ON ST. ITISBERGA, VIRGIN,
AT YBERGHE IN ARTOIS.
ABOUT 800.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Concerning her cult, age, lineage, doubts discussed, apocrypha refuted.
Itisberga the Virgin, at Yberghe in Artois (St.)
BY THE AUTHOR G. H.
Yberghe a parish or village of the Morini, on the confines of present-day Artois and Western Flanders, not far from the river Lys, between Aire and the town of Saint-Venant, enjoys the patronage of St. Itisberga, who at Aire and in the said village, Ancient cult, on account of the huge concourse of strangers, perceiving benefits for the afflicted body, is preeminently venerated, as Jacobus Malbrancus testifies book 5 on the Morini chapter 4. He by letters from Aire itself, where he long lived, sent to us, indicated, that from all memory and tradition it is established that the primeval marble, in which she was first laid, was never moved or translated from that place, whence when in the year 1636 the Bishop of Saint-Omer (this was Christopher de France) was transferring the body itself into a new chest, the bones translated into a new chest in the year 1636: he wondered at so great a multitude of bones after so many centuries. Centuries, I say, almost nine, because St. Itesberga is handed down, as below will be said, to have flourished in the eighth century of Christ; but in the two following centuries, on account of the cruel incursion of the Normans, the ancient monuments of things done seem to have perished. A manuscript Life not solid enough: Some Life of her we have obtained described from a manuscript Lectionary of the village of Yberghe, and distributed into three Lessons. But whoever was the author, unskilled enough in antiquities, from the rumor of the vulgar he seems to have collected, what he obtruded, not worthy enough to be inserted into this work. There is extant also some relation of the life in French published by Jean Offanius, another published in French. Pastor of the Church of St. Itisberga in the year 1629; who calls her not Itisberga but Isberga, and by his example Malbrancus calls her Ysberga: and both assert that to the village from this Saint that name came, since before the place itself, situated on a mountain, from Saint Peter the Patron of the temple in German was called Petersberg: but where the excellent benefits and miracles of the Virgin grew frequent, the strangers said that they went not to Petersberg but to Gisleberga. To what end they wish it rather to be called Gisleberga, than Itisberga or Isberga, will soon appear. Meanwhile the geographical Maps, as many as represent the place, name it Iberghe. A trace of the former name they dig out thence, that to the Apostle Peter the chief altar of that place is still dedicated. The said Offanius adds, that St. Itisberga was wont at Thérouanne of the Morini, before that city was destroyed, to be celebrated with a double major feast, and that this is clear from the Breviary. We have ancient
Breviaries of the Churches of Thérouanne and Saint-Omer, The Office in the Breviaries. of which the former is struck in the year 1542, the latter in the year 1518, but without mention of St. Itisberga. But there seem to be understood the particular colleges of Canons of the diocese, monasteries, and parochial Churches, in which he asserts that even now her feast is celebrated.
[2] Further to augment the veneration of St. Itisberga and the piety of the faithful, the laws of an erected Sodality, there was erected there long since a sodality of pious men, which is held by these laws nearly. Let the Pastor and Provost govern the Sodality: let this one be nominated by twelve elders: let the magistracy be annual, at least let it not be prolonged beyond two years. On the chief feasts of Christ and of the Virgin Mother of God, of All Saints, and of SS. Itisberga and Venantius or within their Octaves; moreover on the first Lord's Day of each month if they conveniently can, the Sodality, having confessed their sins, let the Sodals be refreshed with the sacred synaxis. Let each one read or hear every year the Life of St. Itisberga: but every week let them read the Rosary of St. Itisberga. It is similar to that, which is recited to the Virgin Mother of God, but instead of the Angelic salutation these things are said: St. Itisberga, spouse of Christ, pray for us sinners etc. Morning and evening let them three times run through the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic salutation and once the Apostles' creed. If anyone is seized by fever or other sickness, let the rest read for him the Rosary of St. Itisberga, or if it is convenient, let them go to her church for the sake of prayer. On the first Lord's Day of each month let the sacrifice and supplication be celebrated, let the Provost carry the banner notable for the image of St. Itisberga, the torches on either side two of the elder Sodals. Every Lord's Day in the morning let a solemn sacrifice in honor of the Saint for the safety of the Sodals be sung. After the Octave of St. Itisberga let an expiatory sacrifice for the deceased Sodals be offered. To each Sodal let the exequies and a funeral sacrifice be expended, especially if they were able to do so, and they themselves or their heirs shall have contributed something to preserving or adorning the repairs of the temple. Let the expense for the procurement of the divine matter be taken from the treasury of the Sodality. Let the one set over the treasury keep account of the alms and pious legacies: let him render account at least every year before the Pastor, Provost and two elders: nor let him expend this on any banquet or other thing, except on the cult of the church or altars or the subsidy of the poor, since the moneys are sacred to God. approved by Urban VIII with Indulgences. Urban VIII the Supreme Pontiff in the year 1629, the VI of his Pontificate, on the day IV of January approved these laws, and granted to the Sodals the most ample Indulgences: plenary indeed in the hour of death, if they shall have piously pronounced the name of Jesus with the voice or the mind; when, having first confessed their sins and fed on the most sacred body of Christ, they shall have given their name to the Sodality; and when on the feast of St. Itisberga they shall have visited her temple, and there shall have prayed to God for the safety of the Church, which also to non-Sodals performing the same exercise of piety on that day is indulged. Seven years and as many quarantines of indulgence shall the Sodals obtain, if on the days of Pentecost, of All Saints, of the Annunciation, and of the Assumption of the Mother of God, their sins being expiated by confession and the Eucharist being taken, they shall have gone to the same church, shall have poured forth prayers for the peace of the Christian Princes, the exaltation of the Church, the extirpation of heresies. Sixty days, those who shall have been present at the Mass and divine offices in the same basilica, or at the supplication, the sermon, the public and private assemblies; who shall have received a poor man into hospitality, reconciled those at variance, accompanied the bodies of Sodals or of any of the faithful to burial, or the most august Sacrament of the Eucharist, when it is carried to the sick; or if it is not lawful for them, shall have read the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic salutation for the salvation of the faithful, or when there is more leisure shall have recited five times the said prayer and salutation for the souls of the departed Sodals; who shall have led back the erring into the way of truth, taught the ignorant the precepts of God and of the Church; who shall have undertaken any work of piety, charity or other virtue. Thus far the laws and privileges of the Sodality, which more fully in French Offanius draws out.
[3] But of what parents St. Itisberga was sprung, thus indicates in the place above cited Malbrancus: Thus far the lectionaries of Aire, the parchments and charts of the church itself, likewise the painted tables, smelling of an old age of almost three hundred years, the continuous tradition of these tracts, the azure garments displaying broadly a golden series of lilies, have proclaimed her undoubtedly the daughter of King Pippin and of Bertha. It is handed down that Itisberga was the daughter of King Pippin and Bertha. In the same manner on this day St. Itisberga the Virgin, daughter of King Pippin, sister of Charlemagne, famous for miracles, is celebrated by Molanus in the Index and Births of the Saints of Belgium, by Miraeus in the Belgian Fasti, by Wion, Dorgan, Menard and Bucelin in the monastic Martyrologies, and everywhere by others. Meanwhile the same Miraeus in the Belgian Chronicle, published many years after the Belgian Fasti, page 158 writes these things: King Pippin from Bertha his wife had children, Pippin who died a boy, Charlemagne the Emperor, Carloman King of Burgundy and Provence, Giles a monk on Mount Soracte in Italy, and Gisela an Abbess. But it is not so wonderful, if he omitted St. Itisberga, since he did not indicate several other daughters. For Paul Warnefrid, an author almost contemporary, testifies in the Chronicle of Metz, that two daughters of King Pippin are buried at Metz, of whom one was called Rodthaid, the other Adelaid. Wilthemius also in the Annals of St. Maximin still in manuscript book 3 chapter 1 and 3 digs out Symphoriana and Ada from the Acts of St. Maximin of Trier and St. Simpert of Augsburg, of whom this one a grandson of Pippin was the son of Symphoriana, that one freed from a demon Cunipert likewise a grandson of Pippin by a daughter, namely Ada, a most well-known benefactress of the monastery of St. Maximin, called the Handmaid of Christ and the sister of Charlemagne in the monuments of that very place. Why should not in the same manner St. Itisberga be reckoned the daughter of the same Pippin and the sister of Charles, whom distinct from the rest Philippe Labbe acknowledges in the genealogical Tables of the Royal House of the Franks. from whom Gisela seems different, But because Eginhard in the Life of Charlemagne January XXVIII number 23 did not acknowledge any but Gisela as the sister of Charlemagne, the aforesaid Malbrancus and Offanius thought St. Itisberga in baptism to have been called Gisela or Gisila, and the parish of Iberge first called Petersberg, then Gisliberga, and the first letter being taken away Isberga or Itisberga. But this to us, the matters being accurately discussed, is now not proved. The words of Eginhard are these: Charles had a single sister, by name Gisela, from her girlish years devoted to a religious conversation, whom likewise as his mother he cherished with great piety, who also a few years before his death died in the monastery in which she had lived. Thus there, to which Malbrancus adds: Since nowhere is that monastery to be found, that it stood at Aire is made clear to us from a diploma, to which St. Hunfrid in the year 856 subscribes, as in a town subject to his diocese of the Morini. The tables are closed with these words: Done at the monastery of Aire. We gave the Life of St. Hunfrid on March VIII, but the entire diploma we could not obtain. The Sammarthani assign to this Gisela the monastery of St. Mary of Soissons, by the counsel and consent of St. Drausius Bishop of Soissons, as at his Life on the day V of March we said, built by Ebroin and his wife Lentrude, that she was Abbess of Soissons. and from the Sheets of Dom Ildephonsus Vrayette a Benedictine monk of the Congregation of St. Maur they exhibit a nomenclature of the Abbesses, among whom in the sixth place is named, Gisela daughter of King Pippin and sister of Charlemagne, the very same, whom Pope Stephen III wrote to have been sought by the Emperor Constantine for the marriage of his son, to her brothers Charles and Carloman the Kings in the year 770, where also he dissuaded lest she be joined in wedlock to the son of Desiderius King of the Lombards. If therefore Gisela was a nun and Abbess in the monastery of Soissons, and there also by the testimony of Eginhard died, and is to be called the single sister, who lived until almost the death of Charlemagne, the other sisters being long since dead, of whom there was treatment on January XIII at the Life of B. Godfrey of Cappenberg §6.
[4] When in the forty-first year of this century the city of Aire was first surrendered to the French, and recovered by the Spaniards, there was published some narration of these sieges: in which when mention had been made of a palace founded by King Pippin there, these things are added: Charles the son took up King Pippin's affection toward this city, to whom for his virtue the surname of the Great and the empire accrued. He embracing his sister Isberga with a brotherly mind, granted her very many privileges within and without Aire. There also he buried his parent Pippin and his mother Bertha deceased: whose bones even now are brought into the temple of Saint Peter at the circuit of the choir. Privileges given to St. Itisberga by Charlemagne. Hence the truth of the matter was curiously inquired into. For Eginhard in the Life of Charlemagne number 6 asserts that Pippin died at Paris of the disease of dropsy. But in the Life of the same Charles by an uncertain author, and in the Annals of Saint-Bertin, of Metz and others in the second tome of Du Chesne on the Writers of the History of the Franks, these things concerning the death of Pippin are related: Pippin, Waifer being slain, returned with triumph to Saintes: and there making a stay for some days he began to be sick. And thence returning to the parts of Tours he went on, made a prayer to St. Martin: and came as far as St. Denis, and there dying ended his day on the VIII Kalends of October. Were Pippin and Bertha buried at St. Denis? The Annals of Metz add: And his glorious sons buried him in the basilica of Blessed Denis the Martyr, as he himself wished, with the highest honor. Thus there. How much Pippin loved the said church and monastery of St. Denis, the diplomas granted to it manifest, and related by Jacques Doublet book 3 of the Antiquities of the monastery of St. Denis chapter 5. But that his monument buried there is still shown testify Claude Malingre and Jacques Du Breul in the Antiquities of Paris, indicating that these words are read there: King Pippin, father of Charlemagne. Queen Bertha, wife of King Pippin. But whether under their mausoleum their bones still are extant, is doubted. For the people of Aire think that the bones of both are preserved with them, and translated to the church of Aire? sought by a certain Countess of Flanders, and translated to Aire. And writing of this matter to Father Alexander Wilthemius a certain Priest of our Society, today, he says, at the circuit of the choir, in the wall behind the chief altar, among other words, which are almost obliterated, I read these: Of King Pippin and of Queen Bertha lie together the bones. But that it might more fully be established concerning the truth of the matter, the Dean of the church took care that in the presence of some Canons both wooden coffins, namely of three feet, be opened; in one of which, besides bones notable for their shortness, was found a parchment leaf with this ancient inscription and in a finger's-breadth character, The bones of Pippin; in the other The bones of Bertha. There also was found a leaden plate, half a foot long and of the breadth of one inch, on which are seen The bones of Hulchia, daughter of Bertha with a ✠ cross. To this was joined another inscription on parchment, which thus has: The bones of Helchia, daughter of Queen Bertha, removed and placed with her mother in the same
wooden tomb, in the year of the Lord 1255, on the Vigil of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I add that at the side of the name King Pippin, inscribed on the wall, are read these, Charlemagne, related with the memory of St. Itesberga. son of King Pippin; as also next to the name Queen Bertha, this inscription is had, Isiberga, daughter of Queen Bertha. Meanwhile it is established that neither Charlemagne, nor Itisberga rest there. These and other things the said Priest: which we propose to the curious investigators of Frankish antiquities: and only we say, that with great caution one must treat of the traditions of Aire.
[5] Another doubt concerning the sacred Relics of St. Itisberga is moved, Distinct from her Idaberga translated to St. Winnoc. because Jacobus Meyerus book 8 of the Annals of Flanders writes these things: In the year 1221 there is translated into the monastery of Saint Winnoc the body of Saint Oswald the King, and the body of Idaberga the Virgin, daughter (as I have received) of the once King Pippin, by Adam Bishop of the Morini. There were present the Abbots John of Saint-Bertin, William of La Capelle, William of Andres, Roger of Thérouanne, John of Auchy: but the Provosts William of Watten, John of Formoselle, Giles of Loos, John of Eversham together with Joanna the Countess. These things Meyerus under doubt, as he had received it, sets forth: which afterward, as certain, from the letters of Peter Waloncapel Prior of Saint Winnoc, on this day Molanus handed down, adding that the said Relics were translated on the day XX of June, and in the year 1558 perished through the wars of the French. Against whom Miraeus in the Belgian Fasti writes, that the Relics today survive near Aire, as we related above. Malbrancus in his letters once to us asserts (so far as he could perceive from Lambert of Ardres the Provost and William Abbot of Andres, writing about the year 1200) that there existed in the monastery of Guines a nun marked with such a name and famous for holiness, whose body he believes translated to Bergues. In the same manner Offanius chapter 2 says, that to Bergues was translated the body of St. Adaberga the Virgin and nun of Guines, but who she was we have not yet ascertained. What if with St. Oswald also the body of some English Virgin, either Eadburga, or Ethelburga, was translated?
[6] Another argument of Malbrancus for not distinguishing St. Itisberga from the Gisela cited above is, that both seem solicited to the same nuptials. But for that reason the Acts of St. Itisberga are suspect, in which she is not said to have been sought for the son of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, or the son of Desiderius King of the Lombards, as is established concerning Gisela; but by a King of Portugal, who then was none, nay Lusitania groaned under the most cruel servitude of the Moors. By Malbrancus Portugal is called Anglica-Wallia from a more frequented port: to whose observation we would subscribe, if elsewhere there were mention of these nuptials sought. Other faith suspect. Further Itisberga is said in this necessity by prayers to have summoned to herself fever and scrofula, and so freed from the nuptials, and then healed by eating a fish of the Lys, found in the body of St. Venantius slain and cast into the Lys. All which in Malbrancus can be read. St. Venantius is venerated on October X. Offanius narrates a miracle, which we have often read to have happened to other sacred Virgins also, from popular tradition of this kind: In the castle of Aire, which they still call Sala or Aula, Pippin had taken care to have a chapel built. Then St. Itisberga, as she was wont with singular piety to assist the poor, resolved also to refresh the workmen with food and to incite them to vigorously perform the holy work which they were undertaking. Her parent meets her, asks what she so studiously carries wrapped in a linen. She, her trust placed in the patronage of God, unrolled the linen: and behold the foods divinely converted into various flowers, which the King believed gathered by his daughter for adorning the altar. These things Offanius. Which Malbrancus also esteems of suspect faith, because he had read nothing of them anywhere.
[7] Finally Saussay commemorates St. Sitisberga, who both is said the daughter of Pippin King of Gaul and the sister of Charlemagne, and is venerated at Arches in Picardy, whose sacred spoils are there preserved with great honor, and today are reported to be venerated for the veneration of her blessed memory. Whether under the name of Sitisberga she is venerated in Picardy. Who will reconcile all things, at least until new proofs are added? Sitisberga seems no other than St. Itisberga hitherto given. Whether in Picardy some relics of her are also preserved with great honor, I neither had occasion to examine, nor reason to deny, except that Saussay did not bring forward the promised proofs, or perhaps another would not vouch for him. Why might he not, instead of Aire in Artois, have read or first written Arches in Picardy? Nothing of that seems alien from his conceptions. So the same Saussay on June XX writes these things: At Arches in Artois the Translation of St. Itisberga the Virgin, sister of Charlemagne: translation June 20. whose sacred Relics both from the feast of her migration on May XXI, and today in the church of this town with a great concourse of the faithful are honored. These things Saussay, where instead of the town of Aire he put Arches, forgetful of Picardy, to which before he had banished his St. Sitisberga, nor do I know whether he had known Arches, commonly Arques, a town notable for the title of a County also in Artois, pertaining to the right of the Abbot of Saint-Bertin, and very near to the city of Saint-Omer, but without the cult of St. Itisberga.