CONCERNING SAINT HIDULPH,
DUKE OF LOBBES AND BINCHE IN BELGIUM.
A collection concerning his titles, acts, and cult.
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 8TH CENTURY.
CommentaryHidulph, Duke of Lobbes and Binche in Belgium (St.)
G. H.
There flourished in the seventh century of Christ, in Belgic Austrasia, two men, illustrious for the nobility of their blood and the holiness of their life, Pippin and Hidulph. The former, under Chlothar II, Dagobert I, and the latter's son Sigebert, was Duke and Mayor of the Palace, and held his possessions chiefly in that domain which is now called Brabant, as we have set forth more fully in his Life on February 21. But St. Hidulph, much younger, was of the chief Mayors of the Kings under Pippin of Herstal, a grandson of the said Blessed Pippin through his daughter St. Begga. Concerning him we treat here on June 23. Giles Waudré heaps up many things about St. Hidulph's royal lineage and various dominions, which do not deserve to be reported, much less laboriously refuted. The title of Duke was attributed both to Blessed Pippin the first and to this St. Hidulph, because he held the chief dignity among the Kings; and because the latter was afterward buried at Lobbes, he is commonly held to be Duke of Lobbes; and by a greater error in the French Annals of Hainaut, Duke of Louvain. He lived, however, in the regions of present-day Hainaut, which was then under the Kings of the Austrasians; not, however, in the kingdom of Lotharingia, which name was introduced nearly two hundred years later. His wife St. Aya the Countess, laid to rest at Mons in Hainaut, St. Aya his wife. is venerated on April 18, on which day we gave her Acts, having endeavored to purge them of various errors; which we also attempt in the case of St. Hidulph.
[2] John Trithemius, in book 3 of "On the Illustrious Men of the Order of St. Benedict," chapter 303, heaps up these things. "Hidulph, He was neither Bishop nor Abbot of Lobbes. from Duke a monk of Lobbes, and afterward Abbot there, and finally Bishop of Lobbes, a man of great holiness and merit, is said to have shone with many virtues: whose deeds are extant. His feast is kept on the 9th of the Kalends of October." Then in book 4, chapter 231, he confirms the same in these words: "Hidulph, Abbot of Lobbes and Bishop there, a holy man and much beloved of God, when he was a powerful and rich Duke, leaving all that he had for the love of God, was made a Monk in the aforesaid monastery, then Abbot, finally Bishop, and is said to have shone with innumerable miracles and virtues." Thus Trithemius, whom in his manner the author of the manuscript Calendar of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict copied, at the said day, the 9th of the Kalends of October, or September 23, which has these words: "Of St. Hildulph, Bishop and Abbot of Lobbes." Arnold Wion, not at the 9th of the Kalends of October, but at the 9th of the Kalends, or this June 23, with Trithemius cited writes these things: "At Lobbes the laying-to-rest of St. Hidulph, Duke and Confessor, and Abbot and Bishop of that monastery." Dorganius also ascribes him to the Benedictines and referred him to this June 23: but Menardus omitted him. He had perhaps read that Trithemius was blamed for an error by the Doctors of Douai, in the Notes on the Births of the Saints of Belgium edited by Molanus, because he had written him Abbot and Bishop. What deeds of his Trithemius read, neither does he himself explain, nor do we attain. Perhaps he confused the deeds of this Hidulph and of Theodulph, Abbot and Bishop of Lobbes, and held them as one and the same, the more easily because both are venerated on contiguous days: for we shall treat of St. Theodulph on the 24th of this month.
[3] Furthermore, how illustrious St. Hidulph was among the Austrasians in birth, wealth, connections, and authority, and how ready to propagate the worship of God, the ancient Acts of St. Waldetrude indicate, foundress of the convent of Canonesses at Mons in Hainaut, illustrated at the day April 18. He buys a place for St. Waldetrude and builds splendid dwellings: For as is said at number 7, when St. Waldetrude had been admonished by St. Gislenus to build herself a little cell on the mountain called Castrilocus; she at once sent to a certain illustrious man, Hidulph by name, who at that time was very renowned and noble, and through his wife had been a kinsman of the same handmaid of Christ. Him therefore she anxiously requested that he should, for a given price, buy the above-said place, which Divine clemency had designated to her through His servant, from its possessors, and there not refuse to prepare for her a dwelling for serving the Lord. To whose prayers he, soon gladly assenting, took care to buy the place which the handmaid of Christ had asked: and for her on the summit of that mountain, the shrubs and brambles being cut away at the roots, which being overturned he prepared a house to dwell in with great skill. But when St. Waldetrude could not endure the splendor of the constructed house, and it was suddenly overturned by a whirlwind; then the aforesaid man Hidulph rebuilt for her on the side of the same mountain a small dwelling, suited to holy religion, together with an oratory dedicated in honor of St. Peter the Apostle, he makes another more humble. where she herself had designated to him. This was done around the year 670, when St. Autbert, Bishop of Cambrai, after he had imposed the sacred veil on the said Waldetrude, on the 13th day of December departed from this life to the Lord.
[4] He sets St. Ursmar over the monastery of Lobbes, Another zeal for the highest piety and for promoting religion seems to have shone forth, through the help given to St. Landelin in building four monasteries, of which we treated at his Life on June 15. Of these the first was that of Lobbes, begun to be constructed around the year 670, and completed within about fifteen years. Then, as is read in the manuscript of Lobbes at chapter 1 of the cited Life of St. Ursmar, after the departure of St. Landelin from Lobbes, Blessed Ursmar, summoned by Pippin the elder (under whom reigned Theodoric, and his sons Clovis and Childebert, and Childebert's son Dagobert), undertook the same monastery to govern, through the intervention of Hidulph, who was one of the chief Mayors of the King. And Sigebert in his Chronicle at the year 698: "St. Ursmar," he says, "through the intervention of Hildulph the Duke, undertook the monastery of Lobbes from Pippin the Prince to govern." But I would prefer these things to have been placed a year or two earlier. For, as Fulcuin asserts in the second appendix to the Life of St. Ursmar; Blessed Ursmar in the beginning of his rule consecrated the church in the six hundred and ninety-seventh year of the Lord's Incarnation, on the seventeenth of the Kalends of September, the Lord reigning forever, and Pippin ruling the Franks.
[5] How long St. Hidulph lived afterward is not certainly established. The author of the French Life of St. Aya, wife of St. Hidulph, and Waudré, assert that in the year seven hundred and seven Duke Hidulph died at Lobbes, he dies around the year 707. and the Chronicle of Lobbes is cited. But this is not found in our double copy, nor in that which we found printed in volume 6 of the Spicilegium of d'Achery. Yet it seems likely to us that he migrated to Christ around that time, and indeed on this June 23: on which day, from the proper Martyrology of the Church of Lobbes, Molanus brings forth those words in the Auctarium of Usuard: "At Lobbes, of Hidulph the Duke and Confessor." The same Molanus, He is venerated June 23 at Lobbes. in the little Index of the Saints of Belgium, adds that his feast is celebrated both at Lobbes and at Binche on the 9th of the Kalends of June, which he afterward confirmed in the Births of the Saints of Belgium, where he published a fuller eulogy. There followed Miraeus in the Belgic Fasti, Fisen in the Flowers of Liège, Saussaius, and others. We mentioned before the Life of St. Ursmar at number 5 that the bodies of eight Saints, which were kept at Lobbes, were translated to Binche, the nearest town of Hainaut, The body at Binche. in the year 1409. Among these are the bones of St. Hidulph the Duke, where even now they exist in veneration, and with the other sacred remains were visited in the presence of Albert, Prince of the Belgians; and every year at the beginning of the month of July, with a great concourse of people, they are carried around with due veneration. We noted then that the day of the translation was the fourth of April. Arnold Rayzzius in the Belgic Hierogazophylacium, page 288, indicates that there is still kept at Lobbes a great bone of the arm of St. Hildulph the Duke: but he writes that the body is at Binche, page 318.