ON ST. CHRISTIANA, VIRGIN,
AT DENDERMONDE IN FLANDERS.
About the Eighth Century.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The relics of the Saint, their translation, and cult; likewise the less ancient Acts.
Christiana, at Dendermonde in Flanders (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR P. B.
Dendermonde is a town fortified by situation and art in Flanders, named from the mouth of the river Dender, which there falls into the Scheldt, at almost the mid-journey between Antwerp and Ghent. It is adorned beyond others by a church, illustrious for a college of canons, [The relics of SS. Hilduard and Christiana were brought from Dickelvenne to Dendermonde in the 9th century;] and sacred to the Virgin Mother of God; but the very church, by the chapel of the holy Hilduard the bishop and Christiana the virgin; who, as it is dedicated to God in their names, so it is enriched with their bodies, once translated thither from Dickelvenne. Now Dickelvenne (which by ancient names some called Ticlivinum or Ticlivinnum, others Tichlinium and Declivium, others Steinburna) is an ancient village, situated in the district of Aalst on the Scheldt between Ghent and Oudenaarde, and once celebrated for the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter, which in the year 1081 migrated thence to Geraardsbergen; where it received the name of St. Adrian. Of this Waesberge treats at greater length in the Geraardsbergen, book 2, chapters 2 and 3. But the occasion and time of this translation is believed by the Belgian authors to have been the most frequent ravaging of the Normans into Gaul and Belgium in the ninth century; when nothing was more usual than that the pledges of the Saints, dug up from their tombs, should be carried to safer places. That this happened, therefore, Lindanus judges, on Dendermonde, book 2, chapter 2, about the year 846, in which, for fear of the barbarous nation, the relics of St. Bavo and St. Pharaildis too were carried elsewhere into safety, as Meyer hands down. With Lindanus agree the not very old manuscript Annals of the monastery of Dickelvenne, now of Geraardsbergen; Emmanuel Sueyro in the Spanish Annals of Belgium; Miraeus in the Belgian Chronicle at the year 750; Sanderus in the Hagiology of Flanders, page 179; Rayssius in the Belgian Hierogazophylacium, page 328; George Salomons in the Flemish Life of SS. Hilduard and Christiana, pages 138 and 147, and others.
[2] (but not in the 11th century,) I know not what impelled our Alford to write this in the Annals of the Anglo-Saxon church, at the year 660, number 44: Nor do I find more concerning Christiana the virgin; except that her sacred remains are said to have been translated to Dendermonde about the year of Christ 1092. Indeed, who said this before him I have seen no one, except Wilson alone in his English Martyrology on the 26th of July: but the authority of this man is of itself slight: as one who, in the first edition of the Martyrology, sets St. Christiana as having died in that year in which, in the second, he writes that she was translated; citing in both places for himself the same Molanus, who asserts neither. I am mistaken if the English Martyrologist has sufficiently distinguished her from another Christina or Christiana, who flourished only in the eleventh century, daughter of Edward, surnamed the Outlaw, of whom in his second edition he makes mention on the 24th of November. Hence he thought, I think, that the translation of our Christiana should be deferred. Occasion for this opinion could also have been given by Saussay in the Martyrology, the 26th of July, somewhat obscurely intimating that the translation was made under Ringotus, lord of Dendermonde, who, according to Lindanus, book 1, chapter 6, died in the year 1106. But neither is the opinion of Saussay clear; nor, however clear it were, probable; since it has no witness for itself. Moreover, as concerns Dickelvenne, it could indeed lose the relics of its Patrons; but not their memory and veneration: and so up to this day its church, according to Cornelius Gestel, History of the archbishopric of Mechlin, volume 2, page 244, venerates as patron St. Hilduard the bishop, to whom it is dedicated; likewise St. Christiana the virgin, daughter of Migranimus king of the English.
[3] But in the same year, month, and day, namely the seventh day before the Ides of September, on the 7th of September: which translation is celebrated by an annual memory; the bones of both Saints together were brought to Dendermonde, Lindanus and others teach; which solemnity indeed excited so great a joy in the town that the church of Dendermonde decreed it should be renewed every year thereafter on that day: witness Molanus, who on the 7th day before the Ides of September adds these things, among others, to his Usuard, from the Fasti proper to that church: Likewise on the same day at Dendermonde, the arrival of the body of blessed Christiana the virgin. Our manuscript Florarium too, on the same day, thus has it: At Dendermonde in Flanders, the translation of St. Christina the virgin. The same the Acts affirm, number 7; the same Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology, in these words: At Dendermonde in the bishopric of Ghent, the reception of St. Christiana the virgin, who, being the daughter of Migramnus king of the English, when at Dickelvenne, in the pure and most sweet service of Christ the spouse of virgins, she had finished the course of virtue; was there buried with great esteem of her sanctity. Afterward, made illustrious by innumerable signs, that she might be endowed with an ampler cult, and be a special protection to the inhabitants, being translated to Dendermonde, in the collegiate church of the most holy Mother of God, laid up with the precious limbs of St. Hilduard, the apostle and patron of the same town, she is honored by the citizens and dwellers of this whole district with a common right of help along with him. We have learned meanwhile, which Salomons also observes, page 153, that now for some time the memory of this translation has begun to be celebrated there on another day, namely the Sunday next after the octave of the dedication of the same basilica; which dedication falls on the Sunday preceding the feast of the beheading of St. John the Baptist toward the end of the month of August.
[4] The relics being translated, so great a veneration was presently shown them by those who had obtained them, that thenceforth the chapel of the Holy Cross, into which they had been laid, [and formerly indeed with a proper Office, no otherwise than the birthdays of the others:] the former name being antiquated, began to be called the chapel of St. Hilduard; as Salomons says, in the little work cited, page 144. Offices too of SS. Hilduard and Christiana were composed; but how ancient, I have not found. These were afterward inserted into the Breviary, for the use of the illustrious collegiate church of the divine Virgin Mary of Dendermonde, printed at Antwerp in the year 1527. Of this Breviary only the winter part it has been permitted me to see; and from it to transcribe the things which, proper to St. Hilduard, were read on his birthday the 29th of December, then on his octave, or the 5th of January: which may be brought forward in their time. The whole Breviary the praised Salomons seems to have had at hand, page 149, when he says that thrice a year from it, in the said church, the Offices of St. Hilduard and St. Christiana were wont to be recited, up to the year 1586; in which, namely, the people of Dendermonde ceased to use that proper Breviary: that is, as I indeed interpret it, on the 26th of July of St. Christiana alone, whose deposition is then celebrated; on the 7th of September of the translation of both; and finally on the 29th of December of St. Hilduard alone, as was just now indicated.
[5] which is assigned to St. Christiana on the 26th of July. There is celebrated, I say, on this day the deposition or birthday of St. Christiana; which, besides our Acts, number 7, the Florarium, written about the middle of the fifteenth century, testifies, which on the 7th day before the Kalends of August thus has it: In Flanders, in the castle of Dendermonde, the deposition of Christiana the virgin. She was the only daughter of the king of the English: to whom God divinely sent His angel in the guise of a poor man; that he might baptize the sweet spouse for himself in the living stream. So great an austerity of life flourished in the said Virgin, and uprightness, that all affirmed she was fed from heaven. And thus the Virgin, spurning the paternal kingdoms, a good end being completed, deserved to possess the heavenly glory. Add Molanus, both in the Nativities of the Saints of Belgium, of which there will be treatment below, and in the additions to Usuard, where from the Dendermonde Proper he writes this: In the city of Dendermonde, of blessed Christiana the virgin: who, being the only daughter of Migranimus king of the English, was most devout toward her gods and idols, according to the tradition of her fathers. Her the almighty God, looking upon, sent to her from heaven an angel in the guise of a poor man, who should catechize her, and commanded her to be baptized in the name of Christ: by whose guidance also she came to Dickelvenne. Molanus is followed by Canisius in the German Martyrology; Lindanus cited above; Miraeus in the Belgian Fasti; Sanderus in the Hagiology of Flanders; Ferrari in the General Catalogue; Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology; Arthur in the Gynaeceum, and other more recent writers; and finally the very church of Dendermonde, constantly observing to this day this celebrity handed down from its elders.
[6] The piety of the people of Dendermonde toward these their Patrons. The piety of the people of Dendermonde toward the patrons and protectors of their city and lordship, SS. Hilduard and Christiana, did not stop here: for besides the anniversary feasts which we have already mentioned, they consecrated moreover one day each week to their cult, on which, at the altar of both, they solemnly sang both Mass in the morning and lauds in the afternoon. A confraternity too was instituted in the name and under the protection of both, approved and confirmed with many indulgences both by the bishop of Ghent, and especially by Alexander VII and Clement X: so much money was collected from every side about the same time as sufficed to fashion an elegant silver shrine, in which the bones of both, taken from a cheaper one, are more honorably preserved: a smaller silver one being added, containing only two little particles of each sacred body, which, when they are offered to the people to be kissed on the third Sunday of each month, a most numerous crowd flocks. And these things indeed, as also several others, Salomons explains at greater length from page 149 to 155; adding that the chief part in accomplishing all these was that of the reverend lord Peter de Solre, from a musician and at the same time chaplain of the archduke Leopold, becoming at last the first canon of Dendermonde; whose most ardent zeal for promoting sacred matters of this kind he so depicts that you may acknowledge him to have followed not so much the court as the piety of so religious a prince.
[7] Now what shall I say of the Acts of St. Christiana? Nothing have we long since more laboriously done The ancient Acts of the Saint have perished: than to draw out from anywhere at all something of a more ancient monument concerning a Saint so near to us; not even her little chest (since nothing sufficiently worthy of her had been able to be found elsewhere) being left untouched: but neither in this, besides the sacred bones, did the most illustrious and most reverend lord Philip Erard, bishop of Ghent, find anything, when, being called upon for this, in the year 1728 he hastened to Dendermonde, no account being had of his great old age, and there himself surveyed the treasure buried there. After so many efforts, therefore, both of our own and above all of our friends, unwilling
and grieving we are brought back to our former and domestic poverty; to the published writers of Belgium, I say; whom, if in the Nativities of the Saints of Belgium you have read Molanus alone, you have read all; for all call him the only one. But he, whom? The proper Office of the church of Dendermonde. But how ancient is that? We know not, as I have already noted; except that, printed only in the year 1527, it first came into public light at Antwerp in a Breviary, of which the summer part could not be found by us, in which that Office of the Saint one might weigh.
[8] But Molanus, in the little work already mentioned, on the 26th of July, Molanus gives a compendium of them from the proper Breviary; touching the matter, without doubt longer, scarcely with his fingertips, contracts it into these words: But of the Lessons of the church of Dendermonde this is the sum: To the knowledge of Christ Christiana was compunct, when she had heard a certain man ask for alms in the name of Christ; and, being also sufficiently catechized, she wished to be called Christiana from Christ. And when she professed virginity, she drew Aurelius the duke, her suitor, to the faith of Christ; and, established in the church of Dickelvenne, with a little band of nuns gathered with her, she passed a holy life. But this His Handmaid He made illustrious with wonderful signs, who in the Gospel says: He that believeth in me, the works that I do, he also shall do. So he there; but too much torn away, by Molanus, from places, times, and other circumstances, than that a right judgment concerning them can safely be passed. Did he excerpt these alone out of all the Lessons, because he less approved the rest? Certainly that there were more, no one will doubt; since these scarcely suffice for one of several Lessons. Meanwhile, with Molanus' so meager a compendium not even Lindanus himself dared to be more copious, much less other writers; if you perhaps except one, Salomons, of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, of Dendermonde.
[9] He in the year 1670, on occasion of the jubilee, granted in that year to the people of Dendermonde by Pope Clement X as being the thousandth from the nativity of St. Hilduard, from whom Salomons brings forward more, composed and published a little book in the vernacular speech. In it he also exhibits the Life of St. Christiana from page 112, at the very beginning citing for himself the ancient Breviary of the church of Dendermonde, and other authors indeed, but who wished to know nothing beyond Molanus; whence you may not ineptly make the conjecture that, if Salomons brings forward anything further, it is drawn from the assigned Breviary, which he himself had. But if this is so; let the learned cease to wonder at the affected brevity in the Molanian epitome. For whatever below will be narrated from the Rooklooster manuscript, from number 1 to 7, all this Salomons also narrates: but he adds besides, page 116, that, when for Christiana's baptism water was lacking, a fountain suddenly burst forth from the earth, which for many years afterward was seen at London, until, about the coming of the anabaptists and other heretics, its vein being either dried up of its own accord, or stopped, it disappeared. Page 117 and following, holy Christiana leads seven companion virgins from heathen superstition to the cult of Christ; consecrates to the same a purged shrine of Venus; and in it herself with her companions institutes for some time a life like the monastic: thus she came to marriageable age; when from her unwary father she extorts an oath that he would not compel her, unwilling, to marriage.
[10] but things which excite admiration rather Meanwhile princely suitors court her; but in vain. Among these a certain Aurelius, either the son of Constantine II king of Scotland, or that other who drew his origin from the Romans, surnamed Ambrosius, when he suffered himself neither to be repelled, nor his superstitions and manners to be freely refuted by Christiana, put his hand to his sword, about to behead the Girl. But, lo, the iron, slipping from his side, of its own accord fled the right hand of the raging man: he is struck down; a suppliant he begs pardon; is converted to Christ; and, a fountain being again raised from the earth at Christiana's prayers, is washed. While thus, both in England and in Scotland, the apostolic Virgin bears to Christ several others, she kindles against herself the hatred, in either kingdom, of the pagans or heretics; which that she may avoid, she crosses over into Belgium with her companions, and at Dickelvenne with them cultivates a monastic manner of life. This was done either in the times of St. Hilduard flourishing there (whom Salomons establishes to have preached there from about the year 745 to 750) or a little later. Moreover, at her very arrival at this place two prodigies happened; for first Christiana, with the sign of the cross, drove away a demon who, feigning himself an old anchorite, persuaded her not to go to Dickelvenne. Then on the same journey, when thirst pressed her and her companions through the groves, by her prayers she drew a fountain from a rock, springing even now and salutary to those who draw from it. Finally, having led there for some time a most holy life, she closed it with a blessed end. There are those who would have her to have suffered martyrdom; but concerning this matter I find nothing certain, says Salomons. Would that, if indeed he found anything certain about all the rest, which we have here summarily related from him, he had brought it forward!
[11] than credit: For who would believe that in the eighth century, now full grown, there survived pagan kings in England; and that at London, which is reckoned the most ancient see of bishops in the whole kingdom; whose series, at least from the year of Christ 658, is never afterward interrupted in Alford? The same concerning Scotland and Aurelius no one would easily admit, who has even cursorily inspected the histories of that kingdom. But that this Aurelius should be established either the son of Constantine II, or Aurelius Ambrosius, who will not wonder? Certainly a son Aurelius of Constantine II king of Scotland we have hitherto been ignorant of. Yet suppose there was one; will you feign that the son of a Christian father was a heathen; or one earlier than the middle of the ninth century? And will he make this man a suitor of St. Christiana, who had already stood at Dickelvenne in the time of St. Hilduard, or a little after? Concerning Aurelius Ambrosius, who flourished in the fifth century, the matter is so absurd that it ought not even to be refuted. It will strike, I believe, even the sensible reader, what is narrated concerning the parents of the Saint: for if these were so professed worshipers of the gods; tell me, how could they further love a Girl by whom their statues and altars were cast down, and a shrine consecrated by Christian rite, which they could neither be ignorant of, nor indeed tolerate? Did Christiana convert these too to Christ? Why, then, had she to flee into Belgium to assert and cultivate her religion? Why should I pursue the rest, so full of prodigies, that all of them, if they are true, would deservedly have had to be commended to writing? Meanwhile of these neither the Scots nor the English made any mention: so that in vain did Salomons, page 121, think that anything of help for this history was left to him from their libraries.
[12] So far is it that even the Saint herself was ever known to the Fasti of the Scots; since none of these things is written among the English or Scots. which is clear from Dempster and Camerarius. Of the English the first to have known her seems to be Wilson; but from Molanus only, and that very obscurely, as we proved above in number 2. Our Alford also knew her, in the Annals of the Anglo-Saxon church, at the year of Christ 660, number 43; but not from the monuments of his country, in which nevertheless he was most versed, but from Miraeus, Saussay, Wilson only: for he denies that he found anything concerning St. Christiana, except in these authors. And so, since he had read nothing concerning her age in them, In what time, he says, Christiana lived, I do not find: but because it is constantly asserted that she descended from the royal stock of the English, and, taught by her parents, at one time worshiped the gods and idols, she seems to be referred rather to this than to the following century. So he, and indeed cautiously enough according to the English history.
[13] Our countrymen, however, whoever assign any time, will have her to have come to Dickelvenne, The age of the Saint; St. Hilduard surviving, led by this argument: St. Christiana came hither, that she might quietly exercise the catholic religion: but she could not have before St. Hilduard, who first brought the Christian faith hither, and at length imbued with it Magriptius the lord, before a most hostile enemy of the Christian name in this district: therefore she did not come before these times. But neither is she to be said to have come much later, since she had heathen kings for parents, such as it is scarcely credible survived longer in England. Since therefore St. Hilduard died in the year 750 (as all with one accord believe Meyer), they establish that Christiana came hither either a little before, or a little later. This subtle reasoning will waver, if either with Lindanus you deny that the catholic religion took its beginnings there from Hilduard; or if you make Hilduard himself more ancient: for his Acts are most intricate. But these things we defer to be discussed in their place, following meanwhile the received chronology.
[14] It remains now that I subjoin the Life of St. Christiana, such as it is; and the Life, which we subjoin. not because it is ancient, or of great value; but because less recent than all the rest which we have hitherto brought forward concerning the Acts of this Virgin: for it is taken from the second part of the Hagiology of the Brabantines, which is preserved in manuscript among the canons regular of St. Augustine in Rooklooster near Brussels, collected of old by John Gieleman, canon and subprior there; who, after several collections of this kind, on which he seems to have spent his age, died (according to Valerius Andreas in the Belgian Library) in the year of the Lord 1487; that is, altogether forty years before the printed proper Breviary of the church of Dendermonde, which was the only storehouse in this matter for Molanus and the more recent writers. This Life is therefore of almost the same age as the eulogy which in number 5 we recited from the manuscript Florarium of the Saints, as the most ancient monument, which indeed we could find written, of the public cult in the Church formerly shown to St. Christiana: for confirming which, even if there were no other cause, as they can be of very great weight, so these Acts ought by no means to be omitted; at least in that part which pertains to Christiana: for the things which toward the end are joined concerning St. Hilduard, we shall here cut off; that they may be reserved for their own time. Behold, therefore, the Life itself with the Prologue, which is referred by the author to the much shorter history of Hilduard no less than to the longer one of St. Christiana.
Annotated* read "Christiana," as below.
* or "to be fed"? pasci
LIFE
By the author John Gieleman, from a manuscript of the monastery of Rooklooster.
Christiana, at Dendermonde in Flanders (S.)
BHL Number: 1745
PROLOGUE.
Why the Acts of the Saints are to be sought out and written. The greatest zeal is to be applied by us in seeking out the deeds of the Saints; because precious in the sight of the Lord is their death; as indeed was also their praiseworthy life: for it is no little disadvantage if they be unknown to us; but it will be reckoned to us as the greatest loss, if they be not faithfully and profitably sought out by us. We know indeed that they, for the Lord, despised temporal things, and sought heavenly things with their whole heart, and thus, the course of their combat being finished, the divine clemency aiding, passed to eternal glory; because, according to the testimony of sacred Scripture, the just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Thus therefore the Saints
are diligently to be venerated by us, that by their interventions we may deserve to be found sharers of the glory which they received. Hence it is that we here recount, in compendium, the Lives of the Saints whose bodies after death were translated to our parts a: whose virtuous deeds, while they are read by the faithful, afford an incitement of faith; and, lest we fall from the way of God, touch our minds by examples, and admonish, lest they grow slothful from the love of God.
Annotated
HISTORY.
FROM A MANUSCRIPT.
In those days there was a certain Migranimus by name, king of the English a, most powerful indeed in family, The gentile parents, while they ask offspring of the idols, riches, power, and glory; but straying in the error of gentilism, and worshiping and venerating gods deaf, blind, and mute with the rite of religion. He took to himself a wife, praiseworthy for her freeborn ancestors, who was called Marona, and was reported to be sprung from Alba b. She too, since she was a gentile, glowed with no mean devotion toward the cult of idols, giving them honor, and with solicitous heart bestowing libations. And so both were free for this, to appease with diligent service the gods whom they believed they had in something offended: for, having lived together a long time, they could have the faculty of begetting no offspring; and therefore, instant with continual prayers, they supplicated the idols, that they might deserve to have offspring, who should be the heir of their affairs, and, according to their vows, succeed to the helm of the kingdom.
[2] O senseless ones, to be compared to stones! What do you ask to be heard by deaf ones? obtain from the true God an only daughter; For they are not gods to whom you pay vows; but the work of the hands of men, nay demons. But almighty God, the maker of all creation, and the knower of all things before they are made, without whom nothing is conceived, nothing generated, would not have them defrauded of their desire, would not have them deprived of their wished-for vow: for He granted them to generate the only Daughter whom they had asked: at whose birth it is not to be told how great an exultation, how great a joy comes to the parents; the kinsfolk rejoice, the neighbors rejoice, those subject to the royal dominion also rejoice.
[3] When she was being weaned, and advanced in the strength of a greater age, she showed herself amiable to all, who also herself was altogether devoted to the idols; and prepared herself for the cult of the idols with an exquisite religion: for which reason her father, building a temple in honor of Venus, established in it, with the necessary provisions, seven girls, who, remaining in virginity, should there continually serve, that by their supplications his Daughter might be made partaker of a good marriage, and enjoy the gift of health and a longer life. She, more religiously than the rest an observer and imitator of the paternal tradition, was present together with those sacrificing; she, humbly supplicating Venus, scarcely departed from the thresholds of the temple: for she believed that the power of divinity was in it; she believed that it had the power of hearing the vows of those crying out to it: nor is it a wonder; since she venerated and held the rite of that cult which her father had taught her; and what her nation worshiped c, she too uniformly frequented and practiced.
[4] But the Savior of the world, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of His name, until, the name of Christ being heard, did not long suffer her to remain in the peril of that error; and He who visited Paul persecuting the church, visited her worshiping idols. For on a certain day it happened that a certain poor man, in the guise of a pilgrim, asked alms of her, beseeching her in the name of Christ that she would open to him the bowels of mercy in giving. Hearing therefore the invocation of this name, she began to wonder who he might be; thinking that he was some great one, for whose name what was asked she ought not to deny. Whence she made him repeat the name of Christ: of whose essence she began more subtly to inquire the quality. Now the divine fire had kindled her mind, now her heart glowed with the illumination of the heavenly inspiration.
[5] she was led by an angel, who had put on the form of a poor man, to a presbyter, And so, to her inquiring more diligently concerning Christ, the aforesaid poor man answered that He was the Lord of all creation, and the Redeemer from sins of all who trust and believe in Him. There is, said he, in this city a certain presbyter, who knows how to lead believers to the knowledge of Christ; but promise me that thou wilt patiently hear him in all things, and it will not be irksome to me, when it is necessary to thee, to present him to thy sight. But she, hearing these things, rejoiced, promising that she would assent in all things which she should believe were announced to her as pertaining to the salvation of her soul. These things said, each hastened, the one to see the presbyter, the other to bring him. The pilgrim goes therefore and returns: and presently the priest is presented. Whence let no one of the faithful doubt that the pilgrim himself was an angel of God.
[6] who, having instructed her, baptizing her, called her Christiana. Therefore the priest withdrew to a secluded place with her: to whom he declared how, the first parent sinning, all his posterity, descending into hell, yielded to the diabolical power; and how the Son of God was made man and crucified; but rising on the third day, as God, burst the gates of hell, and freed His own from the power of the devil: and he added that no one, however, can be made partaker of the heavenly glory, unless he be born again of the font of baptism. Wherefore, if thou wilt, said he, be freed from eternal death, and enjoy perpetual life, thou hast need to be washed in this laver of regeneration. And when she had answered that she wished to do what he exhorted, presently a little vessel with water is prepared there d, and in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit she is baptized: who, asking that she might receive a name from Christ, was called Christiana.
[7] [a miracle in the baptism; perpetual virginity; a holy life and death; the translation.] But what miracle the Lord there showed is not to be covered with a cloud of silence: for from the time she went down into the font, a splendor whiter than snow, coming from heaven, shone round about both, not departing thence until, the mystery of baptism being completed, she came out of the laver e. Whom, strengthened in the hope of the future life, confirmed in the faith of the Trinity, and bound with the bond of charity, that priest admonished to serve God in fear, and to keep the flower of her virginity inviolate; which through her whole life she strove to do with all diligence. Whence it is established that, by the abundance of virtues which in this life, while she lived, she gathered by living well and holily and praiseworthily, she deserved the eternal glory with which Christ made her blessed in the heavens.
But her festivity is celebrated on the 7th day before the Kalends of August; but her translation, together with the translation of St. Hilduard the bishop and confessor f, into a city formerly of Brabant g, now of Flanders, Dendermonde h, on the 7th day before the Ides of September.