Gebetrude

ON ST. GEBETRUDE, ABBESS OF REMIREMONT,

AFTER THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY

Gebetrude, abbess of Remiremont. (S.)

BY C. D. S.

§ I. On the notices concerning St. Gebetrude older than the middle of the eleventh century.

[1] St. Gebetrude, according to the older documents, We have found only a twofold mention of St. Gebetrude certainly older than the eleventh century. The one, namely, in the original Life Or rather the account of the last days of his life. of St. Adelphius, which, if not earlier, certainly in the Carolingian age, an anonymous writer composed, the same, as it seems, to whom we owe also the Lives of St. Amatus and St. Romaric See B. Krusch, in MG., Scr. rer. merov. vol. IV, p. 210 – 12.. He relates that the abbess Gebetrude with her virgins went out to meet those carrying the body of St. Adelphius from the monastery of Luxeuil to Remiremont ["For when, carrying him, they had already crossed the bed of the Moselle, behold, St. Tetta, who is also Cebetrude, the abbess, came out to meet them with the holy sisters, bearing relics of the saints with candles and crosses…" Life of St. Adelphius ch. 6 (MG., vol. cit., p. 227).], and in the close of his little work he declares that this writing was undertaken by him at the command of the same abbess ["For these are but a few things narrated out of many, which the holy and most kindly abbess Tetta, for the memory of the blessed man Adelphius or for the example of the faithful, ordered to be furrowed with the pen, set down in a little commentary, to be recalled in the course of time…" Ibid., ch. 12 (vol. cit., p. 228).]. But nowhere else in the original Lives of SS. Amatus, Romaric and Adelphius [Which, after Philippe Labbe (who passed over the Life of St. Amatus) and Jean Mabillon, the distinguished Bruno Krusch has lately edited accurately, MG., vol. cit., p. 215 ff.] is anything brought forward about St. Gebetrude.

[2] presided over the convent of Remiremont The other ancient memorial of Gebetrude is furnished by the Liber Vitae written in the monastery of Remiremont in the ninth–eleventh century, which is now kept at Rome in the Biblioteca Angelica, marked there with the shelf-mark A. 2. 12 [The distinguished Adalbert Ebner described the codex accurately in Neues Archiv für ältere deutsche Geschichte, vol. XIX (1894), p. 49 – 83.]. Namely, in that part of the codex which was copied in the ninth century the following list of the abbesses of Remiremont is read: Mactafledis abbess. Erkhendrudis abbess. Sigoberga abbess Gebedrudis abbess. Sevilla abbess [Neues Archiv, vol. cit., p. 71. Of these five abbesses three are read named in the Lives of the saints of Remiremont indicated above (no. 1), namely Mactefledis in the Life of St. Amatus, ch. 8 (MG., vol. cit., p. 218), Caecilia, whom they judge to be the same who in the list is called Sevilla, in the Life of St. Romaric, ch. 1 (ibid., p. 221), and Gebetrude in the Life of St. Adelphius (cf. above, no. 1). The distinguished Krusch (MG., vol. cit., p. 213) points out that three of these names also, somewhat corrupted, are read in the Life of St. Columban written by Jonas of Bobbio among the names of the nuns (not abbesses) of Évoriac, namely Gibitrudis, Ercomtrudis and Augnofledis. By this observation and others joined to it (ibid., p. 211 – 13) he seems to call into suspicion to some extent the credit or authority of the anonymous author of the Remiremont Lives. The distinguished Marius Besson has lately attempted to refute Krusch's arguments in Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Kirchengeschichte, vol. I (1907), p. 25 – 30. Cf. Anal. Boll., vol. XXVI (1907), p. 342.].

[3] [at the time of the death of St. Adelphius, which death did not occur before the year 673.] From these documents, therefore, it is permitted to establish only this one thing about St. Gebetrude as certainly known before the middle of the eleventh century, namely that she was one of the first abbesses of the convent of Remiremont [Which, it has long been agreed among the learned, was founded about the year 620.], and indeed at the time when St. Adelphius died in the monastery of Luxeuil and his body was immediately after his death carried to his people at Remiremont Life of St. Adelphius, ch. 5 (MG., vol. cit., p. 227).. Now Adelphius, less than three years before his death, was honourably received at Luxeuil by Ingofredus, abbot of the place Ibid., chs. 2, 3., who, as the distinguished Krusch recalls MG., vol. cit., p. 226 n. 3., succeeded Waldebert, abbot of Luxeuil, who died in the year 670; whence it is gathered that Adelphius did not depart from this world before the year 673, and so that Gebetrude was still living in this year. But no other chronological indications or events of her life, apart from the reception of the body of St. Adelphius, are recorded in the same documents, nor any indication of a cult shown to her.

§ II. On the traditions concerning the history of St. Gebetrude later than the middle of the eleventh century.

[4] According to the more recent Life of St. Adelphius, But in the middle of the eleventh century or shortly after there came to light another Life of St. Adelphius, not a little more prolix than that earlier one, in which Adelphius is related to have been the brother of St. Gebetrude and the nephew of St. Romaric, and both, by his appointment, to have succeeded him next in ruling the monastery of Remiremont. Our predecessors received that enlarged Life copied by Pierre-François Chifflet from a single codex of Remiremont Cf. Act. SS., Sept. vol. III, p. 812, no. 7., nor has any other codex containing it become known anywhere. And in that codex itself the name or age of the author is not disclosed either in the prologue or in the close; yet that he was a cleric or monk attached to the service of the church of Remiremont is sufficiently gathered from the fact that he calls Adelphius our father and declares that he undertook the work out of obedience to the mother of the monastery Ch. 1 (vol. cit., p. 818).. A certain more recent writer, much versed indeed in compiling the monuments of Remiremont, but not so distinguished in critical judgment Cf. below, no. 12., Sébastien Valdenaire, says Act. SS., loc. cit. that the mother to whom the Life is dedicated was Oda, who presided over the monastery in the middle of the eleventh century Cf. Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 810, no. 5; Krusch, MG., vol. cit., p. 214., and this seems in itself sufficiently probable Cf. below, no. 12.; others prefer that this second Life, which manifestly tends to extol the nobility of birth and the sanctity of the founders of the monastery and its opulence from the beginning, was fabricated in the last years of the eleventh century or at the beginning of the twelfth century, at which time not a few false charters were forged in the same place to the same end [Cf. A. Didier-Laurent (cit. p. 411, note 1), p. 204 – 214. In place of some confirmation of that opinion they adduce the words of the writer of the Life, who in his prologue to the abbess says: Therefore I have resolved to obey your commands, for no other reason than that, just as I see you intent on caring for the advantages of your church, so also you may be the cause why I labour at amplifying the glory of blessed Adelphius… (Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 818, no. 1).]. For the rest, he brings forward no witness or guarantor of those things, so many and so wonderful, which he added to the original Life, nor does anything occur in any ancient document by which these may be confirmed.

[5] he, of St. Romaric, In these words, then, our anonymous author sets out the beginnings of the convent of Remiremont: For the most glorious and most beloved of God Romaric, when he was powerful among the chief men in the palace, supported by the king's familiarity, and when, as one sprung from royal lineage, he looked after the king and kingdom with vigorous governance, took the counsel, using a happy exchange, to set aside perishable things and to cleave to God alone. Now he had at that same time three daughters brought up chastely and liberally, as the dignity of so great a man required; and turning over their marriages long and much in his heart, although opulence in goods and nobility in birth were abundantly at hand, he preferred to destine them to Christ with the flower of virginity. For he in whose heart the world had already withered, to whom indeed the pomp of palatine dignity had begun to seem worthless, was resolving that the cord of the inheritance should be assigned to no one but Christ. But one of his daughters, Aselberga by name, not acquiescing in her father's devotion, without share in the hereditary lot and without her father's counsel, married a certain man in the parts of Sicambria, whose name was Berthilinus, a man of the highest nobility and of great power Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 818, no. 3..

[6] founder of the monastery of Remiremont, Then, after relating the withdrawal of Romaric from the royal court, at the exhortation and under the teaching of St. Amatus Ibid., no. 4., the anonymous writer continues thus Ibid., no. 5.: With like affection, therefore, (Amatus and Romaric) find within the vast depth of the Vosges a place suitable for hermit solitude, which we have learned was called by the ancients Habendi castrum, in which, serving the King of kings in continual exercise, they build So emended for aedificavit, which was read in the codex. a monastery of maidens, and, discharging the office of pastoral care, they watch over the guarding of the flock with skilful industry.

[7] was the grandson, and the brother of St. Gebetrude, But Asselberga, hearing Ibid., no. 6. that her father had renounced the world, sent to him a daughter named Tecta, whom she had already borne from her husband Bethilinus, hoping in this way to draw it about that he would restore to the girl the pledge of the inheritance which belonged to herself by hereditary right. But blessed Romaric, beholding with a joyful countenance the first-fruits of his offspring, dedicated her, together with the others whom he had gathered there, to serve the Lord perpetually; she was afterwards the mother of the same monastery, and was called Gebetrude. But the mother, when she had learned what was being done about her daughter, happy in a second birth, again sets about bending his mind, but, as I think, not without divine prompting: for the little boy, whom she had borne a little after, she sent across to his grandfather to be baptized and to be appointed heir of the possession he had abandoned. Whom the most serene father Romaric, receiving him with great joy, blessed the Lord, by whose protection he rejoiced that what his daughter had neglected had been doubled by the service of a twin offspring.

[8] and, together with her, deputed by St. Romaric to rule the monastery: And so the most excellent father of this [Ibid., no. 8. In the preceding chapter (no. 7) the anonymous writer related that Adelphius, when he had been handed over to St. Arnulf (bishop of Metz) to be instructed, had attained under that teacher an outstanding holiness of life.] so illustrious youth, when he had learned by frequent report that he had borne very much fruit in the house of God, out of love for the same dearest son made over to the monastery of Remiremont an opulent inheritance in the parts of Provence, although it was afterwards violently laid waste by the Agarenes. But after the departure of the most blessed Amatus, the most devout father Romaric, when the dissolution of his body was already imminent, committed to his beloved Adelphius … the care of the holy maidens, whom he, together with his sister, namely the most prudent Gebetrude, ruling all things manfully and ordering them with fatherly affection … governed piously and vigorously.

[9] but this enlarged Life If these things could be believed to have truly happened so, it would appear quite wonderful that by the author of the original Lives of SS. Amatus, Romaric and Adelphius, who both lived in the monastery of Remiremont Cf. Krusch, MG., vol. cit., p. 211 middle. and says that he conversed familiarly with Gebetrude Cf. above, no. 1., they should either have been unknown or, if he had not been ignorant of them, wrapped in deep silence, since nothing was customarily more of a care to the hagiographers of that age than to proclaim the condition, noble according to the world, of those whose deeds they were describing, or their kinship with other men illustrious in holiness; and in particular, that, when at the command of Gebetrude he was celebrating Adelphius Cf. above, p. 409, note 4., he should not have indicated by even a little word that he was the brother of Gebetrude.

[10] on many a count But that more recent writer also heaped together other things, both incredible in themselves and in no way consistent either among themselves or with what is asserted in the earlier Lives of the saints of Remiremont. For, since Romaric immediately after his conversion had stripped himself of all his goods [Which, as Mabillon hints (at the place cited in the next number), he would have done imprudently enough, since besides two daughters, whom, according to our interpolator, he had resolved to consecrate to the Lord and could therefore have judged not to need riches, he had a third daughter, married in a lawful and honourable marriage, which she had contracted against her father's will indeed, yet not, as it seems, against his reasonable will.] except for a single estate which he had reserved, to be of use for a good work, and which he soon alienated from himself for a monastery of maidens to be built on it Life of St. Romaric, chs. 4, 5 (MG., vol. cit., pp. 222, 223)., it is not understood for what reason, after the monastery of Remiremont had already been founded, Aselberga was led to send her daughter Tetta to him, hoping in this way to draw it about that he would restore to the girl the pledge of the inheritance which belonged to herself by hereditary right Cf. above, no. 7 beginning., and afterwards also, although that hope had certainly deceived her, she nevertheless again set about bending her father's mind, by sending Tetta's little brother to his grandfather to be baptized and to be appointed heir of the possession he had abandoned Cf. ibid., end.. And when she had been deceived on this side too, the father of Adelphius, with whose connivance surely the children had been sent to Remiremont, is at once related, when he had learned that his son had borne very much fruit in the house of God, namely by progress in virtues, not in riches, for the sake of showing a grateful mind, out of love for the same dearest son to have made over an opulent inheritance to the monastery of Remiremont Cf. above, no. 8..

[11] does not seem worthy of belief; And so Jean Mabillon [Ouvrages posthumes de D. Jean Mabillon et de D. Thierri Ruinart, par D. Vincent Thuillier, vol. II (1724), p. 77.] expressly opposed the writer of the enlarged Life when he asserts that St. Romaric was married before his conversion, and recently the Rev. Mr. Didier-Laurent [Le mariage et la donation de S. Romary, in Bulletin de la Société philomatique Vosgienne, 27th year (1901 – 1902), p. 159 – 266.] demonstrated with great force of arguments that his narrative is worthy of no credit. Hence from this document too nothing certain or probable has become known to us about St. Gebetrude beyond what it was permitted to gather from the older documents praised above Cf. above, no. 3..

[12] as neither do the Acts of Remiremont collected by Sébastien Valdenaire Now from the traditions of Remiremont, which certainly arose in great part from those fictions put together in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, came forth nearly whatever was afterwards narrated about the celebrated convent. These were diligently collected, and increased with his own conjectures or inventions, after the middle of the sixteenth century, by Sébastien Valdenaire, prior of Hérival [Namely of a monastery dependent on the monastery of Remiremont, from which it was distant by only one mile.], but playing the part of a eulogist and patron, not of a critical historical writer, in collections written in French and still unpublished, to which he gave the title Registre des choses mémorables de l'église Saint-Pierre de Remiremont. Of which our Jean Périer says: "It may be presumed," he says, "that the said author put together his work under this title: Acts of the memorable things of the church of St. Peter of Remiremont, according to Latin monuments found among the people of Remiremont Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 822 c.." But how little probable this presumption of Périer's is, at least as regards the origins of the monastery, is sufficiently clear from Valdenaire's own confession [Namely in his prologue he declares that of the ancient documents of Remiremont scarcely anything remains, "ains quelque petit discours d'icelle ramassé depuis six cents ans en ça:" but some little account of it gathered within the last six hundred years: by which last words he seems to signify clearly enough the enlarged Life of which we spoke above. And in another place: "Or de peindre à vif quelle estoit la prime face et antique figure de ce monastère d'Habeburg that is, of Remiremont, il n'est possible, tant à cause de la ruyne d'icelluy faicte par les Huns, alias Hongres, gens barbares, sarrasins, mescréans, en l'an de grâce neufz cens ou environ … que pour avoir esté bruslez à mesme instant les libvres, légendes, registres et chartulaires de ladicte église, desquelles, s'ilz nous restoient, nous en pourrions encore tirer plus certaine et assurée cognoissance, non seulement de ce que nous remarquons sur ce lieu, mais aussy de toutes les choses que nous voulons déduyre en nos commentaires et registres, ce néantmoins si ne voulons-nous produyre en iceulx aucune chose qui ne soit vraisemblable, salutaire et conforme à ce que les anciens nous en ont délaissez et escript" [Now to paint to the life what was the first face and ancient figure of this monastery of Habeburg is not possible, as much because of its ruin wrought by the Huns, otherwise Hungarians, barbarous peoples, Saracens, misbelievers, in the year of grace nine hundred or thereabouts … as because at the same moment the books, legends, registers and cartularies of the said church were burned, from which, if they remained to us, we could yet draw a more certain and assured knowledge, not only of what we remark about this place, but also of all the things that we wish to set out in our commentaries and registers; nevertheless we do not wish to put forward in them anything that is not probable, wholesome, and conformable to what the ancients have left and written for us about it] (cited in Didier-Laurent, Bulletin de la Soc. phil. Vosgienne, vol. cit., p. 221).]. And so the Rev. Mr. Didier-Laurent Bulletin de la Soc. phil. Vosg., vol. cit., p. 219 – 37. clearly demonstrated that from this work too no help is brought to the history of those origins.

[13] and the Life of St. Romaric published by Nicolaus Serarius Finally, Nicolaus Serarius published a Life of St. Romaric, in which not a few things are related about his children, in the book which he entitled Comitum par inclytum B. Godefridus, S. Romaricus, published first at Mainz in the year 1605 and again, among the writer's Opuscula theologica, in the year 1611. But by the testimony of Serarius himself, the chief source he had in hand in composing this Life was the Acts collected by Valdenaire Ibid., p. 243 – 45.. Hence the authority of the former does not surpass the authority of the latter either.

[14] and the legends inserted in the liturgical offices of Remiremont. But as for the legends of the saints of Remiremont which were published meanwhile or afterwards in the liturgical documents of Remiremont, of which the most ancient are a breviary written in the year 1425 [From which the Rev. Mr. M.-A. Guinot, Étude historique sur l'abbaye de Remiremont (Paris, 1859), p. 369 – 74, p. 374 – 77 and p. 377 – 88, published the legend of St. Amatus composed according to the original edition, that of St. Adelphius according to the enlarged Life, and that of St. Romaric according to the more prolix form of his Life, made at the same time as the enlarged Life of St. Adelphius was written (cf. Krusch, MG., vol. cit., p. 214), in which, however, no mention is made of the saint's marriage or children.] and the Proper Offices of the distinguished church of St. Peter of Remiremont printed at Dijon in the year 1657 A copy of this edition is still preserved today in our Bollandist library., it is easily established from a comparison of the texts in both documents that they were drawn from the single Life of St. Amatus and from the enlarged Lives of Romaric and Adelphius. And from the enlarged Lives and the other corrupt sources just indicated Nos. 12, 13. were taken the things which Jean Ruyr [Recherche des sainctes antiquitez de la Vosge (1633), 1st part, books III and IV (p. 25 – 52).], Augustin Calmet Histoire de Lorraine, book IX, ch. 16 – 28 (2nd ed., vol. I, p. 384 – 94)., our predecessors Act. SS., Sept. vol. III, p. 809 ff., others, and most recently Guinot Op. cit. above, note 8. related about the beginnings of Remiremont. To review these things more at length, therefore, as regards the history of the life of St. Gebetrude, is superfluous. It remains for us to speak of the posthumous glory of our saint and in particular of the translations of her body.

§ III. On the posthumous glory of St. Gebetrude.

[15] There exists no trace of a cult of St. Gebetrude We have indicated above Nos. 1 – 3. that no indication of a cult of St. Gebetrude older than the eleventh century has so far been brought forward. The oldest monument, therefore, from which it may be truly demonstrated to have existed, is the martyrology of Remiremont written in the twelfth century, certain excerpts of which, transmitted by Pierre-François Chifflet to our predecessors, to his edition of the martyrology

of Usuard Du Sollier inserted here and there among the additions Cf. Martyrologium Usuardi, p. LXIII, no. 264., and which is now kept in the Bibliothèque nationale of Paris among the recently acquired Latin codices [Nouvelles acquisitions latines, no. 349. Cf. Dom H. Quentin, Les Martyrologes historiques du moyen âge (1908), p. 239.]. In it is read on the 7th before the Ides of November: There is present also the venerable passing of the most noble virgin Gebetrude, most holy abbess, sister of blessed Adelphius, who by her merits grants many benefits to those who seek them from her with the utmost devotion Quentin, op. cit., p. 240.. And on the 13th before the Kalends of September: On the same day the translation of St. Gebetrude Ibid..

[16] older than the eleventh century. Another testimony of her cult, of nearly the same age, is furnished by the Processional of Remiremont, now a codex of the Royal Library of Brussels marked II. 265 [Cf. J. Van den Gheyn, Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, vol. I, p. 404.]. Namely, in the litanies inserted in this codex, in which no saint occurs who is later in age than St. Gerard, bishop of Toul, who died at the end of the tenth century and was enrolled among the saints by St. Leo IX, Supreme Pontiff, in the middle of the eleventh century BHL. 3432., are read Fol. 84. the names of the saints of Remiremont Amatus, Romaric and Adelphius, and also of Gebetrude and Clara [Whom they consider to be the same as the abbess Caecilia (cf. the Proper of the year 1657, p. 59: On the feast of St. Caecilia or Clara, virgin. Caecilia, who was also Clara and Segoberga … doubly the daughter of blessed Romaric). Certainly one may not think here of St. Clare of Assisi, since in these litanies neither St. Francis nor St. Dominic (but, as the one among founders of Orders, St. Benedict) nor St. Louis is invoked.]. In the martyrology of Haguenau in Alsace also, written at the beginning of the fifteenth century, there is entered on the 7th of November the memorial: In the monastery of Habetum in Burgundy, of St. Gebedrude, virgin and abbess Du Sollier, Martyrol. Usuardi, p. 658; cf. p. LX..

[17] There follow, in order of antiquity, the memorials of the translations of the body of St. Gebetrude. These, indeed, we know only from the Acts of Sébastien Valdenaire Cf. above, no. 12. and from the Proper of Remiremont of the year 1657 Cf. above, no. 14., The body of St. Gebetrude whose legends were manifestly drawn from those Acts. These documents, certainly, we have said are not of assured credit in all things; but they surely report the traditions which flourished in the monastery of Remiremont in the sixteenth century, and although some parts of them are refuted by strong arguments Cf. above, nos. 9 – 11., it is not therefore at once to be judged that everything they contain is false, and accordingly, where no ground of suspicion appears, the things narrated in them are not lacking in their own probability, although it would be judged rash for this probability to reach the degree of undoubted authority. With this noted beforehand, it will not be irksome to present here the testimonies excerpted from them concerning the earlier translations of the relics of St. Gebetrude.

[18] found on the mount of Habendum about the beginning of the tenth century, The Proper of the year 1657 indicates that three translations in all, or rather an invention and two translations of the body of St. Gebetrude, were celebrated in the monastery of Remiremont. In it, on the 7th of November, these things are read: For the rest, on four days in all in each year the church of Remiremont honours the memory of blessed Gebetrude. For it celebrates her happy death on the 7th before the Ides of November; her Invention on the Holy Mount [So, namely, was named the place where the convent was first founded and in which was also established the monastery of brothers who furnished their ministry for the spiritual government and the care of temporal affairs. But in the reign of Louis the Pious, son of Charles the Great, who was the father of monks and the restorer of monasteries, the family of sacred virgins was led from the monastery of Habendum (or the Holy Mount) to Romaric's Mount (situated opposite the mount of Habendum on the other bank of the river Moselle) (Proper, p. 51, on the 17th of May; Act. SS. vol. cit., p. 223, no. 14), the monastery of the brothers remaining on the Holy Mount.] on the 15th before the Kalends of October; her Translation to Romaric's Mount on the 13th before the Kalends of September; finally her Elevation by the legates of St. Leo IX, pope, on the Ides of November Proper, p. 117.. All these festivals are indeed noted on the aforesaid days in the calendar which is prefixed to the Proper and among the proper offices.

[19] and shortly after to Romaric's Mount But concerning that first invention, whose memory was celebrated on the 17th of September, at what time and in what manner it was made, neither the excerpts from the Acts of Valdenaire transmitted by Chifflet to our predecessors and published by them on the 11th of September in treating of St. Adelphius have anything, nor the office of that day in the Proper, in which namely no lesson is set forth, but only, For the commemoration of the invention of St. Gebetrude, at Vespers and at Lauds an antiphon, a versicle with its response, and a prayer. But if it is true that the invention took place on the Holy Mount, it must be judged that the translation of the family of sacred virgins to Romaric's Mount took place before it. Yet at that same time, together with that family, there were likewise translated hither the bodies of the blessed abbots Amatus, Romaric and Adelphius Proper, p. 51; Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 223, no. 14., and it would be quite wonderful that no mention should be made here of the body of St. Gebetrude. No mention of this kind is read either in the account of the second translation of the same saints, which was made in the twelfth and last year of the emperor Arnulf, according to the common era eight hundred and ninety-nine [Proper, p. 34 end, on the 15th of February; Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 824, no. 20 end.].

[20] translated, But an express testimony on the translation of the body of St. Gebetrude is furnished by the Acts and the Proper, where they narrate the third translation, made at the beginning of the tenth century, of the three first holy abbots of Remiremont. Namely, when the Hungarians burst in Namely in the year 910 or 916. Cf. Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 825, nos. 29, 30. … and were roaming through Lotharingia with savage ravaging, the sacred virgins found it necessary to take refuge in their castle [Namely that of Habendum, from which before the middle of the ninth century they had moved to the neighbouring Romaric's Mount (cf. above, no. 16 end).], so as to place themselves and the relics of their saints in safety… When that storm had passed through Between the years 910 and 920 (cf. Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 826, no. 34)., the sacred virgins began to think of returning. The precious body of blessed Gebetrude, virgin, had been found on the Holy Mount. They resolved to add that gem to their treasure. And so on one and the same day, the twentieth of the month of August, both the bodies of the three holy abbots were carried back to their former seats Namely to the church of the convent of Romaric's Mount. and the body of St. Gebetrude was for the first time brought into the same basilica [Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 835, nos. 39, 41. Cf. (from the Proper, p. 72 – 73, on the 20th of August) ibid., p. 825, nos. 25, 27.]. It is to be noted, however, that in those narratives no indication is furnished of any true ecclesiastical cult, such as is customarily shown to canonized saints. For to bury the bodies of men or women who were renowned for the fame of Christian virtues in a more honoured place in the church certainly cannot rightly be equated with a cult of this kind, nor is any other honour paid to the saints of Remiremont related here.

[21] there, with the bodies of SS. Romaric, Amatus and Adelphius Then in the middle of the eleventh century there was made the fourth translation of SS. Amatus, Romaric and Adelphius and the second of St. Gebetrude, an account of which, copied from the monuments of Remiremont, the already praised Pierre Chifflet transmitted to our predecessors, framed in these words: When St. Leo IX, pope Supreme Pontiff in the years 1049 – 54., still then retaining the name and dignity of bishop of Toul, had come to his church of Toul, and there had translated with great splendour and ceremony the sacred limbs of St. Gerard, bishop of Toul, whom shortly before, at a divine admonition, he had enrolled at Rome in the canon of the saints, taken out of the old tomb, into a precious reliquary, the venerable Oda, abbess of Remiremont, with pious zeal procured like honours for her patrons also. And so at her request St. Leo sent Hugh, archbishop of Besançon, and Udo, primicerius of the church of Toul, from Toul to Romaric's Mount. They, having set up a judicial inquiry into the virtues and miracles of SS. Romaric, Amatus, Adelphius and Gebetrude [On this occasion, by order of Oda, the enlarged Lives of St. Romaric and St. Adelphius were written, as they judge not improbably; to which opinion the distinguished Br. Krusch seems to assent (MG., vol. cit., p. 214).], first raised their bodies with solemn pomp from the lowly place in which they had hitherto rested to a loftier one.

[22] was solemnly elevated Then they decreed, by the authority of the Roman pontiff by whom they had been sent, that their histories and miracles, as of true saints of God, should be both written down and inserted in the divine offices. This translation was celebrated on the Ides of November in the year of the Word incarnate one thousand and fifty-one, the third of Pope Leo IX, there being present, among very many others, Gerard, abbot of Luxeuil. And in raising up the relics this order was deliberately kept, that the beginning should be made from St. Romaric, as founder; then they should proceed to St. Amatus; from him to blessed Adelphius; last, to St. Gebetrude Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 827, nos. 38, 39..

[23] through delegates of St. Leo IX, Roman Pontiff. That this narrative was written not in ancient times but long after the event seems easily established from the very manner of writing. Yet it is credible that it was truly transferred from ancient monuments of Remiremont worthy of credit, so closely do the names and the other things mentioned in it agree with certain documents. It is especially to be noted that it differs from other more recent accounts of the same matter in that it testifies that the elevation and the declaration of sanctity were instituted not by Leo IX, Supreme Pontiff, himself, but through his legates, while the Proper of Remiremont [Page 119 (on the 13th of November). Where, however, a little before (cf. above, no. 17 end) it is rightly said that the saint was elevated through Leo's legates.], Jean Ruyr [Recherche des sainctes Antiquitez de la Vosge (1633), p. 49 (part I, book IV, ch. 12).] and the author of the legend which Jean Mabillon presents Act. SS. O. S. B., saec. II, p. 135, note b. assert that it was done by the pontiff himself in his own person, not noticing that Leo IX in the month of November

1051 had long since returned to Rome [Cf. Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 827, no. 40 – 42; Jaffé-Loewenfeld, Reg. Rom. Pont., no. 4255 (vol. I, p. 540).].

[24] Thereafter the cult of St. Gebetrude was celebrated in the same monastery. From that time, therefore, St. Gebetrude was honoured with a special cult in the monastery of Remiremont. We have seen that a double day was already assigned for recalling her memory in the monastery's martyrology [Cf. above, no. 15. It appears quite surprising indeed that in the martyrology of Remiremont there is entered on the Ides of November… the elevation of SS. Romaric, Amatus and Adelphius (Quentin, Les Martyrologes historiques du moyen âge, p. 241), the name of Gebetrude being passed over, while in the same document the translation instituted on the 20th of August is indicated as to be celebrated (cf. above, nos. 15, 20, 22). Since, however, in the announcement of the 7th of November Gebetrude is called the sister of Adelphius, it is clear that the martyrology was made after the enlarged Life of St. Adelphius was written.], and that her name was inserted there in the processional litanies Cf. above, no. 16., but also that four festivals of her were customarily celebrated annually after the middle of the seventeenth century Cf. above, no. 18..

[25] [Her relics, withdrawn at the end of the eighteenth century from the fury of the impious,] Now from the middle of the eleventh century the relics of St. Gebetrude do not seem to have been moved from their reliquary until the end of the eighteenth century [There are indeed recorded, besides those narrated above, other translations of the saints of Remiremont made in the years 1567 and 1634 (Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 828, no. 44; J.-B.-E. L'Hote, Vie des saints … du diocèse de Saint-Dié, 1897, vol. I, p. 351); but in the accounts of these no mention is made of the body of St. Gebetrude.]. At that time, while an atrocious persecution and abolition of sacred things raged in France, five reliquaries, containing her remains and those of other saints of Remiremont, were broken up by impious men who invaded and plundered the church of Remiremont with sacrilegious fury on the 20th of January of the year 1794, and the bones that were kept in them, mingled together, were thrown into the sacristy and other places. Yet for the greatest part the nuns and certain pious faithful were able to collect them, and they preserved them until the time when peace was restored [Didelot, Remiremont. Les saints, etc. (Nancy, 1887), p. 440 – 41; L'Hote, vol. cit., p. 351 – 53.].

[26] [brought back into the church of Remiremont in the years 1803 and 1805, and recognized in the year 1851,] From there, therefore, enclosed again in five reliquaries, they were brought with solemn pomp into the church of Remiremont, by then a parish church, in the years 1803 and 1805, and placed there on the high altar. These, too, skilled physicians deputed for the purpose by episcopal authority recognized in the year 1851, and they determined, as far as could be done, which individual bones were to be attributed to which individual saints [Didelot, op. cit., p. 509 – 15. But another recognition, instituted on the 11th of February 1852, concerned only the bones of St. Romaric.].

[27] after the fire in that church, they were placed in it anew in the year 1887; But on the 7th – 8th of July in the year 1886 a fire was kindled by a stroke of lightning in the church of Remiremont, which consumed both the reliquaries and also part of the sacred bones. Those of them that remained were enclosed in new cases, which the liberality of certain pious men and women supplied, and were solemnly replaced on the altar by the Most Illustrious bishop of Saint-Dié on the 28th of August of the following year L'Hote, op. cit., vol. I, p. 355.. Among these, those which had been recognized in 1851 as St. Gebetrude's seem to have been preserved intact Ibid., vol. II, p. 624. Cf. Didelot, p. 513.

[28] A small particle of them in the village of Bayecourt. Some small particle of the relics of St. Gebetrude is also preserved in the village of Bayecourt L'Hote, vol. II, p. 639..

[29] Two churches in the diocese of Saint-Dié acknowledge St. Gebetrude as patroness. In the diocese of Saint-Dié two village churches honour St. Gebetrude as their own patroness, the one as principal Chamois-le-Roulier, canton of Bruyères. L'Hote, vol. cit., p. 329., the other as secondary Jussarupt, canton of Corcieux. Ibid.. But we have found no memorial of her entered either in the Breviary of Toul A copy of which, published in the years 1748 – 49, is preserved in our library. or in that of Saint-Dié [Officia quorumdam festorum quae ritu Romano in ecclesia S. Deodati specialiter celebrantur (1733). Cf. Ordo divini officii celebrandi for the years 1830, 1865, 1871.].