Claudius

ON SAINT CLAUDIUS,

BISHOP OF BESANÇON AND ABBOT OF THE JURA.

IN THE YEAR 581.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Concerning the monastery, age, life, miracles, and cult of the Saint.

Claudius, Bishop of Besançon and Abbot of the Jura, in Burgundy (St.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

Among the ancient Sequani, in the present-day

County of Burgundy, there stands a mountain

high and widely extended, to which from antiquity

the name Jura was given, and it remains so

up to now. The Jura monastery, called Condatescense, In a part of this, toward

Bresse and Bugey, St. Romanus

began the solitary life, whose Acts we have illustrated

on the 28th of February. To Romanus there came his brother

St. Lupicinus, whose Acts likewise we have given on the 21st of March;

both of them moreover raised up there the monastery of Condat,

which afterward the Abbot St. Eugendus governed,

related by us on the Kalends of January; and from him that

monastery was afterward called the monastery of St. Eugendus, after St. Eugendus, commonly

St. Oyan, until the twelfth century of Christ,

as is established below from the Life and miracles of St. Claudius; from whom

named in the following centuries was the monastery, at the same time

and the town joined to it, no otherwise up to our

times, Now St. Claudius: than as St. Claudius it is commonly called. The cause all attribute

to the presence of the Body and the miracles wrought there,

and the solemn pilgrimages of various peoples thither.

The Reverend Father Peter Verne of the Society

of Jesus at La Flèche described to us, on the Ides of December in the year 1666, some

pilgrimage of his, and the various sacred Relics which on it

he venerated, and among other things he reports these: When

five years ago, going from Annecy, where rests the body of

St. Francis de Sales, I was passing through Mount Jura in

the borders of the Helvetii, I visited the temple of St. Claudius,

and there I touched the body of that great Saint, which

still remains whole, where this man's body is whole. but almost juiceless and

dry. In the miracles of later times of

which below, nothing is read more frequently than that the sick admitted to the kisses

of the Saint's feet were freed from their

infirmities; wherefore I took care that a drawing of him lying in his

shrine, as accurate as could be, should be sought, which

I would here represent engraved in copper, but I have not yet received it.

[2] He was born in the year 484 St. Claudius flourished chiefly in the sixth century, born

about the year 484; who, when he was twenty years

of age, was received as a Canon of the Cathedral Church

of Besançon, about the year 504. Then, twelve years

being completed, he was elected Bishop, ordained Bishop in the year 516,

about the year 516. The proof of this reckoning is had from

the Council, held at Epaon under St. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, in the year

517, celebrated on the 15th of September, to which subscribed

Claudius, in the name of Christ Bishop of the Church

of Besançon. In the same or the following year was held

the Council of Lyon, to which also there consented, in

the name of Christ, Bishop Claudius; with no name

of his own See affixed to him or to the other Bishops; yet we

judge that this was St. Claudius, Bishop

of Besançon; to whom also St. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne,

must have addressed letter LVI, which among the

letters and other little works Jacobus Sirmondus published.

But in the seventh year of his Episcopate, of Christ

523, he withdrew into the monastery of St. Eugendus, where

he was made Abbot, in the five hundred and twenty-sixth year

(not six hundredth, Abbot in the year 526 as was written by error),

while St. John held and

approved the Apostolic See. This is St. John, the first Pope of that name,

who in the said year 526 ended his life at Ravenna, and is venerated

on the 27th of May, on which day we gave his Acts. And when the

fifty-fifth year was completed, from the time when he

was elected Abbot, he passed to the Lord (therefore about

the year 581); and for five hundred fifty-four

years, died in the year 581. with miracles constantly increasing, he rested in

the church of Blessed Eugendus: namely up to the year

1135, in which the shorter Life may seem to have been written, with

some miracles, to which others and others were successively

joined; for in them is noted the time of Frederick

Emperor of the Romans, and of Alexander presiding over the Apostolic

See. This moreover is Alexander the third,

elected on the 6th of September of the year 1159; which was also the

fifth year from when Frederick had been crowned Emperor at Rome,

which was done on the 19th of June of the year 1155.

And this is the more certain reckoning of time, deduced from the

Acts themselves; for which, why they were so late written, no more probable

reason can be given than that the man's sanctity, worthy of public

cult, did not become known earlier, through the incorruption

of his body, revealed perhaps by some chance or miracle;

to which soon began votive pilgrimages; by which

finally it came about that what was first called the monastery of St. Eugendus

began to be called that of SS. Eugendus and Claudius,

and finally to be called by the name of St. Claudius alone; so that

it is no wonder if for those wishing to order the Chronology

the conjectures stood so uncertain, as I shall soon say.

[3] We give therefore in the first place the shorter Life from a Manuscript

codex of the monastery of St. Claudius, The Life is given, collected from a 12th-century Manuscript, sent to us by Peter Francis Chifflet,

written (as we have already said) in the twelfth century

of Christ. And from that Life were taken

the Lessons of the very old Breviary of the Church of Besançon,

written on parchment, as also of the Breviary

of Maurienne of the year 1512, of Autun 1534, of Langres

and others. We then subjoin the longer Acts, composed and interpolated

long afterward, in which at no. 10 he is called

Saint, and other things then interpolated, worker of miracles, concerning which there exist

books, namely (as will be established below) written in the twelfth

century of Christ and following. This Author

added to the things narrated by himself various circumstances,

which do not consist with the Chronology already assigned,

to be reported below in the Annotations and more conveniently rejected.

These Acts were lately published by Mabillon, and before him

John James Chifflet in the second part of the Besançon

history from page 139, and he exhibits a reckoning of time very

different from ours; published by John James Chifflet, which his brother

Peter Francis also did, having promised to deduce each thing more fully

in his Tract on this monastery of the Jura; but

this Tract, long since expected, we do not know

whether he advanced beyond the first thoughts, distracted by many other things

which meanwhile he published. The reckoning received from him

meanwhile the Sammarthani published, in the fourth Volume of Gallia

Christiana in the monastery of the Jura; not sufficiently mindful of those things

which in the first Volume in the Archbishops of Besançon

they had published with a discrepancy of nearly a hundred years. Meanwhile

Mabillon followed the Chifflets in volume 2 on the Saints

of the Benedictine Order, by Mabillon, perhaps because he could more conveniently ascribe

St. Claudius to it, if he were believed to have lived up to the year

698.

[4] Laurentius Surius says he found the same Acts in

style changed, on this 6th day of June. But that

printed codex seems to be either the Legend of Claudius de

Rota, in Claudius de Rota, printed in the year 1531, in which it is contained in chapter 177;

or rather the Appendix or Supplement to the Catalogue

of Peter de Natalibus, printed at Lyon in the year

1514, and bearing an altogether deceitful title, On

the Saints most recently Canonized. For that Catalogue

had been printed at Vicenza in the year 1493, and in the Lyon Supplement of Peter de Natalibus. under the care of

Antonio Verso of Vicenza; who at the end of the book deemed

it not useless to append the deeds of certain Saints,

omitted by Peter, from their histories as

briefly as he could, the order of time only

preserved. This Supplement consists of 25 Chapters, to which

the Lyon Editor gave that fallacious title,

as if all whose Lives he thus gives were really expressly

Canonized, and that recently, which of all is not proven;

and to the Supplement thus badly entitled are added

three new Chapters on the Palm Branches, on

the Lord's Supper, and on St. Claudius, as if St. Claudius too

had only about the beginning of the 15th century at last been

enrolled among the Saints. The matters of the same man, done in his life and death, at Lyon

in the year 1627 published, but in the French language,

Henry Buget, the great Justice of those territories; While more recent miracles are awaited, but

drawn chiefly from the already cited Latin Acts,

to which are subjoined more than a hundred miracles, selected from an infinite

(as at no. 101 the Author writes) multitude of those

which from the year 1340 up to the year 1607,

by the intercession and merits of St. Claudius, were wrought.

These therefore, rendered into Latin, we shall give, unless meanwhile we obtain

those great volumes, from which, preserved in the monastery itself,

far more can be had, as Buget states beforehand;

or unless another do that which we were about to do, and that

in Latin or at least in the original phrasing. But meanwhile, the older things are given from a Manuscript Codex,

while we await one or the other, and therefore defer making

anything from French into Latin, the Reader will have

both Lives, and those Miracles which, the first Life already

composed, we have said began to be written in the 12th century.

[5] The antiquity of the cult, at least moderate, is abundantly

testified by the above-cited Manuscript Breviary of the Church of Besançon; Ancient cult in various Breviaries,

in which, besides the Lessons indicated above,

there are Hymns, Antiphons, and proper Responsories about

the Saint, which can be seen there. I propose only the Prayer

which is of this kind. Almighty everlasting

God, who art the wonderful splendor of thy Saints,

and who on this present day didst exalt Blessed Claudius thy Confessor

and Pontiff with the glory of eternal

blessedness; grant in thy mercy that we, whose

merits we venerate on earth, by the help of his intercession,

may be defended with thy mercy in heaven. on account of the uncorrupted body translated in the year 1243

This same Prayer is proposed to be recited in the Breviary

of Besançon, which in the year 1590 according to the Council of Trent's

decree was printed: likewise in that of Maurienne, of Auxerre,

of Langres, and others, but with a few changes also

in that of Autun cited above. To this moreover pertains the diligence

of Humbert de Buenc the Abbot, who in the year 1243

took care to have silver reliquaries skillfully wrought, in which

the bodies of SS. Eugendus and Claudius might be enclosed, as

Mabillon indicates toward the end of the Life.

[6] Among the Martyrologies prescribing this Saint to be venerated,

in antiquity and authority the first is that of Blessed Rabanus

Maurus, Archbishop of Mainz, memory in various Martyrologies: written about

the year 850, where it is read thus: On the 8th before the Ides of June, the Deposition

of Blessed Claudius the Bishop. To Rabanus succeed very many

copies of Usuard, variously augmented in various places, uncertain

at what time, and namely the Brussels Manuscript

of St. Gudula, and the one printed at Paris in the year 1536. To these

are added the Florarium of the Saints, the Manuscript Grevenus and Molanus

in the Additions to Usuard, Maurolycus, Felicius,

Canisius, Saussay, and others, with the present Roman

Martyrology. The same Ghini reported in the Birthdays of the Holy

Canons, and to the Benedictine Martyrologies

he was ascribed by Wion, Dorganius, Menardus,

Bucelinus, with Mabillon reported above; and

Wion indeed asserts that he was created Bishop of Besançon

in the year 624, and that the Bishop attended the Council

of Epaon, namely a hundred and seven years before

he was ordained: because that Council was celebrated in the year 517.

Thus the same Wion had established that St. Romanus,

the first Abbot and founder of the Jura, flourished

about the year of the Lord 564, whom at his Acts on the 28th

of February we proved to have ended his life a hundred years earlier, namely about

the year 460. Why might not by a similar reckoning the year 626 have been intruded in place

of the year 526, not so much of the Episcopal as of the Abbatial

rule, as we said above. Moreover on the Nones of June,

in the diocese of Lyon, the memory of St. Claudius Archbishop of Besançon

is celebrated, also on the 5th and 7th of June in a certain Martyrology of the Besançon

Church of St. Stephen, in the above-cited

John James Chifflet, page 149. On which day also

he is mentioned in the Martyrology of Bellinus, more fully printed at Paris

under the date of the year 1521; but on the 7th day in

the Pseudo-Bede, and on the 12th of January: and also in Galesinius and Canisius.

But on the 12th of January the same Bishop Claudius is

inscribed in a certain Calendar of the Order of St. Benedict, but

not very ancient. Finally Charles Bartholomew

Piazza, in the Sanctuary or perpetual Roman Menology,

asserts that on this 6th of June the solemn festivity of St. Claudius

is celebrated at Rome, solemnity at Rome. in the Church of the Burgundians,

near the Church of St. Mary in the Way.

APPENDIX

Description of the Work, left by Peter Francis Chifflet.

Claudius, Bishop of Besançon and Abbot of the Jura, in Burgundy (St.)

D. P.

[7] Thus far Henschenius; after whose death, eight years

having elapsed, I received at Paris, by the kindness of Father John

Hardouin, whatever from old monuments everywhere

collected, or elaborated by his own effort concerning the

Saints, Chifflet had left behind, The fourfold Work of Peter Francis Chifflet of pious memory. having ended his life in our College of Clermont;

and among these a huge work, to which,

begun about sixty years ago, I find this Title finally

made: The Sanctuary of the Jura monastery of Condat,

founded thirteen centuries ago,

which is the head of the monastic Order in the Province

of the Sequani; in the middle ages from St. Eugendus or Augendus,

but five hundred years ago more frequently

named from St. Claudius; divided into four parts.

PREFACE TO THE READER.

The Author seems to have deferred this to the time of making the edition:

certainly nothing of his appeared after his death,

prepared for public light.

PART ONE.

Chronicle of the Abbots of the monastery of St. Augendus of the Jura,

or of St. Claudius, deduced from the first Founder St. Romanus

up to our own times.

PART TWO.

On the first Abbots of the monastery of Condat,

Romanus, Lupicinus, and Augendus, by an anonymous author

contemporary of St. Augendus, who seems to have been Pragmatius

the Presbyter.

The Lives of the Holy Abbots Lupicinus and Romanus,

by Gregory of Tours the Bishop, in the book on the Lives

of the Fathers, chapter one.

JURA ILLUSTRATIONS.

Chapter I. On the author who wrote the Lives of Saints Romanus, Lupicinus,

and Augendus: that he seems to be

Pragmatius the Presbyter. On John and Armentarius

to whom they are dedicated. The plan and title of the work itself.

Incidentally, on the Lives of the Saints, published by an anonymous author.

II. Whether St. Romanus began to inhabit the Jura forest

while Gratian was emperor? Whether in his hermitage he could have

been visited by St. Martin Bishop of Tours, still

surviving among the living.

III. Whether the place called Villae-Jurenses comes up in

the Life of St. Romanus.

IV. What the school of Eugendus is in the letter of Avitus of Vienne,

XVII, to Viventiolus the Presbyter.

V. The various names of the Claudian monastery. The Serre-Jura

tract. Which are the Jura monasteries in

Apollinaris Sidonius?

VI. Whether the monastery of Condat was the first and

most ancient among the Sequani? The borders of the Sequani and

the Segusiani.

VII. Whether by St. Romanus was founded and named

the Roman monastery in the diocese of Lausanne,

which is now a Cluniac Priory, cursed by the Helvetii?

VIII. Which monasteries of the Sequani seem to be derived from the Jura ones

in olden time. Incidentally on Saints

Ymiterius and Maurus.

IX. On the Priories established everywhere on earth,

which look to the monastery of St. Claudius, as members to their

head.

X. A question is proposed, what meaning has

the Lyon Interamnis in the Life of St. Romanus.

First it is established what the Island was to Polybius and Livy, to

which Hannibal after crossing the Rhône, on his fourth

encampment, arrived.

XI. The manifold notion of Interamnis. That by the word Lyon Interamnis

nothing else is signified than the old

monastery at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône,

commonly called Athanicense, or Athanatense.

XII. On the cause of Hilary of Arles, and Celidonius

the Besançon Archbishops, agitated at Rome before

St. Leo the Pope, the first. Three Bishops named Leontius

are distinguished: of Fréjus, of Arles, and of Besançon.

XIII. On Hilperic or Chilperic, King of the Burgundians,

what benefit he conferred upon the Jura Monks.

There were two Kings of that name for that people.

XIV. The Equestrian Territory, the municipality of Nugudunum.

It is shown that in the Equestrian Colony or Nividunum

there was a Bishopric, Belley being already founded,

and that the see of Belley was never translated from Nividunum.

XV. The kiss impressed on lepers by St. Romanus.

A certain Maxentius the Monk, on account of elation of mind,

seized by a demon. The secrets of hearts unknown to us,

and the counsels of God. The reading over the table. Gregory

of Neocaesarea, surnamed the Great.

XVI. The controversy of Agrippinus and Aegidius, illustrated

by the testimonies of old writers, with the reckoning of times

noted: on the Countship of the one and the Mastership of the other.

XVII. The Countship. The pledge of the treaty. The kiss

of the right hand in giving surety. What is a Fidedictus? Prayer to

the Saints still surviving, yet placed far off. Apparitions

of Saints still living. Efficacious

prayer with penance. Asylum. The Confession of St. Peter.

What was a solidus in olden time?

XVIII. On the Granary of the Jura Monks, in

which St. Lupicinus the Abbot, the grain being multiplied, drove off

an impending famine from his own.

XIX. Agannum, Isarvodorum, Balma. What

was the language of the ancient Gauls, and how manifold.

XX. What the sixth hour is in the Life of St. Eugendus, what in

the Gospel.

XXI. On St. Leonianus the Abbot. The threefold Caracalla,

urban, military, and monastic.

XXII. On Syagria the matron of Lyon, fully healed by St. Augendus.

On occasion, on St. Syagrius of Lyon,

who is commonly Sicarius.

XXIII. Which are the places of the Aërians neighboring the Jura

monasteries, from which already in the age of St. Eugendus

cooked salt was sought.

XXIV. Whatever Acts of the Agaunum Martyrs,

praised by Pragmatius, we now bring forth complete from a very old manuscript

codex, the author being Eucherius

Bishop of Lyon.

XXV. The Acts of the same Agaunum Martyrs

interpolated by more recent writers, now from manuscript

codices more corrected than those which have hitherto appeared.

XXVI. On the informing of the monastery of Agaunum,

the book cited, and written by the author of the Life of St. Augendus,

now for the first time given to light by us.

XXVII. Some Observations on the aforementioned little work.

The accurate chronology of the twelve first Abbots of Agaunum,

written a thousand years ago.

XXVIII. What kind of Perpetual Praise was instituted in the Agaunum

monastery, enriched by the munificence of King Sigismund.

XXIX. On the flask of oil of St. Martin, which in the fire of the whole

monastery of Condat remained unharmed.

On occasion, on the sacred flask of the same Saint,

which in the Greater monastery of Tours is said to be still

preserved.

XXX. On the Rule of the first Jura Fathers:

its sources and principal heads: the manner of their food and

clothing: and on the enclosure of the Nuns in the Convent

of St. Romanus of the rock.

XXXI. At what time first, on what occasion

the Rule of St. Benedict was introduced into the Jura monastery of St. Eugendus.

XXXII. The land or domain of the Abbey of St. Augendus, not

by Gratian the Emperor, not by Chilperic, not by

Clovis II, the Kings, but by Charlemagne first

conferred, and circumscribed by its limits.

XXXIII. On the fifth year of Childebert, of which

mention is made in Dagannotus, the ninth Jura Abbot.

XXXIV. The violated limits of the Jura domain Frederick

I the Emperor sanctions by a new privilege, which

the following Emperors also confirmed.

PART THREE.

On Saint Claudius, Abbot of Condat, and Archbishop of Besançon.

The Life of St. Claudius, written more or less four hundred

years ago, by an Anonymous Author.

The first book of the Miracles of St. Claudius, published nearly

five hundred years ago. The carrying-about of his sacred body

through the dioceses of Lyon, Lausanne, and Besançon.

The second book, excerpted by us from records worthy

of trust.

CLAUDIAN ILLUSTRATIONS.

Chapter I. St. Claudius' homeland, family, feast day.

On the age and trustworthiness of the authors who wrote his Life and the older

Miracles. On the district of the Scodingi,

and its former Dukes or Patricians.

II. Whether to the Lords of Salins, who nearly seven

centuries ago presided over that lordship, the family of St. Claudius

was propagated.

III. The series of the Lords of Salins.

IV. On the manner and place of St. Claudius' burial. His sacred

body was never disemboweled.

The village of Metenacus possesses the Relics not of this St. Claudius Bishop and

Confessor, but of St. Claudus the Martyr.

V. St. Claudus the Martyr of Metenacus seems to have suffered

at Lyon, with Amor and Viator the companions of holy Alexander,

under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and with them from

the basilica of St. Irenaeus of Lyon translated into the Sequani.

VI. The order and place of Blessed Claudius among the Archbishops

of Besançon. Two ancient Catalogues of these, written by hand

more than six hundred years ago, are set out.

VII. On occasion of the things which about St. Claudius have been

set forth, a compendious series of the Metropolitans

of Besançon, far more accurate than has hitherto

appeared, is proposed.

PART FOUR.

On some other alumni of the monastery of St. Augendus, illustrious whether by birth or by sanctity.

On certain men of chief nobility, nearly six hundred years

ago having entered the Jura monastery of St. Augendus;

and especially on Stephen, who

afterward was Abbot of Bèze.

The Life of St. Simon the Count, and Monk at

St. Augendus.

OBSERVATIONS.

On the Life of St. Simon, a Monk from a Count.

Chapter I. On the Author who wrote the Life of St. Simon.

II. On his father Rodulf, and that man's three wives,

of whose third (namely the widow of Anna, of the King of the Franks

Henry) he was a relation in a degree then

prohibited.

III. On Walter, brother of St. Simon, killed near

Reims. Vitry several times occupied by Philip

I the King.

IV. On the two sisters of St. Simon, of whom

the elder in age was betrothed to Herbert, Count of the Vermandois,

the fourth of that name; but the younger,

by name Adelais, was first the wife of Bartholomew Lord of Bray,

afterward of Theobald Count of Blois and Chartres.

V. Our opinion, on the second marriage of Adelais, widow of Bartholomew,

with Theobald of Blois, is established by a new

argument; from this namely, that of Bartholomew

and Adelais, and of their son Hugh-Bardulf,

the whole inheritance came down to Theobald, and to his

sons or grandsons.

VI. Whether besides Adala, Countess of the Vermandois;

and Aalys, or Alais, or Adelheid,

first wife of Bartholomew Lord of Bray,

afterward of Theobald Count of Blois;

there were two other sisters of St. Simon: Elizabeth,

who is commonly Rosa; and Arwis, nuns at Cala;

who also gave the beginning to the Rozoy convent of girls.

VII. Against the foregoing some difficulties are raised

from the Chronicle of Alberic.

VIII. The origin and series of the illustrious family which

is named from the name of St. Simon.

IX. St. Simon transfers the body of his dead father Rodulf

from Mont-Désir, where it had lain for three years;

and deposits it in the church of St. Arnulf

at Crépy.

X. Who was St. Arnulf, Patron of the church of Crépy

enriched by St. Simon?

XI. A wife is sought for Simon the Count, the daughter of Heldebert

Count of the March of Auvergne. She by his exhortation

becomes a Nun at La Chaise-Dieu; whence she seems to have been translated to Larrey,

near the Castle of Dijon.

XII. What was the consanguinity of Simon the Count with Matilda

the Queen of the English?

XIII. At what time St. Simon, and under what Abbot

he became a Monk at St. Augendus, and what followers of his holy

purpose he had?

XIV. At what time St. Simon attended the translation

of the sacred Shroud of Compiègne into a golden chest,

offered by Matilda the Queen of the English.

XV. The year of Robert Guiscard, reconciled to the Apostolic See

by St. Simon. His Roman lodging

at St. Thecla.

XVI. On the death of St. Simon on the 3rd before the Kalends of October 1080,

his burial, mausoleum, epitaph, and translation of relics.

XVII. There are gathered the chronological heads which

pertain to the history of St. Simon.

On the Life, translation, and miracles of the Venerable John of Ghent, once

Anchorite at the Abbey of St. Claudius, in view of which the King of the Franks Louis

the Eleventh judged that his canonization should be proposed

in the Roman curia, but, prevented by death,

left it to be promoted by his successors. From these some things are to be published in this place:

[8] These things, begun by the author to be prepared for the press, while he was passing

his fortieth year of age, I find to have been thus augmented,

arranged, and revised by the same man, now

nearly ninety years old; doubtless soon to be given into public

light, if it had been permitted to prolong his life longer. For indeed

now, supported by a Royal Maecenas, he had no need either

long and in vain to hope for the subsidy of the Abbots of St. Claudius,

for relieving the costs of printing; or, those

failing, to seek a Patron for himself outside Gaul,

as it came about for the one who about the year 1664 was to publish the history and records

of the Abbey of Tonnerre. I have so undertaken the labors

of that most studious man entrusted to me, that

the things which serve my purpose, I wish to render whole to the Author my friend,

each in their own times and places. I shall therefore give

now the second book of miracles, collected by him;

I shall give also the Claudian Observations, and the reformed series of the Metropolitans

of Besançon which to these

Chifflet wove on; in which the Author, on account of

the Councils alleged by Henschenius, with a distinction of a double Claudius, though not sufficiently proven, to the first of which, namely

that of Epaon held in the year 517, is found

to have subscribed Claudius, Bishop of the Church of Besançon,

distinguishes two Claudii: one, who about

that time began, ceased before the year 549, in which is found

to have subscribed to the Synods Urbicus: the other, who was

Abbot of the Jura, for a whole 48 years, before he became Bishop

about the year 688; and in the seventh year of the

Prelacy held, abdicated, and received

the Abbey of the Jura to be governed, with the approval of John

Pope VI (whom namely it was necessary to find, lest entirely

the name of St. John holding the Apostolic See be idle in the Life)

and that he lived after his return

up to the year 703. What forced the Author at last to invent two Claudii,

I find nothing

except the two Catalogues, written in the 11th century,

which place Claudius the sixth from St. Nicetius, and so

and the name of King Clovis, supposed in the later Life

in place of the name of Chlothar, and the 4th year

of Childebert, in which the Saint passed from this world,

according to the opinion of the Interpolator: which do not seem

to be of such weight that on their account Bishops should be doubled,

distinguishable by no surer argument. For from

these nothing else follows than that, from the once wrongly

noted year 626, instead of 527, in which Claudius was made

Abbot, the order of succession was disturbed; and

that times so disparate flowed together into one person.

About which, that the Reader may further judge for himself, I change nothing either in

Henschenius or in Chifflet; but of each I propose,

as I received it, the opinion or the words. As regards the remaining

Parts of Chifflet's compilation. The first will be of use

for the Supplement of January, February,

March, in which months we have already treated of SS. Romanus,

Lupicinus, Eugendus, the Abbots of the first place. The fourth

wholly looks to the month of September, in which St. Simon died.

But the Life of the Venerable John

of Ghent, which is promised to be added to it, is absent from the catalogued

collection, perhaps to be found by us among

other Lives of the Saints, while a Patron is awaited for the rest.

with the year and day of his death. Meanwhile by this deficiency I am warned

that it may be that a few things from the preceding little index

either are not yet composed by the Author, or are to be sought

elsewhere out of order, which now there is no leisure to investigate more laboriously;

but I shall investigate, if anyone, not bearing the delay

necessary to our laborious undertaking, to that

Chifflet lucubration as it was conceived, to be produced whole and all at once,

should offer a helping hand and the costs;

for to this end I have proposed the little index, so far am I not desirous

of adorning myself with another's feathers; that I shall hold it as a benefit

if anyone should relieve me of the trust committed to me.

Then also I shall examine whether and how far there can be brought here

another bundle of papers, set apart under such a title;

PROOFS of the third Part of this Work;

which contains the Claudian Illustrations, and whatever

pertains to St. Claudius, whether as Abbot, or as Besançon

Archbishop. It appears that the matter was altogether

prepared for the press, but, the plan being changed, in the end

I am forced to suspect it was set aside, from the little index written by the author's hand

most recently and a little before his death, without any

mention of such Proofs, to be printed together with the aforesaid Illustrations,

because these alone perhaps

were indicated to suffice, without that more laborious addition

of so many documents, not so closely looking to the

subject assumed.

THE SHORTER LIFE.

From a Manuscript of the Monastery, and from printed Breviaries and Manuscripts.

Claudius, Bishop of Besançon and Abbot of the Jura, in Burgundy (St.)

BHL Number: 1840

[1] In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity.

Admonished by the praiseworthy insistence of the Jura Brothers, Prologue

we have decided to taste in summary

the Life of Blessed Claudius and his miracles; whose merit of Life if we should

pursue to the full, we shall in no way be able

to escape lying envy. And therefore we touch a few of his virtues,

so that the reader may find us sparing of truth rather

than prodigal of falsehood.

[2] Blessed Claudius therefore, most renowned by the conspicuous nobility

of the Princes of Salins, by his parents devoted to the studies

of letters, a pious and just Bishop, advancing in age and wisdom,

at last by divine will obtained the Pontifical Chair of the Besançon

See. b There he so tempered a sweet

and delightful mixture of piety and justice,

that in him the affection of kindness, and the severity of discipline,

observed mutual turn. then a Jura monk, lover of truth and temperance. Afterward,

fleeing the throngs of the citizens, lest as from touched

ink he should contract a stain, to the Jura monastery of Blessed Eugendus,

solitude, the Lord leading, he transferred c himself. And because

he had read: The mouth that lies kills the soul, no

less did he abhor lying than homicide. Wisdom 1:11

Assiduous in prayers, vigorous in vigils, sober in refreshment; d

inasmuch as for him a little herb was food, for whom

an unadorned bed furnished sleep: whose adornment

was pallor and leanness. What more? Pleasures' decay

being set forth, wholly moistened with heavenly dew, with every

virtue of frugality, he dried up the threshing-floor of the flesh.

[3] The Brothers of that place therefore, considering the most holy

man's discreet humility; a man approved in every virtue,

grace going before, set him over themselves in the e six hundred

twenty-sixth year from the incarnation of the Lord,

while St. John held the Apostolic See: he is made Abbot: who

fortified the possessions of the aforesaid man by his f privilege.

In which place the man of God Claudius, admonished

by religion and sanctity, growing bright with the great star of virtues

and miracles, so mingled the oil of mercy with the wine of discretion,

that, in curing the wounds of vices,

he reformed the diligence of our Samaritan. g

Finally, the course of the present life being accomplished, blessed

Claudius, the sacred radiance of religion, 554 years from his death to the present and

to posterity an example of holy conversation, joined to the assemblies

of the Angels, from this vale of misery, into

the sight of the highest Majesty, on the Eighth before the Ides of June

happily h migrated. Whose body, by the prerogative of family and

of sanctity, embalmed with precious aromatics, he was illustrious for miracles.

in the church of Blessed Eugendus, i for five hundred fifty-

four years, with miracles constantly increasing,

rested.

ANNOTATIONS OF G. H. AND D. P.

a Salins, a city

in the County of Burgundy with a double citadel, had its own Princes and

Lords, to whom Henry Buget assigns various citadels or fortifications.

From these descended St. Claudius about the year 484. About Salins more

was said on the 3rd of February at the Life of St. Anatolius the Bishop, who there

is venerated as Patron: but that the Toparchs of that place are here called Princes, is given to the dignity of the Counts of Burgundy, to whom that lordship devolved in the 10th century of Christ. The other Life calls them Princes or Palatines, because the first to be so called was Otto, son of Frederick the Emperor by Beatrice the Burgundian, in the 13th century.

c About the year 523.

to whom some flee for refuge. Meanwhile that slip gave occasion

for erring by a whole century. Moreover that resort was had to the Pope contrary to custom,

on account of the Abbatial dignity, Mabillon observes at the following Life.

John, Servant of the servants of God. To Claudius the religious Abbot of the monastery of St.

Augendus, and the rest in the same venerable monastery forever.

It befits Apostolic governance &c.; and at the end it is excused by torn parchment: but Chifflet thinks it torn on purpose, to better hide the imposture: for it is, he says,

most similar to a diploma of Leo IX, given under the date of the year 1050; then it names certain villages

and churches, not given to the Jura monastery before the thousandth year, such as Neuville and Tenninga: likewise very many others

and nearly all, acquired by that monastery only after the age of St. Claudius.

he rests up to the present day. And because there our Redeemer

Christ has daily deigned to perform the greatest miracles in his Saint,

therefore it has come about by Christian piety that that place took its name

from the holy man.

THE LONGER LIFE,

Composed in the 13th or 14th century.

From the editions of John James Chifflet and Mabillon.

Claudius, Bishop of Besançon and Abbot of the Jura, in Burgundy (St.)

BHL Number: 1841

FROM THE PRINTED EDITIONS.

[1] If the reasonably done and said things of certain men,

who in worldly acts are reckoned

strong, Prologue, are noted in writing; with stronger reason ought the

deeds and sayings of the Saints, who, divinely instructed,

and in lawfully disposing and administering worldly things were

experienced, and in performing the divine commandments were

ready, to be commended to perpetual

memory in books and letters, to the glory of God and

to the Imitation of those who follow; and not only

to be noted in books, but to be continually held

in the book of the heart; that from their glorious works both the mind

may be instructed, and devotion increased. Whence we have arranged to write the Life

of the most blessed Claudius, Archbishop of the Besançon Church

and Abbot of the monastery of St. Eugendus, as

it has come to us both by writings and charters, and by other

trustworthy documents, without the consciousness of falsehood;

not only that to the faithful, devoutly

thirsting and demanding his most holy life and honey-flowing

conversation, we may hand down the history of his life

and the series of his conversation, which even without us

they are able to have; but that we may satisfy

our devotion, such as it is, toward him, which cannot

lack the history of his life. For admonished by his most holy

doctrine, roused by his miracles, and

gladdened by the bodily vision of his presence, and besides

requested, we cannot cover his glorious life with silence.

Let him reprehend who will, and with the fidelity of the writer. and let him believe who

will: but we, whatever sort of small servants

of Christ, what we know of the life of the said Saint truthfully

we write and testify, though not to the full,

lest we fall into the tongues of reprehenders; for there exist

books of the miracles which through him the Lord

deigned to show, which here we omit to insert,

intending only briefly to write the history of his life. a

[2] Blessed Claudius therefore was of the noble genealogy

of the Princes or Palatines of Salins; who

up to the seventh year, with becoming care, the saint imbued with letters, in

the house of his parents was nurtured. But the seventh year

of his age having passed, by those same parents,

he was handed over to the most approved masters of letters

to be instructed; under whom the arts which they call liberal,

within a few years, he fully learned. Within which

space of time, not only the aforesaid arts,

but also the books of the old and new Testament, the histories

or passions of the holy Martyrs, and

the lives of the holy Confessors; he read sacred histories: and also the sermons

or homilies of the holy Doctors, under those

masters, as a youth, by reading he ran through for himself. He was

for already at this age, docile in talent, fervent in heart,

and wholly given over to holy works, he did not allow

[3] But at this age he was not only (as we said)

free for the study of letters; but on all days, He is free for virtues

especially on Sundays and feast days, he frequented the church:

he eagerly listened to the Mass and the Canonical Hours, and the sermons

of divine Scripture, and laid them up in the little cabinet

of his breast. He mingled himself with religious

or honorable persons, and with them about virtues

and good works always conferred: but to dishonorable

and scurrilous persons he never according to their

dishonor or scurrility gave answer;

but rather gently words seasoned with the salt of wisdom,

and so far reasonable and sweet, that they provoked the affection of all

toward himself. The advanced in age

and the wise loved him, as though already a man made and virtuous

and wise; but others, as a youth

affable and prudent. Never in markets, dear to all:

dances, or in any worldly spectacles whatsoever

was he seen to stand by: never with young women

without a reasonable cause was he long: nor of any

wicked work noted, nor of laughter, regard,

or any so slight word was he judged worthy

to be reprehended. This saint was Angelic in countenance,

comely in form, mature in gait, adorned in morals,

profound in sense, affable in speech, endowed with charity;

so much that all who beheld him

judged him to be a true servant of God.

These things which above we have said, in his adolescence

he performed without reprehension.

[4] But having become twenty years of age, b and

already learned in divine things, and accustomed to good works,

he chose the Clerical warfare; enrolled among the Canons of Besançon at twenty, and humbly asked,

and for his merits obtained, to be received as

Who, created or made a Canon of the said Church,

began in that very college of Canons to frequent the Church,

to be present at Masses, canonical Hours, and other ecclesiastical

Offices; to turn over diligently the books of sacred Scripture, to hear

fervently and attentively the lessons of that sacred Scripture,

devoutly to listen to the sermons of the masters;

and in all things, as a true servant

of Christ, without the mark of reprehension, to conduct himself: and

so far within a short space of time, divine grace

attending him, in the aforesaid holy works

did he advance; that of the sacred Page he became most approved, and such

But enriched with the aforesaid gifts and virtues, from day

to day he advanced in sanctity; he frequented the church (as we said);

the divine Offices in his rank,

and as it pertained to him, according to the ordination of that

Church, without defect reverently and devoutly he performed;

to prayer, as the opportunity of time

offered itself, frequently he applied himself; at almost every time,

except Sundays and Feasts, once a day

he took refreshment; often he spent the nights in prayer, reading,

and holy meditation wakeful;

chaste, and (as we believe) a virgin (inasmuch as he was

never noted of any small infamy)

he kept himself; in clothing he kept himself moderate;

but in morals he showed himself humble, in words sweet

and affable; and (that in one word

I may embrace all things) in all virtues by the judgment

of all he was powerful, so that you would believe him already a most approved

Monk.

[5] But twelve years being completed in holy works of this kind,

his merits aiding,

he was elected Archbishop of the Besançon Church: he is divinely instituted Bishop of the same Church:

how this was done, briefly to narrate

we have deemed worthy. For when the Prelate of the said See

was sick, with the sickness of which he died; the most blessed man,

fearing what afterward happened, namely lest into a Pontiff

he should be elected; arranged to leave that Church for a time;

and to his parents, namely the Lords

of Salins, he hastened to come; and with them in

that village of Salins he began to dwell. But the said

Prelate having entered the way of all flesh, the Clergy

and people for some time were discordant in electing;

these wanting one, those another.

At last, after many altercations had among themselves,

they returned to themselves; and unanimous in prayer and

weeping they prostrated themselves, supplicating humbly that

by the merits of the blessed Mother of God, and of St. John their

Patron, and of all the Saints, the Lord might deign

mercifully to inspire to them whom as Shepherd

of the said Church they ought to elect. But while they

prayed, a voice from heaven thundered, which admonished those Canons,

to cease from weeping, and to elect Blessed Claudius.

Then the Canons, gladdened not a little,

unanimously elected the holy man; and

this election being made, not human but rather

divine, they sent to the holy man honorable men

of the whole Church and City, for obtaining and having

his consent, and for leading back to that

aforesaid Church. But the aforesaid election being made,

and presented to the blessed man, and in the said village of Salins

divulged; it is not for us to say with how great

joy the whole village was filled; the Pope approving: to how great

thanksgivings his parents broke forth. His consent

having been had, which he could not deny, those who had been sent

led him back to the city of Besançon: and there, his consent

being divulged, who can say in how great joy the city was, and how great

thanksgivings to the Lord it rendered? I think

truly that for this the eloquence of Maro does not suffice.

But the thanksgivings being celebrated, the Canons

sent to the Roman Pontiff, for obtaining

the canonical confirmation of his election: for

which the said Pontiff, the truth of the matter being learned, rendered immense praises

and thanksgivings with tears to the Lord;

and, as much as was necessary, approved it,

in the c six hundred twenty-sixth year of the Lord's

Incarnation.

[6] But having been made Archbishop, at once

fervently he began to exercise the Pastoral office. For residing

in the college, he devoutly frequented the church; he rightly carries out this duty:

solemn Masses he reverently celebrated; the canonical Hours

he continually attended; sermons worthy of memory to Clergy and people

he made; ecclesiastical cases at the due hours

he kindly heard, and decently determined;

nor on their account, or for any other ecclesiastical affairs

(which yet he administered irreprehensibly),

unless there were evident necessity, did he leave the church at the hours at which

the divine Offices are celebrated. He expounded most eloquently

the most sacred sentences of the old and new Testament,

and through his honey-flowing sermons he eradicated vices,

implanted virtues. For he was of most profound learning,

and in all things like a good householder, who

brings forth from his treasure things new and old. He often visited

the province committed to him, sowing the sacred doctrine of the word:

and, that many things may be concluded in one word,

he was in all things a faithful and prudent servant, whom

the Lord set over his family. He was also,

as we said, very sweet and affable, pious and gentle:

with which virtues in a wonderful way he drew toward himself the affection

of all. And nonetheless he was so much elevated in the love

of God, that, assiduously fixed in contemplation,

he could scarcely turn aside to bodily refreshment:

called at last from the oratory and study, joyful and

cheerful, to the table he descended.

[7] But in the seventh year of his Episcopate, wholly inflamed

with divine love, he withdraws to the monastery of St. Eugendus. wishing with his whole heart utterly to leave the delights and pomps

of this world, and

more fully to be free for the Lord the living fount; all things vigorously

laid aside, he left his city with dignity, and

in the monastery of St. Eugendus, which is near the borders of the said

diocese, with all the Clergy and people of the said city resisting,

and with tears recalling him, by an Angel

(as they relate) foreannounced to the Monks, d he came; and there

he seized the monastic habit and life. But residing

in the said monastery, in all things as a true

Monk he conducted himself. For he was suspended in divine

contemplation, assiduous in prayers, continuous in fasts,

fervent in vigils, illustrious in holy readings

and meditations. He ate and

slept as a Monk: but in performing the divine Offices,

first of all he entered the church, and last

he withdrew, and by his most holy example all

to monastic perfection he advanced.

[8] At the same time the holy Injuriosus e the Abbot,

monastery: who, seeing the blessed man's sanctity, he is constituted Abbot:

humbly presented to him the rule of that monastery;

supplicating that he would deign to feed and rule

both himself and the sheep of the Lord: which the holy man

with great meekness refused. But five years

being completed from the entry of St. Claudius, St. Injuriosus

the Abbot migrated to the Lord: who being given ecclesiastical

burial, the venerable Brothers of the said place, by common

consent, with great ardor of devotion, the aforesaid

most blessed Prelate elected for themselves as Shepherd:

and his assent having been had, which with the exceptional charity with which

he was endowed he gave, they sent to the f Apostolic

See, requesting that the blessed man be given to them as

Prelate. But holy g John, holding the summit of the holy Apostolic

See, who knew the aforesaid Saint

most well, granted to those same Brothers and to the monastery the most blessed

man as Shepherd: which is believed to have been done not

without divine disposition, that

in a place in which several Saints had flourished, the most blessed

Prelate should be added, and the place itself be made more distinguished.

[9] he draws monks to himself. But the rule of the said monastery being received, many

Clerics, both of the Church of Besançon, and of other

Churches, and also many noble youths of various

cities, towns, and lands, to him in troops

flowed together; desiring to adhere to him, and with

great insistence requesting to be received into the monastery:

whom the most blessed Father, without difficulty and without

acceptance of persons, received. But seeing the most blessed

Father in the said monastery a great number of Monks,

he arranged to recover the oblations, formerly

made to the said monastery by Kings and Princes. Whence

first for the sake of this matter he went to Paris to King

Clovis, whose predecessors, namely the Kings

of Burgundy and France, had offered most generous gifts or pensions

to the aforesaid monastery. From the said

King he demanded back those gifts or pensions: he enriches the place with Royal benefactions. which

King kindly confessed that he owed and was bound to pay

to the said monastery and the Brothers serving God there,

for the supplement of the food and clothing of the said

Brothers, the sum of fifty measures

of wheat, and fifty measures of barley, and fifty

pounds of silver pence. I call God to witness,

that I with my own eyes saw, and read in

the Archives of the said monastery, among other Charters, one

marked with various signs and characters, made concerning the said

sums, beginning thus: h Clovis

King of the Franks, to all who shall read the present page,

greeting. There came to us the venerable man

Claudius, &c.

[10] And not only to the Monks, who then in that

monastery were in great number, and he confers very many things on it. did he administer necessities;

but also to the poor of Christ and to all

comers he caused nourishment to be sufficiently distributed.

It is not for us to narrate to what extent the most blessed man

himself augmented that monastery.

For if it please to make speech of temporal things, the church

of that monastery he fortified with most precious vestments,

vessels, crosses, and candlesticks of gold and silver,

most fitting books, silken cloths: but the Relics

of the Saints he placed in silver caskets, adorned with precious

stones. The monastery and its houses

he decently repaired and increased with buildings: the rights

alienated he recovered. But in spiritual things, it cannot

be said how much he increased the monastery. For the books

of his sermons were rendered to the Brothers, from which it can be known

what kind he was in doctrine: but besides, from the writings

of that monastery, and especially of Blessed Rusticus (who

under the blessed man in the monastery, having held the office of Prior i of the cloister,

after him became Abbot) it can be seen

what kind of Brothers there were under that Saint. He is recognized

to have been a worker of miracles, concerning which

there exist written books. But the most blessed Father was

Abbot k in the said monastery for fifty-

five years. And he was in this world up to

the fourth year l of Childebert King of the Franks.

But now some things are to be said about his most glorious

end.

[11] But the fifty-fifth year being completed,

from the time when he was elected Abbot, healthy and free

from every blemish, although he was old and full of days,

he fell into a certain light infirmity: but on the third

day of his infirmity he had all the Brothers

called together, to whom he made a long and brilliant sermon;

in which with wondrous reasonings sweetly he admonished them, Having delivered an address to his own, he dies, fortified with the Sacraments.

first about divine love, secondly about contempt

of this world, thirdly that they should in no way be saddened by

his departure: and seeing them weeping most copiously, peace

having been received from all, he bade them depart from his cell, and the whole

following night thereafter in prayers

he spent. But on the fourth day with the help of his own to

the church he went, and there the Sacraments of penance,

and of the Lord's Body, wholly poured out in tears,

reverently he received: and desiring to flee the pomps of cities

and the honor of peoples, he ordered his body in that very

monastery to be buried: then with the help of his own

he returned to his cell. But on the fifth day, about the ninth hour

of the day, reclined upon a bench, upon which by reading

and praying he was wont to sit, with his arms raised

upward, his hands joined, his eyes looking up to heaven,

ANNOTATIONS OF G. H.

of John James Chifflet: but by this man's brother Peter Francis

Chifflet, it was communicated to us from Manuscripts. But after this Prologue in

both editions follows that same one which is prefixed to the Shorter Life,

which therefore there was no need to repeat here.

b About the year 504.

d About the year 523.

son of Clovis the first, the reckoning of time requires. Would that the charter were exhibited in ancient characters! then the truth of the matter would appear.

He delivered his most holy soul to the Lord by expiring. Whose body in

the aforesaid church of St. Eugendus until now is shown to all comers

incorrupt and whole, gleaming with innumerable miracles.

But his feast is celebrated on the 8th before the Ides of June. Which things Surius also recorded.

BOOK I OF THE MIRACLES

Written with the shorter Life.

Claudius, Bishop of Besançon and Abbot of the Jura, in Burgundy (St.)

BHL Number: 1844

FROM A MANUSCRIPT.

CHAPTER I.

The body carried about through various places. Miracles done.

[1] While the Mother a of mercy was gleaming with wondrous miracles in the b Lausanne

church, A blind man is given light: a certain Priest

with blinded eyes, fleeing thither in hope of healing,

implored the honey-flowing aid of our Advocate;

and cleansed by the laver of Confession, through a vision

in his sleep from her he merited to hear: Rise,

and go to Claudius, our Brother, resting in the Jura

Oratory, and you will receive sight. He, roused,

hastily departed, and received sight. Thence joyful

and cheerful, a drowned man is revived: returning to his own with the washing-water of the Relics of the most holy man,

and for the space of one day lifeless, by the application

of the aforesaid washing-water he rendered healthy to his parents. At once

the parents, setting out on the journey, with all haste

rendering thanks to God and Blessed Claudius, in the Jura church

offered a wax face.

[2] At that time a miracle was done, which the

to the people. When to him, staying for some time in the Jura

church, the miracles which were being done through

him having been heard, a dead man rises: peoples flowed together from all sides;

multitude, near the Sanctuary expired. Whom embracing,

the man of God, warming him with kindly breast, with tearful groaning

murmured; and to the body of Blessed Claudius as quickly as possible

coming, his suffrages with God, his knees

bent to the ground, he implored. By whose intervention,

the prayers of the man of God being heard, the youth, as an example

to believers, restored to his former health, openly

before all rose unharmed.

[3] At that time the d Church of Balma, the sin

growing heavy, anxious with many troubles, by counsel

sent to the Roman Court envoys as spokesmen:

whom, likewise caught on the way, the malignity of enemies

unexpectedly seized and consigned to the prison-workhouse in Corsica; a captive is freed.

of whom one omitted on no day the commemoration

of Blessed Claudius; by whom in the silence of the unseasonable

night (as if through a vision) loosed,

and transported to the farther bank of the river,

he recognized himself free from prison and shackles;

and returned to his homeland, glorified God and Blessed Claudius.

[4] e For indeed in the time of f Frederick the Emperor

of the Romans, and of Alexander presiding over the Apostolic See,

the peace of the Holy Roman Church being reformed,

the hostile man, vexed by the sting of envy, About the year 1160, over the most fertile cultivation

of the Jura Brothers oversowed tares.

For the house of God had long been propped up by columns;

namely by persons approved in knowledge and morals;

vessels gleaming with precious gems in the ministry of the altar,

adornment in the church, continual care in divine things:

thin food, necessary clothing, attendance without arrogance,

excused luxury and delights. Meanwhile between

the Abbot g named Ado and his accomplices,

and the rest of the Brothers of that place, a dissension having arisen vehemently

grew strong: who on both sides bursting into discord,

by mutual appeals tore apart the goods and possessions

of the Church. Which, stripped of vessels and ornaments,

the monastery being desolate the flock scattered, weeping and wailing, in

miseries desolate remained. Afterward, by Apostolic

authority and Imperial command, Ado yielding,

another was substituted, Aymo by name, a man of simplicity

and modesty; who, finding the sheep weak and scattered,

with divine help strove to repair

the broken sheepfold.

[5] a new face is brought in The Convent therefore of the holy Jura Church,

groaning over the lamentable nakedness and unheard-of affliction of its mother,

destitute of human counsel, had a divine

counsel, that the body of the most blessed Claudius,

an incomparable treasure, for the consolation of their mourning mother

the daughter of Sion, and for the remission

of sins, to peoples and nations they should expose. h

This being defined by common assent, honest guardians also

being deputed to the sacred treasure, the Brothers, as if

deploring at the funeral of a dear corpse, with mournful and

sobbing chant singing before, from the courtyard outside a little farther

they led: and farewell having been said to the Brothers, desolate

for the departure of their Father and the affliction of their Mother, the guardians

of the sacred body, mindful of the penance and sacred

obedience enjoined on them, going farther away i entering Lons-le-Saunier,

continued the praises and great works of God and Blessed Claudius.

Hearing which, Humbert, the body is carried to Lons-le-Saunier: a worthless

servant, arrogant and elated over the goods of the Jura Church,

vomiting pestilent venom into the maternal face, by a public edict forbade

the benefit of the village and the entry of the church, to Blessed Claudius and

his family. Yet the Clergy

and people, going out to meet him with the affection of piety, the minister

of impiety being spurned, received the holy body with humble devotion

and carried it into the church k of St. Desideratus with

hymns and canticles.

[6] At once a woman brought on a pallet,

her limbs already for three years contracted, prayers and groans with tears

poured out: who, prayer being made, by the power of God

rising up, magnifying God and Blessed Claudius with mouth and heart,

before all the people, with free step she walked. and to Poligny.

Then Blessed Claudius being carried over l to Poligny,

in the Oratory m of Blessed Hippolytus the Martyr gave light to a blind man,

and three others powerless with weak limbs,

the Clergy and people attesting, he rendered healthy and

unharmed.

[7] From this place the divine goodness willed its servant Claudius

to be transferred as far as n Arbois, for whose

praise and honor, about to work innumerable miracles, At Arbois are healed, the contracted,

in the sight of the peoples he made his Saint marvelous.

for three years lying in bed with weak limbs,

Blessed Claudius in her sleep granting her a staff, the relief of her

powerlessness, in the morning about to set out, rose. Leaning

on its support, with God's help, with pitiable step,

being made, and the feet of the holy man being kissed, falling into prayer,

tears she demanded. Then with her hands raised to heaven,

leaning on her fingers, she announced to the bystanders that she felt no

pain; and glorifying God and

Blessed Claudius, with the rest to the altar, on upright feet

she hastened.

[8] About the woman p of Tarentaise it is not to be omitted

in silence: to whom, languishing and long destitute of bodily

strength, the blessed Mother of God, offering the Cross, destitute of strength, the sign

of our redemption, in a vision, admonished her

to hasten as quickly as possible on the way to St. Claudius.

Who, going out in the morning with her neighbors, the ass

which she had hired being dismissed on the way, coming to the sacred body in company,

received to her feet a step and to her body health,

God having mercy.

[9] q A certain youth, having a hand withered

from birth, the proclamations of the miracles having been heard, to the monastery

ran; and the hands of Blessed Claudius being touched, a withered hand,

extending his hand with thanksgiving, healthy

he withdrew.

[10] A certain woman, a Lay-sister r of St. Robert of

La Chaise-Dieu, struck with a grave sickness, weak in

her whole body, gravely ill, lay in bed: to whom Blessed Claudius, seen in

her sleep, under the Episcopal habit bearing the Pastoral

staff, promised health. Who, roused by the presage

of the vision, forgetful of her weakness, having set out on the way,

sought the holy body; which being touched with her lips and eyes,

freed, the molestation of the disease, God having mercy,

she utterly escaped.

[11] a blind man, A blind man approaching, his knees bent and his

face lowered to the ground, implored divine aid:

At once, Blessed Claudius intervening, in the power of him

who opened the eyes of the man born blind, as it were scales

fell from his eyes; and asked if he saw

anything, the present Relics, and the rest pointed out to his eye

with a finger by the bystanders, he confessed that he saw,

to the praise of God and Blessed Claudius, the power

of the heavenly light in himself he manifestly declared.

[12] The increases of usefulness, which flow to the whole province,

we strive to gather with moderate brevity:

for truth illumines itself by its own ray, and by its own purity

wipes away the cloud of falsehood; that is read to be true innocence,

which neither harms itself nor another. Two little boys,

simple with the innocence of earliest age, at s Surriacum

on the bank of the river were childishly playing together; 2 drowned boys are revived: of whom

one, by inborn lightness, touching with the very tip of his foot the streams

of the hurrying water, from the beginning of his innocence

submerged, headlong slips away: who, casting his trembling hands

all about, Mother, mother, with confused voice

kept crying out. Him at once the other follows. Then

both, with hands entangled, submerged, by the stormy

force of the river are swept away. Without delay; to the parents of the sons

the shipwreck became known: the unforeseeing are roused,

inconsiderately they hurry, with shouting they make noise, their dear

pledges to God and Blessed Claudius with all devotion they commit;

and the boys not appearing, more than the space

of one stadium they run headlong, until, returning to the surface

of the waves, sent into the floods, they drew them out.

Of these one half-alive, the other cold with failing

veins, the waters being cast out, which they had swallowed, breathing again,

by the power of God and Blessed Claudius, with father and mother

attesting, to their former state of life joyful and

cheerful they returned. t

[13] A certain young girl, Isabella by name, preeminent

with the little flowers of graces and an elegant face, having long

associated with men of blood and incendiaries, was redeeming

These being left, by the prayers and little gifts of a certain henchman

enticed, with him she came to Arbois: and there,

given to various incentives of lusts, by feminine lightness into

the delights of very many she successively migrated. At last,

that the faith of the simple, the divine goodness might by a common

and astounding miracle strengthen, approaching the body of the Saint, she becomes blind; the power of Christ in

Blessed Claudius through indwelling grace publicly she declared.

For the public sinner, that the proclamations of the miracles

she might perceive by the examination of her eyes, in the plebeian

multitude on a certain day stood by the presence

of the sacred body. Where, blinded first in her interior light,

by divine vengeance she lost her bodily light: and to the wonder

of many, testifying that she saw nothing, vexed with lamentable

groaning, she prostrated herself on the ground; and in

the darkness of blindness she remained; the penitent is cured. until, confounded, on the following

Saturday evening, before God and the Priest coming to her senses,

she vomited out the filth of her sins. Then,

her hair cut off, and the stain of vices utterly wiped away,

she committed herself wholly to God and Blessed Claudius with devoted contrition,

and afterward, light being received through her,

the divine mercy absolved the doubt of the unbelieving people.

[14] Two possessed are healed To ages making faith we have proved it ratified,

that the divine goodness conferred upon Blessed Claudius, in Apostolic

stead, to give light to the blind, and to put demons to flight.

For in the Valley of Pullaria u a demoniac legion,

loosened in his limbs, claimed the whole for itself:

whom for the space of a day lifeless his parent

carrying to Arbois, paying vows to God and Blessed Claudius

they rendered. Meanwhile in the aforesaid countryside the remaining part of the malignant legion

infusing its venom, entered into another

pestilent man: who being brought to St. Claudius, for

both and the rest of the weak, the whole people, with hands

stretched to heaven, poured out lamentable prayers:

at once, the aerial powers being cast out, the Holy Spirit

entered in; and sight being received, and the bonds of tongues and

ears being loosed, God and Blessed Claudius, healthy and unharmed,

they praised together.

[15] A certain woman of Balma, having for five years

suffered the powerlessness of her hands, and a woman powerless in her hands. the hands of Blessed Claudius

being touched, received health. x

ANNOTATIONS OF G. H.

a These three

first miracles are inserted into the proper Offices of St. Claudius, for the 3rd day

within the Octave; and the two former are reported in the Legend of Claudius de Rota.

city near Lake Leman, now of Geneva, in the Helvetii; after heresy infected this,

the Episcopal See was translated to Fribourg of the Helvetii.

It is distant a day's journey from the monastery of St. Claudius. In

the Miracles translated from French, mention is again made of miracles of the Virgin

Mother of God among the people of Lausanne.

among the Graian Alps in Savoy, about a three-day journey

from the said monastery of St. Claudius. Perhaps is meant St. Peter

the Archbishop in the year 1142, whose illustrious Acts we gave on the 8th of May.

the Convent of Montmorot toward the Duchy of Burgundy: which the reckoning of the journey does not

so permit. Meanwhile he ascribes to this place miracle 79.

p It is in French miracle 14, and the place is called Granson.

q This and the next is had in Claudius de Rota, and earlier in the cited Lesson IV.

r St. Robert, founder and first Abbot of La Chaise-Dieu in Auvergne, is venerated on the 24th of April: on which day we illustrated his Acts.

s Sure in French, where it is miracle 46.

t The same is reported in Claudius de Rota.

u In French Valan pourie, and it is miracle 59.

x This is reported in the said Lesson IV, and is in French miracle 82.

CHAPTER II.

Other Miracles wrought at Arbois.

[16] A certain man a at Annoras, with his lower limbs

contracted from adolescence, by the effort

of his hands walked miserably: who, placed on a horse and brought by his wife and

parents, There are healed: a man contracted in his limbs, as far as Granson

descended, affirming that he would seek Blessed Claudius with whatever

step, without a vehicle; and a little

farther having gone out, he met very many,

recounting with wonder the virtues and miracles which with their eyes they had seen.

At once, aided by the support of faith,

extending his legs with his feet, leaning on his fingers

he rose; and running about for joy, with a glad and cheerful face,

with his wife at a ready pace he came to Arbois;

giving thanks to God, who, looking to his heart, through

his minister Claudius, on his servant weak and abject

conferred so great a recovery.

[17] A certain man in the village of St. b Albinus,

disturbed with grave madness, with menacing face his wife and sons

frightened away; and a madman: and seizing a club, those driven from the house

he pursued into the village. Which being learned, the neighbors from all sides

running together, beaten with blows, held him;

and applying by counsel a guard, lest he harm

anyone, hindered with bonds they kept him. At last,

the miracles of Blessed Claudius having been heard, bound with ropes with much

force placing him on a vehicle, to Arbois they hastened; and

approaching nearer, the pinnacle of St. Justus being seen, in whose

oratory Blessed Claudius rested, the senseless man,

Andrew by name, returned to himself; and to the men accompanying

he supplicated with these words: Why do you beat me?

and why do you hold me bound? By the mercy of God and Blessed Claudius

I have been made whole; loose me, and fear nothing.

Who at once loosing him, healthy, and speaking with modest

discretion, into the presence of the friend of God

Claudius they led him.

[18] c A certain soldier at Sarriniacum demanded an unjust

exaction from a Priest and his Brothers:

which because free men refused, a captive is freed; the minister

of crime, agitated by furies, into their house with drawn sword

unexpectedly rushed, and the hamstrings of the Priest being cut,

the Christ of the Lord with impious hand of his head

he deprived. His Brother too, with fists and clubs

battered, his hands bound behind his back, to prison

he consigned. Afterward, obstinate in malice, through

his brother and evil-doing attendants, the captive scourged

with whips he was sending across the Jura. Who at Vandilo

entering a house, to take food, the man

from all bonds they loosed. He indeed,

the fear of death set aside (which if he fled, they had threatened),

committing himself wholly to God and Blessed Claudius,

turned to the door, leaped over the threshold. The attendants

indeed with great clamor, The captive has gone, repeating,

set the dogs upon him. He, more devout than usual,

entering the wood, from the eyes of his pursuers utterly

vanished: and fleeing through steep places, scratched

by thorns and briers, his garment torn, almost naked, in a short

time came to Arbois: and paying vows to God, Blessed

Claudius as his liberator he recognized.

[19] d A certain rebel attendant in Camponale, about the vintage, trusting in arms and strength, the enemies

insulted; who, pierced in the middle of his leg by a javelin, he is healed, wounded in the leg the iron

remaining within, the broken wood he drew out: and

when, weakened in his leg, he had been carried home by friends,

physicians being called, by their care the iron could not be extracted;

until, pierced through, in springtime,

And when in a certain glade under a tree

weary he turned aside, while he wondered, the iron, the wound being opened,

leaped out: which being seized, healthy and cheerful to

Blessed Claudius coming, the thing done he narrated to all.

[20] e A certain woman of Salins, with limbs loosened

for three years weakened, to St. Claudius on the shoulders

of men was brought: who prostrate, contracted for three years, with hands spread

to the Saint of God, with lamentable voice cried out,

demanding the health of her limbs in humility.

Whose prayer a little after being heard, with her joints

crackling, leaning on her fingers, she rose, and

with upright step openly before all she walked. Coming afterward,

her brother, who had not been present at the miracle,

seeing his sister walking, with astounded

wonder asked: Have you been made whole, my sister?

Who replied, I give thanks to almighty God, and

to Blessed Claudius my Lord, through whom I have been made whole;

and, as you see, my brother, on upright feet I walk.

[21] f Above Arbois the lambs of the sheep, which a Lay-brother was guarding,

by I know not what dizziness trembling,

could not support themselves. trembling lambs, Pitying their

infirmity, the Lay-brother vowed the weaker of them

to Blessed Claudius, if he would free or preserve the others

from every plague and pestilence. Which being vowed, the lambs in formed

troop ran, sucking the udders of their mothers with all cheerfulness.

At once the Lay-brother, running for joy,

the lamb which he had vowed to God and Blessed Claudius,

in the presence of many who were there, before his tomb

giving thanks offered.

[22] g A certain woman at Umnens, Pontia by name,

sitting one day in her bedchamber, her son

with maternal affection in caressing embraces was warming, and

soothing with the gentle whisper of a lullaby, a mother and son nearly suffocated, she kissed

him. But the crafty tempter of the human race, wasting

with the venom of envy, was preparing for the little sinful woman a pit

of perdition: who flying through the window

under the form of a raven, stood by the woman's little ear:

and pouring out venom under the sweetness of honey, gold

and silver, and the deceitful riches of the world he promised,

if, yielding to him, she would kill her son. Thus the malignant one

with inborn craftiness exasperating the maternal breast,

armed the mother against the son: who, into the mouth of her offspring

thrusting her thumb, forgetful of love, the throat

with her fingers compressed. Then the enemy of innocence

flew into the woman's face, and fixing his nails in her throat,

the mother with the son he suffocated. Whom with a faint

murmur scarcely crying out a fellow-godmother hearing, wondering

what this was, swiftly entered the chamber,

and the unheard-of thing perceiving with her eye, cried out.

At once the demon, frustrated of his hope, vanished from her eyes:

then John the husband of Pontia, after the fellow-godmother

running up, saw his wife and son lying lifeless:

and seizing her, mute and weakened in her hand

he found her. And learning from the fellow-godmother how

his wife, oppressed by a demon, had attempted to kill her own son,

with poured-out tears he committed her to God and Blessed Claudius. Afterward, hastening the journey together, to Arbois

they came: and on Saturday evening the woman before the tomb

of Blessed Claudius prostrate in prayer, because with her mouth

she could not, pardon of her offenses and health of her body

with the affection of her heart she demanded. And a little after rising up,

the health of her powerless hand being received, not only

with simple word she spoke, but the machine of the insidious enemy,

and by the power of God and Blessed Claudius readily

she declared: and adjured by the faith which she had received in

baptism, before all the people, her husband and

fellow-godmother bearing testimony to each word,

the thing done she narrated readily.

[23] In the territory h of Balma there was a certain youth,

accustomed to guard the herds: to whom, one day guarding

the beasts, a blind man is given light, a certain burning and harmful breeze coming on,

as he himself afterward related, of the light of his eyes utterly

deprived him. Who coming home, the pain of his blindness

began to bewail, receiving no

consolation. To him Blessed Claudius appeared through a vision,

saying: O youth, why are you troubled, and thoughts

ascend in your heart? Rise, and come to

me, and I will furnish health to you. To whom he said: Lord,

I do not know the place of your dwelling, and I know not where

I can find you. And he, Inquire diligently until

you find, knowing that I am called Claudius. He indeed

rising went to the Priest, narrating to him in order

the vision. Hearing which the Priest for negligence

rebuked him; and that he had not at once obeyed the command of the man

of God, vehemently chided; and instructing

him, admonished to hasten the journey thither. But when in

deliberation of the journey he was in turmoil, not knowing where to go,

the former health of his eyes, by the power of God,

suddenly he received. Who made joyful, as far as Besançon

came: and there finding a certain man from Arbois,

with him to St. Claudius he hastened; and

how the same Saint restored sight to him, to all

who were there, all things in order he narrated.

[24] A woman of Besançon, i the light of her eyes lost,

for two years a miserable life under the darkness of blindness

was prolonging unwillingly; until the fame of Blessed Claudius shining out with astounding

miracles sounded in her ears: and

her friends being called together, deliberating about a vehicle and expense,

in the evening she prepared her journey. But by night,

warming her limbs in her bed, assiduously the Prelate of Christ

she beheld standing by. Roused by the presage of which vision,

at early morning she rose: and having set out on the way, her daughter,

whom she had weak in her hand, as guide before her

she set. and a blind woman, Who coming to Arbois, before the tomb

of the man of God, the brightness of her lost light humbly

demanded. At last persevering in prayer,

the brightness, which in faith she had demanded, to receive

she merited: and recognizing the chasuble with the relics, to her daughter

praying a little farther off turning, she said: Rejoice,

daughter, and exult, because your mother has received sight. Behold

I see the cross, the arm, and the candlesticks each;

and all things, which here can be perceived by the eye, openly

I recognize. To whom the daughter, Mother, mother, let us rejoice and ineffably

exult, praising God and his friend Claudius:

because at the hour in which God looked upon you his humble handmaid,

a weak hand is healed, and my hand, which you knew to be

weak, he restored to health: from your words I am certain,

that, while we prayed, the heavenly grace visited us together.

Then the Soldiers and noble women who were there,

suffused with abundance of weeping, with trembling exulted,

and in such open miracles God and Blessed Claudius

with lamentable voice praised together.

[25] In the countryside of Marriniacum k a certain man dwelt, to whom

from abundant blood in the right hand an abscess arising,

occupied the whole arm: an abscess of the arm, which, made unlike

itself, the skin enlarged grew with an immoderate swelling:

and when on account of its weight it could not be supported, the man in

his little bed as if a little infant at his side laid it. Who,

vexed with continual pain, lost rest and the taste of food

and drink, the appetite. Then while in the silence of the night

lying in bed, as he himself testified, he was awake;

he saw before his eyes standing a man, comely in aspect,

venerable in face, clothed in a white stole;

and made in ecstasy he was stupefied. Then as if from sleep

roused, bursting into voice, who he was he asked.

He being questioned answered in these words: Claudius

the servant of Christ I am, who by his mercy to you

weak have come. At once the man, exulting for joy, health

from him demanded: which Blessed Claudius, the sign

of the Cross being made, touching, did not delay to give, and

it being given vanished. Then the girl, the man's daughter, lying near,

with whom her father was speaking from him asked:

whom the father chiding bade be silent; and a little after,

the swelling subsided, raising his hand with his arm, no

injury he felt: and coming to Arbois, for the granted

recovery to God and Blessed Claudius thanks he rendered.

[26] A certain boy not far from l Ambroniacum,

standing over a spring, at his own image reflected back from the water

childishly smiled: and in his simplicity inclining his head, a boy submerged,

he fell into the water. Then with confused voice crying out,

at last submerged he expired. Meanwhile a traveler,

to quell the thirst which from the heat he had gathered,

to the streams of the clear brook turned aside: and the boy, whom

he found lying at the bottom, seizing, on a certain rock,

which next overhung, he placed; and there was not

in him breath nor motion. Then the man applying his hand

to the breast, knew that the body now cold

vital heat had abandoned: and turning to the rustics'

cottages which were near, whose son he was he asked.

At whose voice, the neighborhood crying out, the boy's mother

leaped out furious: and beating her breast with broken

voices, My son, where are you? she repeated. Finding him

dead, she lay over him, tearful and pitiable.

To her thus grieving, neighbors and acquaintances consoling her,

having mercy, came up: who, compassionating so great grief,

admonished the mother and parents, that whom

they hoped to bury, to God and Blessed Claudius they should render: and

besides added, that, strengthened by faith and hope, of the power

of God, who is wonderful in his Saints, and of the boy's

safety they should by no means despair; and showing them what and how great

miracles, through his minister Claudius, the divine power

wrought, with pure and suppliant devotion to pray

she instructed. Who at once, to the handmaid of God's salutary counsel

acquiescing, the boy to the Confessor of God Claudius

wholly committed, and prone on the ground prayed.

To them praying on the ground that to them might be manifested

the glory of God, the boy yawned; and opening his eyes, with

and walked. Then all who were there,

God, through Blessed Claudius, both the boy raised, and

the miracles which they had heard, faithfully believed: and

with all joy hastening to Arbois, the boy,

whom to God and Blessed Claudius they had vowed to render,

with praises they offered.

[27] In a little village m near Lons, a young man of free condition,

rich in his paternal field, abounded in the opulence of goods:

who, his constitution being altered, contracted in his whole body. through disorder

of diet, incurred arthritic gout; and

suffering in his joints, by the contraction of his nerves labored:

and destitute of the use of his feet, he consulted physicians

about his infirmity: who coming to

the sick man, on gain, not on the cure of the disease, spent their effort.

Him, frustrated of the hope of health, miserable and abject

dismissing, his means consumed, they departed.

He, despoiled of his goods and all his possessions, finding nowhere relief

of his want and powerlessness,

said: To dig I am not able, to beg I am ashamed. I know

what I shall do. Fleeing the sweetness of my native place, to

unknown lands I shall transfer myself even unwilling. Without delay,

his parents left, mounting a vehicle, he was carried over

to Dijon; where, compelled by indigence, for five

years he begged. At last in the sixth year Blessed

Claudius, at Arbois like the morning Light-bearer

risen, by the power of the heavenly light the darkness of minds,

the troops of demons put to flight; to the blind, the lame, and

the withered the remedy of health he showed. Hearing which

the aforesaid sick man, strengthened by potent faith, with the fervor

of divine love grew warm: and trusting in the mercy of God and

the piety of the blessed Prelate, that he would receive health

he believed, if the holy body of him, or his

garment he could touch: and leaning on staffs to go

he could not, but aided by the vehicles and carriages

of those passing by, he made his way somehow as far as Dole.

Whence, his faith increasing, made more eager, by the support of a staff alone

as far as the desired place he came:

and entering the oratory, the staff cast away, on upright

feet to the Holy body he approached: whose hands and feet

being kissed his desire he fulfilled.

Whom, an offering being made, while he was free for prayer, his brother

who was there recognizing, rejoiced with joy

ineffable; and going out together, joyful and cheerful to

their own they returned.

ANNOTATIONS OF G. H.

CHAPTER III.

Other Miracles, done at Arbois, Neuville, and Lyon.

[28] A certain little woman at a Cusellum, betrothed

to a man, Those laboring with the falling sickness are healed: while she was celebrating her wedding, suffered

the falling sickness: from the molestation of which by certain

medicines relieved, for the space of three years

she seemed to be unharmed; until, in mid-Lent,

the recurrent disease invaded her, and, having vexed her three times,

remitting, again it ceased. Afterward, about

the feast of Blessed John the Baptist, that most wretched woman

so gravely it molested, that three times in a day, and nine times

in a night, she suffered the conflict of the dreadful sickness.

Her parents, in such great anguish of their nursling

compassionate, by the counsel of physicians applied a cure

solicitously: but they, losing their effort with the expense,

aided her, now half-alive, with no medicine;

at last, between the frequent invasions scarcely breathing,

to Claudius the most holy Prelate, the Lady of the aforesaid Castle

admonishing, they rendered her: who through the same one from

her sickness freed, had become his handmaid. Which

being done, the molestation of so great suffering utterly departed: and

nature resuming her strength, the woman gladdened with ruddy face

shone again; and returned to herself, to the friend of God Claudius

with mouth and heart she committed herself wholly: and coming into his

presence, as much thanks as she could she rendered.

[29] Let it not lie hidden from the friends of truth, that both seculars,

and the Professors of the sacred order, in every

age and sex bear testimony to the Prelate of God Claudius.

the affairs of a woman intent on a pious work For in his name by the power of Christ,

in cities and castles and villages, those vexed with various

ailments are cured. In the fields also, and pastures, and rapacious

rivers, faith is shown in such great miracles. For a Lay-sister

of St. Bernard, of Mont b Joux at

Esseus, Petronilla by name, under the habit of Religion

served Christ devoutly. Who about the harvests to domestic

affairs gave care, supplying provisions to the Brothers,

who outside under the harvests to be gathered

frequently labored more strenuously. She, on a certain day,

lest perhaps bread should not suffice for the laborers, the household

being absent, on a horse was carrying wheat to the mill:

and finding a woman with the falling sickness rolling

in the road, and a sack near her full of wheat,

she feared with great fear: for since she saw

her face turning aside and her mouth foaming terribly,

she was moved with mercy upon her: and by the hand

raising the one she had grasped, she said: Sit here and rest:

my wheat for the present I leave, and yours

I shall hasten to grind, that I may send you home as quickly as possible.

While she sat outside, the Lay-sister entering the mill,

put that woman's wheat through the funnel into the millstones

to be ground. Meanwhile the Lay-sister's

maid, washing threads for weaving a web not far below

on the bank of the river: snatched away by the river she is restored. which from her hands,

by the rapacity of the stream suddenly directed, by the whirling of the waves

are seized. She stupefied cries out, calls her mistress

to her aid, announces the misfortune which had befallen

her. The Lay-sister, exercising the divine work,

was unwilling to leave it before completion: but

the threads which with labor she had spun, to the Prelate of God Claudius

she commended: and when the sick woman's wheat

she had ground, sent her away with the flour. Afterward,

running swiftly, she had now passed nearly two stadia,

when the threads in the midst of the waves she beheld floating up; and to

the holy Prelate making prayer she cried out:

Servant of God Claudius, if true are the things which of you we have heard,

if it is true that you carried a woman across the river Ain c

in a boat without an oarsman; by the piety with which you are full,

my threads, for which I am anxious, today

restore to me. Not yet had she finished her prayers, when the threads,

by the backward-flowing waves carried, to her sight present

offered themselves. She, forgetful of her tunic, into

the waters leaping, immersed herself in the floods up to her breast; her clothes are kept dry in the waters.

and seizing the threads with dry garments on the bank stood;

except that about her arms which she had immersed, a little

moisture appeared. The Priests who were there, and others

nearly thirty who followed her, to this miracle

bore testimony.

[30] A certain man d and his daughter, loaded with little bundles

of ears of grain, at harvest time from the field with the sun setting

were returning; who passing near a beech which overhangs,

through the slopes of the hill made their way.

Then the young girl, who followed her father's footsteps, a mute girl receives speech.

by an unknown occasion suddenly becoming mute,

the use of speaking utterly lost, and her burden at once cast away; and to her father,

repeatedly crying out, who asked the cause of her silence,

nothing at all she answered: for so were the instruments

of speaking hindered, that iron

seemed transfixed through her arteries. Then, brought

to St. Claudius, by the bystanders she was admonished to

pray: and four days in the bitterness of her soul

remaining, what with her tongue she could not unfold,

with the devout will of her mind she fulfilled. Who at last

mercifully heard, with tongue more free

into this voice leaped: Holy Claudius, friend of God,

have mercy on me. Hearing which all who were there,

suffused with a shower of tears, in such an evident miracle,

in humble devotion exulted.

[31] A certain townsman of e Burgum, Paganus by name,

praiseworthy in faith and famous in conversation,

while a sermon was made to the people, A ring clinging to the finger, among the rest of the presence

of Blessed Claudius stood devout: on whose finger

which, the skin being eaten away, clinging closer to the bone,

the overgrowing flesh had nearly wholly covered, and though often

handled, by effort or medicine by anyone

it could not be extracted. That man therefore, when for the repair

of Blessed Eugendus's shrine rings and necklaces by

and prone on the ground adored, saying: Most loving God,

be propitious to me your servant, that freeing me from the crushing

and anguish, by the intervention of your Confessor Claudius,

you may snatch my ring from my finger into a good work.

And again feeling, the ring, by an unforeseen ease

rollable, separated from his finger he found: and before

he could extract it, with hands raised for joy into

this voice he leaped: Praise the Lord, all you

nations, who, looking to our hearts, through his servant

Claudius works miracles in us. At which deed,

those who were there, gladdened by so great a benefit, with hymns,

sounds, and canticles applauded.

[32] Then f the Religious men, who served the sacred body

as inseparable companions, of Neuville g entered

the monastery: conspicuous in faith and truth,

the Monks of that place, and the Sisters living there regularly,

the Body being brought to Neuville, in those things which they had heard and seen more attentively

they instructed. Afterward, the coming of Blessed Claudius

fame divulging to many others, to the aforesaid

place from all sides peoples flowed together: who, to

the rewards of the Blessed by salutary admonitions invited, on couches

and pallets brought those beset with various ailments.

To the numerous multitude therefore of those assembling

afterward it became clear: for the course of the present life

without the stains of earthly conversation scarcely or

never is run through. He, about to enter the gate,

with head thrust forward strove, but his soles slipping back

he could not pass the threshold: which with stupor

vehemently wondering, silent he drew back his foot, and

elsewhere sought entrance: and through the gate which

is from the North joined to the popular throngs, again

he tried to enter: and by every kind of effort profiting nothing,

he knew himself ensnared by the enticements of pleasure;

and that the malignant one, as if a mousetrap, him wrapped up in sins,

from the entrance of the sacred things and the touch of the relics,

by subtle fraud prohibited. Without delay,

through a messenger Cono being summoned, the Sacristan h of that

church, the aforesaid man with contrite heart

coming to his senses, with poured-out tears fell at his feet,

imploring the laver of Confession. Then believing with his heart

and confessing with his mouth, except a Confession being made Satan renounced, the filth

of his vices he vomited out. At once the Priest, the minister

of divine reconciliation, in as much as pertained to him,

with Apostolic remission the penitent from the bonds

of sins absolved, and him through the Holy

Spirit from the death of the soul raised up, and by the hand

taking him to St. Claudius led him in; where magnifying

God, the unexpected outcome of the matter he related

to all: who, seeing in Blessed Claudius the power of Christ

to dwell, with heart at once and voice, to his praises rose up.

[33] Not far from the monastery of St. Eugendus, beneath a lofty

mountain lies a very long valley, which by its depth

hidden is deprived of the benefit of the sun. Over this valley

the sheer height of crags overhangs, where to flocks

and herds most fertile pastures furnishes, far

and wide spread out, a plain: among which a cow, by natural

custom seething in love, was running down,

driven by untamed bulls: who at the extreme

edge of the mountain rushing upon her without law, gravely

oppressed her, a bull fallen into the precipice is preserved. and trampling with feet cast over

nearly wholly crushed her. These the herdsmen following,

pressed on their tracks more hastily, until, those

passing along the crag, a bull, slipping from the top

of the height, fell into the deep. And those who followed

with loud voice cried out: St. Claudius, save him;

this one we commit to you, and to your protection we commend him.

Yet despairing of his life, evening urging,

with the rest they returned home; and to their Lord

indicating, the place of the precipice they declared.

Who, a knife taken up to flay the bull, through the trackless places

of the hill sought him: whom never finding,

vexed by so great a loss, he returned to his

house: and entering the stable found the bull

healthy and unharmed; and wondering that without injury

it was, Blessed Claudius as a most faithful guardian

he acclaimed; and to his presence the bull in haste

offered, and what had been done, narrated.

[34] A certain woman, Sophisia by name, of Mont

St. i Saturninus, returning from the place where St. Claudius rested,

with neighbors and acquaintances hastened home:

who by a sudden inundation of rains as if submerged

in the waters, with soaked garments were drenched. A woman, a boat coming of its own accord, is carried across

When they had come to Bledum, standing on the nearer bank of the river Ain,

beyond, a boat fastened to the shore by a holding pole

they saw: and despairing of crossing, doubtful what they should do,

counsel from Blessed Claudius by prayers and

vows they demanded. At once the boat, the torn-away pole

receiving, the river yielding, unexpectedly

offered itself to those crying out: and while to the entry one another

they invited, the rapacity of the river beheld, fearful

they held back. But then Sophisia, the rest doubting,

to God and Blessed Claudius committed herself, and secure in faith

support, in the boat alone sat down: in which without an oarsman

across the middle of the river carried, in a moment

the desired shore she held, not without the wonder of those

who through fear had remained, rebuking one another as of little

faith. And a little after with the woman to St.

Claudius returning, the faith of so great a miracle to the peoples

they showed.

[35] Translated k to Lyon, Blessed Claudius, on account of

the incredulity of the citizens, wrought few miracles there:

for they said: Unless we see signs and wonders,

we will not believe. But there approached a certain man with limbs

loosened, an invalid, who for 22 years destitute of the use of his feet,

by the effort of his hands was carried miserably:

who, Christian by name, At Lyon a man contracted for 22 years is healed. imbued with the Waldensian

tradition, known among the people publicly begged.

But coming to the Saint of God, he asked him, saying:

St. Claudius, obtain for me by your prayers recovery,

if you know my soul to be strengthened by the power of faith;

otherwise I shall not be heard, to be relieved from the powerlessness

of my body. To the guardians of the sacred body by all

and each it was often said: If the holy man relieves this man

from his weakness, undoubtedly we will confess

the power of Christ to dwell in him. The weak man prayed, armed with the shield

of faith, to be heard and cured. For suddenly,

seizing the chasuble with his hands, with a certain straining

he stretched himself: and with his joints crackling, feeling no

injury, with free step he walked, glorifying

God.

ANNOTATIONS OF G. H.

in Topographical Maps; and twice indeed in the confines of Bresse

at the town of St. Amour in the Duchy of Burgundy; the other, in the diocese

of Autun at St. Julien, and perhaps elsewhere: for to this journey

another place would be more fitting.

BOOK II OF THE MIRACLES.

Collected by Peter Francis Chifflet, S.J., from Manuscript records.

Claudius, Bishop of Besançon and Abbot of the Jura, in Burgundy (St.)

BHL Number: 1845

FROM THE CHIFFLET MANUSCRIPTS.

PREFACE.

[1] The miracles being hidden after the year 1160, The miracles which in the foregoing book the ancient Author

recounted, those nearly five hundred

years ago, about the year of the incarnate Word 1160, were

wrought: but those which in earlier centuries, and those which through almost

two hundred whole years thereafter happened, the memory of them to us

either the sloth of the writers of that time,

or (what is thought more likely) devouring time and

the flames, which often laid waste the Claudian monastery,

have begrudged. Whatever therefore noted

survives, pertains to the three last centuries. Nor

indeed have we collected all (for who could?) but from

and more illustrious; from many only the more attested ones are gathered, noted after the year 1330, that as much as they have of authority

for making faith, so much they might have for the admonisher to

excite religion. That faith certainly all and each merit,

which by the holier oath of suitable witnesses, which by the inscriptions

and votive offerings hung from the temple's vault,

which finally by the public handwritings of notaries whence they were excerpted,

no prudent man would not grant. These do you read through,

my Reader, if you have leisure; nay even, if you please, yourself try.

You will acknowledge him to be that Blessed Claudius, whom deservedly

before almighty God, every sex, every age,

every order; [but the whole world, cities, and all provinces, for all their causes adopt as patron;]

and into that perhaps Davidic exclamation you will burst:

Too greatly are your friends honored, O God. Ps. 138:17, Moreover,

in these Commentaries if anything occurs a little different

from Henri Boguet, among the people of St. Claudius

the supreme Judge, in whose name two more than a hundred

miracles of holy Claudius, more than twenty years ago,

in the French language written, appeared; know nevertheless,

reader, that I have set down no place, no time, no names

of persons, no other circumstances of the things done whatever, except

from the most certain records, and so from the very

original notarial tablets. Do you enjoy and

farewell. At Salins of Blessed Claudius, his native soil, on the 10th before the Kalends

of October, in the year of the Christian Era 1632. Thus far

the Preface of the Author: to which we add nothing else, than

that several of his Chapters are contracted by us into one; lest the multitude

of titles, which he extends to 24, too frequently

halt the Reader.

CHAPTER I.

One suffocated by waters, and another moribund, saved; a hand eaten away by cancer,

restored: a Soldier, amid the weapons of enemies and in long imprisonment,

suffering no harm.

[2] In the year 1339 a boy fallen from a bridge and submerged, In that part of the Sequani which touches Lyon of Gaul

(the present-day common people call it Bresse),

in the year of Christ above a thousand and three hundred

and thirty-nine, a seven-year-old boy John,

son of Henry of Plantain, a noble man, on the Saturday next

following after the feast of the Purified Virgin, by chance

from the drawbridge, into the moat, drawn around his father's castle,

headlong fell. The miserable accident some beheld:

from the house, from the neighborhood; but alas! too late. For what aid

could they bring? The boy lay, submerged in the waters to the depth of one

lance, and except the top of his floating hood,

no trace of him appeared. No one

doubted but that it was all over with the boy. Yet one goes to

both his parents, who then were far away in

the church, for the sake of praying: the death of their little son is announced. his father invoking the Saint, Here,

the father stricken, on the spot Blessed Claudius implores,

and earnestly prays, that he would save his son, and render him to him

unharmed. While he in the sacred building placed far off thus

prayed, at the same moment, emerging from the lowest waters, the boy,

very many on every side looking on, to the water's shore

by I know not what hidden force is driven. Thus extracted

the corpse is stripped of its clothes, and for burial is arranged,

and it was nearly the case that with a funeral shroud after the custom

it should be wrapped: when behold, the unhappy father is present, he is restored to life. and

at the sight of his dead son moved, again Blessed Claudius

with the highest exertion of his mind calls upon. Scarcely had he prayed;

and the boy, his eyes suddenly opened, groaning, said: Do not,

he said, fear, my father; lo, I live, and am well. All were

stupefied. Bound by their vow, the father and mother the son saved

divinely in the basilica of the savior holy Claudius

presented.

[3] Truly that Wise man: A brother who is helped by a brother

is like a firm city. Prov. 18:19 Montpellier is a city

of Narbonne Gaul, A moribund youth, now renowned for a famous academy and royal

gardens. There for the sake of studies dwelt two brothers,

born of Stephen Bracard their father, of Montaigu

of the Auxerre territory. Of these the younger (Vicinus

was the name) about fourteen years of age,

fell into a grave disease, and various remedies tried in vain,

he is given up by the physicians. For eleven whole

days he had taken no food or drink, and so far in strength

he was failing, that not even in him could be detected

the pulse of a beating artery, and scarcely breathing from his nostrils a very faint

breath retained his fleeing soul.

Then the elder-born brother, Hugoninus by name, by a vow made for him by his brother, deeply

sighing, and his face suffused with tears, was conducting the funeral of the dying one.

A sad spectacle; but the outcome was happier.

There came to his mind the thought of summoning from heaven the aid

which the industry of the physicians had denied. His brother therefore

to holy Claudius he commits: he vows, if he should escape the danger,

that he would go, or that he would send that very brother

of his to the Jura building of Blessed Claudius;

besides, that he would offer wax of the weight that his brother was, or money

of the same amount. He had once been to his younger brother

as master and domestic governor, now also

in place of physician and parent he was; to the sick man health, life

to the dying he restored. Why do I delay? Scarcely had he vowed, when

he is bound by his vow: and he who was at the point of death, he recovers in the year 1341. suddenly to

his brother turning, said: Come, brother, all the disease

has departed; I am of whole health, of whole strength.

The matter so done, under oath they affirmed at the altar

of St. Claudius, to which for the sake of discharging the vow they had betaken themselves;

the youth himself snatched from the jaws of death, and Stephen

his parent, in the month of August, of the year above a thousand

three hundred and forty.

[4] The Bishopric of the Lyon metropolis was administering

William de Sure, The Official of Lyon testifies. in the year of Christ 1335

and some surrounding it. He, moved both by the frequency

and the magnitude of the miracles of Blessed Claudius, decreed

that his feast day should be sacred in the whole diocese,

and free from all work should be kept. That observance

God seemed to have sanctioned by a new miracle in the year

1342, on the tenth day of the month of August, when now

Guido of Bologna had succeeded William in the Bishopric.

It pleases to bring forward the very words of Bartholomew de

Boscarius, Vicar general for Guido the Archbishop,

who about the whole matter most diligently for his office instituted an

inquiry. To all the faithful of Christ to whom

the present letters shall come, greeting in the son of the glorious

Virgin, and to give faith to the present. The glorious

God in his Saints, and in majesty wonderful, whose

inestimable height of providence, included in no limits,

and comprehended in no bounds, by the censure of right

judgment disposes heavenly things equally and earthly; although

he adorns all his ministers magnificently with high honors,

and makes them possessors of heavenly blessedness; those

nevertheless, that he may bestow worthy things on the worthy, with more powerful

ensigns of dignities he extols, and with the more abundant retribution

of rewards he follows, whom he acknowledges more worthy,

and whom a greater excellence of merits commends.

[5] Stephaneta the widow whose hand was consumed by cancer, Indeed although fame divulged had brought to our knowledge,

that Stephaneta, widow of John Milos,

an inhabitant of the city of Lyon, who formerly

from a certain infirmity, as it pleased God, had lost

her left hand utterly and wholly: and thus,

the aforesaid hand lost, for a long time in the city

of Lyon she had stood, openly and publicly to all

seeing her without a hand. And that the said woman lately

to the monastery of St. Eugendus of the Jura, of this diocese

of Lyon, to visit the church of the aforesaid monastery,

in honor of the most glorious Confessor the most Blessed

Claudius, whose body in the same church rests:

which woman also, fame being divulged, many

miracles, by the merits and intercession of that most glorious Confessor,

through God in the aforesaid church she had heard

to be wrought, and that many sick had recovered

health from diverse infirmities, and from infirmities of this kind

been freed: that from the infirmity of the eyes

which she suffered she might be healed, and also that the aforesaid infirmity

which had consumed for her the aforesaid hand, and

still the arm of the same (as it had the hand) was consuming,

might be extinguished, by the prayers and merits of the aforesaid

most glorious Confessor, thither personally she came.

There she stood for some days, with due devotion

free for assiduous prayers, and beseeching the said glorious

Saint, that concerning her requests she might merit to be

heard. At last, on the day of the feast of Blessed Laurence just

past, the woman herself being placed before the place

in which the body of the most glorious Confessor the most Blessed

Claudius rests, and she for some time as if

placed in ecstasy; when she had returned to herself after some

interval of time, she found her hand sound

and whole, by the merits of the said Saint restored.

[6] But we, Bartholomew de Boscarius, in both

laws Licentiate, Vicar and Official of Lyon,

at the instance of the Sacristan of the said monastery and

of the same woman, that she received it whole, although the aforesaid miracle

was reckoned notorious in the city of Lyon,

and we had been sufficiently informed that William of good

memory, our Lord of Lyon's

immediate predecessor, on account of the open miracles

which Jesus Christ the Son of God on account of the same

Saint had wrought, and to work daily did not

cease, had decreed that the feast of that Saint each year through the city

and diocese of Lyon should be solemnly

celebrated; Nonetheless, that, as fame

divulged had reported to us, concerning the said miracle

the truth might be had, We with great diligence wished

to be informed: lest not miraculously, but through fraud

the aforesaid things should occur, to deceive the hearts

of the simple: and that, if it were true, of that miracle,

certainty having been gained, we might render you more certain;

and lest, if we had concealed it, we be accused of crime.

Wherefore that woman before us

personally we caused to be exhibited; and the lost hand,

miraculously (as is premised) restored, we beheld

and palpated diligently. Which we saw

sound and whole, and that we saw and palpated her such, and unlike the other right hand only

in color; since the other on account of the sun somewhat

appeared blackened; but the said hand,

miraculously (as is premised) restored, as if new

appeared to us, and still appears in color whiter

than the right hand of the same woman. We inquired

besides, both through ourselves and through other commissaries,

specially deputed by us for this,

with very many witnesses worthy of faith, religious and

secular, clerics and laics, townsmen and notaries,

and especially with the religious and honest women

Abbesses of the monastery of St. Peter of the Nuns b and

of the Désert of the city of Lyon, and several witnesses being heard, and some other

Nuns of the said monasteries, with whom

the said miserable woman for a long time was said

to have associated.

[7] Which witnesses swore on the holy Gospels of God,

and in the word of truth asserted, that the said

woman on several days and occasions they had seen and

beheld without the aforesaid hand: and that this was

and had been notorious in the same city of Lyon.

We therefore, giving full faith to the said witnesses,

testify to you, and into your knowledge by the tenor

of the present letters we bring, that concerning so open and notorious

that to God in his glorious Saint, the most Blessed Claudius,

you may render the praises of due veneration and thanks: and that that

Saint with the same our Lord

Jesus Christ we may merit to have as patron.

In faith and testimony of all which things,

the present letters with the seal of our court we have caused to be fortified by appending it.

Given at Lyon, on the first day of the month

of September, in the year of the Lord 1342. But I,

Jordanus de Cuysiacum, Cleric, citizen of Lyon,

by Apostolic authority public Notary, and

of the court of the said Lord Official sworn, at the aforesaid things,

at the exhibition of the hand of the said woman, miraculously (as

is premised) restored, at the inspection and palpation

of it, by the said Lord Official, and at the inquiry concerning

this with very many witnesses worthy of faith, by a public instrument in the year 1342 religious

and secular, the Abbesses and Nuns mentioned

made, and in many other things written above, by

the commission of the said Lord Official was present:

and to the present letters thence drawn up I subscribed

with my own hand: and the same, by the order and will of the said Lord

Official, with my public sign I signed, in testimony

of the truth of the aforesaid, being Requested.

[8] How renowned and illustrious the family of Luxembourg is,

our Annals speak, and also the registers of the Churches,

in which the name of that Peter, c a youth

incomparable, even before his solemn apotheosis, in 1475 the Governor of Burgundy remains unharmed amid hostile weapons,

with the highest consent of the peoples inscribed you may read. From

it descended Anthony of Luxembourg, Count

of Brienne, of Roussy, and of Charny, Lord of

Guise &c., in the jubilee year also 1475;

Governor of the province of Burgundy, and military Prefect,

commonly they call him Marshal. In that year by chance

it happened that against the castle of Morillon of French dominion,

upon the Lord de Cointronde, for the King of the Franks

the chief Praetor of the army, he made an assault.

It was fought on both sides sharply, but the Franks

conquering, there were slain all the noblest of the Burgundians:

he himself, the chief of all, Anthony, thrown from his horse,

the almighty God, the holy Virgin

of Rollandmont, and the most blessed Prelate Claudius

in his last peril silently invoked. Wonderful

to say! and he testifies that he came out safe from long imprisonment in the year 1492. From that time, although with eighty crossbowmen's

weapons he alone before the rest from all sides was attacked, all

fell to nothing: he himself without wound by the enemies

was captured. Nor was this the end of the miracles. In that custody

he was held for eight years, and about three months;

during which time for seven years, nine months,

and twenty-five days, he was in shackles:

and they were iron shackles, of fifty-five

pounds weight. In that so bitter captivity not

did his shins swell, nor did he feel pain, nor disease

even the slightest contract; but in whole health

emerging, the whole matter diligently noted, in the year

at last 1492, on the twenty-eighth day of the month of June,

for the sake of his grateful mind, into the public tablets he entered;

and that all the benefits which we have recounted he attributed to holy Claudius

as received, under oath he confirmed.

ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.

CHAPTER II.

Those gravely wounded by enemies, and likewise the shipwrecked, or otherwise endangered at sea, saved.

[9] Another is saved in the year 1487, variously wounded, There are among mortals those who can sometimes avert evils,

but cannot heal those inflicted; to God

the best and greatest both alike are easy to do.

There was under the standards and in the company of Engelbert of

Nassau Claudius Bouart, a man of the equestrian order, when

at Hinges they had the French forces on the way meeting them,

on the day of Saturday, the twenty-eighth of the month of July, in the year

of Christ 1487. In that conflict Claudius,

now with spears, now with javelins in many ways attacked, and attacked again,

even with an arrow pierced through the throat, is struck down.

While he was at the point of death, to Blessed Claudius, his namesake Patron,

he commits himself and all that is his, and (O the healing hand

of the Saint!) every wound wiped away he recovers. He afterward,

by Philip Archduke of Austria, afterward King of the Spains

the first of that name, ransomed for a price,

was set in royal stead over the castle of Béthune, and of his piety toward

the most blessed Archbishop, and of the received

benefit a monument, a votive tablet hung at

his tomb he willed to remain.

[10] A twin miracle to this I do not detach. About

the month of July of the year 1527, in the name

of Charles V the Emperor, from Milan at the dead of night had gone out six

thousand armed men, with an equal number about to invade the Helvetian and Rhaetian

forces of the French party. likewise another in 1527, There stood

in the first line Louis d'Arestel, a noble Burgundian,

leader of the light-armed of his people. When therefore it had been fought

at Caranschium, there fell in the battle Louis,

with a double wound his entrails laid open, and then

elsewhere lightly grazed, then in the left shoulder

by a pike by chance pierced through. He lay among the corpses of the slain,

and by those fighting on both sides was miserably trampled;

when there came to his mind Blessed Claudius. A thing I am about to tell

almost incredible, but yet in holy

Claudius's basilica the following year by Louis himself with solemn

oath affirmed. He prayed; and the battle finished,

from the midst of the heap of corpses, not only breathing, but

also unharmed and safe he came out.

[11] By a benefit nearly similar already before had been saved

Christopher de Lannoy, citizen of Tournai.

He in the year of Christ 1510, on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter,

in the strait of Calais with more than forty others,

partly sailors, partly merchants, was carried in a freighter, and another in 1510 from a sea-battle.

which they called the Magdalen; when

on both sides sharply. Christopher among others nine

wounds, and of these three lethal, in the navel, in

the heart, and in the throat, having received, for dead through

twenty-four hours stretched out in the hold he lay. At last

William his brother, beholding him still breathing, and

struggling with death, before the whole assembly of bystanders,

his knees placed on the ground, Blessed Claudius

as a suppliant prays, that he restore his brother to him unharmed;

with also the vow of a pious pilgrimage added. At those

prayers suddenly as if waking Christopher, first

opens his eyes, then addresses his brother, afterward food

and drink takes; finally, his wounds bound up somehow,

when he had gone home, within fifteen days

step by step he recovered: and soon with William

his brother to holy Claudius having set out on the journey, the faith of the miracle

on the fifteenth day of June into the public tablets he consigned.

[12] There is a village of the Jura dominion commonly Morbier, from

the Jura monastery of St. Claudius itself by three leagues of an hour's walk

distant. There a fifteen-year-old girl, A girl in the year 1529 bedridden and then almost without food, Petronilla

by name, daughter of Peter Jordain an honest man, by a nocturnal

vision terrified, with the month of July of the year 1429 declining,

so much weakened from it survived, that through five whole

years she could neither rise from bed, nor take any food

or drink; except that each month,

sometimes even in the space of two or more months,

she scarcely ate a single apple: so all

power, almost, either of ingesting, or of digesting, or of excreting,

nature had denied. In the first year of her sickness,

so far as she was mistress of her tongue, (as she was pious, and

well-mannered) twice with the Parish priest she laid down her sins,

twice with the holy bread of the Eucharist she was refreshed: but in the last

four years, more like a dead than a living person,

she could neither open her eyes, nor speak; although,

when anyone about God and divine matters made speech,

then she, with hands joined, and tears poured forth with groaning,

would signify that she felt what was being said.

[13] Frequent was the concourse of visitors to that spectacle;

and there was present under happy auspices a woman pious among few, deprived of speech,

and illustrious, Catharine de Bauffremont, Lady

of Treschastel in the territory of Langres, in the year

of Christ 1434, on the third day of the month of August.

She, the girl first gently addressing, soon, her knees placed

on the ground before the bed of the one lying, the good and great

God, his most holy mother the Virgin,

and the most blessed Archbishop Claudius,

for her safety long prayed. She had finished;

and her face turned to the parents of the sick girl, seriously she admonishes them,

that their daughter, while half-alive, to the venerable body of Claudius

they should take care to carry; nor did she cease to exhort,

until they undertook to her that they would do this as soon as possible. in the year 1523, brought to St. Claudius, she becomes well. This

they performed the next day, the fourth day of August: and the fame of the matter,

to the basilica of Blessed Claudius, an immense multitude

of men summoned. Prayer was made by the surrounding

people, by the head of the Monastery, and by all the Monks;

but especially by Catharine, on whose faith and

religion most of all the expectation of the miracle rested. Wonderful to say:

Petronilla rises first to her knees; then,

her eyes suddenly opened, on the sacred soles of holy Claudius

reverently she fixes them. Without delay: she is raised to her feet,

asks for a Confessor, and the Confession being made, to

the kisses of the feet of the holy Prelate approaching, by his

merits she proclaims herself restored to health. There arises a murmur

and festive acclamation among the people: there break out from all sides

tears and groans; the bells are rung according to measure and

number, and in the great assembly the Te Deum

laudamus is solemnly chanted.

[14] Acknowledge you also, people of Geneva, the power and divine power

of Blessed Claudius even in your lake, in 1455 a boat overturned by a tempest, (from whose faith

and religion you have lately fallen away) to be

shown. There was passing the year of the incarnate Word above a thousand

four hundred and fifty-five,

and it was the second feria, the day of the month of May

the twenty-sixth, when in Lake Leman (which now of Geneva

or of Lausanne the common people call) from

the castle of Morges b to Thonon, three common and hourly

leagues, by boat were heading Nicod Girod,

of Morges by homeland, by condition a notary, with

four others. Now into the deep about eight miles

advanced, about the fourth hour after noon a foul

tempest came on. and the others being drowned, three escape into the keel; And first the sky to shudder,

the winds to whistle, the lake to roar; then to be tossed

the boat, then by the waves dashed against the sides to be sprinkled,

and with the water coming in to be weighed down; finally to be wholly rolled over,

and in the midst of the waters to be turned upside down. Called upon by Peter

and Nicod were the Heaven-dwellers, the Virgin Mother of God, Claudius,

Nicholas, Louis of Arles. c Nor in vain;

for by that overturning of the ship, all being cast into the lake,

two were swallowed by the waves, namely Aymonet

Choudet of Thonon with his son; the third (John

Monod was the name), having embraced the cross-seat of the boat,

when it was overturned was choked by the waters: three others,

embracing one another, by I know not what means above the ship's

upturned keel escaped.

[15] and the same set upright by the Saints invoked, Thus for the space of a half-hour they floated: and it was permitted

to Peter and to Nicod, even on bent knees, again

to pronounce vows for their safety, and again to the Patrons now

adopted: nor in vain. There was seen during that time

by Peter Destuë (as he himself afterward by his own handwriting

before very many witnesses into the public tablets

reported) the most holy Virgin Mother standing by the endangered,

together with the blessed Claudius, Nicholas, and Louis

of Arles; who three, alike striving, the overturned

boat to its prone and upright state restored. and they being placed back within it, Again

into the lake were to be cast those who were carried in the keel:

but (O the faithful hand of the Divinity!) they are received

into the hold of the rolled-back ship, and they see John Monod's

miserable corpse entangled in the cross-bar. Without delay,

the oars seized, against the still-raging storm with all their effort

they struggle; and toward Lausanne turning, by about a half-league

to St. Sulpicius they are brought. Thence

four unknown men carried in a boat came to their aid:

into which boat as soon as John was received

(that was the name of the rustic man, who with Peter and

Nicod still among the living survived) his soul forthwith

he breathed out. one dies, two are saved: So from that disaster alone escaped Peter

and Nicod: who in a short time after, one on one

day to the basilica of St. Claudius having discharged their religious promise,

the whole matter, as it has been narrated, a notary being employed for the public

faith, and an oath interposed,

lawfully confirmed.

[16] We are occupied in waters: but now from the lake to a river,

from the river to the sea we must come, likewise in the year 1571, three shipwrecked, that everywhere

our Prelate's dominion we may understand. In the year

of Christ 1571 the river Furantius d was crossing

at the ford of Accoyeum Peter Marcus de Mouxe,

son of the lord of Luppigny, in the territory of Geneva, together

with his servant Claudius Laurentius, and another, by name

Francis Dieu-le-fils. The waters had swollen, and inauspiciously

it happened, that the ship, driven against a tree, into

fragments burst apart. Here Peter Blessed Claudius calls upon:

and see with what outcome. Francis with the sailor,

more nimble, climb into the tree: Claudius, with one

hand having seized a branch, hangs suspended, with the other his master

seized by the hair he holds up; until by the leg-binding

of Claudius lifted up, he too into the tree

escaped. The accident painted on a tablet, Peter Marcus's

religious offering, even now of the miracle to all

speaks.

[17] Upward we ascend by a whole century, and yet

from a river into the sea by a downward course we are carried. About

the year of the Christian era 1472 there were sailing

from the East into Provence more than four hundred;

when toward dawn a savage tempest, having arisen, the freighter

into the utmost peril brought. as in the year 1472 had been saved another 400: There had stretched themselves over the sky

black and foul clouds, and mixed with dense rains the most rapid

whirlwinds, the tenth waves and the receding ones

stirred up. Nothing had availed the cast anchors: death was in

the eyes of all; and the services of the sailors being thrown into confusion,

nothing now of hope, except in divine aid to remain

was believed. Therefore amid tears and disordered cries,

Blessed Claudius all with the highest will,

on bent knees, adopt as Patron. Scarcely had the prayers been poured forth

when the winds and the waves, as if silence

being commanded, grew calm: the ship thereafter calmly and prosperously

held its course. The danger over, those who in the ship

were carried, had nothing rather to do, than to choose a certain man

out of the whole number, who in the name of all

to holy Claudius their savior, for whom a votive pilgrimage a religious pilgrimage having been undertaken to his tomb,

should discharge the vow.

That duty by lot fell to Christopher de Ayfun, the most serene

King of Sicily and Jerusalem's e noble Squire,

and Prefect of the bread-supply: which he too

willingly admitted. But while he extends the matter farther, namely

to six years or even beyond, a man otherwise most busy;

by his own peril he learned that divine

services are not to be easily, after human ones, however serious, postponed.

[18] Christopher was going by royal command, expedited

on horseback, from Aix to the castle f of Lambesc;

and now, with the twilight of night approaching, to

St. Cannatus he had come (which place is distant from Lambesc

about a half-league); when behold there stood by

the unwary man a shade, of venerable appearance, neglecting to discharge what he had promised, in the habit of a Benedictine

Monk, in which under the black mantle something white

I know not what shone within. Without delay, by the reins the horse

he seized, and thus through the whole journey he went before the rider,

as far as Lambesc; to which when it was come, then indeed

that specter addressed the noble man in nearly these words: Not yet,

he said, have you discharged the vow, by which

already long ago, on account of the avoided peril of the tempest, you were

held bound. See that you perform this duty,

lest some graver accident overtake you. And these things said,

he vanished from his eyes. he is gravely afflicted, At that sight, vehemently stupefied,

Christopher, having lost the faculty of speaking, as

soon as he was received in lodging, a writing-pen,

and paper and ink obtained by a nod from his host,

the sequence of his misfortune in order he wrote out. Soon

with a grave disease he began to be afflicted; nor was he made better

(even with the industry of the royal physicians employed)

until he resolved at last to fulfill what he once

had promised. He came therefore, by a long and difficult way, to

the basilica of the blessed Eugendus and Claudius: which entering,

with head bare, with bare feet, with the rest also of his

body in the manner of a suppliant half-naked, on the twentieth of September

of the year 1479, as soon as upon the sacred

and incorrupt body of holy Claudius he fixed his eyes, and in the year 1479 at the body he is healed.

he burst into that verse of David: Lord, my lips

you will open, and my mouth will announce your praise.

And freed from every discomfort, thanks being solemnly

rendered, the memory of the benefit received, by the public faith of a notary,

and by the religion of an oath he sanctioned.

ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.

and Breda, from the year 1475, in which his father John died, to 1494,

in which he himself died: from him the Princes of Orange derive their lineage.

CHAPTER III.

Freed from barbarian or hostile captivity, from the extreme punishments; or from the hands of robbers.

[19] In the year 1453 two captured by the Turks, From the tempest we depart, but not yet from the sea.

In the year of Christ 1453, at the end of the month of June,

John de Vinea, a Fleming of Lille,

and Reginald de Trahyes, of St. Paul of the territory of Tarnava,

sailing in the Mediterranean, by the Barbarians

captured, and then into a foul prison cast.

But since for want they could not buy their liberty with a price,

again on a barbarian galley they were set out;

to perform some duty partly nautical, partly military.

The wretched men bewailed their lot, for this cause especially,

that to the most hostile enemies of the Christian name, against

the Christians themselves their effort to render

even unwilling they were compelled. And now for two years a most harsh servitude

they were serving; when of Blessed Claudius came

into their mind the recollection. Therefore they devote themselves,

and earnestly demand, that them from the dominion of those most ferocious men

taken away, into some safe harbor he receive. Nor

were the prayers poured forth in vain. They look about the ship (then

it was the day of Jove a after the feast of Blessed Louis, of the year

above a thousand and four hundred and fifty-

fifth) and all to a man sunk in deep sleep

not without wonder beholding; two years after by a miracle they escape; reckoning indeed

that the time was present, in which to be attempted by them was the way to

liberty, by I know not what rope hanging from the ship, into

the sea silently they slip down. Opportunely then they were distant

from the mainland only one league, or a little more:

full of spirit, and of confidence in holy Claudius,

John takes Reginald his cousin, unskilled in swimming,

upon his shoulders. Thus, no one hindering,

slipped away, the harbor of Savona b by swimming they reached, thence

their most blessed Prelate as the asserter of their liberty

openly to all professing.

[20] likewise another in the year 1466. Another from Nice of the Salii, Monetus by name,

by condition a scrivener, when, captured at sea by pirates,

and assigned to a rowing-bench, eleven years now in that torture-place

he had persevered; Blessed Claudius being invoked, a knife

having obtained, first the iron chain, with which he was

bound, with easy effort he cut through; then on the next

night with a happy daring leaping into the sea, long with the waters

having struggled, at last to the harbor, near Nice his homeland,

by swimming he came; nor much later,

to the tomb of Blessed Claudius having made pilgrimage, on the third day

of November of the year 1466, he solemnly affirmed him as his

deliverer.

[21] In 1677 a Dominican, bound for his own faults, From the galleys to the prisons I go. At Grenoble

Nicolaus Gatery, of Belmer by homeland, on the shore of the Mediterranean

Sea, by condition a Dominican, by dignity

provincial Provost charged with theft, and in

his whole life of more dissolute license, to perpetual prison by

him was condemned, and consigned to Geneva; where for

four years in custody and in chains he was. By chance

it happened that the Duke of Savoy c into the city of Geneva

was solemnly making entry: then indeed Nicolaus,

accustomed often elsewhere to call upon Blessed Claudius, with more ardent

zeal entreats, that to bring him at last sometime out of that

squalor he would be moved. Scarcely

had he poured forth his prayers, when himself loosed from his shackles, but, penitent, a vow being made, he is freed: and opened

the doors of the prison wonderingly he saw. As he was going out

there met him the keeper of the prison: who at first vehemently

stupefied, then warned of the miracle,

returns Nicolaus to custody. When that matter to the most serene

Duke of Savoy had been carried, reckoning

it a liberty accepted by the Heaven-dwellers, he orders him led

out of prison, and from his chains taken away. Nicolaus

to the Basilica of Blessed Claudius, his asserter, flies;

and the matter as it has been narrated, a solemn oath being given upon the sacred Canon,

he affirms, on the twentieth day of March,

in the year of Christ 1477.

[22] and in 1478 a Carmelite, captured by enemies: Another in the following year 1478, also

with mortals unwilling, escaped. He was a Carmelite, Andrew

by name, sprung from the village of Grandval, and in

the monastery of Clairval d of the diocese of Besançon professed.

He, by a noble man Claudius de Vaudrey to Semur

soon to Dijon, thence to Talant bound

is led. There loaded with iron foot-fetters, besides by

most insolent men in a dire manner he was tortured.

And so the most blessed Mother of God,

the Virgin, with all the effort of his mind he implored; and holy

Claudius by name he prayed, that of revisiting his sacred

tomb yet to him he would grant the faculty.

While he was praying this, suddenly the very heavy shackles, by which he was held,

by an invisible hand loosed, and

before the eyes of the other captives onto the ground struck

down were. Nonetheless he is condemned to death, and by night

to be choked in the waters is led by the executioner. Meanwhile

about to die his sins (as is done) to the Priest he unfolds;

and while the holy Virgin and St. Claudius

he calls upon, the confession finished, the rope, by which his hands

were bound, by a silent force he perceives himself to be loosed. Therefore,

slipping from the executioner's hands, of his own accord into the Oscara

river's gulf he leaps; whence by swimming far advanced,

and beyond the enemies' power established,

by the neighboring house of the Carthusians most kindly he is received

about the eleventh of the evening: nor much later

in holy Claudius's basilica he discharges his vow, on the twenty-sixth day of July.

[23] [likewise in the year 1480 two soldiers, twice the bonds being loosed of their own accord.] By a nearly similar miracle, two years after, two

soldiers, Boniface and James, when in the castle of Sardona

of the Savoyard dominion, for eleven weeks now

they were in chains; a vow being pronounced to the holy Virgin

Mary, and to holy Claudius, on the twenty-fifth day of the month of March,

which was then the Saturday f before the Sunday

of Palms, themselves from the iron shackles loosed

suddenly they wondered. And thence when to the fire of the castle

warmed they had come, and soon were thrust back into prison,

with heavier than before foot-fetters bound;

again on the second feria after the octave of Easter,

their shackles, not broken, not by burst locks

loosed, but as if by the hand of a smith unfastened, to be taken from them,

and onto the ground to fall they feel at the dead of night.

Of their own accord too were thrown open the gates of the prison and castle,

and there was present a light poured from heaven, by whose benefit

freed, to Giseriacum, the native soil of Boniface,

only one league distant from Sardona, under good

omens they came: whence afterward Boniface to the relics

of Blessed Claudius, on the sixteenth day of May, to discharge his vow

came.

[24] A contention having arisen between two attendants of the Prefect

of the castle of Bracon at the walls of Salins, [in 1485, a man wounded fatally being healed, the author of the wound is freed from the penalty of death:] in the year of Christ

1485, one of them, Henry du Bois, on his comrade

John Bovis a fatal wound in the throat inflicts: for which

cause thrust into custody, he is warned after

the fifth day of the law of retaliation; that John in the last extremity

is, nor by any human power can escape death. At

these things Henry, with tears and great ardor of mind,

the safety of John from St. Claudius as a suppliant entreats.

Scarcely had he prayed, when it is announced that John suddenly

was thoroughly cured. So by one man's vow, both the adversary from the fatal

wound which he had received, and he himself from the extreme punishment

is freed. A noble man John de l'Isle of the Dauphiné

of Valeysia, and another, in 1492 condemned to the gallows: of robbery by calumny accused,

at Paris into chains is put. At last, the adversaries

acting, in the Châtelet court of Paris, by the royal Judge

of inquiries he is condemned to the gibbet. What

should the wretched man do? He had vowed to Blessed Claudius a pilgrimage,

and a head of wax to the size of his own head,

as soon as he was thrust into prison. Hearing therefore

the sentence of death stricken, and ignorant what counsel

he should take, his vows to holy Claudius within himself silently and as a suppliant

he repeats. As he prayed, at once there came to his mind the thought, to appeal

to a higher Judge. Opportunely. For the inquiry

being carried to the Senate of Paris, after nine

years' custody, he is acquitted, in the year of Christ

1492. On the Kalends of October, to Blessed Claudius he presents himself

guilty of his vow.

[25] likewise in the year 1483 one already hanged, Another by another way escaped the danger. Guido Brun

was the name, and he was a domestic of Gabriel Bouchart,

in the castle of Cuyne the Leader of the garrison; when,

of some crime accused, at Chambéry, g a town

of the Allobroges, in custody he was detained. In that

prison the holy Virgin de Planis, and blessed Claudius

being invoked, several times Guido, his shackles being divinely struck off,

yet by the keepers, who ascribed this to magic,

so many times into chains was thrust back, and finally by the chief

Praetor to the noose was condemned. Therefore he was led to the place

of punishment: where when the executioner had crushed his throat,

and, hanging, after the custom on his shoulders he had leaned;

a little

after, as if by the hand of a good Genius the noose broken, unharmed

from on high he is let down. Thus he was taken away by the surrounding

crowd, on the fifth day of the month of August, in the year of Christ

1483.

[26] That also is the more admirable manner, by which Antony

of Genoa, of the holy order of the Carmelites, from the utmost

peril was snatched. He, captured by the h Turks, at Granada

for a whole year was in chains, a Carmelite, in 1486 captured by the Moors at Granada, with iron

shackles his hands and feet bound. During that time

he was brought out repeatedly for a spectacle, at that place

where to the Christians torments were inflicted; in which sometimes

heads either in a glowing helmet to be enclosed, or

in boiling oil in full pots to be immersed he beheld:

nor more mildly to act with him did he expect the barbarians, unless the faith of Christ

he had abjured. In that terror the most blessed Mother

of God, and holy Claudius as patrons he takes to himself:

and a little after, seized by sleep, them through

his rest for him praying to God, he is miraculously transferred to Rhodes. and him as if from prison

leading out he beholds. Nor was it a vain dream:

for waking, with iron chains indeed still

laden he saw himself; but (O how far from Granada!)

on the island of Rhodes, before the doors of the basilica of holy John,

among the Knights of Rhodes and the mixed crowd

inserted. These things holily affirmed Antony himself, on the day before

the Kalends of June, in the year 1486, when by a votive

pilgrimage to the sacred building of St. Claudius he discharged his vow.

[27] From Gray, i a noble town of the Sequani situated on

the Saône, sprung was John, a maker of soles. He,

in springtime in the year of Christ 1478 while he was making a journey,

by chance fell upon some French robbers; Led out from the hands of Highwaymen, in the year 1476 a Burgundian shoemaker, by

whom with most tight bonds bound, when as a captive

he was being driven along, Blessed Claudius silently he implores; with added

promise, if he should escape the danger, that the Saint's basilica

with bare feet religiously he would visit. On the following night,

while through a wood he is led, he wonders that himself by three hempen

ropes, by which he was tightly bound, suddenly

by a divine hand to be loosed: and then before his eyes was a thicket,

into which he in haste hides himself. But when

he leaped in, it happened by God's nod, that out of the same thicket

some wild beast I know not what burst forth; on whose tracks while press

the robbers, and themselves to be pursuing their captive they think,

him hidden in the thicket far behind their backs they leave.

So to him, free, it was permitted to depart, and the votive pilgrimage

to undertake, by which on the third day of May

in the temple of his liberator duly having discharged it he appeared.

[28] A journey was making Aegidius the Bishop of Bergen, k

when in the wood of Compiègne he fell upon highwaymen,

on the sixth before the Nones of May, in the year 1466. in 1466 the Bishop of Bergen, By these despoiled

of his money, books, the Apostolic diploma of his Bishopric,

his very garments finally and all his equipage,

gravely also wounded, naked to the trunk of a tree

he is bound. Three whole days now in that state for death

he was waiting, with wounds, pains, the stings of wasps,

and hunger almost worn out; and there came into

his mind that patron of the wretched, the Prelate Claudius.

He prays; he is heard; in 1499 a Priest of Orléans, and to the kisses of his feet on the day

of the month of June the twenty-sixth joyful he is admitted.

A Priest of the diocese of Orléans, Dionysius Vincentius,

on the very Kalends of October of the year 1499,

by two gallows-rogues in a dire manner with cutting blows from a dagger

wounded and laid low, when to Blessed Claudius he

had committed himself, with many but vain blows afterward he was attacked;

one striker, by I know not whose impulse, onto the ground

fallen, and both afterward departing. Therefore

Dionysius, creeping into a neighboring castle, gravely wounded by the same men: to a surgeon

betakes himself: but by this man's either wickedness, or unskillfulness,

into so horrible a state his face swelled,

that he despaired of safety. Again to holy Claudius vows he pronounces,

and the next day the face subsides. There remained a grave

languor from the badly treated wounds: a third time

therefore his Patron he invokes; and gradually thoroughly healed,

in the following year 1500, on the eighth before the Ides of October, the threefold

benefit into the public tablets under oath he affirms.

[29] likewise in 1607 a student, Let us add here also another from a more recent memory.

Five years at Paris in studies had spent

Peter Andrew Longinus, a youth of twenty years,

from Lyon of Gaul sprung. On his return when the wood

of the royal villa of Fontainebleau he was crossing, on the very Palm

who of thirty gold coins despoil him,

strip him of his garment, above the left ear foully wound him;

besides, with arms and legs crossed, to

and crush. By chance not much after,

that way had their journey two merchants of Geneva, who

touched with pity, the bloody and half-dead man to Paris

carry back, and to a surgeon at their own expense

to be treated commit. after the wounds were cured, That treatment was of two months,

and this its outcome, that Peter in his ears, tongue,

and even in his mind impaired survived; so far that

after the manner of madmen long wandering and roaming about he ran,

until to the Jura dominion of St. Claudius

he came, into the village of Culture in the Wooded places,

commonly Les Bouchots. There for a whole year kindly

treated by the inhabitants, he both recovered something of his mind,

and of his hearing as much as for the more vehement sounds lightly

to be perceived would be enough. In the year at last 1609, m on the day

of the Lord in the Palm Branches (on which very day, two years

before, he had fallen upon the robbers) when to Blessed Claudius's

basilica he had come, freed from madness and deafness in the year 1609. and his feet having kissed,

first some consolation I know not what intimately he felt;

then on his return, when still the sacred building of the Saint was in sight,

he himself, coughing up something of clotted blood,

at once his whole mind, his whole faculty of hearing

and speaking obtained.

ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.

who, equally as those, are Mahometans, who ruled Granada up to the year 1492;

and most hostile to the Christians, while that Carmelite was captured: wherefore

to subdue them and to extinguish their kingdom Ferdinand

the Catholic took upon himself.

the river Seine in the Gâtinais tract, by Francis I chiefly began to be adorned

and cultivated, already of old also to St. Louis for pious retreats a dear

house, distant from Paris 8 or 9 leagues.

CHAPTER IV.

Fatal diseases driven off, miscarried infants brought to life.

[30] There are cured: a delirious man, Into frenzy had fallen the noble Squire, Peter

de Prie, in the year of Christ 1501, reckoning that to him this plague

was breathed in from a rabid dog, by which on the little finger

of his right hand already five years before he had been bitten.

However the matter stood, he vowed during lucid

intervals that to holy Claudius's sacred building he would make pilgrimage,

and having set out on the journey, on the way of every disease he was relieved.

About the year 1494, into paralysis

fell a girl of Dijon, a paralytic, daughter of John Dumonts a merchant,

and (according to the nature of the disease) the middle part of her body

was seized. Long and seriously were tried human

remedies, and finally given up. The wise father perceived

that cure to be reserved for the divine hand: and so

to blessed Claudius he vows, if his daughter unharmed he should receive,

that her for the sake of his grateful mind to his sacred Relics

he would bring, with added a wax votive offering to half

her weight. That religion of the father was for the girl's

safety: for in a short while thoroughly cured, in the year 1501 on the Kalends

of October with both parents the vow

she discharged.

[31] In the village of Belmont, of the Prefecture of Balma

year-old youth, seized with grave paralysis, so

lacked the use of all his limbs for five years, a paralytic,

that he could neither move by himself except leaning on his hands, nor stand

on his feet; but perpetually either lying, or

sitting, nor a word with his mouth would utter: with his whole

faculty of hearing nevertheless. Wherefore his father having heard, Claudius

Andrew, who for his son's safety, to holy Claudius

had vowed a pilgrimage: he himself full of faith,

when the same Patron more ardently for himself he had adopted,

on the third day after, his strength being received, that he was whole he wondered:

not yet however did he receive the use of his tongue, but

still for three years mute, at last to Blessed Claudius's

sacred body he gave himself to the way. Coming there

on the seventh day of April of the year 1588, a Presbyter being hired

to celebrate Mass for him; he was admitted

to the kisses of St. Claudius's feet; where at once to speak

freely, and what had happened to him to narrate to the bystanders

he began.

[32] From a continual fever was in danger in the year 1596,

Claudius Boitonset, Canon, two laboring with continual fever and Official

of Besançon. He called upon his Patron, and

on the spot the fever wiped away he found. More obstinate

was the fever of Peter Gaigneur, of the County of the Comtat Venaissin,

of the village b of Bellevevre; and so far troublesome,

that through five whole years scarcely any part of nocturnal

and daily rest to him it left: that

too, in the year 1466, prayers poured forth to Blessed Claudius,

suddenly was shaken off. At Dijon Guyota,

1465, on the third feria before the solemnity of the Assumed Virgin,

about the noon hour, with apoplectic

stupor so suddenly grew stiff, that, the use of her eyes,

ears, and tongue lost, her face also twisted and

turned aside, like one lifeless she appeared. People run up

from the neighborhood, and human remedies cast aside

Guyota

to holy Claudius is committed: without delay, all being stupefied,

her whole health she receives.

[33] From childbirth so gravely was affected Leonarda,

wife of John Gerardon a merchant of Lyon,

at the end of the month of December of the year 1504, likewise a woman in childbirth dying, and so far

in strength and senses failed, that no hope of life

remained. There were present to the dying one, weeping,

her husband, brother, and the other domestics: who,

together their knees placed on the ground, when for Leonarda's safety

as if reviving, first the bystanders into

hope raised, then gradually to her former health

was restored. Not much after Easter of the year

1466 Michael Gache, of the castle of Usie, of the Grenoble

diocese, sleeping with his mouth open, the poisoned

urine of a mouse received. a man laboring with cancer, Thence arose in

his throat a cancer which so ill afflicted the man, that many

remedies in vain applied, he was given up by the physicians.

From that sentence he appealed to a higher tribunal;

to holy, I say, Claudius: and on the same day

beyond the expectation of all he recovered.

[34] At Nevers of the Aedui (the common people call it Nivernum)

in the year 1499, Peter Bochery a citizen, for

his own and his own people's, that is his wife's and children's,

safety, to Blessed Claudius a vow made. fallen into a river, That plague in the city

scarcely forty persons left among the living: Peter

with all his own by the vow was saved. But when

to St. Claudius in the year 1500 on the day before the Kalends

of May, on that account to render thanks he had come; he reported

also under oath, that about twenty years before

(and so about the year 1480),

when to the Loire to water his horse he had come, and had fallen

with the clod giving way into the river, where

two lances deep it was; Blessed Claudius being invoked, unharmed

with his horse, and safe he escaped. The day after

Easter c of the year 1470 John de Ameda,

poison taken, which into his food I know not who maliciously

had mixed, one infected with poison besides a grave languor, even

the use of speech he lacked. That sickness, which the physicians'

industry had eluded, finally on the day before the Ides of June

was shaken off, and his mute tongue freed; when on that

day, in a great assembly of those praying, at holy Claudius's feet

reverently he stood.

[35] and another; To a paper-maker of Lons, John Ratusot, about

the year 1479, in the village of Chillies, upon his table

poison was applied. After his luncheon

so gravely he began to be ill, that scarcely to his neighboring

home at Lons he crept. Physicians being called,

it was judged that their art was overcome by the savagery of the disease.

And now five weeks in that state

the good man had lain, when to the holy Virgin

and holy Claudius, with all the effort of his mind he fled.

The prayer finished, when he had fallen asleep, nay (as he himself

asserted) nearer to waking than to sleeping, he saw

standing by him the most blessed Prelate, in the appearance in which in

the sacred buildings painted he was then set forth; who, his side opened

for him, a fleshy morsel clinging to the liver,

the cause of all the evil, with beneficent hand drew out. The vision

withdrawn from his eyes, when he wondered that he was thoroughly healed,

for joy scarcely until daylight in his bed

was he silent.

[36] Gerard Guyot, of the village d of Givry, by

an evil demon possessed, when now for twenty-two

weeks in a pitiable manner he was tortured, by his parents in the year 1466 called to his aid

Blessed Claudius, a man possessed, drove out the wicked guest.

In the year of Christ 1492 Joanna Vincentia, wife

of John Menim of Étampes, a blind woman, in the diocese of Chartres,

from a grave disease so wasted away, that about the Carnival

she lost her sight. For that cause to the holy Virgin

of Le Puy, and to other religious places with her husband as guide she made pilgrimage,

but never was cured; until the twenty-

sixth day of the month of June, after five months from

the blindness contracted, in the very kiss of Blessed Claudius's feet

her sight she received. In the village of Trivignon James Richard,

in the year 1466, and a man mute from lethargy; when with a lethargic

or apoplectic affection suddenly seized, for two days immobile

and devoid of sense he had lain; the stupor at last

shaken off, returning to himself, mute he survived. By nods then

only he so brought it about, that it was understood that he desired

to be led to holy Claudius's relics. He was led by his brother,

and a kiss impressed on the sacred feet, on the seventh day

of November, readily to speak he began.

[37] another mute and paralytic, Claudius Vareston, of the village of Levier above Salins,

1520, about the eighth of the morning, while working,

by some pestilential breath I know not what suddenly is struck down;

from which fall mute, and from the navel downward in his limbs

seized he remained. After some days to holy Claudius's

sacred body to be carried he orders himself: and there prayers being poured forth,

on the Lord's day, the second-to-last of April, unexpectedly

his tongue loosed into the Blessed one's praises, to his former health

he is restored. likewise another mute from a shock, By another nearly equal miracle the year

same, and the same month was illustrious. On the day of the Moon, the twenty-

fourth of April, John Brunelly of the Sequani,

of the village of Vaudrey, by the appearance of some specter I know not which was stupefied,

and his hair stood up, and his voice stuck in his throat.

Therefore St. Claudius silently he implores; without delay,

he gives himself to the journey to his basilica. Arrived there on the day of Jove,

the 27th of April, at the kisses of his feet his first voice

he breaks: Holy Claudius, I commit myself to you; help me,

holy Claudius. And thereafter he spoke readily,

and all that sad appearance of the phantom from his mind

was utterly obliterated.

[38] In Ollierges, a town of the Arverni, Joanna

Jonica, wife of John Roserius a merchant, in the year

1595, about the feast day e of St. Medardus, a cardiac

disease I know not what invaded; so obstinate, a cardiac sufferer for 13 years that

the industry of the physicians it eluded; so long-lasting, that

to thirteen years it endured; so various and extraordinary,

that that it was brought on by sorcery scarcely anyone

doubted. In the thirteenth year of her sickness

she took the counsel of making a vow to Blessed Claudius

for her safety. At which moment she vowed, better

it began to be with her: thence gradually recovering, in the year

at last 1609 to the Jura basilica of the Saint

having made pilgrimage, on the sixth of June, the very solemn day of holy Claudius,

her strength whole by his intervention she testified

to have recovered. A noble man, although married, A concubine comes to her senses, devoted to St. Claudius, and the parent

of several children, kept a maidservant in his delights. She,

in the year 1609 in the month of January, to Blessed Claudius's sacred

body for the sake of visiting came. There, to the Priest when her soul's

faults she had opened, and had denied that, whether by some hope, or by fear,

she could migrate from that house, without absolution

she was dismissed. As she returned home, by the goads of conscience

agitated, she began to seek from the Lord leave to depart,

with the wages of her service: that it was resolved for her

henceforth to be free for her own salvation; and that it was commanded her by her Confessor

that from his house she should depart. The impious man laughed

both at the girl and at the Confessor, the obstinate adulterer being killed. and the wretched one by force

he detained; but not with impunity: for after three days, without

holy Confession his impure soul he vomited out.

The destruction of the nefarious adulterer as her own safety, and

holy Claudius's singular benefit interpreting the girl,

when to the Confessor she had returned, the impediment removed,

duly (as was right) was absolved.

[39] A passage to the heretics is hindered. In the same year, in the month of February, Guillaume

by nation French, guilty of a capital crime, his friends

and kinsmen advised, that (since the deed had come out into the public)

to Geneva into safety he should betake himself. Grave

it was to a Catholic man that refuge; yet to his own

thinking he must yield, he gives himself to the way, with this mind, that St.

Claudius's basilica from his journey he would visit. He visited; and,

by the instinct of the good God, with the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist

fortified, elsewhere his counsels he turned; Geneva

and the Genevan heresy, as it befitted a Catholic,

he execrated. George de Fuillio, a youth of renowned

lineage, in the village of Chambéry, the day after the Lord's Nativity

in the year 1484, mounted a refractory horse:

which while he urges, and drives more briskly: thrown from a horse he is dragged without harm. when it bucked

into the ground he is thrown: in his fall Blessed Claudius he invokes,

to whom also by the Lord of the place, his uncle, earnestly he is commended.

A wonderful thing! one foot caught in the stirrup,

the youth is dragged by the untamed beast for at least three hundred

paces: and at last halting, without blood,

without wound, without bruise or any pain,

the same horse remounted, it, with that very cheerfulness which before,

he exercises.

[40] At baptism the miscarried are brought to life, one, To John Nicolet, a citizen of Langres, in the year

1466 his wife had borne a miscarried fetus.

He for three whole days in a certain church of the city of Langres,

with day and night prayers

exposed, gave no sign of a hidden soul;

and the Rector of the temple had ordered the corpse to be removed; when

John, mindful of Blessed Claudius, vehemently demands

from him, that the infant by the saving laver of Baptism might be

washed. Scarcely had he prayed, when the infant first by a wail,

then by a long and manifold crying showed life.

That matter almost the whole city summoned to the spectacle.

The revived infant was washed in the lustral waters

by solemn rite by the Head of the building himself, and so into

the sons of God, and heirs transcribed, not much after

the inheritance itself it approached;

Happy he, who the world's reefs, and shipwrecking rocks,

with hastening keel was able to sail past.

A miracle like this the same year saw, another. in the village

of Bussy of upper Burgundy. At the beginning of June, John

de Lerna's wife brought forth a miscarriage. The little body brought

into the neighboring little chapel of blessed Catharine,

that whole day gave no sign of life. The next day

the father being warned of the impending, on the next

sixth feria, feast day of holy Claudius, with great hope conceived in his mind

he vows, if the offspring should receive Baptism,

that he, only bread and water being used, with his body besides (as

is the custom of suppliants) half-naked, to St. Claudius's basilica

would go. To this he appoints a Mass for the same

end. When to the elevation of the most sacred Eucharist

it was come, the infant began to cry, and to give

no doubtful proofs of life. So, initiated by Baptism,

at once to the Heaven-dwellers it flew away. That was the cause,

that to Claudius Boitonset (of whom above at no. 32 mention

was made) that name was given; for, dead

before he was born, by the vow of his mother to holy Claudius made

he received life, but for many years; and having performed distinguished

offices in the commonwealth, to the last

age he lived.

[41] At La Rochelle of the Santones on the shore of the Aquitanian sea,

heresy had not yet fixed its seat in the year 1498; a third.

when an honest woman Catharine de Chaude,

pitying the lot of her little son; who, because by Baptism to be initiated

he could not, the face of God never would behold.

Therefore with the highest ardor of mind, and even with bent

knees (which in a woman recently delivered you may wonder at),

holy Claudius's aid being implored, life for the offspring she obtains

for a solid half-hour, during which time at the sacred

font to expiate him it was permitted. Happy little delay, which a blessed

eternity for him brought forth!

ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.

CHAPTER V.

The dead raised, the dying saved.

[42] Now because we have come to La Rochelle, it pleases the ancient

faith and piety of the renowned city

by another example also to commend. a There was being nourished in

the house of his nurse Claudius, a still-suckling little infant,

son of John de Vallois a citizen of La Rochelle, In the year 1516 a boy suffocated in a well, of the parish of holy Sebastian.

The nurse being absent, while by a little girl

he is carried about, and on the stone edge of a well rashly

is set down, beholding the depth he shuddered;

and shaken from the hands of the bearer, headlong into the well

he fell. By that accident the bearer being struck, fleeing into

the inner garden, in the trunk of a hollow tree hid herself.

Meanwhile both are sought, and the mother enraged the nurse

to be thrust into prison causes. At last, three days completed,

when I know not who to draw water from the well

by chance had come, a little cap floating on the water

betrayed the boy. The extracted corpse, rotten and

livid, by chance was thrusting out its tongue. The unhappy mother had already

devoted her little son to Blessed Claudius, and, in a funeral shroud

now wrapped, again to him she commits him: He is yours, at the mother's vow he revives.

she says, O holy Claudius; yours, I say, and no longer

mine; do you for him kindly provide: I have handed him over to you whether living,

or dead; in what way therefore

to your sacred body, so far away, by so long a funeral procession

shall he be carried? At this voice the boy reviving

the whole city to the spectacle summoned: which, all,

on that account into the praises of God poured forth: and soon him

the mother, three bearers being hired, herself the companion of the journey,

to holy Claudius to be carried orders; and about two hundred

leagues having traversed, in the year of Christ 1516 on the fourteenth

day of September, her very own son to the most holy

Prelate as a dear offering she presents. Do you doubt,

people of La Rochelle? Search through our archives, examine

the faith of the witnesses, the handwriting of the notary

recognize; nay, the memory of your old men

consult. If you believe: what is it, that the Saints you do not

venerate, and the ancestral religion of your citizens you do not

follow?

[43] likewise a woman killed by plague, Drivetam, wife of Bartholomew Tisserius an inhabitant of Avignon,

in the year 1466 the pestilence had breathed upon;

from which also, the Sacraments duly received,

and so for the last struggle with holy Oil anointed,

she dies. Already had the corpse been sewn into a linen wrapping,

not much after to be carried out; when, gravely

stricken, the husband, to holy Claudius for his most dear wife

by a vow binds himself: and to the one lying, at once motion, and

sense with the use of speech, then also her whole strength

were restored; as he in St. Claudius's monastery,

on the thirteenth day of the month of October, an oath's

religion being interposed, confirmed. From the village b of La Charité,

of the diocese of Auxerre, Reginald Barbaty,

Master of Arts, Bachelor in Laws and

Licentiate in the Decrees, in the year of Christ 1484, and a five-year-old boy already prepared for burial,

on the twenty-eighth day of September, presented himself in the building

sacred to holy Claudius, guilty of a vow, once for him when dead

by his grandfather and grandmother pronounced. For under oath

he affirmed, upon the sacred Canon and the high

temple's altar, that he in the fifth year of his age passing, by manifold

sickness so far weakened had been,

that from the living he departed. But when in a mortuary linen

he was now wrapped, the Cross also, as is the custom of the Catholics,

placed on the corpse; by I know not what instinct

his grandfather likewise and grandmother had vowed to Blessed Claudius,

if he should be restored to life, that they would devote him to the Order

ecclesiastical, and to his tomb to render

thanks would send: that vow made, to life and health

suddenly he was restored. All which things, because they regarded him,

and on the bestowal of his labor and will

depended, by his grandfather and grandmother with asseveration

and the command of fulfilling the vow, to him to have been announced

he testified.

[44] Aegidia, wife of Claudius Drihin, at Bar-le-Duc,

call him), about the feast of the Archangel Michael, in the year

1505, with a quartan fever was attacked; likewise a woman raised at her husband's vow, which when a whole

year it had held, a graver other disease afterward

drew on, from which she, first the use of her eyes and tongue

lost, afterward in the year 1506, on the very day of holy

Eligius's d feast, was killed. There was appointed after the custom

through all the city the mournful sound of bells,

the earth hollowed out for the sepulchral pit, ordered

the apparatus of the whole funeral. Meanwhile Claudius began

to revolve in his mind something great I know not what, about his Patron's

highest grace and authority with God:

first to breathe began, and of life undoubted

signs to give: then, step by step her strength being received and

her whole health, in the following year 1507,

on the fifth day of the month of August, to Blessed Claudius's sacred

building with her husband as guide having made pilgrimage, from the vow's

religion she absolved herself.

[45] In the village of Sauceyum, of the diocese of Valence e in

the Segalauni, Stephen, son of John Petit and Catharine

and two boys, their fathers vowing. in the year 1487, by the force of disease was killed.

His father was not far off; who, the message received,

returning home, saw the sewn-up and arranged

corpse of his son, which a little after was to be buried. By that

spectacle moved, on the ground he prostrates himself, and holy

Claudius's aid he invokes. Without delay; the funeral

linen unsewn, the mother received her son breathing and safe.

For Henri Boguet the beginning of writing the miracles of holy Claudius

was he himself revived; for when the sixth

year of his age he was passing, fallen into a well,

and choked by water, by the vow of Martin his father to holy

Claudius pronounced, suddenly from the dead

he was raised.

[46] Likewise the dying suddenly healed: a Royal Secretary, James Blanchard, secretary to the King of Sicily,

on the fifth feria, the fifteenth day of May, in the year of Christ

1465, in the building of holy Claudius openly professed,

and confirmed by his handwriting wished, that he, not

so long ago at Aix, by the force of disease to the last extremity brought,

and by the royal physicians themselves, after many in

vain tried remedies, abandoned; by a vow by Simon

his brother, for his safety to holy Claudius, and also

to the Virgin Mother of God, and to holy Mary Magdalene

pronounced, the Abbot of Thiers. beyond the expectation of all his health

received. There had fallen into a most grave disease

in that same year the Reverend Abbot of f

Thiers, of the diocese of Auvergne, nor did hope of life remain.

A noble man vowed a pilgrimage to blessed Claudius,

the Abbot's kinsman, Junot

de Morga, if the sick man were saved: and in a moment, all being stupefied,

not only from the danger was he taken away,

but also to his former health he was restored.

[47] A physician given up by others, A celebrated physician, by name Nundina Pacis,

in an obstinate sickness of two years

his art abandoned; but also other physicians, who the sick man

frequently had visited. When, the use of speech lost, and of his strength

all failed, he had received the last

unction, and was near to breathing out his soul, to the most blessed

Virgin and to holy Claudius and Anthony he

silently committed himself. The prayer poured forth, in mind only, at once

there seemed to him, but also to the bystanders, of venerable appearance

he himself, nor any of the bystanders could behold. When at that

sight he had fallen asleep, and was thought now now

to be about to breathe out his last spirit, after rest thoroughly cured

he felt himself; nor much after, on the twelfth day of June,

in the year of Christ 1666, to Blessed Claudius having made pilgrimage,

him as the author of the benefit he acknowledged.

[48] At Briançon g of the Vocontii in the diocese of Embrun,

John son of Peter Jone, in the year 1476,

weeks held, a boy sprinkled with blessed wine, that in the last eleven days

nothing at all of food, or drink he took, and with his eyes

twisted, and his limbs cold and stiff, more like a dead

than a living one he lay. There was present to the sick one

John Hevre, a Priest of upright life; who, the miracles which through holy Claudius were done

being mentioned,

was the author to both parents, that to him their son,

and also to the most august Mother of God they should commit.

The counsel received, the parents ask the Priest, that

in Blessed Claudius's honor for their son's safety a Mass

as soon as possible he celebrate. He admits the condition,

and the Sacrifice performed, wine he blesses: then

to the sick one returned, his eyes with that liquid he smears,

and his body sprinkles. On the spot the sick one bright

and lively eyes opens, sighs, groans, his arms

raises; and thence gradually recovers.

[49] Sebastian Roux, a citizen of Gap, h in the year

of Christ 1506, about the nativity of the holy Precursor,

by the violence of disease to the last extremity had come; so far

that, having struggled now for five days with death, with all his senses

deadened, scarcely so little of vital heat

in his heart he retained; and by a religious Priest, and a father at his son's vow:

as the dying are wont, with the saving sign of the Cross

was being fortified. There came then into the mind of Thomas his son,

that his father toward Blessed Claudius, whose Relics also once

he had visited, very piously was affected: and so

before the bed of the one lying onto his knees he falls, with joined

hands, with much groaning, and tears,

he vows, if his father safe he should receive, that at the first opportunity

to holy Claudius's building he would make pilgrimage, and a torch

of four pounds weight to him for an offering would bring.

The holy Prelate nods to the vows: and he who was at the point of

death, Sebastian, suddenly master of himself made,

opened his eyes, and to speak and food, and drink

to take began; finally gradually to his former strength he was restored.

[50] likewise a mother Of Humbert Moingne a citizen of Geneva the wife

Joanna, on the eleventh day of the month of May, in the year of Christ

1517, between the fourth and fifth of the evening, by a sudden

fainting fallen, a whole day, her senses hindered, as if lifeless

persisted. The physicians deny that they can heal her of that

evil, and for her soul, as if it were already

extinguished, peace departing they pray. But then

Thomas her son, in a more secret place his knees placed on the ground,

his eyes raised to heaven, weeping and as a suppliant

vows, if his mother be saved, that to blessed Claudius's

basilica religiously he would go; there a wax torch to

the length of his mother's body duly would offer; if

to the pilgrimage delay should be made, that on all fourth and

sixth ferias (until he should discharge the promise) he would fast.

So the vow being pronounced he returns to his mother, whom

first endowed with the free use of her senses, and a little

after to her former health clearly restored he sees.

[51] A noble boy, Claudius by name, son of John Pasquier

Prefect of the couriers of Paris, in the year

1489, by grave sickness to the last extremity came.

His son's safety being despaired of, a son by his father's vow, him the father to his namesake patron

commends: then, no delay interposed, having mounted

his horse, he sets out on the way to St. Claudius; at the same time a vow

made, if his son should live, that him, when a horse to mount

by his age he could, for the sake of giving thanks to the same place he would lead.

Home returned from St. Claudius, his son he finds

safe and lively: likewise a daughter, and the same eleven

years after, namely in the year of Christ 1500 on the eighteenth day

of the month of April, to holy Claudius he presented. A matron of Mâcon,

in the year 1528, from a disease in danger,

and by the physicians given up; as soon as by her father's vow

to holy Claudius's care she was committed, at once she recovered.

[52] For a year and a half languished from paralysis George

Delaschamps i of Ollierges in Auvergne a merchant,

in almost all his limbs seized; and a man, his wife vowing, when on the very feast day of Christ

ascending into heaven, in the year 1607,

he is left by his mind, and by the failing of all his strength so

came, that among the living he was no longer counted. There vowed

the weeping wife Damiana Bertin for her husband's

safety a pilgrimage to holy Claudius: and of the vow

suddenly she was bound, George then indeed to himself

returning, and the next day both to the use of all his senses,

and to his strength restored. Among the Sequani in the dominion of Nozeroy

Claudius Denoz, a forensic Procurator, about

the middle of the month of June of the year 1619 from a troublesome

sickness given up by the physicians, his last hour

awaited; when, Blessed Claudius being invoked to his aid,

pleading for him at Christ's tribunal, and another by his own vow. and when

he had obtained it, giving him courage. The vision the outcome

approved; for from that sleep waking: Praise to God, he said;

his cause has won, my patron Blessed Claudius: now

I am healed.

ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.

CHAPTER VI.

A Savoyard young woman, freed from a grave vexation of a demon: likewise those fallen or about to be crushed by ruins.

[53] In the diocese of Geneva in the very Alps there is a parish,

commonly Megève, pertaining to the dominion

of the Abbot of the Alps a of the Cistercian Order;

which when there inspected in the month of May in the year of Christ

1471 Mamertus Bishop of Ébron, who

to survey the entire Jurisdiction of the Bishop b of Geneva

had received a mandate from the Roman Pontiff,

inquired about the recent and memorable case

of a native girl, Perroneta or Petronilla by name;

about which also not much after to Paul c the second,

the Roman Prelate, a fairly long Letter

he gave, and a Dialogue he wrote of forty

questions; The Pontifical Visitor juridically examines, where, answering himself, Vaucherius de

Rupe, in the monastery of holy Eugendus and Claudius

curator of the Sanctuary, and once his fellow-companion of studies,

he makes the questioner. From that Letter

and from that Dialogue, lent to me from St. Claudius's archive,

this history I shall report with that brevity

which this little book allows; but with that diligence which the curiosity

of every most studious person can satisfy.

[54] Petronilla therefore, an eighteen-year-old

girl, in the valley of Megève of alpine Savoy of rustic

parents born, about the girl, who after rejecting the magician was honorably married, of a form elegant among few, suffered an insidious attacker

of her chastity, a nefarious magician, by extreme

punishment afterward taken away: whom she (as

she was pious and chaste) when generously from herself and far had sent away,

by her parents' finally and her own will married

an honest youth, her fellow-countryman. It happened moreover, by that poisoner's

(as it was believed) evil arts, that on the very

wedding day, her bridegroom, whom chastely until then

she had loved, in a wonderful manner she dreaded; and

this horror soon followed a great grief, by which

she, worn out, not only her husband's, but also of all mortals (as is done)

company, and the very sight, as far as she could, she shunned.

And so her father-in-law and mother-in-law, about their daughter-in-law

solicitous, on the fourth feria, the day of the month of March

the twenty-seventh, in the year of salvation 1471, for the sake of relaxing her mind

invite her to their farm, and fallen into a grave melancholy, on

the nearby mountain placed more than two miles off;

and ask that, to soften the roughness of the way, shoes

on her feet she put. To this she: God, she said, the shoes

mark not, if I put them on; which is the customary, and of worst omen, imprecation

among those peoples; God's, as

it seems, providence seeking; for "to mark," or

"soigner" of the French, is "to care for." She shod herself nevertheless,

her relatives insisting, whom she also accompanied: but

when to the foot of the mountain it was come, fatigued she sat down;

asking that they go ahead; that she, when she had rested a little, and having put on the shoes which she had cursed,

would follow. And she followed; but in the ascent, her sadness growing heavier,

when from the little farm she was not far off,

she turned aside from the way, and through steep places a bypath

taking, to the top summit of a rock she came out; where, beyond

her people's sight, sitting on the rock, threads from her distaff

she began to draw; and soon falling asleep, until

the evening twilight from about the ninth hour before noon

she prolonged sleep; her household meanwhile

not a little anxious, and thinking she had gone back from the foot of the mountain into the house.

[55] Therefore, darkness coming on, by a black and tall,

and horrible-looking dog she was awakened; by whose

sight terrified, she had been dragged into the precipice by a demon; of the holy Virgin of Lausanne

and of Blessed Claudius the aid she began to implore. That mastiff,

fixing in her shoulders (not without immense pain)

the claws of his front feet, having seized her,

scarcely her distaff left in that place, through the trackless and impassable places of the Alps,

through the shaded thickets and groves, through the slopes

of rushing waters, long and much dragged, in a place

at last to mortals, nay to almost all wild beasts, inaccessible

he set her down; and prostrate enclosed her between two rocks'

opposed, as it were, edges, where to rainwaters

or melting snows they gave a way; with the channel swarming

with worms, born from the rotting of the surrounding

beeches. There as she lay, and God's most holy

parent and Blessed Claudius often invoking, the same

dog the shoes, which she had cursed, and at the same time of her feet

the skin with most sharp sense of pain pulled off, and in a nearby

place before her eyes set down: afterward vanishing,

from that time he was never seen by her. In that

state and position up to the fortieth day she remained,

worms gnawing her bloody feet; with no

food, no drink, no sleep refreshed; where remaining 40 days amid grave hardships, with heavenly

delights nevertheless so far suffused, that even that scaffold

of hers and the torments she loved. Sometimes,

the waters overflowing, immersed up to the neck, and on her elbows

leaning so that a little she might emerge, she expected

at any moment to be suffocated by them. Sometimes (whistling

especially the North wind) bound by ice, partly by her garments,

partly by her bare skin to the rock she was glued: the softer

times the worms held, in removing which,

partly with her hand, partly with little sticks, laboring she so far

brought it about, that, except her lowest feet, only by her right arm,

and her right breast lightly grazed, in no way at all

by them was she molested.

[56] In that squalor, for a more vehement sense

of pain, she was always of free senses. She grieved, nor were the divine consolations less; that her vow

she could not discharge which she had pronounced, namely to Lausanne

to make pilgrimage, to obtain the Indulgences

on the parasceve of holy week; that also

at Easter of the use of the sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist

she was defrauded: but, the divine grace flowing in abundance,

her mind raised to God, with firm faith, immovable hope, sincere

charity, wholly herself to God and to the Virgin Mother of God and holy

Claudius she committed, about herself not at all solicitous.

The Lord's prayer, and the Angelic salutation,

and the Apostles' Creed most frequently

she ran through; and on that account, her tongue clinging to her palate,

throat, into her mouth at intervals she poured. Nor indeed

was she of all external consolations wholly destitute; for

both the sweetest songs of birds she perceived, and by the sight of little hares

cropping the grass she was delighted,

and especially of a certain tame wolf, whom she as a companion

almost perpetually had; long in vain sought by her people, and him either to contemplate

she was wont, feeding on leaves and grass, or

even, coming up of his own accord and fawning, with her hand

to caress. Which species of brutes, whether natural

they were, or by a good or evil genius feigned,

it is not for me to determine. But now to the foregoing let us return.

Returned to the village from the farm, Petronilla's household,

when they found her not at home, wonderfully anxious

inquire from the neighbors, whether to any of them

she had turned aside; and they denying that she had been seen by them, at last,

through the whole village an inquiry being made, judging the girl

was to be sought farther off, they go out with

through the trackless and steep places of the mountains

they roam, as in a hunt, the lairs of wild beasts

to track. The dog came to that place, whence by

the black mastiff she had been carried off: there her distaff found,

and seized in his mouth, he brought forth. There was a shout

on all sides: she, although often hearing, never any

answer gave, in that prison of hers wonderfully

delighted. And so it was given up after some

days, the matter being wholly despaired of; some spreading

that Petronilla, through anguish of mind, laid hands on herself;

others thinking either by wild beasts she was devoured, or to a brothel

led away.

[57] At last that time came, in which, the fast

of holy Moses and Elias, nay of Christ himself the Savior,

of forty days, having attained, to her people at last (God

willing) she was to be restored. at last heard by passers-by, Therefore on the fourth day of May,

Saturday, toward evening, some farmers from the neighborhood,

when, their daily labors finished, their homes they were seeking again,

and not far from the girl had their way;

Stupefied they halt on the spot; they lend

their ears; they wonder at the sighs drawn from the depth of the breast; and

either a foundling infant, or some traveler reduced to

straits to lie hidden they suspect: but night approaching,

the search to the morrow they defer. On the fifth

of May therefore, the third Sunday after Easter, which from

the twenty-seventh of March was the fortieth day, at first

dawn to the place they return with many companions,

and among them Petronilla's husband and father-in-law: the voice

same distinctly they perceive; and after long investigation,

one out of the whole assembly bolder than the rest,

to the girl's stony bed penetrates. He wonders first

at the knots of worms twisted on her feet; then nearer

approaching, Petronilla he recognizes; he cries out; his comrades

he calls: who as soon as in the girl's sight they were, then

she: To God (she said) thanks, and to the great Mother Mary,

and to Blessed Claudius, who me here for forty days fasting,

and of all human help destitute, have preserved.

Hence to her people turned: and led out from there, O my father-in-law (she said), O my husband,

to me (I beg) grant pardon, who, you ungreeted,

and not even aware, nay also most unwilling, myself

thus from your eyes withdrew. God's indeed this was

the will. Now indeed not a single word besides from me

expect, until a Priest hither to me you shall bring,

who may both hear me confessing my sins, and with the sacred

body of Christ refresh me, which at Easter on the fourteenth

day of April just past to do I omitted:

I meanwhile will collect my mind, and with some

prayer (as is fitting) for receiving such great mysteries gird

myself.

[58] and refreshed with the Sacraments, she was restored to herself. The Parish priest was summoned from nearly three miles:

her confessing duly he absolved, and with the most holy Eucharist

communicated. She, thanks rendered, the whole history of her calamity

in order recounts; the shoes, and the skin

torn from her feet, which divinely there from rotting

had been defended, she shows; her feet she brings forth, by worms

pierced through and entangled; and one joint already

to have fallen from her she signifies; finally she asks that into

her husband's house as soon as possible she be carried. They, drawn out

from the dungeon, and with great labor through the rocks'

steep places let down, partly on their shoulders, partly by their arms received,

as cautiously as they can to the man's house they carry her.

There appeared on the girl's little body, besides the worms bound

and inserted in her feet, her arm besides

the right, with her right breast, lightly by worms

bitten: in addition on her shoulders and armpits the scars of wounds,

from that infernal dog's claws. Moreover

about divine matters thus thereafter she spoke; that her in that

forty-days' retreat divinely taught no one

doubted. The Visitor himself inspects the place. Lying ill she was visited by Mamertus Bishop of Ébron,

on the seventeenth day of the same month of May,

the day before the Sunday of the Ascension; and the whole sequence of the deed

being known, the place itself he approached with an almost Herculean labor,

where the girl for the space of forty days had lain;

and two Crosses on those rocks, under which she had hidden,

on this side and that, for the everlasting memory of the matter to be engraved

he caused. She first with a little goat's milk, then

with more solid foods refreshed, her strength at last received; and

maimed in some joints of her feet, she was a proof

both how much there is in the Virgin Mother of God and blessed Claudius

of power against sorceries, and how much God

hates curses and how severely he avenges them.

[59] There are saved: a boy fallen from a tree, Francis Aneti a twelve-year-old boy, a goatherd,

in the village of Montisbrant, of the parish of Cluses, of the Geneva

diocese, in the year of Christ 1419, on the sixteenth

day of the month of July, to bark a linden tree

had climbed, projecting at the angle of a lofty rock.

It happened that from that tree, his footing failing,

backward he fell through the rugged places of the rock, to a height

of more than two-and-forty fathoms.

The other shepherds fly to his parent, the most certain death

of his son to announce. By that message stricken,

the father vows to Blessed Claudius a wax torch he would offer,

of equal length with his son's little body, if him safe

he should receive. He runs then to the foot of the rock: and he who

crushed was believed and torn into fragments, he living

and safe is found; all who knew the matter

with stupor and wonder fixed. d From a beam

little bridge into the flowing stream had fallen, in December

of the year 1608, Claudia Parquel, a fifty-year-old, a woman from a bridge,

wife of Poncet Benedict: and, the river immoderately

overflowing, the danger too had increased.

And so Claudia, carried off by the whirlpools of the waters,

and now swimming up, now into the bottom plunged, and now

for a quarter of an hour having struggled with the waves;

at last him invoking, whose name she bore,

by the slanting river beyond hope to some hedges I know not

which she is carried; to which clinging, in safety she was,

until thence by some passers-by she was carried away. Nonetheless

from that accident afterward fatally ill, again

her Patron being called upon she recovered.

[60] John Jacquemin, in the year of Christ 1373,

on a journey met by soldiers, another cast into the Meuse, and

by these into the gulf of the Meuse, fifteen at least

cubits deep, headlong cast, when for the space of about an hour

in the waters he had been; by the holy Virgin's and

blessed Claudius's (to whom he had fled) not by his own power

or skill in swimming, to the opposite bank beyond

the enemies' hands, and unharmed he escaped. At Chambéry,

the Shroud of Christ being beheld, Paschal Haubert of

St. Gilles, a town of the diocese of Nîmes, to St.

Claudius, in the company of some others and namely of three

Canons of Nîmes, a third cast headlong into the Rhône: was making his way

in the year of salvation 1518. Therefore on the fourth of May when

to the Castle of Seyssel they were being borne briskly, and to the Rhône's

cataracts e in a place commonly Coudion it was come;

darkness already coming on, Paschal descended

from his horse. While, in the rocky narrows, him by the rein

seized he goes before, in a pitiable manner

through the steep places into the Rhône he casts himself, to a height

of three or four lances. In that fall, blessed Claudius invoked,

by the rock itself and the Rhône he is received quite

unharmed; and by the river's force to about two hundred

paces into a ford cast out (whence by a boat

provided by his comrades he escaped), to his holy liberator's

basilica two days after guilty of his vow he presents himself.

[61] On the Lord's day, the twenty-second of June, in the year

of Christ 1516, John Beisson, son of William,

of the village of Romanesque of the parish of Colonge, f

who then dwelt in the village of Grand Villars, likewise buried by the ruin of a well, let

himself down into a well, to extract a bucket sunk in it.

The depth of the well was of nine fathoms. But when

he had scarcely touched the bottom, suddenly, the whole structure of the well collapsing,

he received upon himself so much of rocks

and of sand and earthen mass (which afterward diligently

was observed) as sixty carts

could have carried away. In that danger Blessed Claudius when

he had called upon, he remained in the cavity unharmed, from the noon hour

of the Lord's day, up to the dawn of the following day;

in which interval too by a Confessor standing at the edge

he was heard concerning his sins, and absolved.

Drawn out therefore on the second feria, in the early morning, not

fortified with sacraments, not battered, not even lightly hurt,

to great wonder he was to the people: and then

on Saturday, the fifth of July, that is, the thirteenth day from the accident,

in St. Claudius's basilica the benefit having professed, his vow

he discharged.

[62] A noble matron Joanna de Veche, wife

of Humbert Amborsier, and a mother with her children, the roof falling, Castellan of the Dynast of la

Mure and d'Oysans, in the Grenoble diocese,

in the spring of the year 1499, when in bed she was lying,

together with John Guigone, and Margaret, her

children; it happened about midnight, that by the upper

story's (which the architects with stones, and earth too much

had loaded) joists and beams giving way she was buried.

She implored for herself and her people holy Claudius's

aid. A wonderful thing! There fell upon the bed the chief mass

of the ruin, and the shattered wooden frame of the bed into three

parts went. Joanna, although pregnant, and her

two children, who were thought crushed, from the heap

of stones and timbers whole, and unharmed leaped out.

In the village of Levier above Salins, in the Besançon

diocese, and another pregnant woman under a fallen oven. at an oven of commanded baking, the structure

of the vault still recent, on the seventh day of October,

in the year 1617, with a huge crash collapsed. By that ruin

buried, with the baker, and the builder, eight women

suddenly breathed out their souls: three others, pulled out,

dragged on life for some hours: one, her strength received,

for the rest of her life became deaf. Singular was the

prerogative of Antonia Roux, wife of Nicolas Melin,

bearing a child, and near to childbirth, who

in that accident Blessed Claudius when she had called upon,

though buried in the masonry, safe nevertheless she escaped; and three

weeks after a whole and living fetus happily

she bore.

[63] In the year of Christ 1642, when for more than three years,

St. Claudius's sacred body, A girl weakened by a fall, by the prudent counsel

of the guardians, in a hiding place had been hidden (lest namely

to the injuries of the hostile troops it lie exposed, which even

into the Saint's town had cast flames), at last it was decreed

by them, the most sacred Deposit, upon

the altar, to its place to restore. The translation was made

on the night before the eleventh day of the month of July, solemn for the translation

of St. Benedict, which then fell on the sixth feria.

When it had dawned, with a great people running together to

their returned Patron, there was present also Claudia

Monnereta, a forty-year-old, daughter of John formerly

Monneret, a wood-craftsman of St. Claudius, who,

by her husband Claudius Isabello of Clairval on the Ain

river, for nearly nine years abandoned, to her native

soil with three children (namely two daughters, and

one son) had betaken herself. Of these daughters one ten years old,

Petronilla by name, five years before from

though the hand of physicians was applied,

in her limbs seized had remained: so far that with most grave

pains thereafter she was afflicted, nor without an under-arm

crutch could she take a step: and her feeble little body

by Peter de Lyobard the monastery's Sacristan, a man of great

integrity, she recovers at the kisses of St. Claudius's feet. Claudia the mother approached in

the throng, and her daughter Petronilla, grasped under the armpits,

to the kiss of the sacred feet lifted up. Without

delay, behind the altar a retreat being made, Petronilla on her knees

falling, admonished her mother, that it had become better

for her from that touch of the holy Body's feet: wherefore,

her arm and shin being strengthened, with free step and without support

with her mother home she went. But when at intervals

by some pains still she was pricked, and

in her restored limbs something still of weakness clung,

the mother began with the girl the nine-days' prayers,

through which daily they both attended the divine

sacrifice, and after it, the sacred feet of Blessed Claudius

they kissed. The space of nine days elapsed, so

was Petronilla thoroughly healed, that thereafter, every sense

of pain wiped away, or trace of weakness, unharmed

she remained. These things testified the great people,

in whose eyes they were done, and who either had known her infirm,

or admired her healed.

ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.

In this tract the Rhône is buried in a certain abyss; but afterward in a fuller

channel revived runs forth, and propels its waters under the bridge of Grézin,

and thence hastens to Seyssel; and dividing the city into two parts begins to be

navigable, 9 leagues below Geneva: meanwhile none of these things does the map express, except Seyssel, by others Sissum, 4 leagues from Chambéry.

The Alphabet of France places the lordship of Coligny in Bresse, at the confines of the County of Burgundy: the maps note Collonges almost at the Rhône near Châtillon; which place is here meant I do not divine, the former approaches nearer to the name Coloniacum.

These things thus run through,

I leafed through those hundred and two miracles which Henri Boguet published in French; and scarcely three or four did I find that did not seem reported in these two books: wherefore I judged it not worth the effort to ask the keepers of the originals,

that they should gather the rest, which cannot but be either most similar to those already

said, or less authentically attested, at least according to the opinion of Boguet and Chifflet

who pass them over. I would finish with

the exhibition of the old and handsome shrine, in which the incorrupt body

is kept, having received its drawing first, while these things

are being printed; were it not so imperfect

that nothing conveniently and neatly can be engraved from it.

A better one therefore I await for the Supplement. Meanwhile I indicate

that that shrine has at the feet two little folding doors, which being unfastened

the suppliants are admitted to the kiss of them the feet, which

still appear most whole, but from frequent contact

black and hard; while the rest of the body in the shrine

(which however is not wont to be shown) is very white

and soft, wrapped in a shroud with a stole at the neck;

with the arms crossed over the breast, and one of the hands moderately

raised. The body itself, lest it be moved, while for processions

the shrine is carried out, by three straps is bound to the bier,

drawn under the arms, across the belly and across the hips.

The head and chin lack hair and locks. So

to me our Francis Claudius Menestrier, who nothing

more could extort from the Monks often appealed to.

CLAUDIAN ILLUSTRATIONS

A posthumous little work of Peter Francis Chifflet, S.J.

Claudius, Bishop of Besançon and Abbot of the Jura, in Burgundy (St.)

BHL Number: 5958

BY A. FRAN. CHIFLET.

CHAPTER I.

On the District of the Scodingi and its Dukes, and the Toparchy of Salins comprised in it, the homeland of St. Claudius.

[1] The Life of St. Claudius, to be venerated on the 16th of June, not the 7th, About Blessed Claudius's, the Jura Abbot's and Archbishop's

of Besançon, chronology, hitherto by few

understood, before we dispute; certain things must be premised

which have less difficulty, that by these as it were steps

to higher things we may be advanced. And first there is a manifest error

in Baronius's Roman Martyrology, where St. Claudius's

festivity to the seventh day of the month of June he ascribes;

whereas the day before, that is, on the eighth before the Ides of June, both

the Jura, and all the other Calendars or Martyrologies of the provinces of Besançon and Lyon

note it.

[2] written after the Lords of Salins were adorned with the title of Palatines; As regards the Life of Blessed Claudius, which above

we have exhibited, it is certain that it is not very ancient:

for not more manifestly could its author betray his own age,

than when he said St. Claudius was sprung from

the noble genealogy of the Princes or Palatines of Salins.

For that the Toparchs of Salins were then first

begun to be called Palatines, is ascertained, when to them

the County of Burgundy by affinity came. Wherefore the Palatine

title among the Counts of Burgundy first of all

bore Otto, son of Frederick the Emperor by Beatrice the Burgundian:

and this Otto's granddaughter Alais, joined in marriage to Hugh

of Chalon, son of John by Matilda,

first brought the dignity of the Palatines of Burgundy into the family of the Lords

of Salins, in the year of Christ 1248;

in which year her brother Otto, Duke of Merania

and Count Palatine of Burgundy, departing from the living without offspring,

left her his heir. But then her husband

Hugh, Palatine indeed to be and to be called began;

not yet however Lord of Salins, and so scarcely before 400 years ago. except in the year 1267,

when, succeeding John his father, Lord of Salins, who died on the day before

the Kalends of October, both the dignity

of Palatine of Burgundy, and that of Lord of Salins

first he joined. From which it appears that scarcely before four centuries

ago did this Life of St. Claudius come forth. Not however on that account

is it to be spurned or rejected, since it has an author

in scrutinizing (as far as he could) the ancient writings

most diligent, and who with the best characters of times

marked it, those excepted of which the reader in

its Preface we admonished. Now about Salins, holy

Claudius's native soil.

[3] Salins, now an ample city, SALINS, now a city among the Sequani, in free Burgundy,

and in the Bishopric of Besançon, after Besançon the metropolis

most ample, and famous for salt fountains in the whole world

most renowned, was formerly only a village.

The old Martyrology of St. Paul of Besançon: On the 3rd before the Nones

of February, in the territory of Besançon, in the village of Salins,

St. Anatolius the Confessor, whose tomb with great

miracles is illustrated. Heric in the Life of St. Germanus of Auxerre,

book 2 chapter 12, where about the relics of the holy Martyrs,

Urban and Tiburtius, translated from Rome to Auxerre through the Sequani:

Hence, he says, to Salins it was come. A father,

his little son weak with the contraction of his limbs

carrying on his shoulders, placed him under the bier.

A little after he began to be raised, formerly only a village, and his father anxiously to call upon.

All roused by the voices, this side and that run together,

find him unharmed. The father, before the eyes of all his son

healthy beholding, joyful carried him back to his own. Done

in the church of St. John the Baptist, in the public village.

From the appellation of "village" it appears that Salins was not yet a city

in the year of Christ 862, when was made that translation of Relics,

according to Heric in the preceding chapter.

[4] But there were around the salt-works of Salins, for the protection of the place,

castles altogether five; Bracon, girded with five castles, for St. Claudius's

(as is commonly believed) birth illustrious: Poupet:

Benignianum (Château Belin): Guidonium, Château

Guyon: and that which by a singular appellation was called

the Castle above Salins, and in ancient ages Aëria.

This same castle, or Bracon, or some one of the three other

mentioned, we suppose to have been the head of the District or

County of the Scodingi, and the seat of that Count who presided over it:

whom even from the time of King Guntram

we read to have been the Mayor of the palace of Burgundy, constituting the District of the Scodingi, and Duke

and Patrician of the district beyond the Jura and of the Scodingi. Protadius,

Fredegarius, in the 9th year of Theuderic, in the district beyond the Jura

and of the Scotingi is ordained Patrician; by the instigation

of Brunichild. The following year, made Mayor of the palace

of the King of Burgundy, and not much after, having plotted a revolution,

he is killed. Therefore to Protadius had died in that Duchy

or Patriciate Wandalmarus, to Wandalmarus

Theudofredus, from the same Fredegarius, chapters 13 and 24.

[5] Further there succeeded Protadius Claudius, of whom thus

Fredegarius: whose Dukes, in the year 606, were Claudius, In the 11th year of the reign of Theuderic (that was

the year of Christ 606) there is substituted as Mayor of the palace Claudius,

conversation, vigorous in all things, given to patience, abounding in fullness

of counsel, and learned in letters, full

of faith, pursuing friendship with all. Fearing the examples of his predecessors,

he showed himself mild and patient at this

ascent of rank: but this only impediment

he had, Warnacharius, that he was weighed down by the fatness of his body.

To Claudius the Patrician seems to have succeeded Warnacharius,

from the beginning of Chlothar II reigning in Burgundy,

up to the 43rd year of the same Chlothar from his father Chilperic's

death, in which Warnacharius's death

Fredegarius fixes.

[6] But to Warnacharius succeeded (I suppose) Willebadus

the Patrician, who as a Martyr is venerated among the people of Lyon; St. Willebadus, Martyr.

for thus we read in St. Stephen of Lyon's

old Martyrology: On the 5th before the Ides of May, the birthday of Holy

Villebadis the Martyr. But in the Martyrology of St. Eugendus

of the Jura: On the 6th before the Ides of May, in the territory of Lyon,

of Guilbadus King and Martyr: where he seems called King

on account of some royal consanguinity, or affinity.

There is a village named from his name in the archpriestship of Ambronay

of the diocese of Lyon: in whose

sacred building of the village we saw a reliquary, containing his body,

and proposed to the public veneration of the faithful.

Leidradus, Archbishop of Lyon, in his Letter to

Charlemagne the Emperor: Another church also,

he says, in the same parish, which is in honor

of St. Wibaldus, where the body of the same Saint rests,

I restored. And this same Church, of St.

Wilbasius called, is reckoned among the benefits of the monastery

of St. Eugendus, in Frederick I the Emperor's, Pope Urban

the third's, and other Pontiffs' and Princes' privileges.

As regards the things done by him, Fredegarius notes at

the 7th year of Dagobert reigning in Austrasia, but of his

monarchy the first, that by the order of King Dagobert Brunulf,

uncle of Aribert his brother, by Amalgar

and Arnebert the Dukes, and Willibadus the Patrician, was

killed. In addition that Dagobert in the 14th year of his reign

against the Gascons led an army, over which presided

Hadoindus the Referendary, and under him ten Dukes,

one of whom was Willibadus the Patrician of the lineage

of the Burgundians. Whence further to Willibadus the crown of martyrdom

came, hear from Fredegarius, chapter 90, where it is said

that about the fourth year of Clovis II (which was of Christ

647) Willibadus the Patrician was killed

by Flaucatus, not far from Autun. Hence Flaucatus

came to Chalon, and that city the following day with a great

fire burned. Flaucatus thence having departed, and

seized by a fever, when in a skiff he was making for Latona up the Saône,

breathed out his soul, on the journey, on the eleventh

day after Willebadus's death; and was buried

in the church of St. Benignus, a suburb of Dijon.

[7] It is believed by very many (says Fredegarius, from the unskilled

common people's report) that these two, killed by Flaucatus, who himself also soon perished: Flaucatus and Villebadus,

because many to each other through the places of the Saints, for

binding their friendships, oaths they had given, and each

had iniquitously oppressed the peoples subject to him by the instinct of cupidity,

and at the same time had stripped them of their goods, that

the judgment of God from their oppression had freed a very great

multitude: and their perfidy and lies

had made both of them perish. But far otherwise about

Willebadus and his slayer; Audoenus, in the Life of St.

Eligius Bishop of Noyon: Flaucatus, he says, a most cruel

tyrant, Willibaudus a most Christian man,

Patrician of Burgundy, undeserving, killed.

When this to the ears of Blessed Eligius was brought, he to those narrating

said: You indeed say Willibaudus slain,

Flaucatus unharmed. But I that one whom

you say killed, for his exceptional merits I declare now

in heaven to live better. But Flaucatus, whom you

rejoicing assert to enjoy life, shortly to perish badly.

Willibaudus, I say, a true worshipper of God, dead

indeed seems, but without end will live a most blessed life.

But Flaucatus, who is thought about to live long,

within these ten days, as he deserves, will die badly.

After seven days, unexpectedly Flaucatus stricken,

miserably departed from life. More availed for Willebadus's

commendation, of these two, Eligius namely

and Audoenus, illustrious Prelates, the testimonies, than

the little rumors of the ill-occupied populace for his discrediting.

Nor is there doubt that he by the old rite was vindicated, and to the Saints'

catalogue ascribed: although the title of Martyr was extended

to a most Christian man, who not indeed

for the faith, but for justice by a nefarious parricide was slaughtered.

In the Bull of Pope Urban III for St. Eugendus's monastery,

given in the year 1186, first of all in the district

of Lyon is reckoned St. Wilbasius's Church, under the same

monastery's dominion.

[8] During these times someone may have said that the Scodingi's

Patricians were Vandalenus, (not Vandalenus, with his son) and his son Ramuelenus:

whom Jonas in his Columban asserts to have been Dukes

of the peoples which between the enclosures of the Alps, and the fields of the Jura forest

dwell. But it is certain that in their times the Patricians

were Claudius, Warnacharius, and Willebadus:

and it is established from Fredegarius chapter 90, that Ramuelenus

stood on the side of Flaucatus against Willebadus

the Patrician in the 4th year of Clovis the younger, which was of Christ

1147 recte 647. Not therefore was he himself Patrician, just as neither

his father Vandalenus: but each had his seat at Besançon,

and was Duke over the Warasci and some part of the Helvetii;

at least that which is on this side of Lake

Leman. For there by Ramuelenus to have been founded a

monastery of St. Columban's Rule, in the Jura forest

(as Jonas says) above the Novisona rivulet, in another

place we shall demonstrate.

[9] After Willebadus, the affairs of the Franks being disturbed,

and the dominion of the Mayors of the royal palace growing heavy, no

Patrician in the district of the Scodingi do I find, except

Norbertus, Norbertus, or Nordebertus, founder of the monastery

of girls of Castrum-Caroli, or Castrum-Carnionis

among the Scodingi, commonly Château-Chalon, in the bishopric

of Besançon: about whom thus the old Necrology of the place: On the vigil

of the Nativity of the Lord, the Deposition of Lord Norbertus the Patrician,

There died Eusebia, wife of Norbertus the Patrician. Frederick

the Emperor, by a diploma given at Worms, on the 13th before the Kalends of October,

in the 13th Indiction, in the year of Christ 1165, at the prayers of Petronilla

Abbess of Castrum-Caroli, her Church, by

Norbertus the Patrician of blessed memory, and Eusebiana

his consort, for the redemption of their souls,

in honor of the most Blessed Mother of God and ever Virgin

Mary, and of Peter the Prince of the Apostles, with studious

devotion founded, and with ample possessions

enriched, into his protection receives.

[10] On the consecration of this Church thus the proper

Martyrology: On the 2nd before the Ides of November, founder of the convent in Castrum-Caroli, the Dedication

of the Church of Blessed Mary of Castrum-Caroli, by the hands of Lord

Leodegarius. Situated is this monastery of noble Virgins

on the summit of a lofty mountain, fertile of generous wine,

which formerly was called the Blessed Mountain: and

to St. Leodegarius Bishop of Autun consecrating its first building,

there are said to have assisted thirteen others,

partly Bishops, partly Archbishops: which four times in each year

(namely at the feasts of the Purification, Annunciation,

Assumption, and Nativity of Blessed Mary) by a Priest,

in the morning supplication, from a mound to the people

gathered in the cemetery is wont to be proclaimed. It is easy

to conjecture that there was requested for that duty

St. Leodegarius outside his diocese, because of Nordebertus

the Patrician founder, or of Eusebia his wife, or

of some of his Convent's royal Nuns

he was a kinsman, or because then in the kingdom of Burgundy

he was most powerful, and as it were Mayor of the palace. That

Dedication moreover, if it was made on a Sunday (as is probable,

for a greater concourse of people, about the year 666, and the solemnity of the Office),

would pertain to the year of the Christian era 666, marked

by the Dominical letter D, the third year of St. Leodegarius's

episcopate. Perhaps moreover this Nordebertus, founder

of the monastery of Castrum-Caroli, is the same one whom Pippin

in the year 687, surviving beyond the year 687. the Franks subdued, left in France

as Mayor of the palace: who afterward died while Childebert, after

Clovis III his brother, was reigning; as the little book

on the Mayors of the palace testifies, the Chronicle of Angoulême, and the Deeds

of the Franks; chapters 48 and 49.

[11] Thus far about the Patricians of the Scodingi; from whom,

if you ask me who was St. Claudius's father, Of these Claudius seems to have been the Saint's father. I say he seems

to have been his namesake, Claudius, of whom above,

Patrician of the Scodingi. For constant is the tradition of the people of Salins,

that St. Claudius was born in the castle of Bracon,

whose ruins among them still remain; and of so renowned

parents, who presided over Salins; so upright and

pious, by whose singular care he himself to every honor of virtue

would be trained. Wonderfully too the time agrees with

the year of St. Claudius's birth, as below I shall show. There invites

finally the Roman appellation of the Claudii, and the old custom of noble

families among the Romans, of deriving their names

into their sons. Behold by how many ways toward one mark

I aim: hither all things invite us, place, time, name,

condition, honest morals. Since however there is lacking the express assertion

of any ancient author, I would not wish these things said by me

about St. Claudius's father to avail beyond conjecture.

CHAPTER II.

Whether to the Lords of Salins, who for nearly the last seven centuries presided over that

toparchy, the family of St. Claudius was propagated? The series of the same.

[12] The Lords of Salins were from the Patricians of the Scodingi

far different: for these, the District of the Scodingi being very ample besides that

they generally bore the dignity of Mayor of the palace in

the kingdom of Burgundy, the whole district of the Scodingi, with

the district beyond the Jura (which by the Valais territory and the Helvetii

was bounded) in their dominion they had. But ran out

the district of the Scodingi far and wide beyond the Salins

toparchy: and it included among the rest (as in

the ancient documents we read) St. Lamanus-villa, Vincelles, Morgas,

and the monasteries of Balma and of Castrum-Caroli. The Martyrology

of the Jura, old: On the 9th before the Kalends of December,

in the district of the Scodingi, of St. Lamanus the Martyr.

Today a village from him has its appellation. King Lothar,

on the 11th before the Kalends of February, in the 14th year of his reign,

of Christ 870, in the 3rd Indiction, to Arduicus the Besançon

Archbishop and his Church hands over Castrum-Carnonis

in the district of the Scodingi, together with a little cell

by the name of Balma situated in the same district. the toparchy of Salins comprised: In the division

of the kingdom of Lothar, in the same year after his death made,

the Scoding fell to Louis. William, the first

of that name, Archbishop of Besançon, about the year

1112, for his Anniversary gave to the Besançon Church

of St. John, the altar of Vincelles in the Scoding territory.

Louis son of Boso, at the request of his mother Hyrmingardis,

to Alvualo Archbishop of Lyon gave

in the County of Scutiacum the village of Morgas, in the

first year of his Empire, of Christ 901, in the 4th Indiction.

Morgas is in the Deanery of Montana: Castrum-Carnonis,

Balma-monachorum, St. Lamanus, and

Vincelles, are in the Deanery of Lons. As far therefore

as by conjecture I can attain, there comprised formerly the district

or County of the Scodingi, the Deaneries of the diocese of Besançon

very ample, three out of the fifteen; namely of Salins,

of Montana, and of Lons: and of that whole territory it consisted,

which has the Counties of Varascum and Amausum,

and Mount Jura as its limits: while the toparchy of Salins

is not a little more contracted, and is nearly within the bounds

of the present-day prefecture or bailiwick of Salins confined.

[13] whose beginning is deduced from St. Sigismund King of the Burgundians, Now the series of the Lords of Salins, by no one

hitherto handed down, let us approach from its first origin, and to

our own times let us deduce. Sigismund of the Burgundians

King, either founder or restorer of the monastery of Agaunum,

enriched it with great resources,

which to feed nine hundred Monks for Perpetual Praise

could be enough. Would that there existed of this foundation the original

tablets, or from the originals by a faithful hand

copied: but those which the Sammarthani published in Volume 4

of Gallia Christiana, are the collection of some unskilled man,

who, recounting the whole history of the matter from every side, and

at his pleasure sprinkling it with his own glosses, had no reckoning

of times.

[14] He had read in the Lives of the Holy Fathers of Agaunum:

The Rule of chanting meanwhile, or of pausing, having been instituted,

is handed down to St. Hymnemodus, by the assembly of Bishops

who had come there to establish the monastery, founder of perpetual Praise in the monastery of Agaunum,

and in the Life of St. Sigismund King and Martyr,

that when he had divinely taken the counsel, at

Agaunum after the likeness of the heavenly host of perpetually chanting

choirs to be established, the Holy and Apostolic

men he consulted, whether he was thinking salutarily, or not.

Which question among themselves being ventilated, the holy Prelates,

though an unusual work, yet, the Lord assenting,

unanimously confirmed it. The Fathers of this Synod

he writes to have been sixty, of whom only four

by name he calls; namely Maximus of Geneva,

Theodorus of Sion, Victorius

of Grenoble, and Viventiolus of Lyon,

whom about the proposed business he makes to be discoursing: and

finally King Sigismund to the established Agaunum

congregation of Monks lands and most ample revenues

assigning, on the Ides of May; when on the day before the Kalends

of May that assembly had begun, out of Bishops 60, and as many

Counts composed. But no character of the year is expressed,

either from Christ, or from Sigismund's reign, or from

the Consuls, or from the Indiction. Now what faith to these tablets

is to be given let us more closely inspect.

[15] In the Acts of St. Maurice and his companions, by the author Eucherius,

this the collector had read: But indeed of the most blessed

Agaunum Martyrs the bodies, after many

years of their passion, to St. Theodorus the Bishop of that place

are said to have been revealed. This man he thought the Bishop of Sion,

who was of Octodorum. the 4 Bishops, 8 Counts approving, Theodorus therefore

Bishop of Sion thus speaking he introduces.

It has seemed good to us, that these only whose

names are known, that is, of Maurice,

Exuperius, Candidus, Victor, within the circuit of the basilica,

which the clemency of the King for this work to be adorned

ordered; but the rest of the bodies be heaped in a most safe

place, and in a most fitting be laid in one place:

and under eminent custody most holy guardians be deputed;

lest perhaps (which God forbid) by falsehood from them they steal.

Before Heliodorus, whose Envoy in the year of Christ

585 attended the Second Council of Mâcon, no

Bishop of Sion do we read. There had preceded Rufus

Bishop of Octodorum, subscribed to the Councils, of Orléans

IV in the year 541, of Orléans V, and of Auvergne

II in the year 549. Theodorus Bishop of Octodorum

had subscribed to the Council of Aquileia in the year

381. Founded was the monastery of Agaunum by

King Sigismund, in the consulship of Florentius and Anthemius, from

the Chronicle of Marius of Avenches, that is, in the year of the Christian era

515. Then the Bishop of Octodorum was Constantius,

two years after, that is, about the year 515 in the year 517 subscribed

to the Council of Epaon, the fourth before Maximus the Geneva

Bishop, and so prior to him in ordination:

by whose Maximus's counsel and exhortation (from the Lives of the Holy

Abbots of Agaunum) Sigismund to the building of the Agaunum

monastery had set his mind. If therefore any

Bishop of the place was present at that assembly in the year 515,

not Theodorus of Sion, but Constantius of Octodorum

it was.

[16] But how is that assembly out of 60 Bishops, and as many

Counts said to have coalesced, for that end very many estates being given: in which four

only Bishops are reported to have spoken, the same with eight Counts

subscribed: This assembly the cited

ancient author called, not a Council or Synod:

and although the patcher-together of these tablets,

himself seems to have erred in many things, yet most of the faults

crept into them from unskilled copyists; such as those words,

"by 60 Bishops, and as many Counts": for which

I suppose the collector wrote, "by 4 Bishops, and eight

Counts." These Counts are subscribed: Uinbdemarus,

Praemodus, Gundeulfus, Benedictus, Agano, Bonifacius,

Tendemaudus, Fredeboldus. In the course of the tablets

thus says Sigismund: Therefore I, pondering

the words of our Redeemer, to the same monastery

for the salvation of my soul of my goods I give,

and given forever I wish to be, that is, in

the districts or territories, Lyon, Vienne, Grenoble,

and Augusta Camera, and the district of Geneva,

of the Valais, and the border of Avenches, and Lausanne,

and Besançon, the manors thus named:

Briogia, Olona, Cucusa, Rubregio, Staties, Communiaco,

Mariniaco, Muratto, together with their appendages.

And in the Valais district, and in the Augustan Valley

which is from the borders of Italy, other manors, Sidrio,

Bernona, Leuca, Bromusio, Duodecimo,

Paterno. In the city of Augusta one tower which

looks to the West: and Levira, Lagona, Gizorolis,

and Morga, with all integrity and appendages and

their adjacencies.

[17] So many estates, so many properties on one monastery

bestowed by Sigismund no one will wonder, who considers

that nine hundred Monks for perennial Praise in it were

instituted. For there is an old Prose of that Church: for 900 Monks to be fed there, for nine hundred

Brothers it prepares food: and the 9th lesson of the Office

of St. Maurice and his companions, once transmitted to me with

the sign and seal of the most Reverend Abbot. Indeed in

memory of St. Maurice, and of his companions the Martyrs,

offices in that basilica does not cease:

which by the command of the holy and illustrious Martyr of Christ

Sigismund, the third King of the Burgundians, under

many privileges and revenues, for the sustenance

of nine hundred Brothers offered, was instituted; and

up to the present day, the Lord protecting,

has been preserved.

[18] among which Briogia is wrongly named, Briogia in Sigismund's donation, I suspect

is taken for Bracon, the castle set over Salins: for among

other estates that castle with the subject salt

works, and other villages of the district of the Scodingi, on the Agaunum people

he had bestowed: of which places the names although in great

part are read corrupt in the cited tablets, of the matter nevertheless

it is established from the clientele professions of the Lords of Salins,

of which Samuel Guichenon makes mention in

the Sebusian Library, page 22 in these words: The castle

of Bracon was given by St. Sigismund the King

in the foundation of the monastery of Agaunum: it seems to be the castle of Bracon which afterward

under homage Meynerius Provost of St. Maurice,

to Alberic Count of Mâcon handed over, as in its

place will be seen. Of which Castle and other feudal

things moving from it the homage they rendered

at various times, Galcherus Lord of Salins

in the year 1199; Raynaldus de Cusollo, and

Alais his wife in 1224; Otto, Count of Burgundy

in 1289; Matilda, Countess of Artois

and Palatine of Burgundy, and Lady of Salins,

in 1302; and Joanna, Queen of France and Navarre,

Countess Palatine of Burgundy and Lady of Salins.

[19] Guichenon had premised the tablets of homage, rendered by John

Count of Burgundy and Lord of Salins,

to Nantelmus Abbot of Agaunum, for the fief of Bracon

and its appurtenances, in the year of Christ 1246, on the 6th feria

after the feast of St. Michael, to the Abbot of Agaunum in the episcopal house of Lausanne,

the Abbot permitting it for that occasion only, since otherwise personally

in the Agaunum Church itself it was wont and

ought to be rendered. But when (adds Count John) it shall please

the Abbot to come to the Castle of Bracon, honorably

we ought to receive him, and the keys of the Castle

to him to render: and he ought to commend them to the porter.

But we to the Lord Abbot ought in expenses, and

to his Regular companions, honorably to provide. These things

Guichenon from the Chancery of Agaunum: already from the year 945 together with Salins given in fief, from which also

he reports in the following the tablets, by which Meynerius

Provost and the rest of the Brothers of the Agaunum monastery, in the year

of King Conrad V, that is of Christ 945, by the order

and consent of the same King, give in lease or

in fief, to Albric the Count and after him to Leutold

and Humbert his sons, certain of their things situated in the district

of Warascum, and in the County of Scodingum: among these Bracum

with Salins, the church of St. Peter in Calme Arlicana,

the Frankish Fisc, half of Feostingum,

Chivriacum the fisc, the lordship of Arecium with the Church

of St. Melanius except the altar; the Church of St. Maurice in

Chamblasium; and of the Jura band Ozeias with its appurtenances,

under an annual rent of some shillings,

to be paid yearly at St. Maurice's festivity.

[20] Hence arose the toparchy of Salins, although

in the following centuries thereafter described a little differently; to the Counts of Burgundy at last devolved.

so that neither all these places, nor only these did it contain, but,

some being excluded, some others it took in, of the Lords

of Salins nevertheless from that first beginning of it to

this day the series has been propagated, ending in the present-day

King of the Spains Charles II, who to his other titles

added, of Count of Burgundy, and Lord of Salins,

although the possession itself he yielded to Louis

XIV King of the Franks, by the agreed pacts of the lately sanctioned

peace. Now that to the question proposed about St. Claudius's

family there may be an open answer, the very Lords

of Salins in order let us recount, at least up to the

union of the toparchy of Salins with the County of Burgundy

Palatine, which begun nearly four hundred years ago

has been observed up to this day.

[21] Of the old Lords of Salins moreover this is the series: To deduce their series moreover the more willingly

I digress, the more I understand that it to no one hitherto has been

known, certainly handed down in no commentaries

that have come to my knowledge. But since the same

is the stock, the same the origin of the Lords of Salins and of the Counts

of Burgundy, from whose family also of the Mâcon,

Vienne, and Chalon some Counts

came forth; it appears that of a full one or several volumes

this is the argument, if anyone the particulars of this lineage

should wish to pursue. Here I shall draw only the first lines,

the entire genealogical history of these Princes

reserving for another work, Alberic of Narbonne in the year 945. which I now nearly ninety years old

if I should take upon myself, I fear lest some man of fastidious

nose hurl against me that Horatian saying,

"What worthy of so great a gaping will this promiser bring forth?"

[22] The first therefore in the clientele of the Agaunum monastery

Lord of Salins, from the year of Christ 945 was

Alberic of Narbonne, or surnamed of Narbonne

in the cartulary of St. Vincent of Mâcon: which

appellation, whether of family, or of homeland you understand,

there is no reason it should be called into doubt by anyone; since both it is

very old, and nothing repugnant to it in the ancient documents to find

is. His wife was Atila, so named in the original

diploma of the Besançon Church; while in the copies of other Churches

in some tablets now Atelana, now

Ettolana, now even Tolosana, whether by dialect, Humbert brother of Leotaldus Count of Burgundy or

by error of the copyists, named she occurs. She in the cited cartulary

of Mâcon is asserted to have been the daughter of Raculf the Mâcon

Vice-count. To Alberic and Atila there were two sons,

Leotaldus the firstborn, the younger Humbert. From Leotaldus

the family of the Counts of Burgundy was derived. Count

he was of Besançon, from a very old Schedule of Angers,

which in the most learned Peiresc's miscellanies,

written by his hand, we read; the same Count called Imperatorius

in the tablets of St. Vincent of Mâcon, of which

nomenclature the origin in another place we shall indicate.

The same the noblest of the rest of the Counts, in the tablets

of St. Stephen of Besançon, given by him in the 9th Indiction,

in the 12th year of King Conrad, of Christ 951. The same

the grandfather of Gerberga, who to Adalbert King of Italy Otto

William bore, whence the rest up to this

day the Counts of Burgundy were propagated. These to have foretasted

let it be enough for one hastening to other things. But in the series of the Lords

of Salins the second (as I reckon) was

II. Humbert, brother of Leutaldus, son of Alberic

younger in age.

III. Humbert II, son of the former Humbert, to whom

his wife Ermenburga, daughter of Count Lambert, Humbert the second children

bore: Hugo I, the first Archbishop

of Besançon of that name, Letaldus; Ermenburga the wife

of Ansedeus de Naviliacum, mother of Wichardus the Stephanian

Archdeacon, and of all (as it seems) the firstborn

Walcherius, heir of the paternal dignity.

IV. There was therefore Walcherius among the Lords of Salins

the fourth. two Walcherii,

V. Walcherius II, son of the first.

VI. Humbert III, son of Walcherius II, to whom his brother

Hugo in the metropolitan Church of St. Stephen Canon

Cardinal.

VII. Walcherius III, son of Humbert III: Walcherius III, in the year 1140, to whom

about the year 1140.

VIII. Maura, or Moreta, daughter and heir of Walcherius III,

who to Girard Count of Vienne and Mâcon the Salins

toparchy brought in dowry. Margaret who transferred the Dominion to the Counts of Burgundy

IX. Walcherius IV, son of Count Girard and Maura,

heir of his maternal dowry.

X. Margaret, daughter and heir of Walcherius IV, wife

first of William de Sabran, Count of Forcalquier;

then of Jocerannus Grossus, Lord of Branceduno. She

to Hugo IV Duke of Burgundy her Salins toparchy

for certain other estates exchanged.

XI. Hugo IV, Duke of Burgundy, who, the Salins toparchy acquired

from Margaret, soon for the County of Chalon

exchanged it, with

XII. John Count of Burgundy, as they say,

and Beatrice of Chalon, who it afterward derived to

XIII. Hugo, thereafter called also Palatines, and Lords of Salins up to now. his son by his first wife Matilda the Burgundian, sister of Odo III Duke of Burgundy.

He through Alais his wife made Count Palatine of Burgundy,

then after his father John Lord of Salins,

both honors to all his descendants transmitted:

so that from him up to this day the same has always

been both Count Palatine of Burgundy, and Lord

of Salins.

[23] [The lineage of Alberic, to be derived from the Scodingi the ancestors of St. Claudius, is not proven.] Now to the question proposed at the beginning. Since

of Alberic the Count, the first of the Lords of Salins, the progenitors

are unknown to us; nor were the ancient Patricians of the Scodingi

hereditary, but constituted by the nod and will of the Kings;

it appears not clear, that St. Claudius's

family from either of these to us has been propagated.

CHAPTER III.

On St. Claudius's body still whole; from whom another at Metenacus is different.

[24] In the Condat church the body of St. Claudius, The author of the Life of St. Claudius: Desiring, he says,

to flee the pomps of cities, and the honor of peoples,

his body in the said monastery to be buried

he ordered: then thus concludes; Whose body, as

was fitting, with aromatics embalmed, was placed in

the church of Blessed Eugendus, in which up to now incorrupt

with innumerable miracles it shines. The author of the first

book of the Miracles of St. Claudius, the same perhaps who also

of his Life: Whose body, by the prerogative of family and sanctity,

embalmed with precious aromatics, in the church

of Blessed Eugendus for five hundred fifty-four

years, with miracles constantly increasing, rested.

[25] not disemboweled, but whole; From these we understand that never was buried in the earth

St. Claudius's body, but in some casket (as

is generally done with the bodies of other Saints) in a decent place

honorably placed. But when you read, "embalmed with aromatics,"

beware lest you think it was disemboweled, and, the viscera

removed (as is done), filled with a manifold heap of aromatics.

The Egyptians, by the testimony of Herodotus in the second book (with whom

agrees Diodorus Siculus likewise in the second book), when

they embalmed bodies for incorruption, were wont with a hooked

iron to draw the brain through the nostrils, and the belly opened

all the viscera to bring out: then in their place asphalt,

and juices concreted with pitch they crammed, and over the whole body

poured around; so far that thus treated, even for ages

they would endure. Not thus was St. Claudius's body embalmed,

nowhere cut, nowhere disemboweled. This, witnesses being

their own senses, ascertained by themselves they affirm, the keepers

and curators of the sacred deposit. By which indeed the more admirable is his

so long-lasting integrity, free from all rottenness or foul

odor. Therefore if any ointments or aromatics were applied to him,

these from outside only were poured or smeared:

plainly as once on the most sacred body of Christ,

for the signification of affection and religion, not to procure

incorruption; which nevertheless to him the divine

power by a huge miracle for nearly ten full centuries now

has provided.

[26] But about the place of St. Claudius's burial difficulty

makes St. Leo Pope IX, in a Bull given on the 16th before the Kalends of December,

in the 3rd Indiction, in the first year of his Pontificate,

of Christ moreover 1049, in which to Hugo Archbishop of Chrysopolis Besançon

confirming his goods and rights, among other of his

Benefices he reckons, the Court of Metenacus, with all

its appurtenances, vineyards, fields, male slaves, female slaves, woods,

and all appurtenances, the Church of the same place, in

which rests St. Claudus, with all tithes. St. Claudus said by Leo III in the year 1049 to rest at Metenacus,

This court unjustly holding certain men,

Goffrid and also Leutald, their accomplices too,

in the Synod of Reims we have excommunicated,

and that they at once cease, our anathema we lay upon them.

There will not be, I suppose, anyone who will stick at the name Claudus,

as if it were different from Claudius: since it is certain that,

just as in ancient Latium, Clodii and Claudii; so in more recent

ages, Claudus and Claudius, Clauda and Claudia,

interchangeably were used as words. If therefore the same is

St. Claudius, who is also Claudius the Archbishop,

how in the church of Metenacus was he resting in the year 1049,

whom in St. Eugendus's Jura building soon after his death deposited

to have been, is constant tradition? Was he to Metenacus

thence translated? At what time moreover, and on what occasion?

I know that there were translated from their primary seats

very many bodies of Saints, through the Saracens', Normans',

Hungarians' Gallic or Burgundian devastations: but about

our St. Claudius, nothing such have we received.

Only we read in the first book of his Miracles, that his body was carried about

with public supplication, about

five hundred years ago; through the Besançon and Lyon

dioceses; and then Lons, Poligny, Arbois,

Neuville, and Lyon with very many

miracles illustrated. Sometimes too into hiding places withdrawn,

lest anything from military insolence of injury it suffer. But

about its Metenacus station nothing anywhere observed

have we known.

[27] altogether different from St. Claudius the Bishop: For the solution of this knot, first a thing worthy

of note is, that the place which from Leo Pope IX's Bull

we have brought forward, about St. Claudius the Bishop hardly, nor even hardly

at all can be understood. For although this one nearly a thousand

years ago his most holy life completed, scarcely yet

for five hundred years has public cult to him as vindicated

begun to be paid: not Bede, not Florus, not

Ado or Usuard, nor other old Martyrologists to their Fasts

ascribed him. Only from a Tournai codex reports

Henschenius with Papebroch, in Volume II of his March: the cult of him beginning only long after.

On the 8th before the Ides of June, the deposition of Claudius the Bishop: where about

interpolation by a more recent hand there is suspicion from this,

that in the diocese of Lyon, whence he flew to the Heaven-dwellers,

first William de Sure the Archbishop, the Anniversary feast

day to St. Claudius assigned about

the year of Christ 1335; in the Besançon moreover,

whose mitre he bore, even not a little later to be venerated

it began: for in the year 1440, on Saturday, the 7th of May, at

the prayers of John de Fruyno, Dean, it was decreed that in future

St. Claudius's feast in the diocese should be kept as Double; from

the Acts of the Chapter of Besançon.

[28] Now let us inquire about Metenacus, in whose church

rests St. Claudus. That one is believed to be a Martyr, I find in the Catalogue of benefices

of the Besançon diocese, under the Deanery of Lons,

the Priory and Church of Meynau, whose Patron

is this Priory from the monastery of Gigny, of which it is

it is united to the office of Almoner of Gigny. The matter diligently

inquired from the natives, we found, in its

church from most ancient times, it is venerated on the Sunday of June in a gilded reliquary,

beyond all memory to be preserved very many bones

of a human body, which of a certain Claudius

Martyr they affirm to be. Asked about the feast day of their

Patron, and about the place or time of the martyrdom, or of the translation,

these things they profess to be ignorant of: but their Claudius

their Martyr they venerate yearly on the Sunday which

next follows St. John the Baptist's Nativity.

[29] The Court of Metenacus (which today commonly Meinau)

must have come into the power of the Gigny people

from the Chapter of the Besançon Church of St. Stephen, with the consent

of the Archbishop, about five hundred years ago. For in the year

of Christ 1049 Pope Leo IX, recovered from the hands of the iniquitous possessors,

to Hugo the Archbishop restored. The same Hugo the Archbishop, in the place given to the Abbey of Gigny by the Archbishop of Besançon

in the year 1055 to the Church

of St. Stephen by him restored granted, since before it had been

of the Archbishop's dominion; and still among the goods of the same

Stephanian Church Eugenius Pope III reckons

the Church of Metenacus, with the same village, and the whole

lordship, on the 13th before the Kalends of June, in the year 1148.

After this year, by the liberality of the Archbishop and the Stephanian Chapter,

into the dominion of the Gigny people it passed:

namely by that custom by which very many churches and rich estates,

by the Besançon Archbishops and their cathedral

churches, thereafter on the families of the Regulars were conferred,

both has often been observed by us, and of this

work in more than one place we have noted. These things about Metenacus,

and Claudius the Martyr: now about the place and time of his martyrdom,

in such great darkness what light shines a little for me,

in a few words I shall disclose.

D. P. Nor shall I here be reluctant to follow Chifflet, though from

St. Claudius the Bishop, of whom we treat, leading farther away.

Since not only Claudius the Martyr himself to the end of

June pertains, but also St. Irenaeus Bishop Martyr

obtains the 28th day; and about the holy Epipodius,

Alexander and their Companions in April on the 22nd day we have treated.

Now in one place here will be fittingly reported the things which about the burial of all

and their translations Chifflet here heaps together, so that

the things which jointly he treated, jointly here may be read.

CHAPTER IV.

Why St. Claudius of Metenacus can be reckoned one of the companions of St. Alexander, Martyr of Lyon.

[30] At two hourly leagues from Metenacus, there is a town,

formerly Vincenna, now from St. Amor

named: and in that town from the most remote ages,

of two Martyrs Amor and Viator are preserved

the Relics, from the former of whom the place got its name. Among

the inhabitants by tradition it is held, that Guntram King of the Burgundians

brought those sacred Bodies into that place, As at Vincenna near Metenacus,

or at least erected for them their first basilica, and them in a stone

sarcophagus religiously to be placed ordered: from which after

nearly ten centuries, namely in the year of Christ 1537,

taken out, and into a casket precious in material and workmanship,

by Bothianus the Suffragan of Lyon, in a great

assembly of peoples, they were translated. About their martyrdom's

place and time, since nothing by the ancients noted

the more recent natives of the place knew, they conceded readily into

the opinion of William Baldesanus, who in the sacred history

of St. Maurice and his companions by him written in Italian

asserted, that Amor and Viator pertained to the Theban

Legion, and at Agaunum, or not far from

Agaunum, for Christ suffered.

[31] are kept the bodies of SS. Amor and Viator Martyrs on the 9th of August, But we in the old Martyrology of St. Eugendus of the Jura,

on the 5th before the Ides of August read; In the suburb of Lyon,

of the holy Martyrs Amor and Viator.

So also in the Martyrology of Castrum-Caroli (which monastery of girls

Bishop of Autun, thirteen other Bishops assisting him,

was consecrated): On the 5th before the Ides of August, in the suburb

of Lyon, the Birthday of the holy Martyrs

Amor and Viator. This day seems to have been the translation of one

of them. Nothing moreover pertains the suburb

of Lyon to the Agaunum Martyrs. But Epipodius and

Alexander of Lyon, having gone out secretly from the enclosures of the walls

(as their Acts have in Surius, and in Manuscript

codices), in that village which near the Cut-stone

is situated, with a faithful widow lay hidden, when seized,

and for the faith of Christ variously tortured they were. This

was the suburb (now commonly le faubourg de Vaise)

which is on the right bank of the Saône, beyond Interamnis.

About Alexander the Martyrology of Lyon (with which agree

Ado, Florus, Usuard) On the 8th before the Kalends of May, so he can be reckoned of the 34 Companions of St. Alexander Martyr.

At Lyon of Gaul, the Birthday of St. Alexander, who on the third

day after the passion of Blessed Epipodius brought forth from

prison, first was so mangled by the cruelty of those flogging,

that the framework of his ribs being loosened, his viscera laid open,

the secrets of his soul were exposed: then to the gibbet of the cross fastened,

his blessed spirit, slain, he rendered. There suffered

with him also others to the number of 34. Both buried

on either side of the altar, in a crypt which on a hill set above

the city, with beautiful and ancient workmanship was built.

About those 34 companions of Alexander adds the Roman Martyrology

of Baronius, that their memory on other

days is kept.

[32] equally as SS. Minervus and Eleazar on the 13th of August. Of these four above thirty, were Minervus

and Eleazar with their eight sons, about whom the Martyrologies

on the 10th before the Kalends of September: perhaps also Constantine

the Martyr, formerly lying in St. Justus's basilica. About Minervus

and Eleazar here in passing observe; what corruptly the common people

call the Church of St. Lazarus, at the foot of the Golden

mountain over against Île Barbe, this in the diploma

of Pope Lucius III, given on the 5th before the Ides of May, in the first Indiction,

in the year of Christ 1183, of his pontificate the second,

is named the Church of the holy Minervus and Eleazar

in Mont-doré. But who now would prudently

doubt that Amor and Viator in that number of 34 companions of Alexander

this Martyr are to be reckoned? since

besides these, no others in the suburb of Lyon to have suffered martyrdom

do we read. But about the place whence soon into the Sequani

they were brought, pleasant will be the disputation, and for illustrating

the history of Lyon (as I suppose) not

useless.

[33] Threefold was at Lyon the burial of these Martyrs,

before from there into the surrounding places they were carried out.

The first, All of the same fortune as St. Alexander, in the ancient cemeteries of the Christians of Lyon

and subterranean crypts, in which

they both held their Assemblies, and buried their dead;

since the heathen, in the time of persecutions, even the due

funeral rites and tombs begrudged them. The second, in the crypt

of St. Justus. The third, in the basilica of St. Irenaeus. And these three

stations or dwellings were on the hill, which beyond Interamnis

and at the right bank of the Saône overhung the city,

whence also called commonly the holy Mountain, as we in

the tablets of St. Irenaeus and St. Justus observed; because indeed

from the Martyrs' blood, bones, and other sacred

remains it wholly as it were framed and compacted

seemed to be. Again three states of the same hill are to be distinguished.

The first of the persecutions, which nearly three centuries from Christ

held. The second of the flourishing Church; namely from there

up to the Calvinist disaster. The third from this

disaster to our own times: namely from the year of Christ

1562, when those, born for the destruction of all sanctity and religion,

like furies poured out from hell, of Lyon

took possession, from the 29th day of the month of April, on the following

day, the 30th, the sacred buildings to overthrow, and of all their resources and

ornaments to despoil they began. Then therefore St. Justus's and

St. Irenaeus's noble basilicas, from the 27th day of the month of May (as

notes Severtius in his Bishops of Lyon) to September

up to the ground they demolished. And indeed from that

time St. Justus's Church lay buried in its

ruins: in whose place another was substituted in the year 1574 within

the city walls, in which by St. Justus's Canons the divine

Offices are performed; but to the former far unequal, neither

to its splendor and amplitude corresponding. Now nevertheless

still survives the crypt of St. Irenaeus, but of its columns, and

of mosaic work, and (as they say) of gleaming gold-stone

crusts stripped; over which nevertheless was built

[34] The first therefore burial of St. Alexander and his companion Martyrs

we have assigned in the subterranean cemeteries

of the earlier Christians, from St. Alexander's own

Acts, first they were buried in the holy mountain under crypts, which thus have: These therefore always concordant

and companions (Epipodius namely and Alexander),

whom death had divided, burial joined, while by the

Christians, led out secretly outside the city, the bodies,

hidden, are buried. For there was on a hill set above

the city, with thickened brambles dense, a place: and there

in the manner of a cave, a valley enclosed by shrubs and thorns

lay hidden, and, as it happens where falling moisture by natural

ministry is poured in, an uncultivated fertility.

In which recess the venerable bodies by religious provision

were sunk, because the fury of the Gentiles, denying the last

burial, even on the lifeless bodies

raged. Of these cemeteries on that hill six hundred

traces appeared, of which many traces daily occur to those digging, as often as to build something of

of St. Irenaeus, which in the chests of the Prior still survive.

And when we ourselves at Lyon were staying about the year

1625, and in the house of the Prior, to construct

something I know not what, very deep already the ground was dug out;

there occurred unexpectedly a stone bier, which crushed into fragments,

when one and another succeeded, ordered were the diggers

upon that underlying heap of coffins the foundations

to lay. To me indeed it was persuaded, that to those tombs pertained

the crypts, which in the time of persecutions to the Christians

once of Lyon had given hiding-places: to Roman

cemeteries not unlike, in which even now are seen

urns of this kind, μονόλιθοι (monoliths, of a single stone), for the burials of the faithful,

one placed on another, and to the perpendicular leveled,

as if into walls to rise.

[35] To the old state too of the same hill pertains

that thorny deep, and where the heaped bodies of the Martyrs of Lyon were, into which, by the Emperor Severus's,

truly Severe and truly Pertinacious, edicts, of nearly the whole

people of Lyon, under Irenaeus the Bishop for the faith slain,

were sunk the bodies: to it (if I am not mistaken) twin to that which

on Mount Jura at about three hourly leagues from St.

Claudius's monastery we elsewhere beheld, which both is very deep,

and overgrown with thickets, and has at the bottom the welling

of a fountain, which into a hollow valley, by mounds as it were

by walls on every side girt, poured out, makes a lake,

which the Lake of the Cave the common people call, because from that cave

it has its origin. This was the state of the Church of persecutions,

propagated to at least three centuries from Christ.

[36] thence carried up to the church of St. Justus there built; But in the second state, peace being given to the Churches, of the Christians of Lyon

the counsel was to set upon that holy

Mount two basilicas, into which the bodies of some of the nobler

Martyrs might be brought, the rest for the glory of the last resurrection

being reserved. And of these indeed

the first, first from the holy Maccabees, then from holy

Justus named, on the slope of the hill was built, and as if

immersed in the earth from that cave enclosed by shrubs

and thorns it arose, in whose recesses Epipodius, Alexander,

and their companion Martyrs first secretly were buried.

So the crypts of that region and the subterranean cemeteries,

the thickets torn up and the soil leveled, into that of the Maccabees

or of St. Justus the basilica, and to it the underlying crypt

were reduced: into which crypt, of St. Irenaeus, and

of the holy Epipodius, Alexander, and their companion Martyrs

were brought the relics. This asserts the Patriarch of Constantinople

John de Rupescissa, born near Lyon

(who also for some time Archbishop of Besançon

was), in the sentence by the assent of the parties

pronounced in the year 1413, in the cause of the Churches

of St. Justus and St. Irenaeus, whence in the year 1413 those Canons claimed that the bodies were still there. over the possession of the sacred Bodies

of St. Irenaeus, St. Epipodius, and St. Alexander, between themselves

contending. For the Patriarch declares, that then indeed,

and from the time of St. Patiens the Bishop, those were in

the basilica of St. Irenaeus: but before St. Patiens, they had lain in

the Church of St. Justus. Wherefore the Canons of St. Justus a

probable and just cause of litigating and prosecuting,

without suspicion of bad fraud, calumny or other

machination, undoubtedly had: because on certain

writings and the testimonies of the ancients they relied, which among

their predecessors had made faith. For the Count of Forez

Artaldus in the year 993, and Anschericus the Lyon

Archbishop in the year 927, nay also Audinus, or Audoynus Chorbishop, restorer of St. Justus's basilica,

in the year 958 had testified, that they certain things

of theirs handed over to the Church of St. Justus, in which St. Irenaeus

to rest they affirmed. Nonetheless the Patriarch

according to the Irenaeans pronounces sentence, that it was established

that the Bodies of the Saints about whom it was treated in their

Church, built by St. Patiens, were by the founder himself

translated. What moreover by St. Patiens was done

now let us see.

[37] Above the mouth of the cave or thorny deep, into which

the bodies of so many thousands under Irenaeus of Martyrs had been sunk,

an edge he set around, gratings he stretched over, But when St. Patiens had also built the church of St. Irenaeus, two

temples under one roof founded he built; that is, a crypt,

and a building set upon it: which St. Patiens's work,

at his own request, Apollinaris Sidonius in book two, letter

ten, with elegant hendecasyllables illustrated.

For in vain does Papire Masson try to explain Sidonius

of the basilica of St. Stephen, since it is certain

from the Lyon tablets, that it by Alpinus the Bishop of Lyon

long before St. Patiens's times was built up.

And for a like cause, Theophilus Raynaud ought not to have doubted,

in his Index of the Saints of Lyon,

whether Sidonius's letter was to be taken of St. Justus's Church,

which is established to be much older than Sidonius and Patiens;

inasmuch as in it this man's predecessors, Justus, Alpinus, Antiochus,

Elpidius and Eucherius, had their tombs. Yet

Sirmond in his Notes to this Letter: What makes it

less likely, he says, that the basilica of St. Irenaeus is meant, is that

it is far from the Saône, and little suits it the situation

of the Sidonian Church. Come, let us weigh Sidonius's words. praised by Sidonius Apollinaris,

On this side the embankment sounds, on this the Saône echoes back.

On this side foot and horse turn,

and the driver of the screeching carriages:

on this side the chorus of stooping haulers,

with the banks answering Alleluia,

raises to Christ the river boat-song.

So, so chant, sailor or traveler:

for this is the place to be sought by all,

whither for all the way leads to salvation.

[38] which, hanging from the slope, looks upon the right bank of the Saône, The building of St. Irenaeus is at the right of the Saône, not on the bank

indeed set, but on the slope, and not far from the summit

of the neighboring hill; so far that conveniently could both by the Irenaeans

be heard the boat-song of the sailors furrowing the Saône, and

in turn by the sailors be beheld the Church, and in it the voices of those chanting,

to the river's banks like an Echo resound. What

here not handsomely suiting the Sidonian Church? The rest

I touch on as parallels.

It looks upon the Equinoctial rising.

To this is turned the basilica of St. Irenaeus. Sidonius goes on:

Within, light gleams, and the gilded

Sun is so drawn to the paneled ceiling,

that, of the same color, it wanders in the tawny metal.

Marble distinguished with varied brilliance

runs through the chamber, floor, windows:

and under the parti-colored figures

the grassy crust, springing green, sapphire-blue

little stones it bends through the leek-green glass.

Here he describes the mosaic work, or (as the tablets of St. Irenaeus

say) the gold-stone, from gold and stone so called:

which from mosaic was distinguished as a species from its

genus. With these little stones therefore golden leaves at certain intervals

inlaid, while through them, mixed with leek-green little squares of glass,

wandered the ray of the sun of the same color, the eyes of the beholders

with wonderful variety they delighted.

[39] Hence that as it were native splendor of the place, nearly even

to a miracle: about which the Martyrologies on the 4th before the Kalends of July, into a crypt adorned with gold-stone mosaic,

in the entry on Irenaeus: Of this crypt so venerable is the brightness,

that the merit of the Martyrs it is believed to signify: and

the old Homily of the Church of Lyon on the festivity of St.

Irenaeus: Of this crypt indeed through the whole world

so eminent and reverend is the brightness, that the merit

of so many Martyrs it is believed to signify. Gregory also

of Tours in book 1 on the glory of the Martyrs, chapter 50: This man

(Irenaeus) in the crypt of the basilica of Blessed John, under the altar

is buried. And on one side indeed Epipodius,

on the other Alexander the Martyr is entombed. Of

whose monuments if dust with faith be gathered,

at once it heals the infirm. For a great brightness

in that crypt is contained, they were translated: which (as I believe) the merit

of the Martyrs signifies. From which words we understand,

that already in the time of Gregory Bishop of Tours, Irenaeus,

Epipodius, and Alexander the Martyrs in that crypt lay:

nor is faith to be given to Audoynus the Chorbishop,

when in the year of Christ 858 the bodies of the holy Irenaeus and

Justus, in that of St. Justus's basilica repaired by him, to rest

he affirmed; not knowing that four hundred years before

St. Patiens had translated the bodies of St. Irenaeus, and

of the holy Epipodius, Alexander, Minervus, Eleazar,

and others of the same band of Martyrs, into the crypt

or basilica, which formerly of St. John, afterward of

St. Irenaeus by the name was called.

[40] Sidonius goes on:

To this is applied a triple portico,

proud with Aquitanian supports.

The triple portico I interpret as three-sided, which namely

the right, That crypt is girt with porticoes, the left, and the lower sides of the crypt would hold;

the upper or front being reserved for the conveniences of the sanctuary, and the principal

altar: which order even now

we see observed in most Churches:

To the pattern of which the more remote

courts close in the second porticoes:

And the middle field, placed far off,

the stony forest clothes through the columns.

These second porticoes, to the pattern of that triple one, I explain as

the porticoes of the upper building, corresponding to the lower ones,

but ampler and more open, which according to the situation of the place

larger stone columns would surround. The suit pending

between the Churches of St. Justus and St. Irenaeus about the year

1412, there were still in the crypt thirty columns;

those very ones (as I suppose) of Aquitanian marble of which

Sidonius makes mention. But them tore apart the Huguenot fury

of the year 1562, with all the precious crusts of mosaic or gold-stone

work, and all the ancient ornaments of the place.

[41] Sidonius adds in the course of the Letter: For from

the hexameters of the eminent Poets Constantius and

Secundinus, which the poets Constantius and Secundinus praised: the sides of the basilica neighboring the altar shine forth:

whom into this page to be admitted our modesty as much

as possible forbids, which, timidly publishing its own idle works, the comparison

of better songs presses. What from us concealed the great man Sidonius's

modesty, or urbanity, this to us the Irenaean tablets represented,

written at that time, in which between St. Justus's

and St. Irenaeus's Churches about the holy Irenaeus's, Epipodius's,

and Alexander's sacred bodies' possession by judgment

it was contended. For in the year 1410, on the fifth day of April,

in St. Irenaeus's basilica by solemn rite the relics of these

Martyrs being dug up, by Peter de Thurey of the title of Holy

Susanna Cardinal Presbyter, [there in the year 1410 were found the bodies of St. Alexander and his Companions,] Legate of the Apostolic See,

and from the old leaden caskets into more adorned reliquaries

translated (which manifestation of the Martyrs

very many and illustrious miracles commended); nonetheless

before the tribunal of John de Castrolucio Seneschal of Lyon.

To whom appealing to one and another Judge,

at last by the authority of the Apostolic See, by its Legate

John Patriarch of Constantinople the cause was concluded,

according to the Irenaeans on the ninth day of the month of August, of the year

1413.

[42] The original instruments of this suit, once obtained

from the chests of the Prior of St. Irenaeus, not a few things we have gathered about

the old state of these Lyon Churches, and among

these the ancient Epigrams of the illustrious Poets Constantius

and Secundinus, of whom Sidonius makes mention, and the verses of the aforesaid were found: partly

in pure hexameters, partly in hexameters tempered with the alternate

return of pentameters, which thus have:

Entering places so sacred, now beat your guilty breasts:

Ask groaning for pardon, here with prayer pour out tears.

Here lies the band of the companions of the Prelate Irenaeus,

whom through martyrdom he led to the heights of the heavens.

If their number you desire to know, to you I disclose.

Ten thousands and nine there were under so great a Leader.

Hence women and children too are taken in.

Whom the black hand carried off, now enjoy the light of Christ.

To these nineteen thousand men, the tablets of St. Justus add

seven hundred, whom by the Poet for the sake of the verse neglected

it is fair to suppose they were. These things moreover in that year 1410

still remained in the upper temple, and even now

survive, inscribed on the pavement in letters formed by mosaic work.

[43] What moreover follow are four distichs, still

read in the crypt or lower temple, testifying that it is St. Patiens's work, of mosaic and

gold-stone little stones described on the wall, on the right and on the

left of the Presbytery.

Here two temples gleam, founded under one roof,

which the holy founder Patiens adorned.

The bodies once sunk in the thorny deep,

the clearness of the drawn threshold irradiates.

The lower parts shine again, and, pinnacled with heavenly

ornaments, on high the summits leap up.

Securely indeed the heavenly realms he seeks,

who for Christ on earth prepares royal enclosures.

Nothing therefore of doubt seems to remain, but that the basilica of St. Irenaeus

is this very one of which Sidonius gave that his Letter to Hesperius:

since otherwise it is established from Sidonius,

book 6 Letter 8, that other Churches too were at Lyon

by St. Patiens, either from the foundations built, or at least

repaired: for thus he to Patiens himself: I pass over,

that with so great elegance the Church entrusted to you you beautify,

so that the beholder doubts whether better new works

rise up, or old ones are repaired. I pass over, that through you

in several places the foundations of basilicas rise up,

the ornaments are doubled.

[44] Now about the bodies of so many thousand Martyrs, in the thorny

deep once sunk, under the crypt was a cave full of sacred bones, hear what from the cited tablets of

the Church of St. Irenaeus by me once were observed.

A certain pious and most powerful Soldier, Bartholomew

by name, most devoted to the cult of sacred Relics,

when now several provinces he had traversed, both to visit religious

places, and also to procure for himself the Relics of the saints,

whatever he could obtain; having obtained

once of his Patron Bartholomew the Apostle the lower part

of the head, which they call the jaw, to Lyon

came; where, learning that in the time of Septimius Severus, under

Bishop Irenaeus many thousands of Christians had suffered martyrdom,

into which entering and struck with blindness, and with their blood had turned the Saône into Sagona the river of blood,

whose bodies into a most deep cave

cast, St. Patiens had set two temples under one roof:

the place being approached, and the cave seen still open, which

in the manner of a well by an edge was surrounded; moved by pious rashness

within himself he let down. But then, struck by sudden

blindness, and made by that accident more clear-sighted, he understood,

that that huge army of Martyrs by divine counsel

for eternal triumphs of glory was reserved; and for that cause so

was to be closed up, that neither to mortal sights it should lie open.

By a vow therefore he bound himself, if by God's benefit his sight he should receive, he himself by vow closes it, an altar of St. Bartholomew being set up,

that he would take care that on the sacred well a cover be set,

upon which, an altar being erected, his Apostle Bartholomew's

relics to be enclosed he would hand over, by offices and sacrifices founded by him

in future to be honored: which

also he fulfilled. For which cause the College of the cathedral Church

of Lyon, each year on the feast of St. Bartholomew,

into the crypt of St. Irenaeus to assemble for Mass and for

Vespers, by solemn rite to be chanted, was wont.

[45] about the year 1245. From then up to the devastation of the new heretics,

in the crypt of St. Irenaeus there were either altars. The first

of St. Irenaeus, directly under the altar of St. John the Evangelist,

which of the upper basilica the principal was. The second

of St. Epipodius, on the right. The third of St. Alexander, on the

left. The fourth of St. Polycarp, also at the left.

The fifth in which was kept a part of the column at which

Christ was scourged. The sixth of St. Bartholomew, which

in the middle choir of the crypt, on the cover of the sacred cave rested.

About the time of the erection of this altar under St. Bartholomew's

name, I seemed to myself to have detected something

in the Bull of Innocent Pope IV, given at Lyon on the 15th before the Kalends

of December, in the third year of his Pontificate, and so

in the year of Christ 1245; by which to all truly penitent

and confessed, who on St. Bartholomew's and St. Irenaeus's feast

days that very Church of St. Irenaeus religiously should visit,

forty days of Indulgences he granted. For not

much before, it seems, was covered the well of the Martyrs,

and on it, the pavement spread, an altar set:

since it is probable, that at the first exposition of St. Bartholomew's relics,

to those there was by this Pontifical indult

procured veneration.

[46] [Since therefore it is established that there were buried St. Alexander and his companions,] Thus far clearly enough by us has been distinguished

St. Alexander the Martyr's threefold burial. The first, in

the subterranean cemeteries of the old Christians of Lyon;

the second in the crypt of St. Justus; the third in the crypt

of St. Irenaeus. But what about St. Alexander we have said, this

also about his 34 Companions affirm in more than one place the Irenaean

tablets: with one perhaps excepted, Constantine

the Martyr, whom still in the year 1287 in St. Justus's

crypt to have lain, teach us that Church's tablets several. And

indeed when the holy Irenaeus's, Epipodius's, and

Alexander's bodies, in the year 1410 were taken up, teach

us the monuments of St. Irenaeus, that there were seen also, and recognized

Minervus's and Eleazar's, and the eight sons' tombs to those

contiguous; and all the others to thirty-four, in the same

of St. Irenaeus either lower or upper building, to have been

laid. Thence therefore Amor and Viator, their

companions, to be translated it behooved to Vincenna; and so also

Claudius the Martyr to Metenacus, if he too of those

future about this Claudius's martyrdom's place and time

more certain to anyone be ascertained, into his opinion

we shall readily concede.

[47] and for them was instituted the common feast of the Raising, Hold on here a little, my reader. A certain

raising of some of St. Alexander's companions teaches

us the Codex of rites of the Church of St. Irenaeus, in which these things once

we read: On the first Sunday after the Octave of Easter,

the feast of the raising of the holy Irenaeus, Epipodius,

Alexander, and their companions. A Sermon to the people about the same,

and the following Prayer. Almighty everlasting

God, who on this present day your most blessed Martyrs,

Irenaeus the Pontiff, Epipodius, and Alexander,

with their companions, most gloriously to be raised willed:

grant in mercy, by the help of their intercession,

that we from all evils of mind and body be freed,

and of their society in eternal blessedness

be consoled. Through the Lord.

[48] From the year 1410 Peter Cardinal de

Thurey, after the year 1410 when some of them were found by name, when of the holy Irenaeus's, Epipodius's, and

Alexander's bodies, with solemn apparatus from the ancient

tombs into more adorned reliquaries he had translated, on the eighth before the Ides

of April, Indulgences being proposed, invited the faithful that

to that translation day in St. Irenaeus's Church they should assemble.

But from that time, some of St. Alexander's companions' bodies being raised in the same

Church, it pleased the Irenaeans of all these the raising's anniversary

memory to throw into the first Sunday

after the Octave of Easter. Who moreover were

these companions of St. Alexander, not much after him raised?

I suppose Minervus and Eleazar, and their eight sons,

whose tombs near at hand seen and recognized

by Peter the Cardinal, when Alexander himself he raised,

noted we read in the old Irenaean charters,

in which besides these things are had; In the crypt, or

lower Church of St. Irenaeus, rest the holy

Minervus and Eleazar with their eight sons: and there by

the peoples they are wont to be honored; whence one may gather that they not

much after St. Irenaeus, St. Epipodius, and St. Alexander

were raised, and to public cult exposed.

[49] Behold therefore ten of the thirty-four companions of Alexander.

Of the other twenty-four were (as we think)

Amor, Viator, and Claudius: [it is credible that already of old were carried away from there SS. Amor, Viator, and Claudius.] and of the rest

very many bodies we do not doubt but that in the upper

or lower basilica of St. Irenaeus even now lie hidden,

in those monuments in which by Patiens they were laid:

since the hands of the plundering Huguenots they are believed to have escaped,

because nothing of external adornment they bore;

nay not even the appearance of tombs did they have, but deeply

buried were covered by the pavement. For also in our age,

when about the year 1625 at Lyon I was staying, and for

burying some dead in certain recesses of the upper

church the earth was hollowed, I remember that broken

were by the diggers certain stone tombs, and in these

laid bones of human bodies, each one

with its lamp, and phial, the most certain marks of martyrdom:

which to the rest of St. Alexander's companions to have pertained more than

probable it is.

CHAPTER V.

The order and place of Blessed Claudius among the Archbishops of Besançon: of these two ancient Catalogues, the Chronological reckoning of the same from 600 years.

[50] The Author about to change his former opinion, I judged once with my brother, in the second part of Besançon,

number 24, that St. Claudius succeeded

Donatus in the administration of the Besançon Archbishopric,

but to Protadius succeeded; led by that writer's

testimony, who in his Life says he was made

Archbishop of Besançon, in the six hundred twenty-

sixth year of the Lord's Incarnation: which certainly

if it were true, no other place to him would be due, than

between Protadius and Donatus. But from when this

author's more recent age I detected, the weights of more ancient

authorities being weighed, and the reckonings of times more diligently

drawn out, all otherwise to think I began; namely,

that St. Claudius, of the Besançon Church the sixth from Nicetius,

presided, next after Gervasius, next before

Felix. This say the Besançon Archbishops'

ancient catalogues, of which two, he proposes two more ancient Catalogues of the Bishops of Besançon. more corrected than the rest

and more ancient (inasmuch as ending in Hugo the first,

and so in the eleventh century of Christ written on parchment),

it will be worthwhile in this place to propose. They are taken

moreover from two very old codices of the church of St.

Stephen of Besançon, with silver variously chased above

leafed. Of the former there were two copies, in one of which

what from the other will differ, in the margin will be noted.

The names of the Bishops of the Besançon Church,

except those whom a reprobate life or

entrance caused to be erased from the Catalogue, such as

Chelmegiselus *, Tetradius, Felix,

Hayminus, and certain others.

The first of which, instead of Diptychs, was written in the 11th century. I. Linus. He first built the Besançon

church of holy Stephen, which lasted up to Hilary.

II. Maximinus. He at the sixth milestone from the city led

an eremitic life, where also he rests.

III. Paulinus. He was a disciple of Blessed Maximinus,

after whose death in the same hermitage under the persecution

of Maximian he lay hidden. But he rests in the church

of holy Stephen before the altar.

IV. Eusebius. He was a disciple of Melchiades

the Pope: for two years he held the Episcopate.

V. Hilary. In his time was rebuilt the church

of St. Stephen by Helena the Queen, mother of Constantine,

when no other church yet had been at Besançon.

VI. Pancratius. He was a contemporary of Julius

the Pope, by whom also Bishop he was ordained.

VII. Justus. He in the time of Julian the Apostate much

is read to have had familiarity with Eusebius

the Martyr, Bishop of Vercelli.

VIII. Anianus. He in the time of Valentinian and

Valens built the church of the holy Ferreolus

and Ferrucius the Martyrs, a mile and a half from the city distant.

IX. Silvester. He built the church of St. Maurice.

X. Fronimius.

XI. Desideratus. He at the village of Lons

ended a most holy life, where also he rests.

XII. Germanus. For him a very great miracle

worked the Lord at holy Vitus.

XIII. Leontius.

XIV. Celidonius. In his time occurred the coming

of the arm of St. Stephen to the city of Besançon.

XV. Antidius. He at the tenth milestone from the city,

where he was buried, received a capital sentence under

Croscus King of the Vandals.

XVI. Nicetius. He was a contemporary and

intimate of Blessed Pope Gregory. There was added by another a little more recent

hand: he built moreover the church of St. Peter.

XVII. Protadius.

XVIII. Donatius. Through him the church received

the villages of Domblingum and Arslatum. He built moreover

the church of St. Paul, in which also in the Lord he rested;

and the Jusan monastery, with his mother Flavia,

who there is buried.

XIX. Migetius.

XX. Ternatius.

XXI. Gervasius.

XXII. Claudius.

XXIII. Abbo. He was of great abstinence, for

which he obtained the Episcopate.

XXIV. Guandalbertus *.

XXV. Evrordus.

XXVI. Aruleus.

XXVII. Erveus.

XXVIII. Gedeon.

XXIX. Bernuinus. He built the church of St.

John the Evangelist.

XXX. Amalwinus *.

XXXI. Arduicus. He acquired for the church of St. Stephen,

for furnishing the lights, the salt-revenue of Lons,

from the hand of Chlothar, nephew of King Charles:

but the Abbey of Bergill, and the toll of Besançon, he obtained

from King Charles.

XXXII. Theodericus. Through him restored Zuentebolch

the King to the church of St. Stephen the village of Pauliac.

XXXIII. Berengarius. He was a nephew of Theodericus,

whom he succeeded; into the Archbishopric carried off and

enthroned by common election, before the altar of St. Stephen,

of which he was Canon: but on account of Haguinus

the heretic blinded, he had as Vicar in the Pontifical

office Stephen, Bishop of Belley.

XXXIV. Girfredus.

XXXV. Guido.

XXXVI. Guichardus.

XXXVII. Leotoldus.

XXXVIII. Hector.

XXXIX. Galterius. He again began to rebuild

the church of St. Stephen, after the manner of the Roman church

of St. Peter.

XL. Hugo. He completed it, but much reduced.

[51] This series appears to be of that kind of ecclesiastical

tablets, which the Greeks called δίπτυχα (diptychs); another a little older holds the bare names.

inasmuch as in it are wanting those whom a reprobate

life (as the inscription has) or entrance (that is, an illegitimate

promotion) caused to be erased from the Catalogue. And so this

very Catalogue in the time of Hugo the first amid the solemnities of the Masses

was wont to be recited; but now another series,

even somewhat older than the former, inasmuch as while Hugo the first

was still surviving written, let us inspect.

The names of the Bishops of the holy Besançon Church.

1. Linus.

2. Ferreolus.

3. Maximinus.

4. Paulinus.

5. Eusebius.

6. Hilarius.

7. Pancratius.

8. Justus.

9. Anianus.

10. Silvester.

11. Fronimius.

12. Desideratus.

13. Germanus.

14. Leontius.

15. Gelidonius.

16. Importunus, false-bishop, received, but disgracefully ejected.

17. Gelmeisilus.

18. Antidius.

19. Nicetius.

20. Protadius.

21. Donatus.

22. Migetius.

23. Ternatius.

24. Gervasius.

25. Claudius.

26. Felix.

27. Tetradius.

28. Abbo.

29. Wandelbertus.

30. Evroldus.

31. Aruleus.

32. Erveus.

33. Gedeon.

34. Bernuin the good.

35. Amalwinus.

36. Arduicus.

37. Theodericus.

38. Berengarius.

39. Ayminus the invader, called false-bishop, not received.

40. Gonterius; called

Bishop.

41. Girfredus.

42. Wido.

43. Wichardus.

44. Leutaldus.

45. Hector.

46. Bertaldus, false-bishop, not received.

47. Walterius.

48. Hugo.

[52] Although the Catalogue set forth in Chifflet's Besançon, If these Catalogues we follow, the solution to

the question proposed in the title of the chapter is clear, and St. Claudius

is to be said to have succeeded Gervasius, to have preceded Felix,

passed over by the diptychs. About which, that more certainly it may be established,

and at the same time that other things less well defined may be more usefully retracted,

let it please the Reader with me the aforesaid names Chronologically

to run through, measuring to each one his own time by historical reasons,

and according to those the order of the whole series

confirming and reforming. For the Catalogue which came forth,

of the Besançon Archbishops, in the first part

of the fraternal Besançon, of which above I made mention, and

whence it in great part into Claudius Robert's Gallia

Christiana was derived, not only in St. Claudius's

chronology wavers, but also in St. Antidius the Bishop and

Martyr; whose contest to that former irruption of the Vandals into

the Gauls cannot be referred, in the year of Christ 407,

since in all the Catalogues, even with Importunus and

Gelmeisilus interposed, he is placed after Celidonius, whom

at Besançon to have been Bishop is established in the year 445. it was afterward corrected in various places,

Add that that series Frominium and Albonem corruptly

writes for Fronimius and Abbo; that of the rest

I be silent: Amantius, the consecrator of St. Lauthenus the Abbot,

it passes over: Vitalis from a fictitious diploma of Gregory the Great

it inculcates, about which we below at more length in Nicetius

the Archbishop XXIV, or in his predecessor Silvester II.

Two it makes out of one man of two names, who was both Hugo IV, and

Pontius called: of Hugo the third, and Stephen the Elect,

princely men, the lineage and progenitors it wrongly

assigns. Ebrardus in a wrong place it sets, and in many

of the marks of times it is deficient. With which errors purged

this Archbishops' Catalogue when to the Sammarthani

we had transmitted, them in very many places enriched by themselves,

into their Gallia Christiana's first volume they bound.

To whom hence to send my Reader it could seem enough;

were not this series from that time by us retracted,

far now more accurate existing: and communicated to the Sammarthani, although for

the most part briefer, and as it were a certain little torch to be applied

to that longer one; that from both compared with each other, the truth

of matters more clearly may shine forth.

[53] But before I begin, two things you must be forewarned of by me,

candid Reader. First that I in this series call all

into the number, as many as the Besançon See in whatever way

occupied, yet it needs a new retraction, whether illegitimately promoted, or

for a wicked life from the Diptychs erased, or only

Elects, not also confirmed, they were: lest namely by some gap

the course of our history be broken off. The other

I warn, that I of purpose to not even one the letter S. of sanctity

the common mark prefix, lest to anyone perhaps of public

honor this token either rashly I claim, or rashly

I abrogate. For in one and another Catalogue Saints

are reckoned twenty-three; namely Gedeon, and besides

twenty-two, who first in the diptychs above described

in continuous series are placed, of whom the last is St. Claudius.

In the Martyrologies only ten, or eleven

are noted: namely Linus, Anianus, Silvester,

Desideratus, Germanus, Antidius, Nicetius, Protadius,

Donatus, Claudius, and perhaps the first from Linus,

Maximinus: which will be done in the following paragraphs. nor are all these venerated with proper offices.

Many also in various Churches to be held for Saints and

invoked it is certain, whose feast days on no certain day

in the Martyrologies are ascribed. And so in so grave

the Reader may have where to rest a while; this Chapter, otherwise

going to be longer, into several Paragraphs will be divided.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Germeisilolum.

* Gaudalbertus.

* Amalguinus.

§ I. The Bishops of the first five centuries.

[54] a Linus, about whom thus the parchment Martyrology

old of the metropolitan basilica of St. John; [1. Linus is commonly believed to have been the Roman Bishop, the successor of Peter.]

On the 6th before the Kalends of December, at Rome of Linus the Pope and

Martyr, who first after Blessed Peter for twelve

years ruled the Roman Church: and before the Papacy

he had been the first Archbishop of Besançon.

This author follows the common opinion, that to Peter

Linus succeeded in the supreme Pontificate. But there are not lacking

those who think, and by the testimonies of the more ancient hold it proven,

that Linus in the supreme Pontificate of the whole Church, not

Peter's successor, but only in the Bishopric of the City of Rome

the supreme governance of the Church Clement: about which

there will be for us, as we hope, another place of speaking. Certainly that a Linus

of some kind the first seeds of the faith cast among the people of Besançon,

is constant tradition. Whether moreover this very one be the Linus,

of Blessed Peter in the Roman Episcopate either successor, or

Vicar, the people of Besançon themselves seem to have doubted, who,

while they venerate Linus the Pope and Martyr on the 26th

of November, do not him with a first-class Office of double rank pursue

(which the Patrons of Churches are wont to enjoy);

but only with a semidouble; in which about his Besançon

Apostolate not a word they have, just as neither the Romans in Linus

the Pope's deeds.

[55] Further about a St. Linus of some kind among us, the Book

of St. Protadius, on the 11th before the Kalends of August: St. Ferreolus the Presbyter, also a Bishop? To this Saint (Mary

namely Magdalene) Linus the Bishop of our Church

made a church of its own, to which on this day in procession

we go. Nor does William I Archbishop

of Besançon contradict, asserting in tablets in the year of Christ

1111, in the 4th Indiction given, that the church of St. Mary

Magdalene Hugo the first from the bottom raised, an order there

canonical instituted, with sufficient resources also

enriched. For these things hint nothing else, than that in the same

place, where St. Linus a little chapel under Blessed Magdalene's

name had founded, afterward Hugo I of a more august form

he honored.

[56] II. Ferreolus. Linus the Apostle of the people of Besançon's labors,

though at a long interval, were taken up by the holy Ferreolus

the Presbyter, and Ferrucius the Deacon, renowned Martyrs,

disciples of St. Irenaeus the Bishop of Lyon, who in the time

(as it seems) of Aurelius Antoninus Caracalla, the new field of the Christian

faith there with their blood watered,

about the year of Christ 215: about which chronology

see the second part of Besançon. Certainly to

this time to be referred seems the flight of Priscus, and of the Christian

soldiers, from Besançon into the Auxerre district:

about which the book on the Deeds of the Bishops of Auxerre in the entry on St.

Peregrinus. What therefore we read in the Book of St. Protadius,

on the 16th before the Kalends of July, about the holy Ferreolus and Ferrucius Martyrs:

These are they through whom to the faith we came, through

whom the way of salvation we knew, does not Linus from the rank of the first

Apostle of the people of Besançon dislodge; but only

us admonishes, that the holy Ferreolus and Ferrucius the Christian

cause among the people of Besançon much advanced: and the more

intently than Linus, in that the seed cast by him with their blood

they watered.

[57] Further that to St. Ferreolus the Presbyter among the Bishops

of Besançon we gave a place, we did first led by the authority of the more ancient

codices, in which the Besançon Bishops' series, between Linus and Maximinus

in the middle place Ferreolus represents. We did it also

by prudent reasoning: for since after the Tridentine Council,

Session 23 Canon 7, it is not permitted to doubt, but that

by divine right, and so by Christ's institution, the ordination

of a Bishop is a sacrament, different from a Presbyter's ordination,

we suppose nevertheless with Petavius, and with Martinon,

disputation 68 on the Sacraments, Section 4, that in the earlier

ages of the Church, when not yet the Gospel through all regions of the world

then known had been promulgated, nor through all

cities and provinces had Bishops been constituted,

who for disseminating the faith of Christ by the Apostles or

their successors were destined, for the most part with both

the Order of Presbyterate and of Episcopate were initiated.

Thus in another work of ours we observed, that St. Benignus

the Apostle and Martyr of Dijon, because Dijon is among

the Lingones, is first reckoned Bishop of Langres.

Andochius, who suffered at Saulieu among the Aedui, the first

Bishop of the Aedui. By like reasoning Ferreolus among

the Bishops of Besançon, after Linus first will be numbered:

although in the Martyrologies these three, only Presbyters

are called. And it is probable, that Bishops

too as to character were all or most of them Apostolic

men, founders of the ancient Churches: otherwise certainly successors

to themselves as Bishops, and not even Presbyters,

they could have ordained. Nor let anyone object to these,

that Bishops seem not to differ from Presbyters, in that

both by the imposition of hands are ordained.

For besides the imposition of hands the ordination of a Presbyter

contains a certain declaration, by which both of confecting the Eucharist,

and of absolving the confessing from their sins

the power to him is handed over: but the ordination of a Bishop, besides

the imposition of hands, has certain words or external signs,

by which to consecrate Presbyters and Bishops,

and to confer on the peoples the Sacrament of Confirmation

with power he is girt. And these rites, as instituted by Christ,

from the very beginnings of the Church were used: about

which whoever wishes more, let him consult the Scholastic, or polemic

Theologians, and especially Martinon, for the solidity

and clearness of doctrine illustrious among few. b

[58] III. Maximinus, consecrated Bishop about

the year 290. c

[59] IV. Paulinus, in the persecution of Maximian, about

the year 302, lay hidden in the hermitage of his predecessor and master,

at the sixth milestone from Besançon. d

[60] V. Eusebius, from a disciple of Melchiades the Pope, about

312 for two years sat. He, Constantine the Great,

by the heavenly portent e of the Cross moved, to Christ joined.

[61] VI. Hilary, by Silvester the Pope made Bishop,

from a Deacon of the Roman Church, the Besançon building of St. Stephen,

first by Linus founded, by the liberality of Queen Helena

the parent of Constantine the Great, with new work

constructed, not far from the year of Christ 325. To have flown

to the Heaven-dwellers he is read on the 11th before the Kalends of August.

[62] VII. Pancratius, by Julius the Pope Bishop

ordained, to the Synod of Cologne held after the Consulship of Amantius

and Albinus (that is, in the year 346)

consented through a legate: in whose Acts, as also in certain

catalogues, Pancharius he is called.

[63] VIII. Justus, while Julian the Apostate persecuted, to

Eusebius Bishop of Vercelli, his friend, betook himself,

in the year (as we think) 362.

[64] IX. Anianus, over the bodies of the holy Martyrs

Ferreolus and Ferrucius, unexpectedly found, a thousand

and five hundred paces from the city a sacred building raised,

Valentinian and Valens reigning, about the year

370. He is venerated on the Nones of September, on the very day of the Finding

of the Martyrs.

[65] X. Silvester, to St. Maurice, and his companions the Agaunum

Martyrs, dedicated a church at Besançon. Buried,

I suppose, in the upper basilica of St. Stephen: the translation of SS. Anianus and Silvester and

when it by Walterius, or by Hugo the first was enlarged,

translated with Anianus his predecessor, into that very old tomb

indeed, which now is at the wall, near the altar of the chapel

of St. Agapitus. For in that tomb, in the year of Christ

1627, at my request and in my presence by the Lord Canons

opened, were found of two bodies bones very large,

promiscuously heaped, and by the humidity of the place rotting:

and in the heap of bones a golden ring, which,

brought into the sacristy, and from a certain reliquary suspended

is. The feast of St. Silvester is ascribed in the Martyrology

to the 6th before the Ides of May: but his and St. Anianus's common

Translation, on the Nones of June.

[66] XI. Fronimius. So the more ancient and better

quality Catalogues, not Frominius: and that word, derived from Greek,

sounds "Prudent." He sat under Damasus and Siricius

Roman Pontiffs, about the year 390. f

[67] XII. Desideratus, is patron of the people of Lons:

among whom his sacred bones in a silver casket are preserved.

He is venerated in the whole diocese on the 27th day of the month of July.

[68] XIII. Germanus rests in the monastery of Balma

of noble girls, five hourly leagues from

Besançon: he suffered martyrdom from the Arians on the eleventh day of October,

at the village of Grandfont, not far from

St. Vitus, about the year 407.

[69] XIV. Leontius is read to have presided for 30 years,

and in caring for the sacred buildings to have placed especial effort.

And about this one rather than about Leontius of Fréjus

we think is to be taken the letter of Leo Pope I,

to the Bishops established through the provinces of Maxima of the Sequani and

of the Viennese. g

[70] XV. Celidonius, deposed by Hilary of Arles,

appealed to Leo the Pope, by whom to his See he was restored

in the year of Christ 445, Valentinian Augustus

for the sixth time Consul. About the state and whole course of the controversy

between the Viennese and Arles Churches, see

Peter de Marca's letter to Henry de Valois,

which here he prefixed to his Eusebius. h Celidonius received

the right arm of the Protomartyr Stephen, by Theodosius

the Younger the Emperor to the Besançon Church transmitted:

from which blood copiously flowing, through some of the Gallic

Churches as a great gift was distributed. i

[71] XVI. Importunus. This one (as we suppose) by

Hilary of Arles the Bishop into the See of the deposed Celidonius

intruded, St. Leo the Pope reduced to order.

[72] XVII. Gelmeisilus. This one, defecting to the Arians,

from the Diptychs was expunged.

[73] XVIII. Antidius, by Croscus or Crocus King of the Alamanni,

at the castle of Ruffey, why Antidius may seem to have been slain about the year 477 at the tenth from Besançon

milestone, for the faith of Christ was killed on the

17th k day of the month of June. Further from Flodoard, book 1 of the history

of Reims, chapters 6 and 8, Hincmar of Reims letter 5 chapter

17, and other writers it is established, that by the one name of Vandals

were commonly called all the foreign peoples, which

in the fifth century after Christ irrupted into the Gauls. So

therefore I think, that Antidius was slain in that war of the Burgundians,

which widely in the Sequani, Aedui, and Lingones

raged, and finally at Vienne of the Allobroges, by the slaughter of Chilperic and

Gundomar was concluded, about the year of Christ

477. That to Chilperic then came as aid the Alamanni

assert the writers of Burgundian affairs, William

Paradin in book 1 of the Annals of Burgundy, Nicolas

Viguier in his Chronicle, André Duchesne in Volume 1

of Burgundy, Francis Guillimann on the affairs of the Helvetii

book 2 chapter 8. The King for them was Crocus, from Gregory

of Tours book 1 of the history chapters 32 and 34; who however him not rightly

to the times of Gallienus referred: deceived (as it seems)

by Eusebius's words, who in the Chronicle, at the 8th year of Valerian

and Gallienus (about the year of Christ 260):

The Alamanni, he says, the Gauls being laid waste, into Italy

crossed.

[74] But of Crocus their King Eusebius makes no mention:

but they do make mention, the Acts of the holy Martyrs, though referred by the man of Tours to the year 270 of Antidius

Bishop of Besançon, of Desiderius Bishop of Langres,

of Valerius his Archdeacon; of Florentinus also and Hilary,

who suffered at Sedunum in the territory of Kadrellum

of the bishopric of Autun, not however (as to many it has seemed)

at Sion on the Rhône in the Valais. But Crocus

these Acts call King of the Vandals; and his irruption

they refer to the times of Honorius and Theodosius reigning jointly,

and so between the years of Christ

408, in which Theodosius the younger began; and 423,

in which Honorius ceased to live. We in the Acts of St. Antidius,

think that by the name of Vandals come the Alamanni; whom

in that Burgundian war, not far from the year 477,

the provinces of the Sequani, Aedui, and Lingones to have ranged through

we have found: and that by these Antidius was slain

we suppose, compelled by the tradition of the Besançon Church,

whose old catalogues of Prelates all mention Antidius,

the third from Celidonius: which Celidonius in the year

445, Valentinian Augustus for the 6th time Consul, to have sat

by certain arguments we have proved. But if one and

the same is Crocus the persecutor of the Christians, and the killer

of St. Antidius, who afterward at Arles captured, and with deserved

punishments was treated, as both Gregory of Tours,

and these Martyrs' Acts testify; it follows, that

both Privatus of Gabala, about whom the man of Tours; and Desiderius,

and Valerius, and Florentinus and Hilary,

at nearly the same time, certainly in the same heat of the persecution,

which scarcely beyond two years boiled up, were taken away we should confess.

[75] Moreover the things which about Antidius are mentioned, that to Rome

by a demon, and thence to his Episcopate he was carried, in

history have examples, not lacking: although they are sprinkled

with certain adjuncts which savor of fable. orthodox Bishops in the 5th century, dwelt mostly elsewhere. From Antidius

up to Nicetius, that the See was long vacant the Besançon

tablets admonish: that is, that the Bishops, the city overthrown, or by

the Arians occupied, in another place chose a domicile: yet so

that their appellation always of Bishops of Besançon

they retained: as now we see the Lausanne,

Geneva, and Basel Bishops, now for

more than a whole century from their cities exiles.

The five therefore, who follow, Bishops from external

testimonies we have restored.

ANNOTATIONS OF D. P.

Although it was not my purpose, to this Chifflet commentary on the

Bishops of Besançon to take away or to add anything; since

nevertheless I see the Author, with such great indulgence toward his fellow-citizens carried away; that

whatever by them in whatever way is believed, he wishes to seem probable, even if

perhaps not even he himself has persuaded himself of it; I am forced here to note some things, lest

perhaps be imputed to us another's hallucinations, written from affection rather

than judgment; or, if we should correct them in the very text, elsewhere everywhere we be believed to have used the same license.

ordained two Bishops Linus and Cletus, who in person all

the priestly ministry in the city of Rome to the people or to those coming to him

would exhibit; whom afterward also he had as successors, as also

Clement, a little before his death (as elsewhere we have said, and for the end which we have said) ordained. Before that ordination, or even after, into the Gauls that Linus ran,

so that it be believed, the authority of one Martyrology by no means ancient does not suffice,

amid the silence of the more ancient; since neither did Protadius say that of the Linus named by himself. But that the truth of the Catalogues may stand, and at the same time Protadius's assertion about Linus; he was in the 3rd century: it will suffice that someone of this name in the 3rd century at Besançon

preached, and a Church instituted; and built an oratory, which

afterward in ampler form was restored under the name of St. Mary Magdalene:

for not before the 4th century would you find churches, which for certain you could affirm to have been named for some Saint.

Protadius the beginnings of his Church; not however is it necessary, nay

nor fitting, even to believe, that, while they were preaching, at once

under the Philips fell to religion, both to other Churches in Gaul

several, and to that of Besançon provision was made, a Bishop being sent from Rome, Linus; whose

what was done afterward is unknown; since neither his body, nor a church

of his own, nor a special cult, nor anything else to posterity

passed, except the name, which made him be confused with Peter's disciple.

To him there succeeded, from the Clergy already begun to be ordained there, a certain Ferreolus, that name obtained, from the gracious memory there of St. Ferreolus, the Presbyter and Apostle;

leaving behind him no other monuments, through which we might be warned

to distinguish the Bishop from the Presbyter. If however truly someone of that name

was a Bishop: which I would not wish to assert.

this subject a particular Diatribe published a little before his death

Chifflet, which I examined treating of Constantine on the 21st of May, chapter 4;

where I showed, that no notice of any Eusebius for this time

more ancient is found, than in the apocryphal Acts of the Finding of the Cross,

and indeed as of a Roman Pontiff: but that truly at Besançon there was

more recent, to give credit, than more laboriously against it to dispute.

of Fréjus (to whom Baronius and others, and most recently Quesnel, ascribe that

praise, that to him as to the senior of all the Gallican Bishops

in order of consecration, St. Leo wished bestowed the honor of the Primacy

or Patriarchate, taken from Arles) most certainly died in the year 432 or

431. For when he died, the Clergy chose from the Lérins monastery

his Abbot St. Maximus; who then indeed fleeing hid himself

and escaped the honor; but a little after escape he could not but be

ordained Bishop of Riez, which is established to have been done in the year 433.

It is established also that to that Leontius his successor Theodorus subscribed to the Synodal

actions of the year 439 and 449, just as lately showed our friend

Joseph Antelmi, in his most erudite work on the Fréjus Church's

beginnings Dissertation, published in the year 1680. Although moreover the same thinks St. Leontius, a Confessor, died at Fréjus on the 16th of November; but after him, with Theodorus in between, there was another Leontius, who under Evaric King of the Visigoths, not Leontius of Fréjus long since dead, by yearly

incursions infesting the Province, captured and deported into Africa,

there as a Martyr died on the 1st of December after the year 466; nothing however does this make to

the present matter, where there must be found some Leontius, an old Bishop, who sat in the year 445, when was written

the Letter. It remains therefore to be inquired, whether the place in that year belongs to Leontius of Besançon; it does not appear however how, if he was ordained about the year 407, he presided only 25 years, but more probably to him of Besançon. with

which one would come to the year 432 only. Chifflet saw this in the place

cited before: but hither he believed himself driven, certainly persuading himself, that Leontius's successor Celidonius

was that very one whom beyond the order of law Hilary had deposed, therefore to

the Roman judgment dragged; and whom Leo by the aforesaid Letter

ordered restored.

whose See to the Viennese Province, then still subject to Hilary,

pertained; which of Besançon cannot be said. But this least

strange will seem, to one considering how of many of that time's

Bishoprics the Prelates without a name lie hidden from us, how many likewise

are found named Bishops without an indication of a certain See, which nevertheless

certain to have had they must. That such is Celidonius, by Hilary deposed, by Leo ordered restored, in the very time at which Leontius still presided over the Besançon Church, and some time before the other Celidonius's ordination dead, so much now more probably I esteem, the greater the straits into which I see Chifflet here driven: who, that for his Celidonius he may find a place at Besançon in the year 445, nor yet his predecessor Leontius deprive of the honor, to him by Leo bestowed; invents, that this one already from about the year 432 the Episcopal burden transferred to Celidonius, by his order and in his place ordained: which notwithstanding that one continued to be called Bishop,

and as such was chosen by Leo, who by the title of old age over all the other

Bishops should preside in the Synod, and so thereafter as Senior Bishop with the title and right of Primate should use: all which how far they are from custom, different from him who against St. Hilary appealed to Pope Leo. so

ought they to seem alien from probability, in one who of his own accord all

Episcopal jurisdiction is supposed to have abdicated. For how over

Bishops will he receive right, who not even over laymen, once subject to him,

any has? Why therefore is it not rather believed that there lived in the Episcopate

of Besançon Leontius, nor yet conducted himself as Primate,

the Gallican Bishops not accepting that novelty of transferring the Primacy from See to See, nor afterward for many years to have survived. Perhaps

moreover where it is read that Leontius for 25 years presided, it ought to be read 65: for thus there will be had that great age in the Episcopate, to which Leo so unusual a prerogative was designating.

deposed had been restored; since he could have to him after his restoration

dead succeeded; but by a less Canonical or Simoniacal election, on account of which

he was expunged from the diptychs; or even deposed, if just is the censure

of the Catalogue, and on it founded the expunging of the name: which about the rest too

must be understood, who as Pseudo-bishops in the said Catalogue are noted.

Crocus King of the Alamanni, whom others pleased to name Vandals, as Martyr

together with so many other Saints, to refer to the year about 270 in the next place after Linus; nor yet shall we deny to the people of Besançon some younger Antidius, who according to their Catalogues was the third after Celidonius, at the end of the 5th century; with the same facility, with which two Leontii, and

indeed both Saints, we grant to the people of Fréjus, and a third in between

the two to the people of Besançon themselves, on no other than their Catalogues'

foundation relying; just as to the same I wished to attribute, that in the third century they had as Bishops Linus and Ferreolus, different from the commonly most known Saints of those names.

§. II. The Bishops who in the 6th century presided up to St. Nicetius, where about the Medardine Privilege.

[76] 19. Amantius, ordainer of St. Lauthenus XIX. Amantius. Holy Lauthenus, of two

monasteries in the diocese of Besançon

the founder, already more than fifty years old, consecrated

and ancient Life of this man. Why not the Bishop of Besançon,

since to another in his diocese according to the Canons by no means

was this permitted? But this Amantius the very one

I suspect to be, about whom thus the Echternach very old, and other everywhere

Martyrologies; On the day before the Nones of July, at Nividunum

of Amantius the Prelate: and perhaps Nividunum, or the City

of the Equestrii at Lake Leman, Besançon being destroyed, or by

the Arians held, of the orthodox Bishops of Besançon

was the See.

[77] Now Amantius the Bishop's place this from Lauthenus

the Abbot's chronology acknowledge. Lauthenus died (as has

his Life) at seventy years, on the Kalends of November,

on the fifth feria, before the year 517 in that year in which St. Gregory the Langres

Bishop, returning from Geneva, he met, and by

him of his impending death was warned. This year

was marked by the Dominical letter G: nor other could it

be than 512, or 518, or 529, or 535.

Deduct from any of these numbers twenty years, you will fall

upon the years 492, 98, 509 and 515;

in some one of which Lauthenus at fifty by Amantius

the Bishop was consecrated a Presbyter: and always you will precede

the year 517, in which Claudius Besançon as Bishop

had. But since elsewhere we have shown, that there was once at Nividunum

an Episcopal See, in the province of the Sequani

the fifth, and that with the Lausanne, Basel, and Belley,

Suffragan of the Besançon metropolis; the conjecture

is not slight, that it had its origin from the Archbishops of Besançon; probably then residing at Nividunum.

who, when in it for not a few years they had dwelt,

returning by right of return to their metropolis, proper Bishops

there constituted, or by the Roman Pontiff to be constituted

took care: who beyond the year of Christ one thousand,

and at least up to Hugo the first's times there it is established

remained. Of this matter a trace survives, Nividunum

thereafter a fief of the Archbishop of Besançon, and to the Geneva

diocese added.

[78] XX. Claudius subscribes to the Council of Epaon,

Agapitus being Consul, in the year 517: and to another of Lyon,

in the cause of Stephen, in the same or rather the following year

celebrated. What says Sirmond on Letter XVII

of Avitus of Vienne, that Claudius Bishop of Besançon

was buried in St. Eugendus's monastery, and to it afterward

yielded the old appellation from St. Eugendus, beware to of

this Claudius take it with the Sammarthani: for that of

St. Claudius the second of that name is to be understood.

[79] XXI. Urbicus attended the Synods, of Orléans

the fifth, and of Auvergne the second in the year 549.

[80] XXII. Tetradius. By him sent Caesarius

the Presbyter in the year 567, sanctioned the decrees of the second Council

of Lyon. And it is a conjecture, that this very one is the Tetradius

Bishop, who about the year of Christ 555 subscribed

to the second Synod of Paris, next before Vincent

of Belley.

[81] XXIII. Silvester II confirmed the Canons of three Councils

by his handwriting; of Paris IV in the year

573; of Mâcon I, in the year 581; of Mâcon

II, in the year 585.

[82] Vitalis, a fictitious Bishop in this place

in our age inculcated as of the Vesoces, or (as have

certain editions) of the Vesonces Bishop, from

the Gregorian Privilege of the monastery of St. Medardus of Soissons:

about which Privilege's trustworthiness sharply hitherto has been disputed.

There is thrust upon these Vitalis from the Medardine Privilege, It defended against Launoy Robert

Quatremaire of the Congregation of St. Maur Monk

Benedictine, into whose cause inclined I first

observed this; that this diploma is not to be denied

to Gregory the Great, because, although in all editions of the Gregorian

Register it is found, none nevertheless (that

I know) exhibits it in manuscript codex, except one

of St. Victor of Paris, at most of four hundred

years' age, as warns Gussanville in the second volume

page 1144 of his Gregory, which corrected by himself and with Notes

illustrated he lately published: not to be rejected on that account, that in only one Manuscript it is found, not however thence does it follow that never

it from Gregory emanated; but only, that

in his published Register it was not included by his first

collectors, either because to them it was not at hand, or

from another cause. For we have seen in the archives of old Churches,

VII, Calixtus II, Innocent III, and

other Roman Pontiffs of every age, which

do not appear in their Registers.

[83] Then, it is not necessary for the trustworthiness of the tablets, that

all subscribed to them, nor again because there subscribed those not present or born later, to approve them by their handwriting

at the same time assembled, when first they were drawn up;

since they could by many both by place separated, and by time

later be subscribed: and that this was done is established by very many

examples, especially of those diplomas in which

all or at least the chief privileges of Monasteries

are contained. Of this custom you have a specimen in the Proofs

of the History of Tournus, page 215, where Remigius

Archbishop of Lyon, Isaac Bishop of Langres,

and Gerbaldus Bishop of Chalon, who in the year

of Christ 865 to the consecration of Adalgarius the Autun

Bishop had assembled, by an excellent rescript the goods of the Tournus

monastery and its rights confirm, and add at

the end; The most evident confirmation therefore of these sanctions,

subscribed below by the hands of the present holy

Pontiffs, also by the no less suitable stipulations of the absent

fellow-Priests, through Christ, and with Christ to be supported we ask.

Therefore after those four who had been present, were subscribed

promiscuously two and forty others, of whom some

many years after to have lived is certain; for instance Aurelian

and Guido Archbishops of Lyon,

Ericus also of Langres, Rotmundus of Autun,

and Ildebodus of Chalon Bishops. Of the same

method we have the Privilege of the Monastery of St. Benignus

of Dijon, given by Isaac Bishop of Langres,

in the month of May, [(for this happened to many most certain tablets, from the will of those ordering them to be made)] in the 5th Indiction, in the 32nd year of Charles the Bald King,

of Christ 972, which by these words is concluded;

And that this Privilege of our constitution,

firm and stable through succeeding times may remain,

with our own hand below we have confirmed, and our fellow-Bishops,

and of the whole kingdom of our King to subscribe

we have asked. Wherefore, there subscribe after Isaac

the Langres Bishops, Geylo, Warnerius, Argrimus,

Bruno, and Lambertus, who the same See, one after another,

for nearly two hundred years occupied. But if of the old

Councils the subscriptions to the same norm you should examine,

an open way will there be by which the epochs of the Sardican, Cologne,

Aquileian, and other Synods with the age of the subscribed

Prelates you may reconcile. This therefore being posited,

could subscribe to the records drawn up in the year 593

Augustine and Mellitus, ordained bishops

some years thereafter.

[84] Moreover, what some object against the Medardine privilege does not convince us, or because it is ascribed to Theodoric in a realm not his own, namely that mention is made in it, to no purpose, of King Theodoric, beyond whose dominion lay Soissons, a part of Austrasia, which had fallen to his brother Theodebert.

For these two brothers were still boys, and not their royal authority but only their pious intercession was here required. Therefore their grandmother Brunhilda, who was more inclined toward Theodoric, could have used his name, in order to win over to him all the Franks, as being piously devoted to St. Medard their common Patron and to his disciples, although they were situated outside his own kingdom. Still less does what is objected move me: that the fabricator of the Medardine privilege borrowed most of it from the epistle of Gregory the Great to Senator, Book XI, Epistle X, which contains the Privilege of the Autun Hospice. For nothing prevents the same Notary from having used the same formulas in both Privileges, since it was granted by the Roman Pontiff at the intervention of the same Queen Brunhilda.

Nor has it more weight, what some allege, that neither Brunhilda nor her grandson Theodoric were ever at Rome, nor was Theodoric at Rome; so that they might either request the Privilege there for St. Medard's monastery, or subscribe to it there. For they could request it through a Legate, and, once it had been given to him at Rome, afterward subscribe to it in Gaul either by their own hand or by that of their Chancellor.

[85] Finally, I would not condemn the clause in which Gregory the Great is said to have decreed that St. Medard's Monastery, or because the Medardine is declared the Head of other monasteries, should be the head monastery of all Gaul. For this had already been sanctioned before him by Pope John the Third, in a rescript given in the Church of St. Sylvester, on the fifth day before the Ides of March, in the tenth indiction, to which a later hand, in the transcript which alone survives, added the year of the Lord's Incarnation 562. Charles le Cointe reports this diploma, from the Soissons History of Melchior Reginald, in Volume II of his Annals, under the year of Christ 562, number 50, and unjustly condemns it as false; since, apart from a few errors of the copyist, and the year 562 (which by no means agrees with that ancient age), it bears every mark of authenticity. It is said to have been granted to Abbot Daniel, at the urging of King Clotaire: than which nothing appears more probable. For Clotaire was still alive, who, according to Gregory of Tours, reached the fifty-first year of his reign from the death of his father Clovis; and it is easy to suppose that this privilege, which was of mixed law, was either granted by the King, or procured from Pope John, whether out of love and reverence for St. Medard, whom he had known personally, or because he had chosen for himself burial in his basilica, near his Relics, or because he delighted in the custom of the Monks or Canons living there. by reason of the precedence granted to it.

[86] Certainly the title of "Head" seems in earlier ages to have been conferred upon Churches or Monasteries for a threefold reason: the first, of origin; the second, of dependence; the third, of προεδρία (presidency), that is, of preeminence in sitting or in precedence at assemblies, and at other public gatherings or meetings. By origin, Luxeuil was the Head of the many Monasteries of the Rule of St. Columban which were derived from it, in Burgundy, in Belgium, in Germany, in Lombardy. So too they still call the Jura Monastery of St. Eugendus, or St. Claude, the Head of the Order, because the author of the Life of St. Romanus, number IV, affirms that very many others were propagated from it from the most ancient times, in these very words: "Thence venerable swarms of Fathers began to be diffused, as from a replenished beehive, the Holy Spirit pouring forth: so that not only the more secret places of the province of the Sequani, but also many territories far and wide, separated by stretches of land, were filled with Monasteries and Churches by the diffused grace of divine offspring." The reason of dependence is now widely seen in all religious Orders administered monarchically, and subject to one General Superior as their Head. Of these two prerogatives of headship, since we recognize no trace in St. Medard's Monastery, we are of the opinion that the third, which is that of προεδρία (presidency), was conferred upon it both by royal and by Pontifical authority, and that, with the changed state of affairs, it gradually vanished.

[87] Let these things be said on behalf of the religious disciples of St. Medard. But there are certainly others, and not a few, which weaken the credibility of their published Privilege. First, that the year from the Lord's Incarnation 593 is subjoined to it, contrary to the custom of that age; but from six other inexcusable points since in the whole Register of St. Gregory not even one of his Epistles is read with the year of Christ subscribed. Second, that it is said to have been granted in the year 593, at the petition of King Theodoric: who, according to true chronology, began to reign only from the year of Christ 596, after the death of his father Childebert the Younger. Third, Flavius, Archbishop of Reims, could not have subscribed to that Privilege, since it appears from Flodoard and from the ancient records of the Church of Reims that he departed this life long before the year 593.

[88] [especially on account of Eutherius Bishop of Arles being named there instead of Etherius Bishop of Lyon.] Fourth, there was no Eutherius, Archbishop of Arles. Aetherius or Etherius, to whom Gregory commended Augustine, that he should both treat him kindly and ordain a Bishop for the English, was Bishop of Lyon. Therefore Peter Saxius, in the Pontifical of Arles, was wrong when he noted that Aetherius was written by Bede in place of Licerius of Arles; since it is established that Bede put Aetherius of Arles for Aetherius of Lyon. Baronius in his Annals and Sirmond in Volume I of the Councils of Gaul noted this error of Bede, to which the latter so adhered that in Book 1 of the Deeds of the English, chapter 28, he wrote that Virgilius succeeded Etherius in the Bishopric of Arles. In the very next century after Bede, John the Deacon stumbled upon the same stone in the Life of Gregory the Great, Book 2, chapters 35 and 36. Bede's stumbling-block was Nothelm the Presbyter, who from the archive of the Roman Church, and Vitalis of Besançon, showed him this epistle of Gregory, as he himself testifies in the Preface to King Ceolwulf. In the Gregorian epistle there is no fault, but in its interpretation. Gregory writes to Etherius on behalf of Augustine: Nothelm wrongly believed this man to be of Arles, who was of Lyon. These things are clearer than the sun from the accurate chronology, on the one hand of Sapaudus, Licerius, and Virgilius, Prelates of Arles, on the other of Priscus, Aetherius, and Secundinus, of Lyon, which Gregory of Tours, Gregory the Great, and Fredegar hand down, splendidly in agreement among themselves. It is irksome to linger here longer. Fifth, Vitalis, Bishop of Besançon, is unknown in the time of Gregory the Great. For there was a Vitalis, Archbishop of Besançon, far later than him, who died on the sixth day before the Kalends of September, in the year 1333, having sat from the year 1312: who did not afterward subscribe to the Privilege either, since in the Victorine codex, written four hundred years ago, there is read as subscribed "Vitalis, Bishop of the Vesontienses": who, if he ever existed at all, seems rather to have been Bishop of Vaison, to be placed between Arthemius and Petronius, omitted by John Columbi in his Catalogue of the Prelates of this See, which he himself acknowledges to be neither complete nor unbroken. But if this Vitalis is fictitious, no See is to be sought for him except an imaginary one, to be placed in the body of the Moon, in the new world which the new Philosophers have liberally divided among their friends.

[89] and certain most inept formulas. Sixth, there are certain clauses in the body of the published Privilege which agree neither with the genius of Gregory the Great nor with the style of ancient diplomas. At the very beginning: "To the most precious stones, deservedly gleaming in the diadem of Christ, to all the members of God's holy Church, etc." In the course of it: "Therefore by divine authority, in the stead of blessed Peter the Prince of the Apostles, with the consent of all the Roman Pontiffs, and by the will of the whole Roman Senate, at the urging of the apostolic man Ansericus, Pontiff of the city of Soissons, and with the favoring judgment of all the Bishops of Gaul, we decree, etc." Everything here is unsteady. For who, pray, was that Roman Senate, by whose will the Privilege is granted to the Medardines? Where is that consent of all the Roman Pontiffs? Where are all the Bishops of Gaul favoring it? These things are declamatory, and display the rather inflated ostentation of an unskilled interpolator. Besides, Ansericus, who is said to have taken part in that Synod over which Sonnatius presided (in Flodoard, Book 2 of the History of Reims, chapter 5), was not yet Bishop of Soissons in the year 593, as is understood from the Chronology of his predecessors Droctigisilus, Taudulphus, and Landulphus. He could therefore have subscribed to the Medardine privilege long after the year 593, but he could not have been an instigator or persuader for obtaining it. The rest I do not touch upon, of which others have given warning.

[90] I would not, however, on that account say, or even think, that the Monks of Soissons were so forgetful of their rule that they ever dared to arrogate to themselves undue Privileges, yet that spurious one may have been substituted for a truer one that was lost, and to claim for themselves by corrupting the Pontifical records: nor do I doubt that a true Privilege was granted by Gregory the Great to Gairaldus, Abbot of the monastery of St. Medard: for this is what Rothard, Bishop of Soissons, and more expressly Pope Eugenius the Second persuade us of, both under the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Louis the Pious, in those words which Robert Quatremaire reports from the old Register in his Defense of the Medardine Privilege, page 136: where Pope Eugenius decrees that the privileges be preserved which, through the entreaty of King Clotaire, Lord Pope John granted to Abbot Daniel, and which Gregory of good memory granted to Abbot Gairaldus of the Basilica of St. Medard, through the entreaty of Brunhilda and her grandson Theodoric, to that place. But we are of the opinion that, when the primary records of the Privileges of John the Third and of Gregory the Great had been eaten away by age and almost consumed, and deliberation was being made about preserving them through transcripts, they were rather freely interpolated by those who thought it lawful to defend a true right with a false document: a view that is dangerous, and now (apart from certain very rare cases) condemned by the verdict of almost all the Doctors. We have indicated the most certain marks of this interpolation. Nor do we on that account think that these religious men should be defamed, a license excusable for that time, as adulterators of all public faith. For it is one thing to wish to seek for oneself an undue right by counterfeit records; another to wish to defend for oneself a true right already acquired, whose records have perished through age or some other accident, by a fictitious or interpolated document. We have hitherto found this very rarely done in the archives of the very many Churches which we have examined, and rather from a desire of preserving their own than of invading what belongs to others. Therefore we judge it should be pardoned, and ascribed rather to the simplicity than to the wickedness of former times: especially since such interpolated documents are for the most part so incautiously fashioned that they betray themselves to any prudent person even slightly versed in observing chronological marks, and create for their authors or defenders more trouble and shame than profit.

NOTES OF D. P.

This last admonition of Chifflet, written plainly according to our own mind, signally deserves to be commended also by our suffrage, to whom in this work it has often happened to call into doubt the genuineness of certain records customarily displayed by noble and very ancient Churches.

The first points, too, which would serve for the excuse of the Medardine Privilege, if other more evident arguments of forgery did not stand in the way, agree with what was said by Mabillon in his most excellent work on Diplomatics, and will be of frequent use hereafter; and they will cause me to be more sparing in censuring such things than I was in the antiquarian Propylaeum before the second Volume of April, which needs much correction. Nor do I think that by so frank a confession anything is lost to our work in the eyes of the Learned; rather, much will accrue to it after this June has been published, by reexamining it, from the knowledge of facts and the experience of marks distinguishing the false from the true, the doubtful from the certain—an experience destined to be the greater then, the more time shall have been spent in such study. Meanwhile, from what has been noted at §. 1, and from Chifflet's own confession in this §. 2, I think it clear, regarding the Bishops to be added to the older Catalogue, that the names and order of the Bishops of Besançon, up to Nicetius, can be sought with little certainty from Catalogues so defective, unless they are had from more reliable and more ancient documents.

§. III. S. Nicetius and his successors up to the eleventh century, where the matter is treated of the Life of S. Megetius, and of the use of the Pallium confirmed to him through Macarius of Jerusalem, and of Claudius II.

[91] XXIV. Nicetius consecrated the altars of the monastery of Luxeuil, founded in the year 591. Then, after twenty years, namely in the year 611, he most kindly received S. Columban, then in exile, once and again at Besançon. He was buried in the Church of St. Peter, formerly suburban, but now occupying the middle of the city. Whence you may explain what is read in his Life, that he was "buried outside the walls"; namely, outside the walls, and in the suburb of the city; not, however, outside the walls of the Church, as some have elsewhere thought. He is venerated on the sixth day before the Ides of February.

D. P.

[92] XXV. Protadius was dear, among few, to Clotaire II, Monarch of the Gauls, around the year 620. In St. Peter's his feast is celebrated on the tenth day of the month of February. "Among the other things indeed (says the author of his Life) is ascribed to the praises of this most blessed man, that when the Clerics were doubting among themselves concerning the diverse usages of the Churches (at the request of Stephen, of good memory, of the holy mother Church of Blessed John the Evangelist, and of Hayminus, Dean of St. Stephen of the same city), he published a treatise, in which, to remove all ambiguity, he left written these things: what ought to be done in the assembly of the Brethren; what the Church should hold, and what it ought to avoid; how many ministers of the sacred Order the feast-days should have; where, and when, processions should take place; at what time the congregations of the whole city should assemble at the mother Church; and whatever ought also to be done throughout the cycle of the year in the Church—these things his holy diligence taught to posterity." This book survives here in the sacristy of the basilica of St. John, with the title Ordo Canonicorum (Order of the Canons), with a preface of Archbishop Protadius to Dean Stephen: but since in the text mention is made of Amalarius, of Charles the Bald, and of Hugh the First, from this very fact it appears that this work was interpolated by later persons. Yet because in more than one place it prescribes barefoot supplications, and gathers much concerning the ancient state of the City, and the religion of the old Church of Besançon, useful for memory; and because the single copy of it that remains on parchment is daily being worn away by age, we have thought it worth the effort to rescue it from destruction by presenting it reproduced in this volume.

So indeed Chifflet had written here, but in the Preliminary designation of the whole work, making no mention of it, he has left us uncertain whether, having afterward changed his mind, he decided to reserve it for some other volume. We do not wish to make these Claudian Illustrations, prolix enough and more than enough, still more prolix by that new addition which has nothing to do with St. Claude. A more fitting place will perhaps be found for bringing that little book to light, before some preliminary Treatise on the Sunday Feasts of the Greeks, which we shall reckon as owed to John James Chifflet, brother of Peter Francis.

[93] The Rule of S. Donatus for Nuns XXVI. Donatus, divinely granted at the prayers of S. Columban to his parents, Waldalenus Duke of Burgundy and Flavia, when he had grown up at Luxeuil, was given to the people of Besançon as Archbishop after Protadius: for so say several, and the older and better-reputed Catalogues; while others place Donatus as the immediate successor to Nicetius—which error has also flowed into the common Life of S. Donatus. But this our order is confirmed by the fact that Migetius (to whom Donatus was succeeded by) is known to have changed certain things in his Church which had been established by Protadius; as the anonymous Canon of St. Paul reports in his account of Migetius. Furthermore, Jonas, in his Life of Columban, and the author of the Life of St. Agilus, the Abbot of Rebais who was formerly a monk of Luxeuil, made mention of Donatus, Bishop of Besançon, while he was still living.

[94] his Commonitory He wrote for Nuns a Rule, commonly called that of Donatus, found in Benedict in his Concordia: and a Commonitory to the Brethren of Paul and Stephen: which Holstenius wrongly entitled in his Codex of Rules, "The Rule of Saints Paul and Stephen, Abbots, to the Monks"; following Smaragdus in chapter 23 of the Rule of St. Benedict, where he says it was composed by Paul and Stephen, Abbots. But Donatus, as we suppose, by this Commonitory instructed alike in regular discipline both the Canons of St. Stephen, then regular, and the Monks of St. Paul founded by him, as is gathered from his Life. He built the Churches of Besançon of St. Paul and of St. Mary of the monastery of Jussa-Moutier, with the help of his mother Flavia, who is buried there. The latter, in our age, has passed to the Fathers Minim. She is venerated, together with the bishop and martyr of the same surname of Arezzo, on the seventh day of the month of August.

[95] It is established that he was buried in the church of St. Paul which he had founded: but that he was translated, after some centuries, into a neighboring building, which is called St. Donatus after him, his cult and church: is the tradition of the people of Besançon. In the presbytery of the Metropolitan basilica of St. John, his image is painted on the wall, beneath which is read, written by an ancient hand: "Saint Donatus, Archbishop of Besançon, whose body rests in his own church, next to the church of St. Paul of Besançon." The building of St. Donatus which exists today is later than the Order of the Canons (which they commonly call the book of S. Protadius), interpolated in the time of Hugh the First, Archbishop, in which, although the other churches of the city that then existed are enumerated, of the church of St. Donatus no mention at all is made. But this seems to have been founded not long before Pope Celestine III granted to the Prior and Canons of St. Paul, at the beginning of December of the year 1193, in the third year of his pontificate, that in the parish church of St. Donatus, founded within the cloisters of their own church, they should appoint one of their Canons, for administering the Sacraments and celebrating the divine offices. The dedication of this church is celebrated on the 25th of May; which, if it was first made on a Sunday, will have to be referred to the year 1186, which was the seventh before the cure of souls was transferred to the Regulars of St. Paul through this Bull. But in what place, and in what state, the relics of St. Donatus are now held, hear in a few words.

[96] In the summer of the year 1670, when the principal altar of the church of St. Donatus had been moved from its place so as to be joined more closely to the wall, beneath that altar, there in the year 1671, under the foot of the altar, bodies were found, and under the pavement of the Presbytery, there appeared a quadrangular crypt of masonry, one royal foot and eight inches long, one foot and four inches wide, and three full feet high: which, in the following year [16]71, on the tenth day of the month of June, in the presence and with the cooperation of the most illustrious Archbishop Peter Anthony de Grandmont, and of the very Reverend Lord Peter Alix, Abbot of St. Paul (who had summoned me, while I was staying at Dijon, to that spectacle), and of other honored men, we carefully inspected when it had been opened. In it we found the bones of about four or more human bodies, most of them male and tall, yet mixed in confusion with some bones of infants, and for the most part corrupted by the dampness of the place. For it is established from observations both of our own and of former times, that more than once, when the river Doubs overflowed, the buildings of St. Paul and St. Donatus were inundated with waters, so much so that their inhabitants had to migrate elsewhere, until the waters had settled back into their channels.

[97] Nor indeed should anyone think that these bones, which were placed beneath the footstool of the altar, were deposited there for the consecration of the altar itself. For immediately under the principal stone of the altar was found a square box, holding the enclosed relics of several Saints, which by the customary rite were placed there in the dedication of the altar. they were not deposited there as bodies of Saints From which one may observe that even by those who consecrated the altar of St. Donatus nearly five hundred years ago, that heap of bones enclosed in the crypt was not regarded as certain and undoubted Relics. Although, therefore, it is probable that in these bones are held the relics not only of St. Donatus, but also of his father Duke Waldalenus, and of Migetius and Ternatius, Archbishops of Besançon (all of whom are known, from the records of the same Church, both to have been famed for their reputation of sanctity and to have been buried at St. Paul's), yet, because these Relics can be separated neither from one another, though it is probable that some such are present. nor from other profane bones; therefore the decision was made to replace those same bones which were found in the crypt, carefully cleaned and wiped, in the same crypt, with a great stone placed over it, to display to posterity the memory of this discovery, inscribed.

[98] Moreover, while we tarried there for some days, we learned from trustworthy men that the building of St. Donatus, in the dead of night, with the doors closed, was not rarely seen to gleam all around as if with very many lighted torches: which seem also to be indicated by lights and nocturnal songs, and that voices of people chanting psalms, or praying at the altar, were heard, and the sound of little bells, such as are wont to be rung at certain intervals of the Masses. If these things are true, one would not rashly suppose that the most just and altogether wonderful providence of God wished here, by prodigies, as it were to compensate for those honors which would have been paid by religious peoples to Blessed Donatus and to the other Saints joined with him (if their Relics were displayed in shrines gleaming with gold, silver, and a manifold variety of gems).

[99] Whence, further, that confusion of sacred bones came about, now learn from the ancients. How was that confusion made? Ado testifies in his Chronicle that, when Eudo, Duke of the Aquitanians, was dead, Charles Martel took up arms against his sons, and wore them down in many battles. "Meanwhile," he says, "the Saracens, devastating almost all of Aquitaine, and overcoming far and wide other provinces with fire and sword, plundered Burgundy with most cruel infestation, burning up almost everything with flames: defiling also the monasteries and sacred places, they drove off an innumerable people, and transported them into the Spains. Against these Charles again set in motion an expedition. Resisting them with a strong hand, when a very great multitude had been slain there, he compelled the rest who survived to flee, of whom few escaped." Eudo the Aquitanian died in the year of Christ 735. The Saracens were destroyed for the last time within the Gauls in the year 737. To the year 736, therefore, that devastation of Burgundy by the Saracens belonged: in the year 736, the Saracens devastating the City, of which

there is mention also in the Acts of S. Aemilianus, Bishop of Nantes and Martyr, commonly called the Protector of the people of Autun. A Canon or Monk of St. Paul of Besançon, who closed the series of the Archbishops of Besançon at Francis Buflidius, more than two hundred years ago, has these words concerning Gedeon, the thirty-first Archbishop: "In whose times indeed, by a foreign people, the wickedness of the populations pressing on, the city of Chrysopolis (Besançon) was burned, and the whole archbishopric was so devastated that in the principal churches of St. John and of St. Paul scarcely three Clerics could be supported." This author indicated no other disaster than the Saracen one, which, however, he referred less accurately to the times of Gedeon, since it is established from the records of the Jura that Gedeon survived to the 22nd year of King Charlemagne, not however in the time of Archbishop Gedeon. the year of Christ 790. He could not therefore have seen that incursion of the Saracens which belonged (as we have shown) to the year 795. In that slaughter, which involved the Church of St. Paul, there is no doubt that the monuments of the Saints buried there were violated—and so those of St. Donatus, St. Migetius, St. Ternatius the Bishops, and of Duke Waldalenus—according to the opinion of the common people, by which treasures were thought to be hidden in them. The sacred bones of the holy men having therefore been scattered, and dispersed here and there, when that storm had passed away, those who survived the disaster, returning to their homes, gathered the scattered relics of the Saints into one place: which afterward, some centuries later, when the parish church of St. Donatus had been built, they heaped up into the crypt of that building, constructed beneath the high altar.

[100] From the same cause we believe it to have come about that the Relics of S. Eusebius, S. Nicetius, A similar scattering was also made elsewhere and of other Saints who had then been buried in the suburban building of St. Peter, mingled and confused with other bones through those ravages of the Barbarians, were gathered in the middle of the choir within walls built in a square, as is attested by two inscriptions which still survive: the first, nearer to the high altar:

"The chancel buries many bodies of Saints. For this cause, therefore, it receives no other."

The other, lower down, on the opposite side:

"Many bodies of Saints are buried in this same place, and the collection of sacred Relics. Whose happy souls are crowned in the heavens."

[101] Concerning the chronology of St. Donatus more than one difficulty remains. He took part in that Synod of which Flodoard speaks in Book 2 of the History of Reims, chapter 5, which we believe to have been celebrated in the year of Christ 625, neither earlier nor later, in agreement with Labbe, in the seventh century of the Christian era, and in the notes to this Council. He also sanctioned, with several other Bishops, the foundation of the monastery of Fosses, on the Ides of May of the fifth indiction, in the fifth year of King Clovis II; and so in the year 647, if the Anonymous who wrote the Life of St. Babolenus the Abbot is to be trusted. He was also present at the Council of Chalon, around the year 650. And finally he is mentioned by John the Chronographer of Bèze as subscribed to the records by which the Abbess Adalsinda transferred the lands of her monastery of Berzé to her brother Waldalenus, the first Abbot of Bèze, in the first year of King Clotaire III, of Christ (as I judge) 661. Whence appear about thirty-six years of the See of St. Donatus. But how this first year of Clotaire III is, in the Chronicle of Bèze, joined to the year of Christ 652, we have noted in the treatise on the years of Dagobert, chapter V.

[102] XXVII. Migetius, in the year 665, took charge of the funeral of S. Walbert, Abbot of Luxeuil, his friend. The life of S. Migetius from a Manuscript. How long he survived him is not established; although there is a conjecture that he presided for a long time, from the multitude of deeds done by him, which the Author of his Life pursued at some length, following the Chronicle of his successor Ternatius. This life we give entire from a Manuscript codex, to be inserted among the Lives of the Saints; for both he is marked with the title of Saint in several Catalogues of the Archbishops of the Church of Besançon, and in the old Codex of the church of St. Paul, although I have nowhere found a definite day dedicated to his cult, not even in the proper Martyrology of that very church. The text of the Life is as follows.

[103] Migetius, a man worthy of all good memory, was made Prelate of the Church of Chrysopolis (Besançon) by the harmonious vote. Nourished and taught in the said Church, Here he instituted a daily Mass of Blessed Mary, and, according to the custom of the Canons, sufficiently apt for reading and chanting, conforming himself to the character of his predecessor, he applied himself to the divine Office: provident within and without, he carefully observed what he found. Moreover, this same Migetius instituted the divine Offices more becomingly than his predecessors, and the customs of the Church of Chrysopolis. For example: when Blessed Protadius was elected Archbishop of this See, the Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary were not chanted in the church, but, the Matins being finished, the Canons in the baptistery before the altar of St. Stephen said the Matins of St. Mary straight through, and the Lauds of All Saints: but Prime, Terce, Sext, None, and Compline were not said in the church. But this Migetius willed that the Morning Mass with the preceding Terce, which had been instituted by his predecessor, should be sung at St. Stephen's at the altar of St. Mary (and should be celebrated daily); so that on all the days of the year (except the day of Good Friday) the Mass of St. Mary should there be solemnly celebrated; but not by the first choir; and that he who should be the Hebdomadary of the major and morning Mass should celebrate this third Mass at the altar of Blessed Mary with an assistant, and should daily receive that measure of wine which was given for the Mass of St. Stephen; which has continued even to our own time.

[104] he ordained five Archdeacons, He ordained moreover in the aforesaid church five Archdeacons together with a major Archdeacon, who should fill the place of the Archbishop: and he assigned to them the revenues which he had acquired for the See. Nevertheless he freely resigned the collations of the aforesaid dignities to the chamber of the Archbishop; but the collation of the major Archdeacon, to the Dean and Chapter. He assigned the possessions and revenues of the first Archdeacon at Luxeuil; of the second, at Faverney; of the third, at Treva; of the fourth, at Gray; of the fifth, at Salins and in the neighboring hamlets of the aforesaid places.

[105] Moreover he rebuilt a parish church, in honor of St. John the Baptist, near the walls of the city, and around it he blessed a cemetery: he divided the parishes; in which he also instituted that a baptistery should be made, through the course of succeeding years, except only on the holy Saturdays of Easter and Pentecost, and during their octaves: for previously the citizens and suburbanites who were to be baptized were baptized in the baptistery of the major Church. He also conferred upon the aforesaid church the tithes and offerings which the laymen of the city owe, to be possessed by parochial right, the right of patronage being nevertheless retained. But in the other parish churches he instituted that Fonts should be made; namely in the churches of St. Mary of the monastery of Jussa-Moutier, of the monastery of St. Maurice, of St. Peter, and of St. Lawrence. He also built a cloister with columns and vaults, from the door of the church which leads to the Palace, through that part which is called the Convent, and through the part of the dormitory as far as the refectory.

[106] [he had the privilege, granted to the City by Macarius of Jerusalem, confirmed by the Pope;] He also had renewed, through the Roman Pontiff, the Privilege which had long ago been granted to this city by St. Macarius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and delegated through Blessed Helena, but already in his own time destroyed. He inquired daily whom among the Saints he might be able to imitate in some way: thinking that he had lost the day on which he had not made some progress in the deeds or in the commandments of God. He in no way omitted to offer to God the Sacrifice for the salvation of the world and the rest of the departed. Every day he toiled greatly at almsgiving and at most generous hospitality. Moreover he made himself all things to all, that he might please all, and save all: and, like a good Shepherd, whatever he knew should be done for the flock, he ministered by the exhibition of works.

[107] This, moreover, was his constant custom, that, when about to give his limbs over to nocturnal rest, intent on nocturnal prayer he would commend himself to the pledges (relics) of the Saints; and, freed from secular cares, he would relax his mind in holy contemplation, and in that very meditation take the sleep necessary for the body. Slumbering then in a pious intention one night, he was led in a vision to the principal church: where he beheld, as it were, a multitude of those clothed in white standing together, the greater part of whom seemed to be Priests, among whom he recognized one whom he had known to be familiar to him, because he had been his companion on the Roman journey: and asking the man what so great a multitude was, he heard that all these had ended their worldly life in the service of Blessed John the Evangelist: he saw himself invited to heaven whom Blessed John, with the Levite Stephen, was leading to the altar of the aforesaid church with ineffable melody of song: and, the sacred Offices being performed, all received from his hands the life-giving gift. He was thus taught by divine revelation that no other dissolution of the flesh awaited him, except in the places of the oratory near to Blessed John.

[108] Rejoicing over such a vision, and that he was visited by the compassion of the divine regard, and he piously died. he entered the oratory of Blessed John, and there, from the inmost depth of his heart, with tears bursting forth, extending his pure mind to God, he invoked the clemency of God with secret prayers. This done, he turned aside to a certain house near to the episcopal residence, and there, visited by a great multitude of those clothed in white and of the Clergy, he ordered himself to be fortified with the holy Oil, together with the reception of the Body and Blood of the Lord. These things accomplished, looking upon those standing by, he gave thanks to each for the service shown, and surrendered his weary limbs to rest in the Lord.

[109] Thus far the Life, which I would not so believe to have been received from the Chronicle of his successor Ternatius, but that it was expanded and augmented by a much more recent Author: With the blood of S. Stephen for such is the sound of those words, in number 2 at the end: "Which has continued even to our own time." On the occasion of this Life, moreover, I would add, from the sacred Lessons of the divine Offices of the Church of Besançon, that from the same Macarius of Jerusalem, of whom mention was made above, Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, after the Cross of the Lord had been found by God's revelation in the year of Christ 326, obtained a part of the blood of St. Stephen, together with his Dalmatic: which pious gifts she destined for Hilary, Bishop of Besançon, as is had from the sacred lessons of the divine offices of the Church of Besançon. And it is easy to suppose that whatever that privilege was which was granted to Besançon by Macarius, it was joined to these Relics of the Protomartyr, since it too is asserted to have been delegated through Blessed Helena. But what, after all, was that privilege, for whose confirmation the authority of the Roman Pontiff had to be sought?

[110] To this exceedingly obscure difficulty light is shed by the Ordo Canonicorum of the Church of Besançon, [the privilege received at Jerusalem from S. Macarius the Bishop after the year 326,] which is commonly called the Book of S. Protadius: for there I read these things. "On the day of the Nativity of the Lord, the Lord Pontiff ascends the tribunal of the cathedra: and the ministers arrange themselves along the chancel. The Presbyters on the left side with the Subdeacons; the Archlevite with the Deacons and Acolytes on the right. Then the Chancellor approaches reverently before the Seat, and says: Bid, Lord, a blessing: and, May the Lord fill our breasts with the grace of the Holy Spirit. And he reads the privilege of the Pallium, that he may commend

to memory how great is the caution to be employed by him for the guardianship of the flock. The privilege having been read through, the Chancellor receives a golden coin, or twelve silver coins, of the Archbishop. And so it is done as often as the Archbishop, girded with the Pallium, ascends the cathedra."

This reading of the Privilege is noted in the same codex six times; namely on the Nativity of the Lord, on the feast of St. Vincent, on the feast of St. John before the Latin Gate, at Pentecost, on the ninth day before the Kalends of October at the Dedication of the mother Church of St. John, and on the feast of All Saints. I suspected elsewhere, since this reading of the Privilege seemed to fall within the rite of the Mass, that that Privilege ought to have been inscribed in some one of the ancient books which were in use in the Pontifical Mass: but, having diligently examined these (for they still survive), since I found nothing of the sort, I by no means doubted that it was read from a Pontifical Bull, which the Chancellor, its reader, had himself drawn out from the episcopal archive: which Megetius had renewed at Rome; for both such Bulls are, and are called, Privileges; and in them there is commended to the memory of the Archbishop how great is the caution to be employed by him for the guardianship of the flock; as appears from the Epistle of Pope Benedict the Ninth, by which he sent the Pallium to Hugh I, Archbishop of Besançon, on the 15th of April, in the V indiction, in the year from the Incarnation of Christ 1037, in the fifth year of his own Pontificate, the eleventh of the Emperor Conrad: and from another, of Pope Paschal II, to Pontius, Archbishop of Besançon, given on the day before the Kalends of January, in the XIV indiction, in the seventh year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1106, which we shall set forth from the autographs elsewhere.

[111] What, then, was the privilege granted by Macarius of Jerusalem to the Church of Besançon, it seems to have been the use of a Pallium sent by Macarius of Jerusalem, which afterward had to be confirmed by the Roman Pontiff? I am of the opinion that it was an Epistle of Macarius, transmitted with an Episcopal Pallium to Hilary, Bishop of Besançon. For Macarius knew that Besançon was the Metropolis of the province of the Sequani: that ecclesiastical provinces and Metropolises were to be constituted in the hierarchy out of the civil ones, and that some perhaps had already been recently described in the Council of Nicaea: concerning Hilary, Bishop of Besançon, some report had been spread, some things perhaps he had received from the mouth of Helena Augusta, which commended the virtue of the man. He therefore joined to the Relics of the Protomartyr, destined for that city, a Pallium, as if for a gift, by which he should understand that the right of a Metropolitan pertained to him. For the Pallium is the insignia of the fullness of the Pontifical office (as Popes Innocent III and Gregory IX say, in Raynaldus, Volume I of the Continuation of the Annals of Baronius, in the year 1218 number 25, and in the year 1239 number 59, wont to be given to all Metropolitan Bishops) sometimes also to one of their Suffragans, which, although in the time of Migetius it pertained to the Roman Pope alone, who should be the principal Consecrator of his Metropolitan, such as the Bishop of Ostia in the Roman province, by the decree of Pope Mark; the Bishop of Autun, in the province of Lyon; the Bishop of Lausanne, in the province of Besançon; the Bishop of Le Puy also, in the province of Bourges. Likewise the Bishop of Bamberg, in Germany: in Italy the Bishop of Lucca, and of Pavia: and the Bishop of Pécs: in lower Hungary: by whose examples and precedents the same Privilege seems able to be hoped for from the Roman Pontiff by those Suffragan Bishops who, in their several Provinces, are superior to their other colleagues, either by the dignity of their city, or by the antiquity of their promotion, or by services rendered to the Apostolic See, or by other things well accomplished for the Christian cause.

[112] But concerning the Macarian Privilege there are many things which the learned Reader may set against these. For today, and for many ages now, in the Western Church it belongs to the Roman Pontiff alone yet before the hierarchy was perfectly constituted in the 4th century to give the Pallium to Bishops. In the East it was once permitted to the Patriarchs to give the Pallium to the Bishops of their dioceses, as is gathered from the Roman Council which was celebrated under Pope Innocent III. But what right could Macarius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, have over the Bishop of Besançon, that he should bestow the Pallium upon him? To this I answer that the times must be distinguished: nor must it be thought that all pontifical decrees which concern ecclesiastical polity are so ancient that they are to be derived either from Apostolic times, or even from the Council of Nicaea. The right indeed of appealing from all the Christian world to the Apostolic See arose with the very primacy of Blessed Peter: but the age of reservations is more recent; nor were they all made at once, but some out of others, as the state of affairs seemed to require. When the Church was hiding in crypts on account of the cruelty of tyrants, or wandering through the pathless and remote places of forests and mountains, no descriptions of cities or ecclesiastical provinces were made: Constantine the Great first endowed her with liberty, but did not immediately reduce her to a perfect order: that Macarius could have done this; step by step Pastors were given to the flocks of the faithful, and these were distributed into various classes, and a hierarchy was constituted, in which Bishops were set over cities, Archbishops or Metropolitans over Bishops, Primates and Patriarchs over these, who themselves were all subject to the Roman and Universal Pope. Before this subordination of cities and provinces, apostolic men thought that those words of Christ, sending forth his workers into the harvest, pertained to themselves: "Go, teach all nations." Matt. 28:19 Hence those missions of the Asians into the Gauls, associated with them by an ancient bond: of Photinus and Irenaeus, to the people of Lyon; of Ferreolus, Benignus, Andochius, to the Sequani, to the Lingones, to the Aedui; of others to others. If, therefore, in those ancient times the Asian Prelates had the right of sending Bishops into the Gauls; by what reasoning could the right of sending the Pallium to them be denied to them, which is a certain appendage and consequence of the very Episcopal grade itself?

[113] Nor would you object, from Tertullian, in the book On Prescriptions, chapters 20 and 21, (Nor does Tertullian forbid believing this) that all the Sees and dioceses in the Church were constituted by the Apostles themselves: for he only says that they were founded by the Apostles, either immediately, or by transmission; that is, through their successors; that he may thence gather that there is one Church of God, which, founded by Christ and by the Apostles, perseveres the same to the following ages. But the subordination of Sees and dioceses, such as is now seen in the Church, as well as the various changes of this subordination, later times introduced. But although it should be granted (which is still doubtful) that that subordination of Sees was sanctioned in the year 325, in the Council of Nicaea: so that in the following year 326, in which we suppose the Pallium to have been transmitted to Besançon, Macarius of Jerusalem had no authority over the province of Besançon: it is enough if we consider that then the old society of the Eastern and Gallican Churches was not yet quite extinct; or, if perhaps it had been interrupted, that it had been restored by the intervention of Helena Augusta. But besides such intercession of a great and holy Queen, there was a singular reason for Macarius of Jerusalem to extend his benevolence and munificence to the Church of Besançon beyond the other eastern Patriarchs; namely, because the Church of Jerusalem, by the antiquity of its origin, said that it was the mother of all Churches; with which title it is adorned in the Synodal epistle of the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople to Pope Damasus: whence also Polychronius, Bishop of Jerusalem, is feigned to have dared to say (as Pope Nicholas reports to the Emperor Michael) that his Church held the principal place, and surpassed in dignity the other Apostolic Sees.

[114] I conclude, therefore, that the Pallium was sent by Macarius to the Bishop of Besançon, not as to a subject, but as to a friend and ally; at which time that transmission of the Pallium was not yet, in the Western World, reserved to the Roman Pontiffs. And just as the Pallium, in more recent ages, was said to be sent to the Bishops of the West from the body of Blessed Peter, because it was wont to be deposited at the Confession of St. Peter, over his sacred remains, for a whole night; so it is most probable that that Pallium, before it was sent to the Bishop of Besançon, was consecrated by the Patriarch Macarius either by the touch of the recently found holy Cross, or of the Lord's Sepulchre. Thereafter, when Migetius, Bishop of Besançon, understood that the right of giving that Pallium had been recalled to the Roman Pontiff alone, by prudent counsel he wished the Privilege, formerly granted to his predecessors by Macarius, to be confirmed by him who then presided as Roman Pope; leaving to his successors an example, that for the future they should always approach the Apostolic See on that account, otherwise being about to lack that insignia of their dignity; which has also been observed by them even to this day. In these shadows nothing now appears to me more clear.

[115] But I do not allow myself to be torn from Migetius before I have stood by him as a companion and supporter, honoring the obsequies of his friend Walbert, Abbot of Luxeuil, in the year of Christ 665. It is wrongly denied that Migetius was present at the funeral of S. Walbert, For Charles Le Cointe denies that this office was performed by him, in volume 3 of his Annals, page 574; because this man (he says) "was made, from Abbot of Luxeuil, Bishop of Meaux after his brother Faro: and Migetius, Bishop of Besançon, departed from this life long before the same Walbert." In which words I recognize a threefold error. The first, that Walbert is called the brother of Faro. The second, that he is said to have been Bishop of Meaux after Faro. The third, that he is asserted to have survived Migetius. From this last I begin, intending afterward to return to the two former.

[116] Abbot Adzo, who testifies that he, handed over by his parents at Luxeuil, there received the youthful rudiments of his earliest novitiate, which is nevertheless asserted in this Life, speaks thus in the book On the Life and Miracles of S. Waldebert, Abbot of Luxeuil: "Saving also the authority of the Kings and Nobles of the Franks, which he was reported to have used very much at that time, he adhered more familiarly to the holy Bishop Migetius, a man of great virtues: a condition of compact having been interposed between them both, that whichever of them should first, at the Lord's calling, depart from human affairs, the other survivor should arrange a place of burial for him more fittingly. And so it came about. For when, through the space of forty years, the glorious Confessor of the Lord Waldebert increased the place allotted to him, excellently disposed in every kind of virtue, in goods and in the number of those serving God; adorned with many virtues of miracles, he migrated to the Lord, on the sixth day before the Nones of May, made the associate and fellow of the citizens above, and led into the gate of perpetual delight. At the obsequies of his funeral, with throngs of the faithful flowing together from all sides, in the church of Blessed Martin, which is built on the side of the monastery on the northern part, in a crypt of wondrous workmanship constructed by S. Migetius the Pontiff behind the altar, by the Lord's disposing, he was there laid in a most worthy burial." What is more sacred than this testimony? Here there is no interpolator. The author himself will come into suspicion neither of error, much less of bad faith. He was an Abbot, and, for the capacity of his age, learned among few. Nearly seven hundred years ago he shook out all the records of Luxeuil, surveyed all the monuments, in order to set down in writing the Life and miracles of S. Waldebert: this work of his he dedicated to the sacred assembly of the Monks of Luxeuil.

[117] Now indeed, if Waldebert was Bishop of Meaux, by what deed at last did this escape Adzo, and also all the people of Luxeuil, who in their public offices continued to call Walbert

always Abbot, nowhere call Bishop? Also the people of Meaux, in which there is deep silence about his Bishopric of Meaux: who (as the learned Benedictine Authors of the second century note) publicly affirm in their sacred Lessons that Hildevertus succeeded immediately to their Bishop Faro? Certainly it was to the interest of both the people of Luxeuil and of Meaux by no means to begrudge their Walderbert the Episcopal insignia, if they had ever fallen to him. Wherefore, in the Life of S. Agilus, the Abbot of Rebais who was formerly a Monk of Luxeuil, which was written while S. Donatus still held the metropolitan See of Besançon, it is necessary to recognize a hallucination, either of the author or rather of the copyist, where it is thus read: "And so, the praiseworthy Agilus, entering the age of boyhood, was committed to Eustasius, a man of approved religion, to be instructed in sacred letters, wrongly asserted in the Life of S. Agilus: together with other sons of noble men, who afterward became Prelates of Churches: namely Agnoaldus and Walderbert, sons of Agnericus his uncle, who shone as regular masters in building and teaching at the monastery which their sister Fara built on her paternal soil, between the Aube and the Mucram, in the place which is called Eboriacus (Faremoutiers): of whom one was ordained Bishop of Lyon, the other of the city of Meaux." For in that place, for Waldebert, Faro is to be restored; as I once noted in the margin of his Life, just as there he is wrongly said to be the brother of S. Faro. in the Proofs of the History of Tournus: since it is certain that Faro of Meaux survived Donatus, Bishop of Besançon, by not a few years. If, therefore, Waldebert had succeeded Faro in the Bishopric, as Le Cointe will have it, certainly while the Life of S. Agilus was being written, he would not yet have been Bishop.

[118] As for what remains, I once thought, with Lambert of Ardres the Presbyter, in the History of the Counts of Guines; with John of Ypres, in the Chronicle of Saint-Bertin; and with many others; that Walbert was by birth the brother of Chagnoaldus, Faro, and Fara or Burgundofara (which the passage I have brought forward from the Life of S. Agilus would prove, were it not corrupted). But Hadrian Valesius, a most eloquent writer of Frankish affairs, retracted this, and the Benedictine Fathers followed him, in the cited place of their second century: but above all Abbot Adzo in the Life of S. Walbert, where he more than once calls the village of Nant in the district of Meaux his native soil: since it is established from Jonas in his Life of Eustasius that the homeland of Hagnericus, and so of his children Chagnoaldus, Faro, and Fara, was Pipimisum, or (as the very ancient Bertinian codex has it) Pipisicum in the district of Brie.

[119] XXVIII. Ternatius wrote the Chronicle of his predecessor Archbishops around the year 675; would that it still survived! Besides this he built a church in honor of the holy Martyrs Marcellinus and Peter, in the Campus Martius. This has today grown into the Abbey of St. Vincent, of the Order of St. Benedict, in the village which is called St. Vincent's.

[120] XXIX. Gervasius was given as successor to his brother Ternatius around the year 680, and he himself is commended for his solicitude of pastoral care, in that he in no way permitted his flock to deviate from the unity of the Church, and abundantly fulfilled the other parts of his office.

[121] XXX. Claudius II, Abbot of the Jura before he was Bishop: in the seventh year of his episcopate he abdicated, in order to return to his hermitage, around the year 690. The opinion of the Author The Chronology of the Claudian Life as it now stands who wrote his published Life nearly four hundred years ago was that he, when he was twenty years old, was admitted to the Canons of the Metropolitan Church of Besançon; that in this office, having completed twelve years, he was created Archbishop of Besançon in the year of Christ 626: that in the seventh year of his Episcopate, having abdicated it, he hastened to the Jura monastery of St. Eugendus. There, having completed five years from his entrance, on the death of Injuriosus he was elected his successor as Abbot, and confirmed by the authority of Pope John IV. Having completed the fifty-fifth year in the government of the monastery, he at length flew up to the heavenly ones in the 4th year of Childebert, King of the Franks.

[122] Of these things, first, we disapprove of this: that S. Claudius is said to have been Archbishop of Besançon from the year 626 for seven years: because we hold it certain disapproved by Chifflet, that during this very time, indeed from the year 625 to the year 661, for thirty-six years, the See of Besançon was occupied by S. Donatus, as has been clearly proved by us. Now S. Claudius was in this series the fourth from Donatus. He was, moreover, the third from Migetius, who is known to have presided over the obsequies of S. Walbert, the third Abbot of Luxeuil, in the year of Christ 665. Besides this, the ancient Catalogues of these Archbishops place two others between Migetius and Claudius, namely Ternatius and Gervasius. Therefore, that each may be kept his own place, the year of Christ 640 must be established as the hinge, as it were, of this Chronology, in which S. Claudius was confirmed as Abbot of the Jura by Pope John IV: and the reckoning of his years is to be deduced thus, retaining all those things from his published Life which do not otherwise contradict the Chronology of his life.

[123] He was born in the year of Christ 603. He was made a Canon in the Metropolitan Church of Besançon in the year 623, in his twentieth year. After twelve years, when he was thirty-two, in the year of Christ 635, and other things substituted by him: he became a Monk at St. Eugendus under Abbot Injuriosus. After five years, in the 37th year of his age, of Christ 640, on the death of Injuriosus he is elected successor by the Brethren, and confirmed in that office by Pope John IV. All the records of the Jura attribute to him fifty-five continuous years of government in the monastery, but they do not explain the interpolation of these: whence also the author of his Life slipped concerning his death, which he wrongly referred to the fourth year of Childebert: for the best Chronicle which survives, ending in the year 1149, has thus: "And in the fourth of Childebert, Abbot only." What does that mean, "Abbot only"? except that in that fourth year of Childebert, S. Claudius, after seven years, the Archbishopric having been abdicated, remained merely Abbot?

[124] so that S. Claudius began to be Abbot in the year 640, But to which year of Christ this fourth year of Childebert corresponds is to be seen. For there were two beginnings of the reign for this Childebert; the first from the battle of Tertry, which was joined in the year 691, when Theodoric and his subking Bertharius were routed by Pippin of Herstal, according to the Annals of Metz and other Chronicles: and he, using his victory modestly, not only did not deprive Theodoric of the royal title and honor, but even ordered his two sons, Clovis and Childebert, to be Kings. But that peace of the royal house did not stand long; for thus Aigradus the Monk, in the Life of S. Ansbert, who a little before had succeeded Audoenus in the Bishopric of Rouen: "When the illustrious Waratto departed from the order of the principate, and his son and wicked supplanter Gislemann, Pippin obtained the Prefectorial administration, the Lord granting it. At which time the aforesaid holy Pontiff, accused before the Prince himself, by the order of the same, was deported into exile to the monastery of Haumont, which is situated in the territory of Agnaunum upon the river Sambre." Here the year of the battle of Tertry is openly designated, which was of Christ 691: from which time, when Ansbert was suspected of plots stirred up against the new Prince Pippin (not certainly with Clovis and Childebert his youthful sons), the suspicion falls upon Theodoric, to whom then nothing remained beyond the title of King. Hence it is permitted to suppose that, from that year 691, while Ansbert was in exile, when he is named in the diploma then granted to the Monks of St. Denis after Donatus, the aforesaid Theodoric was thus deposed, so that the title of King stood only in his sons, at least as regards public Acts, which were noted by the chancellors by the regnal years rather of his sons than of their parent himself.

[125] and died in the year 703: Thus, therefore, I judge the whole age of S. Claudius should be described. From the year of Christ 640, he was Abbot for fifty-five full years: nor did he die except when the fifty-fifth year of his government had been completed from the time when he was Abbot, as the book On the Illustrious Men of the Monastery of Condat has it. But this period of the government of the Monastery had interpolated into it the office of Archbishop exercised for seven years, and so he would have died in the year DCCC, an apparent typo for DCCII/703: which the more recent writers of Jura affairs did not see. There remains, moreover, the difficulty concerning the time of this interpolation, from which only the observation of the Prelates can extricate us, who presided over the Church of Besançon between Donatus and Claudius, and of the time for which they presided. For after Donatus, whose last Chronological mark looks to the year of the Christian era 658, the Archbishop of Besançon was Migetius: who is known to have presided over the funeral obsequies of S. Walbert in the year 665; and that he ruled the Church a long time, the multitude of things already described persuades. To him succeeded Ternatius and Gervasius, and at last our S. Claudius, distinguished, in my judgment, from the former, whose entire Chronology I thus at last conclude. In the 4th year of King Childebert, son of Theodoric, deduced from the year 691 of the battle of Tertry (this was the year of Christ 695), Claudius was Abbot only; [of the Abbatial government through 7 years of the interpolated Episcopate in the 55th year.] that is, the Archbishopric having been abdicated, reduced to the condition of Abbot. He had therefore been ordained Archbishop in the year 638, when he had presided as Abbot from the year 640 for forty-eight years. Restored to the administration of the monastery, in order to complete in it the fifty-fifth year, he tasted also the following one, translated to the heavenly ones in the hundredth year of his age, in the seven hundred and third of the common or Dionysian era of Christ, worthy of the unfading glory of all the ages.

[126] Now let us proceed to other matters: nor let Le Cointe detain us, who in volume 4 of his Annals, Le Cointe's other Chronology. under the year of Christ 686, number 27, and under the year 698 number 1, says that S. Claudius was born in the year of Christ 642; admitted to the Canons of Besançon in the year 662; created Archbishop twelve years after, in the 32nd year of his age, of Christ 674: made a Monk on Mount Jura after seven years, in the year of Christ 681: elected Abbot after five years, that in the year 686 he met King Clovis, not the second but the third of that name: that he died after twelve years from the undertaking of the government of the Jura monastery, in the year of Christ 698, in his fifty-sixth year only. For this chronology, since it tears up all the foundations of antiquity, so overturns itself that it needs no other refutation.

[127] XXXI. Felix, most unhappy in his morals, whom Gilbert Cousin wrongly confused with Felix, the Apostle of the East Angles, of whom Bede in the History, Book 2 chapter 15, and Book 3 chapter 20. Consult Vesontio and the Sammarthani.

[128] XXXII. Tetradius II did not merit a place among the Prelates of good repute.

[129] XXXIII. Abbo, trained at Luxeuil in the regular life, gave his effort, together with Ado, Prior of Luxeuil, to restoring the discipline of his Clergy, which had plainly collapsed.

[130] XXXIV. Wandelbertus. XXXV. Euroldus, for 12 years.

[131] XXXVI. Aruleus. XXXVII. Erveus.

[132] XXXVIII. Gedeon, disputing with Ritbertus, Abbot of St. Eugendus, concerning the Cell of S. Lupicinus, The boundaries of the Jura domain defined by Charlemagne in the year 790 gave occasion to Charlemagne the King to sanction those boundaries of the Jura domain which are asserted even today. This was given

at Reims, this diploma, on the 11th day before the Kalends of October, in the 22nd year of his reign. The 22nd year of Charlemagne reigning in Burgundy after the death of his brother Carloman, in the month of October, was reckoned 792: in which year of Christ I once thought these records to have been given. But, the question being brought back to the anvil, I judged that this 22nd year cannot be understood of his Burgundian reign, but must be taken of the Frankish one, derived from the death of his father Pippin; and that it falls in the year 790, as has been demonstrated by us in the Chronicle of the Abbots of the Jura, in the case of Ricbertus the 16th Abbot. By which error Abbot Berno is written in the Library of Cluny as having been consecrated by Gedeon, but Odo by Bernuinus, see in Vesontio.

[133] XXXIX. Bernvinus surnamed the Good: who also seems to be called Adam in the diploma of King Lothar, of whom presently in the case of Arduicus. He took part, in the year 921, in the Council of Nijmegen of the Batavians, in which he obtained from Louis the Pious the Caesarean Constitution concerning the granting of liberty to the slaves of the churches of his province, which we appended, in the year 1579, in four small works published by us, in the place of an appendix. He also presided in the years 822, 23, 28, 29. He died on the day before the Ides of August: he was buried at St. Vitus, three hourly leagues from the city.

[134] XL. Amalwinus, in Flodoard, Book 2 of the History, chapter 20, subscribes to the edict of the Emperor Lothar on the 8th day before the Kalends of July, in the year 840, in the III indiction.

[135] The fortress Abbatissa given to Arduicus. XLI. Arduicus took part in the Council of Toul at Savonnières in the year 859, and in the other Council of Toul at Tusey in the year 860. Ten years later he received from King Lothar the Younger, setting out for Rome, in the 14th year of his reign, in the III indiction (the year was of Christ 870), on the 11th day before the Kalends of February, the fortress of Carnon called "Abbatissa" in the district of the Scodingi, together with a little cell called Balma, situated in the same district, to compensate for the estates of Cavennacum, Campanias, and Tolisiacum, which were once possessed by his predecessor Bishops, namely Gedeon and Adam; but were then held by Atto the Count, a kinsman of King Lothar.

From a certain ancient collection of Canons and Decrees we have obtained a most courteous epistle of Pope Nicholas to Arduicus, Epistle of Pope Nicholas to him. whose beginning is: "Nicholas the Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our most Reverend and most Holy fellow-brother Arduicus, Archbishop of Besançon. Among the other marks of your virtues, which are to be heaped up with very many acts of thanksgiving, we behold you holding the highest obedience together with humility at the summit. And since we perceive in you so great an alacrity of mind toward us, we in no way doubt that your mind has been touched by the spirit of the Apostles." We have given it entire in the Proofs, because it has not yet (so far as I know) come forth into public. But since it has no mark of time inscribed, we suspect nevertheless that it was given in the year of Christ 860, in which the second Council of Toul was celebrated at Tusey: How did he preside over the Council of Toul II? in whose preface, of the twelve provinces the first is called Besançon, and of the twelve Archbishops the first to subscribe is Arduicus of Besançon; not because he held the primacy among the others, but (as I think) because he presided over that Council with the title of Apostolic Legate, since otherwise he would have had no right of προεδρία (presidency) over them: as is even from this manifest, that in the prior Council of Toul, in the immediately preceding year 859 at Savonnières, convoked likewise from twelve provinces, Arduicus subscribed to the two Synodical epistles, to one indeed in the fifth, to the other in the seventh place among the Metropolitans.

[36] XLII. Theodericus subscribed to the Synod of Ponthion in the year 876, to the second of Troyes in the year 878, to that of Mantaille in the year 879. About him, or to him, are several epistles of Pope John the Eighth. He still presided in the year 894, on the Sunday III before the Nones of February, in the 5th year of the reign of Lord King Rudolf, according to the autograph records of Pharulfus the Presbyter, by which he hands over to the Church of St. John the Evangelist of Besançon the Church of St. Maurice situated in the village of Coldrivico in the district of Portes, which three months before he had received from Rudolf, King of the Jura.

[137] XXIII. Berengarius, the nephew of his predecessor, blinded by the faction of Ayminus, had as his Vicar Stephen, Bishop of Belley, who, by his order, translated the body of S. Maimbodus the Martyr from the village of Domnipetra to Montbéliard. He presided for 13 years.

[138] XLIV. Ayminus, a pseudo-bishop, yet subscribed as Eiminus to the Council of Chalon in the year 915, in the III indiction.

[139] XLV. Gonterius, called Bishop. While Ayminus or Gonterius, pseudo-bishops, were disturbing the Church of Besançon, it seems that S. Maiolus was called to the archbishopric of Besançon around the year of Christ 925, as is reported in his Life by the authors Syrus and Aldebaldus, and in the Library of Cluny, page 1768; when Maiolus was Archdeacon in the Church of Mâcon, and not yet a Monk of Cluny. But, that man refusing that honor and burden, there succeeded to it

[140] XLVI. Girfredus: who in the year 932 consecrated Beroldus, Bishop of Lausanne: he presided through the 8th, 12th, and 14th years of Conrad, King of the Burgundians, of Christ 947, 51, and 53. He took part in the Council of Tournus or Tournus-on-Saône: which we have shown, in our History of Tournus, to have been held not in the year 944 (as was once commonly believed) but rather in 948 or 949.

[141] XLVII. Guido, whom some wrongly confused with Guido, Archbishop of Vienne, who from the year 1119 was Pope Calixtus II.

[142] XLVIII. Guichardus, formerly Abbot of the Valley of St. George in Germany. Wion, Book 2 chapter 19, from Münster and Belleforest.

[143] XLIX. Leutaldus, also called Leotoldus, received Alcherius, an illustrious Cleric, as a Canon of St. Stephen; who afterward, in the year 993, conferred the village of Lovetinge of the County of Amous to the table of the brethren. In the following year 994, on the day of Pentecost, he consecrated S. Odilo, Abbot of Cluny. To Wilenco, an illustrious man, he made a precaria of certain properties of St. Stephen and St. Mary of Besançon. He added Chisciacum to his Church by the gift of Theodrada, an illustrious matron. The illustrious deeds of Archbishop Leutaldus: Likewise two Churches dedicated to St. Maurice in the County of Amous; one in the village of Gradiacum, the other in the countryside of Pontiliacum, which even today retain the name of their Patron: the former in the village of Gradiacum, called Gray-la-Ville, a quarter of an hour's journey from the fortress of Gradiacum: and it was the mother Church of the fortress of Gradiacum, which thereafter, when it grew into a town, now has its own parish Church, distinguished by the title of Blessed Mary Our Lady.

[144] his confusion with Count Leutaldus. But Pontiliacum, commonly Pontalie, has two Churches; one of St. Maurice, on the left bank of the Saône, among the Sequani; the other of St. John, on the right bank of the same river, among the Lingones. But I do not know whether it is skillfully and for a certain reason, or by a corruption of the common people, that the fortress which in ancient times was called Pontiliacus, in more recent ages was called Pons scissus (the split bridge), as if from the Frankish tongue Pont-taille: of which title there was a most illustrious family among the Burgundians, propagated from the Counts of Champagne through Odo of Champagne, an exile; which, by the failure of males, having in our century devolved upon women, has now passed into the appellations of allied families. But these records of Leutaldus are of a most noble Count, who, for the remedy of the soul of his Lord Hugh, the renowned Marquis-Count, conferred the two Churches we have mentioned upon St. Stephen of Besançon, in the year of Christ 951, the 12th of King Conrad, in the ninth indiction: and he opened the founts whence both the County of Sequanian Burgundy arose, and the Series of its hereditary Counts is derived; indeed also of the Lords of Salins and the Counts of Mâcon and of Vienne, and even of some of Chalon: which it may now suffice to have noted, the treatment of so great a matter being reserved for a separate Dissertation; although we have here prefaced a very brief Catalogue of the Lords of Salins, disputing, in chapter 2 of the Claudian Illustrations, whether the lineage of S. Claudius was propagated to the Lords of Salins, who for nearly the last seven centuries presided over that lordship.

§ IV. The Bishops of the 11th century: where much is said of the threefold Hugh, and of Gaufredus of Lyon.

[145] L. Hector acquired for St. Stephen the Chapel of S. Justinus of Camburniacum, from the rescripts of Pope Leo IX and the Emperor Henry II, given in the year 1049. He died on the 6th day before the Kalends of November, on which day he is called in the Necrology of Luxeuil, "Hector, Archbishop of Chrysopolis, everywhere a good helper of Luxeuil."

[146] LI. Bertaldus, a pseudo-bishop; intruded, but not received.

[147] LII. Walterius received and held Hugh, his future successor, renewed by the water of holy Baptism, as Hugh himself reports in a certain diploma. The miracle of S. Agapitus M. Besides this, he was thoroughly cured from a difficult illness by S. Agapitus the Martyr, whose head lay hidden buried in the basilica of St. Stephen: and thence he began to restore and enlarge the building of St. Stephen, which was tottering with age: but, departing from life in the year 1030, on the 4th day before the Nones of October, he transmitted the completion of that building to his successor.

[148] LIII. Hugh, surnamed Salinarius, or of Salins, born of his father Humbert, Lord of Salins, and of Hermenburga, The illustrious lineage of the 53rd, Hugh: daughter of Lambert (as Rudolf, King of Burgundy, says in a diploma given in the year of Christ 1028, the 33rd of his reign) sprung from a nobler seed, and praised by the heralds of good fame; he was first a Canon of Besançon, and Chaplain of Rudolf, King of the Burgundians: then commendatory Abbot of St. Paul of Besançon after Albericus: at last ordained Archbishop of Besançon on the seventh of November, on a Sunday, in the year 1031, he presided for 40 years, up to the year 1071, in which he ceased to live on the 6th day before the Kalends of August. In the old codex of St. Stephen, concerning his consecration I read thus: "On the 7th day before the Ides of November, the Ordination of Hugh the Archbishop." He afterward received the Pallium from Pope Benedict IX, on the 15th day of the month of April, he was not consecrated by Pope Leo IX: in the V indiction, in the year of Christ 1037, the 5th of the pontificate of Benedict, the 11th of the Emperor Conrad. Therefore, as for what Symphorianus Champerius reports in the Catalogue of the Bishops of Toul, in the case of Bruno the 35th (who was Pope Leo IX), and some others, that Hugh was consecrated by the same Pope Leo IX in the Church of Toul, this can by no means be established, unless you understand it only of him as that Bishop of Toul, and not yet as Pope. For Bruno was created Bishop of Toul in the year 1026, five years before the ordination of Hugh I: but he began to be Pope Leo IX from the year 1049, when Hugh had already been Archbishop for eighteen years.

[149] From an old parchment, written in the time of Hugh the third; but he in his time consecrated the altar of St. Stephen: "In the second year of Pope Leo the Ninth, the altar of Blessed Stephen was consecrated at Besançon, namely in the nineteenth year of Hugh the first." This consecration was made on the 5th day before the Nones of October, in the year of Christ 1050; not, however, in the year 1028, as Vesontio has it from a certain record of John Bannelet, Apostolic Notary: whose hallucination even breathed upon the Italia Sacra of Ferdinand Ughelli, as we noted in the Sammarthani; but more accurately in the Proofs of the History of Tournus, page 358. From the same ancient parchment, Hugh I sat for 40 years. He therefore who, as I have already said, had been consecrated in the year 1031, on the seventh day of November, flew up forty years after, namely in 1071, on the 6th day before the Kalends of August, to the rewards of a life well spent.

[150] Hugh was illustrious no less for many things excellently done than for his noble lineage: although he was not of

the stock of the Counts of Burgundy, nor did he have a brother named Remundus, a Count in Spain, as Albericus says in his Chronicle under the year 1032, but he himself died in the year 1071, which for the greater part fell within the time of Hugh the first. For although the family of the old Lords of Salins was derived from the ancient Counts of Burgundy, and returned to it, through Maura or Moreta, daughter and heiress of Walcherius the third Lord of Salins of that name, betrothed to Girardus of the Counts of Burgundy; yet in the very age of Hugh I the Archbishop it was distinct from the family of the Counts. Bertoldus of Constance, in the Appendix to the Chronicle of Hermann, anticipates the death of Hugh I by a whole five years; for he says under the year 1066: "Hugh, Archbishop of Besançon, died, to whom a Canon of the same Church, elected by the Brethren, is substituted by the King." A stumbling-block to him, if I am not mistaken, were the transcript records at St. Paul's; which, that they may be emended, see in the case of Hugh the second, the immediate successor of the first.

[151] a benefactor of the church of St. Benignus of Dijon. In the Chronicle of St. Benignus, whose Author, a native of Salins, lived in the time of this Hugh his fellow-citizen, chapter 98, "Hugh," he says, "Archbishop of the See of Chrysopolis, a very familiar friend of his (namely of Abbot Halinardus), gave a church situated in the burg called Salins, which his parents had built from the foundations: and it is consecrated in honor of the holy Martyrs Symphorianus and Agatha, and the holy Confessor Anatolius rests therein. The donation of this place he laid upon the altar of St. Benignus, about to celebrate Masses there on the birthday of the Martyr himself: and in the presence of all the people who had gathered, he bound by the bond of excommunication whoever should withdraw that place from the dominion of the Abbot and Monks of Dijon. This donation was made in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand thirty-seven, in the fifth indiction; in the sixth year of his Episcopate." If the sixth year of the Episcopate of Hugh, on the birthday of S. Benignus, on the Kalends of November, was of Christ 1037, certainly the first year of the same, on the Kalends of November, was 1032. Rightly; for the 1st of November of the year 1032 was still reckoned the first year of Hugh, consecrated in the year 1031 on the seventh day of November. Here the inscribed fifth indiction was reckoned from the Birth of Christ, the perpetual Companion of the year of Christ: concerning which kind of Indictions we have noted elsewhere. Of the other deeds of this Hugh you will read much in Part 2 of Vesontio: upon which light will be shed by the records brought forth by us in the Proofs of this work: than which kind of testimonies none in history is either more sacred or more certain.

[152] Concerning the Bishops, and the Abbots or Abbesses ordained in his time, an ancient codex offered these things, which it may be pleasant to have read in passing.

"They promise subjection and obedience to the Church of Besançon, in the presence of the Lord Archbishop Hugh.

Lucia, now to be ordained Abbess of Faverney, according to the precept of S. Benedict." The Prelates ordained under him.

[153] From Hugh I, I do not depart before I have restored to him his place in the Synod of Autun, He took part in the Synod of Autun of which Hugh the monk makes mention in the Life of S. Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, in these very words: "To wondrous things I subjoin more wondrous, which I know to have been proved by authentic men reporting them. These indeed are reported by Gaufredus of Mont-Saint-Vincent, and Rainaldus of Autun, who are still present. Robert, Duke of Burgundy, was burdening Haganon, Bishop of Autun, with excessive infestation, and Burgundy was everywhere laboring under various incursions of robbers. For this reason the Bishops—Gaufredus of Lyon, Hugh of Besançon, Accardus of Chalon, and Drogo of Mâcon—gathered at Autun, and asked the aforesaid Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, a father of great counsel, to come. There was present a copious multitude of illustrious men, an infinite people flowed together, supplicating for peace with unwearied cries. The Duke himself arriving—nay, the tyrant—entered Autun; but with malignant arrogance he refused to take part in the assembly. But Father Hugh, stirred by the fervor of charity, approached the tyrant: whom, vehemently rebuking, while all marveled, he led with him like a most gentle sheep. when S. Hugh of Cluny compelled a demon to leave the assembly. But the Bishops supplicating that Father Hugh would speak on behalf of making peace, with the crowds on all sides falling silent, and hanging upon his mouth, he thus spoke: 'Those who seek peace, who love God, let them hear us, let them act with us. But he who is not a son of peace, who is not of God but is an adversary, to this one I command, on the part of the Almighty, that he go out from us, and do not harm the divine work.' Scarcely had he finished speaking, when behold, a certain man, tall in stature, fierce in face, going out with many following, disappeared. There was not, in so great a multitude of men, anyone who knew any of those going out. Each marveled, all were astounded. To those asking one another about these things, there was nothing else to answer, except that, at the Saint's interdiction, the demons had visibly gone out, and, having gone out, had vanished together from the crowds. These things having been thus driven away, the preaching of the Saint soon had so great efficacy that, at his bidding, the Duke himself pardoned the killers the death of his son, and the Church received peace. O blessed man, whose presence Satan could not bear, whose command, unwilling, he obeyed! A wondrous thing indeed, but heaped up with a higher miracle. For as long as in that assembly the holy man fully taught holy things, like a white dove it appeared present over his head. Those to whom it was given to see this glorified God; for not all merited to see this glory. Stephen, Archpresbyter of Parricejum, under every assertion, likewise testified that he, though unworthy, had seen it."

[154] in the year, not 1072, nor 1055, Most have assigned this Synod to the year of Christ 1072; whence also they thought Hugh, the Archbishop of Besançon who took part in it, to be the second of that name; whereas he was the first, as I shall presently show. Labbe, in his Synopsis of the Councils, assigned it to the year 1055. I think I have detected its true epoch, from what Hugh the monk says, that in that Synod it was brought about, at the exhortation of S. Hugh the Abbot, that Duke Robert pardoned the killers of his son the death, and the Church received peace. This son of Robert was Hugh, concerning whom the Chronicle of Auxerre thus speaks, which is found in Labbe, Volume 1 of the New Library, page 293, under the year 1057: "Hugh, son of Duke Robert, set fire to the village of St. Brice: and there perished within the church men and women with infants, to the number of 110. And in the same year he himself was killed." The Chronicle adds, in the following year 1058: "By a clandestine irruption the fortress of St. Germain was captured by the soldiers of Duke Robert and of Count Theobald: who, having entered, terrified by a divine nod, went out as quickly as possible: and this within the venerable days of Lent." To this very well-reputed Chronicle the records of the inauguration of King Philip I are opposed, in which Hugh, son and Legate of the Duke of Burgundy, is read to have taken part in that solemnity on the day of Pentecost in the year 1059: therefore that man had not been killed two years before. But here Du Chesne and the Sammarthani not undeservedly wish their trust to be kept to the Chronicle of Auxerre, and the antiquarian to be noted, who, for the single letter H., designating Henry, son of Duke Robert, still surviving, took Hugh, and wrote it out at length, with no slight detriment to historical truth.

[155] Duke Robert, therefore, intending to avenge the killing of his son, whose certain authors he did not know, ranged through Burgundy plundering, wherever suspicion bore him. Agano, Bishop of Autun, felt his own disasters and those of his people: but 1058. he called to a Synod his fellow-provincials, Gaufredus the Metropolitan of Lyon, Accardus of Chalon, and Drogo of Mâcon the Bishops; also Hugh, Archbishop of Lyon, a man of great name. But the chief strength of this Council lay with Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, whose sister Duke Robert had joined to himself in matrimony: for by his courtesy and the odor of his sanctity he was so soothed and appeased that he remitted the injury of his slain son, and restored peace to Burgundy. The time of this Synod was (most probably) the autumn of the year 1058, beyond which Hugh I held the See of Besançon for more than twelve years.

[156] Concerning Gaufredus, Archbishop of Lyon, a difficulty remains, Gaufredus of Lyon is the same as Humbertus: from the fact that he is reckoned in no ancient Catalogues. But (as I at least judge) he is reckoned in all, but under the name of Humbertus. For from the brief Chronicle of St. Benignus appended to the paschal Cycles, on the death of Halinardus, Archbishop of Lyon, who ended his life at Rome in the year of Christ 1052, there succeeded in the Archbishopric Humbertus, and in the Abbey of St. Benignus John, then Abbot of Fécamp. Furthermore, to this same Humbertus, Archbishop of Lyon, were given by Pope Gregory VII Epistles 36 and 76 of Book I, and Epistle 15 of Book II, in the years of Christ 1073, 74, and 75. Wherefore, he who in the intermediate time took part in that Synod of Autun as Archbishop of Lyon was the same Humbertus: who nevertheless is there called Gaufredus; as also in Nicholas of Aragon in the ancient deeds of the Roman Pontiffs: and in Hildebert, in the Life of S. Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, toward the end: which holy Abbot, to be called Humbertus Gaufredus; that he might show, even as he was dying, how vigilant and solicitous he had been concerning the watches of the sheep committed to him, with such words as he could announced that the Anniversary of Archbishop Gaufredus and of Abbot Guido was at hand: signifying that the due benefits ought to be paid to the departed Brethren. S. Hugh died on the 3rd day before the Kalends of May; moreover, the day of death of Humbertus, Archbishop of Lyon, is inscribed in the Necrology of St. Stephen of Lyon on the 3rd day before the Ides of May. No doubt therefore remains that the same Archbishop was of two names, Gaufredus by family, Humbertus by Baptism: of whose See we have three continuous years at the least above twenty, namely from the year 1052 to 1075.

[157] But concerning him again another difficulty arises, from the Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny, wrongly confused with Robert his Simoniac successor, who, re-reading the Synod celebrated at Autun in the year 1077, says: "On the fifth day, because the See of Lyon, Humbertus the Simoniac having been expelled and made a Monk in the regions of the Jura, was vacant of a Prelate, there was elected, from the side of the Lord of Langres, Gebuinus the Archdeacon, a man graced with the probity of his morals, that he might be set over the Church of Lyon." And yet in Humbertus, of whom we have spoken, there appears no trace of the Simoniac stain, but rather many things excellently done through the 23 years of his See. By what deed, therefore, was he convicted of simony by Hugh of Die, Legate of the Apostolic See, and cast down from the episcopate? We have seen in the Manuscript codex of St. Stephen of Lyon, between the Martyrology and the Necrology, a Catalogue of the Pontiffs of the Church of Lyon, written about five hundred years ago, in which, between Humbertus the successor of Halinardus, and Gibuinus, a certain Robert is inserted. We are of the opinion that this is that very predecessor of Gibuinus who was made guilty of simony, after his deposition a Monk of the Jura, and clothed with the monastic habit in the Jura monastery of St. Eugendus, for whom, in Hugh of Flavigny, whether by the slip of the author or the yawning of the copyist, Humbertus has crept in.

[158] I add that the Chronicle of Bèze seems to have spoken of this very Robert, where it mentions Simon, a royal youth, son of Count Rudolf, who sought the Jura monastery of St. Eugendus in the year of Christ 1077, as we shall demonstrate at greater length in another work, in a special treatise. "He had sent before him (says the Chronicler of Bèze) two most illustrious men, and indeed a most praised one. Lord Rudolf and Lord Franco: but with him he led Lord Robert, Lord Arnulf, and Lord Warnerius."

"All these, both most distinguished according to the lineage of the world, and most noble according to the Lord, afterward offered themselves as a holocaust to the Lord." You see that everything here agrees; the name, the time, the monasticism at St. Eugendus; but also the distinction of lineage: for who would doubt that that Robert, raised by simony to the cathedra of Lyon, was born of a noble family, since in those times dignities of this kind scarcely fell to any but the sons of Princes and Nobles? On which account they were even more suspected of simony, because they were commonly thought to attain to those summits rather by the favor of their kinsmen and by wealth than by their own merit. These things being premised, I take no account of Albericus, who, against the faith of all the more ancient writers, wrote that a certain Philip was the immediate successor to Halinardus in the archbishopric of Lyon, as the Sammarthani report in Volume I of their Gallia Christiana.

[159] Hugh II before the Episcopate a Notary LIV. Hugh II of Montfaucon: for this surname Pope Calixtus II attributes to him, in the Bull by which he confirms to the Church of St. John the Evangelist of Besançon its goods and privileges on the 15th day before the Kalends of March, in the XIII indiction, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1120, the second of his Pontificate. That this man was a Notary before the Episcopate is shown, in the Chronicle of Bèze, by the letters of Pontius, Lord of Beaujeu, given in the year 1083, "Hugh, from a Notary, governing the archbishopric of the Church of Besançon." He sat for 15 years according to the old parchment, written in the time of his successor Hugh the third; and in the end he was a Monk, the Monastery of St. Vincent having been founded. namely from the year 1071 to 1086, in which he departed from life on the 4th day before the Kalends of October; for thus the Necrology of St. Paul speaks of him: "On the 4th day before the Kalends of October died Hugh, Archbishop and Monk." But because he built for the Benedictines a monastery at the basilica of St. Vincent, in which he was also buried, there is a conjecture that he, in his last illness (as many of the Nobles were once wont to do), was clothed in the monastic habit of S. Benedict, and was buried in it, so that he could be reckoned a Monk: for he could scarcely have been a Monk before the Episcopate, who was created Archbishop from a Notary or public Chancellor.

[160] While still Elect, and not yet constituted Archbishop, in the year of Christ 1072 Dionysian, toward the end (as it seems) of the month of July, or at the beginning of August, he met at Speyer Henry IV, King of Germany, where, by the intervention of Agnes his mother, he obtained a privilege for the Church of St. Paul of Besançon: whose marks of time, corrupted in the old transcript, are read thus: "In the year of the Incarnation 1067, A privilege obtained by one not yet ordained, not in the year 1067, in the IV indiction, of the ordination of Henry the 14th, of the reign the 20th." And yet it is certain, from Lambert of Hersfeld, a most accurate writer indeed, that in the Dionysian year 1072 (I had once written to the Sammarthani, 1071), "King Henry, on the birthday of St. James, met at Worms his mother Agnes the Empress, returning from the transalpine parts, where she had already stayed six or more years, instituting her life under excessive austerity, etc. And immediately, the matters for which he had come being settled, but 1072. he departed from his son." Furthermore, Henry had begun to reign on the very day of the Lord's Nativity, namely the first day of the Dionysian year 1052: but he had been ordained or crowned at Aachen on the 9th day before the Kalends of July of the year 1054. From which it appears that there should be subscribed to those records, given at Speyer (where, namely, the King had accompanied his departing mother), the year of the Incarnation 1072, of Henry's ordination the 18th, of the reign the 20th, the tenth indiction.

[3] To Hugh II there is an Epistle of the Church of Basel, for the ordination of its Elect Burchard, formerly Chamberlain of the Archbishop of Mainz, given in the year 1072. At whose request also Hugh surnamed the Burgundian assigned to the Church of St. Stephen certain slaves freed by him. The same Hugh being aware and favoring it, Hugh, lord of Treva, founded a Church in his fortress, under the patronage of St. Peter the Apostle, Certain things done by and under him: and of St. Marcellus, Martyr of Chalon, in the year of Christ 1073. In which year likewise the same Archbishop Hugh approved that Humbertus, Lord of the fortress of Medullum and of Naviliacum, and his wife Raynodis, and his brother Wicardus the Archdeacon, should confer upon the monastery of St. Marcellus the Church of St. Lawrence of the village of Pont-du-Doubs: and Pope Alexander II took the Church of St. Magdalene of Besançon into the protection of Apostolic defense.

[161] He lends money to Count Raymund for the Spanish expedition in 1092, LV. Hugh III was born of his father William the Great, Count of Burgundy, surnamed Tête-Hardie, son of Raynaldus, grandson of Otto William; and of his mother Stephania, Countess of the Allobroges; for so she is called in the Necrology of Besançon: of which word what the meaning is there will be another place for explaining. To his brother Raymund, the future ancestor of the Kings of Castile, when he was in readiness for the Spanish expedition, Hugh gave seven thousand solidi of approved coinage of denarii: and in turn Count Raymund handed over certain estates to the emoluments of his Church. We have this from the autograph records inserted in Volume 9 of the Spicilegium of d'Achery, undated indeed, but looking to the year of Christ 1092, as is gathered from Mariana, Book 10 of the History of Spain, chapter 1, and from the authors praised by him: which year 1092 is in the records of the Churches of Besançon called of Hugh the third, the seventh of his See, but the fourth of his ordination. For he had entered in the year 1086, not long after the death of Hugh II; three years after, namely in the year 1089, he had been ordained, or consecrated as Archbishop, as the old parchment of that time has it. But it seems to contradict this chronology that, in the year 1092, in the XV indiction, on the fourth day before the Nones of November, Raymund the Consul is read to have taken part in the dedication of the Church of St. Nicholas of Marthereto near Vesoul. Did he then, at the end of this very year, set out on the journey to the Spanish expedition, or rather wait for the spring time of the following year, in which Kings are wont to proceed to wars? To this I answer that it appears from the Indiction that that year of the dedication was the Dionysian 1111 deduced from the Birth of Christ, but the Gallican 1092 derived from the 25th of March or from Easter, which anticipated the Dionysian by about nine months. For the XV indiction had begun in the month of September. Therefore in the preceding month of June (for example) the XIV indiction was in course, which, according to the method of Dionysius and Bede, agreed with the Dionysian year 1091.

[2] In the second year of Hugh III, Guichardus, Archdeacon of St. Stephen, various things done under and by him: wrote his Church the heir of nearly all his goods; disclosing his maternal lineage to be derived from the Lords of Salins. The same Hugh III both fortified with privileges and enriched with abundant goods the monastery of St. Vincent, begun to be founded by his predecessor Hugh II, first setting over it Abbot Achardus, on the 5th day before the Kalends of October, in the Dionysian year 1091. In the following year 1092 he conferred upon the Church of Blessed Magdalene the altars of Boyseyres and of Sayens. In the year 1095, the Lords of Montfaucon professed themselves liegemen to him and his predecessor and successor Archbishops. Two years after, namely in the year 1097, he handed over the monastery of Vauclusotte, recovered from the hands of unjust possessors, to the Church of St. John the Evangelist: and he added the rich inheritance of Raymodis, a most noble matron, to his Church: to which he also took care that half of the tithings of the Church of Vileta should be restored.

[162] On a journey to the Holy Land, he received from his brother Stephen, Count of Burgundy, a certain benefice for the benefit of his Church, the records being written on the public highway, near the fortress of Ferrette, in the eighth indiction, and so in the year 1100. In the same indiction, he died on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. on the 6th day before the Ides of September, from the hand of Otho the Soldier he received certain goods of his Church, unjustly detained by his ancestors. In the following year 1101 he departed from life on the Ides of September, in the fifteenth year of the Archbishopric undertaken. In the archives of the Churches we have seen several Bulls of Pope Calixtus II, in which he mentions his Brother Hugh the Archbishop, who migrated to the Lord on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

§. V. The Bishops from the year 1101 to 1166: where the matter is treated of the people of Faverney, first the Abbesses, then the Abbots.

[163] LVI. Pontius, surnamed Hugh IV. For he everywhere calls himself Pontius, and is so called by Pope Paschal II, in more than one diploma, as Bishops are wont to be named by their proper names: but since his surname was Hugh, the usage prevailed among the people of Besançon that, after three Hugh Archbishops, How Pontius was called Hugh IV by the people of Besançon, he himself should be called Hugh the fourth, although in the records of St. Magdalene concerning a certain colony, Pontius, the immediate successor of the three Hughs, is plainly written. The death of Hugh the third therefore being heard—who had ended his life on the journey to Jerusalem—there is given to him as successor Pontius: who soon increased the Church of Blessed Mary Magdalene of Besançon with excellent gifts and privileges, on the third day before the Ides of January, in the X indiction, in the Dionysian year of Christ 1102, which the Notary, reckoning it deduced from Easter, makes 1101. Furthermore, in the year 1106, in the XIV indiction, he received the Pallium from Pope Paschal II, the Bull being given at the Lateran, on the day before the Kalends of January: and in the same year, on the Nones of August, he subjected the monastery of Cusance to Hunaldus, Abbot of St. Eugendus. At the beginning of the following year 1107 he handed over the Church of Vauclusotte to the Cluniacs, by a diploma which in the Library of Cluny is marked under the name of Peter, the writer having hallucinated over the single letter P.: which gift Pope Paschal II confirms, the Bull being given at the village of St. Hippolytus, of Cluniac jurisdiction, situated in the Bishopric of Mâcon, on the 6th day before the Ides of February of the same year 1107.

[164] [and, the Episcopate having been abdicated, he was made a Monk, Prior of Hautepierre,] In which year also Pontius the Archbishop, when he had assigned the altar of Useyes to the Church of Hautepierre, soon himself was made Prior of the same Church, the Archbishopric having been abdicated. This certainly is established, that, the Bishopric of Besançon then being vacant, Wido, Archbishop of Vienne, was in that very year 1107 constituted by Apostolic authority Vicar of the See of Besançon, and confirmed certain gifts conferred upon the Church of Hautepierre by Wilenco, Bishop of Sion, in favor of Pontius the Prior, in the same year. Wherefore to this administration of Wido are to be referred the Sacraments of subjection, reverence, and obedience to the holy Church of Besançon rendered, in the presence of Guido, Archbishop of Vienne, by Geraudus of Lausanne and Radulfus of Basel, the new Bishops. The death of Hugh the fourth is noted in the Necrology of Besançon on the 16th day before the Kalends of February: for although abdicated, he retained the appellation of Archbishop, even after death, among the common people.

[165] once clothed at Cluny together with his father under S. Hugh. Stop here, my Reader. I do not dismiss Pontius Hugh before I have disclosed to you my conjecture concerning his birth. In the year of Christ 1088, Wido, Count of Mâcon, was clothed in the monastic habit at Cluny under S. Hugh the Abbot, together with Wido and Pontius his sons. Upon Pontius, as is probable, S. Hugh the Abbot imposed his name, either in Confirmation (as is the custom of all Christians) or on account of his monasticism, as is the old custom of very many regular Orders. Thus he who was already Pontius by name, began to be Hugh by surname. The boy Pontius-Hugh, as once Paul at the feet of Gamaliel, so educated at the feet of Hugh the Abbot; when he had grown into a great man, Hugh the third, Archbishop of Besançon, having perished on the expedition to Jerusalem, upon his kinsman Pontius-Hugh, and of the Princes of Burgundy,

and the wishes of the Clergy and people consented. Having spent scarcely six full years in that dignity, out of love for a quieter life he abdicated, and withdrew to the little monastery of Hautepierre, about six hourly leagues from Besançon: where, constituted Prior, not long after, he subjected his Church of Hautepierre, through William of Arguel his successor in the Archbishopric, to Pontius, Abbot of Cluny, and his monastery. From which it is evident that this man was different from Pontius, Abbot of Cluny, son of the Count of Mergueil, who, from a Monk of St. Pons of Tomières, coming to Cluny not long before the death of S. Hugh, having made a new profession there, succeeded him in the office of Abbot. You have, therefore, in Pontius, the son of Wido, Count of Mâcon, both a Monk of Cluny, and a Hugh, and an Archbishop of Besançon, and finally a Prior of Hautepierre.

[166] LVII. William of Arguel. There is a castle of Arguel, set upon the summit of a hill, The illustrious deeds of William, about an hourly league from Besançon, formerly the title of a noble family: and to this William his successor Ansericus appends this surname, in a diploma on behalf of the people of Balerne, in the Dionysian year 1129, in the VII indiction. He, in the first year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1109, on the 13th day before the Kalends of March, asserted to the Church of St. Magdalene of Besançon its goods and privileges, and heaped them up by adding some of his own, both in that year 1109, and in the year of the fourth Indiction. He also composed, with counsels shared with Gancerannus, Bishop of Langres, a controversy which had arisen between the Canons of St. John of Besançon and the Monks of St. Benignus of Dijon, over the Church of Algerens and the Chapel of Loya-novella, on the 7th day before the Ides of August, in the VII indiction, in the year of Christ 1114, the fifth of his ordination: whence also the year 1110 is detected as the first of his ordination.

[167] He confirmed to Hunaldus the Abbot the Churches of St. Eugendus situated in his diocese; voluntary abdication. with the addition of the Churches of St. George in the village of Solciacum, and of St. Albinus in the village of Annoras. To Pontius, Abbot of Cluny, he assigned the Church of Hautepierre. The mint workshop which Tezelinus the Mint-master had established in his private dwelling, he transferred to the land of St. John the Evangelist, in the third year of his ordination, of Christ 1112. The same man, by the order of Pope Paschal II, restored to the Church of St. Stephen the Archdeaconry of Dole. And in his time Stephen of Montmerel wrote St. John the Evangelist the heir of his goods: the witnesses being, among others, Pontius, Bishop of Belley, and Mainerius the Dean. After nearly nine years of administration, the Archbishopric having been abdicated, he was for a long time a survivor in the Clergy of Besançon with the dignity of Archdeacon. It is wonderful, moreover, that his name is found neither in the ancient catalogues of Archbishops, nor in the Necrologies: although otherwise very many of his benefits exist toward the most religious Churches, and for his Anniversary he conferred upon the Church of Blessed John the Evangelist the altar of Vincella, in the territory of the Scodingi.

[168] LVIII. Ansericus, formerly Dean of Autun, entered in the year 1117: The various Acts of Ansericus. for we have read through two records from the archive of St. Magdalene, given in the year 1124, in the III indiction, the eighth year of his pontificate. The new Archbishop, after the Council of Dijon, which was celebrated in the year 1117, under the presidency of Wido of Vienne, Legate of the Apostolic See, reconciled Humbert, Lord of Salins, with the Monks of St. Benignus, concerning a certain revenue above Salins, on the 6th day before the Ides of May: of which matter we have treated at greater length in our Dijon Christiana. In his time Pope Calixtus II endowed the Churches of St. Paul and St. Magdalene of Besançon with excellent privileges: and to him he gave an Apostolic Brief in the year 1122, the 4th of his Pontificate, concerning the contention of the two Churches of Besançon over the prerogative of motherhood, which we have bound into the Proofs of the History of Tournus: together with another diploma of Ansericus himself on the same subject, given in the X indiction, in the year 1134, on the second weekday after the Sunday Laetare Jerusalem; which weekday then fell on the 26th day of the month of March: to which is subscribed, among very many others, Maynerius of the Black Gate.

[169] in the year 1119 and following. The same man, in the year 1122, on the Octave of the Assumption of Blessed Mary, consecrated Peter, surnamed the Venerable, as Abbot of Cluny. The same man conferred upon Aonius, Abbot of St. Eugendus, the Church of Sarroniacum: and confirmed other Churches of his diocese already acquired by the same monastery, in the years 1119 and 1129. With Raynaldus, Count of Burgundy, he reformed peace concerning royal rights, such as had existed between his predecessors and Count William, father of the third Hugh the Archbishop; and with Count Stephen, brother of the same Hugh.

[170] likewise in the year 1137 In the Dionysian year 1127, but the Gallican 1123, he consecrated a basilica for the new Ascetics, the brothers Constantine and Robert, in the Valley of St. John near Serre, on the 5th day before the Kalends of December: and he confirmed the possessions of the same in the Dionysian year 1130, the Gallican 1131: all of which afterward seem to have passed into the substance and name of the Abbey of Acey, of the diocese of Besançon, of the Cistercian Order. The same man, in the Dionysian year 1129, the Gallican 1130, confirmed to Aimo, Abbot of Balerne, part of the parish of Cognosch, and donated a part, with the assent, among others, of William of Arguel, formerly Archbishop. Then to Sibylla, Abbess of Palmes, in the Dionysian year 1131 he vindicated the Church of Villagundry. Then in the year 1132 they establish for the Church of St. Paul, Michem with the seat of the salt-cauldron, and the wrong pertaining there at Salins, from the gift of Walcherus, Lord of Salins, who in those records signifies that he was the son of Humbert, the grandson of another Walcherus. Thereafter he handed over to the Cistercians the Church of Blessed Mary of La Charité, received from the Augustinians, according to the consecration of Adalbero, Bishop of Basel, on a Sunday, the third day before the Ides of February, in the year 1134. During which times he also promoted the foundation of Lieu-Croissant, or the Abbey of the Three Kings, of the same Cistercian Order.

[171] The same man, in the year 1131, to Garlandus, Prior of St. Paul of Besançon, sanctioned laws of concord, to be kept between the regular and secular Canons of his Church. In the following year 1132, on the 15th day before the Kalends of October. In the year 1132 Pope Innocent II had introduced regular Canons of the stricter Augustinian rule into the Church of St. Paul, in the year 1131 and following. by a diploma given at Cluny, by the hands of Aimericus, Cardinal Deacon of the Holy Roman Church and Chancellor, on the third day before the Nones of February, in the X indiction, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1132, the second year of the Pontificate of Pope Innocent II; which begins, "To his beloved son Gerlandus, Prior of St. Paul": by which he forbade that anyone who would not follow the Rule of S. Augustine should be admitted to the family of Blessed Paul. Whence it came about that, gradually, over a hundred and twenty years, as the secular Canons declined, at last in the year 1252 the whole house consented to the regular institute, over which on that account Stephen of Cicons was set as the first Abbot.

[172] In the same year 1132, on the 15th day before the Kalends of October, the noble Church of Faverney, [The Abbey of the Virgins of Faverney, deserted, given in emphyteusis in the year 1132:] which in ancient times had flourished in the religion of Nuns, but then was estranged from all cultivation of religion, and deserted by its inhabitants; he handed over to Stephen, Abbot of Chaise-Dieu, and his Monks, to be inhabited and governed; in the presence and with the assent of the Advocates of the place, Raynaldus the Consul, Wido of Juncivilla and Henry his brother, Theobald of Rougemont, Humbert of Jussiacum and Louis his brother. But this monastery of Blessed Mary the Virgin of Faverney, William Simonin, Archbishop of Corinth, Suffragan of the Archbishop of Besançon, very recently, in the year 1613 on the Kalends of November, by Apostolic authority and by virtue of an Apostolic rescript, united and incorporated into the Congregation of Saints Vitonus and Hidulphus, in which the stricter observance of the Benedictine Rule flourishes.

[173] some ancient Abbesses there: As regards the ancient state of the Nuns of Faverney, I read in an ancient codex of Besançon: "I, Lucia, now to be ordained Abbess of Faverney, promise that I will perpetually render to the holy See of the Church of Chrysopolis, in the presence of the Lord Archbishop Hugh (this was Hugh I), the subjection and reverence established by the holy Fathers, and the obedience according to the precept of S. Benedict, and I confirm it with my own hand"; and below: "I, Eufemia, now to be ordained Abbess of Faverney, etc., in the presence of the Lord Archbishop Hugh," and the rest as above. To the foundation and first origin of this Monastery, among whom Detta, Sister of Abbot Wildradus, pertains what I read in the old Calendar or Necrology, which is immediately prefaced to the Manuscript Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny, in the Library of the College of Clermont, in these very words: "On the 11th day before the Kalends of November, Detta died, the sister of holy Widradus, who made the Monastery of holy Widradus of Andochius of Autun: and another sister made the Monastery of Faverney."

[174] The time can be gathered from the age of Widradus: but this is not rightly defined in the Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny, Of the Abbots of Flavigny of the 7th and 8th centuries who anticipates its true epoch by many years. For he enumerates the four first Abbots of Flavigny in this order, and with these marks of time inscribed, in the first volume of the Library of Labbe.

[175] I. Magoaldus is ordained Abbot in the time of the Emperor Maurice, the Monastery of Flavigny having first been founded, in the year of Christ 601, of Pope Gregory IX [sic]; over which Magoaldus presided for 48 years (so the Manuscript codex, for which in Labbe you will read 58, perhaps by the slip of the copyist). He died on the 9th day before the Kalends of August, in the 11th year of King Clovis II, of Christ 650.

[176] in Hugh of Flavigny the Chronology is disturbed, II. Widradus is ordained Abbot on the 11th day before the Kalends of May, in the year of Christ 651. He presided for 12 years. He died on the 5th day before the Nones of October, 663. A certain testament of Widradus was given in the first year of King Theodericus, at Semur. This Hugh interprets as the son of Childebert the Younger: and on his own adds some Chronological marks, all false; that is, the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 606, the third of the Emperor Phocas, the second after the passing of S. Gregory the Pope, the first of Savinianus his successor, Secundinus the Archbishop presiding over the Church of Lyon. He conceals, moreover, the earlier testament of the same Abbot Widradus, given in the 4th year of Chilperic: whence he ought to have gathered that the earlier testament of Widradus was given in the year of Christ 718 or 719; but the later given in the year 720 or 721, which was the first year of Theodericus IV, son of Dagobert the Younger, according to the probable opinion of Henschen; but not of Theodericus I, who was the firstborn son of Clovis the Great; nor (as Hugh asserts) of Theodericus the second, who was (as I said) the son of Childebert the younger; nor of Theodericus III, born of his father Clovis II.

[177] III. Gayronius, who is also read as called Geruinus in the old Necrology, but erroneously Gaguinus in the Analecta of Sirmond. This man Hugh says was ordained in the year of Christ 663, and died in the year 755, on the 5th day before the Nones of October, in the expedition of Pippin, whom he calls Emperor; and so that he was Abbot for ninety-two years: who, if he had been made Abbot at thirty years of age, had died at the age of 122, and in the camp of Pippin, a man of that age. Who would persuade himself of this?

[178] IV. Manasses, ordained in the year 755, died in the year 787, on the Nones of November, in the 33rd year of his ordination. From this let us ascend to the three above. Widradus made two testaments properly so called, reformed by a better reckoning. that is, records of his last will. The later was given on the 15th day before the Kalends of February, in the first year of Theodericus the fourth, which was of Christ 721. In the same year he ceased to live on the 5th day before the Nones of October.

He had presided for twelve years, and so had entered from the 11th day before the Kalends of May of the year 709. Gayronius, who succeeded Widradus, died in the year 755; from the year 721 to 755 are 34 years. For just so many years Gayronius was Abbot. Again, before Widradus, Magoaldus is said to have presided for 48 years. From the year 709 subtract 48 years, there remains the year 661. In this year of Christ 661 Magoaldus seems to have entered upon his prefecture in the Monastery of Flavigny. During these times the pious Sisters of Widradus founded the Monasteries—of St. Andochius of Autun, and of Faverney: but in what precise year, who could prophesy? This is more certain, if this our epoch is true, that the Monastery of St. Andochius of Autun cannot be taken to be that one called after St. Mary, concerning which S. Gregory, in Book XI of the Register, Epistle XI given to Thalassia or Thessalia the Abbess, which is believed to have been founded by Queen Brunhilda, with Syagrius the Bishop acting. Furthermore, just as we have from the cited Necrology of Flavigny that Detta, the sister of S. Widradus, Detta's sister Gudila, Foundress of Faverney. was foundress of the Convent of St. Andochius of Autun; so, I think, we have his sister Gudila, or Godolia, as the first mother and founder of the Monastery of Faverney, commonly called Sainte Gude: of whom mention is made in the Life of the holy Martyrs Bertharius and Athalenus, through the times of King Pippin and Wayfar, Duke of Aquitaine: because she took care that their bodies, diligently sought, should be honorably buried.

[179] whose place was devastated by the Normans, To the misfortunes of the Monastery of Faverney pertains the diploma by which King Louis (the Overseas) on the 16th day before the Kalends of March, in the 3rd year of his reign, in the XIII indiction (this is the year of Christ 940), at the prayers of Count Hugh, gives to Adalardus and his wife Addila and their heirs two Abbeys, situated in the district of Portes, namely Faverney and Offonis-Villa; with the condition added, that after their decease, to that which they are known to have been hitherto, the same Abbeys should revert without diminution or deterioration. They had, namely, been despoiled by the Normans or by the Hungarians, and all but deserted by the Regulars: and therefore their estates, lest they should be wholly devastated, empty and uncultivated, were not imprudently entrusted to laymen, to return at some time, at a more convenient time, to the Church. Have these records from the archive of St. Benignus.

[180] "In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Louis, by the grace of God King. If we lend our ears to the fitting petitions of our faithful, we maintain the customs of our predecessor Kings, and render them more familiar to our Highness. it had also been given by King Louis in the year 940 Wherefore let it be known to all our faithful, both present and future, that the renowned Count Hugh came into our presence, and besought that we should give certain Abbeys to a certain faithful man of ours, named Adalardus, and to his wife Addila, and their heirs, situated in the district of Portes: of which monasteries, one is called Faverney, dedicated in honor of S. Mary; the other is called Offonis-Villa, dedicated also itself in honor of S. Leodegarius the Martyr. Favoring therefore most willingly the prayers of the aforesaid glorious Count Hugh, we grant to the same, to seculars in emphyteusis. to Adalardus and his wife Addila, with all integrity, the aforesaid Abbeys: that is, Faverney with all its appurtenances, namely with churches, villages, bondservants of both sexes, fields, meadows, woods, waters and watercourses, mills, with what is acquired and to be sought. St. Leodegarius likewise whole and entire, likewise with all things pertaining to it. So only that, by this precept of our Highness, which we ordered to be made and given to the same, as long as Adalardus himself, and his aforesaid wife, and their heirs shall live, they may hold and possess the assigned Abbeys: but after their decease at some time, to that which they are known to have been hitherto, the same Abbeys should revert without diminution or deterioration. And that this our statute may remain the firmer, we ordered this precept thence to be made for them, and to be marked with our ring. The sign of the lord and most glorious ✠ King Louis. Odilo the notary, in the stead of Heiricus the Bishop and chief Chancellor, has recognized it. Given on the 16th day before the Kalends of March, the most glorious King Louis reigning in the 3rd year, in the XIII indiction. Done at the village of Gurziacum upon the river Maderna."

[181] The Abbots of Faverney of the 13th century In the chests of the Archbishopric of Besançon I read that the Abbots of Faverney—Oliverius in the year 1294 by Odo, William in 1326 by Vitalis, John in 1335 by Hugh—were ordained by the Archbishops of Besançon, the oath of faith and obedience having first been rendered according to custom. Ansericus died on the 12th day before the Kalends of May, 1134; deservedly called by his successor Humbertus "a most reverend Man."

[182] LIX. Humbertus sat for 27 years. He entered in the year 1134; Certain Acts of Humbertus, whence it is that the most ample privilege, with which he favored the Church of St. Vincent of Besançon, exists, given in the year 1140, in the seventh year of his Ordination. The Churches of St. Peter of Tromarey and of St. Maurice of Brucey, in the year 1135, in the XIV indiction, he gave to Manegaldus, Dean of the Church across the bridge of Besançon, of St. Mary Magdalene, the Apostle of the Apostles. In the Dionysian year 1138, but the Gallican 1129, in the I indiction, on the second day of the month of March, he confirmed to Peter of St. Stephen and to his Church their goods and privileges. In the same year 1138 he gave to Brochardus, Prior of Vergiacum, the Church of Ladon, on this condition: that the Prior of Ladon should come to Besançon every year, with two Brothers and two copes, on the day of the Revelation of St. Stephen, to celebrate the feast there.

[183] In the year 1142 he asserted to the aforesaid Church of St. Stephen the tithes of Vileta. In the Dionysian year 1146, on the 3rd day before the Ides of April, in which, according to the Gallic custom, the year is begun 9 months earlier. he pledged his part of the Besançon mint to the Canons of St. John, for three thousand solidi lent to him, in the persecution which he had suffered from Raynaldus and William, Counts of Burgundy. And in the same year and day, he gave them as a gift one farmstead at the entrance of the cloister, and a vineyard at Bergilias situated in Sessel. But since in the autograph records the year 1147 is subscribed, with the ninth Indiction; from this Indiction we detect that the year is here inscribed as deduced from the 25th of March, or from Easter, according to the old custom of the Gallican Church, which therefore anticipates the Dionysian by about nine months: which we have also observed in very many diplomas of those times, especially in those given by Pope Calixtus II and Archbishop Humbertus.

[184] The Dedications of the altars at Besançon by Eugenius III The same Humbertus assenting, Richard of Montfaucon gave to the Church of St. Stephen the village of Villiacum, on the day before the Ides of July, in the Dionysian year 1147, in the X indiction. In the following year 1148, on the 3rd day before the Nones of May, Pope Eugenius III consecrated the high altar of the Church of St. John: concerning which the proper Martyrology speaks thus: "This altar was consecrated in honor of the Lord's Resurrection, and of the most holy Mother of God Mary, and of Blessed John the Apostle and Evangelist, and of the holy Martyrs Stephen, Vincent, Ferreolus, and Ferrucius, by the hands of the Lord Pope Eugenius the third, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand one hundred forty-eight, on the 3rd day before the Nones of May"; and in another place: "On the 3rd day before the Nones of May, at Besançon, the Dedication of the greater Church of St. John the Evangelist, by the hands of the Lord Pope Eugenius III, with the Archbishops assisting and cooperating—Humbertus of Besançon, Balduinus of Caesarea, Henry of York: and the Bishops Hymarus, Cardinal of Tusculum, Hugh of Auxerre, Arnaldus of Austria Aoste?, the threefold dedication of the same church. Navarro of Cantium, Crisandinus of Mantua." From the Ordo Canonicorum (which is commonly called the Book of S. Protadius, because it was begun by him, though it is nevertheless interpolated by later persons) the Dedication of the Church of St. John the Evangelist was anciently celebrated on the 11th day before the Kalends of March. Then, when it had been restored in a more august form, Hugh I the Archbishop consecrated it by solemn rite on the 9th day before the Kalends of October. The third and last Dedication, by Pope Eugenius III, is not mentioned in that old Ordo Canonicorum, although, the two prior ones being set aside, it alone is now celebrated throughout the whole diocese, by the mandate of the same Pontiff, which was given at Lausanne, on the 12th day before the Kalends of June, 1148.

[185] To Ado II, Abbot of St. Eugendus, Humbertus conferred the Church of Sourosc, The Consecration of Landericus, Bishop of Lausanne. and confirmed other Churches of his diocese in the Dionysian year 1150. He consented that the Canons of St. Stephen should give the Church of Pins to Raymbaldus, Prior of Bellefontaine, in the year 1152. With Odo of Champagne, grandson of Raynaldus and William, Counts of Burgundy, he made an agreement concerning the censuaries of the lordship of Quingey, in the Dionysian year 1154, in the II indiction. The Church of Assum with its appurtenances, vindicated from the hand of a certain Narduinus, he gave to the Church of Bellefontaine in the year 1155. To Peter the Abbot and the Church of St. Vincent he gave the Church of Tisia in the year 1160, in the VIII indiction. And in the same year he consecrated Landericus of Durnae, formerly Dean of St. John of Besançon, as Bishop of Lausanne, with Ardulcio of Geneva and William of Belley the Bishops assisting and cooperating.

[186] Of this consecration there is mention in the records of Archbishop Humbertus concerning the division of the rights of the Church of Blessed Mary Magdalene, between the Dean and the Canons: which records are transcribed by Gerardus, Archbishop of Besançon, in the month of August of the year 1221, and are noted as given in the year 1160, in the II indiction. But since to the year 1160 the eighth Indiction corresponds, and to the second Indiction the year 1154; in the year 1160, I once thought that, from the Indiction, the year of Christ should be emended, and for 1160 should be restored 1154. But, the question being brought back to the anvil, I considered first that, where the Indiction does not agree with the year of Christ, the hallucination of the scribe should be presumed rather in the Indiction, which is more abstruse, than in the year of Christ, which is commonly more known, as Covarruvias warns from the more ancient writers. Then, in the records of Bellefontaine, I found Landricus subscribed as still Dean in the year 1155, in the third Indiction: whence it is certainly concluded that he was not ordained Bishop in the year 1154. not 1154:

[187] Finally, in the Manuscript Catalogue of the Bishops of Lausanne which is in my possession, I read in express words that Landricus was consecrated in the year 1160: and that to him there had departed Blessed Amedeus, since his predecessor Amedeus had died in the year 1159: when he had been Bishop for 14 years; he had been ordained on the feast day of St. Agnes, the 21st of January, which was a Sunday in the year 1145: and he had died in 1159, on the 27th of September: which things indeed we handed over to the Sammarthani to be published in the series of the Bishops of Lausanne: but in their edition an error crept in from the Typographer, when it says: "In the Manuscript Catalogue he is noted as originating from a castle which is called Costa, near St. Antony." For I would not suppose the birthplace of Blessed Amedeus to be Costa, which is about midway between Vienne and Grenoble (for since this place is distant by several leagues from St. Antony, his homeland. it could not be said to be near St. Antony), but rather the place which the map of Dauphiné calls Chastellar, which is midway between St. Antony and the river Isère, and almost contiguous to St. Antony. Wherefore I think it should be read: "Originating from a castle which is called Chastellar, near St. Antony." These things in passing concerning the birthplace of Blessed Amedeus, who it is more certain was a citizen of heaven, from wherever upon this earth he had his origin at a point of time.

[188] Humbertus, still in the year of Christ 1161, in the IX indiction, conferred many goods upon the Church of St. John; which, The cession of Humbertus, now an old man he says, "with the milk of its benefit, nourished me as a boy

placed me, when advanced, in the Pontifical Cathedra, and sustained me as an old man with the staff of worthy compassion." Among other things, he subjected eight Churches to it, of which two, of Tyl and of Pontereyntru, he deputed to his own Anniversary. He himself, not long after, the Archbishopric having been abdicated, withdrew to St. Paul's into the rule and habit: whence in the Necrology of his Church it is written: "On the Kalends of October died Humbertus the Archbishop, our Canon, buried here." That he was still living in the year 1165 we learn from the records of Pontia, Countess of Burgundy, on behalf of the maidens' monastery of Palmes, at which he was present, still by title, but not by office, Archbishop. Powerful in favor with the Emperor Frederick I, he obtained the royal protection of his Church. He approved, Other Acts. that Sibylla, Abbess of Palmes, should grant a certain revenue of salt of hers, in the village of St. Hippolytus, to Christian, Abbot of Lucelle. He aided the foundation of the Cistercian monastery of Roseriae: and was the first to institute, in a place of his diocese, Ulnens, Nuns of the Order of Tart, and of the Cistercian rule, who in our age, transferred to Dole, retain the ancient name of the Ulnenses; just as those transferred from old Tart to Dijon are even today called the Tartenses. A grave controversy of his Church with the Bishop of Lausanne he allowed to be settled by Orliebus, Bishop of Basel, Legate of the Apostolic See, in the year of Christ 1154.

§. VI. The remaining Prelates through the 12th century.

[189] LX. Waltherius II, son of Hugh II, brother of Odo II, and uncle of Hugh III, the Dukes of Burgundy, devoted to the Clergy from adolescence, is subscribed as Archdeacon in the records by which Duke Odo his brother restored to the people of St. Benignus the village of Villaria set upon the river Ouche, with no mark of time inscribed. Afterward Dean of the Church of St. Stephen of Besançon, in the year 1152, in the XV indiction, he gave to Raymbaldus, Prior of Bellefontaine, the Church of Pins, with his Chapter consenting. Then, called the successor of Humbertus, he delivered a sentence on behalf of the monastery of Bellevaux in the year 1162, calling himself Elect of Besançon. Furthermore, when in the following year 1163 Godefridus of Langres, the Bishopric having been abdicated, had withdrawn into his Clairvaux, Waltherius obtained his place: for thus the brief Chronicle of St. Benignus appended to the paschal Cycles has it under that year: "1163, Godefridus relinquished the Bishopric, Waltherius II passes to the Bishopric of Langres, and Galtherius, son of Duke Hugh, was made Bishop": then under the year 1179: "Walterius, Bishop of Langres, died on the 6th day before the Ides of January: Manasses succeeded." After many things excellently done in the Bishopric, he founded the Charterhouse of Lugny, becoming a Carthusian there, and there buried.

[190] The occasion for him to migrate back from the Empire into the kingdom seems to have been, lest he should be involved in the schism of the Emperor Frederick, and lest he should be divided from the side of Louis VII, King of the Franks, on account of the Frederician schism: and of his brother Odo, Duke of Burgundy, who stood by the legitimate Pope Alexander III. "In that year 1162," says Albericus in his Chronicle, "the Emperor Frederick, invited by the King of the Franks that, the schism being removed, firm peace might be restored to the Roman Church, convoked a Council in the territory of Besançon, at the village of Dole upon the river Saône, on the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. But in so great an assembly of Kings, Dukes, Counts, Archbishops, for the extinguishing of which Bishops, and Abbots, by the counsel and instigation of the Cistercians, the King of France being turned away from the Emperor; and they, without effect, the same and even graver discord still remaining, returned to their own."

[191] labor had been spent in vain, An error has here been made, whether by the Author or by the copyist, in the place of the Council, or of the assembly of nearly the whole Christian world for removing the schism. For Dole is distant from the Saône by about three hourly leagues. But the place of that assembly was not Dijon, as Platina thought; not Ledo, commonly Lons-le-Saunier, as Vignier suspects in his Library; not Besançon, not at Dole, as it seemed to Albert of Stade, and to Krantz in Book 6 of his Saxony, chapter 18; but a town set upon the Saône, commonly Laône, "Lovigenna" in Hugh of Poitiers in the history of Vézelay, at Dijon or at Besançon, "Latona" in Fredegar chapter 58: in which place he says King Dagobert resided for some days, and there ordered Bernulfus, the uncle of his brother Aribert, to be killed: and chapter 90, where it is reported concerning Flaocatus, the slayer of the Patrician Villebadus, that, seized by a fever at Chalon, and thence hastening up the Saône to Latona, he breathed out his soul on the journey, on the eleventh day after the perpetrated killing of Villebadus, and was buried in the basilica of St. Benignus of Dijon.

[192] Vignier, in the cited place, reports a diploma of the Emperor Frederick, by which he vindicates the Bishopric of Geneva, of Arducius, from the invasions of Duke Bertold of Zähringen and of Amedeus, Count of Geneva: but at Latona in the year 1162, in a General assembly there. given on the 7th day before the Ides of September, 1162, in the X indiction, in the tenth year of his reign, the seventh of his Empire, in the archbishopric of Besançon, "at the Bridge of Laône, where nearly all," he says, "the Princes of our Empire had gathered." The summons of the Emperor Frederick to Eraclius, Archbishop of Lyon: "By the counsel of all our Princes we have appointed a colloquy, on the 4th day before the Kalends of September, at the Bridge of Laône, between Dijon and Dole": and his epistle to Matthew, Duke of Lorraine: "On the 4th day before the Kalends of September, namely on the day of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, we have determined to celebrate a Council upon the river Saône." Godefridus the Monk of Cologne in his Chronicle, under the year 1162: "Therefore, a general Synod having been appointed in the town which is called Ladona, upon the river Saône, in the bishopric of Besançon, the Emperor was present with Pope Victor, and many Archbishops, Bishops, and Abbots, on the Beheading of St. John the Baptist." Ladona, or Latona, or Laona, was once a double town, on each bank of the Saône: that which was on the left bank, in our age, has been demolished and destroyed: but that which survives on the right bank is today called not Latona purely, but St. John of Latona.

[193] LXI. Herbertus, intruded and wicked. The counsel of celebrating the assembly at Latona having been disturbed, the Emperor Frederick, more aroused against Alexander III and his supporters, to Waltherius, the Elect of Besançon, whether expelled or voluntarily abdicating, In place of Walter, the schismatic Herbertus is substituted: that he might pass to the insignia of Langres, substituted Herbertus: who was also conjointly, by the Antipope Victor, constituted Legate in the court of the Emperor. We have seen several records made by him in the years 1163, 4, 5, and 6; in which, and in the seals appended to them, is written, "Herbertus, Elect of Besançon, Legate of the Imperial court." In the year 1165, while only Elect, he asserted to himself the Abbey of Berhiliae, and the records of the exchange, from the Emperor Frederick: and he confirmed her rights also to Petronilla, Abbess of Château-Chalon.

[194] Furthermore, in that year 1166, he is read as no longer Elect, but by full right Archbishop, consecrated first in the year 1166: in the golden Bull of the Emperor Frederick given to the Church of Vienne, at Besançon on the 16th day before the Kalends of August, in the year of the Incarnation 1166, in the XIV indiction, in the year of the Emperor Frederick of the reign 14, of the Empire 12, as we read at Vienne in the ancient parchments, whose summary is published in the Library of Fleury, and in the Antiquities of Vienne of John le Lievre: but corrupted in the year of Christ, which is noted by them as 1176; whereas it was 1166, as is evident from the Indiction, and from the marks of the years of the Empire and Reign: and he is written by them as Ilbertus, who was Herbertus. Add that in the year 1176 Herbertus was not living, but to him, who had died already six years before, Ebrardus had succeeded. And it is to be noted that in that Caesarean diploma Herbertus, as being a Papal Legate, is named for honor's sake before Drogo, Archbishop of Lyon.

[195] In the year 1168 he sanctioned a certain concord between the Monks of La Charité and Pontius of Roche. In certain charters of the Church of St. Paul it is written, "Herbertus by the grace of God humble Archbishop of the See of Besançon," in the year 1169 on the Kalends of April, in the II indiction, and 1170, on the 4th day before the Ides of April, in the III indiction. In the sacristy of St. John there survives a Cross, of pure gold most excellently worked, the gift of Archbishop Herbertus, whose name it also bears: but he himself (which was the chief thing) did not likewise offer himself to God, a man of lost life, and the instigator of schism in the Church beyond many others: His mournful death is narrated by Gaufridus, Abbot of Hautecombe, in the Life of S. Peter, Archbishop of Tarentaise: and by what manner, impenitent, he breathed out his unhappy soul, and his corpse was dragged in a cart of oxen, while the people round about cried out, "Blessed be God who has handed over the impious one." This happened while the Emperor Frederick was at Besançon, in the year (as we think) at the end of 1170, or the beginning of 71. Furthermore, the acts of the impious pseudo-pontiff were rescinded and annulled; as among others Pope Celestine III professes, in a diploma given at Rome to the Bishops of Lausanne and Belley, on the day before the Nones of June, in the 4th year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1194.

[196] Caesarius of Heisterbach, in Book 5 On Miracles, chapter 18, mentions a certain Archbishop of Besançon, who used the work of a necromantic Cleric, that, by a demon revealing it, he might understand wrongly called a good Man by Caesarius, who consulted a demon, by what arts two pseudo-prophets were counterfeiting certain miracles, in order to win credit for themselves among the peoples. Thus, convicted, and publicly burned, they paid the deserved penalties. "This same Bishop (says Caesarius) was a good and lettered man, and born of our province. Our old Monk knew him well, who related these things to me, and who at the same time was in the same city." Caesarius originated from Cologne, or at least from the province of Cologne. That Herbertus the pseudo-bishop drew his origin from the same place is persuaded above all by his name, most usual among the people of Cologne: then the condition of Legate in the court of the Teutonic Emperor does not allow one to doubt that he himself was Teutonic both by tongue and by birth. The time and age of Caesarius also favors it, that he might detect and punish the impostors. who, having professed as a Monk at Heisterbach in the year of Christ 1199, could conveniently have received that Besançon tragedy, acted scarcely thirty-three years before, from the mouth of an aged Monk, an eyewitness. Nor is that recourse to magical arts, to be condemned, alien from the impious and schismatic Herbertus: whom here Caesarius too simply called a good man; even more imprudently he seemed to praise the skill of the necromantic Cleric. I judge therefore that this whole history is to be taken as concerning Herbertus the pseudo-bishop.

[197] LXII. Ebrardus, from Treasurer of the Church of St. John and Dean of St. Magdalene, is read as Elect of Besançon for the years 1171 and 1172; Previously Treasurer of St. John then by full right Archbishop in the year 1173 and following up to 1179 in several records of the Churches. While still Treasurer, he made a pact with Guigo, Abbot of Balme, concerning the division of the offerings of the Chapel of St. George of Dole, distinguished by the glory of most evident miracles at certain of his Relics. He presided over the funeral of S. Peter of Tarentaise, called to the heavenly ones from the monastery of Bellevaux in the year 1175, as his old Epitaph attests, and as Gaufridus testifies in his Manuscript Life (which, more correct and fuller than the published one, we handed over to our Henschen to be published) — not, however, in the year 1171, as it is in Surius. In the year 1177, on the 7th day before the Ides of October, he consecrated the altar of the abbey of Roseriae, founded by Galcherus, Lord of Salins, the third of that name. He also consecrated, by solemn rite, Raynaldus, formerly a Carthusian, elected Bishop of Belley in the year 1178, saying the Sacrament

in this form, which we have transcribed from an old codex: "I, Raynaldus, Bishop of Belley, promise that I will perpetually render the subjection, and reverence, and obedience, established by the holy Fathers, according to the precepts of the Canons, to the holy See of the Church of Besançon, and to its Rectors, certain of his illustrious acts, having died in 1179. in the presence of the Lord Archbishop Ebraldus, and I confirm it upon the altar with my own hand." Other things prudently done by him, and namely a certain concord of his with the citizens of Besançon, sanctioned by Caesarean authority, you will find annotated in the Proofs. Ebrardus ended his life on the 3rd day before the Nones of October, 1179.

[198] LXIII. Theodericus II of Montfaucon was born of his father Richard: for so the Chronicle of Albericus under the year 1158: "Theodericus, Count of Montbéliard, had two daughters, His noble lineage one of whom Richard of Montfaucon receiving, begot Count Amedeus of Montbéliard, and Archbishop Theodericus of Besançon." In his time, and in the year (as it seems) 1182, Pope Lucius III permitted the Canons of Blessed Magdalene to build a hospital house, especially for receiving pilgrims, within their parish: which they placed in the district of Arenae, attached to the Church of St. James. In the year 1184 he confirmed the gifts which William, Count of Vienne and Mâcon, and his brother Walcherus, Lord of Salins, for the soul of their father Count Gerard, had conferred upon the Church of St. Stephen. In the following year 1185, Pope Urban III reviewed and confirmed the goods of the Church of St. Stephen, received from the Counts of Burgundy.

[2] He ruled his Church for ten years, as the Manuscript codex of St. Magdalene has it: namely up to the year 1189: Death met in the East in the year 1191. in which year, undertaking an expedition into the Holy Land with Frederick of Swabia, he left Amedeus the administrator of his bishopric, and as Vicar Oliverius, Abbot of Luxeuil. In readiness, in the year 1189, to the Church of the Blessed Protomartyr Stephen at Besançon (which, he says, "from the cradle up to the promotion of our honor, nourished me like a pious mother") he gave a hundred census-solidi, to be paid annually on the feast of St. Vincent: and fifty solidi for the Anniversary of his mother, which was on the eighth day before the Ides of April. Moreover the Church of Mont-St-Martin, and the Church of Quers, and half of the Chapel of Boens. He was carried off by a pestilential plague in the East, after the storming of Acre, on the 9th day before the Kalends of December of the year 1191. In which very year Otto Palatine, Count of Burgundy, orders the place of Malveonays, which he had imprudently granted to the Hospitallers of Jerusalem, to be restored to the Church of St. John, to whose property it pertained.

[199] LXIV. Stephen of Burgundy, Elect, presided for two years, His lineage but could not be consecrated on account of his age. Concerning his lineage, Albericus in his Chronicle under the year 1190: "But Count Gerard of Vienne married the daughter of Galcherus of Salins, of whom he begot Count Guilhelmus of Mâcon or of Vienne, and Galcherus of Salins, and a certain Gerard, and Stephen, Elect of Besançon, and their sisters, of one of whom was born Count Thomas of Savoy." That mother of Stephen the Elect, daughter and heiress of Galcherus, Lord of Salins, the third of that name, we have seen in various records called now Maura, now Moreta.

[200] But the inscription painted on the wall of the building of St. Stephen deceives, and fuses two Stephens into one, where it is read in the midst of eight Counts: "Stephen of Burgundy, Elect of Besançon, brother of Count Otho." For of the Counts of Burgundy there were two Stephens, devoted to the Clergy: wrongly confused with a much younger one the former Elect of Besançon, son of Gerard, Count of Vienne and Mâcon, by Maura of Salins: the other, nearly a hundred years later, was Stephen, Canon of Besançon, brother of Count Otho. The common stock of these was Count William, brother of Raynaldus, father-in-law of the Emperor Frederick I, as is clear from this series.

William.

[201] his death and epitaph in the year 1194. But concerning Stephen the Elect these things are had in the Necrology of St. Stephen: "On the 3rd day before the Ides of June died Stephen, son of Count Gerard, Elect of Besançon, for whom Garnerius his Master gave to the Church of St. Stephen a sextarius of wine in his vineyard of Gice, with the tithes of that vineyard which pertain to the same Church, to be paid annually." In the codex of St. Stephen, his death is noted on the 4th day before the Ides of June: perhaps so that the solemn Anniversary to be celebrated for him in both churches might be extended to the two following days. The year of the death of Stephen the Elect I think was of Christ 1194. On the edges of his tomb, which still exists in the nave of the basilica of St. Stephen, four hexameter verses were carved, of which the third the age of the broken stone has snatched from us:

"Beauty, the grace of morals, royal stock, the summit of honors, Flowed into this man: he was the seat of these good things. . . . . . . . . . . . . . So many good things, and in so brief a time, the brief chance of life took away."

A certain man once wrongly read in the first verse, "the hope of the kingdom."

§. VII. The succession of the Bishops up to the middle of the 13th century.

[202] LXV. Amedeus of Tramelay, son of Wido, brother of Fromundus, In the schism of the Empire he adheres to Philip: is first found as Chancellor of Archbishop Theodericus in the year 1183: then, when that man departed across the sea, Administrator of the Bishopric: finally, after the death of Prince Stephen, he was constituted Archbishop by full right. Albericus under the year 1195: "In Burgundy," he says, "Stephen the Elect of Besançon being dead, who had succeeded Archbishop Theodericus, Amedeus, elected as Archbishop, presided 25 years." In the year 1200, with many other Electors, he advised Pope Innocent III by letters that he had elected Philip, Duke of Swabia, as Emperor, on the death of Henry VI; while some other Electors had consented to Otto IV. The epistles of both Baronius reports in his Annals. For at that time the election of the Emperor concerned all the Princes and Magnates, secular and ecclesiastical, who are wont to gather at the Imperial assembly: which right of electing was reduced to a few in the Council of Lyon of the year 1245 text: 1145 under Innocent IV. That discord of the Electors stirred up great and long-lasting troubles in the Western Empire: whence also Raynaldus, the Continuator of the Annals of Baronius, censured our Amedeus, in these words, under the year of Christ 1202, number 28: "The Archbishop of Besançon indeed, having betrayed his country, had called Philip into Burgundy, and had exposed it to him to be devastated: indeed he had even admitted him into the church with a religious procession arrayed: for which things he had been marked with censures by the Legate the Bishop of Praeneste. To him Innocent appointed a day, and, if he should reject the commands, declared that he should be driven from his grade."

[203] Furthermore, in that same year text: MCI = 1201, when Otho, Count Palatine of Burgundy, being in his last extremity, and Margareta his wife, had given to the Church of St. Stephen the justice of Traitefontaine and the Mill of Chisse: and he confirms various donations. and Philip II, King of the Romans, had confirmed that donation in the following year 1201; Amedeus established the bequests of all these by his Archiepiscopal authority. As also the foundation of an altar in the Church of St. Stephen, which Conrad, Bishop of Speyer, consecrated; and into which Margarita, widow of Count Otho, conferred the village of Genuillei in the year of Christ 1202. Amedeus testified that Odo of Astrabona, and Jacob his son, had remitted all the complaints which they had against the house of Acey: in the year 1203. In the following year 1204, he confirmed several donations made to the Church of Palmes. He consecrated the Church of Gollia, of the Order of S. Augustine, of the diocese of Besançon near Salins, whose foundation Galcherus the younger, Lord of Salins, son of Maura or Moreta, Countess of Vienne, completed in the year 1219, asserting that he had granted to that house, within the enclosure of the cemetery, the right of asylum for criminals, at which time it was dedicated by Archbishop Amedeus with solemn rite.

[204] The same Amedeus was accused of many crimes to the Roman Pontiffs, The Church of Besançon is reformed, Celestine III and Innocent III. But the accusations being afterward turned against his accusers, Innocent in the year 1212 sent as Legate Bernard, Bishop of Geneva, who should investigate the morals of the Canons of both the greater Churches: which he both did, and for reforming their morals established statutes, worthy to flourish even in our times. This Bernard afterward, from the year 1214, was Archbishop of Embrun. In the same year 1212, Amedeus conferred upon St. Eugendus the Churches of Croysei the great and the small, and the Priories of St. Mary of Cusance, with the burden of celebrating his Anniversary in perpetuity. And the same year was fatal to the basilica of St. John: after whose fire Amedeus appointed a collection of monies for its repair: the same, being burned, is restored. and thus Pope Innocent III replied to the same Amedeus, and to the Chapter of Besançon, from the Lateran, on the Nones of October, in the 15th year of his pontificate: "The wooden buildings of your Church having been consumed by some chance fire, the walls nevertheless unharmed; and the table of the principal altar, having suffered a slight fracture at its extremity, you sought to be instructed through the Apostolic See, whether on account of this the consecration of that altar, or even of the whole Church, ought to be renewed. To which we have thought it should be thus answered: that since the walls have remained in their integrity, and the table of the altar has not been moved or enormously injured; on account of the aforesaid chance neither the church nor the altar ought to be consecrated anew."

[205] Albericus under the year 1220: "Amedeus, Archbishop of Besançon, since he was an old and emeritus man, ceded. There are in that city Churches contending over precedence; Amedeus ceding, Conrad is sought, but denied, namely St. Stephen's and St. John's. On one day, when in the Chapters of both an election was being made, and the one was ignorant whom the other was electing, there was named and elected the Lord Conrad, the Legate: and at last by common consent they sought him from the Lord Pope; nor however did they obtain him, because the Lord Pope, having constituted him over nations and kingdoms, reserved him to himself for greater gains. There was elected therefore as Archbishop a noble man, Gerard, Dean of St. John, son of Theobald of Rougemont, son of Humbert, cousin of Count Stephen: and he had brothers Humbert and Theobald, etc." Amedeus died, the archbishopric having been abdicated, on the 15th day before the Kalends of February, but in an uncertain year; when he had presided 25 years; namely from the year 1194 to 1219, and had assigned to the Churches of St. John and St. Stephen a hundred census-solidi for his Anniversary, already from the year 1213. As for what is reported in Vesontio under the year 1219 concerning Henry, Chamberlain of the Curia of Besançon, who had performed the function and authority of the Lord Archbishop of Besançon while the same Archbishop was in the parts across the sea, we once thought it pertained to Theodericus II, and insinuated this to the Sammarthani. But the matter being more attentively considered, we are of the opinion that it concerns Amedeus, who undertook a pilgrimage to the holy places at some time of his Episcopate: for Theodericus II, setting out for Jerusalem, had left not Henry the Chamberlain, but Amedeus himself, as Administrator in his stead.

[206] a man plainly Apostolic. That Conrad, whom (Albericus being witness) the Church of Besançon did not obtain from the Pope as Archbishop, was a different person from Conrad, son of Henry, Duke of Bavaria, and was born of his father Egino of Urach, lord of the Suitones: a Monk and Abbot of Villars, of Clairvaux, and of Cîteaux,

and finally Cardinal Bishop of Porto: and he died in the parts across the sea in the year 1227, on the day before the Kalends of October, buried at Clairvaux: concerning whom, besides others, Ferdinand Ughelli is to be seen in his addition to Ciaconius, and in the Italia Sacra.

[207] Girardus elected of Lausanne LXVI. Girardus of Rougemont (from which noble family his successors Odo and Theobald also came forth) was the son of Theobald, whom the records of Lausanne call Count of Rougemont: and who in the charters of Besançon is everywhere called Viscount of Besançon. Amedeus having abdicated, there was elected in his place Conrad, of whom we have spoken: and at the same time Girardus, formerly Dean of St. Stephen (in which Church, educated from boyhood, he had spent more than forty years), was sought and elected as Bishop of Lausanne. But since the Roman Pontiff had not granted Conrad to the people of Besançon, in place of Conrad he is retained by the people of Besançon. neither did they wish to permit their Girardus to the people of Lausanne. The contention being referred to the Apostolic See, the Pope appointed as arbiters of the case the Bishops of Troyes and Langres, by whom he was restored to the Church of Besançon as Archbishop. We have seen mention of Girardus, Elect of Lausanne, in records given in 1220, in the month of November.

[208] The liberality of Galcherus, Lord of Salins, increased beyond the truth. Of him as now Archbishop there is frequent mention among the people of Besançon, especially under the year 1221, which is called the first year of his pontificate; then under the years 1222 and 24. In the year 1222 he struck Otto, Duke of Merania and Count of Burgundy, with anathema; because, to the damage of the Church, he was building a castle on Mont Châtillon. In the year 1223 he confirmed the donation of twenty pounds upon the salt-pit of Salins, made to the Abbey of Gollia, of the Order of S. Augustine, of the diocese of Besançon, already from the year 1220, by the Lady Ida, Duchess of Lorraine, Lady of Coligny. Ida was the childless widow of Simon II, Duke of Lorraine, daughter of Gerard, Count of Vienne, and sister of Galcherus, Lord of Salins: concerning whom, having ended his life on the third day of August, in the year 1219, the inscription among the people of Gollia is false, that on one day he founded three convents, in the morning Roseriae, at noon Gollia, in the evening Sainte-Marie. For concerning Roseriae it is established to me from a Cistercian Manuscript codex, that it was founded in the year 1132 on the third day before the Kalends of December by Galcherus III, Lord of Salins (the maternal grandfather of this Galcherus, by whom the monasteries of Gollia and of Mont-Sainte-Marie are remembered to have been founded): and that its altar was consecrated in the year 1177 by Archbishop Ebrardus, as I noted above. But it pleased the people of Gollia to dignify with the appellation of foundation a certain enrichment of the Church of Roseriae. Girardus died on the Ides of March of the year 1225, when he had already sat in his sixth year: The death of Girardus. and he was buried in the building of Bellevaux, before the high altar. Concerning the house of the Preachers of Besançon, founded while he presided, see Vesontio.

[209] LXVII. Johannes, concerning whom Albericus under the year 1225. "Romanus," he says, "Cardinal Deacon of Sant'Angelo, constituted Legate through the kingdom of France, through Burgundy, Johannes is consecrated Archbishop, through Provence, intends with power to dispose those things which are to be disposed. By his authority, at Reims, on the morrow of Luke, Master Johannes of Villa-Abbatis, a man endowed with honest morals, an excellent Theologian for preaching, Dean of Amiens, is consecrated as Archbishop of Besançon." Then under the year 1227. "The Patriarch of Constantinople this year was Matthew, the third of those who from the Latin world were assumed to that See. he refuses the Patriarchate of Constantinople and is made a Cardinal. For the first of them was called Thomas, born of Venice; the second Gervasius, assumed from Tuscany; the third this Matthew, again a Venetian: who ceding, and the electors transferring their votes by counsel, and consenting upon Master Johannes, Archbishop of Besançon, by the will of the Lord Pope the said Archbishop went to Rome. Asked to undergo that burden, he did not consent to attempt it: whence the Lord Pope instituted him a Cardinal, and retained him with himself, giving him the Bishopric of Sabina. But at Constantinople there was made Patriarch Simon, Archbishop of Tyre."

[210] Already as Archbishop, Johannes provided for the rights of the Charterhouse of Vauclusotte, records being given in the month of April of the year 1226. Certain things done earlier, And in the same year, on the day after the Nativity of Blessed John the Baptist, he settled certain suits between the chief Churches of Besançon, St. John's and St. Stephen's, concerning which we have treated at greater length in the History of Tournus. Then constituted Patriarch of Constantinople by Pope Honorius III, through a diploma given at the Lateran, on the 10th day before the Kalends of January, in the same year 1226, the 11th of his pontificate. From which burden, when he had prudently withdrawn himself, he died Cardinal Bishop of Sabina. he was created by Gregory IX Cardinal Bishop of Sabina, at Anagni in the year 1227, in the Ember days of the month of September. He died finally at Rome in the year 1237, on the 4th day before the Kalends of October, having been already for ten years Bishop of Sabina. He wrote on the Song of Songs an Exposition worthy of learned eyes. The rest concerning him see in the Sammarthani and Ughelli, in the Bishops of Sabina.

[211] LXVIII. Nicolaus was born among the Aedui, in the town of Flavigny. From Dean of Langres he was made Archbishop: concerning whom Albericus thus under the year 1228: "Master Nicolaus obtained the Archbishopric of Besançon, a Preacher and good Theologian." By him was celebrated the elevation of the body of S. Anatolius, Patron of the people of Salins, on the Kalends of September: Nicolaus ordained in the year 1228 which day, if it was a Sunday (as it is probable it was, for greater solemnity), pertained to the year 1230. He confirmed the donation of William of Vienne, Dean of the Church of St. Stephen, who for his soul and that of his brothers, Gerard and Henry, Counts of Vienne, had conferred one montata of brine in the salt-pit of Ledon, on the Nones of June 1233. Concerning his death Albericus under the year 1235: "On the Octave," he says, "of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, the Emperor Frederick held a most celebrated Court of all the Princes of Germany at Mainz. he died in 1235, Henry of Brabant, when he was returning from the same Court, died at Cologne. Likewise, in the return from the same Court, died Nicolaus, Archbishop of Besançon." This happened on the 7th day before the Ides of September. Gaufridus slain by the schismatics in the year 1241:

[212] LXIX. Gaufridus, concerning whom Albericus: "In the year 1236, Gaufridus, Archdeacon of Paris, becomes Archbishop of Besançon." He was slain, and drowned by the Schismatics, on the sixth day before the Nones of May, in the year 1241, between the Pisan Port and the island of Corsica, when he was hastening by ship to Rome to the Lateran Council.

[213] and the vacant See in the year 1245 was ruled by Alexander, LXX. Joannes II. In the archive of the Church of Besançon we read autograph records of Joannes, by divine permission Elect of Besançon, given in the year of Christ 1242: and others, by which Joannes, by the grace of God Elect of Besançon, in the month of December of the year 1243, composes a certain controversy between the Chapter of St. Stephen and Joannes of Emeste, son of Robert once called Gannus, and many others, over the Churches of Visignol and of Longeville. Of the same Joannes the Elect there exist two diplomas at Bellevaux, given in September of the year 1244. When, then, A. Dean of Besançon is found ruling the vacant See of Besançon, in the year 1244 on the morrow of the Bordae, there is to be understood Alexander, of the Dukes of Burgundy, afterward Bishop of Chalon. And the year 1245 is to be understood as Dionysian, from the preceding Birth of Christ. Wherefore that Joannes the Elect, whoever he was, seems to have ceded in the intermediate time between these two limits.

[214] But who he was is a serious dispute among the learned. Ciaconius, and after him several others, surname this Joannes, Elect of Besançon, "Franciogia," and of Abbatis-villa, and assert him to be a Gaul, some make that Elect a Gaul a Burgundian, and from a Cistercian Monk Archbishop of Besançon: then created by Pope Innocent IV, in the year 1244 at Lyon, in the Ember days of Advent, Cardinal Priest, of the title of St. Lawrence in Lucina. Thereafter made by Urban IV at Viterbo, in 1261 in the month of December, Bishop of Porto and St. Rufina. Finally, at Lyon in the general Council under Gregory X, in the year 1274, on the day before the Ides, or the 13th of July, he ended his life, and was buried there, whether among the Franciscans or among the Preachers.

[215] But Wion, in Book 1 of the Tree of Life, chapter 44, page 69, and more accurately Ferdinand Ughelli in Volume 1 of the Italia Sacra, in the Bishops of Porto, asserts that Joannes surnamed of Toledo, an Englishman by nation, a Monk of the Cistercian Order, was created by Innocent IV a Cardinal together with nine others, at Rome in the year 1244, others make him an Englishman, on the feast day of the Holy Trinity, which was the 29th of May. These authors followed Matthew of Westminster, and earlier than him Matthew Paris, whose words are these under the year 1244: "But on the day of the Holy Trinity, the Lord Pope, wishing to strengthen his party, because he had had few associates of his labor and partakers of his solicitude, created ten Cardinals; namely Master Joannes of Toledo, an Englishman by nation, and certain others distinguished in morals and blood." But already in the same year 1244, around the Kalends of February, the same Pontiff (as the Westminster writer reports) had created Otho the Cardinal Bishop of Porto, formerly Deacon of St. Nicholas in the Tullian prison. From which Ciaconius is refuted, who affirms that the first creation of twelve or thirteen Cardinals was made at Lyon in the Ember days of Advent, and so in the month of December of the year 1244, when at the beginning of that month Innocent IV had arrived at Lyon.

[216] But Ughelli continues, and proves that Joannes of Toledo, an Englishman by nation, was created Bishop of Porto in the year 1261, and finally died at Lyon in the year 1274 at the time of the general Council of Lyon under Gregory X. Certainly, that this Joannes was already Cardinal of St. Lawrence in Lucina, an assiduous Patron of the Cistercian Order. in the month of September of the year 1244, is confirmed from the Acts of the general Chapter of the Cistercians, celebrated in that year for five days, from the day preceding the Vigil of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the twelfth of September: of which Chapter this was the definition: "For the Lord J., Cardinal of St. Lawrence in Lucina, most friendly to the Order, let one Mass of the Blessed Virgin be said by all the Priests throughout the whole Order. But let the Monks and Lay-brothers say the Collect which pertains to one Mass, according to the customary manner of the Order." The same man is called by Pope Alexander IV an assiduous Promoter of the Cistercian Order, in a rescript given at Viterbo, on the Ides of December in the third year of his pontificate, of Christ 1275 text, by which he decrees that certain lands of a Cistercian monastery are immune from all tithes.

[217] But those were Cardinals, when this man alone was called Elect of Besançon. Furthermore, of this Joannes of Toledo the Cardinal, neither Wion nor Ughelli commemorate the Bishopric of Besançon: nor could he have been Archbishop of Besançon before the Cardinalate, which is known to have been conferred, made Cardinal on the 29th of May 1244; in which year, in the month of September, our Joannes enjoyed only the name of Elect of Besançon. Different, therefore, were these men of the same surname. As for the fact that Ughelli thinks he proves that Joannes the English Cardinal was not Archbishop of Besançon, from the rescript of Innocent IV, by which in the year 1245, on the 12th day before the Kalends of April, he transfers William from the See of Chalon to that of Besançon, "which had been vacant of a Pastor for a longer time," as though the Pontiff signifies that the See of Besançon had been vacant for four years from the death of Archbishop Gaufridus; this cannot be proved to me, unless he understands that See to have been vacant as long as no one was confirmed in it, which is the very mind

of the Pontiff. But it is certain to us that there was a certain Joannes, in the years 1242, 43, and 44, Elect of Besançon, concerning whom I shall say what I think.

[218] who, cast down from the hope of obtaining the See, returned to his Cistercians In the first place, that he was not the Cardinal, or Priest of St. Lawrence in Lucina; nor the Bishop of Porto, as is clear from what has been said: nor even surnamed of Abbatis-villa, which befits only Joannes, the first Archbishop of Besançon of this name. But that he seems to have been surnamed Franciogia, a Gaul by nation, a Burgundian by homeland, a Cistercian Monk by condition, but of a monastery unknown to us: and that he, cast down from the hope of obtaining the Archbishopric to which he had been elected, returned to his Cistercians.

[219] Now, in order to restore the creations of Cardinals by Innocent IV, disturbed by Ciaconius, to their proper time, Cardinals created by Innocent IV in the year 1244 two Bulls subscribed by these Cardinals are to be consulted; that of Vézelay, and that of St. Eugendus of the Jura. The Bull of Vézelay was given at Lyon, on the 10th day before the Kalends of February, in the second year of the pontificate, 1244 in the II indiction, according to the custom of the Gallican Church, the year and the Indiction joined to it deduced from Easter: for it was the Dionysian year 1245, and the III indiction, because from the beginning of December of the year 1244 the Pope had arrived at Lyon. To that Bull thirteen Cardinals subscribe in this order, to which we have added marks of numbers: 1. Otho, Bishop of Porto and St. Rufina; 2. Peter, Bishop of Albano; 3. William, Bishop of Sabina; 4. Odo, Bishop of Tusculum; 5. Peter, Cardinal Priest of St. Marcellus; 6. William, Cardinal Priest of the basilica of the Twelve Apostles; 7. Hugo, Cardinal Priest of the title of St. Sabina; 8. Brother Joannes, Cardinal Priest of the title of St. Lawrence in Lucina; 9. Goffredus, Cardinal Deacon of St. Hadrian; not one creation, as Ciaconius thinks, 10. Octavianus, Cardinal Deacon of St. Mary in Via Lata; 11. Peter, Cardinal Deacon of St. George at the Golden Veil; 12. Joannes, Cardinal Deacon of St. Nicholas in the Tullian prison; 13. William, Cardinal Deacon of St. Eustace.

[220] In the Bull given for the monastery of St. Eugendus in 1245, on the 10th day before the Kalends of July, which we have from the autograph, the same Cardinals are subscribed, except one Goffredus, who had died at Lyon before the Council of the year 1245; but by a threefold creation. in whose place is read Egidius, Cardinal Deacon of Sts. Cosmas and Damian: but this man was not among the Cardinals of Innocent IV: because he had been created by Honorius III, in the month of December of the year 1216, and died afterward in the month of August of the year 1254. From these, therefore, that first Ciaconian creation of the Cardinals of Pope Innocent IV is to be distributed into three, of which the first, of Otho Bishop of Porto from Deacon of St. Nicholas, looks to the February of the year 1244: the second, of the ten following Cardinals in the Bull of Vézelay, pertains to the day of the Holy Trinity, falling in the same year 1244 on the 29th of May. The third, of Joannes and William, whom the Bull of Vézelay enumerates last, was made (as it seems) at Lyon, in the same year 1244 in the Ember days of Advent.

§. VIII. The continuation of the 13th century, up to the middle of the 17th century.

[221] LXXI. William II of La Tour, formerly Bishop of Chalon, William transferred from the Bishopric of Chalon to that of Besançon in 1245, by the Bull of Pope Innocent IV given at Lyon, on the 12th day before the Kalends of April, in the second year of the Pontificate, of Christ 1245: in which I read these things in Ughelli, Volume 1 of the Italia Sacra, in the Bishops of Porto: "Our venerable Brother William, formerly Bishop of Chalon, a man indeed after our own heart, of celebrated reputation and known knowledge; absolved from the bond of the Church of Chalon, we have thought should be set as Archbishop and Pastor over the Church of Besançon."

[222] not of the family de Chavanis Concerning his lineage there is some question: for the authors of the History of Chalon assert that he originated from the family de Cabanis, or de Chevanis; because this was the surname of his brother Simon, Dean of Chalon, as they say they read in certain charters. But it is certain to us that William was the son of Odo de La Tour, a Knight, concerning whom the Necrologies of the chief Churches of St. John and St. Stephen thus speak: "On the 7th day before the Ides of November died Odo de La Tour, a Knight, father of William, Archbishop of Besançon, who gave to St. Stephen thirty census-solidi, upon his men of Pallise: for whom the same William gave to St. Stephen ten pounds, etc." He himself afterward conferred just as many pounds upon his own Anniversary: for so the same Necrologies: "On the 13th day before the Kalends of September died the Venerable Father William, Archbishop of Besançon, who gave us ten pounds for performing his Anniversary, upon the Churches of Lambre, of Juvigne, of Ogecourt, but born de La Tour, and of Saint-Mardon." These things were wrongly attributed in Vesontio to William the first of that name, who was afterward found to have come forth from the family of Arguel. Furthermore, since the house of the lords of Vergiacum produced William III, it remains that this William II was the son of Odo de La Tour, a Knight, that is, a man of the equestrian order. Not a few noble families occur in Gaul, named from "Towers" (de Turribus): the name of this Odo is derived from the Tower of St. Quentin of Besançon; concerning whose origin I have observed these things in ancient sources.

[223] The Necrology of the Church of Besançon: "On the 14th day before the Kalends of May died Bisonticus the layman, otherwise de La Tour of St. Quentin, who built the Church of St. Quentin." He seems to be called layman, to be distinguished from a Canon of the same name, concerning whom in the same place: "On the 6th day before the Ides of August died Bisonticus, Canon of St. Stephen." The foundation of the building of St. Quentin, as I conjecture, is of nearly seven hundred years, and is mentioned by the Book of the ancient rites of the Church of Besançon, entitled Ordo Canonicorum, and commonly called the Book of S. Protadius. From the Church of St. Quentin, both the district, and the square, and the neighboring Tower have their name: whose possessors are now called Lords de La Tour, now de Saint-Quentin, now de La Tour de Saint-Quentin. The Necrology of St. Stephen: "On the 18th day before the Kalends of February died Gerard the Knight of Besançon, called de La Tour, who gave us 10 solidi (which are owed every year on the morrow of Easter, from the Church of St. Peter of Besançon) to be distributed on the day of his Anniversary: and the farmstead of Gerard de Sunna, with his heirs." In the records of this gift are mentioned the four sons of Gerard de La Tour, Amedeus, Renardus, Theobald, and Haymo Canon of St. Stephen, under the year 1247. The same Book: "On the 12th day before the Kalends of May died Ebrardus the Knight of Saint-Quentin, for whose soul his wife Ylaria, and his son, gave to St. Stephen one sextarius of wine, which they had in our vineyard of Rossat." In records given in the year 1266, in the month of March, is mentioned Guillerma, Lady of Montemoretum (from which family the founders of the Charterhouse of Bonlieu), the widow left of Lord Gerard de La Tour, Knight of Besançon. Under the year 1253, Amedeus de La Tour, Knight of Besançon, son (as it seems) of Gerard.

[224] The family of the Lords of La Tour persevering to this day. To our own age has been propagated the illustrious people of the Lords of La Tour of St. Quentin, of whom we have known the last two, shining with the title of Counts. But why, in the Commentary on the Archbishops of Besançon, written out by hand about a hundred and fifty years ago, this William of La Tour is said to be of the house and lineage of the Emperors, I do not yet grasp; unless perhaps he is understood to have drawn his origin from some bastard son of the Emperor Frederick I (into whose family Beatrix, Countess of Burgundy, married). This I know, that he is not rightly asserted to be of the family de Cabanis, or de Chevanis, on the ground that this was the surname of Simon the Dean, his brother. There is here a place commonly Chavannes, in the praetorial diocese of Montmorot, or Chavannes in the diocese of Orgelet; or Chevanne in the diocese of Vesoul. This was the portion of Simon, the younger-born son of the La Tour people: unless this Simon was only the uterine brother of Bishop William, who had from his father the surname de Cabanis. But whatever at last is the case concerning Simon the Dean, certainly the origin of Archbishop William, from the La Tour family of Besançon, is undoubted.

[225] In the second year of his Episcopate, of Christ 1246, on the 4th day before the Nones of September, Archbishop William translated the bodies of the holy Martyrs Ferreolus and Ferrucius, Translation of SS. Ferreolus and Ferrucius in the year 1246. from a humble place to a venerable place in the basilica of St. John, in whose Martyrology these things are had: "In the year of the Lord 1246, on the fourth day before the Nones of September, Innocent IV the Pope residing at Lyon, there was made in this Church the revelation of the holy Martyrs Ferreolus and Ferrucius, Preachers of this city, by the Venerable Fathers William, Archbishop of Besançon, Joannes of Lausanne, Saguinus of Mâcon, Alexander of Chalon, Anselm of Autun, the Bishops, and other Prelates of the city and diocese of Besançon." This day the Archbishop willed to be solemn in future in the Church of Besançon: but after three days there occurred the Finding of the same Saints, concerning which the Martyrology thus speaks: "On the Nones of September, at Besançon, the Finding of the bodies of the holy Martyrs Ferreolus the Presbyter and Ferrucius the Deacon, by S. Anianus, Bishop of the same city. Likewise at Chrysopolis the deposition of S. Anianus, who translated the bodies of the holy Martyrs to the Church of St. John." Lest, therefore, the cult of so great Martyrs should grow cheap by excessive frequency, the Archbishop sanctioned, by a diploma given on the day after Blessed Bartholomew the Apostle, in the year 1250, that these two solemnities should be cast into one day, and should be celebrated on the Nones of September throughout the whole province for all future times: which is observed even now. The other two translations of these Saints, see in the second part of Vesontio.

[226] Under this Archbishop, in the year 1253, Hugo, commonly called of Saint-Cher, Union of the Canons of St. John and St. Stephen in the year 1253. Cardinal Priest of the title of St. Sabina, Legate of the Apostolic See, by a diploma given at Belley on the day before the Kalends of October, in the eleventh year of the Pontificate of Pope Innocent IV, settled with marvelous wisdom the controversy which had held concerning the precedence of the Churches of St. John and St. Stephen of Besançon for nearly two hundred years; the Canons of both basilicas being reduced into the body of one Chapter: of which matter we have disputed at greater length in the History of Tournus. At the complaints of this Archbishop, Pope Alexander IV commanded the Bishop of Auxerre to bring help to the Church of Besançon, vexed (as it was reported) by the Nobles of Burgundy, in the fifth year of his Pontificate, of Christ 1259. William sat for 23 years, and up to the year 1268, in which he departed from life on the 13th day before the Kalends of September, and was buried at St. Stephen's, in the Chapel of St. Nicholas, which he had founded.

[227] LXXII. Odo of Rougemont, the elected successor of William, afterward, when the See was vacant through the death of Pope Clement IV, was confirmed by the College of Cardinals, His confirmation in 1269 by a diploma given at Viterbo, on the 5th day before the Ides of February, to which eighteen seals are appended. In the year of Christ 1269, on the 17th day before the Kalends of November, he came to an agreement with Yvo, Abbot of Cluny, concerning the election of the Abbot, and the visitation of the monastery of Balme.

[228] He received the professions of obedience of Humbertus, soon to be ordained Abbot of Balerne, The obedience of the Prelates ordained under him. on the 3rd day before the Nones of November 1275; of William, soon to be ordained Abbot of Balerne, on the Octaves of the Apostles Peter and Paul,

1281; of Joannes, soon to be ordained Abbot of Corveolum, of the Premonstratensian Order, on the Sunday after Pentecost, 1282. A similar sacrament of obedience and obedience said Renaudus, soon to be ordained Abbot of Balerne, in the presence of Armanus, Bishop of Suerinum, in the stead of Archbishop Odo, on the 5th day before the Kalends of March, 1273: and Oliverius, soon to be ordained Abbot of Faverney, in the presence of Theodericus, Bishop of Suedes Sudensis, in the stead of Archbishop Odo, on the Sunday after the Octave of S. Michael, 1294. But in the year 1280, on a Tuesday after the Octave of Pentecost, Henry, Bishop of Basel, made obedience and reverence to the same Odo, at Insula upon the Doubs, near the abbey of Lieu-Croissant, by special favor; because otherwise he was bound to say that sacrament in the mother Church of Besançon: but, without grave danger both to his own person and to the affairs of his most Serene Lord Rudolf, King of the Romans, and to the household property of his Church of Basel, he could not at present have a safe or opportune access to the city of Besançon.

[229] Guillelma, Abbess of Bathentum, received from Archbishop Odo 136 pounds of Besançon coinage, and twenty bichets of grain by the measure of Besançon: Compensation made to the Abbess of Bathentum. for all the damages inflicted upon her, while the same Archbishop was building a certain castle on Mont de Roignons, on the 15th day before the Kalends of April 1292, in the VI indiction, the Roman See being vacant through the death of Pope Nicholas IV.

[230] While Odo was sitting, Stephen of Burgundy, thinking of Rome, son of Hugh and Alaydis, Counts Palatine of Burgundy, The acts of Stephen the Canon: in the year 1298, in the XI indiction, the fourth year of Pope Boniface VIII, made his testament at Besançon in his house, on the 5th day before the Ides of May: by which he wrote as his heir his brother Otho, Count Palatine of Burgundy and Lord of Salins: ordering his bones to be carried to the Church of St. Stephen of Besançon, to the feet of Otho once Count Palatine of Burgundy, wherever it should happen for him to die: and bequeathing almost innumerable goods to many churches and hospices of the city and diocese of Besançon, indeed also to some external ones. To this testament he added a codicil at Rome in his lodging, on the 13th of the month of August, of the same year 1298. In the following year 1299 he departed from life, on the Nones of April (as the Necrology of the church of St. John has it), or rather on the day before the Nones, that is the fourth day of April (as is noted in the book of Obituaries of S. Anatolius of Salins), where he is also said to have died in the year 1298, namely deduced from Easter, which in that year was the 19th of April. In an old parchment we read it written, that in the article of death, he ordered his heart to be carried to the Church of St. Stephen of Besançon: death, burial. and there the said heart was honorably interred. And in that very Church he founded a Chaplaincy in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in which he instituted two Chaplains. This altar, dedicated in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Stephen, and set upon the tombs of the Counts of Burgundy in the nave of the basilica of St. Stephen, was destroyed around the year 1624. In the Necrology of St. Stephen two of his Anniversaries are mentioned; one on the 6th day before the Nones of October, on which day we think his heart was buried in the cemetery of the Counts, as is there read, before the tympanum, within the Church: the other on the morrow of Blessed Ambrose. That this Stephen the Canon is different from Stephen the Elect, born of the same family of the Counts of Burgundy, has been demonstrated by us above.

[231] The same Archbishop Odo, in the year 1281, on the day after the Finding of the Holy Cross, The death of Odo himself. which was then the third Sunday after Easter, dedicated in the Church of Blessed Magdalene the principal altar, and the altar of St. Michael. He presided for thirty-three years, and, having died in the year 1301, on the 9th day before the Kalends of July, he was buried before the high altar of the Church of Bellevaux, without an Epitaph that now exists.

[232] Assumed from the Church of Liège in the year 1301, Hugh V LXXIII. Hugh V of Chalon, son of Joannes, Count of Burgundy and Lord of Salins, by Laura of Commercy, his third wife; not the brother but the paternal uncle of Joannes of Chalon, Bishop of Langres; was first Bishop of Liège, for about six years: then Archbishop of Besançon for nearly ten years. For he made a diploma for the monastery of St. Paul in the year 1311; beyond which time he is known not to have sat long, from other records of the same Church, given in the following year 1312 by Vitalis his successor. He built and endowed the Church of Beaupré, at the third milestone from the City. From here we have subjoined almost only the names of the following Archbishops, he died in 1311. with the reckoning of time annotated: referring the studious Reader, partly to Vesontio, partly to the Gallia Christiana of Robert and the Sammarthani: to which what was lacking concerning some of the last ones up to the end, we have added in summary.

[233] LXXIV. Vitalis died on the 6th day before the Kalends of September, in the year 1333, The Finding of Relics, among which the Head of S. John Calybites. when he had presided from the year 1312. While he was sitting it happened that there were found the relics of the Saints Epiphanius and Isidore, and of the Holy Innocents, in the altar of the Confession or Crypt, which lies directly beneath the high altar of the basilica of St. John the Evangelist, on the 15th of September 1319: and two years after, namely in the year 1321, that Olvianus and Leontius, Greek Bishops, who had gathered at Avignon to Pope John XXII, interpreted the Greek inscription of the Head of S. John Calybites, brought to them by Joannes of Corcondray, Canon and Scholastic of Besançon: which Head, a spoil of the East, is even today held in great veneration among the people of Besançon.

[234] LXXV. Hugh VI of Vienne presided for 22 years. He died on the 4th day before the Ides of May, in the year 1355.

[235] LXXVI. Johannes III of Vienne, in the year 1361 is transferred to the Bishopric of Metz: thence, in the year 1366, to that of Basel, in which he dies in the year 1382.

[236] LXXVII. Ludovicus of Montbéliard, son of Count Henry, presided not a full year: he died on the 8th day before the Kalends of August, 1362.

[237] LXXVIII. Aymo of Villersexel departed from life on the 4th day before the Ides of December, 1370.

[238] LXXIX. Guillelmus III of Vergey. Mention of him in the records of Latres in 1385, in the VIII indiction. He is made Cardinal by Clement VII the Antipope, on the 17th day before the Kalends of May, 1391.

[239] LXXX. Girardus II of Athies, a noble Picard, formerly a Benedictine Monk, ruled up to the year 1404, in which he laid down his life at Paris on the 22nd of November.

[240] LXXXI. Theobaldus of Rougemont, first Bishop of Mâcon, [The claim of the Bishop of Besançon concerning the meeting owed to him by the Pope.] then Archbishop of Vienne, finally, after Girardus, of Besançon for nearly 25 years. He died at Rome on the 16th of September, 1429. I cannot pass over in silence what Spondanus observed concerning this Archbishop, from a codex of the royal Library, in his Ecclesiastical Annals, under the year 1414, number 13: that he, when he came to Constance to the general Council, claimed, from a privilege granted to his Church, that the Pope in his first visitation was bound to meet him by three steps: but that the Pope did not immediately acquiesce, but committed the case to be examined by the Cardinals of Piacenza and Aquileia: by whom what was therein adjudged, or what was either granted or denied by the Pope, those Acts do not report.

[241] LXXXII. Johannes IV of Rupescissa, a man of many dignities, concerning which Vesontio and the Gallia Christiana. Substituted for Theobaldus, he died on the 9th day before the Kalends of April, 1437.

[242] LXXXIII. Franciscus Condelmerius, promoted by Pope Eugenius IV, his uncle, when he had as adversary Joannes of Fruyno, elected by the Chapter of Besançon, ceded in the spring time of the year 1438.

[243] LXXXIV. Johannes V of Norry, transferred by Eugenius IV from the See of Vienne to that of Besançon, dies at Gy, before he was conveyed to Besançon, 1438.

[244] LXXXV. Quintinus Menart, of Flavigny a town of the Aedui, ruled up to the year 1462, in which he departed from life, on the 18th of December.

[245] LXXXVI. Carolus of Neufchâtel, formerly Bishop of Bayeux, presided for 36 years. He died on the 13th day before the Kalends of August, 1498.

[246] LXXXVII. Franciscus II of Busleyden departed at Toledo, 1502, on the 10th day before the Kalends of September.

[247] LXXXVIII. Antonius of Vergey presided happily, up to the year 1541, in which he ceased to live on the 29th of December.

[248] LXXXIX. Petrus a Bauma, from Bishop of Geneva a Cardinal, ruled for more than two years. He died on the 4th of May, 1544.

[249] XC. Claudius III a Bauma, substituted for his uncle, held for 40 years. He died on the 14th of June, 1584, in the seventh year now of his Cardinalate. Gilbert Cousin a heretic in the year 1567. While he was sitting, in the year of Christ 1567, Pope Pius V gave, on the eighth day of July, an Apostolic Brief to the Senate of Dole, by which Gilbert Cousin, who then at Besançon, as a Schoolmaster, was scattering heretical dogmas among the common people, was ordered to be cast into chains, and judged according to the laws of the Church and of the kingdom. This man, originating from Nozeroy, a town of the Sequani, had given his effort to letters, being not only a hearer but also a domestic secretary of Erasmus. Cast therefore, by the Pontifical edict, into the Archiepiscopal prison at Besançon, and meeting death there, he anticipated the punishment due to his crimes.

[250] XCI. Antonius II Perrenot, a Cardinal adorned with many titles, ruled through his deputies for about two years: for, not yet having entered his diocese, he died at Madrid on the 11th day before the Kalends of October, 1586.

[251] XCII. Ferdinandus de Rye brought the title of a Jubilee Bishop into the tomb. For he expired as the fiftieth year of his Episcopate was passing, of Christ 1636, on the 20th of August, when he had endured at Dole, for eighty days, a most difficult siege, and, this being raised on the 18th day before the Kalends of September, he himself, already afflicted by the pestilential plague, was seeking a purer air in the countryside.

[252] XCIII. Franciscus III de Rye, long since designated successor to his uncle Ferdinand, did not survive him a full eight months: for he died at Brussels in the year 1637, and died together with the Bishop of our souls on the 17th of April, the sixth weekday of the paschal week.

[253] XCIV. Claudius IV d'Achey, formerly Abbot of Balme, and Dean of the Church of Besançon, is elected by the Chapter on the 23rd of May, 1637. And from this began to be disturbed the right of electing the Archbishop, which from the most ancient times had been with the Chapter. The right of capitular election disturbed: And so the Catholic King, although consenting in the person of Claudius the Elect as pleasing to him, nevertheless contended, and by his rescript (which we ourselves read) protested, that the Archbishop ought not to have been elected by the Canons without consulting him. The Pontiff, moreover, as if by agreement with the royal Legate, confirmed indeed the person, but gave him a Bull "of the reserved" (de reservato). He was nevertheless admitted by the Chapter by virtue of his election, and with the condition added, that Claudius should at his own expense send to Rome someone who should advise the Pontiff concerning the ancient rights of the Chapter: which he also did; but in vain, as will be clear from what follows. There was added to the new Archbishop the Abbey of Mont-Sainte-Benoîte, of the Order of S. Augustine, in addition to that of Balme, which before his Episcopate he had already possessed. When he had done many things in his Episcopate piously and prudently, he died of apoplexy, in his castle of Gy, on the 17th of October, 1654, buried there.

[254] XCV. Carolus Emmanuel de Gorrevod, Marquis of Marnay, brother of the Duke of Pont-de-Vaux, was elected by the Chapter, in the same month of October of the year 1654: and not long after he obtained from the Archduke Leopold, Viceroy of Belgium, the Abbeys of Balme and Mont-Sainte-Benoîte, vacant through the death of his predecessor, having already before

been Prior of Arbois. He died on the 20th of July, 1659, at Madrid, whither he had been sent as Legate of the Estates of Sequanian Burgundy; the Pontifical Bull, by which he should be established in the Archbishopric, not yet having been received.

[255] whence a difficulty arose in the year 1659, XCVI. Johannes Jacobus Fauche, Prior of Morteau, elected by the Chapter on the 3rd day of September, 1659: and when he perceived that delays had been thrown in the way of his institution at Rome, he renounced into the hands of the Pope the election made of him: and so, having received the Brief of Pope Alexander VII, subdated the 26th of February, he entered upon possession of the Archbishopric. But the Chapter and the royal Ministers protesting against that novelty, his revenues were sequestered by royal authority: stricken by which adversities, and worn out with grief, he perished from an apoplectic symptom on the 11th of March, 1662, the Elects renouncing the election into the hands of the Pontiff. buried at Besançon in St. Stephen's.

[156] XCVII. Petrus Antonius de Grandmont was elected by the Chapter in the old manner: distrustful of which election, and renouncing it into the hand of the Pontiff, he was constituted Archbishop by a Brief motu proprio from Pope Alexander VII. Having received that Brief, he was consecrated by night in the subterranean crypt of St. Vincent, by the Bishop of Andreville his Suffragan, and by two Presbyter Canons: and with the doors closed, lest any obstacle should rush in from the Chapter or from the royal Ministers. Great troubles thereupon being stirred up, the new Archbishop appealed to the Roman Pontiff: from whom, having received letters of commendation written by his own hand to the Catholic King, he at last prevailed, and was admitted by the common consent of all, a prudent and pious man, and, above the splendor of his ancient nobility, conspicuous for the integrity of his life and morals.