ON S. HILARIANUS PRESB. MART.
IN THE RUTHENENSIAN DIOCESE OF AQUITANIA.
From the traditions of the town of Hispalio.
SEC. VIII OR IX.
CommentaryHilarianus, Presb. Martyr in the Ruthenensian diocese (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
The author of the Gallican Martyrology Saussay, to his supplement suggests the following on this day; In the Ruthenensian territory of S. Hilarianus the Martyr, Cult at Hispalio, who a witness of divine grace & truth, by the impious, in the town of Hispalio of the same territory, compelled to the extreme contest, with head cut off received the crown. Hispalio is distant from its metropolis by five leagues, with the river Lot placed for them: & therefore I hoped, & in the old Ruthenensian Breviary from the Fathers of our Ruthenensian College to be able more certainly about all things to be informed, from a place so near: nor did that hope wholly deceive me, although they did not succeed, either there or at Rodez to find the old Breviary of that Church;
9where some still remembered some epitome of the old Legend being read to them.
[2] Passion to be referred to the Normans But either it was not very ancient, or the popular tradition rashly added to the notice drawn from it the persecution of the English, by whom finally the Saint was slain. The Normans would be more commodiously named, infesting the Gallic Provinces with annual depopulations in the time of Charles the Bald. But neither do they agree with the age of S. Hilarianus, if truly he was, I do not say Confessor (which the same tradition has) but at least Coeval with Charlemagne: for then it would be necessary to understand the Saracens, no less infesting all the southern provinces of Gaul, although both by Charlemagne & by his grandfather Martel they were often driven beyond the Pyrenees. However it may be, the aforesaid tradition holds, that the holy man frequently went to Laviniacum, distant by an interval of about ten leagues from Hispalio; but only a quarter of an hour from the Perzense church, or the incursions of the Saracens to be referred. which the Saint served, that more securely he might offer the unbloody sacrifice of the Body & Blood of the Lord: & because the Lot had to be crossed, with a boat lacking, sometimes used his cloak spread on the waters, & with the same support was wont to return: but enemies sometime attempting to follow across the river, were swallowed by the waters: & there now is placed a Cross, to which the Procession terminates on the days of Rogations. But also a rock is shown in that tract, excavated in the manner of a sarcophagus, to the measure of a human body; which is believed to have receded to receive & hide the Saint, when sometime he was being sought for death: where also the Procession makes a station, for which end there too is seen a Cross planted.
[3] About this fighter of Christ it is reported, with Saussay testifying, The holy fountain, after his head washed in it. & to me from the place itself is confirmed, that he immersed his cut-off head, in a fountain, which by divine virtue he had imbued flowing forth from itself; then he deposited it into the hands of his mother (in place of the mother church the instruction sent to me has) as it were a pledge of piety. The water of that fountain is indeed most salubrious, which is also commonly called the Holy fountain, & is sought for drink by the sick from Hispalio. But if near it any are caught
by robbers, burial in the matrix [church taken care of,] & with the head cut off he was made a Martyr, it would be no wonder, that there by faithful coming over by chance, or even excited by miracle to take care of the funeral, he was washed in the same fountain; & because everywhere Martyrs cut in the head were painted as embracing it with their hands; it would have been believed by rude posterity that Hilarianus carried his own head there, which others brought together with the body to be buried.
[4] where his body seems still to be held. Today there is found there in the Sacristy, an old & gilded chest, within which almost all the bones of one body are contained, & those very white & solid: but because no writing is present, the Hispalionian Clerics do not dare to place it on the altar, for public veneration, as the body of S. Hilarianus, & have enough to keep the feast in the aforementioned matrix church with an Octave, & this on XV June, which feast, but without an Octave, the Church of S. John of Hispalio also celebrates. Relics of Lavinici, In the Bonavallense Abbey too, of the Ruthenensian diocese, of the Cistercian Order, in a chest of more precious silver is placed one bone of an arm, anciently received from Hispalio, which is believed to be of that very Saint. More is not at hand nor do we hope more to be found, unless perhaps the very Lessons of the old Breviary, which we wish to obtain in the time of making the Supplement.
[5] The Hispalionese Canon furthermore or Provost, who suggested these things to our Father Conchet, There are those who make the Saint Cistercian to that instruction also added, in the aforesaid Bonavallense Abbey, to whose right pertains the Laviniacense Priory, which now is held by only one Monk, that he had read, that S. Hilarianus was professed of the same Order. This if it could from somewhere be confirmed, no doubt would remain, but that truly he was killed by the English, on occasion of the wars for the possession of Aquitaine waged between the English & French; namely after Eleanor, only daughter & heir of the last Duke William, by Louis VII King of the Franks, after XIX years of sterile marriage, under pretext of consanguinity, dismissed in the year MCLII, married Henry Count of Anjou, & afterwards King of England, [which if posited could be believed he was killed by the English in the 12th century] bringing with herself as dowry Aquitaine; & after John, called Lackland, the fifth son of Eleanor, by judgment of the Parisian Parliament was deprived of every right which he held in Gaul, because he was held convicted of the death inflicted on the ward Arthur, his nephew from an older brother & heir of the kingdom. From those causes the wars that arose lasted until the year MCCLIX, when S. Louis ceded a part of Aquitaine to the English, to be held with the title of Duchy; which Philip the Fair, grandson of the holy King, again addicted to his treasury; & again restored, finally wholly & irrecoverably took away Charles VII, about the mid XV century.
[6] It is not alien to the institute of the Cistercians, but most usual, in those Parishes, over which the Abbots of theirs have the right of Patronage, to set Parish priests from their Religious. But hardly does it appear how the history of the slaughter, but that is hardly believable could thus have been hidden. perpetrated in the XII or XIII century; & such miracles following it, as were needed for inducing full cult, & indeed without any judgment of the Apostolic See, so quickly could have been deleted from the memory of men almost wholly, not only at Hispalio but also in that whole Order, of which so many illustrious monuments of things done in it survive. Chalemot certainly, who in the year MDCLXVI sought from everywhere material for augmenting the Series, not only of Saints & Blesseds, but also of illustrious men of his sacred Order, nowhere found Hilarianus.