Latuinus

ON SAINT LATUINUS

BISHOP OF SÉES IN NORMANDY.

Name and cultus from the ancient Breviaries of that Church. Acts uncertain.

Latuinus, Bishop of Sées in Normandy (S.)

G. H.

Sagium, the Episcopal city of the Saii, is in lower Normandy: whose Bishops are called Sagienses and Saienses. Of these the first two, according to Antonius Monchiacenus Demochares, In what number he was Bishop, are referred to thus: 1. Sigiboldus, 2. S. Latuinus, whose feast is celebrated on the XII Kalends of July. In the same words they are recounted with John Chenu, citing Gilles Bry, Patron in the Parisian Senate, who added a Catalogue of the Bishops of Sées at the end of the history of the Counts of Perche and the Counts and Dukes of Alençon. The same Catalogue being alleged by Claudius Robertus, the first is indicated Sigiboldus, the second S. Latuinus, XX of June or XII Kalends of July. In which order also they are placed in the Ms. Codex of the Queen of Sweden, signed number 322, in which after the Chronicles of Eusebius, Jerome, Prosper, Sigebert, these Bishops are had. The Sammarthani changed the said Order in this way: First S. Latuinus, anniversary memory is celebrated on the day XX of July (rather June) in the Proper of Saints of the diocese. Hence others judge he should be placed after Sigeboldus, who is asserted by them to have been the first Bishop of Sées. It must however be premised that the first Bishops seem to be very confused.

[2] We have the Breviary of the Church of Sées, printed in the year MDLXXXII, in which on this XX of June is prescribed the Office of nine Lessons of S. Latuinus Bishop of Sées: he is venerated June 20. but all things are recited from the Common of Confessor and Pontiff. His memory is celebrated on this same day by Grevenus in the Auctarium of Usuardus printed in the year MDXV and MDXXI, in these words: In the city of Sées, of S. Latuinus Bishop and Confessor. Followed by Molanus, Canisius, Ferrarius. Galesinius adorns him with this elogium: Among the Sagienses, of S. Latuinus Bishop and Confessor; who as the second Bishop of the same city, by illustrious examples of Episcopal virtue stirred up the minds of the citizens to act piously. In the Annotations the Tabulae of the Church of Rouen are cited. We have double Breviaries of this Church, but without mention of S. Latuinus. Indeed the people of Sées themselves admit, as Claudius Castellanus, Canon of Paris, asserted to us, that it was told him by the one who recently arranged the proper Offices of that Church, that the true Natalis day is unknown; but this one was assumed, because it next follows the feast of SS. Gervase and Protasius, Patrons of the place. There are also many who believe him to be the same as the one who is venerated in the diocese of Chartres near Anet, commonly called S. Lain: which Simon Petronetus has in his Gallic-Latin Onomasticon.

[3] Of the Time when they lived, the first Bishops, nothing is established: for Hubert the fifth Bishop of this See according to the Sammarthani is said to have lived in the year five hundred; and thus the four prior ones could have flourished in the fourth and fifth century. He lived in century 4 or 5. Meanwhile Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology composed a wonderful encomium, whence he drew it we do not pursue; we propose it however to the judgment of the reader, to be received with a grain of salt.

[4] At Sées, under the second Lyonnais, of S. Latuinus the Bishop, who coming from the parts of the East, was directed from Rome into Gaul by S. Clement successor of the Apostles, Saussay adorns him with an elogium, with S. Dionysius and other distinguished heralds of the Gospel: and proceeding into Neustria, which the deadly superstition of demons polluted, by the Gospel light and the splendor of admirable sanctity, he routed this plague far and wide. For this Apostolic man was the first who led the people of Sées, Hiémois, and the neighboring peoples from the darkness of impiety to the saving light of Christian religion. In which work he endured various snares and dire persecutions from the worshippers of idols, and never harsh enough for his desires; since burning with the love of Christ, he desired for him to suffer any extremities; so ardent for martyrdom, that he very often abundantly disclosed in words his strong desire to die for the glory of the Redeemer, and even more than once in the day prayed with darting prayers, that he might at length attain this grace. which can appear to be gratuitously invented: Burning therefore with the zeal with which Peter, he glittered with nearly the same glory: when he restored those oppressed by diseases and weaknesses to health by the mere shadow of his body; and shone with such sanctity of life, that the precepts of divine truth which he handed down, he expressed not so much by words as by deeds. When therefore he had confirmed in the proposal of the Christian faith the souls he had introduced both by miracles and by holy works, the blessed man, Christ having gained a most plentiful progeny of sons, and the whole surrounding region being composed to the rule of the purest religion, having left Regulus as successor, who should pasture the gathered sheep, set out for heaven.

[5] These things Saussay. But who is this Regulus, of whom no mention is made in any Catalogues of the Bishops of Sées? Saussay himself in his Catalogue of Saints, as also Regulus the successor. Blessed, and Pious, who do not have their own histories or natales, page 1241 has these things: Regulus disciple and successor of S. Latuinus first Bishop of Sées, on his natalis XX of June. Which equally remain uncertain. What if S. Regulus the Bishop, Apostle of the Silvanectenses, is understood, whose various Acts we gave on March XXX? He is said there to have come from Greece to Rome, and with S. Dionysius sent into Gaul, to have undertaken Silvanectum to be cultivated, ordained Bishop by S. Dionysius, and to have died famous by miracles: things similar to which are applied to this Latuinus. Consult what the same Saussay related on the day June X about S. Euremundus, Abbot in the territory of Sées.