CONCERNING BLESSED HERIBERT, HERMIT, IN THE COUNTY OF NAMUR.
CommentaryHeribert, Hermit, in the County of Namur (Blessed).
[1] Raysssius, Fisen, and Willotius celebrate the hermit Heribert on this day; the last writes: "In the forest of Marlagne near Namur, Saint Heribert the hermit." Heribert held to be a Saint, And the other two also honor him with the title of Saint. This day seems to have been adopted for his veneration because Saint Heribert, Archbishop of Cologne, is venerated on this day: indeed among the unlearned common people the two have been considered one and the same—both the Archbishop, whose body is preserved in the monastery of Deutz near Cologne, and this hermit, whose body exists in the territory of Namur. Raysssius asserts, not by improbable conjecture, that he may have lived around the year 1210, in the time of Philip, the noble Count of Namur, as Aegidius du Monin of the Society of Jesus communicated to him by letter, who published for the second time with great diligence and care the Sanctuary of the most ancient County of Namur: and in this Sanctuary he celebrates the same Saint Heribert the hermit. The same Aegidius du Monin, or Monaeus, composed a History of the Saints of Namur, but as yet unedited, and in chapter 20 treats of Saint Heribert: from that work we give the following.
[2] In the forest of Marlagne, in the County of Namur, there is an oratory, small indeed but excellently adorned, consecrated to God in honor of the Virgin Mother of God, At Marlagne the body is in an oratory of the Blessed Mary: not far from the village commonly called Bois-le-Villers. At this place there constantly resides a religious from the monastery of Moulin of the Cistercian Order, who takes careful charge of it. In this hermitage is preserved the body of a certain Saint, named Herebertus or Heribertus, decently placed in a reliquary which is elevated behind the altar. Most eager to investigate the truth, I visited the aforesaid place, conferred with the aforementioned Religious, who is a Priest, an honest man and of somewhat advanced age; I inspected everything that was kept there in writing, read through it, and even copied out some of it. And when all these things had been thus done, I learned that he had been celebrated for the austerity of his life and the sanctity of his character: a life formerly led there in the hermitage: (whose deeds have perished through the long passage of time or the negligence of men) who led the hermit life in that solitude, and there ended his days with a blessed death, and is said to have received a place of rest in the chapel which Baldwin, Count of Namur and Emperor of Constantinople, had built in honor of the ever-blessed Virgin Mary. So states a handwritten tablet which, hanging from the wall in the aforesaid chapel, contains whatever I believe to exist anywhere concerning the life and deeds of this Saint. When Anthony Havetius, the first Bishop of Namur, visited the shrine of Saint Heribert in the forest of Marlagne, having inspected it somewhat, he said nothing more than that the Saints ought not to be disturbed, and that the people should be left in their devotion toward the same Saint. No particular Office exists for this Saint Heribert, no special commemoration is made of him: yet that the Saint was of great merit and most famous in these parts, where the frequent imposition of his name in baptism still continues, is clear testimony. Moreover, certain relics of the garments of Saint Heribert which are kept in the Cathedral church of Saint Alban at Namur, relics at Namur, namely part of the cloth of his pillow, his glove, and one shoe—whether these belong to this Heribert or to the one who was Archbishop of Cologne, or partly to one and partly to the other, I leave to the careful investigator of antiquities to determine. These things from Aegidius Monaeus. Moreover, Baldwin II, the Emperor, having returned to Belgium, the time in which he lived. obtained the County of Namur which was due to him around the year 1237. Whether Heribert lived after the oratory was built there by the said Baldwin, or whether the oratory was raised on account of his holy life and most pious death, is not clear.