Macarius the Bishop

ON S. MACARIUS THE BISHOP

IN THE TERRITORY AND CITY OF BORDEAUX.

CENT. IV OR VI.

Macarius the Bishop, in the territory and city of Bordeaux (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

Jerome Lopez, in the History of the Archbishops of Bordeaux in French written, which by his gift we received the eighth after the edition year MDCLXXVI, At Bordeaux in the altar Relics, in part 1 chapter 5

treating of the aforesaid church's restoration and second consecration, made by Urban Pope II, after the Council of Clermont celebrated in the year MXCV there passing, says, on that occasion to have been imposed on the high altar Relics of SS. Andrew, Peter, John the Baptist, Stephen, Laurence, Vincent, Macarius, Agatha and Eulalia. Of these since known were the rest as Saints more ancient, it remained to inquire about S. Macarius, who he was: and we found by the author of that history at length of him to be treated chapter 6, and to be cited an ancient Legend of the Saint, which by his benefit to be able to be had not in vain hoping, by his hand, through letters asked, we received from the archive of this kind lessons.

[2] Lessons in the archive, Macarius, Bishop of Laon, by B. Martin of Tours the Bishop, to whom with great familiarity he was joined, into lower Aquitaine's parts of preaching for the sake was sent. Who when to Ligeni the city, on the shore of the Garonne situated, with companion disciples Cassian and Victor, he had landed; in a short time of his name the fame, which the preaching's ardor and the life's sanctity had augmented, all Aquitaine pervaded. At the last broken with labors from life he departed, the reward of the labors, which for Christ he had borne, in heaven about to receive. * At Ligeni moreover Macarius in the temple of S. Laurence by the disciples buried, with a multitude of miracles began to be made more celebrated. witnesses of the translation and miracles: Whence when of so great a man by the protection his city Count William, surnamed the Good, to fortify wished; by the Archbishop's of Bordeaux authority, his sacred Relics by the river down to Bordeaux with great pomp and veneration he carried, and them in the high temple honorably placed. * On the journey moreover this singular was, that the burning tapers, of veneration's sake near the Relics placed, by no force of winds or rains extinguished, to Bordeaux even were brought. But the whole Clergy and people with solemn pomp to meet advancing, that so great a treasure congratulating he might receive; when a certain miller to so great a congratulation failed, nor his work intermitted, suddenly the mill all dissipated and broken was.

[3] the eulogy in the Gallican Martyrology: The same with the same nearly words long ago we had read on the I of May in the Gallican Martyrology; but in these now more safely to trust we can, the fountain recognized whence his drew Saussay, otherwise suspect to us, because often detected the truth of things to alter by conjectures and amplifications his more than rhetorical, sometimes even by haste of writing; which last vice also here on him crept, that for Victor, of the preaching the companion, Castor he wrote, in the rest faithfully enough either the words or the sense of the Lessons to him sent representing; which although ancient they are called, of few nevertheless centuries the age savor. The first moreover from popular only tradition about the coming of S. Macarius treating, after eight or ten centuries' lapse, what wonder if it contain something, which by the defect of more ancient monuments rather benignly ought to be received than scrupulously to be examined?

[4] Such is first, that Bishop of Laon he was and to S. Martin of Tours familiar. he seems not to have been Bishop of Laon, Died S. Martin, just as elsewhere proved by us is, in the year CCCXCVII: of whose disciples and monastery speaking S. Severus Sulpicius in the Life of the same S. Martin, Several, he says of these afterward Bishops we have seen: for what would be the city or church, which not for itself from Martin's monastery would desire a Priest? But how could of them one have been Macarius, and the same have been Bishop of Laon? since this Episcopate is certain first to have been instituted about the year DXV? Answers by conjecture Lopez, it could have been that by S. Martin ordained for the people of Laon Bishop, and they him on account of the inveterate Gentilism's stubbornness not receiving, to his ordainer returned, nor by S. Martin of Tours ordained: sent he was to the faith in Aquitaine to be preached. But neither credible it is in S. Martin's age any to have been a city or more celebrated town, in which prevailed idolatry; nor if there had been, to S. Martin's Office it pertained through Gaul Bishops to constitute, much less new to institute dioceses, the peoples not yet converted, under conversion's future hope of whatever kind: and indeed so remote peoples: for whom so many other nearer Bishops could and ought to provide, and before them of the province the Metropolitan and of all Gaul the Primate of Sens.

[5] The ancient Bordeaux church's Martyrology, which of Usuard is, but augmented with proper there Saints, thus on the Kalends of May to be read sets forth: but rather of Lyon of the Convenae, At Bordeaux the city the birthday of S. Macarius, Bishop of Lyon. And so I would esteem anciently it named; but since among the Lyon Archbishops none was found of that name, the authors or reformers of those lessons judged, that to be understood it ought Lugdunum Clavatum, by a more common name Laudunum. But I on the first of May, treating of S. Africanus, suggested another Lyon, to Aquitaine neighboring, Lyon namely of the Convenae, at the Pyrenees' roots, by Strabo and Ptolemy remembered, to which in S. Martin's time its own to have been Bishops quite is credible. This therefore See if then it be supposed to have held S. Macarius, he could here roused by the fame of S. Martin to him, as to a common of all Gaul oracle, in common of the orthodox faith affairs or for his church's private advantages to be consulted have run out to Tours; whence to Tours running out he died at Ligeni, and thence returning, at Ligeni on the Garonne to have died, on the confine of the Bordeaux and Bazas dioceses; where more known after death than in life, on account of the miracles' frequency, he effected, that the prior name abolished thenceforth S. Macarius's town it should be called. There is nevertheless one who thinks the old name to have remained on the opposite bank, where a little town is Langon called.

[6] So to him his from the ancient appellation Episcopate would remain, to no just contradiction obnoxious; nor difficult would it be to a certain century to affix the age of him, who with most holy Martin lived. long perhaps after the death of S. Martin, Of this nevertheless to fear one might, lest elsewhere detected of the crowd error here also place have had, and it be said to have come to S. Martin and to him familiar to have been, who to the dead long ago sepulchre a pilgrim had come, and in the monastery of him more familiarly had conversed. And so even to the Visigoths' times, the Convenae infesting, as well as the aforenamed S. Africanus, referred could be. Wherefore nothing of his age defining, only I note the Birthday of S. Macarius to seem to have been the I of May, on the day I of May. whence in the very old register of the church of Bordeaux thus it is noted, On the Kalends of May is made the feast of S. Macarius, as of one Confessor Bishop: and in the Breviary of the Parochial church of S. Columba; which in the year MCCXX from another older of S. Eulalia transcribed was, is prescribed an Office of S. Macarius, Bishop and Confessor, on the I of May.

[7] Because nevertheless SS. the Apostles Philip and James by a stronger right seemed to demand, that their to the whole Catholic Church common feast should not be postponed to any other whatever commemoration; whence to the 4th transferred now the feast instituted by a more recent use at Bordeaux it is, that the feast of S. Macarius thenceforth should be kept on the day IV, with that almost all solemnity; which to the primary of the Church and Diocese Patron S. Andrew is exhibited. Nay even by use it has obtained, that when in the public processions, around the Metropolitan to be instituted wont, from the feast of the Trinity even to Easter is sung a Responsory of the same S. Andrew; as of a Patron: from Easter even to the Trinity is sung of S. Macarius, whose body is preserved in a place sublime behind the high altar; and in the year MDCLXXVI it was written that as soon as possible it was to be transferred into a new and notable silver casket, by the care and expenses of the Chapter made. For when the King's Mother Anne of Austria at Bordeaux was in the year MDCL, The bones in a silver casket. and piously visited the church of S. Andrew, before whose principal altar once she had been joined in matrimony to the King most Christian Louis XIII; and had understood the sacred S. Macarius deposit still no more honored to be held, than it was held in the time of her betrothal; six hundred soon of silver pounds for the new chest's making to be begun she donated, which with four hundred others added now perfected is held.

[8] In that place, where that holy body once rested, and which even now the name retains, our Society a Residence has with a church; the shoulder-blade in the town of his name. but otherwise than once situated: for the prior site into a garden is converted. In it moreover keeps the remaining one of the old deposit shoulder, and on his feast day exposes religiously to be venerated. The other bones to Bordeaux is said to have translated Count William surnamed the Good. Of this Count an indubitable notice I find in Gregory VII book 6 of the Register Epistle 24, by which in the year of his Pontificate VI Indiction XIII, that is in the year of Christ MLXXXVII, thus he writes to Bertrand Abbot of the monastery of the Holy Cross and the Brethren: the body could not have translated William the Good in the 9th or 10th century: The church of S. Macarius, by our Brethren's counsel to your monastery we have adjudged, and that William the Good, formerly Count of Bordeaux, founder of the same monastery, reasonably to the same monastery granted the church of S. Michael outside the city of Bordeaux. When therefore that William's Principate began before the year DCCCXLVIII, in which, according to the fragment of the Chronicle of Fontanella, the Normans Bordeaux the city took, and the Duke of the same William by night; consequent to be it seemed, that also the church of S. Macarius before that year should be said into another's right to have passed, and deprived to have been of its Patron's body, or at least in the following century X, if true is that he to whom the Good's surname adhered, an heir instituted William Sancius Duke of Vasconia, in the year DCCCCLXXXII still surviving, with his consort the Countess Urraca.

[9] But from this opinion quickly me removed Jerome Lopez, at the Life of Godfrey II Archbishop of Bordeaux, producing an instrument from the register of the monastery of the Holy Cross, which in the 11th century still was in the first place made (as says he himself, the time's characters I know not by what counsel here omitting) in the year MXXVII, in which William by the grace of God Count of Aquitaine at the same time and Duke of Vasconia and his wife Remberga … give and grant the cell of B. Laurence, where the precious of B. Macarius buried body rests, with tithes and justices and with customs on land and on sea. And this donation was made, to Gombaldus the Abbot, of the church of Bordeaux the Archbishop Godfrey. There was therefore then still in the prior place the body of S. Macarius. But that instrument this truly pertains to the year aforenoted and the time of Godfrey the second, not the first who sat in the year DCCCCLXXII, persuades another by the same Jerome produced instrument, by which to Ama the Countess of Bordeaux or of the Périgord country, to a certain monastery constructed in honor of S. Maria of the ends of the earth, she donates the heritage Medrins called: and This, says she, donation made, in the year MXLIII of the Lord's Incarnation, of the Franks Henry the King reigning, presiding Godfrey … to the See holy of the Church of Bordeaux, Lord Gombaldus the Abbot assisting of the monastery, in the first of S. Cross and S. Maria and S. Macarius. William therefore who above is noted,

of William Sancius the aforementioned the son was, first and by his own name Sancius called, by which alone he subscribes the aforecited instrument of his Father, from the tables of the foundation of the monastery of S. Severus in Vasconia to be read in Jerome Lopez page 176: because then still lived the elder and there subscribed brother Bernard William, on whose death he began first together with the Principate the William name to use.

[10] From these moreover it appears so far to be that the translation of the holy Body was made under William the Good, he who is reckoned the first among the Counts of Bordeaux, from those of Poitou most diverse (although both Williams, both of Aquitaine Counts or Dukes were called) that neither under Sancius William, nor for some time after credible it is it to have been performed. For what under this last still by the first name was called the Cell of S. Laurence, after into the right of the monastery of the Holy Cross it passed, is called the church or monastery of S. Macarius. Whence we learn his cult by the care of the common administrator, or (as Ama the Countess calls) Assistant Gombaldus, notably to have flourished again, since other of the changed name cause cannot be brought, or perhaps even a new for the old church to have arisen: which done not would have been, if there not had been present the body of the Patron. and as the most under the last William translated, Nay neither in the year MCXX anything changed to have been seems, since even to that year the Prior and monks of S. Macarius of so great were power, that from the obedience of the Abbot of the Holy Cross they wished to be held exempt, which suit then first they being condemned decided Arnald II Archbishop of Bordeaux. Before nevertheless than an end should receive the century XII, I believe carried off to Bordeaux to have been the body of S. Macarius; and perhaps by William IX, extinguished long ago of the Counts of Bordeaux and Dukes of Vasconia the stock, of all Aquitaine the most powerful Duke, all things in the churches at will doing in the time of the schism, by whom through S. Bernard drawn away, but no more than before kinder toward the monks, easily could he this also among the rest have attempted, that S. Macarius's church and monastery he should despoil of the Patron, with whom the Cathedral of Bordeaux he might adorn.

[11] Died William that, not by a bad at length death, at Compostella a pilgrim from a vow, in the year MCXXXVII, before the year 1137 as is shown before the Life of S. William the Hermit, with whom this Duke ill by very many is confounded, §4 on the day X of February, and in him ceased of the Dukes of Aquitaine the series. But him ruling the Bordeaux See held, whom I said, Arnald II, surnamed Geraldus, elected in the year MCIII and nearly to the year MCXXXV surviving, when place he made for Gaufridus III surnamed Loriolus. But whoever of them it was, under whom was made the aforesaid translation, his first care to have been it seems, that in his Cathedral church a proper to S. Macarius altar he should erect. For, as Jerome Lopez us taught, an altar to the same proper erected. in the often praised monastery of the Holy Cross register is found an instrument, under Elias de Malamorte made in the year MCXCII, in the church of S. Andrew before the altar of S. Macarius. Moreover when or how the stone tomb, that Saint's body containing, from that altar, in which first to have rested I esteem, was translated behind the high altar, where in this century he was venerated, nowhere noted I find. I believe moreover not long there to be left, after the sacred bones transposed shall have been into a new casket silver: of which action I awaited letters of R. P. Peter Coulon, by whom our there College being governed, effected it had been, that these to comment I could about S. Macarius, before known from Saussay's only relation; when I understood from the letters of R. P. Francis Cosso, to whom his dying turns of answering he had bequeathed, to have died him on November XI of the year MDCLXXVI.