a scandal will spring up between us, and we shall be disjoined, discord hindering, who ought, by guarding love, to be peaceful." And an answer being received concerning this and other causes, the envoy departed ^f.

[26] [by whose merits the ship, which was carrying them, is preserved from destruction.] But while the pontiffs were staying at the aforesaid castle, they were invited to the royal banquet; where, when it had been lingered to a rather late hour, rising from the table, they proceed to the shore, about to cross the river. But as they entered the ship, thus, a sudden multitude of men rushing in with them, that same ship was so loaded that the water almost reached to the lip ^g: but the power of the Lord was present ^h: which freed the Saints from this necessity, and by their merits ⁱ carried the ship to the farther parts, not without the admiration of many.

[27] Guntram Boso, for offended royal majesty, is condemned to death; After these things, a place having been agreed among themselves, the kings both meet together for the public utilities of the kingdom. There was present also with them Magnericus, bishop of Trier. Then, a plea being entered, a certain one of the chief men of the Franks, Guntram, surnamed Boso ^k, accused of various crimes, guilty of treason, was judged of a capital sentence. But because he was not present at the judgment, when after the sentence was given he had learned this, he flew to the dwelling of the Bishop, and, the doors being at once closed, separated from him, from the clergy or servants, he said: "I know that you, most blessed Priest, have great honor with * the kings.

[28] And now I flee to you, that I may escape. Behold, assassins at the door: whence you may manifestly know [but by threats and blandishments he tries to extort from St. Magnericus his liberation:] that if I am not rescued by you, you being killed, I will go out and die. For most manifestly you should know that either one death seizes us, or equal life defends us. O holy Priest, for I know that you are a common father to the king and to his son, and I know that whatever you ask of him, you will obtain, nor will he be able at all to deny to your holiness whatever you demand. And therefore either impart pardon, or let us die together." But this he said with a sword unsheathed to the Bishop.

[29] but in vain; The Bishop, disturbed by such a hearing, said: "And what shall I do, if I am here held by you? Let me go, that I may go and entreat the king for you ; perhaps he will have mercy on you." And he: "By no means," he said; "but send your abbots and trusted men ^l, that they may set forth these things which I speak." When, therefore, the Bishop could not go forth to intercede, nor were these things which he had commanded thus announced to the king, suddenly the house is beset by the enemies, prepared to cast in fire. Which the clergy seeing, run, and the door being broken by force, drag the priest out, and thus that wretched man is slain by the mad rushing-in armed crowd.

[30] I believe that this man was not of that merit for whom the Priest would intercede. Who, if he would hear the Bishop, would then escape the impending peril *. the guilty man deservedly punished for his crimes. But to show the charity of so great a Man, we have said these things: who, not unmindful of the sentence of Scripture, which says: "Rescue those who are led to death"; was indeed ready, but the malice of that man, who was not worthy, hindered him: for because he was a perjurer and homicide ^m; hence and consequently what is written of him was fulfilled: "Evils will seize the unjust man unto destruction." But we, leaving these things, let us pass to others.

ANNOTATIONS.

* St. Maximin's, "utilissima" (most useful) * St. Maximin's, "pro eo" (for him) * St. Maximin's, "coram" (before) * elsewhere, "foras" (outside) * elsewhere, and St. Maximin's, "impetra" (obtain) * elsewhere, "the mercy of the king" * St. Maximin's, "irruente jam" (now rushing in) * St. Maximin's, "evasisset" (would have escaped)

CHAPTER IV.

Men remarkable for holiness, contemporary with the Saint; the virtues of St. Wolfilaicus and his life upon a column.

The author names several holy men who, in the time of St. Magnericus, There were besides, in the time of this illustrious Pontiff, very many men ^a of monastic institution and religion dwelling in the suburb or territory of the city of Trier through certain convenient places, and especially in the vast Vosges ^b, serving God; some near, some far, leading a singular or a common life. For as in the time of the pontiff Rusticus, the servant of God Goar, so also in the times of this Priest, we know that a certain man of God from Italy, endowed with the grace of the highest holiness, dwelt in his diocese, and that very many other servants of God — Paul, Ingobert, Disibod, Wandalin — we have found served God in the Vosges in his bishopric.

[32] lived on Mount Vosges; and touches some deeds of St. Columban, For that same forest, beginning from the Alps and the Jura [c] mountain, reaches to almost the nearest borders of the city of Trier, but through the extended ridges of the mountains it stretches widely northward along the course of the Rhine. In this forest, then, as we said, many of the servants of God at that time, building monasteries which remain to this day, dwelt in the manner of a cenobium. Then also a certain man of God, Carilefus, led there an eremitic life. Then too that famous Columban from Ireland, coming with his Gall, sought the aforesaid dense parts of the Vosges, and established the monastery of Luxeuil.

[33] as also of St. Bantus, But in the time of king Theudebert ^d, whom Magnericus received from the holy laver, fleeing the persecution of Theuderic his brother, who held Burgundy ^e, and also of Brunhild his grandmother ^f, like another Elijah fleeing the persecution of Jezebel ^g, he sought Italy, and founded the monastery of Bobbio ^h. But also in the borders of the same Vosges, which lie next the city of Trier, some from that city, seeking the vast solitude of the desert, which was then wooded and uncultivated, but now seems cultivated, led there a secluded and arduous life. Of whom a certain venerable presbyter from the same city, Bantus, served God in a conversation remote from men.

[34] and also of St. Beatus, his brother. But another, his own brother, likewise a presbyter, in merit and in name Beatus, himself too leading a blessed life, was celebrated for his excellent manner of life, and illustrious in holiness: whose relics are now venerated in the same city, and at their sepulchres signs and healings are sometimes wrought. For we have seen very many laboring under the trouble of fevers there quickly obtain remedies, but we too have experienced this very benefit of God in ourselves and faithfully obtained it.

[35] Of St. Wolfilaicus But of the man mentioned above from Italy, of what life and conversation he was in the times of Magnericus, it pleases us to speak. For this man, a Lombard by lineage, by name Wolfilaicus ⁱ, when he was still a boy, having heard the fame of the good virtues of St. Martin, as soon as he had betaken himself, for the love of God, into those parts of Gaul, joined to the blessed abbot Aredius, of whom we made mention above, disciple of St. Nicetius, dwelt in his monastery, by whom, being instructed also ecclesiastically, he deserved the knowledge of the holy Scriptures; so that, assiduously meditating on them, he both read and wrote them.

[36] Becoming also an imitator of his rich conversation and holiness, it commemorates several things, he was at leisure unceasingly for fastings and vigils and prayers, and gave alms. But now, as his age advanced, when at a certain time he had come to Tours with the same abbot, and had prayed at the sepulchre of St. Martin, he gathered for himself a little dust from his sepulchre for a blessing, and hung it at his neck, which, returning to the monastery [k], when he had brought it, the dust so began to grow in the little box that it gushed out.

[37] Which miracle being seen, a greater love toward the patronage of St. Martin grew in him. and especially his marvelous life upon a column, Then, coming to bishop Magnericus, he sought a place in the territory of the city of Trier on a mountain, which is distant not far, 8 miles, from the castle of Ivois; on whose summit he built by his own labor an oratory ^l and also a dwelling, but also set himself a column, according to what we read that Simeon ^m, that holy man of Antioch, did; on which, with great torment, he stood without any covering of his feet. And so, when the time of winter had come, he was so burned by the glacial cold, that the force of the frost dashed off the nails of his feet, and water frozen in his beard hung down. His food and drink was a little bread and herbs, and a little water.

[38] Yet he found there an image of Diana, which still remained from the dregs of heathenism, and which was worshiped by the foolish people of the rustics. the overthrow of the image But when a multitude began to flow together to him from the nearby hamlets, he continually preached that Diana was nothing, that images were nothing, that all things which were worshiped were utterly vain and diabolical. The mercy of the Lord bent the rustic mind, so that, the idols being left, they should follow the Lord.

[39] And on a certain day, having called together the brethren who were with him, of Diana, when he tried to overturn that huge image, a difficulty arising (for upon it the ancient enemy sat), he applied himself to prayer, asking that the divine power might destroy it. And rising from prayer, a rope being put on, he cast that image to the ground: which, by breaking it with mallets, he reduced to dust. But at once the malice of the devil appeared: for at once, before the man of God took food, his whole body was so filled with pustules, that no place was found empty in it, which even one finger could cover.

[40] Having therefore entered the church alone, he fled to the power of prayer, and the miraculous healing by the oil of St. Martin. and before the holy altar exposed himself naked: and having taken a flask, which he had brought with him from the basilica of St. Martin, he anointed all the limbs of his body with the holy oil; and presently betook himself to sleep. But about the middle of the night, when he had risen to render the course ⁿ according to custom, he found himself so sound that he could find no traces of any ulcer on his body. From which it appears that those ulcers were inflicted on the man of God by diabolic infliction, but were healed divinely by an angelic curing.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER V.

At the Saint's persuasion St. Wolfilaicus leaves the column; his death, translation, and miracles.

St. Wolfilaicus leaves the column The church which, as we said, he built before, the Bishop consecrating it, he illustrated with the relics of blessed Martin and of other saints; and gathered thither with himself some of the brethren. He himself

then, serving God in great contrition and maceration of the flesh, remained in the aforesaid station of his column. To whom, when the Bishop ^a had come after the custom of visitation, seeing him tormented by so great a labor, and almost weakened in body, having compassion on his sufferings, recalls him to the way of discretion, and profitably persuades him to desist from that station.

[42] "For not equal," he said, "is the way which you follow, at the persuasion of St. Magnericus; nor can you be compared to that Simeon of Antioch, who stood upon a column, but the situation of the place does not allow you to bear this torment: because, namely, that region is said very often to sustain the greatest winter." And so he came down ; and orders him to abide with the brethren whom he had gathered with him; approving that this, that is, to live in common, and to gain others by instructing and edifying them, was more useful. Which command, although receiving it with grief, yet because it seemed very unfitting not to obey the precepts of the pontiffs, he came down, and walked with the brethren whom he had gathered, and took food.

[43] But the Bishop ^b, taking precaution lest he should again return to that station, and lest he should return to it any more, he ordered it to be destroyed. should again presume upon that laborious thing untried by human powers, on a certain day, sending * him to another place, meanwhile caused workmen to come, who, cutting down the aforesaid column, cast it to the ground, and made an end at once to that station and to the presumption. On the morrow the man of God, returning and finding the column destroyed, took it grievously enough, but, using a better way, betook himself thenceforth with the brethren, and, edifying many with himself after these things, and inciting them to better things by his examples, remained in holy conversation to the very end.

[44] He, daily advancing by increments of good works, and illustrious for many virtues, rested in peace; The death of St. Wolfilaicus, and was buried in the same place, in the church which he himself built: in which many miracles are reported to be frequently done at his memory. For in our times, when that place was neglected from age, it happened, through carelessness, that on a certain day it suffered a fire; and when the fire was consuming the church and all things round about, the sorrowful citizens began to be troubled concerning the relics of the blessed man; because antiquity had left them exposed, as it were, the coffin being broken.

[45] And behold, the fire being quieted, diligently gazing, they find the bones of the holy man untouched by this burning, the bones untouched by the fire; the translation: and so unharmed, as if that place had suffered no fire. That was fulfilled which the Psalmist says of the Saints: "The Lord keeps all their bones: not one of them shall be broken." For this cause, therefore, and especially because the place was solitary and, as we said, neglected from age, it seemed good to the lord venerable Egbert [c], pontiff of Trier, that the bones of the holy man should be translated to another place, namely to the castle mentioned above, that there with greater reverence and custody the holy relics might be kept.

[46] Counsel therefore being taken, when from that place, the bishop being present, and the clergy or monks, and other concourse of people, they were being carried, in whose time the bier remained not wetted by the rain. as they went, when they had now proceeded to the river, a heavy rain suddenly descended upon them; but that the Lord might show the merit of so great a man, through the whole space that was traversed from the aforesaid place to the castle, though the shower by no means ceased, upon the bier of the holy man not one drop of rain fell, being so protected from that inundation, as it had been defended from the aforesaid injury of the fire.

[47] And let these things said of so great a man suffice: which we have accordingly placed in this history which we write, that we may know what fervent [d'] men there were in his bishopric in the times of this apostolic Man, The Saints are as glorious to our Saint as St. Gregory of Tours, his intimate; and how devout and industrious he showed himself toward them. He himself too was contemporary and intimate with Gregory, bishop of Tours, an excellent and ecclesiastical [e'] man, and at that time most illustrious, so that those things which the same Gregory in his books commemorates concerning this Pontiff, he learned by his own relation: from which too we have culled these things.

[48] For those things which we said above concerning Theodorus, and the prayer poured out for him at the tomb of St. Maximin, he asserts that he received from his mouth. whose testimony our biographer used. But because the holy men, by fleeing boasting, altogether concealed their virtues, he related that he had been reviled by an erroneous spirit, but of his healing he was altogether silent, which namely, in that possessed woman, at the holy Priest's praying, we by no means believe to have been omitted. For why is it necessary to require miracles in him, which for the most part ^d are common even to the reprobate? Especially since the Lord says: "Many will say to me in that day: 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and do many powers?'" When rather other and better tokens of virtues shone in him.

[49] who, above the miracles of St. Magnericus, extols his virtues. For to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to receive guests and pilgrims, to understand toward the needy and the poor, with mercy [f'] to succor their wants, and also the rest of the works of alms and piety, these were special in him. Besides this, assiduously given to prayer, solicitous in gaining souls, chief in doctrine, as a good shepherd he watched for the flock committed to him, and, that he might render the talents doubled to the Lord, the excellent Prelate took pains.

ANNOTATIONS.

* St. Maximin's, "permittit" (permits) * St. Maximin's, "descendere" (to come down) * St. Maximin's, "dirigens" (directing) * St. Maximin's, "servi Dei" (servants of God) * St. Maximin's, "scholastico" (scholastic) * St. Maximin's, "miserorum" (of the wretched)

CHAPTER VI.

The Saint's eulogy from Fortunatus; churches built in honor of St. Martin; his death, burial; the altar erected after his apparitions; the vicissitudes of the monastery of Trier; its return to the monks; the writer of this Life.

[50] The author brings forward the Saint's eulogy. Nor is it necessary to approve these things concerning him by our testimony; since the truthful author Fortunatus thus writes in verse of such a priest:

"The honorable summit, father of fathers, archpriest, pontifical adornment, with advancing degree. Whom, by the title of faith *, his merits raised on high, God distributing the headship of the Church *. Disciple of the excellent Nicetius, good Magnericus, by singing the auspice of your name, O great one : Illustrious by sacred merit, so great a master forming * you, whom you restore, the place fructifying with works: Whose rich follower , and keeping the holy footsteps, rightly acting as minister, behold, you are present as master.

[51] And you are held a worthy successor of your pious author, and of his heir, and remain fruit-bearing. The father grew after his death, and made you grow: while he takes heaven, you take his place in the citadel. The flock is fed through you in the stead of the alumnus of your predecessor , nor does it grieve its losses, while it holds your gains. To be desired by the brethren, pleasing in honor to the ministers, and dearer to the peoples, as a shepherd you please by love. You the hungry man has for bread, the guest for shelter, the naked for clothing, you the weary for rest, the pilgrim for hope. Doing these things, attend the more, venerable Priest, that you may render the talents committed to you doubled. Praying too for Fortunatus, sweet lover, giving me hope of pardon, may the palm be yours, O father."

[52] He, since he was always most especially devoted to the patronage of St. Martin, built and consecrated several churches ^a in his bishopric in his honor, and the churches built in honor of St. Martin. and in this too imitated his master. Of whom the same Fortunatus says:

"He renewed the ancient temples of God to their former honor."

Of which it is established that that is the chief in which he himself rests in body. Another on a mountain in the district of Wavre ^b, which he illustrated with the relics of blessed Martin. A third in a villa which is called Vasta Domus [c], which we have learned by the relation of the elders to be of his jurisdiction and property.

[53] And thus the venerable and God-worthy Pontiff, illustrious in merits, full of virtues, pleasing to all, His death, burial, the apparition concerning fitting an altar to him; dear to all, when he was now of advanced age, at last is seized by a fever, and obtains the term of his life on the 8th of the Kalends of August. His body was entombed in the church which we mentioned [d]: where it is also now venerated with fitting honor. Which, when it was buried some feet from the altar, in our times to a certain honorable man, by name Berengar, a monk of the same church, the holy Priest appeared through a vision, and commanded that he should fit an altar to the sepulchre.

[54] Which he, valuing it little as the ravings of a dream, which after other apparitions of the Saint was carried into execution. neglected; but he was admonished a second time; the third time rebuked by the priest, he related to the most reverend lord bishop Robert * all that he had seen. Then the bishop, coming to the church, and seeing how the matter stood, according to the command of the holy Priest ordered a holy altar to be fitted to the sepulchre, and above, as is the custom, a pinnacle to be set ^e.

[55] But that church, having long before fallen with age, The churches of St. Martin are recounted and burned with the city itself by the Norman devastation, was committed by Radbod *, bishop of Trier, to the abbot Regino, a certain religious and ecclesiastical man, and by him repaired to its former state ^f: and, as we find in the most ancient privileges of a certain church, that place was always under abbots, because there, as in the other chief churches of the city, was the station, seat, and house of the pontiff, and by the tradition of blessed Magnericus the abbots of that place used the pontifical infulae, and performed the office of the pontiff, only in his absence, at the divine Office alone.

[56] and also the vicissitudes But at the death of the abbot Regino, it was given as a benefice to laymen, and first to Bertoald, brother of bishop Rotger, then to others and others that little abbey was divided ^g. And thus after these things, in the time of duke Albert or Conrad, when there was often the greatest disturbance and sedition of the kingdoms, by the invaders of the holy Church all the bishopric was so plundered, that there was nothing within and outside the city which the malignant invaders did not claim for themselves or snatch away.

[57] of the abbey; There was then no respect toward the priest of God, no reverence for the Church, everywhere plunderings, everywhere burnings: the walls were destroyed,

the churches were violated. Then also that very place, invaded by the enemies of God as if by rabid dogs and wolves, was so destroyed that, besides the walls of the church, not to say the buildings, not even the traces of the foundations remained. That same church too, unroofed and deserted, was sometimes passable to beasts.

[58] which place afterward bishop Theodoric recovered for the monks, Whence at last, led by the highest compassion, the venerable bishop Theodoric, when he had already in his time recovered the place by royal authority, delivered it to a certain religious abbot Angilbert, a servant of God, to be governed, some possessions pertaining to the same place being granted to him, namely that, by instituting a regular life there, there should thenceforth be a dwelling of monks: nor should it any longer be granted as a benefice, so that by this occasion, as it were, the place should be endangered, but, serving God and his Saints, should be subject to the lordship of the bishop, not of tyrants.

[59] and strengthened it by Apostolic authority: Which abbot, namely, making there a monastic habitation, gathered there a small but honorable congregation of monks serving God, and the bishop, rejoicing at his industry and good zeal, when he went to Rome, brought thence an Apostolic testament, by which that place, lately restored, resting on the privilege of the aforesaid tradition, might henceforth remain in its firmness, and, granted to the monks, obey the power of the bishop and no other, and the monks themselves, living regularly according to the constitution of St. Benedict, might have also the election.

[60] over which afterward the author of this Life presided. And thus that place, fortified by the Apostolic precept, when the aforesaid man had governed it for some time, he happily departed from this light; after whom we, who write these things ⁱ, with the bishop assenting ^h, and with the election of the brethren, though unworthy, undertook the ruling of the same cell, and until now, as we can, labor in the vineyard of the Lord, though unprofitable servants: according to what the Lord says to his disciples: "Others have labored, and you have entered into their labors": the same our Lord Jesus Christ helping us, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns through the infinite ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Brower's, "titulus" (title) * Brower's, "Ecclesiæque" (and of the Church) * Brower's, "auspicio" (by the auspice) * Brower's, "canende" (O to be sung) * "informate" * perhaps "opima" (rich) * St. Maximin's, "sagax" (shrewd) * Brower's, "pro te" (for you) * Brower's, "alumne" (O alumnus) * St. Maximin's, "Rothberto" * St. Maximin's, "Rothbodone"