Wiomad

ON ST. WIOMAD, BISHOP OF TRIER,

IN THE YEAR 791

Wiomad, bishop of Trier. (S.)

BY A. P.

[1] Weomad, at least in the years 762 – 791, Wiomad Called also Wiemadus, Wiomodus, Wiomudus, Weomadus, Viomagus, (Automadus)., who in all the ancient catalogues of the bishops of Trier is listed as the predecessor of Bishop Richbod († 804) MG., Scr. vol. XIII, p. 298 – 301., seems to be the same as the bishop Wiomod who, the Annales Maximiniani teach, died in the year 791 [Ibid., p. 22: In the year 791 the lord Charles proceeded with the Franks … and with the rest of his peoples into Pannonia beyond Omundesthorf, and returned with the glory of triumph and wintered at Regensburg. Engilram, Wiomod, Sindpert, bishops, died. It is altogether strange that these words have been so understood by some as if those three bishops had followed the columns of Charlemagne into Pannonia and had died on the expedition. So, for example, Alexander Wiltheim, in the manuscript Annals of the monastery of St. Maximin (Brussels manuscript, Bibl. Reg. 3169, part II, fol. 40); cf. also Gallia christiana, vol. XIII (1785), col. 389; F. W. Rettberg, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, vol. I (1846), p. 471. If this manner of interpreting were accepted, it would have to be taken from the same Annales Maximiniani for the year 795 (MG., place cited) that Pope Hadrian I died in Saxony.]. The same is named in the diploma by which Charlemagne, about the year 782, attests that the monastery of Medolacum was vindicated by him for the church of Trier in judgement [Böhmer-Mühlbacher, vol. I2, n. 261 (252); MG., Dipl. Karolinorum vol. I, p. 200 – 202; cf. p. 566.]: on the side of St. Peter of Trier, where Weomad the archbishop is seen to be pontiff MG., vol. cit., p. 201, l. 34.; … that the above-written Weomad, archbishop, ought to receive such a precept or judgement vindicated concerning the already mentioned monastery of Medolacum … [Ibid., l. 45. Since no copy of that diploma survives older than the 14th century, no one will wonder that archbishop was written by the copyists for bishop; in fact, however, only after the beginning of the 9th century was the see of Trier again made archiepiscopal.]. About the year 779 Bishop Viomagus was designated by Pope Hadrian I to hold, with Tilpin, archbishop of Reims, and with Possessor, bishop of an uncertain see, an inquiry concerning the ordination of Lull, bishop of Mainz, and concerning his faith, doctrine and morals [Letter of Hadrian I in Flodoard, Hist. Remensis ecclesiae, book II, c. 17 (MG., Scr. vol. XIII, p. 463). Cf. Jaffé-Ewald, n. 2411. Cf. A. Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, vol. II2 (1900), p. 205, annot. 4, 5.]. At the petition of the apostolic man Weomad, bishop of the holy church of Trier, Charlemagne in the year 772 confirmed the immunity which his predecessors had conferred on that church [Böhmer-Mühlbacher, vol. I2, n. 145 (142); MG., Dipl. Karol. vol. I, p. 95 – 97; cf. p. 563.]. In the year 764 Automadus, bishop of the Treveri, subscribed the charter of foundation of the monastery of Lorsch [MG., Scr. vol. XXI, p. 342, l. 26. The charter is preserved for us in the chronicle of Lorsch, which was composed in the 12th century; but it is easily understood that its author slipped in copying out the unusual name of the bishop. The same teaches (vol. cit., p. 348, l. 18/19) that in the year 774 Bishop Wiomud at the consecration

of the church of Lorsch was present.]; in the year 762 Bishop Wiemad subscribed a diploma granted by King Pippin to the monks of Prüm Böhmer-Mühlbacher, vol. I2, n. 95 (93); MG., Dipl. Karol. vol. I, p. 24..

[2] but not from the year 753, Beyond this year 762 we have nothing certain. For spurious is the diploma of Pippin which is feigned to have been given in the year 760, by which, at the petition of Archbishop Wiomad, there is confirmed to the church of Trier the possession of other goods and also of the monasteries of St. Maximin, of SS. Paulinus and Eucharius, and of St. Mary of Oeren [Böhmer-Mühlbacher, vol. I2, n. 92 (90); MG., vol. cit., p. 50 – 52. Spurious also are the diplomas which are feigned to have been granted by Charlemagne, at the petition of our Wiomad, in the years 774 and 802; cf. Böhmer-Mühlbacher, vol. I2, nn. 168 (164), 389 (382); MG., Dipl. Karol. vol. I, pp. 304 – 6, 391 – 93.]. But that recent writers have said that Wiomad was made bishop in the year 753 [So, to omit others, Gallia christiana, vol. XIII (1785), col. 388; A. Goerz, Regesten der Erzbischöfe zu Trier (1861), p. XIII; Gams, Series episcoporum, p. 318.] is proved by no firm argument. The reason for affirming it was that Liutwin, bishop of Trier, died about the year 713; that Milo, who succeeded Liutwin, held the see of Trier for about forty years; that Wiomad was substituted immediately for Milo. And this indeed is probable: for the older catalogues of the bishops of Trier present this series: Liutwin, Milo, Wiomad MG., Scr. vol. XIII, p. 298., and only into the more recent ones has St. Hildulf crept in between Milo and Wiomad [Ibid., p. 300 – 301. Cf. Gesta Treverorum (MG., Scr. vol. VIII, p. 162 – 63); the third Life of St. Hildulf BHL. 3947 – 3948 (Act. SS., July vol. III, p. 231, no. 14).], who was never bishop of Trier [Cf. Rettberg, vol. cit., p. 467 – 69; Chr. Pfister, Les légendes de saint Dié et de saint Hidulphe, in Annales de l'Est, vol. III (1889), p. 400 – 403.]. Nor should I think we must agree with those who will have it that Hartham succeeded Milo [S. Abel-B. Simson, Jahrbücher des Fränkischen Reiches unter Karl dem Grossen, vol. I (1888), p. 436, annot. 1; Pfister, place cited. A. Hauck speaks against it, vol. cit., p. 51, annot. 3.], who was indeed a bishop, yet does not seem to have been bishop of Trier. For not only is he listed in no catalogue of the bishops of this see, but the diploma of Charlemagne On which above, annot. 4., from which alone we learn the name of Hartham, teaches only this: that Liutwin, bishop of Trier, handed over to the church of Trier the monastery of Mettlach, which he had founded; that to Milo, who was the son and also the successor of Liutwin, that monastery was given as a "benefice" by Charles, mayor of the palace, and by King Pippin; that abbots to rule it were sent by Bishop Milo from the city itself: a certain Ebreo, then Bishop Ratbert, afterwards Hartham; that after the death of Milo the possession of the monastery was confirmed to Hartham by King Pippin; that the sons of a certain Lantbert seized the monastery and despoiled Bishop Hartham of it; that, a dispute having arisen, the judges determined that those men should restore the monastery to the church of Trier, where Weomad the archbishop is seen to preside as pontiff. Now by these things we are by no means compelled to say that Hartham was bishop of Trier, but rather that he was one of those bishops of whom we know that many at this time lived in monasteries, set over no definite see or diocese.

[3] He was bishop of Trier. It is therefore likely that Wiomad succeeded Milo; but when Milo ended his life, or at least his office, we do not know. For by no means clear is the passage of Hincmar in the Life of St. Remigius Pref. (MG., Scr. rer. merov. vol. III, p. 251, l. 16 – 19).: so that a certain Milo, a cleric by tonsure, in morals, dress and conduct an irreligious layman, usurping the bishoprics of Reims and of Trier together, brought them to ruin for about forty years, since both the number is uncertain (about), and it is not established of which church, that of Reims or that of Trier, it was chiefly said, and elsewhere Hincmar himself has written obscurely, instead of for forty years: for many years [Letter on the right of metropolitans, c. 20 (P. L., vol. CXXVI, col. 200): so that a certain Milo, by tonsure … usurping together, brought them to ruin for many years.]. From all that we have adduced, therefore, we can at length gather this, that Weomad was certainly made bishop not after the year 762, perhaps some years before, and that he died in the year 791 [Formerly learned men put forward many and various things about the time of the death of St. Wiomad, some relying on spurious diplomas, others on vain conjectures, so that some said Wiomad died in the year 776, others in the year 781, others much later and not before the year 808. Cf. for example Le Cointe, Annales ecclesiastici Francorum, vol. VI (1676), p. 121 – 22, n. XXXIII – XXXIV; Nomina archiepiscoporum et episcoporum ex monasterio S. Maximini desumptorum, ed. F. de Reiffenberg, in Compte-rendu des séances de la Commission royale d'histoire, vol. V (Brussels, 1842), p. 29.].

[4] He is said Of the things done by him, besides those which we have gathered above from letters or diplomas, as meagre as they are certain, we know very little. That he was abbot of the monastery of St. Maximin is affirmed not by the Gesta Treverorum itself, to have been abbot of St. Maximin but by the recensions B and C of this work, enlarged in the 12th century with many things added [MG., Scr. vol. VIII, p. 163, l. 21. A strange conjecture is that of Stephan Beissel, Geschichte der Trierer Kirchen, I (Trier, 1887), p. 227, that Wiomad abdicated his bishopric in order to spend the last days of his life in the monastery of St. Maximin]. On the other hand, the monks of Mettlach too affirm that Wiomad was made bishop of Trier from being abbot of their monastery. and of Mettlach For a monk of Mettlach wrote a little before the year 1095, in the Miracles of St. Liutwin, c. 3 Ibid., vol. XV, p. 1262., that the people of Trier were accustomed, when their pastors died, to choose a patron for themselves from Mettlach. For whoever performed the office of abbot of the Mettlachers was judged worthy of the bishopric of the Treveri. Whence Wiomad, Richbod, Hetti, Thietgaud, Bertolf … and Rabodo, appointed abbots of the Mettlachers indeed by monastic ordination, were promoted in order, for the merit of holiness and the prerogative of singular wisdom, to the honour of the episcopate of the holy church of Trier. Yet they had under them provosts, who should rule the place and go before the brethren in life and morals in the exercises of the spiritual life, while they themselves shone effectively by the excellence of their order and the title of both names, namely of bishop and of abbot. If therefore we lend our ears to that witness, certainly not a very ancient one, whereas formerly abbots were sent into the monastery itself (Mettlach) from the city itself (of Trier) Cf. above, no. 2., it came about afterwards, on the contrary, that bishops were summoned from the monastery into the city, and so not so much the monastery was counted among the possessions of the see of Trier as the see of Trier among I know not what "benefices" of the monastery; let the credit of this matter rest with that writer.

[5] and to have translated the body of St. Castor. The Life of St. Castor Act. SS., Feb. vol. II, p. 665 – 66, no. 10, 11., of uncertain age [A copy of it written in the 13th century is preserved in the Trier manuscript of the Public Library 453 (formerly 962), fol. 43v – 46v.], and of credit also not sufficiently explored Cf. Act. SS., vol. cit., p. 662, no. 6., narrates that, at the urging of a certain presbyter Martius, to whom it had been shown in a vision in what place the body of St. Castor, presbyter, was hidden, Bishop Weomad came to Karden, a village situated on the Moselle, and translated that body into the church of the village, which was sacred to St. Paulinus.

[6] The controversy Much more certain are the things which in the year 839 Wandalbert, a monk of Prüm, reported in that "Commemoration of how and by whom the cell of St. Goar was joined to the monastery of Prüm", using a diploma of Charlemagne which he had read in the monastery's archive and which has now perished Cf. Böhmer-Mühlbacher, vol. I2, n. 253 (244).. He writes thus MG., Scr. vol. XV, p. 372 – 73.: But when Charles the Great was reigning after his father's death, over the cell of St. Goar there arose between the then pontiff of the Treveri, Weomad, and the abbot Asuerus a dispute over that same cell, the bishop asserting that it belonged to the right of his church, the abbot on the contrary saying that it was a possession of the king by hereditary law, and that the church could claim nothing for itself in it, since it had both been committed to him by King Pippin and transmitted into the dominion of the most illustrious Charles by right of succession. While they contended thus long and much, and the matter was often brought into controversy, most faithful and truthful envoys were sent from the king's side once and again and a third time, to inquire diligently into the case and to end the suit fittingly. And they, examining the matter, found nothing other than what the abbot had protested, namely that the possession of the often-mentioned place was of royal rather than of ecclesiastical right. But since these things by no means satisfied the bishop, the most famous prince, having held a general assembly in Saxony at the spring which is called Lippia, undertook to examine the matter himself, in the presence of the leading men of almost the whole kingdom and of the most illustrious men of both orders, and by the judgement of all who were then present the condition of an oath was laid upon the advocate of the monastery, then named Ratbert; by which he afterwards, with twelve others, confirmed that the often-mentioned possession belonged not to the church of the Treveri but only to the royal dominion. The matter having been settled in this way, and the bishop at length acquiescing, the most famous king, with the consent of his people, handed over the cell of the holy man to the monastery of Prüm, a privilege of that same handing-over having been issued, and so on. How these things were done and decreed, whoever wishes will be able to know by re-reading that same privilege, which remains most entire to this day in the archives of that monastery.

[7] he had with the monks of Prüm. And thus indeed the matter was settled in the year, as it seems, 782 [Cf. Abel-Simson, vol. cit., p. 423 – 25; O. Holder-Egger, in MG., vol. cit., p. 373, annot. 1.]; but when that controversy began to be agitated we do not know. Certainly it had already arisen at the time when Abbot Asuerus built a basilica in that place over the body of St. Goar. When it had been completed, so Wandalbert narrates Miracles of St. Goar, c. 1 (MG., vol. cit., p. 364, l. 13 ff.)., when now the time had come at which it was to be consecrated to the divine name,

there were sent by the most excellent prince Charles Lull, archbishop of Mainz, … Basinus of Nemetum, which city is now called Speyer, and Mehingod, bishop of the city which, situated across the Rhine, is called in the barbarian tongue Wirziburc, …, so that through them both the church should be consecrated and the body of the most blessed man be translated into the place where it now lies. Now it is all but certain that Wiomad, the prelate of that very diocese, was absent from that consecration and translation [That he "translated with great glory the relics of St. Goar from the old church into the new temple built by Asuerus, abbot of Prüm" was affirmed with strange boldness or ignorance by the man who composed the lesson on St. Wiomad to be inserted in the Trier Lectionary of the year 1645, on which below, annot. 16.], and so was every one of the bishops of the same province, and that Lull, Basinus and Megingaud had to be summoned or sent from the province of Mainz, for this reason, that there were suits and enmities between the monks of Prüm and Wiomad [Our predecessor I. Van Hecke explained the matter a little differently, Act. SS., Oct. VII, p. 1070 – 71, no. 64 – 68: that Wiomad, because he had lost his case in this controversy, conceived a sickness of mind and refused to come to consecrate the basilica of St. Goar. But it is all but certain that that consecration took place before the final sentence was given against Wiomad.].

[8] That he was negligent in his office is not clear. But although Wiomad devoted sedulous effort both to confirming Cf. above, p. 852, no. 1. and to increasing Cf. above, no. 6, 7. the possessions of the church of Trier, yet we are taught by a diploma of Louis IV issued in the year 902 Böhmer-Mühlbacher, vol. I2, n. 2002 (1950). that the mint of the city of Trier, the toll, the tributaries, the tribute and the medema of the fields, with the fiscal men, were once, in the time of Wiomad, archbishop of that same city, withdrawn from the bishopric and converted into the county. How this happened, whether by the force and injury of powerful men or by the collusion or carelessness of the bishop, is nowhere handed down to memory, so that we wonder that these things were enough for the very distinguished Albert Hauck to conjecture that Wiomad had conducted himself negligently in the duties and offices of a bishop. The most distinguished man brings forward indeed another reason for this opinion of his [Vol. cit., p. 51, annot. 3. "Es ist auffällig, dass er, wie seine Amtsgenossen in Köln und Speier, dem unmittelbar darauf geschlossenen Totenbund nicht beitrat. Nimmt man hinzu das unter ihm nachweislich Entfremdungen von Kirchengut stattfanden (Urkunde Ludwigs IV …), so liegt die Vermutung nahe, dass er es mit seinen bischöflichen Pflichten nicht allzu ernst nahm." [It is striking that he, like his colleagues at Cologne and Speyer, did not join the confraternity of the dead concluded immediately afterwards. If one adds that alienations of church property demonstrably took place under him (charter of Louis IV …), the conjecture lies close at hand that he did not take his episcopal duties altogether too seriously.]], but one more strange still, namely that Wiomad, with eight other bishops, subscribed in the year 762 the diploma of King Pippin granted to the monks of Prüm Cf. above, p. 852, annot. 10., but did not join the society of prayers which six of those eight bishops entered into immediately afterwards. Now the matter is thus: at an uncertain time, but probably after the month of July of the year 760 and before the end of the year 762, a synod of 25 bishops and 17 abbots was celebrated at Attigny MG., Capitularia vol. I, p. 221; Ibid., Concilia vol. II, p. 72 – 73., and in it, among other things wholesomely and wisely defined, a certain society of prayers was entered into; further, among these 25 bishops are listed six of those nine who subscribed the privilege of Pippin spoken of above, but not the remaining three, Wiomad of Trier, Berethelm of Cologne, Basinus of Speyer. That those six were also present at Attigny certainly seemed a not improbable reason for conjecturing that the synod was assembled in the same year 762 in which the Prüm diploma of Pippin had been issued. But why the three bishops of Cologne, Speyer and Trier were absent, who knows, or can attain it by wise conjecture?

[9] Of his cult Wiomad seems for a long time to have lacked ecclesiastical cult. For where we find handed down a series, whether longer or shorter, of the bishops of Trier who were venerated as saints, we have nowhere found him named, and the same must be said of him altogether as we said of St. Fibicius Above, p. 64, no. 10.: that Wiomad does not appear at the end of the 10th century among the 14 holy bishops of Trier whose images are painted in the celebrated Codex Gertrudianus [Cf. F.-X. Kraus, Die ältern Bischofskataloge von Trier, in Jahrbücher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande, XLIV/XLV (1868), p. 165 – 66.], nor yet among the nine holy prelates with whose images is adorned the case, of the same time, in which the "staff of St. Peter" is kept enclosed in the greater church of Limburg on the Lahn [Cf. Kraus, place cited, p. 166 – 67; the same, Die christliche Inschriften der Rheinlande, II Theil (1894), p. 212 – 13.]; nay more, that in the series of the bishops of Trier written in the 11th and 12th centuries, in which not a few bishops are honoured with the appellation "saint", Wiomad has been inserted with his bare name MG., Scr. vol. XIII, p. 296 – 301, ser. II, III, VI.. Moreover we have found his name inscribed in no ancient liturgical books or martyrologies, even of the abbey of St. Maximin itself [For example in a psalter of the 13th century (Trier manuscript, Public Library 435), in a martyrology of the 12th century (ibid., manuscript 1634).]. In this abbey, however, in the crypt of whose church Wiomad is said to have been buried Cf. below, no. 10., a beginning of honouring him was made at I know not what time. Of this the first testimony, at least that we have found, we have in the Cologne and Lübeck editions of the Martyrology of Usuard of the year 1490, in which on the 8th of November is read Martyrologium Usuardi, ed. Sollerius, p. 661.: At Trier in the monastery of Blessed Maximin the feast of St. Weomad, bishop and confessor. More briefly the edition called Greven's, published in the year 1515, on the same day Ibid.: At Trier, of St. Weomad, bishop and confessor. That our saint was in fact venerated in that monastery is taught by the Breviary according to the use of the monasteries of SS. Maximin, Willibrord and Nabor, published in the imperial monastery of St. Maximin itself in the year 1600, in whose calendar on the 8th of November is inscribed the feast of Weomad, bishop and confessor, semidouble [Cf. Proprium sanctorum partis aestivalis, p. 669. See also the Lectionarium de sanctis quibusdam Trevirensis officii (Trier, 1645), p. 114 – 15: there lesson IX is published, to be read not on the 8th but on the 7th of November, on which, according to the calendar prefixed to the Lectionary, the feast of St. Willibrord was then kept at Trier with a commemoration of St. Weomad.].

[10] and relics. In the year 942, when the church of this monastery, built with new care, was consecrated, writers of a recent age affirm that the bodies of the holy bishops Maximin, Agricius, Nicetius, Basinus and Wiomad were translated into the crypt which had been built under the high altar [Cf. Brower, Antiquitates Trevirenses (1626), p. 557; Brower-Masen, Antiquitates Trevirenses (1670), vol. I, p. 455; Act. SS., Mar. vol. I, p. 314, no. 4; May vol. VII, p. 33, append. no. 1; Illustriores reliquiae … monasterii S. Maximini, ed. F. De Reiffenberg, vol. cit., p. 26; Philipp Diel, Die Geschichte der Kirche des heiligen Maximinus und ihrer Reliquien (Trier, 1886), pp. 4, 14, 65.]; although it is strange that in an ancient note on the things done at this consecration only Maximin, Agritius and Nicetius are named MG., Scr. vol. XV, p. 1269 – 70.. Whatever it is, in the year 1621, on the 29th of August, when the temple, lately built again from its foundations, was consecrated, the monks "translated the bodies of the twin saints Basinus and Weomad … from the darker place of the crypt into the open light of the temple to a nobler resting-place before the choir under the lesser odeum of the temple" Brower-Masen, op. cit., vol. II, p. 469., or, as is read elsewhere, "on the 29th of August Antonius, bishop of Vigiliae, having discharged the apostolic nunciature, celebrated the translation of SS. Basinus and Weomad, bishops of Trier, and placed those same bodies, taken from the crypt of the church of St. Maximin, more becomingly on two altars beside the choir." Gesta Trevirorum, ed. Wyttenbach and Müller, vol. III (1839), p. 69.. But after, when the French armies invaded the land of Trier, the monks were driven out of that distinguished abbey and the monastery itself fell to profane uses, the relics of both saints perished Cf. Diel, vol. cit., p. 65.; the cult of St. Wiomad fell into disuse, and in the ample Proper of the Offices of the diocese of Trier, which was published in the year 1888, not even his name appears.