Eudaldus

ON SAINT EUDALDUS

MARTYR IN NOVEMPOPULANIA, AND TRANSLATED INTO CATALONIA.

CENTURY VIII.

Eudaldus, Martyr in Novempopulania, translated into Catalonia (S.)

BHL Number: 2663

BY THE AUTHOR G. H.

The Episcopal city of Aire of Novempopulania in Vasconia, The places of the passion commonly called d'Ax or d'Acqs, between the dioceses of Bayonne and Aire on the river Adour, under the Archbishop of Auch and the Parliament of Bordeaux, is the head of the whole Prefecture or Seneschalcy of the Landes, where the tribunal of the presidial Court is also constituted. To this city Ferrarius attributes a Martyr on this day in the General Catalogue in these words: At Aire in Aquitaine S. Eudaldus Martyr. But with more words Saussay celebrates him in the Supplement of the Gallican Martyrology. At Aire, he says, in Aquitaine the birthday of S. Eudaldus Martyr, who Italian by nation, born in Lombardy, when he sought the increases of the glory of God, transferring himself into the Gauls, by barbarians rushing in impiously slaughtered, poured out his soul in his innocence. His body afterward illustrated by divine signs, and his cult. was translated hence to the monastery of Ripoll, between Gerona and Vich, in the very diocese of Vich, where it is held in worthy veneration. Others write the town Rivipollense, on account of the confluence of the rivers Ther and Breser, called by the inhabitants Ripol, where that a church peculiarly consecrated to S. Eudaldus exists, writes Antony Vincent Domeneccus, in the General History of the Saints of Catalonia; where he published the Life in Spanish, taken from the ancient Legend of lessons formerly wont to be recited at Matins, which rendered into Latin at this day Tamajus-Salazar gave in the Spanish Martyrology. But because this Life, The fabulous Acts of the martyrdom, composed after the body was translated into Catalonia, from the tradition of the common people little founded, seems written; we do not wish to insert it in this work, since both in Latin and Spanish in the said authors it can be read. Of the time of the Martyrdom this only I would say. If of Lombard parents born in Italy the Saint passed into Gaul (and a barbarian origin the barbarous name of Eudaldus sufficiently proves) it cannot be that before the year DLXX, more probably accomplished under the Saracens, in the 8th century. about which the kingdom of the Lombards began in Italy, he was born: and so it is impossible that under Walamir the Goth, who together with Attila broke into Gaul, in the year CCCCLI he was slain for the faith, having before suffered many torments by Wilhielmus King of the Huns in the city Faste. Too monstrous are all these things: no city in Gaul Faste, no Wilhielmus among the Kings of the Huns does history know. But if we seek barbarians, by whom after the sixth century rushing into the Gauls Eudaldus was slain, not easily would you find others, more opportune for this argument, than the Saracens: who under Charles Martel King of France in the year DCCXXV occupied Aquitaine, called by Eudo Duke of the Franks, and held it for twelve years, often indeed conquered by the King, never however not troublesome and feared, until in the year DCCXXXVI they were utterly driven out. And according to this conjecture the passion of S. Eudaldus would belong to the VIII century.

[2] Tamajus Salazar at the day XIV of May asserts the feast of the translation from Aquitaine into Catalonia to be celebrated, The Translation and its Acts from the said ancient Legendary he printed, which are of this kind. In the year of our Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour running DCCCCLXXVIII, in the era MVI, the day before the Ides of May, Borrellus the Count of the Barcelonese reigning at Barcelona, Idisclus Abbot of Ripoll, under the auspices of the said Count, brought from the city of Aire in Gaul the body of S. Eudaldus Martyr to that his monastery of Ripoll, done in the year 978 the 14th of May: where through the merits of that Blessed one God daily imparts very many helps to the sick. Which lest they should wholly slip from the memory of men, briefly, into a compendium, led by the force of obedience, and drawn by the fervor of devotion, I have undertaken to set forth. Therefore on the same day XIV of May of the said year, on which the holy Relics into the church of the monastery arrived, the most blessed Abbot Idisclus ordered the steward of the monastery, that he should have made an elegant casket, in which should be placed the holy Relics, that they might more honorably be laid up. To whom when the steward replied inconsiderately, the detractors punished: that he could not spend so many coins without fruit; immediately seized by the Lord, he fell into a deadly sickness: from which he escaped free, a vow being made before the Relics, that he would make a more elegant casket, if from the peril by the intercession of S. Eudaldus he should be freed. Another servant of the monastery rashly began to say, that the bones, which on the altar of the blessed Virgin Mary, under the name of S. Eudaldus, were exposed to the people, were neither of any Saint nor ought there to be honored, lest perchance they had been of some evildoer man. At which saying, at once the demons entered into the body of the servant, whom they most severely vexed. But truly to the relics of S. Eudaldus brought, 14 possessed freed: the same malign spirits confessed the blessedness of the holy Martyr, and that there truly his body subsisted. By which and by the prayers of the Brethren, the servant rose up sound from the trouble of the demons. Afterward fourteen other possessed S. Eudaldus freed.

[3] After some courses of times, the fervor of the inhabitants growing cold, he checked public plagues the festival of S. Eudaldus ceased wholly, so that no memory now seemed to remain, nay nor was the devotion known. So great therefore ingratitude of the citizens God resolving to punish, sent into that region a very great drought, famine and mortality. Which that from the people God might deign to avert, the Prior and monks of this monastery the body of S. Eudaldus, from the place where it was laid up, into public in procession drawing forth, showed it to innumerable people present. Who devoutly from God on account of the merits of His holy Martyr asking help, vowed, that thenceforth they would observe his day, would celebrate the feast devoutly, if rain to the fields, health to the sick, and bread to the famished He should mercifully grant. The compassion of God assented to the vows: and at once the cataracts of heaven were opened, and rain gave a salutary: innumerable blind, lame, and sick were healed, the mortality ceased, and the famine was satisfied. When a certain man deprived of light, to visit the threshold of the Body of S. Eudaldus from a far-off region had come, other several miracles. and at the tomb of the holy Martyr for obtaining sight had passed the night assiduously, in his own country without cure passing, even to the borders of his own people weeping he came: who, hastening to wipe the tears from his eyes, straightway both received sight, and to God and the holy Martyr gave thanks with both knees bent. To the tomb of S. Eudaldus was brought on a certain day a little boy, laboring with a most grievous disease of palsy: for his hands clinging to the elbow bent down, with knees distorted and head greatly dislocated: for whose health prayers to the Martyr very many were made, until he received entire health. A certain man interposed the name of S. Eudaldus by a false oath: whom thus God unexpectedly punished, that straightway lifeless he fell collapsed to the earth and died.

[4] Thus far the Acts of the Translation and of the miracles. But the said monastery of Ripoll or Ripollense was founded by Wifred surnamed the Hairy, The monastery of Ripoll founded. Count of Barcelona, about the year DCCCLXXXVIII, under the invocation of the God-bearing Virgin Mary, on account of a sacred image of her found in the depth of a neighboring cave; as relate Francis Diago, in book 2 of the History of the Counts of Barcelona chapter 11; and Antony de Yepes, in volume 4 of the Benedictine Chronicle folio 216: who at folio 220 recounts the Abbots of the said monastery, of whom

the fifth is handed down the above-mentioned Idisclus, in Yepes Guidisolus, by whom the same says the body of S. Eudaldus was translated in the year DCCCCLXXXIII, a rich treasure of the said monastery. But Borellus was Count of the Barcelonese from the year DCCCCLXIV until the year DCCCCXCIII, whose virtues and wars with the Saracens Diago describes at large. There succeeded him his son Raymond Borellus, and he survived until the year MXVII, in whose time the sacred Body of S. Eudaldus was translated to a new Church on the IX of August: at which day the Acts of this Translation also, as I said, in Tamajus Salazar are read.

[5] The body brought to the place where a church was to be founded, After in the year of the Lord DCCCCLXXVIII, Borellus the Count of the Barcelonese reigning in Catalonia, the venerable body of B. Eudaldus Martyr was translated to the Benedictine monastery of the Valley of Ripoll, where God by the intercession of His holy Martyr had wrought signal miracles; it came to pass that the holy Martyr appeared in dreams to the Abbot and other monks of the aforesaid monastery, exhorting them, that for him they should erect a peculiar chapel or basilica, and to it from that place where his pledges rested should transfer them. Then, counsel and deliberation being held among the monks beforehand, it was done and unanimously decreed, that the Body of the holy Martyr should be led to the place where the basilica was to be erected, and supposing that placed there it should work newer miracles, then they would know and believe his firm will concerning the new temple to be erected. Therefore the sacred pledges, brought to the place with a magnificent apparatus of procession, many miracles again take place: scarcely had they touched the site, when, God disposing, a frequent instance of miracles was seen. For a certain woman, who scarcely on account of the heaviness of continual fevers could follow the sacred remains, immediately on the very journey, by the prayers of the holy Martyr was healed. With the same sickness two other women laboring, followed the concourse in the procession devoutly, whose piety God beholding, by the prayers of the holy Martyr free they returned home. A certain young man with feet and shins dead brought to the litter of the Relics, when he touched it, forthwith sound walked about and believed. Nay even another paralytic in the hand, kissing the shrine, in which the holy Martyr's remains were laid up, straightway received health. By which miracles beheld with the eye, and it is translated into it in the year 1004, all the people continually began to collect what was necessary for the building: whose fabric so grew, that on the IX day of August, in the year of the Lord one thousand four, the Count Raymond Borellus of the Barcelonese reigning in the principality of Catalonia, the sacred relics to the new basilica being translated, there honorably were placed. Which thus the townsmen venerate, that every year on its anniversary birthday from everywhere the entire surrounding peoples flow together to the celebration of a festival of this kind, for the sake of devotion and vow. But during this time it came to pass that the inhabitants of the territory of Val-Fogona suffered an insuperable and inexorable plague: for in the middle term of the day an Angel in the form of a horseman with drawn sword appeared, the inhabitants of the Valley of Fogona freed from a divine plague with which he cruelly struck the inhabitants he met, so that none of those slain remained with life. Which evil that the rest might meet, to the church of S. Eudaldus continually with humble contrition devout in procession they came. Then the sacrifice of the Mass began to be celebrated, in whose beginning one of the inhabitants of the aforesaid valley wounded fell in the midst of the church: but the Abbot of the monastery said to the survivors, that in prayer they should remain, and the holy Martyr for their help should invoke. So it was done: and the man struck without injury rising up, giving thanks to God and the Martyr, commended devotion to his fellow citizens, and announced that they would be free from the past peril, so that thenceforth nothing such was seen in the Valley: they advance the building. whose chief men, on account of the favor received, in thanksgiving offered to the holy Martyr to cut and draw all the pile of wood, for burning the lime necessary to the building. Hence that was splendidly completed.

[6] Thus far those Acts; after which Domeneccus indicates, that the feast of S. Eudaldus in the monastery of Ripoll, the special cult of S. Eudaldus. and in the proper church dedicated to him, and also in the parish church of the same town sacred to S. Peter, is celebrated on this XI of May; and his name in the Prayers both in the sacrifice of the Mass and in the rest of the Ecclesiastical Office is named, and that through the whole Octave it is done, and besides in the month of November the feast of the Translation is performed, and that equally by the Ecclesiastical Clerics as by the monks. But when among these monks Commemorations are made in Vespers and Lauds of the Saints of their Religion, there is added also the Commemoration of S. Eudaldus: and the same is done in the parish church, and the other of S. Eudaldus; and he in the said town and its district is held as a chief and great Patron.