ON SS. HILARIUS AND VALERIUS, BISHOPS OF CARCASSONNE IN OCCITANIA.
Notice of cult from more recent writers.
IV CENTURY.
Notice of cult from more recent writers.
Hilarius, Bishop of Carcassonne in the Occitan province of Gaul (S.) Valerius, Bishop of Carcassonne in the Occitan province of Gaul (S.)
G. H.
Carcasso, to posterity Carcassona, in Narbonese Gaul an ancient and Episcopal city of the Volcae Tectosages, pertaining to today's Occitania or lower Languedoc, on the bank of the river Aude, and nearly midway between Toulouse and Perpignan, Eulogy of S. Hilarius, from Catel, numbers among its Bishops SS. Hilarius and Valerius: concerning whom William Catel in book 5 of his History of Languedoc, while at page 1004 he deals with the Bishops of Carcassonne, writes these things: S. Hilarius, at what time he was Bishop of Carcassonne, is unknown. His mention is celebrated in the ancient Martyrology of this Church. When Peter Auxillon (whom he asserts died in 1512) was visiting the churches of his Carcassonne diocese, and coming to the Church and Abbey of S. Hilarius of Carcassonne, was inquiring of the Monks the foundation; and from the Sammarthani; they answered that it had been lost; but that it was held by ancient tradition, that it had been founded by S. Hilarius Bishop of Carcassonne in honor of God, the Virgin Mother of God, and SS. Hilarius and Saturninus, and founded with great revenues. The feast of this S. Hilarius of Carcassonne is celebrated on June 3. Thus Catel. The Sammarthani also make him founder of the Abbey of the same name near Carcassonne, and resting there under a marble tomb, to be venerated with the highest veneration, in the Martyrology of the Cathedral Church on January 3. Nay, on June 3. The other is S. Valerius, Bishop there, of whom Catel asserts nothing is found, Of S. Valerius from both: except that his name is in the Calendar of the Missal, written for the use of the Narbonese Church, in a very ancient Gothic character, on the third day of June. Which the Sammarthani report as described from there.
[2] Of both an eulogy in the Supplement of Saussay, on this III of June, Of both from Saussay. exists of this kind: On the same day in the province of Narbonne, of the Holy Confessors and likewise Pontiffs Hilarius and Valerius, who by their proper turns governed most holily the Church of Carcassonne, of which they were Bishops: of whom the one, namely S. Hilarius, shone with such celebrity of merits, that, ascribed by the Mother Church of Narbonne to the proper Tutelary saints of its province, he is consigned in the sacred diptychs to be venerated with perpetual honors. But in the Carcassonne diocese itself his memory, ennobled also by a church and monastery of his own name, brings forth the perennial devotion of the inhabitants toward him, who is venerated also in the Diocese of S. Pons of Thomières from ancient custom. Time of his See. Thus there. At what time they lived is not sufficiently established. The first is held to be the Bishop S. Guimera, of whom we treated on February 13, then are substituted SS. Hilarius and Valerius, then Sergius, who was present at the Council of Toledo in the year 589, so that, if credit be given to the Catalogues, they flourished before him.
D. P.
[3] After these things prepared by Henschenius, there came into my hands the Historical Chronicle of the Bishops and Memorable Things of the Church of Carcassonne, The former seems to have flourished before the 5th century by Gerard de Vic, Presbyter and Canon, published in 1667; where it is said that S. Hilarius lived at the time when the Arian heresy was prevailing against the Church, namely after the year 376. For at that time, he says, or rather below, the Goths began to occupy Narbonese Gaul, and at the same time to embrace the Arian heresy; rather I would say, to promote it: for they began to embrace it in their former seat at the Danube, whence they came into the Narbonese province, as I have shown in the Acts of S. Sabas the Goth on April 12. Then, citing the Ms. Breviary of the monastery named after that Saint, the same Gerard relates that B. Hilarius, performing the office of Bishop in his diocese, together with twelve nearest Bishops, consecrated an altar, from the rear part of which the relics of his Body now rest: but the Body itself, drawn from the earth where it had first been deposited, and brought over the altar by Bishop Franco, gave forth a most sweet odor; also with two blind men, of whom one had been such from birth, recovering their sight. Thus he, page 35.
[4] But on page 56, dealing with Franco himself, he says, that on the 8th of the Kalends of March in the year 970, otherwise on the very Kalends in the year 978, translated in the year 970 or 978 when Roger was Count of the Province, with Benedict Abbot presiding, together with the nearest Roger Count and Garin Abbot, he decreed that, a Council having been entered upon along with the comprovincial Bishops and Abbots, the body of the most holy and admirable Prelate, the illustrious Lord Hilarius, behind the altar, which the same outstanding and holy Hilarius had consecrated together with the twelve nearer Bishops, with honor and piety, as was fitting, they should place in a worthy tomb… Therefore, on the appointed day of the Kalends of March, there assembled Count Roger, March 1, with his wife Alaida, Franco the Bishop, and the Abbots Garin and Benedict, with other Clerics and most illustrious men; and on the day following by the same it was deposited behind the small altar (as the old monument of the translated body has) in a stone chest; and on either side, the bodies of Benedict and Celsus, his foster-sons or disciples. About these I gladly would learn whether and what proper day of cult they have: for Saussay does not mention them.
[5] At what time that monastery was founded is not clear, for in the year 817 Louis the Pious names it among the monasteries which (as devastated by barbarians, and only beginning to be restored, and slender in resources) he wishes to be held to the giving of the subsidy of prayers alone. The monastery named after him. There is also hidden the name of the Count of Carcassonne, to whom, fighting against enemies, S. Hilarius appeared through the air, to be most near at hand, bringing supply and aid, when he was in peril of victory: the memory of which benefit bound the Count to building a monastery; or, if already built, to enriching it with great revenues. Otherwise I would not have omitted to note, what Gerard indicates, that the name of S. Valerius alone is held written on this day in the Calendar of the Missal, for the use of the Narbonese Church in a most ancient Gothic character, whence he seems to doubt whether it is sufficiently certain that they are to be distinguished, between whom none is found to have been intermediate. Doubt is increased, because no mention is made of the body; yet it seems safer to stand by the use of the Carcassonne Church.