Ortarius

ON ST. ORTARIUS, ABBOT

OF LANDELLES IN NORMANDY.

BEFORE THE VI CENTURY.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

The Acts from the proper Office, the cult, the age of his life, distinguished from St. Gaultier of Pontoise.

Ortarius, Abbot of Landelles in present-day Normandy (St.)

BHL Number: 6351

BY THE AUTHOR D. P.

The Parish of Landelles in the diocese of Coutances of the extreme Normandy, not far from the river Vire, acknowledges as Patron St. Ortarius: whom the tradition of the inhabitants holds to have been Abbot in that place. Buried in his own chapel, There is not now indeed any monastery there, but neither can it be shown by surviving relics that there ever was: only in the cemetery of the church itself and round about are found several larger stones of various forms, which, being remnants of some greater mass, make the suspicion that the Lord of Landelles, founder of the Abbey of St. Severus distant one league, carried off to that new fabric the material, which at Landelles stood or lay idle. Concerning St. Ortarius, that he was buried there is more clearly demonstrated: since in the matricular book of the diocese of Coutances, written about the year 1251, while there is discourse of the aforesaid parish, it is thus read: In the said parish are two chapels, situated next to the church (so namely that one is on the right, the other on the left side, separated however from it and at the extreme edge of the cemetery) of which one is of the Blessed Virgin. In the same place is another chapel, in which the body of Blessed Hortarius lies: and the said chapels are joined to the church, that is, are administered by the same Presbyter by whom the church is: so a certain letter of Don Michael Jouenne, Curate there, taught us, and the Reverend Father Peter Champion of our Society, who after that was written himself went to the place, and noted in person all things to be so.

[2] it is celebrated famously throughout Normandy. Further not only there: but in very many other churches of Normandy most famous is the cult of this St. Ortarius, and that on this XXI of May, or even more solemnly on the Pentecostal feasts, with a great concourse of pilgrims and strangers: namely in the village called Étavaux, not far from the city of Caen across the river Orne. But it happened that about the year 1637 the Subprior of the monastery of Plessis, twenty years before intent on this care, that he might know who and of what sort St. Ortarius was, was sent to the aforesaid village, about to have a discourse concerning the same Saint. To preparing which, lest material should be wanting, there was offered to him an old Office of the Saint himself, not so long since described from an old parchment, of a certain parochial church, distant a league and a half from Neubourg, by a certain Subdeacon of the same monastery of Plessis; whom, returning from Paris, and beholding many pilgrims gathered in the said village for the cause of honoring St. Ortarius, a certain pious zeal had admonished, not to pass over that occasion of more closely learning something of St. Ortarius. In this Office the second and third Lesson were prescribed in this manner.

LESSON II

[3] Ortarius, sprung from noble parents, from the very tender age of his infancy always frequenting the thresholds of the catholic church, desired the monastery, Made a monk at twelve, loved the monks, loved Christ above all. For when as a boy he was being instructed in the liberal disciplines, prevented by divine blessing, attaining the twelfth year of his age, his parents being left, he is made a monk. In a short time he so profited, that he was a wonder to the rest. So living in this monastery, he insisted on fastings and vigils, more attentively above all things keeping humility. The food, which he received from the monastic Provost, he procured to give secretly to the needy; he attains a notable virtue: and very often stripped of his own garment, he strove to cover their nakedness. Envying whose virtues the devil, assails Blessed Ortarius with various temptations: which he overcame with prayer and fasting. When therefore he could not turn him from the service of God, he began at least to pursue him with bodily oppression, and sometimes chastised him with blows, sometimes appeared to him in portentous and monstrous forms to terrify him.

[4] It is not to be passed over, that when the Abbot of the monastery of Landelles was about to depart from the body, He is divinely directed to Landelles: Blessed Ortarius was admonished in sleep, to hasten to render to that Father the offices of the funeral. And when he had come to his doors, he saw the choirs of the celestial armies meet that holy soul, and lead it with ineffable joy to heaven. Soon the man of God Ortarius enters into the cell, where the body of the holy Abbot lay lifeless; and the Brethren chanting the due obsequies, he cares for his funeral. where, elected Abbot The office of sepulture being performed he returns to his own monastery: but the monks, with whom was the right of electing the Abbot, with one mouth of all designate Ortarius as Abbot. Which when it was announced to Ortarius, fearing lest under so great a weight he should fail, he hid himself at the sixth milestone from the monastery at a certain mountain's rock. But he is sought, and when he was found by no one, it is decreed that the election be revoked. and drawn out of his hiding-place, But while the hearts of the electors were turning in doubt, a voice was heard from above saying, God has chosen Ortarius: for behold he prays on the rock of the nearby mountain, and there you will find him. The Brethren are sent to the mountain: and Ortarius, the will of God being known, undertook the burden with a constant mind.

LESSON III

[5] Made therefore Abbot in the fiftieth year of his age, it is incredible to relate with how great holiness of life he flourished. He bears the prelacy in great austerity of life, The conversations of women, as the seeds of vices, he fled with great study: but so great was his abstinence, that of barley bread, which he himself made with his own hands, he was said to take into food not more than one ounce: and although besides water he admitted no drink at all, that itself he himself every third day used very sparingly. His garments were sackcloth and haircloth: beneath the tunic, upon the bare body, he was girt with a chain. Nor were miracles wanting to him, and he shines with miracles: which were no doubtful proofs of his holiness. A certain noble girl, having dry hands and weak knees, came to him; and falling at his feet, asked to be restored to herself. He prostrating himself on the ground, asks the Lord: then rising, anoints the hands and knees of the girl with blessed oil: she, by the kindness of Christ, soon recovers. In subsequent time a certain woman, sprinkled with the vice of leprosy, he so cleansed, that the traces of her former infirmity by no means appeared in her.

[6] Hence grew the fame of the holy man, and was spread abroad into all that region, He builds an oratory to the Blessed Virgin so that they wondrously venerated him: very many also bidding farewell to the world adhered to him, that they might be instructed in his disciplines. An exceptional devotion toward the Virgin Mary shone forth in him, so that in her honor near his monastery he built a beautiful chapel, where to the blind he restored sight, to the deaf hearing, to the lame walking; and to those suffering many kinds of infirmities, Christ being invoked, restored health: a great band also of captives from the offerings

of the devout he redeemed. There was in him a great desire of the salvation of souls, wherefore he converted very many infidels to the faith. By these virtues and other miracles Blessed Ortarius came to a mature age.

[7] and in it dead and buried Therefore in the ninety-eighth year of his age, perceiving the end of his life to approach, into his oratory, which he had dedicated to the holy Virgin Mary, he withdrew for the cause of prayer. There seized by a grave sickness, the Brethren however being called to him, whom he exhorted to charity, piety, and all virtues, on the seventeenth of the Kalends of May, famous for miracles, he passed to the Lord, and was buried in the said oratory. But how great miracles the Lord deigned to show through His servant, he is honored April 15, it is long to go through individually: for many vexed by the devil were freed; and whoever having an infirmity, with a devout mind and most prompt will, shall have sought health at his sepulchre, returns joyful to his own house with great cheerfulness. To that chapel, on the said day XVII Kalends of May, a frequent people is wont to come every year, and they report that the gouty, who are brought there, experience the help of Blessed Ortarius.

[8] Patron against the gout. Therefore against the gout chiefly seems used the devotion of the peoples toward this Saint; which that a fuller knowledge of his virtues and miracles might excite, we think there was written from the beginning a more copious life; of which these Lessons have only a compendium. For indeed in the Responsories and Antiphons, which we doubt not to be equally taken from the first Life, there occur some things passed over in these Lessons, whose historical fragments, lest they perish, we will here subjoin. Blessed Ortarius loving Christ above all, the kinship of his parents being forgotten, hastening went to the monastery. The Holy Spirit inspiring, falling at the feet of the Abbot, with great humility he asked for the habit. The Abbot considering the sincerity of his heart received him as a monk, and instructed him as a good father his son. The blessed Father Ortarius, clad in the sacred garments of Religion, Other fragments of the Life from the Responsories etc. daily more and more burned in divine love, and by abstinence overcame earthly cupidities. The illustrious man Ortarius, the glorious Confessor of the Lord, suffused with celestial dew, subjected earthly cupidities to his feet: he was of so great fortitude, that he overcame all perturbations of the mind. He became of so great silence, that he would not speak unless there were need. He noted down all the poor by letters, to whom secretly he gave nourishment: no wretched man ever departed from him without alms. Behold the excellent man, who never lapsed in word, and was not goaded into the sadness of fault. Behold the admirable man, whom * men through envy surrounded in the desert: but he could never be overcome. Therefore the Lord gave him His inheritance: above all He prepared his bread unto satiety. Blessed art thou, Confessor of God Ortarius, because with the Saints thou shalt rejoice, and with the Angels shalt exult forever.

[9] Thus far the very words of the proper Office, whose form is altogether singular, and displays no slight antiquity: for at Matins, after the Invitatory and Hymn, of a peculiar and old proper Office, a single Nocturn is prescribed, under a single Antiphon by the Paschal rite: but there follow three Lessons, of which the first contains the Lesson of the Gospel according to Luke, Let your loins be girt, with a Homily of St. Gregory the Pope: which is surely beyond the custom of Offices of saints wont to be observed elsewhere: the Second and third Lesson have been noted above in full. But to all the Lessons even the last is subjoined a proper Responsory of the Saint, and finally with the Hymn, Te Deum, Matins is concluded. We have very many anciently printed Breviaries of various Gallican churches, but in none of them has it hitherto been possible to observe a like form, so that deservedly thence we seem to conclude, that it is older than all of them: which also the prolixity of the Lessons persuades: which unless we judged received word for word from a fuller history of the life, we would have occasion to suspect, that the Office was composed in that monastery, in which the Saint assumed the monastic habit; but now what we cannot say of the Office, we would dare to affirm of the Life, because in the beginning of the Lessons it is expressly said, So living in this monastery; unless again it appeared that the "this" is referred to something omitted in this epitome for the sake of brevity.

[10] Rather therefore I would say that both the Life and the Office flowed from that place, where now his sepulchre is seen, received from Neubourg. and where formerly the body rested no one doubts; and where, although the monuments of letters were lost, by a faithful tradition of memory all the same things are narrated, which above in the Lessons are found described, the Parish-priest of the place himself asserted. He obtained the Lessons by a like occasion as the Subprior of Plessis had them, and from the same fount whence the people of Étavaux received them, namely from the parochial church about Neubourg, where to those reciting them came up a certain Franciscan, and moved by the multitude running to the feast asked them to be described. At Landelles indeed, as we have already said, next to the church is a chapel or oratory of St. Mary, such as built by Ortarius, and chosen for his own sepulture, the Lessons already produced teach. He died April 15, was translated May 21. But that now no longer on the XVII Kalends of May his feast is kept, but on the XII Kalends of June or at Pentecost: that I would believe done on the occasion of a translation, from the oratory of St. Mary into another, erected on the other side of the church under his own proper name; when, the Normans being brought over to the faith of Christ, the Christian religion, long and much oppressed there, flourished again. Of which thing a witness even now is the stone chest, empty indeed of the sacred bones, from that time when there raged through Gaul the rage of the rising Calvinists; but nevertheless from all memory backward held in honor, as the sepulchre of St. Ortarius, and representing even now an epigraph of this kind engraved in the vernacular tongue, cy gist le corps de monsieur S. Ortaire. Here lies the body of the Lord Saint Ortarius.

[11] He seems to have flourished in Gaul before the Franks. His image, very ancient, represents him in the monastic habit, with a crozier or two-headed staff: such as among the Easterns was more in use, but among the Westerns only among those, who received the order and canon of monastic living immediately from the East. Hence the great antiquity of that Saint can be gathered, and much more certainly, from this that St. Ortarius himself number 6 above is said, to have converted very many infidels to the faith of Christ: for that savors of those times, in which many remnants of paganism still survived through all Gaul, I say not under the Frankish Kings, but under the Prefects of the Roman Emperors before the coming of the Franks. Concerning his present cult thus writes the aforepraised Curate, having obtained that Parish to govern about the year 1640, The feast day is kept with the same cult as the Lord's day among us on May XXI (which we believe to have been of the Translation, and that performed on the Pentecostal feasts, it is venerated with great devotion of the people. so that therefore some have retained their religious obligation bound to that feast, for the greater convenience of the rustic common people) He is invoked against paralysis, arthritic diseases, and whatsoever infirmities of the limbs. But the devotion of the peoples toward this Saint is so great, that in one year I myself sometimes saw more than forty processions, and many miracles are narrated, but by bare tradition, no writing being made thereupon: and so through the whole province of Normandy is diffused the veneration of St. Ortarius, that under his name very many chapels and altars are found, to which for those having recourse equally as at Landelles the Saint is believed prompt to come into vows, and to confer miraculous graces.

[12] Further he through whom we first received the Lessons concerning St. Ortarius, Who believed him the same as St. Gaultier of Pontoise, the Subprior of the monastery of Plessis, when he had induced into his own mind, that it could not be, that so famous a Saint in Normandy should have no place in the two tomes of the Gallican Martyrology (which work he believed most complete, contrary to what we experience in using it) nor yet found in it the name of St. Ortarius; resolved to review the whole anew, if perhaps he should find his memory lying hidden under another name. Therefore on the day VIII of April finding a most prolix eulogy of St. Gaultier Abbot of Pontoise taken from his Life, and observing in it certain heads of life or virtues, not unlike from those which he found in the lessons concerning St. Ortarius; he settled with himself that Gaultier and Ortarius were the same, and that the Saint was of two names: but the motives of his opinion he collected in a writing which is with us, sent together with the Office by the Reverend Father Cellot, about the year 1640 Rector of our College of Rouen. Who when he had communicated the same to the Author of the Gallican Martyrology André du Saussay, he was astonished at the unexpected novelty of the bold conjecture, and wrote back that by no reason was it made probable to him by that writing, that into the same person Ortarius and Gaultier could be conflated; that he wished however to suspend his judgment, until from a certain parish, distant sixty leagues and more from Paris, where St. Ortarius is venerated as Patron, he should have received his Acts promised to him, which whether they are different from the lessons of the Office we do not yet know, and, if they are, we wish to obtain.

[13] He saw the entire Acts of neither. But we believe, that if the Subprior of Plessis instead of the Saussayan eulogy could have read the very ancient Life of St. Gaultier, he would not have been about to couple things so disparate, that whom the Lessons of the Office say chosen successor of that Abbot, to caring for whose funeral he had been summoned from heaven; he should believe him able to be the one, who in the Life number 5 is said requested as Abbot from the monastery of Rebais, by the Brethren, by the instinct and providence of God beginning to construct a certain monastery near the castle of Pontoise, lest after the manner of Sarabaites they should live outside anyone's obedience. The former before he set his hand to the rule, vacant by another's death, fled to a rock of a mountain distant not far, and thence drawn forth humbly acquiesced in his election, to the very last breath bearing the care of the monastery: the latter, in the order of the Abbots of Pontoise second to none, deserted the Prefecture held for several years, withdrawing to Cluny; and thence brought back by the instance of the Archbishop of Rouen, again withdrew his shoulders from the burden, now hiding in a crypt near the monastery, now setting out to Rome etc., as in his Life one may read at greater length. But these things suffice that by names, places, and times we may believe them to have been most diverse.

* or demons