Gemma

ON S. GEMMA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR,

IN THE PROVINCE OF SAINTONGE IN AQUITAINE.

Gemma, Virgin and Martyr, in the Province of Saintonge in Aquitaine (S.)

BY G. H.

[1] In the Saintongian province of Aquitaine is the town of Brouage, not far from the Aquitanian Ocean, opposite the island of Oléron, and the most fortified castle there commonly called Oléron. In the territory of this Brouage was a most ancient parish, dedicated to S. Gemma: which the Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers Wido or Guido, surnamed Gaufredus and also called William VII, subjected to the monastery of La Chaise-Dieu in the diocese of Clermont in Auvergne. The record of this donation was published, from the Cartulary of S. Gemma of Saintonge, by John Beslius in his Probations to the History of the Counts of Poitou and Dukes of Aquitaine, page 379, from which we excerpt these things: The place of S. Gemma given to the Abbot of La Chaise-Dieu I, Wido, Duke and Count of the Poitevins, in the name of God, with my wife Aldiarda and my son William consenting, gratis and without price, give the place, which is called of S. Gemma, to God and B. Robert and to Durandus Abbot of La Chaise-Dieu, and to the Monks both present and future, for the remission of the sins of myself and our parents and the redemption of my soul; and the land fit for cultivation, which is situated round about, between the monastery and the grove, and likewise in all the forests of Baconesium, I give to the same Monks, wood and trees for all building, or for heating, and for all things which shall be necessary for them, namely pastures for all their beasts, oxen, cows, sheep, pigs, horses or mares: and all these things I give without any price or custom, which for such aforesaid things are wont to be given or rendered. This donation moreover those whose names are subscribed here conceded and confirmed; namely, William, Fredolandus, and Arnaud of Mount Aiser, and Fulk Count of Anjou, and Gaidradus Barbatus, Vitalis Porcels and Radulphus Malateta, and his son Richart. Thus there. The said Wido, Duke and Count, presided from the year MLVIII to the year MLXXXVI: in whose time flourished S. Robert Abbot of La Chaise-Dieu, who died in the year MLXXIV on the day XXIV of April, when various acts of his we have illustrated.

[2] Then, as is read from the same Cartulary of S. Gemma of Saintonge in Beslius, page 403, in the V year after the passing of the most glorious Father Robert, Domnus Durandus, there a Priory built Abbot of La Chaise-Dieu, sent three religious men, honest and holy, brother Monks, to build, rule, and guard the place itself of S. Gemma to the honor of the undivided Trinity, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and of the most blessed Mother of God Mary, and of S. Gemma the Virgin, and of all the Saints: whose names are these; Domnus Artaudus, who was Prior; and Domnus Theodardus, who was Preceptor and Master; and Domnus Robertus, who was Recluse. The number is one thousand seventy-nine from the Incarnation of the Lord. in the year 1079. Now the said Priory is even now conventual, having revenues of twelve thousand livres, depending in presentation and collation on the Abbot of the said La Chaise-Dieu, alone in the Archpresbytery of Carme-régale commonly called Carme-royale; the neighboring Parish of S. Gemma has as Patron the Prior conventual of S. Gemma, and the Bishop of Saintes as collator. There is besides in the Archpresbytery of Matha of the same Diocese of Saintes the parish of S. Gemma of Brosamburch, whose presentation and collation is with the Bishop. Moreover in the Archpresbytery of Sparre, of the diocese of Bordeaux, is also seen the parish of the same S. Gemma. Gaufredus, monk of the monastery of S. Martial of Limoges and Prior of the monastery of Vosie, Parishes of his name in Aquitaine. in chapter 15 of his Chronicle, treats of more renowned Saints in the Episcopate; among whom he asserts that at Stirps are venerated Gemma and Serena. Now Serena seems to be the one who among the Saints of Poitiers

is recorded by Saussay on page 1252. Bertrandus, Monk of La Chaise-Dieu, in his tripartite book On the Miracles of S. Robert, asserts that he omits the things he had said in the Life of Domnus Stephen VI Abbot, and in the acts of the illustrious Fathers, who founded the place of S. Gemma in the territory of Saintonge. These writings hitherto lie hidden: only there at number 16 is mentioned Bernardus Prior of S. Gemma, and then the place and Priory of S. Gemma.

[3] In the Breviary of Saintes, printed at Paris under the note of the year MDXLII, her memory is thus noted in the Calendar: XII Kalends of July, Cultus 20 June of Gemma Virgin and Martyr, of three Lessons, and there is added a Collect: O God, who clarifies thy Church with the wonderful splendor of the merits and prayers of B. Gemma, thy Virgin and Martyr; Collect, grant, we beseech, that those who venerate her memory may by her intercession obtain those things which they worthily ask. Besides, this epitome of her Life is proposed, distributed into three small lessons. The glorious Gemma, illustrious Virgin of Christ, was born from the city of Planatia: free and noble of remarkable lineage, freer in faith and nobler in the love of her Creator: specially indeed flashing outwardly with bodily beauty; Lessons, more specially shining inwardly with the fervor of faith. In no way could she be given in marriage by her father, by name Carillius, a most noble Prince: which her father seeing, moved by anger, made her, having been committed to prison, to be beaten so long with rods and torments, that the virgin, bearing all things patiently for the love of God, gave up her spirit.

[4] Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology, on this same XX of June, thus adorns the things already related: On this same day at Mediolanum Santonum, the Natalis of S. Gemma, Virgin and Martyr: memory in Saussay June 20 who from infancy devoted to Christ, divinely inspired consecrated to the same the precious gift of virginity. And thence when she flourished with extraordinary bodily beauty, which the gifts of her excelling mind wondrously adorned, by her father Catillius, an illustrious man, tempted in every way that she might marry a most noble youth; because she could not be brought to obey him, by his command, being filled with fury, she was cast into prison, and so long beaten with rods and torments, that at last the divine girl, who bore all things patiently for the love of her Creator, expired in the very tender butcheries of her little body: and thus she flew to the most desired nuptials of her heavenly Spouse, whom alone she loved and worshipped, a strong athlete. Again in the supplement to this same XX of June he has these things: In Aquitaine the feast of S. Gemma, Virgin and Martyr, in the Priory of her title is solemnly celebrated; depending on the monastery of La Chaise-Dieu in Auvergne of the diocese of Clermont. Again the same Saussay on the XVI of August has these things. & August 16. On the same day the natalis of S. Gemma, Virgin and Martyr, who born of the highest rank, illustrious in the faith of Christ, for the defense of the same, and for the safeguard of the virginity which she had vowed to her heavenly Spouse, sustained a most fierce contest: and from battle hastening to the palm, in heavenly triumph associated with the choirs of blessed Virgins for the reward of victory, she shone with the great insignia of eternal glory acquired for herself. In veneration of this blessed Virgin, Guido, the first Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers, piously inclined, built a noble monastery in the Bishopric of Saintes; which he decorated with her precious pledges, and signed with her glorious title. All these things Saussay has of one and the same S. Gemma, Virgin and Martyr: and calls each day her natalis. But where she was born he does not indicate.

[5] Martin Marrier, in book 4 of the History of the Royal Monastery of S. Martin des Champs, among the Priories subject to it on page 398 puts the Priory of S. Gemma of the diocese of Soissons; where there ought to be, counting the Prior, five Monks: and he appends two diplomas, the one of Hugh Bishop of Soissons, Priory in the diocese of Soissons. granting it in the year MXCVI, and in it mention is made of the altar of S. Gemma; the other contains an agreement of the Brothers of S. Gemma with the brothers of the church of Igniacum, on the Tithe of the territory of Raroi, enacted in the year MCLI. In this the Brothers of S. Gemma granted the Tithe, which they possessed in the territory of Raroi, with the assent of Simon, Prior of the Church of S. Martin des Champs, and the Chapter of Igniacum, Confraternity at Paris, to this Church for six sextaria, according to the measure of S. Gemma, three of wheat and three of barley, to be paid every year on the feast of S. Dionysius. Also at Paris, in the church of SS. Leo and Aegidius, commonly S. Len and S. Gilles, that there is a certain Chapel and Confraternity of S. Gemma, we learned from the letters of Andrew Saussay written to Francis Lahier. and a church in the diocese. Besides, in the diocese of Paris is the parochial church of Stag., commonly of Stain, not far from the monastery of S. Dionysius, of which S. Gemma is the Patroness.

[6] We have some Acts of the martyrdom from the Ms. of Rouge-Cloître near Brussels, and from the Ms. of Arras of S. Vedastus, but in this last the Prologue is wanting. They are composed in magnificent style, Fabulous Acts are omitted. but less truthful, and therefore here not to be inserted. For it is said that S. Gemma was sought as a Bride by the son of Blandualdus or Blandianus the Emperor reigning in the region of Eycinnia or Eicimia; to whom she fled, when her father King Catillius wished to bind her to a husband. Then the Emperor, atrociously persecuting the Christians, handed her over to seven inquisitors to be perverted, but in vain. Afterwards, joining to himself a twentieth King, when he could not bring her to the cultus of idols, he offered her to seven young men, who should attack her with drawn swords, but these expired wounded by mutual blows: and afterwards by her prayer being resuscitated, and the idols being repudiated by them, they were baptized by the Bishop of Capua, and afterwards were beheaded for the name of Christ: but the holy Gemma, cast into the fire, remained unharmed, and at last was killed by the son of the Emperor.

D. P.

[7] This is the Synopsis of the Acts, which rightly appeared insipid to Henschen, for they contain things plainly conflicting with those which he gave above from the Lessons of the Breviary of Saintes. I also when I read here Catillius the father, and the cause of prison and torments and flight, namely the zeal of preserving the virginity which the Saint had vowed to God; These seem to have been fabricated in imitation of the Acts of S. Quiteria. and consider these things, which we have related as plainly similar on May XXII, from the fabulous Acts of S. Quiteria; I suspect that whatever was had about S. Gemma was fabricated and patched together in imitation of those, before the Lessons were composed; nor do I see how the Author of these could have separated anything of solid truth from so muddy a source. Certainly Planatia, the homeland of S. Gemma, is equally suspect to me as Belcagia of S. Quiteria: and certain ones have confused both because of the common name of the fictitious Father of each, King Catillius, judging the Saints to be sisters among themselves. Indeed among the nine twin daughters of Catillius and Calsia, also Gemma is named in the Breviaries, Palentino and Saguntino, with Tamayus on the XVIII of January; where about the common nativity of all, the education and flight, he narrates and defends the common fable. In the Notes however, assigning to each one the day and place of her tolerated martyrdom, Margaret, he says, or Gemma (in the title he had called her Marina, The Spaniards ascribe her to themselves: Margaret in Latin, among the Greeks is Marina) of Amphilochium April XVIII. But on this day he forgets Gemma, nor anywhere else does he treat of her in his whole Martyrology; Amphilochium however, to which he ascribes her, he took from the Geography of Strabo, book 3, alleging Asclepiades of Myrlea, who followed the traces of the wanderings of Ulysses and Teucer; whose companion Amphilochius this latter had buried among the Callaicans, and gave to a city founded in his memory that name. Whoever reads this will rightly doubt whether it deserves to be received among the true names which Spain once had: such certainly it did not have in the age of the Goths, to which S. Quiteria belongs, and most of those Saints who are called her sisters. Meanwhile there are those who would have Auria or Orense, the city of Galicia, between Tude and Lugum on the river Minius, to be Strabo's Amphilochium.

[8] It is pleasing here to append a part of the Epistle, given by the most erudite Jacques Sirmond to our Bolland from Paris, on November VIII MDCXXX, in which he has thus: Sirmond reproves the Acts. I have seen the Lives of SS. Quiteria and Gemma, about which I cannot think otherwise than I see Your Reverence has judged, that they seem mere fables. It is strange that nowhere about these are certain and sincere histories found: for I remember that the Spaniards, when I was at Rome, of S. Quiteria, who is held among them in honor and cultus, diligently but vainly investigated. Our French, however, although they have the memory of S. Quiteria in more than one place, and there is a noble Priory under the name of S. Gemma in the city of Saintes; nevertheless of neither (as I know) have they hitherto obtained a legitimate Life. Far more, in my opinion at least, would it be wiser and more honorable to the church to lack them altogether, than for similar ineptitudes to be brought to light.

[8] Another suspects the name to have been assumed for S. James, Claudius Castellanus, Canon of Paris, when running to Antwerp in the year MDCLXXXIV, having taken the labor of running through all that had then begun to be prepared for the month of June, and reading this little addition of mine to Henschen's Commentary; appended that he doubted whether that person, which in so many places in Gaul is venerated under the name of S. Gemma, is different from S. James the Greater; who as by the Spaniards is named Sant-Iago and San-Diago, so by many through Gaul is pronounced Sint-Jame, which even today the English preserve, and write James as Yames, but pronounce Yemes. Certainly, he says, a certain parish of Normandy, commonly called Sint-Jame, venerates no other Patron than S. James the Greater. This divination is ingenious enough, but I would not dare on so uncertain a foundation to destroy the ancient cultus of S. Gemma; and I would prefer to believe, as with many other Saints of unknown time and lineage, whose actual existence is often persuaded by their bodies, even now extant, I would prefer to believe used for Jacoba. and the perpetual traditions of the inhabitants; so also there was in Gaul some S. Gemma, of whom since besides her name and ancient cultus nothing was known, an occasion was given to some idle sciolist to invent the things written above. But what if Sinte Jemme or Gemme (for nothing differs among the French between the pronunciation of I or G before the vowels E and I) is really indeed a holy Virgin, but her name in Latin should be rendered Jacoba?