Auditus

ON ST. AUDITUS, IN SPAIN,

Auditus. (S.)

BY G. V. H.

St. Auditus, whom Tamayo makes a martyr, In the Spanish Martyrology, at the Kalends of November, Juan Tamayo Salazar lists a saint by the name of Auditus in these words: At Blitabrum near Segovia, at the Carpetanian ridges of Spain, of St. Auditus, martyr, who in the persecution of the emperor Severus, having endured no small torments for the confession of Christ, flew up, an undaunted athlete, to the palm of martyrdom. He indicates in his notes the sources from which he drew the matter of his notice. At note E he speaks thus: His memory and day of veneration are reported by Flavius Dexter Chronicle, p. 265, edition of Bivar., in these words: “At Blitabrum near Segovia, at the Carpetanian ridges, in the province of Tarraconensis, St. Auditus, martyr, 1 November.” Where Bivar in his notes Ibid., p. 267.. Rodrigo Caro in the same place, letter c, fol. 82. Julian follows Dexter in the Adversaria, no. 223, with the following clause: “Celebrated was the memory of St. Auditus, citizen and martyr of Blitabrum, who suffered various torments for the confession of the faith in the year of the Lord 208. St. Quiricus, bishop of Toledo, is believed to have converted him to the faith and dipped him in the sacred waters; he suffered at Blitabrum in the fifth persecution of the Church, under the emperor Marcus Aurelius Severus. His bones are preserved with honor.” There agree Diego Colmenares History of the distinguished city of Segovia, pp. 36, 37., who, seeking the place of burial of this holy martyr with assiduous inquiry, among the peaks of the mountains between North and East, at the fourth milestone from Blitabrum, found an old house, where once there had stood a cloister of canons regular, marked by the title of St. Auditus, and by a corrupted word of St. Tuus, where the body of this holy martyr is believed to have rested in the time of Julian. The illustrious Count of Mora, History of Toledo, Part I, Book III, chapter 22, fol. 216. These are the things that we can write of this holy martyr; God knows the rest, who amid the turbulent slaughters of Spain deigned to preserve his name. So Tamayo there. These things must be diligently examined. For Tamayo's credit is doubtful or even none. What he reports from the chronicle of Dexter is in fact read in the Pseudo-Dexter. The note of Bivar to which he refers is found in Bivar's commentary Page 269., as follows: Ambrosio Moro General Chronicle of Spain, vol. III, p. 241. reports that Flaminius, proconsul of Nearer Spain, subdued by right of war the city of Blitabrum or Litabrum, its lord Corribilo being reduced to chains. Now Litabrum was situated at the Carpetanian ridges, as Dexter asserts, and mention is made of it in the Second Council of Toledo, in the second letter of Montanus, archbishop of Toledo, where it is named together with Segovia and Cauca (today Coca); for which reason Loaysa teaches in his notes that Blitabrum was near Segovia. Here then St. Auditus gave his neck for Christ the Lord, whose feast day was solemnly celebrated, in the age of Dexter, on the first of November. It is evident from these words of Bivar that nothing becomes known of St. Auditus besides what Dexter had brought forward. And the one he calls Ambrosio Moro is the very celebrated historian Ambrosio de Morales, who in the place cited treats of Litabrum, captured and destroyed by Flaminius, who captured a certain leading man of that same city, of whom, as of the city itself, no fuller information can be had.

[2] A sacred house was dedicated at Blitabrum; The same Bivar in his commentary on the chronicle of Marcus Maximus returns to Brittablum, and mentions the things that relate most of all to St. Auditus. We copy out the words of this most diligent man: As to Brittablum, the same Julian as above, in the Adversaria, treating at no. 222 of the proconsul Marcus Fulvius, who stormed Vescelia and Halo (today Uzeda and Haillon) with many other fortresses, says: “The same subdued Litebrum, in the time of the Goths Blittabrum, and now by a corrupted word called Buitrago, a town of Carpetania, according to Titus Livius.” But it was not Fulvius but Flaminius who subdued Littabrum, as is clear from the same author's book XXXV, whose words are these: “And in both Spains in that year things went prosperously: for both Gaius Flaminius stormed the town of Littabrum, fortified and rich, with mantlets, and took alive the noble chieftain Corribilo: and Marcus Fulvius the proconsul fought two successful battles with two armies of the enemy; he stormed two towns of the Spaniards, Vescelia and Halo” (commonly Uzeda and Haillon, even on the testimony of Julian himself, no. 221) and many fortresses. Julian continues, no. 223: “Celebrated was the memory of St. Auditus, citizen and martyr of Blittabrum, that is, of Bruytrago, who suffered various torments for the confession of the faith in the year of the Lord 208, whom St. Quintius, bishop of Toledo, is believed to have converted to the faith and dipped in the sacred waters. He suffered at Litabrum in the fifth persecution of the Church under the emperor Marcus Aurelius Severus. His bones are preserved with honor.” In the course of time a college of regular clerics was established in the house of St. Auditus, which at length, when Ximenes was Cardinal of Toledo, passed to the colleagues of St. Ildefonsus of Alcalá. Álvar Gómez, describing it [On the Deeds of Francisco Ximenes (in Hispania illustrata, Frankfurt 1603, pp. 1066, 1067).], says this: “We have said that in the mountains of Buitrago, which are on the border of the Vaccaei, there is a sacred house in a remote retreat, surrounded on all sides by groves and mountains, wholly suited to the pursuits of the Muses and to the contemplation of divine things. The name of the saint to whom it was dedicated is clearly established, from ancient records preserved at the University of Alcalá, to be Auditus, although I nowhere find his memory in the sacred fasti. It is commonly called Sant Oid by our people,

the derivation from the name of Auditus being manifest. Of the first founders I have nothing certain to write. The place seems built for canons priests; for there is both a choir constructed for saying the psalmody, with seats arranged, and a very ample triclinium (which they call a refectory), and many other things necessary for living in common.” And after some other things: “In ancient parchments which are kept in the cases of the University, I find that the grove of St. Auditus, of which we now treat, was the possession of the canons priests who served the house dedicated to the divine Leocadia at Toledo; that Abbot Archillinus, by the will of the brethren of Leocadia, granted that grove to King Alfonso VIII; and that he afterward generously gave to Fernando Díaz, master of the Order of St. James, the monastery of St. Auditus (for so it is held in the parchments) with the neighboring groves.” And again: “Ximenes sumptuously built up the house of St. Auditus in many places, adding grain mills to be turned by the nearby stream.” These things I have said in favor of St. Auditus the martyr, on which, when we were expounding Dexter, who venerates his memory at the year of Christ 208, no. 3, we confess we were silent, because we had not yet come upon the Adversaria of Julian, and because these things were afterward pointed out to us by a man of recondite learning and our friend Diego Colmenares, by whose studies we hope the affairs of Segovia will be made more illustrious and will shortly be given to the light Page 382.. So far Bivar. From these things we learn that a sacred house dedicated to St. Auditus existed, and consequently that a certain Saint by the name of Auditus existed in the nature of things, which we would not have believed on the assertion of Tamayo, nor of Dexter, nor of Julian, nor of any other on their credit. But it is worthwhile, before we go on, to copy out from Diego Colmenares, whom Bivar praises, what at length, by a most diligent inquiry, he learned about the Saint.

[3] [Of whom Colmenares found nothing at Blitabrum besides the name and the house, nor is anything known from elsewhere.] Diego Colmenares, a most learned man and most skilled in searching out the history of his homeland, greatly wondering that the fame of St. Auditus had been so obscured, applied the greatest diligence to inquiring after the records of Blitabrum concerning St. Auditus, and set out there to inspect all things with his own eyes and hear them with his own ears. I went, he says, to Blitabrum on 28 October of the year 1628, nor could we find there any inscription or memorial of the Romans. Although it is established for us that Buitrago is the Litabrum of Livy and the Britablum of Dexter, the proper signs of the topography indicating this. And he received even less information about St. Auditus: except that a certain old farmer from those borders said he had heard from his elders that the abbey of St. Tuus was once called St. Auditus's History of Segovia, pp. 37, 38.. Here let us stay our steps for a moment to weigh the testimony of Diego Colmenares. Besides the bare name he found nothing in the place. I think the difference of the name, Santoid according to Gómez, cited above by Bivar, and San Tui, as Colmenares wrote it in Spanish, is removed by an easy method. Each author brings forward the word of popular speech, and when it is pronounced, you will hardly judge from the speaker's mouth whether he says Sant Oid or San Tui, since the final t before the initial vowel of the following word comes out, when uttered, in exactly the same way as if, belonging to the following word, it preceded the vowel. Yet I think, or rather I most certainly judge, that the matter stands as Gómez writes: for in Tui almost nothing of Auditus remains, in Oid a manifest trace. To both authors it was also established from elsewhere that Auditus was signified by each corruption of the name. But to Gómez the parchments of Alcalá were an inescapable argument. To Colmenares, unless the matter were proved from elsewhere, namely from the writings of Alcalá, his old man would afford a slender support; as it is, he certainly confirms what was already held. But let us hear Colmenares again: On the following day, he says, at the fourth mile from the town of Blitabrum, between North and East, through the sinuous windings of the mountains I came to the house or convent, which the people of the region call San Tui Ibid., p. 38.. There he heard what we already know from Gómez. Yet concerning the structure and age of the temple he found a monument worth knowing. Namely the epitaph of a son of the kings of Castile, a certain Sancho, to whom a more recent tomb inscription refers the foundation of the house; which is this: In this sarcophagus lie the ashes and bones of Don Sancho, son of a certain king of Castile, as ancient antiquity hands down, passed through the mouths of elders and old men over many years, who, leaving friends, servants, and royal state, came here: he erected this house, and led the monastic life. He died in the Lord. Whose memory, since he so lived, will be in benediction. In the year 1199 Ibid.. With this year, says Colmenares, agrees the Infante Sancho, son of King Alfonso surnamed the Noble; by what kind of death, where or when he died, is nowhere indicated: From the chronicle of the Order of St. James it is established that Fernando Díaz, master of that Order, abdicated the mastership in the year 1186, and withdrew to the convent of St. Auditus, with the Infante Sancho perhaps as his companion. Ambrosio de Morales too Work cited, vol. V, p. 97. declares that he saw an authentic instrument of donation, by which Arquilinus, abbot of St. Leocadia at Toledo, with his canons hands over to King Alfonso the convent of St. Auditus. No one can deny that these years and these facts hold together in a mutual connection; hence it is most certainly established that at the end of the twelfth century there was a convent of St. Auditus. Finally Colmenares candidly declares that neither in the convent nor in its borders did he find any information or tradition concerning relics of St. Auditus History of Segovia, pp. 38, 39.. Nicolás Antonio Critique of fabulous histories, p. 176. reports almost the same things from Gómez and Colmenares as we have brought forward. By these things it comes about that it seems we must determine thus of St. Auditus: there is a certain saint, by the name of Auditus, whose deeds and manner of death are unknown. For as to some, relying on the false chronicles of Dexter and others, making this Auditus a martyr of the earlier centuries, that is nothing, because it is founded on no arguments.