Gundisalvus

ON ST. GUNDISALVUS, BISHOP IN SPAIN,

IN THE 10TH CENTURY?

Gundisalvus, bishop in Spain. (S.)

BY C. D. S.

One certain document about that St. Gundisalvus is available to us, a popular tradition which records that a hostile fleet approaching the shores of Spain was utterly scattered and shattered by his prayers. [St. Gundisalvus, according to popular tradition and an old painting, routed the Saracens by his prayers. His cult was asserted in the year 1611,] The most ancient trace of this tradition, as it seems, was presented by an old painting representing the prodigy to the eyes on the wall of a certain hermitage or chapel founded on that very place to which the saint had proceeded, the clergy accompanying him and a multitude of people going before, terrified by fear of the hostile incursion; but soon, as he prayed, a monstrous storm arising, they wondered to see all the ships of the invaders shaken and sunk, one only being left to carry back the news of so great a disaster to its people. The place is distant about a quarter of a league from the monastery of St. Martin near the city of Mondoñedo, towards the sea, and it is so high that from it may be seen a space of not a few leagues over the Ocean. That he saw the chapel and painting the bishop of Mondoñedo testifies in the year 1611, writing back to King Philip III Flórez, España Sagrada, vol. XVIII, p. 394. Cf. below, no. 5 end. .

[2] and again in the year 1704, Another inquiry into the cult of St. Gundisalvus was instituted in the year 1704 by the bishop of Mondoñedo, Manuel Navarrete, in which he heard twenty-four witnesses unanimously affirming that immemorial cult and the tradition concerning the aforesaid miracle received from their elders. The same bishop rebuilt and restored the chapel falling from age; and no less a concourse than of old of the surrounding peoples took place there thereafter, especially on the feast days of Pentecost, on which from ancient times they had been accustomed to celebrate St. Gundisalvus with particular honour Ibid., p. 295. .

[3] and also, not without a prodigy, around the year 1680. From the instrument of this inquiry of the year 1704 it is held that a little before, by a wonderful event, which seemed to all not without miracle, the cult of St. Gundisalvus was confirmed. For when Sebastián de Arévalo (who took up the care of the diocese of Mondoñedo in the year 1672) was visiting those places in his pastoral office, judging that cult, resting on tradition alone, not sufficiently legitimate, he ordered that thereafter they should abstain from it, and that the image, by which they had hitherto wished St. Gundisalvus to be represented, they should mark with the name of St. Nicholas or St. Rudesind. But behold, as he intended to go on further from there in his visitation, an unexpected delay is put in his way. The mule, namely, which, being most gentle, to use

he was accustomed, suddenly as if seized by fury, seemed stubbornly to refuse to enter on the intended journey, until the bishop, moved by fear no less than by wonder, and recognizing the divine power in the change of the beast, commanded one of the chief of those priests of his chapter who accompanied him to go to the monastery of St. Martin, and, having called together the inhabitants of that region on the festivity of Pentecost, to say in a public address and exhort them to persevere in venerating St. Gundisalvus, as before, with the honours customarily given to the inhabitants of the blessed fatherland. Thus therefore that immemorial cult, already established by the consent of the peoples and the approval of certain bishops, was confirmed anew, by the disposition of divine providence, by the very man who from too human a prudence had striven to put an end to it Ibid. .

[4] On the sepulchre and relics of St. Gundisalvus. The sepulchre of Gundisalvus is seen in the monastery of St. Martin of Mondoñedo, not the Lorenzana one (as some less rightly instructed have reported), constructed of rough stone and somewhat raised above the ground. When Flórez was writing these things, Mass was from time to time celebrated on the altar set over it, and certain bishops, out of singular devotion to the saint, had come there to offer the sacred host. The sepulchral chest was closed with three keys, of which the bishop kept one, his chapter another, and the prior of St. Martin the third. It was opened around the year 1548 by Francisco de Torres, bishop of Mondoñedo, and he found the holy body stripped of flesh, but with the bones whole: from which a most sweet odour emanating wonderfully refreshed all who stood by. There were found also in the sacred sepulchre a gilded pastoral staff, certain fragments of sacred vestments uncorrupted, and a silken girdle interwoven with gold. The same things were seen in another recognition of the relics in the year 1704, instituted by order of Bishop Manuel Navarrete Ibid. .

[5] What has been handed down about him besides by more recent writers These things we hold certain about our saint. More doubtful and intricate are the things that have been set down in writing about him besides and that are recited in Tamayo de Salazar Martyrol. Hispan., vol. VI, pp. 24–25. . Namely Pseudo-Liutprand Adversar., n. 69 (others: 77). : Among the Asturians near Balobriga in the Ocean sea there rest ships of the Saracens * which by the prayers of St. Gundisalvus, bishop of Mondoñedo or of Balobriga, were sunk in the year DCCCXLVI. He died in the year DCCCL. He is venerated on the first day of November. More fully Gil González Theatr. eccl. Castell., vol. III, p. 417. : St. Gundisalvus, the first of this name. He translated the cathedral church from the city of Britonia to the basilica of St. Martin of Mondoñedo. By his prayers God worked very many miracles. One was that when Mahomat, king of Córdoba, had been informed that there existed in Galicia some towns full of riches and without walls, and that they could be taken by way of the Ocean and despoiled of so great treasures, he at once ordered a strong fleet at Seville, and other smaller ones elsewhere, over which he set Abdel-Hamuit as commander-in-chief, to carry out that expedition as quickly as possible. He in the year 888, the sails being given to the wind, took care to carry out the king's order. So the Saracen commander, reaching the port by name of Masma, between the towns of Ribadeo and Vivero, was preparing to land his naval soldiers. But the holy bishop seizing the arms of prayer in aid of his flock, at once such a storm arose that all the Saracens with their ships were sunk in the sea. Similar things are reported by Diego Samaniego, bishop of Mondoñedo, in the year 1611 [In the report on the relics of the diocese of Mondoñedo to Philip III, Catholic king, cited in Tamayo.] , except that he records that in place of the Saracens Normans perished. And he adds that in testimony of this miracle a hermitage was erected in that place where the holy prelate fixed his pastoral staff, in view of the Ocean, on whose walls there was still seen painted a representation of this miracle, and that beside the site of the hermitage there was seen a most limpid and perennial spring, which the townspeople called holy, to whose waters the sick ran in crowds: who, having drunk its liquid, were at once delivered from their infirmities.

[6] partly certainly false, These writers agree, then, in calling Gundisalvus bishop of Mondoñedo, but they differ both about the time of his prelacy and about the name of the nation which was overcome through his prayers. And indeed, as regards the title of bishop, that this is due to Gundisalvus is sufficiently shown by the pastoral staff found in his sepulchre Cf. above, no. 4 ; but it is altogether impermissible to attribute to him a place among the bishops of Mondoñedo of the ninth century, since the see of Britonia was translated to Mondoñedo, and accordingly the see of Dume or Mondoñedo first founded, a little before the year 877 by Sabaricus I España Sagrada, vol. XVIII, p. 63. , whom Rudesind I succeeded even before this year Ibid., pp. 63, 66. , and he certainly still held the see of Mondoñedo in the year 893 Ibid., p. 68. . In the catalogue of the bishops of Mondoñedo there occurs indeed one by name Gundisalvus, not in the ninth century, but around and after the year 1070 Ibid., p. 117. ; Flórez judges Ibid., p. 294. that a place can also be found for our Gundisalvus between the year 942, in which St. Rudesind II is read to have abdicated the pontificate Ibid., p. 97. , and the year 969, in which another bishop of Mondoñedo first appears Ibid., p. 109. . But no indications exist that permit us either to make our Gundisalvus the same as the bishop who held the see at the very end of the 11th century, or to place his pontificate around the middle of the 10th century.

[7] partly uncertain. Yet the authority of the writers we have cited above ought to move us not at all, since they both contradict one another and admit manifest errors, nor do they bring forward any older authority. And so it seems sufficiently clear that nothing was found out by them about St. Gundisalvus apart from what we have indicated as preserved by popular tradition, and that they added the rest from their own storehouse. Namely, some, reading in the Chronicle of Sebastian that an incursion of the Normans assailed Spain in the time of Ramiro I Esp. Sagr., vol. cit., p. 63. , who died in the year 850, judged that it should be concluded both that the enemies routed by the prayers of Gundisalvus were Normans, and that St. Gundisalvus presided over the see of Mondoñedo in that year 850; but in this chronology, as we have already noted, Pseudo-Liutprand has manifestly blundered, since in the year 850 the see of Mondoñedo or Dume did not yet exist; and besides he admitted another more shameful error by saying that St. Gundisalvus was bishop of Mondoñedo or Vivero, since the beginnings of the church of Vivero must be placed more than two hundred years later. And González thought of the Saracens, and, reading in a certain Portuguese document that they attacked certain parts of Spain with a fleet in the year 888, he attached to the same year the celebrated prodigy handed down to memory of St. Gundisalvus, and seems to have added to the tradition what he found noted in his document concerning the expedition of the Saracens; but he too sinned against historical faith by attributing to St. Gundisalvus the translation of the see from Britonia to Mondoñedo, which an old diploma of Alfonso III Martyrol. Hispan., vol. VI, p. 12. signifies in express words is owed to Sabaricus.

[8] His memory recorded only in the martyrologies of Tamayo and Chastelain. In the martyrologies the memory of Gundisalvus first occurs in Tamayo de Salazar at the 1st day of November, in these words Ibid., p. 24. : At Mondoñedo in Galicia of Spain, of St. Gonsalvus, bishop of that city, who, conspicuous for sanctity of life and illustrious for the working of wonders, as an illustrious shepherd enlightened the sheep entrusted to him, and at length as an exceptional confessor returned to the eternal fatherland. In the notes the same Tamayo cites the manuscript Spanish Martyrology of Jerónimo de la Higuera (unhappy name!), where at the same day, 1 Nov., is read: In the monastery of St. Saviour of Lorenzana of the diocese of Mondoñedo the sacred body of St. Gundisalvus, bishop of that city, who flourished in virtues and miracles, honourably rests. This latter announcement Chastelain followed in his Universal Martyrology.

* others: Normannorum.