CONCERNING ST. ADILIA THE VIRGIN,
NUN OF ORP IN BRABANT,
From the Births of the Saints of Belgium of Molanus.
CommentaryAdilia, Virgin, at Orp in Brabant (St.)
BY D. P.
Where the diocese of Namur runs out into the Hesbaye jurisdiction of Brabant, across the Gette river, a double Orp occurs, a league and a half from Jodoigne (or Geldenaco, commonly Judoïgne); the Lesser one, the Greater the other. In this, head of the Prefecture named from itself, bodily reposes and is venerated St. Adilia the Virgin, The Office borrowed from the Office of St. Othilia. on this last [day] of June, with a solemn Office, Antiphons, Hymns, and Responsories, as is thought, proper; but in truth taken on loan from St. Othilia, the Alsatian Virgin, whose feast is kept on December 13. How often it happens, that namely, of those Saints whose Acts are not had, the offices are taken from elsewhere, suited only by the name, often enough we detect in this work; and therefore we are not solicitous, that we should reconcile the parts of the contending as if about one and the same; but leaving to each what is its own, we divide the persons, when we cannot divide the Acts, and each to its own day we refer. And so, Othilia being omitted, whose Life would that it were had purged of fables, here is to be treated of St. Adilia, about whom in the Births of the Saints of Belgium John Molanus thus writes, from the narration of the Lord Pierre de Longueil, then Pastor of Orp.
[2] On June 30. At Orp, of St. Adilia the Virgin Nun, who has a feast of nine Lessons, the day after SS. Peter and Paul, and on the mountain of the said place… she presided over many Nuns. But since she was distinguished in hospitality, and saw fewer, on account of the troubles of the mountain, come thither; in a lower place she built the church of St. Martin, The Hospital of St. Adilia and the Fountain, and to it transferred the monastery, with hospitality, for receiving Christians … But she reposed in the said church of St. Martin, in the crypt before the altar of St. John the Baptist: but thence she was elevated into a shrine. But the monastery and the hospitality, of which the history makes mention, through wars wholly perished. But a notable monument of that place is the fountain of St. Adilia, whose water, as from the venerable and learned Pastor of that place I understood, washes all the houses of the great Orp. The same asserted, that with the consent of the Bishop he had visited the sacred Relics of the Body, on the day of St. Nicholas in the year 1571, in the presence of venerable men, Relics and miracles. and thence an odor most fragrant and far most pleasing he had perceived: but also some miracles he had seen, at the invocation of St. Adilia, which under suitable witnesses he attested.
[3] Thus far Molanus, from whom the noted times of King Childeric, Acts uncertain. and the piety toward ecclesiastical men from Scotland, I have studiously passed over; certain that these are taken from the Life of St. Othilia, nor do we wish without proof to assert, that the acts were common to both. I would prefer therefore to be ignorant of her age, or to opine that to the age of the Pepins, Her age under the Pepins. in which our Brabant flourished with many Saints, she was near. Molanus testifies, that in certain churches' Martyrologies, thus is read: "On the same day, of St. Adilia the Virgin, Sister of St. Bavo. sister of St. Bavo." This man, of noble lineage in Hesbaye born, and rich in the possession of many estates, is said to have died in the year 631; by St. Amandus Bishop of Maastricht, and founder of many monasteries through Belgium, buried at Ghent; and is venerated on October 1. His Life Theodoric wrote, Abbot of St. Trudo in the same Hesbaye, from the year 1098 to 1107; whence it is no wonder, if he, about the lineage of St. Bavo speaking more obscurely, thus passed over Adilia his sister, just as he passed over his father and mother. But Saint-Trond is distant only three leagues from Orp, which could have been Adilia's allod: wherefore not to be despised seems the tradition of the aforesaid churches about such kinship.
[4] Relying on such or a similar tradition, John Gielemans, Subprior of the Regular Canons of Groenendaal near Brussels, Prologue of Gielemans to the life and there deceased in the year 1487, about to describe in his Brabantine Hagiology, which there is kept in manuscript, the Life which he thought to be of St. Adilia of Orp, prefixed to it this Prologue: "The life and conversation of St. Adilia briefly and succinctly now to write, sufficiently delights me: both because it agrees with my purpose, since indeed she long ago was propagated from the Brabant-born or French-born princes; and because she reposes in Brabant entombed; and because according to the tenor of the Order which I have professed, as from what follows can be conjectured, walking by the Canonical or Regular path justly and irreprehensibly, she is known to have lived. Which virgin of Christ, although noble in lineage, whom he falsely thought to be St. Adilia. far more noble however in the probity of her manners and in the exercise of holy works, God set over his family; that she, as a faithful dispenser, the flock committed to her by the Lord with word and example might cherish, and through this, from the very rewarder of all goods, Christ, of her labor a worthy portion in the heavenly kingdom might deserve to receive. May she for us to God prayers faithfully pour out, that both to the writer divine grace may succor, and to the hearer or reader profit may increase; and so may our account become known to them, that yet a prolix recitation be avoided."
[5] The French Life. There follows then the Life, which I mentioned, contributing nothing here, but at the day December 13, when is venerated St. Othilia, it will come to be examined. I turned myself therefore to inquiring into the miracles, begun to be described from a hundred and more years ago: but after much inquiry, none of them was found. Meanwhile there came into my hands (as the title presents) into French, and in the year 1614 printed by the Liège Press of Leonard Streel, under the patronage of the most Reverend Lord and Father Adrian Stalparts, Abbot of Tongerlo. But to that translation, besides words and expressions, and exaggerated circumstances, in appearance fabulous, it adds nothing, which deserves either to be referred to the Notes, not even concerning the present cult or miracles. Wherefore it will be enough to have indicated this, since not even the name of the Interpreter is disclosed, who wished at the end of the Dedicatory to lie hidden under the letters
I. M. H. I.
[6] Augustine Wichmans, in his Brabantia Mariana, book 1, ch. 3, p. 690, treating of the greater Orp, The annual supplication September 29. which by the Walloons "Orp le Grand," by the Teutons "Adorp," as if "Aldorp," is called old Orp; "On the Feast," he says, "of St. Michael an incredible concourse of men here is, as I have often seen, when the shrine of St. Adilia with a solemn supplication is carried about." But in the year 1319 the church of Orp came to the monastery of Tongerlo, and that by way of purchase from the Abbot of Bonne-Espérance, who had bought it from the Abbot of Florennes. See more in Jacob Baron le Roy in the Historical Topography of Gallo-Brabant, published in the year 1693, book 7, p. 249, where about the Prefecture of Orp; and on the occasion of Alpais, who was Pepin's Concubine, who there lived and died a penitent, at length he treats of the cause of the killing of St. Lambert, slain indeed by her brother; but in revenge for the kinsmen, slain by the Bishop's nephews; Alpais herself having no part in that crime, not even an occasional one, as later writers everywhere believed, against the nearer testimony of Godescalc.