ON SAINT AVERTINUS
DEACON IN THE TERRITORY OF TOURS.
ABOUT THE YEAR MCLXX.
CommentaryAvertinus the Deacon, in the territory of Tours (S.)
By the Author D. P.
[1] An extract from the ancient Tours Martyrology exhibits to us, on this day V May, S. Avertinus the Confessor. Name in Martyrologies. Grevenus in the Auctary of Usuard printed in the year MDXV and MDXXI, with the place of cult omitted, has these things: Likewise of S. Avertinus the Deacon and Confessor. Following are Molanus in his additions to Usuard and Canisius in the Martyrology edited in German. Philippus Ferrarius in the general Catalog of Saints, who are not in the Roman Martyrology, brings forth these things: In the territory of Tours of S. Avertinus the Deacon, and in the Notes adds: There is at Tours a village with a church, called by the name of this Saint. Finally Saussay in the Supplement of the Gallican Martyrology, At Tours, he says, of S. Avertinus the Deacon, to whom a village and a church in that tract is sacred, expends perennial veneration. In the general Register of benefices of the Archiepiscopate of Tours printed in the year MDCXLVIII page 32 the parish of Venzay is indicated, and the Parish church otherwise of S. Avertinus, of which the patronage is with the Chapter of S. Martin, the collation with the Archbishop, and the annual revenues are MCC pounds. All which things since to us confirmed the sacred veneration of S. Avertinus, I wrote to Tours to P. William Quirinus, most zealous of promoting our work; who about to seek more on the same Saint, immediately ran out to the said Parish, in which his image one mile distant from the city; and there found, not the sepulcher of the Saint, not bones preserved for veneration (for all these things seems to have taken away and abolished that deadly Huguenot whirlwind, of which on II April after the Acts of S. Francis of Paola was said more amply) but a statue set forth for veneration, and around it many ex-votos, especially heads of wax, because
he is invoked especially for mitigating headaches.
[2] and proper Lessons, in which He found there an ancient Office of the same Saint described on parchment, but with one or another folio torn out mutilated, where his life distributed in Lessons is read thus: The most blessed Confessor of Christ Avertinus, in greater Britain, of very noble and religious parents, was born, the disciple of the most blessed Martyr Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury: whose Birthday celebrating, we have judged worthy, according to ecclesiastical custom, to the praise of the Divine majesty and the honor of the same Saint and to our instruction to explain some things, whence so many and great praiseworthy things, which of him from everywhere occur. Who indeed Avertinus to the Sacerdotal grade, with the Lord disposing, called, that irreproachably he might fulfill the ministry, and first proven in himself, disciple of S. Thomas of Canterbury should eat the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord for himself for merit, and for others for remedy; his own body, as a host living and pleasing to God, crucified to the world and to vices and concupiscences, of prayers with arms and victims of lips continually he immolated.
After these were torn folios, as it seemed two, but the next had these things… and of the weak to natural functions reformed. What more? is said to come to the aid of headache: Many and innumerable detained by various infirmities through his suffrages the Lord freed. But especially to those sustaining pain or infirmity of the head, devoutly visiting the temple of the glorious Confessor, from the entering times to now, the same our Lord Jesus Christ does not cease to help. After it had pleased the Most High that he should depart from this world, on the third Nones of May, which is the fifth day of the same month, his most holy soul was received into heaven by the Angels.
[3] Among the aforesaid two fragments, were noted Lesson II, III, IV, V (and verisimilarly also VI unless a folio was lacking) to be taken from the Sermon of S. Maximus the Bishop, that, I believe (although P. Quirinus did not express it), which is recited in the common of a Confessor Pontiff with this beginning: The merits of the Blessed Father N., now placed in safety, secure let us magnify: the context of that Sermon excellently fits with the prefaced fragments, which is wholly about spiritual and corporal miracles, with which this Saint is indicated to have shone. There followed perhaps in the lacking folios a congruous Gospel, with a Homily on the same, through two lessons; so that the last Lesson, just as had been the first, was again proper of the Saint; of which accordingly only a few lines seem to be lacking. For the rest of the parts of the divine Office these moreover proper there were read:
At Magnificat for I Vespers Antiphon
Our God exalts the humble of Avertinus thus makes glory,
By many and noble virtues showing his magnificence,
The sick he heals, comforts the weeping, brings gladness to heads,
So aids the infirm weak, by obtaining pardon for faults. proper likewise the Antiphon
At Benedictus the Antiphon.
Avertinus while we set forth the great things of your praise,
We ask the suffrages of your prayer to be repaid to us.
Therefore may things pleasing to you be what we devout sing,
And may sacrifices to God be the grace which we offer.
At Magnificat for II Vespers.
In the solemnities of Avertinus let our spirits exult,
Asking with pious prayers that he aid us, from heaven
With remedies obtained, and free us inwardly
From the molestations of the head, to which the world is subject.
Prayer.
Incline the ears of your piety we ask, and Prayer. Lord, to our supplications: that we who are struck by the outrages of our sins, with B. Avertinus your Confessor interceding, from all pains of head, of the whole body, and of the soul, and from all adversities, may be freed by the grace of your mercy.
[4] The statue, which we have said is exposed, represents the Saint vested in a Dalmatic, by Diaconal rite, and that he was such indicate the foresaid Calendars. What therefore in the first Lesson is said called to the Sacerdotal grade, indicates the intention with which he came to receive the sacred Orders; He seems to have come into Gaul in the year 1164 although to its principal one, to which he aspired, he did not come, prevented first by exile, then by death in the parts of Gaul: where he seems to have arrived in the year MCLXIV, when the holy Archbishop, fleeing from the face of the angered King from England, betook himself there. We have the Life of that great Martyr, described by various ones. One, which from the Manuscripts of the San-Gisleni monastery we received, says, that on the night he undertook flight, alone with 2 Sacerdotes as companions of flight to the Saint with only one Brother bringing solace; and lying hidden by day and journeying by night, after the sixteenth day arrived at the port of Sandwich: and when he did not have better conveyors at hand, in a fragile little boat, by two Sacerdotes was conveyed across to Flanders. This was the whole company of so great a Prelate; about which speaking John the Bishop, in the Life of the same Saint, which the MS. Codex of the Queen of Sweden supplied to us, accompanied by few, he says, found the Most Holy Pope Alexander III at Sens: namely with the two said Sacerdotes and that one Brother. About this however John Bishop of Exeter, in the more prolix Life from the same Codex of the Queen described to us, from the Order of Sempringham, testifies that he was of the Order of Sympringham. This Order was of Canons Regular under the Rule of S. Augustine instituted in the Lincoln country, and confirmed by Pope Eugene III in the year MCXLVI, of which more on IV February at the Life of the Founder S. Gilbert; full notice of all the Constitutions, both concerning men and women, will be supplied by Tome 2 of the English Monasticon, from page 699 to 791, and the foundations of the individual monasteries thereafter up to page 829, where also pages 755 and 783 will be found the proper habit of the Sempringham Canon and the Gilbertine Nun.
[5] worn out by the troubles of exile and journeys. The name of that Brother, who alone clung to the Saint, no one expressed; from this however that at Tours we already know it celebrated, just cause is given of conjecturing that he was called Avertinus; whom we can suspect to have been wont to go back and forth as the messenger of his Archbishop to the Pontiff, after he in the year MCLXVI departed from the Gauls; and on some such occasion, before in the year MCLXX Thomas returned to England, to have found the end of his life in that village of the Tours diocese, and there entombed to have shone with miracles. Who because for justice and ecclesiastical liberty he followed the seven-year exiled Archbishop, in his many troubles communicated in many ways, and contracting verisimilarly from these and the labors of journeys ill-health he died, by the title of Confessor he is rightly honored.