ON SAINT AUTBERTUS,
BISHOP OF AVRANCHES IN GAUL.
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 8TH CENTURY.
HISTORICAL SYNOPSIS.
On the church of Saint Michael founded by him, and his cult there and translations.
Autbertus, Bishop of Avranches in Gaul (Saint)
G. H.
Avranches, an Episcopal city of present-day Normandy, near the borders of Armorican Brittany, not far from the seacoast, celebrates on this 18th of June the feast of Saint Autbertus the Bishop, Sacred cult under a double rite of the second class: and in the Proper of the Saints of this Church of the year 1635 all things are prescribed from the Common of a Confessor Pontiff, except the fourth Lesson of the second nocturn, which is of this kind: The memory of Blessed Autbertus shines forth most among those who governed the Church of Avranches, on account of his admirable sanctity, and that singular apparition and revelation of Blessed Michael the Archangel: which he himself most piously executed, he constructed a church and monastery on the most celebrated Mount-Tumba, and consecrated it to the Prince of the Angels: in the church of Saint Michael in which his holy body, buried, after some centuries, with Richard the second, Duke of Normandy, and Hildebert the Abbot, was wonderfully found, and is there kept and venerated with the greatest veneration. Thus there. The deposition of the same Saint Autbertus, Bishop of Avranches, is inscribed in the manuscript Brussels Martyrology of the Church of Saint Gudula, and in the Gallican of Saussay.
[2] In the Chronicle of Sigebert the deed is narrated in our very ancient manuscript codex, which Aubert Miraeus, as if added by someone, together with the monastery founded by the Saint, published in another character, and it is of this kind. With Childebert holding the monarchy of the kingdom of the Franks, the Archangel Michael appearing to Autbertus, Bishop of Avranches, admonished him once and again, that in the place of the sea which on account of its eminence is called Tumba, he should found a church, in memory of him, wishing such veneration to be exhibited to him on the sea, as is exhibited on Mount Gargano. Meanwhile a bull stealthily seized by a robber is tied up in that place. Whence the Bishop, admonished a third time, that in that place he should lay the foundation where he would find the bull tied up, and so, as he should see that it had trodden the earth with its feet, so he should draw the circuit of the church; he established a church in honor of the holy Archangel, and from that time, as on Mount Gargano, so also in that place, which is now called In-peril-of-the-sea, the veneration of the Archangel began to be frequented. Thus far our manuscript Chronicle of Sigebert, which was extended fifty-two years after his death, so that it can be judged sufficiently genuine. The 12th year of the said Childebert was noted, to be referred to the year of Christ 709, or the preceding one, by the consent of the other Chronologers.
[3] The Sammarthani, in volume 4 of the Gallia Christiana, while they treat of the monastery of Saint Michael of Mount-Tumba in peril of the sea, and afterward transferred to the Benedictines. assert that Canons were instituted by Saint Autbertus, who should give themselves to the divine worship. But, as the condition of human affairs bears, when they had not only deflected from their first zeal of piety, but, gradually slipping into corruption of morals, were profaning the name of Christ; that Richard the first, Duke of the Normans, having gathered thirty monks from various monasteries of Saint Benedict of Neustria, in the year 966 substituted them in the place of the Canons. Thus there the Sammarthani, who in volume two, in the elogium of Saint Autbertus, write that his most holy bones for a rather long time remained unknown to all, hidden by a certain Bernerius in the same monastery of Mount Saint Michael; The bones of Saint Autbertus found about the year 1021 and at last that it pleased the supreme Maker, for the honor of the place, to manifest them, with Richard the second governing the principality of the Norman nation, and Hildebert the Abbot ruling the said monastery: at whose urging Richard is said to have enlarged the buildings of the monastery. Hildebert presided from the year 1013, and after six years yielded to fate in the year 1023.
[4] translated in the year 1158. That the bones of Saint Autbertus were then honorably enclosed, and the head separately kept, is clear from another translation made in the year 1158, which is thus described by Robert, Abbot of the Mount, in the Appendix to Sigebert, which Luc d'Achery published after the works of Guibert, Abbot of Nogent. There at the said year 1158 these things are read: In the same year Robert, Abbot of Saint Michael, improving with gold and silver certain antiquated things in the case of Saint Autbertus the Bishop, found in it the bones of that Saint, except the Head, which is reserved by itself in the same church in a silver vessel. He found also with the same body letters testifying about him, and a certain tablet of green marble. The body of the blessed Confessor and Bishop Autbertus was again reposited in the same case in three bindings, and the marble, and the old note with a new one, in which is indicated under what year of the Lord's Incarnation, and by what Abbot, the same body was then reposited.