Bainus Bishop of Thérouanne

ON S. BAINUS BISHOP OF THÉROUANNE, AND THEN ABBOT OF FONTANELLES.

IN FRENCH NORMANDY.

ABOUT DCCX.

Bainus, Bishop of Thérouanne, and Abbot of Fontanelles (S.)

BY G. H.

CHAPTER I.

Memory in the Fasti. Deeds in the Episcopate.

[1] The illustrious copy of the Hieronymian Martyrology, edited by Francis Maria Florentinio the noble man of Lucca, and illustrated with erudite Annotations, formerly augmented in the Fontanelles monastery on the river Seine of Gaul, represents the Saints of this place, and on the XXII of July in the first place has S. Wandregisilus, founder of the said monastery and first Abbot, by whom now the monastery is named. So there are interposed among others S. Lantbertus the second Abbot, and then Bishop of Lyon, on the day XIV of April; S. Ansbertus, the third Abbot and Bishop of Rouen, on the day IX of February; S. Wulfrannus, Bishop of Sens dying there, on the day XX of March; and, besides others, S. Bainus, the fifth Abbot and Bishop of Thérouanne, on this XX of June, in these words: In the monastery Fontanella the deposition of Bainus the Bishop. In the ancient Ms. Martyrology of Brussels of the Church of S. Gudula, these things are thus set forth: At the monastery Fontanella the deposition of S. Bainus, Bishop and Confessor of Thérouanne. To which in the Ms. Florarium these things are added: This man translated the bodies of SS. Wandregisilus, Ansbertus, and Wulfran the Bishops. Similar things have Molanus, in the Additions to Usuardus of the second and third edition, and in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium; Miraeus, in the Belgian Fasti; Ferrari, in the general Catalogue; as also in the Benedictine Fasti Wion, Dorgan, Menardus, and Bucelinus; and finally with long encomium Saussay, in the Gallican Martyrology.

[2] There exists with us a Ms. Chronicle of Fontanelles, from which we first brought forth Theodoric, son of Childeric, the last of the Merovingian Kings, tonsured in the said monastery of Fontanelles. That Chronicle was afterwards printed in tome 3 of the Acherian Spicilegium, from which some things pertaining to S. Bainus, when from other ancient monuments concerning the Episcopate we have treated. "Bainum Episcopum de civitate Tyroanda" alone is read in the said Chronicle: but where the said city is set, Bishop of Thérouanne and in what years he presided, or what he did, is not indicated. His Episcopal city is Tarvana, the Metropolis of the Morini, wrongly, and by the error of copyists called Tyroanda. Bainus had in this his Episcopate as predecessors S. Audomar and Draucius. The Life of S. Audomar Surius published on the day IX of September; but he prefaces that he has often changed the style. We have other Acts, in the original phrase to be published in their time. after S. Audomar From these it is established that he was created Bishop in the time of Dagobert the first King of the Franks, therefore before the year DCXXXVIII; in which year the King died on the day XIX of January, as we have accurately taught in the Diatribe on the three Kings Dagobert, renewed before tome 3 of April. But because the Writers who flourished in the IX and X century, knew nothing plainly of Dagobert the second, killed in the year DCLXXX, whom we at one time first restored, they transmitted that Dagobert the first, with Ado and others, lived even beyond the year DCLXXX, which error also crept into some Acts of S. Audomar. Meanwhile according to his Acts with Surius, after the See of the Morini or Thérouanne, and Draucius, for the space of thirty years, had been possessed by so great a Bishop, he died on the V Ides of September, about the year DCLXVIII, to whom then succeeded Draucius. Let us grant this man (for nothing certain is established) to have survived until about the year DCLXXX, ordained about 680. and then S. Bainus from a Fontanelles monk, as Malebrancus judges in book 4 on the Morini chapter 20, ordained Bishop.

[3] The same Malebrancus, citing the Morinese Chronicle, asserts in chapter 31 that the Pastoral care of Bainus the Bishop, Eminent in charity could embrace not only the Morini, but all the marine people. For it is wonderful, he says, how he was in the office of preaching praiseworthy among the vulgar and the Magnates, but more praiseworthy in the duties of fervid charity. He could not tolerate flagitious scab in the flock, especially that which depraves body and soul with lusts. Wherefore most vigilant against men of this kind, he extracted very many from their cesspool of pleasures by peculiar industry. Whom from the principal men he had detected obstinate, admonished by an Angel, he goes to Rome, thinking not against them, but against himself to be battered, he sharply afflicted his body, and thus from his own pains made medicine for another. While he thus sweated in the Evangelical orbit, with the Pontiff praising and admiring the man's work, behold there stood by beseeching with Angelic appearance a young man, and admonished that he should gird himself for the Roman journey; there a non-deplorable duty would be forged for himself and his people. Without delay, the matter being conveyed to the Archdeacons and to Ravengarius, to whom he should entrust the universal administration, where by Pope Sergius he is received. with happy auspice he hastened to Rome, and reached it. Where liberally received by Sergius the Pontiff, he made an extraordinary proof of himself. Thus Malebrancus: who would that he had brought forth the bare words of the cited Chronicle. Sergius was consecrated on December XXVI in the year DCLXXXVII, died in the year DCCI.

[4] Matthew Desprets, Archdeacon of the Morini or Thérouanne, wrote the antiquities of the Morinese Church from the archives of the same, which Valerius Andreas in the Bibliotheca Belgica asserts that he read at Arras preserved in Mss. With this author cited, in the said chapter Malebrancus writes these things: The year DCXCI was rolling on, when Bainus the Bishop from Rome, as liberally received, was more liberally dismissed, not without leaving a slight vestige of his sanctity. For where Sergius saw his Apostolic zeal and the size of his bodily mass corresponding to his wisdom, piety, eloquence, augmented with gifts, and especially with notable Relics of the divine Silas the Apostle, he sent him back to his native borders. Endowed with Relics of Saint Silas, Nothing more pleasing could befall, indeed nothing more ornamental. Now it is delightful to have lent ear and feet to the Angelic counsel. From then on he scarcely believes things well for him, as long as the length of the journey compels him to be absent from his Morini. He shortens the route, as much as is permitted by his strength. When he reached a village or town nearest to Thérouanne (there is none nearer than Aire) to make a stop, about the arrival of the sacred pledge, to send forth, as is customary, to the Abbots, Curates, noble Men, expeditious couriers, that on the appointed day the Apostolic gift was to be borne to Thérouanne with more solemn pomp. Who when it shone forth, themselves with

the whole Clergy pour out to meet the citizens, and with a great hand of the neighboring parts into the Marian basilica the Relics of the Apostle were brought in. Each according to his ability congratulates Bainus, who obtained Silas, companion and colleague of divine Paul, he deposits them in the church of S. Mary. another of the foremost disciples of Jesus Christ, so precious a gem from the Roman treasury, from the common parent of the Christians. Henceforth they were a great ornament to the Parthenian edifice. There was made yearly concourse, as often as the solemn feast day III Ides of July recurred. We have the Breviary of the Morinese Church, printed in the year MDXLII: in which on the said XIII of July is prescribed the Office of S. Silas. The rest pertaining to that day shall be more accurately examined.

[5] S. Amatus, formerly Bishop of Sens, an exile at Brogli with S. Maurontus (as is said on V May in his Life), He transfers the body of S. Amatus, in the year DCXC migrated from this life to the Lord, by the same S. Maurontus there in the Church of S. Peter buried, and afterwards into the church of the Mother of God built not far from the former, was translated by S. Bainus Bishop of the Morini by divine admonition: as on September XIII by Molanus, in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium, is indicated. John Buzelin, in the Annals of Gallo-Flanders under the end of book two on page 87, describes this Translation thus: To Maurontus, leading life within the enclosures of the Broglian monastery, it is signified from heaven, that the body of S. Amatus is to be carried into the edifice which he had recently built, and there honorably placed. Wherefore because a man conspicuous in dignity and virtue was needed for that matter, he asks Bainus, Bishop of Thérouanne of the Morini, that he render that service, to whose Episcopate pertained Menrivilla, or as others will have it, Minariacum, within whose borders was situated the Broglian monastery. He does not delay to take the journey to Menrivilla: there with as much pomp as possible the body of divine Amatus borne from the old place, he places in the new seat. But then, how much Christ Jesus made of Amatus, at that very time he chiefly disclosed, when he showed himself to be seen by very many of those celebrating the festivity, openly with many Angels flowing about. These things there, which contribute very much to the praise of S. Bainus, because he himself adorned the said festivity.

[6] On the day XXIII of October are venerated the Holy Martyrs Luglius and Luglianus, Irish brothers, and divine Patrons of the town of Lillers, from whose Acts Mss. and printed we have, that they held the journey up to Thérouanne, and entering the city went to pray to the mother Church: with the prayers finished hastily going out from the temple; from too much weariness having been hospitably received. For they did not wish that through that city their fame growing, the ears of Lord Bainus, then presiding over the Pontifical Chair, and SS. Luglius and Luglianus's bodies to his own castle: should be reached, lest divulged there they be detained by the aforesaid Bishop. Thence therefore proceeding, they were killed by nefarious robbers. Then, says Malebrancus, book 4 on the Morini chapter 39, from the Morinese Chronicle, the matter was reported to Bainus: who with a pious multitude went there. The sacred pledges however, honorably laid in tombs, he carried to his castle there set in the neighborhood, where it is likely there was a chapel, or certainly a chapel added by the Pontiff: for to these times continually there was there some little sanctuary, marked with their name and honor: and altogether it is judged, that Lillers grew up by the opportune beneficence of these Patrons, which it still preserves: namely when there was nothing there but a forest, named Burnetum, and at its entrance that castle of Bainus. More amply these things on the day of their natalis.

[7] The same Malbrancus chapter 53 adds, that Bainus had no slight memorial among the Morini. For it is believed, he buys for the Church Baingahem, he says, that between the Lys and Diverniam in Boulonnais he bought estates of his Church, which when cultivated to the profit of the Bishop of Thérouanne so grew that they passed into a notable village, and assumed the name of the primogenitor founder, Baingahem, that is, Bainus's dwellings, with a sanctuary, which perhaps accrued by his work. For we scarcely read it done otherwise, since by the Prelates of that age nothing but sacred things were joined to profane, and especially by a man of so great sanctity. After the destruction of Thérouanne, because that village in Boulonnais had its See, it pertained to the Boulognese Bishop, and today pertains. I would judge also the village Bainghem, and Bainghem. which sits above Thérouanne on a little branch of the Hem, to have derived its nomenclature from the same. Finally we judge S. Bainus to have been present at the dedication of the Church of Blangy, not Ravengarius the successor: which can be more exactly inquired in the Life of S. Berta the foundress, on the day IV of July. He himself however, when he had commended the Episcopate to the said successor Ravengarius; withdrew to the monastery of Fontanelles; and there for some time he seems to have lived as a Monk, and then created Abbot, as will now be said.

CHAPTER II.

Deeds in the Fontanelles regimen. Death.

[8] We come to the Fontanelles Chronicle, from which their elogia about S. Bainus took, Arthur du Moustier, Errors of the Fontanelles Chronicle observed by others. in pious Neustria where he treats of the Fontanelles Abbey of S. Wandregisilus; and John Mabillon, in the third Benedictine century, page 474 and following, who prefaces that few things are known of S. Bainus, and these indeed entangled in so many knots, that the thread seems easier to break than to dissolve. We also have proposed those difficulties on May XIV, at the Life of S. Erembertus Bishop of Toulouse, who died in the Fontanelles monastery: whose body, as is said below, S. Bainus is said to have translated. That Chronicle was composed in the time of Louis the Pious Emperor, and perhaps changed by later ones concerning the Chronological characters: and because at that time it was in its first vigor, the manner of computing time from the birth of Christ, and of inserting Indictions with the years of the Roman Pontiffs; the same was done in the earlier years of the same Chronicle not without several errors: and thus chapter 2 about S. Bainus is read: Bainus Bishop from the city of Tyroanda, which already to be corrected we have warned, fifth from the kindly and with all honor to be named most illustrious Priest our Protector Wandregisilus, assumes the regimen of the monastery, namely from the seventh year of Hilibertus King of the Franks, Time of regimen and the thirteenth of Pope Sergius, up to the fifteenth year of the same King, and the second of John the Apostolic; which was the eighty-eighth from Peter the Apostle; the exarchate however of Pippin son of Ansegisilus the twenty-first, of the Lord's Incarnation DCCVI, Indiction IV, through nine years. These things there, from which first we assume the year XIII of Pope Sergius, which agrees with the year DCC. But how then through nine years is one led to the year DCCVI, when there are only six or, both terms included, seven? Besides; on the testimony of a contemporary author, by the command of Childebrand the history was written, according to which Childebert only reigned thirteen years, as we have often taught. from about the year 700. Charles le Cointe at the year DCCXI, when Childebert died, attributes to him seventeen years; and in the first place for himself alleges the Gesta Regum Francorum, whose author the same le Cointe in the prior tome, at the year 638 number 98 page 73 line 21, calls the Anonymous Fabulator, who wrote the Gesta Regum Francorum, which others cited by him without any examination described. We therefore set, until something more certain is brought forth, the beginning of the regimen of S. Bainus in the Fontanelles monastery, with the XIII year of Pope Sergius, about the year DCC. Of the time of death will be treated below: now let us proceed with the Fontanelles Chronicle.

[9] Under his time the most glorious Duke Pippin built the Floriacum monastery, the Floriacum monastery committed to him, together with his noble wife Plectrudis, which is situated in the region of Veliocassinum, in the ninth year of King Hildebert: which was the XXIII year of his exarchate, of the Lord's Incarnation the year DCCVIII; and he placed Bainus himself as Rector there, and assembled a very great throng of Monks. Where the ninth year of Childebert, in our double Ms. and the Acherian edition signed, is conferred with the year DCCVIII, although above the year XV of Childebert was joined with the year DCCVI, so that nothing more monstrous seems can be brought. Now that formerly Floriacum monastery, commonly Fleury, has now been reduced into a Priory of the table of the Prior of S. Marcellus of Chalon, as is read in the Cluniac Bibliotheca: and is now a small town, on the river Andela, distant five French leagues from the city of Rouen. By what right however Pippin possessed the said place, and on what occasion he built the Quercitan monastery, in the same Chronicle is declared and can be read: which related these things are added: Finally the same Prince called the venerable Father himself, and commanded him to build this monastery, and constituted him Rector: just as in the donation, which he handed over of that little place to this monastery, it is established to be written. For thus among other things there inserted is found, where we constitute the strenuous man and worshipper of God, Domnus Bainus, the same as Rector of the monastery of Fontanelles; namely on this condition, that from the aforesaid monastery of Fontanella, after the departure of the same Bainus, the same Monks, consisting in the same Floriacum monastery, at all time may have Rectors and Governors, and under their command in our and future times remain, and under our and our heirs' defense the same places be perennially defended. It was done in the twelfth year, reigning Hildebert the King. In which gathering was present the same most glorious Prince and his noble wife Plectrudis, and their sons Drogo and Grimoaldus, Grippo, and many others. The year XII of Childebert from our computation, is DCCX: but by then Drogo had died, wrongly thrust in by the author of the Chronicle. Various donations are added, made by the Prince Pippin to the same Floriacum, and to single years Indictions, of which then in those parts the use was not yet assumed: indeed there are Donations made by others in the year VI and VII of Childebert when the said Floriacum had not yet begun to be built; and only in the seventh year was above said to have been created Abbot of Fontanelles. But let us weave the rest of the deeds of S. Bainus from the said Chronicle, where these things are read in our Ms.

[10] For this Bainus, among the innumerable works of his goodness which he performed, bodies of SS. Wandregisilus and Ansbertus translated by him, also translated the bodies of SS. Wandregisilus, Ansbertus, and Wulfran into the church of the Prince of the Apostles Peter, from the basilica of S. Paul: and placed indeed the body of the blessed Father Wandregisilus in the middle, of the great Prelate Ansbertus on the left, and of the glorious Pontiff Wulfran on the right part, in the apse of the same basilica toward the East side. This holy translation was made in the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCIV, Indiction second, the day before the Kalends of April, the second feria. For the solemnity of Holy Easter was then on the third Kalends of April, which was the year X of King Hildebert, further the first year of Pope John, who, the eighty-eighth from B. Peter, ruled the Roman Church; of Bainus indeed the blessed aforesaid Father the fifth year, since he had assumed the care of the regimen of this monastery.

In no way do these things agree with the Acts of S. Wulfran, not of S. Wulfran, illustrated by us on March XX: for from them it is established that he lived in Frisia up to the year DCCXX, and afterwards lived privately at Fontanelle, and as an old man in the year DCCXLI migrated to the Lord; as is there shown from the ancient Chronicles of Sens, written by Oderann and Clarius monks of S. Peter living among the Sens: who also append the death of Charles Martel, who died life in the same year DCCXLI. Moreover that the body of S. Wulfran later, but separately, was translated to the basilica of S. Peter on October XV, we have shown by several arguments; and perhaps eleven years after his death, as is said in the Fontanelles Chronicle: but truly not in the year DCCIV, but DCCLII. Now S. Bainus could have translated the bodies of SS. Wandregisilus and Ansbertus, in the said year DCCIV, to which afterwards was joined the body of S. Wulfran. On the same day XX of March we showed the body of S. Wulfran was brought to Abbeville, not to Ghent, with the bodies of SS. Wandregisilus and Ansbertus, as by the same plain error it was asserted by some. Finally not only in the years of King Childebert, as said above, but also in the years of Pope John was there error, when the first year of his Pontificate is assigned, which was the second, because in the year DCCII on the day VIII of October he had been ordained Pontiff.

[11] On the translation of S. Erembertus in the said Chronicle these things are thus inserted: In the very place, where B. Wandregisilus had rested in the aforesaid basilica of S. Paul the Apostle, likewise the body of S. Erembertus, he placed B. Erembertus the Bishop: who before in the lower place of the same church under the arches buried for about thirty-three years had rested, on the thirty-first day after the aforesaid translation; and built over him a ridge decorated with silver; which are explained at the Life of S. Erembertus on May XIV.

[12] The same Bishop Bainus died on the twelfth Kalends of July. Thus the same Chronicle, which we have above also established from the Martyrologies. Of the year there is greater difficulty. And first, Time of death. because we have above suggested the regimen seems to have been committed to him in the year DCC, we do not judge he died in the year DCCVI, nor with nine years of regimen elapsed, in the year DCCIX: but, if the diploma of Prince Pippin about the Floriacum monastery be in that part sincere, he was still living in the year of Childebert XII, of Christ DCCX: how long however afterwards he survived is hidden from us. John Mabillon in several things judges otherwise, when he asserts him to have been created Bishop of Thérouanne from being Abbot, and then to have lived privately in the monastery, and at last in the year DCCXXVIII or later to have died; namely so that he could translate the body of Wulfran, whom in the year DCCXX he sets as having died. All which displease, and from the above related collapse.