Remigius

ON ST. REMIGIUS, BISHOP OF REIMS AND APOSTLE OF THE FRANKS,

AT REIMS IN GALLIC CHAMPAGNE.

ABOUT DXXXII.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Remigius, bishop of Reims, Apostle of the Franks, at Reims in Gallic Champagne. (S.)

BY C. S.

§ I. The memory of the Saint marked in the sacred Fasti chiefly on two days: in them the name variously expressed: his various festivals in the Martyrologies.

Saint Remigius, bishop of Durocortorum of the Remi in Champagne of Gaul, He is announced in many Martyrologies a great name among the Franks by the title and merit of his Apostolate, is read inscribed chiefly on two days in the old as well as the more recent Martyrologies, in some of which he is called Remedius. At the XIII day of January, which is believed to have been the day of his death, Florus, in the Augmentation of the venerable Bede, in the codices of Arras, Tournai and Liessies, reported by our Henschenius before volume 2 of March, mentions him with this short elogium taken from his Life: At Reims, the deposition of St. Remigius, bishop and confessor. He first baptized the nation of the Franks with Clovis, their prince. Who, shining with the signs of very many miracles, a girl whom he had before healed when troubled by a demon, afterwards dead. It is written in his Deeds. On the same day the Usuard of Sollerius announces him, saying: At the metropolis of Reims, the deposition of saint Remigius, bishop, a man of exceptional virtue. The proclamation of whose sanctity the nation of the Franks, by the merit of its belief, celebrates solemnly with the cult of due veneration. In Martène also, volume 3 of the Thesaurus novus Anecdotorum, among the most ancient Martyrologies, in that of Corbie, column 1593, there is read on that day: At Reims, of St. Remigius, archbishop.

[2] at the 13th day of January, on which he is believed to have died; Another also agrees, from the library of the most serene queen of Sweden, which had before belonged to St. Columba of Sens, given after volume VI of June of our Work: At Reims, the transitus (that is, the feast of the passing, or death) of Remigius, pre-eminent confessor. I add also the old Kalendar published by Luc d'Achery (who judged it to have been written in the IX century) in the Spicilegium of ancient writers, volume 10, where at page 130 on the Ides of January it has it thus: At Reims, the deposition of St. Remigius, bishop. To this is added the Hagiologium of Franco-Gaul published by Labbe: At the metropolis of Reims, the birthday of saint Remigius, bishop, a man of exceptional virtue. Likewise our manuscript Florarium of the Saints: At the metropolis of Reims, the deposition of saint Remigius, bishop, apostle of the Franks. His translation is kept on the Kalends of October. He died in the year DXLV; indeed much earlier, as we shall prove in its place. There follow finally the more recent writers, Pietro Galesini in the Martyrology of the Roman Church, Du Saussay in the Gallican, Chastelain in the Universal, and finally the author of the Martyrology of Paris, published in the year 1727 by the authority of the Most Eminent Cardinal de Noailles, archbishop of Paris. This day, moreover, is sacred to St. Remigius by the title of his birthday or deposition, and is celebrated with principal cult by the clergy and people through the whole archdiocese of Reims.

[3] Far more frequent, however, is the memory of the same holy Prelate in the sacred Fasti at the 1st day of October, but his memory is more celebrated on which his venerable body was translated, and on which the festival of blessed Remigius was already held celebrated from the time of St. Gregory of Tours, on the testimony of that same holy writer in the History of the Franks, book 8, chapter 21, from the recension of Thierry Ruinart. Bede in his Martyrology, published by Henschenius, marked him alone on this day in these few words: On the Kalends. The festival of St. Remigius in the city of Reims. The old Roman, or little one of Rosweyde, has on the same day: And in the city of Reims of saint Remigius, bishop. In the old Kalendar of d'Achery, in which, as I said in the preceding number, his deposition is marked at the XIII day of January, there is read again: Kal. of October. The birthday of saint Remigius, bishop. Likewise the most ancient Hieronymian Martyrologies or Kalendars published by Martène in volume 3 of the Thesaurus novus Anecdotorum mention him briefly today; namely that of St. Germanus of Auxerre, of Murbach, of Corbie, of Tournai, another of Corbie, and of the monastery of Lyre; to which add also that of Augsburg, given in our Work after volume VI of June.

[4] To all these Wandelbert in his metrical Martyrology, in d'Achery, volume 5 of the Spicilegium, sings in accord thus: at the 1st day of October, on which his sacred body

Remigius, who first taught the fierce Franks and tamed them, Marks October beforehand with his own honour.

A somewhat more lengthy elogium Ado gave, likewise at the Kalends of October, saying these things: In the city of Reims, of saint Remigius, bishop and confessor, a man of most illustrious virtue and sanctity. He converted to Christ the nation of the Franks, given over to the worship of idols, their king having first been initiated by the sacred font of Baptism and the sacraments of the faith. He completed seventy years and more in the episcopate. He among other deeds raised a girl from the death of the body. Usuard also, who had mentioned his deposition at XIII January, marked his translation at the 1st day of October in this manner: On the same day, the translation of the holy confessors Germanus and Remigius, of whom the former ruled the church of Auxerre, the other that of Reims. Almost the same, but with the word translation omitted, is read in Labbe's Hagiologium of Franco-Gaul. The other Martyrologies also, which I praised above for the XIII day of January, again commonly celebrate the memory of St. Remigius at the Kalends of October. Not to be longer, I add here only the words of our manuscript Florarium, in which the reason of the feast is set out, yet not without error.

[5] In its first Index there is read: His first and second translation on the first day of October; and then at the said Kalends it is said: In the city of Reims, the translation of St. Remigius, bishop and confessor, was translated at various times. whose body, when after his death it was being carried to the church of saints Timothy and Apollinaris, began beside the church of St. Christopher to weigh so heavily that they were compelled to leave it there. Where, since many miracles took place, they enlarged the church, and placed him in a silver casket in the year of Salvation DCCCLIII. The author of the Florarium had read these things in the Life to be published, but as far as the translations are concerned he did not explain them rightly. Three translations of the sacred body of Remigius are recorded, made indeed in various centuries, but on the Kalends of October. The first took place in an uncertain year, but yet in the same VI century in which he had died; the second was made by Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, not in the year 853 but in 852. The third, finally, was performed by St. Leo IX, supreme Roman Pontiff, while he was staying present in the city of Reims in the year 1049. Further, although the 1st day of October is accordingly the day of the translations of St. Remigius, and is marked by that title in various Martyrologies, yet I shall show in its time that his feast of birth was already anciently referred to the same day, celebrated for those translations.

[6] In some Martyrologies Remedius, For this place I have kept besides some old Martyrologies which announce our St. Remigius on the same Kalends of October indeed, but, the name being changed a little, call him Remedius or Remedus. In the above-praised Thesaurus Anecdotorum of Martène the Martyrology of St. Germanus of Auxerre has it thus: Remus (that is, Remis) Remedii: the Corbie one in the same place: At Reims, of saint Remedus: the Gellone one in d'Achery's Spicilegium, volume 2, page 35: At Reims, of Remedius, bishop. Among the Martyrologies also printed by us after volume VI of June, that of Reichenau says: At Reims, the deposition of saint Remedius, bishop; Labbe's: Rem. (that is, Remis) of Remedius, bishop; the Corbie one more briefly: At Reims, of St. Remedius: the older Hieronymian, or the Lucca one of Fiorentini: Of Remedius, and in the same place there had been put before at the XV day of January: The deposition of St. Rimedius, bishop and confessor. Rabanus also used the same name in the Martyrology on these very Kalends, saying: In the city of Reims, of Remedius, bishop. Likewise Notker in his Martyrology also, where, copying the rest almost from Ado, he says: At Reims, of saint Remedius, bishop, etc.

[7] elsewhere also he is called Remegius, Hugues Ménard, in the Notes and Observations on the Book of the Sacraments of St. Gregory I, Pope, page 182, judged that the word Remedius was made from Remegius. For when in the same place, page 181, he had praised a Reims codex, an apograph of the same Book, which he determined to have been written in the 31st year of the reign of Charlemagne, and in which Remegii is read for Remigii, he observed the following. It is to be noted that in many manuscript codices Remegii is written for Remigii, as in this codex. Whence also in many manuscript codices and old printed ones, G being changed into D, Remedii is written; so that this Pontiff is called Remigius, and indeed more usually; sometimes Remegius; occasionally Remedius. Nor do I doubt that the proper name of this holy Prelate is Remigius, in which manner it is read written both in his own letters and in other published monuments contemporary with him or next to him in age. By an easy change also the word Remigius could pass into Remegius, and finally into Remedius; but with equal facility also Remedius into Remegius; which of these is more likely let us examine a little. Ménard asserts indeed that in many manuscript codices Remegii is written for Remigii; but he expresses none by name except his Reims one; and at the same time confesses that in many manuscript codices and old printed ones Remedii is read.

[8] I, however, in the many Martyrologies which I have reviewed, have found Remigius, but that his proper name is Remigius, Remedius and Remedus; in none Remegius. But let all these be, if you will, more recent than Ménard's Reims codex, written, in his opinion, about the end of the VIII century; yet certainly older than it is Fredegarius Scholasticus, a writer of the VII century, by whom, both in the History of the Franks epitomized from St. Gregory, and in the Chronicle, he is called not Remegius but Remedius. These Thierry Ruinart published together

with the Works of St. Gregory of Tours, taken from the codex of Sirmond, or of Clermont, contemporary with Fredegarius himself. Further, in the praised Epitome, at the same place, column 556, chapter 16, he writes thus: The holy and apostolic Remedius, Pontiff of that same city (of Reims), coming to Clovis, etc. And a little below: He (King Clovis) sent the ewer to blessed Remedius. Again at column 560, chapter 21, he is twice named Remedius, and not otherwise. Finally in the Chronicle, column 654, chapter 83, one reads: Ermenfred in Austrasia took refuge at Remus (that is, Remos, Reims) at the basilica of saint Remedius. I omit more, and only add Hincmar, archbishop of Reims in the IX century, who, although he constantly calls our holy Prelate Remigius, nevertheless observes that he was also called Remedius by some, and at length concludes for Remigius. It will help to have heard him.

[9] In the Life to be published, at number 9, he discourses thus: Nor must this be passed over in silence, Hincmar warns from more certain monuments. that in charters made at a recent time after his death, and also after many courses of years, about things handed over to this church of Reims, we read that he was named Remedius. Which he who attends to his merits and acts understands to be fitting, that he was called by this name, who, made the mitigator of the fury of the Lord, was in the time of wrath a reconciliation… With reason, therefore, should we believe that he was named Remedius in baptism, did we not learn in the more correct deeds that he was to be called Remigius by the divine oracle through saint Montanus. But in metrical verses composed by himself, and by his command carved on a certain vessel consecrated by him, we read thus:

*"Let the people draw life hence from the sacred Blood Which the eternal Christ poured from the wound inflicted. Remigius the priest renders his vows to the Lord."*

Flodoard adopted the same in book 1 of the History of Reims, chapter 10, and he, no less than Hincmar, seems not to have known the name Remegius for Remigius. For which reason it seems it must be said that the holy Prelate was called Remedius before Remegius, and accordingly, if one was formed from the other, that Remegius was rather made from Remedius than the contrary.

[10] I return to the Martyrologies, about which a few things remain to be annotated. His various festivals I have already noted above that in the Older Hieronymian Martyrology, which Fiorentini published, mention of St. Remigius is had not at the XIII day of January but at the XV of the same month. The words which are read there, added to the rest as by an antiquarian hand in a different character, are these: Remus, the deposition of St. Rimedius, bishop and confessor. Greven at the same day, in the Usuardine Additions, has: Of Remedius, bishop and confessor. There is no doubt that in both places the same holy Prelate of Reims is indicated; and Fiorentini, from Greven, as I think, annotated in the same place: Under this XV day of January, however, the Carthusians of Cologne keep his deposition in the Additions to Usuard. The reason for the translation of the feast seems to have been that the XIII day of January was impeded by the Octave of the Epiphany of the Lord, and the XIV by the feast of St. Hilary of Poitiers. Certainly in the Register of the Charterhouse of Utrecht that reason is handed down why the natal feast of the same St. Remigius is kept there on the 1st day of October. For so, among the Usuardine Augmentations, in Sollerius, one reads in it at the Kalends of October: Of Remigius, bishop and confessor, whose feast is celebrated here in the Order when, namely, his translation occurs; because on the day of his death, on account of the Octaves of the Epiphany and the commemoration of saint Hilary, there is no room.

[11] ascribed to various days in the sacred Fasti: The Usuardine codex of Herenthals, from the recension of the praised Sollerius, prefixes to the pure text of Usuard at the XXIX day of May another festival of the same Saint, namely of the translation, in these words: The translation of the body of blessed Remigius, apostle of the Franks, from that place in which it had lain before, in the same church. The author of our manuscript Florarium copied the same, adding which translation in number he believed this to have been, and saying thus: The third translation of the body of blessed Remigius, apostle of the Franks, from the place where it had lain before, in the same church. In this same Florarium at the XXIX day of December there is read again: Likewise the bringing back of the most precious body of blessed Remigius, apostle of the Franks, from the city of the Remi. Finally André Du Saussay, in the Gallican Martyrology, reviewed his various festivals: namely at the XIII day of January his natal feast or that of his death; at XXIX May the third translation of the sacred body; at I October the more celebrated translation; at the 2nd day of the same month the dedication of the church of Reims and the exaltation of the body; and finally at XXX December its wonderful bringing back, of each of which we shall treat in its place in this Commentary. Chastelain, in the Notes on the Roman Martyrology, at the XIII day of January on St. Remigius, writes that the memory of the translation made by Hincmar in the year 852 is recalled on the XIII day of November; which seems to have been said by error: for that translation certainly took place on the Kalends of October, and was wont to be recalled on that day with the other translations.

[12] we treat of him today with the Roman Martyrology. For the rest, because, as has been said, the Kalends of October were consecrated to the memory of our St. Remigius already many centuries ago, and, from what is to be said in the posthumous glory, synodal decrees of the Gauls and capitularies of the kings, and St. Leo IX the Pope himself, dedicated them to him, not undeservedly did Cardinal Baronius inscribe the same holy Apostle of the Franks on the same Kalends in the Roman Martyrology with the following elogium: At Reims in Gaul, of saint Remigius, bishop and confessor, who converted the nation of the Franks to Christ, Clovis their king having been initiated by the sacred font of Baptism and the sacraments of the faith: and when he had completed very many years in the episcopate, conspicuous for sanctity and the power of miracles, he departed from life on the Ides of January; his festival, however, is recalled on this day, on which his sacred body was afterwards translated. For the same reason our Predecessors, among the Passed Over at the XIII and XV days of January, and again at the XXIX of May, deferred his deeds to the Kalends of October, and to redeem their pledge we give them today.

§ II. The original Life of St. Remigius lost: a certain Compendium of it, by Venantius Fortunatus, to be published: appraisal of the Life written by Hincmar and to be given: some other monuments, chiefly concerning the translations of the sacred body.

The Life of the Saint, written at length in the VI century in which he had died, It has already been deservedly observed by others that the apostolate of St. Remigius, a man of distinguished learning and sanctity, among the nation of the Franks, and his long episcopate, could not but have given ample material for writing history to his contemporaries. For (as St. Gregory of Tours says in book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 31, of Ruinart's edition, which I use) St. Remigius was a bishop of excellent knowledge, and above all imbued with Rhetorical studies; but also so pre-eminent in sanctity that he was equalled to the virtues of St. Silvester. And on the testimony of the same in the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 79, Remigius … bishop of the city of Reims … as they say, completed seventy years, or more, in the episcopate. Nor indeed was there lacking one who wished to deserve well of posterity by this labour, as Hincmar, archbishop of Reims in the IX century, teaches in the Prologue to the Life to be published in the second place, number 1, from which I cull the following. As I learned by faithful report from old men, religious men also of advanced age, who were still living from the time of Tilpin, prelate of this city, when by God's authority I was chosen and promoted to the service of this holy church, … they heard it narrated by their elders that they had seen a book of very great size, written in an antique hand, about the birth and life and virtues and death of blessed Remigius, our most holy patron.

[14] But that this book did not survive in his time, that is, in the IX century, had already perished in the IX century, he complains in the same place, alleging two causes of this loss. The first is that, since it had generally displeased by its prolixity, and on the same head was by no means accommodated to ecclesiastical uses, already from the VI century, in which St. Remigius departed from the living, it was contracted into a slight compendium, and then that more prolix Work ceased to be read; And when the Excerpt itself (that is, the compendium) began to be frequented in reading among the people, and to be transcribed by many on account of the facility of its brevity; the great codex itself began to be held more negligently by the negligent. The other cause he throws upon the civil wars and the afflicted state of the churches of Gaul under the prince Charles Martel, and upon the depraved morals of the clergy, whom he records to have been compelled by want to procure their living from trade. And so (as he continues in the same place) the aforesaid book with others, partly rotted by dripping water, partly gnawed by mice, partly divided by the cutting away of leaves, so perished that few and scattered leaves from it were scarcely found.

[15] The Continuators of Gallia Christiana, volume 9, column 28, carry the episcopate of Tilpin from the end of the year of Christ 753 or the beginning of 754 down to 794; in which Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, sought it in vain: and at column 39 fix the beginning of Hincmar's see in the year 845. Therefore between the death of Tilpin and the beginning of Hincmar's episcopate only about 51 years intervened; so that the very old men praised by Hincmar could easily have touched the times of both sees. Besides, since from the death of Charles Martel, which happened in 741, to the death of Tilpin only about 53 years are numbered, it is likewise clear that the elders of the same old men could easily have seen the aforesaid book of the Life of St. Remigius before it was ruined under the same Charles. Hincmar adds that he wasted all effort in seeking the same codex, certain persons (he says, at number 7) saying that in this and that place I could find a great book about the life and virtues of our Lord and Patron himself. Sending to which places, I found the things promised me altogether false. So he in the IX century, nor do I think anyone was afterwards more fortunate in seeking this book; since it has not appeared up to now, and is held as lost.

[16] but a short compendium of it in the VI century This hope being given up, then, let us inquire into the old compendium of the same more prolix Life, which was said to have been the occasion of the loss of the more prolix Life. The praised Hincmar speaks thus again of its author, and the cause and method of the writing: Egidius, the fourth bishop of this city (Reims) after blessed Remigius, asked a certain religious man, named Fortunatus, distinguished in metrical verse, who was then invited by many powerful and honourable men in these Gallic and Belgic regions through divers places for the merit of his life and knowledge, to excerpt from the same book, composed in the Gallic buskin, in plain speech some miracles which might be recited among the people; so that they might hear them without tedium and store them in mind, and through them to the love and honour and devotion of God and of their own Protector the same

people might be able to be roused. Which the reader can notice in the same Excerpt, where it is written: Let us strive to discourse of few things, to pass over very many. Egidius, of whom he speaks here, is said in volume 9 of Gallia Christiana, column 14 and following, to have already sat in the church of Reims in the year 565, and in the year 590 to have been deposed at the synod of Verdun and sent into exile at Strasbourg by Childebert, king of Austrasia.

[17] Venantius Fortunatus, a man renowned for sanctity and writings, had made it, Fortunatus, then, the author of the Compendium, or, as Hincmar says, of the Excerpt, was that celebrated Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus, an Italian indeed by homeland, but first presbyter of the church of Poitiers, and afterwards also bishop, renowned in the same VI century for the poems and Lives of the Saints he wrote. His name is inscribed in some Martyrologies at the XIV day of December, where his cult can be inquired into and his deeds consequently illustrated. Meanwhile consult, if you please, his short elogium given in our Work, volume VI of May, page 774 and following, on the occasion of the Life of St. Germanus, bishop of Paris, written by him and printed there. He who wishes more, let him go to the learned Benedictines, volume 3 of the Literary History of France, where there is lengthy discussion of his acts and writings. That he is not called bishop by Hincmar, the reason is that Fortunatus, when he wrote this compendium, was not yet a bishop, not having been promoted to this Order until after Egidius of Reims, at whose request he composed it, had already been deposed. For a similar cause he is called only presbyter by St. Gregory of Tours; namely because, when St. Gregory was writing, he had not ascended to the higher grade.

[18] so commanded by the archbishop Egidius, How much the same St. Gregory made of him he indicated in the Letter, or Preface, to the books on the Miracles of St. Martin, speaking thus: Would that Severus or Paulinus were living, or at least that Fortunatus were present, to describe these things! But however learned he was, and versed in writing Lives of the Saints, the compendium which he made from the prolix Life of St. Remigius does not answer to so great a name. For besides the birth of Remigius, his youth and his attaining of the episcopate, it contains scarcely anything except some miracles, the other things splendidly done by him in the episcopate being passed over, which certainly it was more important to commend to posterity. What, however, may excuse Fortunatus here are, first, the brevity of the writing and the subject prescribed by Egidius, who required only some miracles to be read among the people: secondly, the common propensity of his age towards narrations of marvels; and thirdly and finally, the more prolix Life itself, which at that time still existed entire for those who wished more, and which he neither could nor was bound to know would perish on the occasion of this little Work of his. Perhaps also that more prolix one would equally have perished, and accordingly we perhaps owe it to Egidius and Fortunatus that at least those few things from it have come down to us.

[19] It is uncertain whether St. Gregory of Tours praised this compendium or that original Life; which we have in the edition of Mombritius and in our Mss., but certainly he praised one or the other in book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 21, in these words: For there is now a book of his Life, which narrates that he raised a dead person. That by a dead person here a girl is indicated is evident from the same author's book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 79, where, speaking again of St. Remigius, he says: By his prayer he obtained that the corpse of a dead girl be raised. And this miracle is related in the compendium according to my division at number 8, undoubtedly taken from the more prolix Life. In Gregory's text the name Book of the Life fits the more prolix one better; but the adverb of time now fits the compendium; by which he can seem to have indicated a Life recently published. Boninus Mombritius, who in Macri's Hierolexicon, page 83, at the word Birrus, is said to have published the Acts of the Saints … from an ancient parchment manuscript Passionary kept in the Lateran archive in the time of Sixtus IV, that is, as the XV century was inclining towards its end, published this Compendium in volume 2 with this title: The Deposition of saint Remigius, bishop. Laurentius Surius added the author at the 1st day of October in this manner: The Life of St. Remigius, bishop, by Fortunatus the presbyter, whom Hincmar mentions in the Preface to his Life, which you will find at the XIII day of January. That they used different apographs is taught by the diversity not of matter but of phrasing, unless this is to be attributed to Surius.

[20] We too have the same in a parchment codex of our Museum marked P. Ms. 9, and I shall print it in the first place. whose characters are not far from the X century. We have besides two other apographs without notice of the place, except that the one of them is noted as received from our Chifflet and collated by him with a very old codex of St. Benignus of Dijon. These too agree both with our codex and with those published by Mombritius and Surius in matter, not always in words, and therefore I shall print in the first place the praised apograph from our codex collated with these. That, moreover, it is that Excerpt which Hincmar praised, more than one reason persuades. For first, the exordium indicates that it was made to be read out to the people in church: The holy deposition of the most blessed prelate Remigius has presented to us today a day of mystic solemnity, etc. Secondly, as I have already noted, it contains few things besides some miracles, as Egidius had commanded Fortunatus. Thirdly, the words Let us strive to discourse of few things, to pass over very many, cited by Hincmar, are read in all our manuscripts and printed editions. Fourthly, the same Hincmar, who had professed in the Prologue that he would relate in the Life in the same words the things which he had found written, sometimes recites almost entire phrases which our compendium has. Finally, the style itself, even as to the solecisms (especially in our manuscripts and in Mombritius's edition), agrees sufficiently with the other little Works of Fortunatus.

[21] Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, asked by his clergy, Just as in the VI century the prolixity of the original Life, so in the IX century the excessive brevity of Fortunatus's Compendium displeased, more rightly. For which reason the clergy of Reims asked their often-mentioned archbishop Hincmar that, to repair the loss of the old one, he should prepare a new Life, lest the exceptional deeds of their holy Patron should at length be wholly withdrawn from the memory of posterity. Hincmar was certainly furnished with such learning and eloquence that he could deservedly seem apt above the others of his age for treating this subject happily. Consult, if you have leisure, Flodoard in the History of the church of Reims, and the Works of Hincmar himself, published in print in two volumes in folio by the learned Jacques Sirmond, presbyter of our Society. He, then, to comply with the wishes of his clergy, with his prudence, first began diligently to investigate whether the original more prolix Life survived anywhere, and, frustrated in that hope, turned his cares to procuring other aids for himself. Perhaps to this end also was given the letter of which Flodoard makes mention in book 3 of the History of Reims, chapter 21, thus: He (Hincmar) writes to Ado, archbishop of Vienne, among other things, for the letter of blessed Avitus written to St. Remigius, which a certain monk Rotfrid had told him he had read with the same Ado. And also that, if he could find anything else about St. Remigius, he should send it to him, precious and lovely above gold and topaz.

[22] [again a prolix Life, from notices and traditions scraped together without discrimination,] And these things indeed were praiseworthy, if he had had as much solicitude for the genuineness of the monuments, or criticism in discerning them, as the diligence he professes in scraping them together. Let us hear him speaking of these things. I undertake (he says in the Prologue, at number 7 in my copy) what I have long deferred, beginning from his progenitors and birth, and so setting in order both those things which I have found about him in the Histories published by our elders, and those which I have found scattered in divers little sheets; and also those which I have received by common report; because it was said not [] long before us, and is also found in the holy Scriptures, and also in the Gospel truth, that the true law of history is simply to commit to letters for the instruction of posterity those things which are gathered from common fame. In all which let not the diversity of style disturb the reader; since those things which I shall take from the Histories of the Elders, and those which I shall find in the old little sheets, I shall set down just as they were found. But those which I have received from the ancients by common report, and shall add for the instruction of readers or hearers, I shall take care either to set down in the words of those from whose sayings I shall borrow them, or shall compose in my own speech.* These things there, which lighted the way for Sigebert of Gembloux when in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 99 of Aubert Le Mire's edition, he annotated the following.

[23] and therefore infected with fables, Hincmar, from monk of St.-Denis of Paris archbishop of Reims, wrote the Life of St. Remigius of Reims, which was first briefly written, augmented from the brief one into a book of great size, abbreviated from the great book by the zeal of Fortunatus, bishop and poet; this Life, I say, Hincmar wrote, inserting both the things which he found in the Histories of the elders about the birth, life or death of St. Remigius, and those which he collected scattered in divers little sheets; and according to the law of history he neither passed over the things which he learned by common report; nor did he pass over his Testament. So Sigebert, who, however, whence he learned that there was some Life of St. Remigius first briefly written, earlier than the more prolix one, I do not follow. To return to Hincmar, he therefore wove a new one from all the aforesaid, patched together from everywhere, and it, on account of the pious exhortations repeatedly inserted, is long indeed, but, as far as historical matters are concerned, in the common opinion of the learned unworthy of that author. And this is perhaps the reason why it does not appear in the Collection of his Works published by Sirmond in two volumes in folio. And indeed what wonder is it if one stumbles into fables and historical errors who, writing four centuries after, adopts without discrimination whatever he has read about his subject in any little sheets whatever, and heard from fame or tradition, perhaps recent? Assuredly this is neither the true law of history, nor commended in the sacred Scriptures.

[24] Concerning the time of the writing of the Life, receive these things. Hincmar, in the Life to be published, number 133, narrates the translation of the body of St. Remigius made by himself in the year 852, he wrote after the middle of the IX century, and in the following number subjoins that Rado, subdeacon of the church of Soissons, who, present at that same translation, had been freed from a sharp and long-lasting toothache, confessed after twenty-five years that from that time he had never felt it any more. Accordingly, unless Hincmar added Rado's testimony afterwards, he must be said to have written it, or at least completed it, not before the year 877; after which he did not survive long, having died, namely, in the year 882. Of this Life we have exemplars both in manuscript codices of our Museum and in apographs received from elsewhere, but some more complete than others. The principal one exists in a distinguished parchment codex of ours in

great folio, marked Q. Ms. 4: but it is so prolix that, together with the Testament of St. Remigius, it fills sixty-six great pages, or almost 132 columns; yet so that scarcely, or not even scarcely, half of it pertains to history, while the rest are sermons for instructing the people, inserted in almost every chapter, or panegyrics adapted to celebrating the Saint's virtues from the pulpit.

[25] To this, if you except a few things, the exemplar of Bonnefontaine is similar, which I shall give from our Ms., cutting away, as Surius also did, from which we have extracted the things which are absent from the edition of Surius presently to be mentioned. The same titles of chapters which the Bonnefontaine one has we formerly received from the manuscript of the lord canon Prudhomme. Finally the same Life, but without the name of the author, without the Preface and other things not pertaining to history, exists in another codex of ours, P. Ms. 22, which was formerly a book of the monastery of Saint Paul at Utrecht. Laurentius Surius published the same with Hincmar's Preface at XIII January, and of the inserted exhortations he partly added, partly cut away. Then, after the verses inscribed by the same Hincmar on the mausoleum of St. Remigius, he subjoined other translations and miracles of the same Saint from Flodoard, as is annotated in the same place in the margin of the latest edition of Surius's Work on the Lives of the Saints. Finally there is listed as a separate little Work an Encomium of the same St. Remigius by Hincmar, archbishop of Reims; which in our codex Q. Ms. 4, in the Bonnefontaine one and in that of the lord Prudhomme is annexed to the preceding as part of the same Life, and that it is in fact a part will be manifest to readers.

[26] Now as to Surius's plan in publishing, I too shall cut away, as far as I conveniently can, the longer sermons of Hincmar mixed with the deeds, the long sermons that contribute nothing to history, and foreign to our purpose, the reader being warned in the Annotations of what is passed over, lest the Life, burdened with superfluous by-works, produce tedium; and the aforesaid encomium, which in the above-praised codices is the last chapter of the Life, I shall for the same cause pass over altogether; especially since it can be read in Surius. Nevertheless, lest the reader suspect that this was done by me rashly, it will help to have given here in a few words the argument of the whole encomium. Hincmar, in its first part, discoursing that St. Remigius merited to be enrolled in the nine choirs of angels, briefly recalled for each one some one of his virtues which he had narrated above; and with these he filled one page of Surius's folio edition. The second part occupies two other pages, and in it he exhorts his flock, through the consideration of the glory of the Saints and of the punishments due to sins, to do penance under the patronage of St. Remigius, and, rousing them to confidence in Christ the Redeemer, very greatly commends to this end the use of the most holy Eucharist.

[27] and with three chapters thrown into the Appendix. Understand these things of Surius's edition: for in our codex Q. Ms. 4, and in the Bonnefontaine one, the same things are indeed to be read, but there two other chapters are wrongly inserted, the title of the first of which is: How he beat the archbishop of Mainz, and recovered his property: and of the second: That he lost his senses and his life who sold wine in his church. I have said that these are wrongly inserted there; both because they by no means cohere with the rest of the discourse, and most of all because the facts which they contain are later than Hincmar, and taken from Flodoard's History, book 1, chapter 20. It can also be doubted whether another chapter, which in the same codex of ours and in the Bonnefontaine one is placed before the said elogium and is entitled Of the relics of blessed Remigius carried into Italy by saint Moderannus, is really Hincmar's. To me indeed it appears more likely not to be his, because it is related out of place, and does not exist in the other manuscripts which I have praised, nor in Surius's edition, and from elsewhere the interpolation of the elogium, which it immediately precedes, is certain, as I have said. For these causes I thought it better to insert this last miracle from Flodoard's History into this Commentary, where there will be a more apt place, and to review the remaining two in the Appendix with others.

[28] this Flodoard followed, and Nicolas Picard de Larisville polished it. The praised Flodoard, called by others Frodoard, presbyter of the church of Reims, who died after the middle of the X century, transferred many things from the same Life into his said History, and sometimes in the same words, so that it becomes clear also from the comparison of the two Works that the Life which we have is in fact the offspring of Hincmar. It will help to have adduced one passage. According to my division, at number 131 in the Life to be published, Hincmar speaks thus: Not altogether unavenged in our times does he (St. Remigius) leave the crimes of the presumptuous. For a certain Blitgarius lately obtained a manse from the treasure of the church in the town of Tenoilum for a price from Bernard the custodian, etc. Hear now Flodoard, book 1, chapter 20, relating these same things. In the time (he says) of the lord prelate Hincmar a certain Blitgarius obtained from the custodian of that church for a price a manse of the church in the town of Tenoilum, etc. I omit more, because the matter is certain. I believe that the same little Work of Hincmar is that which the writers of Gallia Christiana, volume 9, column 224, hand down was polished in the XIV century by a monk of St.-Remi, in these words: Nicolas Picard de Larisville, who composed many unpublished sermons, then endowed the life and miracles of St. Remigius with a more polished style, a not ineloquent writer of the fourteenth century. The lack of this little book I regret the less because the author is not ancient, and because René de Ceriziers, presbyter of our Society, used it in the French Life of St. Remigius published at Reims in the year 1633; from which, however, I see that Nicolas also added certain things.

[29] Mabillon, in volume 1 of the Benedictine Annals, in the second Appendix, page 680, published a certain fragment A fragment of an old Mass to be published: containing miracles of St. Remigius, from a Reims codex, in which the following title was prefixed: From the Preface which was anciently said at the Mass, about the miracles of the same blessed Remigius. He had premised in the same volume, page 63, that that Mass of the Gallican rite was wont to be said a thousand years ago, as is established, he says, from a very old codex of the church of Reims, written eight hundred years ago. If this is so, that Preface will have to be referred to the VII century or the beginning of the VIII (for that first volume of the Annals came to light in the year 1703), and it could have been one of the little sheets from which Hincmar scraped together his material. However it may be, in this Preface the same miracles are read, but not all, which are in him, including that prodigious cup of wine with which Clovis, king of the Franks, is said to have satisfied himself and his household and an innumerable crowd in a twofold military expedition, until he had vanquished his enemies, by the gift of St. Remigius; which, since it bears the appearance of a manifest fable, diminishes not a little with me the authority of that Preface: I shall nevertheless give it in the above-said Appendix.

[30] Another Life of St. Remigius, as written by St. Audoenus, bishop of Rouen, whether some Life of him was written by St. Audoenus? An apocryphal Testament. Antonio Possevino praises in volume 1 of the Apparatus Sacer, Cologne edition of the year 1608, page 133, in these words: Of the same Audoenus, bishop of Rouen, one book On the Life of St. Remigius exists in manuscript in the library of the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland. Aubert Le Mire followed Possevino in Sigebert of Gembloux's Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 58; but neither explains who that Remigius was. Rightly, however, the writers of the Literary History of France, volume 3, on St. Audoenus, page 628, judge that St. Remigius of Reims is here designated; for two other bishops of the same name, of Lyons and of Rouen, are later than Audoenus. It would be worth the labour to publish this Life; but since the authors of the praised Literary History observe in the same place that it is not known what it is, and no notice of it is had from elsewhere, it is likely that it, if it ever existed, no longer survives, or lies hidden. On the contrary there exist even today two Testaments ascribed to St. Remigius of Reims, of which the longer could contribute to illustrating his deeds, were it not now deservedly rejected by the learned on account of manifest indications of supposition and grave reasons: of both there will be speech in its place.

[31] After both Lives, the first written by Venantius Fortunatus, the other by Hincmar as authors, Some Translations of the sacred body from a Ms., I shall publish some translations of the body made at various times. In the first place I shall give a small unpublished little Work, which our Henschenius formerly obtained from the library of Prüm from the Prior of the same monastery, the Rev. Mr. Cosmas Dilckrath. The author is contemporary, and seems to have been Rotfrid, from the verses added at the end:

Whoever thou art who shalt gladly read through this book, Say: O Clement God, have mercy on Rotfrid, That eternal life may remain as the reward to the writer By the merits of the kindly Pontiff Remigius. Amen.

In this little Work he himself narrates the carrying away of the sacred body in the year 882, out of fear of the Normans, made by Hincmar to Épernay, and, he having died a little after, to the monastery of Orbais, and finally the bringing back to the city of Reims made by Folco or Fulco II, who had succeeded Hincmar. Hence one may suspect that its writer was that Rotfrid who in volume 9 of Gallia Christiana, column 226, number XI, is said to have held the provostship of the monastery of St.-Remi at Reims under Hincmar, archprelate and abbot, unless perhaps this Rotfrid by his death yielded it to Thetbold, who is said in the same place to have held the same office after him under Hincmar and Fulco. This is certain, that the author is contemporary, but we regret the more that we do not have his narration entire at the end, whether this is to be imputed to a fault of the Prüm codex, or to the author himself, who did not complete the little Work he had begun.

[32] and to be given from printed ones. Opportunely, however, Flodoard offers himself here, who in the History of Reims set out the same translations, and added another instituted by Hervé, Fulco's successor, in the X century. For which reason I shall exhibit in the second place all of them collected from the praised History. Finally I shall subjoin from Mabillon's Acts of the Saints of his Order that celebrated translation of the sacred body which St. Leo IX, supreme Pontiff, himself made, being present at Reims, in the year 1049, and which Anselm, monk of St.-Remi at Reims, a spectator of the event, left committed to writing. And let these things said about the instruments which I shall use suffice; for other more recent writers I shall praise where there is need in the course of the Commentary: I should wish, however, that there had come into my hands the book which André Du Saussay, author of the Gallican Martyrology, wrote on the posthumous glory of St. Remigius.

[] otherwise as*

§ III. The illustrious race of the Saint, his parents, brothers and the rest of his family: his birth foretold by St. Montanus: his native soil in the Laonnois: whether St. Balsamia was his nurse? his life up to the episcopate.

Remigius, sprung from an illustrious race, He who in the same century in which St. Remigius died contracted his original Life, Fortunatus, then presbyter, afterwards bishop of Poitiers, indicated the illustrious race of the same Saint, in our edition at number 1, in these few words: Born of the first lineage, he shone with the nobility of his parents. Following him, Hincmar, in the Life to be published in the second place, number 4, says of his parents: For both were noble in race, and most renowned among their own for favour. Flodoard agrees in the History of the church of Reims, book 1, chapter 10, saying: And this Boy was born … of the high blood of his parents. The testimonies of these, especially of Fortunatus, so near to the times of St. Remigius himself, and who used the original Life, make the illustrious birth of the holy Prelate certain; but what René de Ceriziers says besides in the French Life, part 1, chapter 1, that his father was count of Laon, or, as others will have it, of Soissons, I judge too lightly asserted. The name of his father Fortunatus was silent about; Hincmar and Flodoard called him Emilius or Aemilius. That he was a distinguished man may also be gathered from the letter of St. Sidonius Apollinaris given to St. Principius, bishop of Soissons, brother of St. Remigius.

[34] he had as father Aemilius, as mother St. Cilinia, This is, among those published by the learned Jacques Sirmond, the fourteenth of book 8, in which the praised St. Sidonius, praising the father together with the sons, addresses Principius thus: By whose report (that of Antiolus, a bishop of a see unknown to me) I was anxious to learn, and rejoicing I remember that I learned, what father you have, and what brothers and of what kind you are, by what prerogative of morals you both discharge the supreme pontificate. To which father, namely, who once had you, the house of Aaron, the ancient pontiff, could scarcely be compared in merit, etc. All with Fortunatus call the mother of Remigius Cylinia or Cilinia, and deservedly praise her very greatly for her sanctity. She is inscribed in many Martyrologies, even in the Roman, in which at the XXI day of October she is celebrated with the following elogium: In the castle of Laon, of saint Cilinia, mother of blessed Remigius, bishop of Reims. In some also at the V day of April the first translation of the same Saint is announced, as was observed in our Work at that place among the Passed Over, and can be said more broadly at the before-cited day of October.

[35] These two pious spouses, on the testimony of Hincmar in the Life to be published, number 3, had already begotten two brothers, St. Principius, bishop of Soissons, and another, children, as we think, before Remigius was conceived. The words, which are explained somewhat differently by others, I subjoin. For blessed Cilinia, intent on pious works, although she was held in the body in the world, yet in mind had her conversation in heaven; who in the flower of her youth had borne of her only husband Emilius Principius, afterwards holy bishop of the city of the Suessones, and his brother, the father of blessed Lupus the bishop, successor of the same Principius. Somewhat more obscurely, because of the words and his brother being omitted, speaks Flodoard, book 1, chapter 10, where one reads: And this blessed mother, long before in the flower of youth, had borne of her only husband Aemilius Principius, afterwards holy bishop of the city of the Suessones, and the father of blessed Lupus, successor of the same Principius. From these things it is disputed whether the father of St. Lupus is the same as St. Principius, bishop of Soissons, or different; that is, whether St. Principius was the father or the paternal uncle of St. Lupus, and consequently whether St. Remigius is said to have had two elder brothers or only one.

[36] Cardinal Baronius, in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the years of Christ 463 and 507, of whom was born St. Lupus, successor of Principius; his kinsman St. Genebaudus, and others after him, believed that St. Lupus was born of the praised St. Principius before he had received sacred Orders; others on the contrary opining that the father of the same Lupus was another brother of SS. Principius and Remigius, and that those words of Hincmar, and his brother, are to be referred not to Remigius but to Principius. To the latter opinion our Work went at the XXV day of September, on which St. Principius of Soissons is venerated, and Hincmar teaches it more clearly than Flodoard opposes it, whose more obscure assertions are rather to be clarified from Hincmar, whom he copied in that place. Perhaps from the same brother of SS. Remigius and Principius, of whom Lupus was born, there was also begotten a girl of a name unknown to us, whom Flodoard, after Hincmar, writes was the niece of St. Remigius, and the wife of saint Genebaudus, afterwards first bishop of Laon, and with him an example of human frailty, and the mother of Latro, who succeeded his father in the episcopate, and also of Vulpecula.

[37] See the story in the Life to be published, number 67 and following; the husband of his niece, afterwards bishop of Laon, etc., meanwhile, since we are treating here of the family of St. Remigius, I observe in a few words that Genebaudus washed away the stains of incontinence contracted in the episcopate with his former wife by so severe a penance of seven years that he merited to be restored to his see, and showed himself thenceforth such that he has been numbered among the Saints, and is venerated on the V day of September, where you have his deeds illustrated by us. The son also, whom, because he had begotten him in the episcopate, Genebaudus wished to be called Latro (Robber), succeeded his father in the episcopate, as has been said, and after his death was held for a Saint, on the testimony of the same Hincmar and Flodoard; but in our Work at the before-cited day of September he was listed only among the Passed Over, because Chastelain in the Aëmeri asserts that he is venerated at Laon neither with an Office nor with a commemoration, although he is celebrated with the title of Saint by André Du Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology. Of Vulpecula, the other fruit of the forbidden embrace, and of the mother of both, I have read nothing further handed down.

[38] the greater part of whom obtained cult. We have therefore from what has been said: as father of St. Remigius, Aemilius, an illustrious man and honourably mentioned, his name being unspoken, by St. Sidonius Apollinaris; as mother, St. Cilinia, inscribed in the Roman and other Martyrologies at the XXI day of October and elsewhere also at the V of April; as brother, St. Principius; and as nephew from the other brother, St. Lupus, both bishops of Soissons, and the first of these on the XXV day of September, the second on the XIX of October, likewise honoured with the cult of Saints; St. Genebaudus, first the husband of the niece of Remigius, then prelate of Laon, who by distinguished penance and the integrity of the life thenceforth led equally merited sacred honours, and is venerated on the V day of September; and finally his son Latro, honoured by Hincmar and Flodoard with the appellation of Saint. Finally Flodoard, book 1, chapter 23, mentions three other nephews of St. Remigius, namely Agricola the presbyter, Aëtius and Agathimerus; but these perhaps became known to him only from the longer Testament of the same Saint, already commonly and deservedly rejected by the learned.

[39] The Saint's birth was foretold to his parents by St. Montanus, The praised spouses Aemilius and Cilinia, after they had brought forth St. Principius and another son, as we think, the father of St. Lupus, and perhaps also other offspring, while they were spending their life together as Christians, she was admonished by St. Montanus, a monk or solitary, divinely instructed, of another Son to be born of them for the salvation of Gaul. Receive the words of Fortunatus from number 1 of the Life. Whom (Remigius) the divine piety chose, not only before he was born, but before he was conceived: so much so that a certain monk Montanus, while he rested in the lightest slumber, was struck three times by an admonition to foretell with truthful report to his blessed mother Cylinia that she would conceive a male child, so as to designate his name and merit. He at once fulfilled the command, and announced to the most fruitful mother the joys of the offspring to be conceived. And she, just as she did not appear doubtful in the faith of belief, so she received in the birth him whom she had foreknown in the womb, etc. These are the things which we have about the prophet and birth of St. Remigius from Fortunatus, the abbreviator of the original Life. That Montanus is venerated in the territory of Luxembourg on the XVII day of May, at which our Godfrey Henschen gave his deeds from Hincmar and his cult from elsewhere.

[40] who seem indeed to have been then of advanced age, but not so great Let us see now what others have added to these things. If there is any credit in Hincmar and Flodoard, Aemilius and Cilinia, when these things were announced to them by St. Montanus, had long ceased to procreate children, and indeed were of no little advanced age; since St. Cilinia is said to have been then an old woman, and Aemilius an old man. These things may be true; but it is not likely, what Richard, an author of a Life of St. Remigius unknown to me, praised by Marlot in volume 1 of the Metropolis Remensis, book 1, chapter 2, and by René de Ceriziers in chapter 2 of the French Life, wrote, that Cilinia then numbered ninety years. It is not likely, I say; because it can hardly be reconciled with the chronology of SS. Remigius, Principius and Lupus. According to Hincmar and Flodoard, Cilinia bore Principius and the father of St. Lupus in the flower of youth. Even if, therefore, taking these words in the flower of youth a little more broadly, we grant that she was then 30 years old, Principius and his brother would have numbered at least sixty years when Remigius was born; and since his birth, from what is to be said, is not to be removed far from the year of Christ 435, those two would have been born about the year 375. And yet the moderns refer the death of St. Principius to the end of the V century, others also defer it to the beginning of the sixth: which being posited, the same St. Principius would have to be said to have died much older than a hundred, which nothing from elsewhere compels us to believe.

[41] A similar or even greater age will have to be assigned to St. Lupus, as some have said. unless we prefer to assert without a witness that he too was begotten of an old man. For let us suppose that he was born only in his father's fiftieth year, and therefore about the year of Christ 425; even so he would have reached the hundred and fifth year of his life in the year of Christ 530, before which St. Remigius certainly did not die, whom the common opinion, with the sincerer Testament of St. Remigius himself, holds that he survived. These things altogether impel me not only to believe fictitious so great an age of Cilinia when she bore Remigius as that Richard asserted; but also not to doubt that Hincmar and Flodoard either made Cilinia younger than she was in both earlier births, or wrongly called her an old woman when she conceived Remigius. We have nothing indeed on this matter from Fortunatus; but, as his silence, since he passed over many things for brevity's sake, proves nothing; so Hincmar's excessive credulity and zeal for embellishing in other things pertaining to St. Remigius make him suspect here too, at the least, concerning one or the other, most of all on account of the reasons alleged. I pass over other assertions of Hincmar about the procreation of Remigius, to be observed in the Annotations.

[42] The homeland of the Saint the same archbishop of Reims indicates thus at number 6: [He was born in the Laonnois, a district of Gaul, but in what determined place of it,] He was born … in the district of Laon;

which Flodoard, book 1, chapter 10, repeated in the same words, nor do I know that it is denied by anyone. The district of Laon, moreover, in French le Laonois or Laonnois, which in the same Life at number 67 is also called the county of Laon, is a tract of Gaul, having on the North the Thiérache, on the East Champagne, on the West and South the territory of Soissons. It received its name from the castle of Laudunum, otherwise Lugdunum Clavatum, called Laon by the natives, now an episcopal city, to which dignity we shall say below it was raised by St. Remigius. In what place of this district or county he was born I have not found among the ancients. Marlot, book 2, chapter 2, writes thus of the same: The place also where the Boy was brought forth is commonly called Cerniacum, a town in the Laonnois: it is more probable, however, that the paternal house stood at Lauriniacum or Labriniacum, where blessed Remigius laid the bones of his mother, according to a custom then most usual on account of persecutions; which a manuscript codex, or the Register of the visitation of the Most Eminent Cardinal de Bourbon, still confirms.

[43] Neither place do I find in the geographical Lexicons. Ceriziers, calling it Cerniacum, the ancients have not handed down. in French Cerny, likewise assigns it for the birthplace, so that for this at least some popular tradition seems to stand. Lauriniacum or Labriniacum was probably, for Marlot, some castle or fort, safe against persecutions or hostile incursions. But this opinion, sought from the bones of his mother deposited there by St. Remigius, rests on that longer Testament whose authority the learned reject. In it he asserts that there is read, in the same place, page 182: Labrinacum, where I laid the bones of my mother, I have assigned to thee with the boundaries set. What besides he read for his opinion in the Register of the visitation of Cardinal de Bourbon is unexplored by me; until, however, more certain things are produced, it will suffice me to have said that this great Apostle of the Franks came forth into the light in a now uncertain place of the district of Laon. His birth year also cannot be determined certainly on account of the silence of the ancients, but one cannot depart much from the truth if about the year 435 of the common era is assigned; as far as may be gathered from other calculations of Hincmar, which we shall examine below more aptly. For the rest, when Ceriziers wrote that Remigius was born on the XIII day of January, I scarcely doubt that he confused the day of his death with his birthday on earth.

[44] At Reims, in the church called of the Holy Nurse, St. Balsamia is venerated, Fortunatus, and after him Hincmar, subjoined to the birth in a few words the pious boyhood and youth of the Saint; but Flodoard, book 1, chapter 10, inserts in this place certain things about his nurse. Of this most blessed Remigius, he says, blessed Balsamia is handed down to have been the nurse, who is recorded to have been the mother of St. Celsinus, who himself also is asserted to have been an intimate disciple of blessed Remigius, is known to have afterwards shone also with miracles, and is still held distinguished most of all by the vows of the just, in whose church his blessed mother herself also rests. Nicolas Picard de Larisville, in Ceriziers, in the French Life, part 1, chapter 3, writes that she, impelled by divine inspiration, came from Rome into Gaul to nurse the little Remigius; but let him believe it who will, from a writer of the XIV century first asserting it. This is certain, that St. Balsamia, dear to the people of Reims by the title of nurse of St. Remigius, and commonly called in French Sainte Norrice or Nourrice, has at Reims a church sacred to her with a college of canons; of which Marlot treats more fully in the History of Reims, volume 2, book 3, chapter 9, whence receive a few things.

[45] [whose body is kept there, whom they believe, first, as it seems, on the authority of Flodoard,] This church is commonly named of the Holy Nurse, because blessed Balsamia was the nurse of St. Remigius and the mother of St. Celsinus; whence the aforesaid church is sometimes called St. Celsinus's by Flodoard, because his relics had been deposited in it, as also those of blessed Maurus the martyr; although it constantly keeps the name of blessed Balsamia or the Nurse, whose feast is noted on XIII May in the Martyrology. Again, after some things about the sacred relics kept in the same church, he subjoins these: Among the remains of the Saints they make much of the almost entire body of St. Balsamia, nurse of the most blessed Remigius, and mother of St. Celsinus, from Flodoard, exposed in a silver casket above the high altar… They also have sufficiently notable particles of St. Celsinus, disciple of blessed Remigius, laid up in little chests. Of this Saint mention was made by us from the Gallican Martyrology of Du Saussay and Arthur's Sacred Gynaeceum among the Passed Over at the XIII day of May, and a fuller notice of her deferred to the XVI of November, on which she has a place in the Breviary of Reims and in other Martyrologies: but saint Celsinus, commonly called in French saint Soussin, presbyter of Laon, the Martyrologies celebrate on the XXV day of October, where he will have to be treated of. Meanwhile this place requires that we observe some things about the asserted office of St. Balsamia as nurse.

[46] to have been the nurse of St. Remigius; It cannot be denied that St. Balsamia was already, from the age of Flodoard, that is, in the X century, held by some at Reims for the nurse of St. Remigius, but from how long a time before, or on what older author, is plainly uncertain. Marlot praises no monument older than Flodoard; indeed he sufficiently indicates that none older than he was found by him, when he brings forward only his authority, saying From Flodoard. And yet he wrote only in the fifth century after the death of St. Remigius, and attributes the very service of nurse to St. Balsamia only timidly, using the word is handed down in this manner: Of this most blessed Remigius blessed Balsamia is handed down to have been the nurse. Besides, that church which is now called of the Holy Nurse seems to have been named neither by this nor by the title of St. Balsamia in the time of the same Flodoard, by whom, in the words just given, not the body of St. Celsinus is said to rest in the church of the Holy Nurse or of St. Balsamia, but the blessed mother Balsamia herself in the church of her son Celsinus. Nor had he spoken otherwise in chapter 3 of the same book 1, where he said of the relics of St. Maurus the presbyter, who suffered at Reims: Whose bones are kept deposited in the church of blessed Celsinus. Of the instruments, moreover, adduced besides by Marlot in the same place, in which the church of the Holy Nurse is expressly named, the oldest are two letters of the Roman Pontiffs Alexander III and Lucius III, who held the Pontificate after the middle of the XII century; at which time therefore this name of the church was already current.

[47] But if we go back to the times earlier than Flodoard, I hang in doubt and am altogether compelled to doubt but with Hincmar silent, indeed rather opposing, whether that tradition about the nurse of St. Remigius is sufficiently firm. If in the IX century St. Balsamia had been acknowledged as nurse of the same holy Apostle of the Franks, and by that name had had a church dedicated to her among the people of Reims, with what appearance of truth shall we persuade ourselves that these things could have been hidden from Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, who wrote in that very city after the middle of the same century; the memory of which the title and sight of the aforesaid church would daily have thrust upon him? Yet Hincmar handed down nothing similar, indeed something far different, relating in the Life, numbers 4 and 5, as a prodigy, that the mother Cilinia, as Montanus had foretold, being already an old woman, suckled her Son, and, after she had weaned him, smearing the eyes of the same Montanus with her milk, restored his sight to him. Flodoard narrates almost the same, book 1, chapter 10, not sufficiently consistently with what he said about St. Balsamia.

[48] Is perhaps the word nurse used by Flodoard in a broader sense, for a carrier, or for her I would not dare to assert it certainly. to whom the care of the Infant and the rest of his upbringing is entrusted? So indeed one part of the difficulties objected will cease, but not all; because on account of Hincmar's silence the doubt will cling to me whether that opinion, lightly born, did not receive all its weight from Flodoard, than whom I have read no older author praised by anyone for it, and who committed it to writing only in the fifth century after St. Remigius, with the word is handed down cautiously added. What if St. Balsamia first obtained among the common people the name of holy Nurse from her holy son Celsinus, suckled and nourished, and that appellation began in Flodoard's age to be taken of the suckled Remigius, whose disciple Celsinus is said to have been? For the rest, I have judged that this doubt of mine should be so set out to the readers that I at the same time profess that it will be pleasing to me to embrace the affirmative opinion if anyone (which I wish the learned men of Reims especially to be asked) shall suggest more certain arguments or monuments for it. This can be done by us at the XVI day of November, on which St. Balsamia is venerated, or even in this very month of October, on whose XXV day there will have to be writing about her holy son Celsinus. I proceed to other things.

[49] Fortunatus embraced the deeds of St. Remigius from boyhood up to the episcopate, The Saint progressed much in piety and letters, and lived as a recluse. that is, up to the 22nd year of his age, in a few words thus: In whom his sweet infancy constantly designated the merits of the age to come, and what his mother had known before his conception, she now saw before its time. He strove to overcome his tender years by maturity of morals, and to season them with the honey of the benevolence of charity. Flodoard has no more, except that he also mentioned his progress in the study of letters and thence his solitary life. Blessed Remigius, he says, handed over by his parents to school to be imbued with letters, in a short time became more eminent in learning than those of his own age, and also than those older by birth; surpassing all his fellow-pupils in maturity of morals and in the charity of benevolence; striving to avoid the crowds of the peoples, and to serve the Lord as a solitary in reclusion. Which he also obtained, and, dwelling there, the pious Youth, by the pursuits of holy conversation, in a reclusion at Laon, fought for Christ. He received these things from Hincmar, who added about the cell in which the Saint lived solitarily for God, at number 10 of the Life: Which place is pointed out up to now in the castle of Laon, and is venerably honoured. That his happy successes in letters are not idly asserted by them may be gathered from St. Sidonius Apollinaris, to be praised below.

§ IV. The chronology of the Life, that is, the years of birth, of episcopal ordination, of the duration of the see, and of death: election to the episcopate and his consecration.

It is proved from Fortunatus, from St. Remigius himself, Since the three chief epochs of the life of St. Remigius, namely the time of birth, the beginning of the episcopate, and his death, are so connected among themselves that they must be dug out mutually from one another, it is necessary to treat of all of them together. Fortunatus, the abbreviator of the original Life, next to the Saint's own age, testifies in the Compendium to be published, number 2, that he was created bishop when … he had taken the beginning … of his twenty-second year; and in number 9 that he died, old age now pressing. Saint Remigius himself, in his letter to three bishops written after the death of Clovis, king of the Franks (which you have in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column 1608), speaks thus of the years which he then numbered in the episcopate: Be it said with the Divinity propitious, I have presided over the episcopal see fifty-three years. In

the end of the same letter also he indicates that his advanced age was an object of contempt to them, saying: You write that I am a Jubilee in the number of my years, mocking rather than rejoicing out of love.

[51] by Gregory of Tours, Hincmar and Flodoard, that St. Remigius Saint Gregory, bishop of Tours, who flourished in the same VI century, in the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 79, likewise mentions his long prelacy in these words: And Remigius, bishop of Reims, who, as they say, completed seventy years, or more, in the episcopate. Hincmar, in the Life to be published, number 10, writes that he was created bishop when he had reached twenty-two years of his age; and succeeded Bennadius on his death. Then at number 111 he says that he died after he had ministered to the Lord for twenty-two years in the clerical order, and in the episcopate seventy-four … in the ninety-sixth year of his age, on the Ides of January. These twenty-two years, however, spent in the clerical order, interpret so that St. Remigius is said to have lived in the clerical order up to the 22nd year of his age, in which he was promoted to the episcopate; for that these years cannot be counted separately from as many mentioned before is manifest from the same calculations of Hincmar: for otherwise the Saint at his death would have been in, not the 96th year of his age, but about the 118th. He likewise holds that long prelacy elsewhere, in volume 2 of his Works, Sirmond's edition, page 431, writing of him still more assertively: As the truthful histories of our people show, spending LXXIV years and more in the episcopate, etc.

[52] Finally the same Hincmar reviewed all the aforesaid calculations again in the epitaph, was ordained bishop in his youth, and died an old man. or verses, which he caused to be carved on the precious mausoleum of St. Remigius:

Bearing happily twice ten and twice one years, By God's lot he took up the pontifical dignity. Sixty, and twice seven besides, years had he remained The honour of this city, its Prelate, and the love of the world.

And after a few things put between:

When indeed he had completed ninety-six years, The splendid light deserted our darkness; When the month of Janus already had its full Ides, The veteran Soldier takes his worthy rewards.

Flodoard agrees in the History of Reims, attributing to him the same years of the episcopate begun and carried on, and of the age in which he died, which the learned also commonly admit. Three things therefore we hold here as certain; namely that the episcopal order was conferred on St. Remigius in the twenty-second year of his age; that seventy-four years were spent in the episcopate, and that ninety-six years was the age at which he departed to heaven. Now, whether these years are to be judged complete or incomplete, it would not be difficult to order the chronology of the same Saint and to reduce the said epochs to the years of Christ, if we had even one of these tied to a certain year of the Christian era:

[53] For the year of death make the following verses, likewise inscribed by Hincmar on the above-said mausoleum in the year 852, From Hincmar's partly faulty calculations Sigebert erred in which it is said that the 308th year from the death of Remigius was then running.

In the eight hundred and fiftieth and second year In which God was born man of a Virgin, And Charles the Third was ordering the acts of his reign, And October [*] was giving its first day, And the eighth year was touching the three hundreds [*] Since this Just One of the Lord sought the stars of the sky.

If now we take away from this year the three hundred and eight years which he reckoned as intervening between the death of St. Remigius and his translation made in the year 852, there will come forth 544 of Christ, on whose Ides of January his death would have to be fixed. Then if from this year of death we likewise subtract the 74 years of the episcopate carried on, 470 will remain, to which his ordination will have to be referred. Finally, taking away from this also the 22 years which he lived before the episcopate, there will remain the year of Christ 448, about which his birth would have taken place. Using the same calculations Sigebert of Gembloux, in his Chronicle, placed the beginning of the see of St. Remigius at the year of Christ 471, and, 74 years being added, his death at the year 545.

[54] Cardinal Baronius, partly following the praised chronographer, Démochares and others, in the chronology of St. Remigius, as Baronius noted, who, however, himself also determined in volume 6 of the Annals that he was ordained bishop in the before-cited year 471; but in volume 7, on the occasion of the council of Auvergne, to which Flavius, the successor of St. Remigius after Romanus, is read subscribed, and which Baronius thought had been celebrated in the year 541, he convicts Sigebert of having deferred the death of the same Saint later than was right, and discourses thus. He who is listed ninth in order (among the bishops subscribed to the synod of Auvergne) is Flavius, bishop of Reims. From which I should wish you to observe that those are plainly deceived by error who refer the passing to God of St. Remigius, bishop of the same church, to the five hundred and forty-fifth year of the Lord. For how could Remigius have reached that time, if Flavius is found to have sat in this year (541), whom also Romanus, the first successor of the same St. Remigius, is set down to have preceded? It would have been fitting (had it been permitted) to mark certainly in our Annals the passing from this life to God of the most celebrated Prelate, the Apostle of the Franks, in the year as in the day: but because the things which are said to have been committed to writing about these by others are known not to be of such a kind as to stand with immovable truth, we are compelled unwillingly to abstain, and to make mention only here in passing.

[55] and Colvenere did not attain the true one. For by the testimony of Gregory of Tours, asserting that St. Remigius sat seventy years and more, and by the assertion of Hincmar, saying that he lived seventy-four years in the episcopate, that opinion prevailed, that he who is held to have been created bishop in the four hundred and seventy-first year of Christ reached the five hundred and forty-fifth year. But the synodal Acts claim greater credit for themselves; from which it is clear that he did not even reach the seventieth year. Thus far the Most Eminent annalist, rightly indeed convicting Sigebert and others who said that St. Remigius sat up to the year of Christ 545; but he himself also must be corrected, in that he placed the synod of Auvergne too late, and preferred to depart from the years of the episcopate of Remigius expressed by Gregory and by Hincmar in the Life to be published, rather than from the year of his ordination marked by Sigebert and other more recent writers, whom he had recognized to have erred in the year of death. The opposite way was entered upon by Georges Colvenere, who, in the Scholia on Flodoard, book 1 of the History of Reims, chapter 13, fixing his ordination in the year of Christ 470 and his death in the year 544, contends that one must stand by Hincmar's numbers in the epitaph; but that the synod of Auvergne must be deferred fifteen or sixteen years after the year of Christ 541.

[56] Flavius subscribed the Synod of Auvergne in the year 535, The opinions of all these, and at the same time Hincmar's assertion in the epitaph about three hundred and eight years having elapsed from the death of the holy Prelate up to the year 852 of the Christian era, are solidly refuted from the true year of the aforesaid council of Auvergne. It exists in the Collections of the Councils of Sirmond, Labbe and Hardouin, published from various manuscript codices, in all of which the metropolitan, subscribed in the first place, is read thus: Honoratus, in the name of Christ bishop of the church of Bourges, have read over and subscribed our constitution, on the VI day before the Ides [] of November, after the consulate of Paulinus the younger, a most illustrious man. Baronius thought that this Paulinus gave his name to the Fasti in the year 540 with Justin the younger, and therefore fixed that synod to the year 541. But it is now established that the said Paulinus was the last consul of the West in the year 534, and that therefore the same synod was celebrated in the year 535, which is also ascribed to it in the praised Collections of the Councils. Further, among its subscriptions there is read in the ninth place: Flavius, God being propitious, bishop of the church of Reims, have consented and subscribed.*

[57] the successor of Remigius after Romanus; from which epoch and other calculations This man, moreover, was the successor of St. Remigius after Romanus, as Baronius already observed from Flodoard, who began the chapter of book 2 thus: Romanus is handed down to have succeeded blessed Remigius, Flavius Romanus; and accordingly the same St. Remigius could not have sat up to the year 541 or 540. One must therefore depart also from Hincmar, when he reckoned only three hundred and eight years between the death of St. Remigius and the year of Christ 852, which can in no way be reconciled with the said subscription of Flavius. Our Henschenius, in volume 1 of February at the VI day, in the Preliminary Commentary on the Lives of St. Vedastus, bishop of Arras, §§2 and 3, keeping the numbers handed down by Hincmar in the Life, determined that Remigius was born about the year 435, was ordained bishop of Reims about 457, and died in the year 529 or rather 530. The foundations of this chronology, besides Hincmar's numbers in the Life, are the council of Auvergne, the year of death of King Clovis, and the letter of St. Remigius himself written to three bishops after the death of the same king, when he had presided over the episcopal see for fifty-three years. We shall give it in its place; but here the time at which it was written is to be investigated.

[58] That it was written after the death of Clovis Henschenius proves Henschenius ordered the chronology of St. Remigius, determining that he was born from the fact that Remigius answers the bishops who were disparaging him in the same: I made Claudius a presbyter, not corrupted by a reward, but at the testimony of the most excellent king, who was not only the preacher of the Catholic faith, but its defender … The Prelate of regions, the guardian of the fatherland, the triumpher over nations enjoined it. As it is certain that no other king than Clovis can be designated here, so from the words who was the same must be said to have already departed from the living when this letter was given. Jacques Sirmond, reciting it in volume 1 of the Councils of Gaul, page 204 and following, thought it was to be referred to the year of Christ 523 or 524; doubtless by his own sense; for it contains no chronological mark, nor did he himself bring forward any reason for placing it so late. More rightly Henschenius, and others after him, judged that it was written not long after the death of Clovis, because those three bishops seem to have used that occasion to convict Remigius of a deed which they had not dared to do while the king was living, in whose favour he had done it.

[59] Wherefore the praised Henschenius, since he had determined elsewhere by grave arguments about the year 435, ordained about 457, died about 530. that the death of the same king fell on the XXVII day of November of the year 509, consequently tied this letter of Remigius to the next following year, that is, 510. Which being posited, the chronology of Remigius arranged by him flows of its own accord: for if from the year 510 the fifty-three years which he then numbered in the episcopate are taken away, there will remain the year 457, to be assigned to the beginning of his prelacy. And if from this you likewise take away the twenty-two years spent before the undertaking of the episcopate, you will slip down to the year 435, his birth year: finally if you add to the year 510 the twenty-one years remaining out of the seventy-four of the episcopal see, there will arise the year of his

death, namely 531 of Christ: but because all the above-said years were perhaps not complete, the epochs assigned must also be restrained by the little word about. By the same way as Henschenius other learned men also have proceeded, differing from him by a slight difference. Gilles Boucher, in the Belgium Romanum, book 17, chapter 15, tied the birth of St. Remigius to the year 436, his ordination to the beginning of 458 or the end of 457, his death to the year 533.

[60] Le Cointe differs a little more, who in volume 1 of the Annals, at the year of Christ 486, From these other learned men differ little, fixing the death of Clovis number 12, preferred to ascribe the beginning of his episcopate to the year 459 and his death likewise to 533, and said that this reckoning of his is either true or next to the truth. Antoine Pagi, in the Critica of Cardinal Baronius at the year 471, number 13, after relating the opinions of Henschenius and Le Cointe, says: Henschenius and Le Cointe show at length that their reckonings are either true or next to the truth; he himself, however, at the year 541, number 10, rather tied the death of the same Saint to the year 530 with Henschenius. Finally Jacques Longueval, in volume 2 of the History of the Gallican church, page 110, acknowledged that neither his ordination could be fixed after the year 459, nor his death later than in the year 533. The chief reason of this slight dissent of the praised writers from Henschenius is that he opined that the death of Clovis happened in the year 509, they in the year 511. The opinion of the latter is now the more common of the learned, and perhaps even pleased Henschenius himself at one time, in volume V of May, page [*] 228, number 3, where, extracting the birth year of St. Austregisilus, archbishop of Bourges, from the ascribed 41st year of the reign of Childebert (who with his brothers succeeded his father Clovis immediately after his death), he noted that Childebert began to reign in the year of Christ DXI, and accordingly that St. Austregisilus was born in the year 551.

[61] and the council of Orléans in the year 511, To this opinion I too shall adhere, most of all on account of the 1st council of Orléans, which was certainly celebrated while Clovis was living, and most probably in the year 511, as will be shown in its place. It is certain also that neither the death of the same king can be deferred beyond this year, nor the often-mentioned letter given by St. Remigius to the three bishops long after it. For let us suppose this was written in the year 512, Clovis having died in the preceding year on the XXVII day of the month of November; and let us add to the same year 512 the twenty-one years remaining of the seventy-four of his episcopate; even so the year of Christ 533 will come forth, on the XIII day of whose month of January St. Remigius would have died, from which time there is a sufficiently short, but sufficient, space up to the year 535, in which Flavius, the successor of St. Remigius after Romanus, subscribed the council of Auvergne. Henschenius, treating briefly of St. Romanus at the XXIX day of February, consistently with his aforesaid opinion referred the beginning of his episcopate to the year 530, his death to 533 or the following.

[62] in whose now more common opinion I proceed. Our Sollerius likewise, in volume 1 of July, page 60, number 7, on St. Theodoric the presbyter, whose funeral St. Romanus is read to have cared for, agrees indeed about the year of death of St. Romanus, but recorded his ordination at about the year DXXXII, following, namely, those who placed the death of Clovis two years later than Henschenius. Further, since it is altogether uncertain whether the years assigned by Hincmar in the Life, on which this chronology rests, are to be taken as complete (as the 74 years of the episcopate are said to have been) or as incomplete, I judge that it cannot be better ordered than by fixing the birth of Remigius about the year 436, his ordination about 458, and finally his death in the ninety-sixth year of his life, about 532, on the Ides of January, so that the little word about is not extended beyond one year either way. These things being premised concerning the chronology, let us proceed to the manner in which he was promoted to the episcopate while he was cultivating a life secluded from human crowds in his cell at Laon. It may be doubted whether, and what, sacred Orders he had already then received, because Hincmar, at number 111 of the Life, hands down that he departed from the living after he had ministered to the Lord for twenty-two years (that is, as we have said, up to the 22nd year of his age) in the clerical Order, and in the episcopate seventy-four…

[63] In the 22nd year of his Life elected bishop of Reims, However that may be (for on this matter I have found nothing among others), Fortunatus in the Compendium, number 2, embraced his election in these few words. What more? When, as a youth eagerly pursuing the studies of holy conversation with favourable successes, the Just man had taken the beginning of his twenty-second year, he is known to have been snatched rather than elected to the summit of the pontificate in this city of the Remi by the general wishes of all. The words of Fortunatus Hincmar partly copied, partly set out by paraphrase, and added a miracle by which, as by a divine suffrage, his election was confirmed. See the Life, number 10. Flodoard adopted the same in book 1 of the History of Reims, chapter XI, from whom receive them. But when he entered the twenty-second year of his age, the aforesaid archbishop Bennadius having died (whom he had premised in chapter 9 is written Bennagius in his testament), he is known to have been not so much elected as snatched to the summit of the pontificate in this city of Reims by the general wishes of all. For there is a concourse of the people, of different sex indeed, condition, dignity and age, acclaiming with one and the same opinion that he was truly worthy of God, and ought to be set over the peoples.

[64] The most holy Youth, therefore, pressed by these straits (since no place of flight lay open to him anywhere, and, made illustrious by a heavenly prodigy, he is consecrated, nor could he in any way satisfy the people so that they should desist from the intention they had begun), began to complain of the time of his weak age, and to proclaim with public voice that the ecclesiastical rule did not admit this age to so great a dignity. But when the throng of the people acclaimed irrevocably, and the Man of God resisted with great constancy, it pleased almighty God to make known by most manifest indications what judgment he himself deigned to have about him. For the light of a heavenly ray is handed down to have suddenly descended upon his holy head, and together with that light a liquid of divine unguent was poured from heaven upon his head, so that his whole head seemed anointed by the infusion of that sacred nectar. Every doubt therefore being set aside, he is consecrated with pontifical blessing by the unanimity of the prelates of the province of Reims. Thus far Flodoard, from Hincmar, on whose credit depends this twin prodigy; whether he first handed it down, or received it from some older monument or otherwise, I cannot say certainly. Nevertheless, if the Preface of the Mass, of which I made mention above at number 29, is as old as Mabillon would have it in that place, he could have learned from it that heavenly anointing, which is recorded in it, without mention of the ray, thus: This is that Remigius who … as a youth beheld the infusion of chrism coming upon him from heaven.

[65] All the other things are most likely, both from the humility of Remigius alleging in vain his unripe age, and from the received discipline of the Church of that time. For it does not seem doubtful that the holy Young man, who, shunning civic affairs, spent his life as a solitary in his beloved cell, and preferred to lie hidden rather than to come forth in public, struggled in every way that the episcopal burden should not be laid on him, and to this end alleged his age, unequal according to the sacred canons. Certainly the council of Neocaesarea, celebrated in the IV century, in canon XI, in Labbe, volume 1 of the Councils, column 1485, has it thus: Let not a presbyter be ordained before thirty years, even if he be a very worthy man. St. Siricius, who held the Pontificate at the end of the same IV century, in the letter to Himerius in the Collection of Letters of the supreme Pontiffs by Pierre Coustant, volume 1, column 633 and following, required for the presbyterate thirty-five years, for the episcopate forty-five. But assuredly the sanctity, the maturity of morals and the learning of Remigius abundantly and evidently supplied for his age, so that him whom divine providence had destined the people of Reims elected for themselves as bishop with unanimous voice, and the prelates of the same province ordained, deservedly thinking that there was no sin against the canons here, where so particular a reason so persuaded.

[66] So also afterwards the Fathers of the council of Toulouse, held in the year 1056, whom he surpassed in merits. in Labbe, volume 9, column 1084, wished cases of this kind to be excepted from the common law, in canon 2: Likewise it has pleased us to confirm, as it is written, that a bishop, or abbot, or presbyter be not ordained before thirty years, nor a deacon before twenty-five; unless, adorned with the pursuit of sanctity or wisdom, they are promoted by the providence of the bishop and at the same time of the clergy. And so the things which afterwards impelled the Fathers of Toulouse to frame this canon could also have impelled the clergy and people of Reims to depart from the common discipline in the election of Remigius. But if we also believe Hincmar asserting the aforesaid prodigies, even so every difficulty will vanish which could otherwise be sought from the canons against the Saint's unripe age. For the rest, from what has been said this ordination of Remigius is to be referred to the year 457 or 458, for determining which further Flodoard suggests nothing besides in his predecessor Bennagius or Bennadius, who is known almost solely from book 1 of his History of Reims, chapter 9 and the two following.

[] otherwise Octimber*

[] otherwise Tercentenus*

[] otherwise on the day of the Ides*

§ V. The learning and sanctity of St. Remigius commended by SS. Sidonius Apollinaris and Gregory of Tours: the story of the possessed woman of Toulouse freed and restored to life by the Saint is discussed.

The exceptional eloquence of the Saint Although from what has hitherto been said, and is to be read in both Lives to be published, it is established sufficiently and more than enough concerning the episcopal endowments of St. Remigius, it will help nevertheless to have shown here also from elsewhere with how great eloquence and sanctity God furnished him whom he had destined as teacher and apostle to the then barbarous nation of the Franks. His learning and eloquence St. Sidonius Apollinaris, himself learned, bishop of the Arverni and renowned for sanctity, splendidly commended in a letter given to him, and published among the Works of the same Sidonius by Jacques Sirmond, which is the seventh of book 2, and which I transcribe entire. Sidonius to the lord Pope Remigius, greeting. A certain man going from the Arverni to Belgica (the person is known to me, the cause unknown; nor does it matter), after he had come to Reims, wheedled out of your scribe or bookseller, won over perhaps by a price or by some service, whether you will or no, a very copious sheaf of your declamations. And he, returning to us and exceedingly boastful, since he had obtained so many volumes, pressed upon us as a gift whatever he had brought, although we were ready to buy (which however was more profitable, nor was it unjust). It was my care forthwith, together with those who study, since we deservedly longed to read them, to learn very many by heart, to transcribe them all.

[68] from his declamations which he had read, he is wonderfully praised *By the assent of all it was pronounced that few like them can now be composed. For rare, or none, is he at whose meditating there attends an equal disposition through

causes, placing through letters, composition through syllables. To this, aptness in examples, credibility in testimonies, propriety in epithets, urbanity in figures, force in arguments, weight in the thoughts, a flood in the words, a thunderbolt in the periods. The structure indeed strong and firm, and bound together by the indissoluble caesuras of most witty conjunctions; but not on that account less slippery and smooth, and rounded off in every way; and such as fittingly speeds the tongue of the reader unoffended, nor, suffering rough junctures, stammers as it is rolled about through the vault of the palate. The whole, finally, altogether liquid and ductile, as when a finger glides over crystalline or onyx crusts with the nail not driven in: seeing that no tenacious fracture detains it, caught by chinked obstacles. What more? There exists at present no oration of a living man which your skill cannot, without labour, pass beyond and surmount. Whence I almost suspect, lord Pope, that on account of your overflowing and ineffable eloquence (pardon the saying) you are proud.

[69] But, although you shine with the good of a most well-ordered diction as of conscience; by St. Sidonius Apollinaris, who sought more little Works from him. we are by no means to be shunned by you, who praise things well written, even if we do not write things to be praised. Wherefore cease in future to decline our judgments, which threaten nothing biting and nothing reproachful. Otherwise, if you delay to make our sterility fruitful with eloquent conversations, we shall lie in wait for the markets of those who fly in; and the cunning hand of burglars, with our connivance and suborning, will of its own accord plunder your book-chests: and you will then begin in vain to be moved when despoiled by theft, if now, when asked, you are not moved by courtesy. Deign to be mindful of us, lord Pope. Thus far St. Sidonius Apollinaris, indicating at length how much both he himself and others made of the little Works of St. Remigius; but we regret that these perished long ago. The same holy bishop of the Arverni, in the letter to Principius, bishop of Soissons, the brother of St. Remigius, of which I have already made mention at number 34, celebrated the pontifical virtues of both; which, since they pertain no less to St. Remigius than to St. Principius, and were only lightly indicated in the latter's Acts on the XXV day of September, it will not be off the point to transfer them here from the praised edition of Sirmond, where that letter is the 14th of book 8.

[70] After the things which I recited at the cited number, St. Sidonius proceeds thus: The same St. Sidonius praised To which father (of SS. Principius and Remigius, whom he addresses), who once had you, the house of Aaron, the ancient pontiff, could scarcely be compared in merit: whom, although the right hand of his law-giving brother first poured over with the oil of sanctification in the midst of the people of the desert, calling his sons to the duties of a like office; yet Nadab and Abihu, struck by thunderbolts, discoloured his felicity over Ithamar and Eleazar; whose souls, though slain, we may believe to have been absolved, yet we know their persons to have been punished. But you, about to touch the page of the altar, offer, as I hear, nothing of strange fire; but, with the victims of charity and chastity accompanying, you burn most fragrant incense in the censers of the heart. Besides, as often as you bind the yoke of the Law upon the necks of the proud by the chains of preaching, then you spiritually sacrifice bulls to God. As often as you drive those polluted with the stench of a luxuriant conscience to the sweet savour of chastity by the goads of correction, Christ reckons to himself that you have offered the rankness of he-goats.

[71] As often as, at your exhortation, in any compunctious person the soul, penitently recalling its faults, sighs; his episcopal virtues, who would doubt that you have offered in mystic sacrifice a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, which signify the twofold substance of each of our men, as much by number as by moaning? As often as, at your admonition, anyone shall have scorched his fat body and the seething lard of a swollen belly, to be boiled down by the frequent fire of fasts, no one doubts that you will then consecrate fine flour fried in a certain frying-pan of continence. As often as you persuade someone, laying aside the fictions of a faithless mind, to answer sound doctrine, to believe the faith, to hold the way, to hope for life; who would doubt that you, in the amendment of this convert, who is now free from heresy, free from hypocrisy, free from schism, will dedicate the most purified bread of proposition with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth? Finally, who does not know that whatever in the days of the Law was sacrificed figuratively in bodies, all that you offer manifestly in the time of grace in morals? And therefore I render abundant thanks to God, because according to the quality of your page I easily recognize that the above-said prelate (Antiolus), although he said great things of you, was silent about greater, etc.

[72] The testimony of Gregory of Tours about the same: his stature of body. A brief but likewise distinguished testimony to the learning and sanctity of the same holy Prelate of Reims St. Gregory of Tours left in book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 31, which, although I have already given it on another occasion, it will help nevertheless to have repeated. For St. Remigius (he says) was a bishop of excellent knowledge, and above all imbued with rhetorical studies; but also so pre-eminent in sanctity that he was equalled to the virtues of St. Silvester. These things of the endowments of his mind, which will shine out still more through the course of this Commentary. Of the stature of his body Marlot, book 2, chapter 2, copied the following from an old codex, as he says: He was … of a liberal and ingenuous countenance, tall of body, of almost seven feet in length, of austere forehead, the nose somewhat aquiline, somewhat fair, the beard fairly long, grave in gait, venerable in aspect, and everywhere displaying serenity and majesty; but the beauty of his soul, which was evident through his virtue, was so great that you would think the image of sanctity expressed in him by the mere appearance of the outer man. So he, who ought to have added a fuller notice of the codex, so that it might be possible to judge in some way of its credit and value.

[73] The celebrated cure of a possessed woman by St. Remigius As regards the deeds of the Saint, Fortunatus, too brief in these with great loss to history, in the Life, number 2, after he had narrated his election, presently subjoined: At once he so appeared apt and devoted to the office, as if he had continually presided over that to which he had newly ascended. Then, the episcopal virtues having been praised only in general, he hastened to some miracles wrought by him among the living, of which the circumstances of one more notable are here to be examined more fully. At number 6 he hands down these things: A certain girl, sprung of illustrious birth from the city of Toulouse, was held captive from her early childhood by the siege of a mad spirit. Since her most pious parents loved her with tender love, they led her to the tomb of St. Peter in the city of Rome with a very great multitude and much devotion. There a certain servant of God, with the help of the sacred body (of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles), was fulfilling very many signs of power. When, however, he could not cleanse this girl by any intercession, nor was able to expel from her the venom of the cunning demon; hence [] the ancient enemy, constrained by the adjuration of the divine name, gave the answer that he could never be expelled from that same dwelling by the cleansing of any other than of this most blessed prelate Remigius.*

[74] handed down by Fortunatus, Hincmar interpreted thus, Then her parents, supported by the addresses both of the blessed man himself and of Alaric, king of the Goths, came with their bound offspring to the holy prelate Remigius, begging that they might recognize in the cleansing of their offspring his power, which they had foreknown in the confession of the robber, that is, of the demon. There follows in the same place the vindication of the aforesaid girl by St. Remigius from the evil spirit, and her restoration to life lost a little afterwards. To this pertains what St. Gregory of Tours has in chapter 79 of the Glory of the Confessors: And Remigius, bishop of the city of Reims … by his prayer obtained that the corpse of a dead girl be raised. In the Preface also of the old Mass, already praised several times, one reads of him: And a girl from among the people of Toulouse he purified from a demonic spirit, and afterwards raised her when dead. For which reason there is nothing about the truth of the fact for us to doubt. Hincmar, after his manner, almost copied Fortunatus; but he believed that the servant of God by whom he had said the Toulouse girl was sent from Rome to Remigius was called Benedict, and interpreted Fortunatus so that he could seem to have been that celebrated St. Benedict, the restorer of the monastic life in the West. For in the Life to be published, number 39, he speaks thus.

[75] For in the same parts (of Italy) there was then a man of venerable life, as if she had been sent to him by St. Benedict the patriarch with letters, Benedict by grace and by name, shining with very many virtues. Hearing his fame, the parents of that girl brought her to the same servant of God… When he could not cleanse her by any intercession … the ancient enemy, adjured, gave this answer, … that he could never be expelled from that same dwelling by the prayers of any other than of this most blessed prelate Remigius. Then her parents with the letters of the man of God Benedict himself began to go to this city of the Remi. And since the parents of the aforesaid girl were greatly honoured and intimate with Alaric, king of the Goths, who established his seat in the city of Toulouse, and together with the Gothic kingdom obtained for himself a great part of the Gauls, and, as it was said, were near to him in flesh, they came with his letters and envoys to blessed Remigius for the cleansing of the often-mentioned girl from the ancient enemy, bringing her with them into this city, etc. Flodoard, copying partly the words of Fortunatus, partly those of Hincmar, called the praised servant of God, with Hincmar, Benedict, as by his proper name.

[76] There is also circulated a letter written on this matter to St. Remigius in the name of St. Benedict the patriarch, which, printed which among others Cardinal Baronius also, but disapproving it, printed in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 507, numbers 4 and 5, from the Appendix to the Monte Cassino Chronicle of Leo of Ostia, reporting it thus: To the lord priest Remigius, brother and fellow-servant in Christ Jesus, Benedict, humble cultivator of the cenobitic life, the gift of eternal blessing. Congratulating your most holy progress, priest of the King [], because we are members of the supreme Head, what I feel lacking to me (praise be to God) I believe I possess in you. Behold, what my sins have prevented from being done, the priestly merits of your authority have: and let the rumours of men about me now cease, since it is established with you that there is the perfection of all virtues. This captive, and one possessed by the ancient enemy, I delegate to your highness, that you may offer the sacred Host to God for her deliverance, and may gladden my littleness not a little by the victory itself. Farewell, most pure pebble of the priests of Christ.* The same letter, with words indeed varied a little here and there, but signifying the same things, exists in Marlot, volume 1 of the Metropolis Remensis, book 2, chapter 3, and in Jacques du Breul in the Appendix of the praised Chronicle, printed at Paris in the year 1603 together with Aimoin's History of the Franks, etc.

[77] The same, but a little more faulty, we have in manuscript from codex 3542 of the Vatican library, and unpublished, we have, and which the monks of Reims in which this story of the possessed woman, existing somewhat otherwise than in Fortunatus and Hincmar, is partly placed before the same letter, partly joined after it, which last part also in Du Breul, just praised,

is read. Nor indeed is a letter of this kind a recent invention, as we learn from the letters which the monks of St.-Remi at Reims gave to the monks of Monte Cassino together with a certain exemplar of it, and which our manuscript codex marked Q. Ms. 4 contains, mutilated, in this manner: Copy of the letter of blessed Benedict the abbot to saint Remigius the prelate. After this title follow the letters of the monks. The brothers, slight and very small followers of the regular life, who are established at Reims in the monastery of the blessed and glorious confessor of Christ, Remigius the archbishop, to the holy and to God most worthy brothers of Cassino, renowned for bearing with unwearied shoulders the rule-giving rubric of the supreme Divinity, the little gifts of holy prayers. We wonder greatly, glorious brothers, that, courses of years now almost five hundred having been traversed since our common father, precious to God and men, saint Benedict, overcame this wicked world and entered the delights of everlasting joy, you have neglected to transcribe that memorable letter, and, as we have lately learned, have hitherto held it unknown, which that synergus (read synergus, that is, fellow-worker) of the holy Paraclete composed, sprinkled with the dew of heavenly nectar, and directed to our holy patron Remigius as a notice of the highest humility. Wherefore to your holy charity…

[78] [are said to have sent to the monks of Cassino in the 12th century: into this error] The rest is lacking here, with the following leaf, or perhaps with more; but it can be opportunely supplied, at least to some extent, from Marlot, who recites these things from the same letters of the monks: Not bearing that your charity should lack a copy of the letter, relying not on the same words in all things, yet on the traces of the same reasoning, we have charaxed with full devotion, that is, we have copied it. Since the praised cenobites then numbered almost five hundred years from the death of St. Benedict, which happened in the year 543, these letters of theirs are to be referred to about the middle of the XI century. It is most likely that Peter the deacon, monk and librarian of Cassino in the XII century, made mention of the same letter of St. Benedict when, in the book On Illustrious Men, chapter 1, among the writings of the same holy patriarch he praised two letters …; the first to Remigius, archbishop of Reims; the second to St. Maurus, his disciple. But come, let us now examine the very circumstances of the story of the possessed woman, on which the letter also depends. Cardinal Baronius, in the Annals at the year of Christ 507, observing that the father of the same girl is called Benedict in the testament of St. Remigius, opined that it came about by error that Hincmar substituted for him the holy patriarch Benedict, who at that time was cultivating the monastic life at Subiaco in Latium, or the Roman Campagna.

[79] Hincmar was led, not from the testament of St. Remigius; but, as Papebroch, But this opinion displeases me for a twofold cause. The first is that the longer testament (for in the shorter nothing of the kind is read), from what is to be said below, was more probably never seen by Hincmar; and since it is deservedly held for supposititious or interpolated, the suspicion is stronger of the name of Benedict having been falsely attached there to the girl's father. The other is that from a comparison of the texts it appears sufficiently that Hincmar hallucinated from a passage of Fortunatus badly understood. Our Papebroch, in the Annotations on the Miracles of St. Rictrude, abbess of Marchiennes, in which Walbert, a writer of the XII century, makes mention of the same possessed woman as sent by St. Benedict to St. Remigius, discoursed thus in volume 3 of May, page 123, letter e. Fortunatus, in the Life of St. Remigius in Surius, says that her parents brought the demoniac from Toulouse to the tomb of St. Peter at Rome, "where a certain servant of God was working signs of power at the presence of the holy body"; but when the demon had answered that he could not be expelled except by St. Remigius, then still living, the same "parents, supported by the addresses of the blessed servant of God himself, and of Alaric, king of the Goths," led the girl to the holy Prelate. Where our author (Walbert) took the word BENEDICT (blessed), used by Fortunatus adjectivally, substantively, not noticing that from the year CCCCX, in which King Alaric was present in the City captured by him, and that affair was done, up to the birth of St. Benedict at least seventy years intervened.

[80] According to these things not Walbert alone but also Fortunatus would have erred, though he hallucinated about Alaric, rightly observed, in asserting that that demoniac was sent in the year 410 to be cured by St. Remigius, whom I have proved above to have been born only about the year 436, and whose age therefore, no more than St. Benedict's, can be reconciled with that same fact. But neither did Fortunatus say that that Alaric was the conqueror of the city of Rome, nor that these things happened at Rome in Alaric's presence; nor finally is there any reason for convicting Fortunatus here, except that from zeal for brevity he spoke rather obscurely. There is designated here, namely, Alaric, the II of this name, king of the Goths or Visigoths in the Gauls, who had his seat at Toulouse, as Hincmar, reported at number 75, expressly noted, and who was killed by Clovis I, king of the Franks, in the battle of Vouillé in the year 507. At Toulouse also dwelt the parents of the possessed woman, who, as noble by race, could easily have been known to King Alaric, and, returning from Rome to Toulouse, could have obtained from him counsel and help, or even letters of recommendation to St. Remigius, he who, although an Arian by sect, yet commonly tolerated the Catholics fairly kindly. This story therefore took place between the years of Christ 485 and 507, within which the reign of Alaric of the Visigoths in Gaul is enclosed by Pagi, and during the whole of which time St. Remigius certainly sat in the chair of Reims.

[81] Papebroch's other observation, that the word benedictus in Fortunatus is to be taken adjectivally, by interpreting the word benedictus as a proper name; not substantively, is most true and certain; nor do I doubt that Hincmar (who could have lighted the way for Walbert), not noticing this, wrongly brought in, if not St. Benedict the patriarch, at least some other person of the same name, and so gave occasion to others of referring these things to the same holy patriarch. Let us weigh the words of Fortunatus a little. On his testimony the parents from Toulouse led their daughter, in hope of a cure, to the tomb of St. Peter in the city of Rome … There a certain servant of God, with the help of the sacred body (of St. Peter), was fulfilling very many signs of power. The name of this servant of God he was silent about; but it is manifest that he dwelt at Rome, and was wont to frequent the sacred body of the Prince of the Apostles with singular care and piety, beside which he merited to obtain many miracles or benefits also for others. He was not therefore St. Benedict the patriarch, of whom nothing of the kind is read, and who at the time at which these things must have happened was leading the solitary or monastic life not at Rome at St. Peter's, but at Subiaco in the Roman Campagna.

[82] That Fortunatus, however, speaking a little below of the same anonymous servant of God, which Fortunatus used there adjectivally, writes by the addresses of the blessed (benedicti) himself…, etc., no more proves that he was called Benedict than that Cilinia, the mother of St. Remigius, was also named Benedicta, from the fact that in the same Fortunatus, in the same Life, number 2, St. Montanus is read to have been divinely commanded to prophesy the birth of Remigius to the blessed (benedictae) Cilinia. Namely Fortunatus used that word in both places to indicate the merits of both before God: which usage of speaking is sufficiently common also with other biographers. In a plainly similar manner the same Fortunatus, in the same place, number 2, called St. Remigius by the title of the Just, saying: When, as a youth eagerly pursuing the studies of holy conversation with favourable successes, the Just man had taken the beginning of his twenty-second year, etc.; likewise in the Life of St. Germanus, bishop of Paris, given in our Work at the XXVIII day of May, he called Germanus the Just at least three times; from which, however, no one would deservedly believe that the name of each was Justus. I omit more, because the matter seems clearer than that it should be proved at more length. But who then was that blessed servant of God so praised by Fortunatus?

[83] and he seems to speak there of St. Abundius, mansionarius of St. Peter's. To me indeed the opinion of Mabillon appears most likely, who in the Benedictine Annals at the year of Christ 530, agreeing that the word benedicti in Fortunatus is to be taken adjectivally, believed that he was St. Abundius, otherwise also called Acontius, whom St. Gregory the Great honourably mentions in book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 25, and from him Henschenius at the XIV day of April, on which he is venerated at Rome in the Vatican basilica, where he was guardian and mansionarius. Read, if you please, his elogium given there from the praised passage of Gregory: it will suffice me to have recited its beginning. Another, not long ago, as our elders relate, was the guardian of the church (of St. Peter at Rome), called Abundius, a man of great humility and gravity, serving almighty God so faithfully that the same blessed Peter the apostle showed by signs what esteem he had of him. To this man these sayings of Fortunatus fit above all: There (at Rome in the basilica of St. Peter) a certain servant of God, with the help of the sacred body (of the same Prince of the Apostles), was fulfilling very many signs of power. The time also agrees: for St. Gregory, who asserts that he flourished not long before, wrote his Dialogues about the end of the VI century, before the middle of which St. Abundius is believed to have died; and the story of the possessed woman, from what has been said, took place between the years of Christ 485 and 507.

[84] That letter of St. Benedict was fabricated, From all these things determine what is to be judged of the pretended letter of St. Benedict, for the fabricating of which Hincmar, from a passage of Fortunatus badly understood, seems first to have given occasion, and which, as generally happens in inventions, does not lack an indication of its supposition. Such is its very beginning, or inscription: To the lord priest Remigius, brother and fellow-servant in Christ Jesus, Benedict, humble cultivator of the cenobitic life, the gift of eternal blessing; for, as Baronius rightly observed on these words at the year of Christ 507, number 4: For it is altogether unusual that one writing, inferior in age and dignity, to a greater should call himself BROTHER and FELLOW-SERVANT, should impart a blessing. This same inscription exists even more ineptly in Marlot, and in our Vatican apograph, in which for those words humble cultivator of the cenobitic life there is read, little congruously with the modesty of the same holy abbot, Founder of the cenobitic life. If further we inquire into the time of the making of the letter, I greatly doubt whether it is older than the XI century, that is, whether another ever existed besides that which the monks of St.-Remi are said to have then sent to the monks of Cassino. And why I so judge, receive.

[85] which is probably not older than the XI century, That it was unknown to Fortunatus is clear from this, that he did not even mention St. Benedict, but only said that the parents of the Toulouse girl were induced, by the often-mentioned servant of God and by King Alaric, not by letters but by addresses, that is, by counsels and assent, to implore the help of St. Remigius. Hincmar

in the XI century substituted for the addresses of both letters, and besides envoys of Alaric; but he does not say that they were ever seen by him. Flodoard, proceeding more cautiously in the X century, spoke confidently of the addresses from Fortunatus, doubtfully of the letters from Hincmar, writing thus: Then her parents, supported by the addresses both of blessed Benedict himself and also of Alaric, king of the Goths, and relying on their letters given to blessed Remigius (AS IS HANDED DOWN), came to the same holy Prelate … Now if Flodoard had seen the letter written on this matter in the name of St. Benedict, would he not rather have praised a copy of it than weakened the sayings of Hincmar with the doubting formula as is handed down? Finally the monks of Reims themselves also, in the letters which we have said were written by them about the middle of the XI century to the monks of Cassino about the same letter, hint not obscurely that they had no copy of it.

[86] For what else do these words of theirs indicate: by whom it seems to have been first written in good faith. Not bearing that your charity should lack a copy of the Letter, relying not always on the same words in all things, yet on the traces of the same reasoning, we have charaxed it with full devotion. To what end did these men not copy its old autograph or apograph, if they had any, that they might transmit a welcome gift to the monks of Cassino? Certainly these words so moved Marlot (although otherwise not denying that some letter on this matter was given by St. Benedict to Remigius) that he said: Since therefore it is not genuine, but perhaps fabricated in its words, as they themselves confess, I did not think it worth the labour to insert it here (in the context of the History). For which causes I scarcely doubt that the praised monks of Reims, deceived by Hincmar, first put together the Letter, such as they conjectured in good faith from the argument of the event that it had been written by St. Benedict himself, if not in words, at least in sense: although this too turned out little happily for them, as has been said. Of Colvenere, who in the Scholia on Flodoard strove to defend the same letter, I add nothing; because the reasons which he brings forward urge nothing, and are sufficiently refuted from what has been alleged.

[87] But since I noted above that this story of the possessed woman is related somewhat differently by an anonymous writer in our Vatican apograph, An anonymous writer's narration of the same story is rejected. partly before and partly after this fictitious letter, I contract it here into a compendium. The parents brought their daughter, possessed by a demon, to various bodies of holy martyrs, and at length after five years to Rome also; but everywhere with vain outcome. While they were staying at Rome, having heard the splendid fame of St. Benedict, then dwelling on Monte Cassino, they went to him full of hope. Nor did he refuse to bring his help; but when after three days spent in prayer he had achieved nothing at all, he sent them with his aforesaid letters to St. Remigius, that he might offer the Sacrifice for the possessed woman. Remigius doing this, the demon broke out through the girl's mouth into these words: O priest of Christ, Remigius, do not glory against Benedict: because it is not on account of thy command, but on account of his humility, that I am compelled to go out. And the anonymous writer subjoins: These things being said, the woman was freed; and all who heard gave glory to God. Thus far he, cautiously silent about Alaric, king of the Goths or Visigoths, who is established to have been killed many years before St. Benedict migrated from Subiaco to Cassino. I omit more, because this anonymous writer of uncertain age can be of no weight, who joined to the fictitious letter a new fable according to his own sense.

[] or to this one?*

[] otherwise add eternal*

§ VI. The irruption of the Franks with King Clovis into the Belgic provinces and the victory over Syagrius: the kindness of the same king towards St. Remigius; his vow and victory over the Alamanni; his conversion to Christ, St. Remigius being the chief instructor.

The empire of the West collapsing, and a great part of the Gauls What Fortunatus then narrates up to the last number of the Life or Compendium, where the death of the holy Prelate is related, is nothing but a few miracles which need no commentary. Hincmar likewise reviews almost only miracles up to chapter 4 of our division, in which he begins to set out that accession, worthy of eternal memory, of King Clovis with his nation of the Franks to the Christian rites. Before he does this, he premises certain things about the Franks, seeking their origin from the Trojans, and handing down some other things about their first seats, which the learned now partly reckon among fables, as I shall observe in the Annotations. The place indeed required that I should treat the same subject here more fully, had not our Henschenius already done it learnedly at the 1st day of February, in the Preliminary Commentary on the Life of St. Sigebert, king of the Austrasian Franks. These things therefore, which can be read there, being passed over, I come to the reign of Clovis I, who succeeded Childeric. The state of the Gauls of that time Hincmar sets out fairly rightly thus: At that time in these parts about the Rhine as far as the river Loire dwelt the Romans, whose prince was Egidius. Beyond the Loire, however, the Goths ruled, whose prince was Alaric. The Burgundians also, Arians, as also the Goths, dwelt beside the river Rhône as far as the city of Lyons and the cities bordering on it, whose prince was Gundobad.

[89] occupied by the Goths and Burgundians, At that time Egidius died, and his son Syagrius succeeded to the principate of the Romans who dwelt in the Gauls. He took these things from the History of the Franks of St. Gregory of Tours, in whose book 2, chapter 9, of Ruinart's edition, one reads: In these parts, however, that is, towards the Southern region, the Romans dwelt as far as the river Loire. Beyond the Loire, however, the Goths ruled. The Burgundians also, following the sect of the Arians, dwelt beyond the Rhône, which lies adjacent to the city of Lyons. And then in chapter XI: In the Gauls, however, Aegidius from among the Romans was given as master of the soldiers; of Syagrius the discourse will recur. Further, Italy with the Roman City having been occupied by Odoacer, king of the Heruli, while Zeno, who had his seat at Constantinople, was reigning, the Roman empire, collapsing more and more in the West day by day, was yielding itself as prey to the barbarian nations. Among these the Franks, who had already crossed the Rhine at other times, burst forth with King Clovis into the Roman soil to extend their borders, as Hincmar then subjoins from Gregory of Tours, whose words I transfer here.

[90] Clovis, the gentile king of the Franks, conquers Belgica, In book 2, chapter 27, he writes these things: Childeric having died, Chlodovech (so he calls Clovis), his son, reigned in his stead. And in the fifth year of his reign Syagrius, king of the Romans (that is, he who presided in Gaul in the name of the Roman empire), son of Aegidius, had his seat at the city of Soissons, which the above-mentioned Aegidius had once held. Against him Chlodovech, coming with Ragnachar his kinsman, because he too held a kingdom (namely at Cambrai, as he has in chapter 42), demands that a field of battle be prepared. Nor did the other delay, nor did he fear to resist. And so, both fighting between themselves, Syagrius, seeing his army crushed, turned his back, and slipped away with swift course to King Alaric at Toulouse. But Chlodovech sends to Alaric, that he should give him back; otherwise let him know that war would be brought upon him for his retention. And he, fearing lest on his account he should incur the anger of the Franks (as it is the custom of the Goths to be afraid), handed him over bound to the envoys. Chlodovech, having received him, ordered him to be committed to custody; and, his kingdom having been received, he commanded him to be secretly struck with the sword. These things Gregory, about the war by which Roman affairs in the Gauls altogether collapsed, and the Frankish monarchy was extended and established there.

[91] As regards the time, Henschenius assigns the year of Christ 484, Syagrius being conquered and slain, in the more common opinion in the year 486. Le Cointe, Pagi and others now commonly 486; all relying on the same calculations of Gregory of Tours, according to which Clovis reigned thirty years, and in the fifth year of his reign won that memorable victory over Syagrius. But since Henschenius determined that his death was to be fixed to the year 509, others to 511, and both these and he, reckoning backwards twenty-five years from the same years, it was necessary that they should also differ by a full two years in the time of the victory. Among the cities of Belgica Secunda which had hitherto obeyed the Romans, and through the defeat of Syagrius's army came into the power of the Franks, was the metropolis of the Remi, called by the ancients Ducortorum, now commonly Remi, in French Reims, over which Remigius had then presided as archbishop for many years, upon whom therefore no small part of the common calamity fell. The Franks were then also barbarians in nation and manner of life, idolaters in superstition, accustomed to handling arms and to procuring pay for themselves from plunder; from whom, as enemies, the extremes were accordingly deservedly to be feared. And although Clovis, because he had come not to lay waste the Gauls but to occupy them, used his victory more moderately than could otherwise have been hoped, yet we shall presently see, on the testimony of St. Gregory of Tours, that many churches were plundered at that time.

[92] Further, there is also no doubt that the holy Prelate did not suffer From the treasures of the churches carried off at that time his part in defending the flock and preserving the ecclesiastical goods to be found wanting, although his particular deeds in this matter have not come down to us. There is only one thing handed down by the praised writer of Tours, the name of St. Remigius being unspoken, from which, since one may conjecture at the same time about the damages inflicted on the church of Reims and about the esteem of the Saint himself with the king, heathen though he was, I have copied it here entire. To the words given at number 90 the holy historian presently joins: At that time many churches were plundered by the army of Chlodovech, because he was still wrapped in fanatical errors. The enemy, then, had carried off from a certain church a ewer of wonderful size and beauty, together with the other ornaments of the ecclesiastical ministry. And the bishop of that church sends messengers to the king, asking that, if he did not merit to receive back anything else of the sacred vessels, at least his church might receive back the ewer. Hearing these things, the king said to the messenger: Follow us as far as Soissons; because there all the things which have been acquired are to be divided. And when the lot shall have given me that vessel, I will fulfil what the Pope asks. Then, coming to Soissons, the whole burden of the plunder having been placed in the midst, the king said: I ask you, O most brave warriors, that you do not refuse to grant me at least that vessel (for he said this of the ewer mentioned above) outside my share.

[93] a certain bishop asks back a silver vessel from Clovis, and obtains it, *As the king said these things, those whose mind was sounder say: All things, glorious king, which we see are thine; and we ourselves also are subjected to thy dominion. Now, what seems well-pleasing to thee, do: for no one is able to resist thy power. When they had said these things so, one man, light, envious and rash, with a loud voice struck the ewer with his raised battle-axe, saying: Thou shalt receive nothing hence, except what a true lot bestows on thee. At these things

all being astonished, the king restrained his injury with the mildness of patience, and, having received the ewer, returned it to the church's messenger, keeping the wound hidden beneath his breast. But when a year had passed, he ordered the whole phalanx to come with the equipment of arms, to show on the Field of March the brightness of their arms. But when he determined to go round them all, he came to the striker of the ewer. To him he said: No one has brought such uncared-for arms as thou: for neither thy spear, nor thy sword, nor thy axe is serviceable; and seizing his axe he threw it on the ground. And when he had bent over a little to gather it up, the king, with raised hands, drove his axe into his head. So, he said, didst thou at Soissons to that ewer. He being dead, he orders the rest to depart, establishing great fear of himself by this cause.

[94] who is believed to have been St. Remigius. That the church whose sacred ewer this was was that of Reims, and the bishop St. Remigius, is taught in express words by Fredegarius, or whoever is the author of the epitomized History of the Franks, chapter 16, by Hincmar in the Life to be published, likewise by Aimoin in the History, book 1, chapter 12, and by Flodoard, book 1, chapter 13, nor have I read it called into doubt by anyone. The narration of these, however, differs from that of Gregory of Tours in this, that Fredegarius writes that St. Remigius himself came to Clovis to ask back the ewer, and, the latter assenting and commanding, sent one to go with the king to Soissons: while Hincmar and Flodoard seem to throw these things back not to the first irruption of Clovis into the Gauls, which Gregory's context hints, but to some later time, when Remigius, on account of his sanctity and miracles, had already become known to the Franks and was held in veneration. See what is to be annotated at number 49 of the Life and the following. After these things Hincmar, again following Gregory of Tours, having in a few words mentioned the victory which Clovis obtained in the tenth year of his reign over the Thuringians, proceeds to the marriage of the same king with St. Chrotechildis, niece of Gundobad, king of the Burgundians, who had slain her father Chilperic and her mother.

[95] Clovis, having invoked Christ, whom he had learned of from St. Chrotechildis, This holy woman, although born and brought up among Arians, followed the Catholic dogmas, and, taken into the marriage-chamber of Clovis, by assiduously preaching Christ to her husband she paved the way for the conversion both of him and of the whole nation of the Franks. Indeed she prevailed so much with him that, although he still kept his ears stopped to the Christian dogma, he nevertheless permitted the sons whom he received from her, Ingomer and Chlodomer, to be initiated with sacred baptism. Consult, if you please, St. Gregory, book 2 of the History, chapters 28 and 29, and the Life of the same holy queen illustrated by us at the III day of June, on which she is venerated. But the things which pertain more nearly here receive from chapters 30 and 31 of Gregory of Tours. The queen, however, did not cease to preach to the king that he should know the true God and neglect the idols: but in no way could he be moved to believe these things, until at length at one time a war was stirred up against the Alamanni; in which he was compelled by necessity to confess what he had before denied by will. And it came about that, both armies clashing, they were vehemently cut down; and the army of Chlodovech began greatly to rush to destruction.

[96] Seeing this, he, lifting his eyes to heaven, pricked in heart, he subdues the Alamanni in a notable battle, moved to tears, said: Jesus Christ, whom Chrotechildis preaches to be the Son of the living God; who art said to give help to those who labour, and to bestow victory on those who hope in thee, I devoutly beg the glory of thy aid, that, if thou wilt grant me victory over my enemies, and I shall have experienced that power which the people dedicated to thy name proclaims that it has proved concerning thee, I will believe in thee, and be baptized in thy name. For I have invoked my gods; but, as I experience, they have withdrawn far from my help. Whence I believe that they are endowed with no power, who do not come to the aid of those who obey them. Thee now I invoke, and in thee I desire to believe; only let me be rescued from my adversaries. And when he said these things, the Alamanni, turning their backs, began to slip into flight. And when they saw their king slain, they submit themselves to the dominion of Chlodovech, saying: Let the people perish no more, we beseech thee; now we are thine. And he, the war being stopped, and the people brought under constraint, having returned in peace, narrated to the queen how he had merited to obtain the victory through the invocation of the name of Christ.

[97] Then the queen orders St. Remigius, bishop of the city of Reims, to be secretly summoned, and, the same queen seeing to it, he is instructed by St. Remigius. begging that he should instil into the king the word of salvation. The Priest, summoned, began more secretly to instil into him that he should believe the true God, maker of heaven and earth, and neglect the idols, which can profit neither themselves nor others. And he said: Gladly will I hear thee, most holy Father; but one thing remains, that the people who follow me do not suffer to leave their gods; but I go, and will speak to them according to thy word. And, meeting with his own, before he could speak, the power of God running before, all the people together acclaimed: We cast away the mortal gods, pious king, and are ready to follow the God whom Remigius preaches immortal. These things are announced to the Prelate, who, filled with great joy, ordered the bath to be prepared, etc. Before I proceed, there must be inserted here the things which Alcuin, in the Life of St. Vedastus, bishop of Arras, published by our Henschenius at the VI day of February, wrote on the same subject, attributing no slight part in the conversion of the praised king to the same St. Vedastus, not yet bishop, and varying a little from the narration of Gregory of Tours.

[98] The enemies therefore being overcome (he says in chapter 1, number 7) and affairs settled in peace, The king, however, had used on the way as catechist St. Vedastus, and the Alamanni subjected to his dominion, the king returned exulting to his homeland with the praise of triumph. And that he might appear a faithful guarantor to the Bestower of so great glory on him, he hastened to be imbued with the sacred preaching of the servants of Christ, and to be washed by the Sacraments of holy baptism. And he came to the town of Toul, where he learned that saint Vedastus was serving God alone with praiseworthy religion, and plucking the sweetest fruits of the contemplative life. Him, hastening to St. Remigius, the most renowned Priest of Christ, to the city of the Remi, he took to himself as companion, so that at each step of his journey he might be imbued by him with most salutary teachings, and initiated in the firm foundations of the Catholic faith; so that, prepared in faith and in the knowledge of virtues, he might be washed with the spiritual bath by so great a Pontiff, and by him be confirmed with heavenly gifts in what had been begun by the other, divine grace first going before, by Gospel preachings. The one led the king hastening to the fount of life; the other washed him coming into the fount of eternal salvation. Both of almost equal paternal piety; the one by teaching, the other by the water of baptism, both offered to the eternal King a temporal king as an acceptable gift.

[99] not yet bishop, who is read to have brought him to St. Remigius These are the two olive trees and the two shining candlesticks, by whom the aforesaid king, instructed in the way of God and rescued from the chains of the devil, God having mercy, entered the gate of perpetual light, believed in Christ with the most brave nation of the Franks, and it was made a holy nation, a people of acquisition, that in it might be announced the powers of him who called them out of darkness into his admirable light. Then in chapter 2 he narrates that, while they were making for Reims, as has been said, a blind man met them, whom St. Vedastus, by his hand laid on him with the sign of the Cross and the invocation of Christ, gave light, the king with his nobles looking on. Whence he continues: The king therefore, above all imbued with Gospel teachings by the man of God (St. Vedastus), and firmly strengthened in faith by this present miracle, delaying nothing on the way, doubting nothing in faith, but with great eagerness of mind and great haste of journey, hastened to see the most holy pontiff Remigius, that by his most sacred ministry, the Holy Spirit working, he might be washed in the living font of Catholic baptism for the remission of sins and the hope of eternal life.

[100] in two Lives of the same St. Vedastus With whom (St. Remigius) having stayed some days (Clovis), in order to satisfy the ecclesiastical sanctions, and first to be washed by the tears of penance according to the Apostolic precept, blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, saying: Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; and so in the name of the holy Trinity to receive the baptism of the heavenly mystery. And the blessed Pontiff, knowing that the Apostle Paul says, Let all your things be done in decent order, appointed a day on which the king should enter the church to receive the Sacraments of the divine piety. These things Alcuin, which, because they partly supplement the narration of St. Gregory and Hincmar, and partly also seem somewhat opposed to it, must not be left unobserved. Alcuin, whose Life exists in our Work at the XIX day of May, flourished under Charlemagne, having died in the year 804, very well known to the learned world for his learning and his written Works. The aforesaid Life of St. Vedastus he did not himself first write, but made a more correct one from an older one, at the request of Rado, abbot of St.-Vaast, as can be read in its Prologue. Henschenius placed before it another, shorter Life by an anonymous author, which in the Preliminary Commentary, §7, he believed was written before the year 667, and doubted whether this was that which lighted the way for Alcuin, which the Literary History of France, volume 3, afterwards affirmed.

[101] written by blessed Alcuin and an older anonymous writer, In this also, at numbers 2 and 3 and in the Addenda, number 962, after the vow and victory of Clovis, there is read to our purpose thus: Then he took the conquered Alamanni with their king into his dominion, and, returning in haste and exulting to his homeland, he came to the town of Toul. And since the desire now remained that he should quickly take refuge in the grace of baptism, by inquiring he learned that blessed Vedastus was spending his life there in the cultivation of religion, whom he presently joined to himself on the journey. While they were proceeding together, one day they came, in the district of Vongise, to the place which is called Rilugiagum upon the river Aisne, and, having a blind man meeting him, condemned for the space of many years from this light, he asked blessed Vedastus to beg for him the help of immense piety, that he might at length merit to receive, by his obtaining it, the light which he lacked. He, trusting in the mercy of the Lord, raised his right hand, placed the sign of the Cross over the eyes of the blind man, and at once he received the light of his eyes; and there a basilica seems to have been built by Christian men, where many miracles take place in his honour. Then he brought him to the city of the Remi to the Pontiff Remigius, who then ruled the priestly chair there. Having stayed there for a while, Chlodovech, professing the faith of the holy Trinity, receives the grace of baptism.

[102] The narration of Alcuin therefore merits credit, both from the authority of the writer whose assertions seem rather liberal, and from the older Life from which he composed it. Now let us compare his sayings with St. Gregory's History of the Franks. If we believe Alcuin alone, King Clovis, so instructed in the mysteries of the Christian faith by St. Vedastus, not yet bishop, so panting for baptism, hastened to Reims,

so that he seems himself presently to have summoned Remigius, and, no delay interposed, to have asked to be baptized by him. But if we hear Gregory of Tours, the king only related to Chrotechildis his wife the victory won through the invocation of the name of Christ, no mention being made of calling Remigius, and of fulfilling his vow forthwith. But the queen, thinking there must be no delaying here, with prudent counsel, the holy Prelate having been summoned without the king's knowledge, informed him of the fact, and advised him to try the king's mind, inclined by so recent an event towards the Christian rites, and to impel it by the eloquence in which he was very powerful. He, rejoicing at so favourable an occasion, met Clovis secretly, and easily induced him, still wavering only from the fear lest he should be deserted by his idolatrous Franks, to explore their minds; and when this had succeeded happily, he had him ready to fulfil his promises.

[103] So indeed it seems to me to be manifestly indicated by these words of the holy historian, [and are to be restrained a little, that they may be reconciled with the sayings of St. Gregory:] which it will help to have repeated. Having returned in peace (Clovis) he narrated to the queen how he had merited to obtain the victory through the invocation of the name of Christ. Then the queen orders St. Remigius, bishop of the city of Reims, to be secretly summoned; begging that he should instil into the king the word of salvation. The Priest, summoned, began more secretly to instil into him that he should believe the true God, maker of heaven and earth, and neglect the idols, which can profit neither themselves nor others. And he said: Gladly will I hear thee, most holy Father; but one thing remains, that the people who follow me do not suffer to leave their gods: but I go, and will speak to them according to thy word, etc. I judge that these things are to be reconciled thus: that Gregory must be said to have passed over certain things, whether for brevity's sake or for another cause; while Alcuin indulged his conjectures somewhat liberally in praise of St. Vedastus, which is also sufficiently common to other writers when they celebrate the deeds of heroes.

[104] I believe therefore that the things are true which Alcuin narrated about the journey of St. Vedastus with Clovis as far as Reims; perhaps St. Solemnis also contributed his labour. but that the desire for baptism in the same king was either too much exaggerated by him, or had much cooled when he came to Reims, the authority of Gregory of Tours persuades me, two centuries older than Alcuin, and born not many years after the death of St. Remigius. Alcuin had indeed a Life of St. Vedastus, which he polished; but if this (as the writers of the Literary History of France judge) is that shorter one which Henschenius printed, it does not so clearly support him but that it can conveniently be explained in the aforesaid manner, as will not with difficulty appear to one considering the words given at number 101. A similar, indeed even greater, part in the conversion of the same king a certain anonymous biographer of St. Solemnis, bishop of Chartres, tried to claim for him; and he ancient indeed, yet by no means contemporary, in the Life published and corrected by us at the XXV day of this month of September; but since he will have it that Clovis was not only incited by St. Solemnis to embrace the faith, but also baptized by him, I shall relate and refute his words below in their place. I shall not deny, however, that St. Solemnis, among other bishops, was present at the royal baptism, and usefully contributed his labour to instructing and baptizing the nobles of the Franks.

[105] This conversion of the king did not take place in the year 509, nor 500, I proceed to the epoch of the Christianity of the Franks, that is, to the time of the baptism conferred on their king and on a great multitude of them. Hincmar handed down a twofold chronological mark of this most happy event; one in the Life to be published, number 56, where he ascribed the fifteenth year of the reign of Clovis; the other in the verses which he inscribed on the mausoleum of St. Remigius. In the latter place he annotated thus the time which intervened between the baptism of the king and the translation of St. Remigius into the said mausoleum, made by himself in the eight hundred and fifty-second year of Christ:

Three hundred there had been, and three and ten four times years, Since, exulting, he washed the Franks in the flood of life.

These words can be explained in a twofold manner: for either only ten years are to be multiplied by four, so that with the rest 343 years are made; or thirteen are to be multiplied four times, so that 352 years come forth. If you take 343 years from the year 852, one will come to the year of Christ 509; but if you subtract 352 years from the same year 852, the year of Christ 500 will remain; one or the other of which would have to be marked as the epoch of the baptism; or at least a year next to one or the other, according to the reckoning of counting complete or running years.

[106] nor 499 or 494, as formerly appeared from faulty calculations; Georges Colvenere, in the Scholia on Flodoard's History of Reims, book 1, chapter 21, where the same verses are recited, recognizing that Clovis was without doubt baptized before the year 509, advised that the aforesaid years are to be multiplied in the second manner, and assigned the year 500 to the baptism: whether rightly, we shall presently see. As regards the other chronological mark, namely the XV year of the reign of Clovis, this is also read in a few manuscript codices of St. Gregory's History of the Franks. Wherefore Cardinal Baronius, who had determined that Clovis began to reign in the year 484, believed that he was baptized in the year 499. Henschenius, however, who had begun his reign with the year 479, tied the baptism to the end of the year 494 in the Diatribe on the Bishopric of Maastricht and elsewhere. But he afterwards, inquiring more diligently whence that fifteenth year, which is found neither in the other, much more numerous and good exemplars of the praised History, nor in the printed ones, nor in the epitomized History of Fredegarius, whence, I say, that year seemed to have been inserted into those few codices, discovered that the first assertor of this year is the anonymous writer of the Gesta Francorum, long held by the learned for a fabler.

[107] but at the beginning of the Pontificate of Anastasius II, Thierry Ruinart agreed with Henschenius in the annotations to his edition of the Works of the same St. Gregory of Tours, in which that year is also not read. From the same anonymous writer, as other things also, Hincmar inserted it into the Life of Remigius, which accordingly can be of slight weight for establishing the epoch of the baptism of the Franks. At length a more certain instrument was brought to light, namely the letter of Anastasius II, supreme Pontiff, congratulating Clovis the neophyte, which was made public property by Luc d'Achery in volume 5 of the Spicilegium, of the first edition, and was acknowledged by all the learned as genuine. Intending to give it below, I cull meanwhile a few things from it which pertain here. We rejoice, glorious son (says Anastasius), that your coming into the Christian faith has coincided with our beginning in the Pontificate. At almost the same time, therefore, Anastasius was raised to the supreme Pontificate and Clovis baptized. He was raised, moreover, by common opinion in the year 496, in the month of September according to Papebroch, according to others in November; and he died in the year 498. The baptism of Clovis, however, from what is presently to be said, took place on the Nativity of the Lord, and therefore in the month of December of the same year 496, so that it is reconciled with the beginning of the Pontificate of Anastasius.

[108] For which reason Henschenius, having seen that letter, changed his opinion in the posthumous Exegesis on the Bishopric of Tongres and Maastricht, that is, in the year 496. prefixed to volume VII of May, in whose chapter 10, number 76, he deferred the baptism of Clovis to the before-cited year 496, and (the anonymous writer of the Gesta Francorum being rejected) joined it, according to his opinion about the beginning of the same reign, with the XVII year of his reign. That this was Henschenius's mind anyone considering the place assigned will easily perceive, although in the same place, from the negligence of the typesetter or by another chance, there were printed in the text the year of the reign XIX, and of Christ DXCVIII; and in the margin rightly indeed the year of the reign 17, but wrongly the year of Christ 475. Further, this opinion about placing the baptism of Clovis and the Franks at the year of Christ 496 is now certain among the learned, of whom those who begin his reign from the year 481 can also retain the XV year taken from the Gesta Francorum. Of the day of the conferring of baptism I shall treat in the following §.

§ VII. The time, the solemn preparation and the place of the baptism conferred by St. Remigius on the king and the Franks.

The holy Prelate prepares the king and many of the Franks for baptism, Saint Gregory of Tours, reported at number 97, embracing many things in few, hastening from the consent of the people to describe the baptism, says: These things are announced to the Prelate, who, filled with great joy, ordered the bath to be prepared, etc.; which certainly are not to be so taken as if at least some days did not intervene between these things and the baptism. For it is not credible that St. Remigius proceeded in so great a matter so hastily as this narration displays. For even to grant that his sister Albofledis, and also some of the chief men of the Franks, were already then sufficiently imbued with Christian precepts; of his army … there were then baptized together more than three thousand, as we have from the same Gregory, for examining and instructing whom, and duly preparing them for the sacred font, time was without doubt needed. Namely the anonymous biographer of St. Vedastus in the shorter Life wished to indicate these things when he says: Having stayed for a while (at Reims), Chlodovech, professing the faith of the holy Trinity, receives the grace of baptism. Alcuin also, in the words given at number 100, recorded some time spent in penance, to be set before baptism according to ecclesiastical discipline.

[110] Meanwhile that messengers were sent to various orthodox prelates of the Gauls, that they might be present at so great a solemnity and give their labour both in instructing and in washing the catechumens, the very greatness of the matter makes likely, and, other bishops having been called together, and it is gathered more certainly from the letter of St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, in which, congratulating the king recently baptized, he wrote among other things: We were conferring, and treating among ourselves, what kind of thing that would be, when by the hand of an assembled number of pontiffs, in the holy ambition of service, the royal limbs would be cherished in the life-giving waters, etc. He himself also is believed to have been among those invited, but not to have dared to come, because he had his see in the dominion of Gundobad, king of the Burgundians, an Arian by sect. Among those present, however, is probably to be numbered St. Solemnis, bishop of Chartres, a subject of Clovis, of whom the discourse will return; likewise to be numbered is St. Vedastus, afterwards bishop of Arras, whom St. Remigius on this occasion, commended by the same king, set over that church. Saint Heraclius also, bishop of Sens, is read to have been present, in his Life given by us at the VIII day of June: nor is there doubt that many others also were called, into whom it would be long to inquire.

[111] he baptizes, not on the feast of Easter, as was formerly believed, Hincmar, in the Life, number 57, has these things about the same preparation and the time at which he believed these things were done: He also (St. Remigius), filled with great joy, instructed the king and the people in plain and brief words how they ought to renounce the devil and his works and pomps and to believe in God; and because the day of holy Easter was at hand, he proclaimed to them a fast according to the custom of the Christians. Then he relates a heavenly prodigy, which on the day … of the Lord's passion, which ecclesiastical usage calls Parasceve, that is, on the day before,

before the king and his people were to receive the grace of baptism, he affirms happened in the presence of many. Namely that, while that same night Remigius was holding discourse about divine things with the king and queen, the whole place was wonderfully filled with heavenly light, and a voice was heard which said: Peace be to you, it is I, fear not: abide in my love; and that, that voice and light ceasing, a most sweet odour remained, and that the holy Bishop himself, shining with divine splendour, prophesied to the king very many things about him and his posterity.

[112] but on the Nativity of the Lord, Of these prodigies, mention of which I have not found made among other ancients, if you except Flodoard, let the credit rest with Hincmar, who, as I have already noted above, patched together whatever he read and heard about St. Remigius without due discrimination. The time of the baptism, which Gregory was silent about, Hincmar received from the epitomized History of Fredegarius, in whose chapter 21 one reads thus: When Chlodovech had returned from the battle mentioned above to Remis (that is, to Reims), he was secretly consecrated by the grace of baptism, with six thousand Franks, at the Lord's Easter, by St. Remedius (so he calls St. Remigius), bishop of the city of Reims, Queen Chrotechildis also drawing him on. So he: and the discipline of the Church at that time did indeed require that baptism, outside the case of necessity, should be celebrated solemnly only on the feasts of Easter and Pentecost, the beginning being made on the Vigil. Hence I judge it came about that Fredegarius assigned the feast of Easter, and that Hincmar, Flodoard and others easily assented to him without further examination. But that that sanction was not observed on this occasion is now undoubted from the above-praised letter of St. Avitus of Vienne, who expressly teaches that these things were done on the Nativity day of the Lord.

[113] as the letter of St. Avitus of Vienne teaches, For he addresses the same king thus: In the Western parts, in a king not new, the light of a new radiance flashes forth: whose splendour the nativity of our Redeemer fittingly began, so that it might bring you forth, regenerated from the water for salvation, as a consequence [] on that day on which the world received the Lord of heaven born for its redemption. Therefore let the day which is the renowned birthday of the Lord be yours also; that on which, namely, you were born to Christ, on which Christ was born to the world.* What clearer? But to say with some, whom Le Cointe at the year 496, number 8, rightly refutes, that this business is to be thrown back to the Easter of the following year, and that that letter was written this year by Avitus one or two days after the Nativity of the Lord, when he could not yet have learned at Vienne what had been done at Reims on it, and suspected only from a rumour which had been spread that the king of the Franks had been baptized on that day: to say these things, I say, is to seek a knot in a bulrush, and to wish to pour clouds upon the light. Whoever shall read the letter, to be recited entire at number 166 and following, will easily recognize that it was written from more certain knowledge than from a spread rumour.

[114] Nor ought the contrary discipline of the Church of that time, which I mentioned, to cast a scruple here; to which in vain is opposed the custom of the church of that time since the state not of the Gauls only but of the whole Church required that it should not be kept on this occasion. The empire of the West having been torn into various parts, there reigned at that time in Italy Theodoric the Ostrogoth, in Aquitaine, Narbonensian Gaul and Spain Alaric the Visigoth; on the Rhône and in the neighbouring provinces Gundobad, king of the Burgundians, all Arians by sect, as were also the Vandals, who ruled in Africa; in Germany finally and Britain the pagans prevailed. Among so many barbarian nations, which had occupied the Roman empire in the West, the king of the most warlike nation of the Franks, a pagan indeed, but long imbued with the knowledge of the true God both through his holy wife Chrotechildis, from whom he had permitted the children he received to be baptized, and through the Catholic prelates, and incited also by the recent victory won over the Alamanni at the invocation of Christ, was most ardently seeking baptism with the chief men of his nation, than which nothing more desirable could happen to Gaul, nothing to the Church of God. Was it fair that their wishes should be deferred, even if it had not been to be feared that through delay they might grow cold, and so that best hope of the Gauls perhaps collapse?

[115] To these could be added also another reason, of baptizing solemnly only on the feasts of Easter and Pentecost; namely the danger lest Clovis should fall away to the heretics. Certainly that these strove to bring him over to their side St. Avitus seems to me to indicate in the letter already praised, which he began thus: The followers of whatever schisms, by their opinions, various in view, diverse in multitude, empty of truth, seemed to veil the sharpness of your subtlety with the overshadowing of the Christian name… For divine providence has found for our time a certain arbiter; while you choose for yourself, you judge for all; your faith is our victory. That is, as far at least as I judge: The heretics, glorying in the Christian name, tried by their tricks to persuade you of their errors; but while you, these being rejected, chose the Catholic faith, you taught the others also to choose the same. Among those heretics the Arians seem to have been the chief, who, as St. Gregory testifies in book 2, chapter 31, and book 3, chapter 31, had already gathered to their sect two sisters of the same king, one married to Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths in Italy, whom some call Anafleda, Albofledis or Augofleda; the other Lanthechildis. Clovis was also joined by affinity to Gundobad, king of the Burgundians, likewise given over to the Arian heresy, through St. Chrotechildis, his niece by his brother; and so there was some connection between him and each Arian royal court, and hence the danger of perversion.

[116] from which, for most just causes, one could here depart. For a similar but lesser cause St. Eleutherius, bishop of Tournai, is read in his Lives, published by us at the XX day of February, towards the end of the same V century or at the beginning of the VI, to have baptized the tribune Censurinus with a great number of the people of Tournai on the V before the Kalends of October. Assuredly the reasons brought forward above must have seemed sufficiently grave and urgent to St. Remigius and the other bishops who were present, that one could depart from ecclesiastical custom without crime; and such they undoubtedly also seemed to St. Avitus, who not only did not disapprove their deed, but even praised it in congratulating the king. Finally it is now certain that Clovis was initiated with this Sacrament outside the fixed times of baptism, on the feast of the Nativity of the Lord; but I would not dare to say that it is universally true, what Pagi in the Critica of Baronius at the year of Christ 499, number 9, subjoins in these words: After the conversion of King Chlodovech this usage of baptizing on the Nativity of the Lord persevered among the Franks. For Guntram, king of the Franks, in Gregory of Tours, book 8, chapter 9, complains that the baptism of his nephew was deferred beyond the solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord.

[117] The Saint leads the king with great pomp to the baptistery, Let us see now with how great splendour Remigius arranged that sacred bath to be celebrated, so that the very ceremony and preparation also, striking the eyes and minds of the Franks with majesty, might commend the sublimity of the mystery. The holy historian of Tours, book 2, chapter 31, describes it thus: He (St. Remigius) ordered the bath to be prepared. The squares of the church are shaded with painted hangings, adorned with white curtains, the baptistery is set in order, balsams are spread abroad, candles fragrant with odour gleam, and the whole temple of the baptistery is sprinkled with a divine odour; and such grace God bestowed there on those standing by that they thought themselves placed amid the odours of paradise. Hincmar described almost the same, but about the procession to the baptistery added the following: And so, the most holy Gospels and Crosses going before, with hymns and spiritual chants and litanies, and the names of the Saints acclaimed, the holy Pontiff, holding the hand of the king, proceeds from the royal house to the baptistery, the queen and the people following. And while they were proceeding together, the king questioned the Bishop, saying: Patron, is this the kingdom of God which thou promisest me? To whom the Bishop said: It is not that; but the beginning of the way by which one comes to it.

[118] the queen accompanying him, and him with some thousands of the Franks In the queen's retinue there were most probably the two sisters of the king himself, of whom one, named Albofledis, was then also baptized; the other, called Lanthechildis, who had been entangled in Arian errors, then abjured the heresy, and was anointed with the sacred chrism. Hincmar adds besides in the same place the famous miracle of the sacred ampulla brought by a dove, which we shall examine below. Of the conferring of baptism Gregory of Tours continues thus: The king therefore first asked to be baptized by the Pontiff. The new Constantine proceeds to the bath, to wipe out the disease of the old leprosy, and to wipe out with fresh water the foul stains borne of old. To him, having entered for baptism, the Saint of God began thus with eloquent mouth: Gently bow thy neck, Sicamber: adore what thou hast burned; burn what thou hast adored. For St. Remigius was a bishop of excellent knowledge and above all imbued with rhetorical studies; but also so pre-eminent in sanctity that he was equalled to the virtues of St. Silvester… The king therefore, having confessed almighty God in Trinity, was baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and anointed with the sacred chrism with the sign of the Cross of Christ.

[119] And of his army there were baptized more than three thousand. and baptizes his sister, and another sister, renouncing Arianism, His sister Albofledis also was baptized, who not long after passed to the Lord… For another sister of his also was converted, named Lanthechildis, who had slipped into the heresy of the Arians; who, having confessed the Son and the Holy Spirit equal to the Father, was chrismated. Fredegarius, mentioning nothing of the king's sisters, extends the number of the baptized to six thousand: Flodoard, and Hincmar, whom he followed here, in the Life, number 65, retain from Gregory three thousand men; but add: Not counting little ones and women. But this biographer in the same place wrongly departed from Gregory, asserting that both sisters of Clovis were then also baptized. His sisters are baptized (he says), Albofledis and Landehildis; and these things Flodoard transferred in so many words into the History of Reims, book 1, chapter 13. That fabler, the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum, went before both, in whom at chapter 15 one reads: His sisters are baptized, by these names, Alboflidis and Landechildis, on that same day. But the words of Gregory are so clear that I wonder that Hincmar departed from him to adhere to the anonymous writer.

[120] Conformable also are they to ecclesiastical discipline, which prescribed that those baptized by the Arians, [anointing her according to custom with the sacred chrism, he joined her to the Church.] when they came to the Catholic Church, were not to be rebaptized, but to be reconciled either by the imposition of hands or together with the anointing of sacred chrism. The same writer of Tours relates examples in book 2, chapter 34, where Gundobad, the Arian king of the Burgundians, having confessed to St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, Christ the Son of God and the Holy Spirit equal to the Father, asked that he might be secretly chrismated; but because he refused to confess publicly, he did not obtain it. In book 4, chapter 27, of Brunichildis, daughter of Athanagild, king of the Spains, married to Sigebert, king of Austrasia, likewise an Arian, but converted, it is said: Having confessed the blessed Trinity in Unity, she believed and was chrismated. The same things are read in the same place, chapter 28, of

Galswintha, another daughter of the same Athanagild and wife of Chilperic, king of Soissons; likewise in book 5, chapter 39, of St. Hermenegild, son of Leovigild, king of Spain; and finally in book 9, chapter 15, of Reccared, brother of the same St. Hermenegild, when they came over from the Arian heresy to the Catholic faith.

[121] From what has hitherto been alleged the praised king must altogether be said to have been baptized both by St. Remigius and in the city of Reims; A certain writer contends from the Life of St. Solemnis of Chartres since, however, I see that it has been doubted by someone both about the baptizer and about the place of the baptism, both must be treated of here. Jean-Jacques Chifflet, in the new Disquisition on the Ampulla of Reims, contends that St. Solemnis, bishop of Chartres, discharged that office, relying on a twin argument; first, that this is asserted in his Life; secondly, that it is also read elsewhere that St. Remigius received the same king from the sacred font. That Life was given and corrected in our Work at XXV September, and it was shown there in the Preliminary Commentary that it is ancient indeed, but not without faults, and was held of little account by our Bolland; but as regards the present controversy, this was referred on page 75 in the Annotations, letter c, to the present day, to be discussed more thoroughly. To do this, I must here unweave certain things from the Life published there; for the matter depends on the value of that Life. If we believe that anonymous biographer, Clovis, when, leading his army against the king of the Goths, he was passing Chartres, having been signed by St. Solemnis, bishop of that city, with the sign of the Cross on forehead and breast, in certain hope of victory, vowed thus: Going in these arms, if I shall not have been overcome by the Goths or the Alamanni, but shall return in peace, I will at once fly to be baptized.

[122] that he, not Remigius, was the king's baptizer; After these things the biographer proceeds thus: Girded with such arms he goes on to fight in the war, and at once vanquished and subdued the fierce nation of the Alamanni. And when the columns of the Goths, who had prepared wars against him, had drawn up against him, and his lines were hurling missiles against the line of the enemy, and the war was pressing sharply, in a moment the columns of the Goths are laid low, the Lord helping: and headlong they gave their backs to the sword. For the cross impressed by the hand of the pontiff was on the breast of the prince, and victory flashed on the sword-point. He subjoins that the same Saint appeared to Clovis after the victory, and forbade him to pursue the fleeing Goths or to lay waste their lands; and that the king, obeying, turned his arms into Aquitaine with equal success. At length he says: The king, exalted by such a trophy through the mystery of the cross, returning from Aquitaine, sent his envoys to blessed Solemnis, that he might pour over him the water of baptism… The priest, filled with spiritual joy, took with him cultivators of the sacred law, Remigius and Vedastus, venerable prelates, and, divine mercy favouring, coming to the king, baptized him with all his dignitaries, and together with him three hundred and sixty-four most noble dukes of the Franks.

[123] but this Life is of doubtful credit: You have here, studious reader, his narration of the conversion of King Clovis, from which he ascribes nothing else to St. Remigius than that, summoned by St. Solemnis, he was present at the baptism. But this narration of an anonymous writer, of uncertain time and credit, would have to be rejected from this head alone, that it hands down things not only unknown to the older writers of more certain stamp, but even contrary to them. To these are added manifest errors, partly already observed at XXV September, which convict the writer of ignorance. Of this kind are these: that he foully confused the Alamannic war, waged in the year 496, with the Gothic or Visigothic one, which belongs to the year 507; that he defers the baptism of Clovis, which is established to have been conferred on him in the year 496, until after the Gothic war, that is, until the cited year 507; and that he makes the same king, as though obeying St. Solemnis warning him not to lay waste the kingdom of the Goths, depopulate Aquitaine, as if at that time it were not part of their kingdom. Finally it is certain from what is to be said that St. Vedastus was promoted to the episcopal infulae only a notable time after the baptism of Clovis. In vain therefore did the praised Chifflet strive from these so faulty Acts, and an uncertain author, to take away from St. Remigius, against the testimonies of all the ancients, the glory of the royal baptism.

[124] nor does it stand in the way that Remigius received the king from the font, But, he says, Remigius himself in his genuine Testament professed himself godfather of the same king, saying: Another silver vessel, which the lord Hludowic of illustrious memory, whom I received from the sacred font of baptism, deigned to give me, etc. I confess that this is read in it, and is besides asserted by Hincmar in the Life, number 65, where it is said: And received by the Pontiff himself from the holy font, etc.; which Flodoard also adopted, book 1, chapter 13. Nor do I deny that it is generally unusual that in a solemn baptism the same person should be baptizer and also sponsor; but that it is unheard of Chifflet asserted too lightly. Le Cointe writes that he found several examples, at the year of Christ 496, number 55, where, after relating the deed of St. Remigius, he subjoined: Other examples of the same kind will occur in these Annals: for it did not happen to Clovis alone to be baptized and received by the same pontiff. We have something similar also in the Lives of SS. Amandus, bishop of Maastricht, and Sigebert, king of Austrasia.

[125] In the first of these, given by us at VI February, since he could discharge both offices. which has as its author Baudemund, a disciple of St. Amandus himself, it is said in chapter 4 that Dagobert I, king of the Franks, asked St. Amandus that he would deign to wash his son Sigebert with sacred baptism, and receive him as … a spiritual son; and that the holy bishop assented. In the other, however, illustrated at 1 February, Sigebert of Gembloux, relating the same in chapter 2, expressly interpreted these things thus of the receiving from baptism: And at once (St. Amandus), regenerating him with sacred baptism, named him Sigebert, and he himself, with Charibert the king's brother, received him from the sacred font. Perhaps also at the baptism of Clovis there was another sponsor besides Remigius; however that may be, there is no reason why we should not believe that this was done; nor did the unusualness of the thing deter Cardinal Baronius from himself also asserting, in volume 6 of the Annals, that St. Remigius was at the same time baptizer and sponsor of King Clovis.

[126] Marlot, in volume 1 of the Metropolis Remensis, book 2, Some wrongly attribute the office of sponsor to St. Medard. chapter 7, on another occasion recites a passage from the Deeds of St. Medard, written (as is said) by Fortunatus, in which the office of godfather is ascribed not to Remigius but to the praised Medard. Receive the words of that Life. Coming into the city of the Remi, in the basilica of St. Peter, which is now called AT THE PALACE, blessed Remigius baptized the king, and blessed Medard received him from the sacred font. To confess the truth, I do not know what exemplar of the Life Marlot used here; for in that which my Predecessors published with the name of Fortunatus at the VIII day of June nothing of the kind is read. Just as much is to be found in the metrical Life of the same Saint placed before it in the same place, and in the two prose ones subjoined, and also in Surius's edition; so that Marlot's exemplar can be of no weight with me. In the same place is to be held a certain manuscript Life of St. Gildard, bishop of Rouen, received from the Belfort collection, in which Henschenius, volume 2 of June, page 69, number 9, among other things noted this assertion as to be disapproved: Blessed Remigius baptized King Chlodovech, St. Medard, (then) bishop of the Vermandois, receiving him from the sacred font. The reason of his censure Henschenius alleges there, that Clovis was washed with the sacred water in the year 496, but St. Medard was created bishop only about the year 530.

[127] About the city also in which that sacred and august solemnity was performed From the letter of St. Nicetius of Trier to Chlodosvinda it has been doubted, from the letter of St. Nicetius, bishop of Trier, to Chlodosvinda, granddaughter of the same Clovis by his son Chlothar, wife of Alboin, king of the Lombards in Italy, printed in the Appendix of the Works of St. Gregory of Tours, Ruinart's edition, column 1338 and following. In this St. Nicetius, exhorting Chlodosvinda to bring her husband from the Arian heresy to the Catholic faith, addresses her thus: You have heard from your grandmother, the lady Rodhildis of good memory (that is, St. Chrotechildis), how she came into Francia; how she brought the lord Chlodovech to the Catholic law; and, since he was a most astute man, he would not acquiesce before he recognized the true things. When he learned that those things which I have said above (about the truth of the Catholic faith) were proved, humble he fell at the threshold of the lord Martin, and permitted himself to be baptized without delay. It has been doubted, I say, whether St. Nicetius here wished to indicate that celebrated basilica at Tours with the body of St. Martin, or some other in the city of Reims.

[128] it may be doubted whether Clovis was baptized in the city of Tours; For the basilica of Tours tells, first, that in the same letter he spoke of it, challenging the Arians to the miracles to be seen there, saying a little before: Let him (King Alboin), if he commands [], send them (his Arians) to the lord Martin at his festival, which he keeps on the eleventh day of November; and there, if they dare, let them presume something, where today we behold the blind given light [], where the deaf receive hearing and the dumb health, etc. No one will doubt that here by the lord Martin his sacred body, renowned for miracles in the basilica of Tours, is designated, even if the name of the city is omitted. For the same basilica tells, secondly, that St. Gregory of Tours also, in the History of the Franks, by name book 4, chapter 21, and after him Fredegarius in the Epitome, chapter 55, by the words the Threshold of blessed Martin alone denoted no other than his basilica of Tours: in the same manner, namely, in which by the threshold of the holy apostles Peter and Paul their Roman basilicas are wont to be indicated by the ancients as well as by more recent writers. In the same manner, therefore, the words of St. Nicetius are to be explained, unless other arguments stand in the way.

[129] but it is certain that it took place at Reims, But most grave reasons stand in the way of believing that Clovis was baptized in the basilica of Tours; and that first of all, that, since the city of Tours at that time obeyed Alaric, king of the Visigoths, an Arian by sect, it is far from all likelihood that Clovis, who had Catholic and holy prelates in his dominions, wished to receive Catholic baptism in the foreign kingdom of an Arian prince; which besides would neither have been safe for him without a strong band of soldiers, nor with one would it have been permitted by the Goths. Moreover none of the ancients ascribed this glory to the church of Tours, not even St. Gregory himself, who could neither easily have been ignorant of it, nor ought to have omitted it; and who with Remigius the same

attributes the ministry of baptism, at the same time sufficiently indicated that this was done in his own diocese of Reims, not in a foreign province, which the canons forbade. Reims likewise the writers alleged above have expressly assigned, to whom I here add the emperor Louis the Pious, who in the privilege granted for restoring the metropolitan church of Reims, in Flodoard, book 2, chapter 19, acknowledged this very thing in the words subjoined.

[130] or in the church of St. Martin, Ebo (he says there), venerable archbishop of the church of Reims, and prelate of the most reverend see of St. Remigius, most glorious pontiff and our special patron, made known to our clemency that our holy mother church of the said metropolitan city, consecrated in honour of the holy and ever Virgin and Mother of God Mary, was worn by the old age of antiquity; in which, God being the author and St. Remigius the co-operator, our nation of the Franks, with our namesake (that is, Clovis, which name is the same as Louis), king of the same nation, merited to be washed with the baptism of the sacred font and enlightened with the grace of the sevenfold Holy Spirit. This opinion about the city of Reims is so certain that the learned French have thought almost solely of reconciling the words of St. Nicetius with it. Adrien de Valois, in volume 1 of the Res Francicae, book 6, thinking it by no means likely that St. Nicetius, so near in age to Clovis, erred so much, in a matter very well known to Franks and Gauls, as to thrust upon Chlodosvinda the church of St. Martin of Tours in place of the basilica of Blessed Mary at Reims, determined that that threshold of St. Martin was nowhere else than at Reims, discoursing thus: Nor do I doubt that by the threshold of Martin Nicetius called the church of St. Martin at Reims at the Collaticia or Basilicaris gate, of which mention is made in the testament of Remigius. Where no one will wonder that Chlodovech wished to be washed who understands that the name of Martin, on account of his signs and powers, was in the highest veneration with the Gauls and Franks, and that vows were pronounced to him by Chlodovech himself before the battle of Vouillé.

[131] With Valois agree Jacques Longueval in the History of the Gallican church, volume 2, [or rather in the metropolitan church of Bl. M. V.; nor does it prove the opposite] page 230, and Gabriel Daniel in the History of France, volume 1, at the year of Christ 495. On the contrary Le Cointe, in volume 1 of the Annales Francorum, at the year 496, number 10 and following, preferred to adhere to the assertion of Louis the Pious, and so to explain the text of St. Nicetius that Clovis, when he came from the Alamannic war to Reims, may be said to have presently fallen down at the church of St. Martin, and to have wished to be baptized as soon as he could; which can be true, even if he was baptized neither at that very time nor in that same church. His reason is that the sayings of Louis are conformable to the age of Clovis, in which in each city there was wont to be only a single baptistery, built beside the principal basilica; and that the words of Nicetius admit this interpretation. Let the reader choose which he will of the two opinions; to me Le Cointe's is preferable, yet so that I doubt whether St. Nicetius does not in that place really speak of the approach of Clovis to the basilica of St. Martin at Tours, and mentioned it in reversed order.

[132] For, first indeed, so his words will be taken in that sense the praised letter, which can be explained. which, from what was said at number 128, they seem to require. Secondly, St. Gregory of Tours, book 2 of the History, chapter 27, testifies that Clovis, after the Visigoths were subdued, betook himself to the same church: The victory having been accomplished after these things, he returned to Tours [], offering many gifts to the holy basilica of blessed Martin. Thirdly, it did not matter to Nicetius here whether that approach took place before or after the baptism of Clovis; since there he treats solely of impelling Chlodosvinda by the example of her holy grandmother Chrotechildis to procure the conversion of her husband; and when he had challenged the Arians to the tomb, renowned for miracles, of St. Martin, the assertor of the most holy Trinity, he added also the example of King Clovis, who, after mature examination, the truth of the doctrine asserted by St. Martin being recognized, had venerated his tomb: and to this what did it matter whether the praised king did it before or after his baptism; or what would be much to be wondered at if Nicetius had inadvertently wrongly put one before the other? Finally, if we admit this reversed order in Nicetius's text, it will agree rightly with St. Gregory of Tours, according to whom Clovis, St. Chrotechildis procuring it, instructed by St. Remigius, asked to be baptized, and after the Goths were vanquished humble he fell at the threshold of the lord Martin*, that is, he set out for his basilica at Tours for the sake of religion with many gifts.

[] otherwise consequently*

[] if he pleases*

[] to be given light*

[] otherwise he entered*

§ VIII. The narration of Hincmar and other more recent writers about the sacred ampulla of Reims: the silence of the older writers about it, and the judgment of the moderns.

At Reims a glass ampulla is kept with chrism or sacred oil, A singular circumstance of the royal baptism, about which not even the French themselves agree, I have hitherto deferred relating, because it needs a longer discourse, that the reasons adduced on both sides may be set out. There is kept at Reims in the church of the abbey of St.-Remi a glass ampulla the size of a nut, and in it a certain liquid or oil, with which the kings of the Franks are wont to be anointed at their solemn inauguration, commonly called the Holy Ampulla. It is set in a precious case, and enclosed in the magnificent mausoleum of St. Remigius, on the testimony of Marlot, volume 1 of the Metropolis Remensis, book 3, chapter 9, whose words there are those which I subjoin. In the same (mausoleum) and at the feet of St. Remigius is kept the chrism sent from heaven, which they call the Ampulla, in a silver vessel overlaid with gold, sprinkled and made brilliant with little stones and pearls, to which a little chain is fixed, which the abbot puts about his neck when he carries the sacred unction with notable pomp from the monastery to the principal church for the inauguration of the kings. Jean-Jacques Chifflet, in the new Disquisition on the Ampulla of Reims, chapter XI, recited the following about the use of the same chrism from the French Ceremonial written in the time of King Louis VIII, volume 1, page 13.

[134] with which the kings of the Franks are wont to be anointed. The chrism having been prepared on the altar upon the consecrated paten, the archbishop must open the most holy ampulla upon the altar, and thence with a golden needle draw out a little of the oil sent from heaven, and diligently mingle it with the prepared chrism for anointing the king, who alone among all the kings of the earth shines with this glorious privilege, that he is anointed with oil sent from heaven. There were those who said that the oil of that sacred ampulla is never diminished, however many kings of the Franks have been anointed from it; some also that after the anointing of a king it is dried up, and is filled again when a successor is to be inaugurated; others finally, on the testimony of René de Ceriziers in the French Life of St. Remigius, part 2, chapter 4, believed that by its wonderful increase and decrease it denotes the varying health of the king; which fables of the ignorant vulgar both he himself and the other French have exploded by words and silence. Further, to come to the point, that this little ampulla was let down from heaven at the baptism of Clovis some will have, others deny, others doubt.

[135] That this was brought divinely to the baptism of Clovis, Among others Jean-Jacques Chifflet, knight and count of the chief physicians of Philip IV, king of the Spains, and Jacques-Alexandre Le Tenneur, royal counsellor in the Court of Aids of Aquitaine, have treated this subject professedly; of whom the former, in the new Disquisition on the Ampulla of Reims published in the year 1651, attacked it against the other; the second, in the year next following, published an apologetic Treatise for it against him. While Chifflet was doing these things, he aimed at a far different target, namely at attacking the prerogatives of the kings of France asserted by Le Tenneur; the examination of which, since it is altogether foreign to the plan of my studies and the condition of my life, I shall pass over altogether, and the more willingly because it matters nothing for the present controversy to dispute about them. Nay, it is also a different question whether this ampulla was received from heaven for the baptismal anointing of King Clovis; and whether from the same he himself was also anointed as king by St. Remigius. I shall inquire chiefly into the first, the arguments which are brought forward on both sides being set out; and I begin from those who affirm.

[136] Hincmar, in the Life to be published, numbers 62, 63 and 65, narrates the thing done thus: and that he was then anointed with that chrism, But when they (Remigius and Clovis) had come to the baptistery, the cleric who was carrying the chrism was intercepted by the people, so that he could not come to the font. And the font having been sanctified, by divine will the chrism was lacking: and because on account of the pressure of the people no going out or coming into the church lay open to anyone, the holy Pontiff, his eyes and hands stretched out to heaven, began to pray silently with tears. And behold, suddenly a dove whiter than snow brought in its beak a little ampulla filled with holy chrism, by whose wonderful odour, above all the odours which they had perceived before in the baptistery (from the balsams spread at St. Remigius's command and the fragrant candles lit, as he had premised), all who were present were filled with inestimable sweetness. And the holy Pontiff receiving the little ampulla itself, the appearance of the dove vanished: of which chrism the venerable Bishop poured into the consecrated font. And the king, having seen so great a miracle, the pomps of the devil and his works being renounced, asked to be baptized by the holy Pontiff. Here he narrates the baptism of the king, and at length continues thus: And received by the Pontiff himself (Clovis) from the holy font, he was anointed with the sacred chrism with the sign of the holy Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[137] Finally, to win credit for his narration, he subjoins these things: Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, hands down, Concerning the miracle which the Lord deigned to show through the appearance of a dove in the bringing of the Chrism, as also concerning others, the settled opinion of the Catholic Fathers is to be followed, in which it is said: A divine operation, if it is comprehended by reason, is not wonderful; nor has faith merit to which human reason furnishes proof. At length he disputes much about the apparitions of the Holy Spirit, which, as pertaining neither to proving the miracle of the ampulla nor to the Acts of St. Remigius, I have cut away in the Life to be published. The same Hincmar, in volume 1 of his Works by Sirmond, page 744, at the Coronation of Charles the Bald, when he was inaugurated at Metz in the kingdom of Lothar in the year of Christ 869, speaks thus of the same subject in a public session of bishops and nobles: His (Charles the Bald's) father of holy memory, the lord Hludowic the Pious, emperor augustus, sprung from the progeny of Hludowic (that is, Clovis), the renowned king of the Franks, converted with his whole nation by the Catholic preaching of blessed Remigius, apostle of the Franks, and baptized with three thousand of the Franks, not counting little ones and women, on the vigil of holy Easter in the metropolis of Reims, and anointed with chrism taken from heaven, of which we still have some, and consecrated as king, etc.

[138] There is no doubt that here he speaks of the same chrism as in the Life, yet not always in the same manner, although in a different way: for in the latter he mentioned only the baptismal anointing and that made in the Sacrament of Confirmation;

but here he added the royal anointing. Secondly, here he mentions indeed chrism taken from heaven; but the place, time and manner in which it was received from heaven he was silent about; which it will help to have observed on account of what is to be said below. That Clovis was anointed as king by St. Remigius in the metropolitan church of Reims Louis the Pious also acknowledged in the precept which he gave for the same church, alleging that Clovis had been baptized and confirmed in it, and subjoining: But the most noble king himself also was found worthy, by the clemency of God, to be anointed to the royal power. Flodoard (in whom the praised precept exists in the History of Reims, book 2, chapter 19), after his custom, adopted the sayings of Hincmar from the Life, and inserted them in book 1, chapter 13, adding however the word is handed down, which word among other writers is commonly that of one who doubts somewhat and asserts timidly. Let us hear him.

[139] Flodoard, presbyter of the same church, But when they had come to the prepared place of the baptistery, the cleric carrying the chrism, intercepted by the people, was altogether prevented from reaching the font. The font therefore having been sanctified, by divine will the chrism was lacking. And the holy Pontiff, his eyes stretched to heaven, is handed down to have prayed silently with tears. And behold, suddenly a dove, white as snow, flies to him, bearing in its beak an ampulla filled with the chrism of a heavenly gift. Sprinkled with the wonderful nectar of whose odour, those who were present are filled with inestimable sweetness above all with which they had before been delighted. The ampulla therefore having been received, after the holy Prelate had sprinkled the font with chrism, the appearance of the dove presently vanished. And the king, glad at the miracle of so great a grace beheld, at once renouncing the pomps and works of the devil, asks to be baptized by the reverend Pontiff. There follows here, as in Hincmar, the baptizing of Clovis, and likewise it is subjoined: He is received by the same holy Pontiff, and consecrated, marked with the divine unguent.

[140] Aimoin, monk of Fleury, and other more recent writers. Aimoin of Fleury is added, book 1 of the History of the Franks, chapter 16, from the recension of François Du Chesne, volume 3 of the Writers of Frankish History, page 20, where he records these things: That the faith of the aforesaid king (Clovis) was pleasing and acceptable to God a miracle shown declared. For, when by chance he who carried the chrism, shut off by the people, was absent; behold suddenly there appeared none other without doubt than the Holy Spirit, figured in the visible form of a dove, who, bearing the holy chrism in a gleaming beak, deposited it between the hands of the Priest, who was sanctifying the waters. There is joy and exultation; many of the people are baptized: praises to God, thanks to God are acclaimed, and the king rejoicing returns from the church to his own. I omit other more recent writers, who, since they have followed those already praised, can indeed increase the number of those asserting, but cannot increase the authority, or add greater credit to the fact itself. Of the three named, moreover, the oldest is Hincmar, and he wrote the Life of Remigius about the middle of the IX century, that is, more than 350 years after that thing had happened. Still more remote from it lived Flodoard and Aimoin of Fleury, writers of the tenth century.

[141] But since all the older writers are silent about so memorable a thing, But among writers older than Hincmar nothing is to be found about so memorable a thing. About it are silent St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, and Pope Anastasius II in the letters of congratulation which each gave to Clovis himself on his reception of baptism. Silent are St. Nicetius, bishop of Trier, in the letter to Chlodosvinda, queen of the Lombards, praised in §7; Fortunatus in the compendium of the Life of Remigius; St. Gregory of Tours, and the epitomator of his History Fredegarius; silent also are the anonymous writer who wrote the Gesta Francorum about the year 725; Alcuin in the Life of St. Vedastus, and the anonymous author of the shorter Life of the same St. Vedastus, whom he followed; although all these make mention of the baptism of Clovis. Likewise silent is the old Preface of the Mass of the Gallican rite on St. Remigius, praised in §2 of this Commentary, which, containing very many of his miracles, and recording that King Clovis was brought by him to the Christian rites, makes no word about the ampulla or the miraculous chrism. Indeed Le Cointe too, in volume 1 of the Annales Francorum at the year of Christ 496, number 29, freely confesses that no witness earlier than Hincmar is had for that miracle. He has it thus in the same place.

[142] As regards the ampulla brought by a dove, the learned French commonly do not dare to assert it, we have no author older than Hincmar who asserts that miracle. Aimoin, who wrote about the year of Christ one thousand, interpreted the dove as the Holy Spirit… Flodoard, older than Aimoin, rendered the sense of Hincmar in a more elegant style thus… Flodoard and Aimoin followed Hincmar as their leader; if you do not give credit to him, you cannot be pressed by an older argument. Adrien de Valois agrees, volume 1 of the Res Francicae, book 6, page 260 and following, discoursing thus: Hincmar in the life of St. Remigius, Aimoin his contemporary (rather one century later) in the History, book 1, Frodoard, presbyter of the church of Reims, narrate a wonderful thing, and one unknown to Gregory, Fredegarius and our other old historians: namely, that when the crowd shut off all approaches to the baptistery for the cleric bearing the chrism, a dove whiter than snow flew to him, bearing an ampulla in its beak, and deposited it in the hands of Remigius as he was consecrating the water, and at once appeared no more: and that so Chlodovech was anointed.

[143] Hincmar, bishop of the Remi, adds (as I find in the Acts of the synod held at Metz, or deny it, over which he himself presided, and in the Appendix of Aimoin) that this sacred chrism, sent from heaven, is religiously kept, and in his age, after more than CCCLXX years, had not yet failed, and that with it Chlodovech was anointed and consecrated king in the XXV year of his reign. In which his own times and his own customs deceived Hincmar, thinking that the Merovingians entered on the kingship with the same ceremonies with which the posterity of Charles the Mayor of the palace entered on it: whereas Pippin, first of all the kings of France, imitating the Jews and the later kings of the Visigoths, wished to be anointed once and again, that he might make himself more venerable and more august by the sacred anointing. Before the age of Hincmar, however, only Louis the Pious, from him up to Hugh not more than three kings of the Franks, namely Charles, great-grandson of Louis the Pious, Robert, brother of Odo, and Lothar, were anointed and consecrated kings at Durocortorum of the Remi. So that it is not a wonder that chrism fallen from heaven, which was kept for no uses but in memory of the miracle, survived so long, and could be shown after so many years by no means consumed. Thus far Valois, sufficiently hinting what he felt about the story of the ampulla of Reims: what, however, he added about the anointings, I leave, as I have already noted above, to be examined by others.

[144] Some others, doubtless on account of the same silence of the ancients, preferred to be silent about the disputed miracle or pass it by in silence, others however champion it. when they spoke of the baptism of Clovis; of whom are Antoine Pagi in the Critica of the Annals of Cardinal Baronius, Adrien Baillet, volume 3 of the Lives of the Saints, on St. Remigius, where he also annotated in the margin that the anointing with which Clovis was then anointed was not a royal anointing; Fleury in the Ecclesiastical History, Daniel in the French one, and finally Longueval in the History of the Gallican church, volume 2, page 231 and following, except in an observation added in the lowest margin, which I shall recite below more aptly. Again others, who champion the said miracle such as it is narrated by Hincmar, by name Marlot in the Metropolis Remensis, Le Tenneur in the apologetic Treatise against Jean-Jacques Chifflet, and Ceriziers in the French Life of St. Remigius, deny that anything can be concluded from the silence of the aforesaid ancients; which seemed so to Mabillon also; although he did not dare to assent certainly to Hincmar about the very origin of the ampulla, that is, the time, place and occasion in which it was divinely received, as we shall say in the following §.

[145] Mabillon, although he himself does not defend the sayings of Hincmar, Meanwhile he, in volume 1 of the Benedictine Annals, at the year of Christ 533, number 18, disputes thus about the silence of the authors: As regards Avitus, he perhaps had not yet learned what had happened at the baptism of Chlodovech, to which, invited by the king, he excuses himself in this letter. Then, even if he had learned them, what was the point of recalling them to Chlodovech himself, who was aware of all these things? Now Gregory, although he does not mention the ampulla let down from heaven, yet hints that something prodigious then happened, when he says that the temple of the baptistery was SPRINKLED WITH A DIVINE ODOUR, and that (God) bestowed such grace there on those standing by that THEY THOUGHT THEMSELVES PLACED AMID THE ODOURS OF PARADISE. Finally, from the silence of Fortunatus nothing can be made out; since he passed over other things equally wonderful in the Life of St. Remigius, indeed, which you may wonder at, the very conversion of Chlodovech and of the Franks, and the sacred dipping of the same king, done by Remigius. Of Fredegarius he observed nothing here; unless perhaps there should also be referred here what, after some things interposed, he subjoined in the same place, on the occasion of another miracle passed over by him as well as by Gregory: Nor is the authority sought from the silence of Fredegarius stronger, which at the most is to be judged the same as the authority of Gregory, bishop of Tours, whose History he only reduced to a compendium.

[146] yet he strove to weaken the argument To these things it can be replied that the suspicion about the cause of the silence in Avitus, thrown out by Mabillon, would have some likelihood if other sufficiently old testimonies for asserting the miracle were not lacking; and that it is not established that the letter was given by him in the first days after the baptism of Clovis; since he sent it with the son of Laurentius, an illustrious man, whose freedom he himself, at the command of Clovis, had asked from King Gundobad, and had then first obtained, as will be manifest from the letter to be given. Avitus therefore seems to have awaited this occasion to congratulate the same king on his baptism; he did not write solely to excuse himself for not having been present at the solemnity. Further, if St. Avitus had known of the miracle, it certainly was to the point to recall it to Clovis, however well aware of it. For besides that it must have been very welcome to the king; he was congratulating him that, the heretics clamouring against it in vain, he had embraced the Catholic faith, and exhorted him to propagate it also among the other nations, both by embassies and by arms. Would he not aptly have recalled that faith as proved by so illustrious a miracle; and if he had been anointed with the same chrism as a Christian king, would he not aptly have added this goad also for extending the same faith?

[147] sought from the silence of the older writers; Let us pass to St. Gregory, whose passage praised by Mabillon, although I have already given it above, must be repeated here. Filled with great joy (St. Remigius, at the consent of the king and the Franks to baptism) he ordered the bath to be prepared. The squares of the church are shaded with painted hangings, adorned with white curtains, the baptistery is set in order, balsams are spread abroad, candles fragrant with odour gleam, and the whole temple of the baptistery is sprinkled with a divine odour; and such grace God bestowed there on those standing by that they thought themselves placed amid the odours of paradise. Who would suspect that these things are to be referred to an ampulla of chrism fallen from heaven? I indeed by that divine odour nothing other

think is indicated than the native fragrance of the balsam and of the fragrant lights which Remigius had ordered to be brought into the baptistery, and that those who were present were so sweetly affected by it that, God also soothing their minds with his grace, they seemed to themselves to be moving as it were amid heavenly perfumes. Nor does it matter that he called the odour divine: for those skilled in the Latin language know that divine is also sometimes used in an improper sense for most excellent, excelling above the rest, etc. Not otherwise did Hincmar take this passage, when at number 62 of the Life he almost copied it, and then at number 63 narrated far more excellent odours received together with the heavenly ampulla; reckoning, namely, the former natural, from the perfumes, the latter miraculous.

[148] In vain also would one wish to lessen the authority objected from the silence of Fredegarius, but, as it seems to me at least, and to make it here at most the same as the authority of St. Gregory of Tours, by the argument that Fredegarius only reduced his History to a compendium. For this reason did not prevent Fredegarius from adding here and there some things received from elsewhere for the sake of explaining or illustrating. So in this very place he inserted the day of the baptism conferred on Clovis, which Gregory had passed over in silence, namely: at the Lord's Easter. So in the same place he subjoined: When in Albis the Gospel reading was announced to Chlodovech by St. Remedius, how our Lord Jesus Christ had come to his passion, Chlodovech said: If I had been there with my Franks, I would have avenged his injury. Now showing his faith by these words, he affirms that he is truly a Christian. He had also set before this, in chapters 18 and 19, many things about St. Chrotechildis which you will no more find in the History of Gregory of Tours than the things just mentioned. If, then, Fredegarius did not think it foreign to his plan to insert into the Epitome some things passed over by Gregory, or unknown to him, why would he not also have recorded in the same the prodigy of the ampulla sent from heaven, so honourable and singular for the nation of the Franks? Yet he not only did not mention this thing, but even passed over those words of Gregory in which Mabillon believed it was hinted that something prodigious then happened; for no other cause, I think, than that he judged that odour to have been natural, and had heard nothing of the miracle of the ampulla.

[149] There remains the question of the silence of Fortunatus, who certainly had the original Life. not very happily. What wonder is it that he omitted many other things and even the baptism of Clovis itself, who had been commanded by Egidius, archbishop of Reims, only to excerpt some miracles from that longer Life, to be read among the people, on the testimony of Hincmar in the Prologue, and strove of them to discourse of few things, to pass over very many, as Fortunatus himself says in the compendium, number 3? But since he is wholly occupied in narrating marvels, it is the more to be wondered at that that heavenly ampulla, certainly a singular miracle and a gift granted to none of the other nations, was passed over by him. To me indeed it appears less likely that Fortunatus omitted these things for brevity's sake than that he would not have treated of the baptism of the Franks if he had known it to be illustrated by so noble a prodigy. To those aforesaid who are silent add Alcuin and the rest named above, of whom, although singly they prove nothing, yet jointly they greatly confirm the negative argument. To be added also is the Preface of the Mass of the Gallican rite, containing a certain compendium of the Life and miracles of St. Remigius, which, if it was already read in the age of Fortunatus, as Mabillon judged, what else does it indicate by its silence than that the heavenly sending of the often-mentioned ampulla was unknown at that time? For the rest see the following §.

§ IX. Other arguments brought forward for Hincmar's assertion are refuted: the fairly probable opinion of Mabillon and Longueval is proposed.

It is not likely that Hincmar learned the prodigy of the ampulla There remain to be examined other arguments which are produced for Hincmar's narration, and the manner in which others defend the dignity of the ampulla of Reims. Le Tenneur, in the apologetic Treatise, chapter 2, tried to persuade that St. Gregory of Tours made express mention of it, but that the passage was erased from his manuscript exemplars. To this end he praised the Magdeburg writers in the Ecclesiastical History, century 6, chapter 6, where they say these things: Further, among other rites they added chrism also. For, when Remigius had baptized King Clodoveus, chrism was not present (perhaps because it was not necessary); but Gregory of Tours and Henry of Erfurt say that a dove brought in its mouth a vessel full of chrism. From these Le Tenneur determined, or at least judged probable, that the Magdeburg writers had ancient codices in which these things were read, which had been torn out of the French ones on account of the old dispute between the archbishop of Reims and the other archbishops of France about the right of anointing the kings, but not likewise out of the German codices, because this controversy did not pertain to the Germans; but that from these also they were at length removed, because they did not agree with the French exemplars, which were reckoned more certain. So almost he; which seemed not undeservedly ridiculous to Le Cointe at the year 496, number 29.

[151] from St. Gregory of Tours, but that it was erased from his exemplars; Ruinart agrees, in the annotations on the History of the Franks of the same Gregory, book 2, chapter 31, whose observation receive. What they say, however, that a codex of Gregory was seen by the Magdeburg centuriators in which that ampulla was mentioned, which the heterodox afterwards tore apart, does not seem likely. But perhaps they had in their hands the book on the Deeds of the Franks, published by Du Chesne in volume 1, which in some manuscript codices is attributed to our Gregory, in which this story may have been copied. One exemplar of this kind is had in the library of the archmonastery of St.-Remi at Reims, written about D years ago. These things are more credible than that all the exemplars of Gregory's History were so dislocated in France on account of the said dispute that none remained entire in this part, even in the province of Reims, to which it would have mattered no less to keep them unharmed than to dislocate those of the others.

[152] nor is it more likely that he received it The praised Le Tenneur, in the place cited, contends besides that Hincmar's testimony, even if none older than it were had, and it is later than the event by three centuries and more, is not therefore to be reckoned fabulous, nor the story of the ampulla invented by him. He alleges as reason both that it is not fair so to suspect of a distinguished, pious, learned man, adorned with ecclesiastical dignity; and that it is most likely that he took these things from the very ancient History, as he himself testifies, namely the Life of Remigius, which perished by the injury of the times … Here he refers the reader to another Work of his, whose title is Truth vindicated against Jean-Jacques Chifflet, etc., in whose part 3, chapter 5, he had asserted this very thing more confidently in this manner: For so Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, in the Life of St. Remigius (which he testifies he took from his very ancient History, mentioned by Gregory of Tours), speaking of the baptism of Clovis: "But when they had come to the baptistery", etc. Le Tenneur would almost have won his cause, if he had solidly proved what he wished to be believed, that Hincmar testified that he received all the deeds of St. Remigius which he reviewed from his very ancient Life.

[153] But the opposite Hincmar himself professes at length in the Prologue, from the original Life. in which he teaches that that original Life, a book of very great size, so perished that in his age, after most diligent investigation, few and scattered leaves from it were scarcely found; and that he undertook to write his Life to repair this loss. And setting out his aids, he says: I shall collect both those things which I have found about him in the histories published by the Elders, and those which I have found scattered in divers little sheets; and also setting in order those things which I have received by common report; because … the true law of history is simply to commit to letters for the instruction of posterity those things which are gathered from common fame. See §2 of this Commentary of mine, where I also indicated my doubt whether the holy historian of Tours praised the original Life or its compendium by Fortunatus. But if the first, as Le Tenneur judged, and it is fairly likely, new strength accrues hence to the negative argument; namely that the story of the ampulla was no more read in it by Gregory than by Fortunatus, who certainly had access to the same Life.

[154] That Hincmar (although he did not lack his blemishes, especially where the excellence of his see was in question) was a learned and pious prelate, Answer is made to the arguments sought from the authority of Hincmar, I do not deny, nor do I certainly assert that the story of the ampulla was first of all devised or fabricated by him. I acknowledge him also as a diligent investigator of the affairs of Remigius, but rather lest he should pass over anything handed down by anyone whether in writing or by word, than in order to relate things true and ascertained. For what else do these things indicate which I have just recited from his Prologue, and that true law of history which he set before himself, namely simply to commit to letters those things which are gathered from common fame …? How unhappily this turned out for him will be clear in the Annotations, where I shall observe fables adopted by him from excessive credulity and without any criticism. From similar obscure little sheets of no value, or rather from common report, that is, from a vulgar and perhaps then recent little tradition, he may seem to have learned the prodigy of the ampulla, lest it be believed that he himself, after three centuries, first feigned so celebrated a fact, of which no memory is found among older writers. Perhaps also, as the writers to be praised below suspected, since he did not know the true origin of the ampulla kept with great veneration in the church of Reims, he himself from his conjectures assigned another; but of this matter more afterwards.

[155] Marlot strives besides to win credit for the fact from this, [who also asserted that ampulla before Charles the Bald in the illustrious assembly at Metz;] that Hincmar, in the words given in the preceding §, did not hesitate to say publicly at the inauguration of Charles the Bald at Metz that Clovis had been anointed by St. Remigius with chrism taken from heaven and consecrated as king. For Marlot discourses thus on these things: Who would say that Hincmar was of so brazen a face as to declare before so illustrious a session a story of so great moment hitherto unheard of, but recently fabricated by himself; of so great levity as to patch together certain trumperies of trifles for a most wise king; of so great wickedness as to wish, a fable being thrust in, to mock sacrilegiously the very ceremonies of the churches and the sacred rites? Would King Charles, whose custom it was to propose all obscure passages of Scripture to wise men, even in camp and amid the tumults of wars, not have inquired about so grave a matter? Would all who were present here, men of the first nobility and learning, have been tongueless, stupid, or bewitched by Hincmar, so as not to rise up against a feigned tradition of this kind? Who would believe it, unless they were more certain from elsewhere that he was bringing forward true things? etc.

[156] and it is shown I have already said above that it is not necessary that Hincmar be accused of imposture; but that a sounder criticism is deservedly required in him by the learned. Let us suppose, therefore, that he believed what he said; nothing besides excessive

credulity will have to be reproved in this act. Whether, and what, the illustrious and lettered men who were present afterwards replied to his assertion we do not know: but certainly it was not the part of a prudent man to interrupt the archbishop speaking in the very church and at the very inauguration of the king, who was then playing the principal part in it; and to overthrow before the same king, by things said in the same place, what he had briefly recorded for the glory of the same king's lineage. It is equally unknown what Charles did in this matter; to whom, however, that speech of the archprelate could not have been unwelcome. For the royal anointing of Clovis Hincmar could have praised the privilege of Louis the Pious cited at number 130, in which this emperor, yet without any mention of an ampulla divinely received, asserted this very thing, immediately subjoining to the words given there: But the most noble king himself also (Clovis) was found worthy, by the clemency of God, to be anointed to the royal power.

[157] on what reasoning he can be excused. It is to be noted besides that Hincmar in this place said indeed that Clovis was anointed with chrism taken from heaven and consecrated as king, yet did not indicate the manner in which the chrism was received from heaven. Which I observe because, from what is to be said below, there are those who, although they do not dare to defend as certain the story of the ampulla handed down by Hincmar in the Life, nevertheless judge it probable that Clovis was anointed with chrism divinely obtained by St. Remigius on another occasion and in another manner. If this is so (which I shall examine afterwards), Hincmar asserted nothing in the session at Metz for which he could deservedly be reproved, unless perhaps concerning the asserted royal anointing of Clovis, for which he had as authority, as I have said, Louis the Pious, the father of Charles the Bald, at whose inauguration he asserted these things.

[158] In vain also for Hincmar Le Tenneur calls even St. Remigius himself to his aid, saying: But those who shall accurately weigh the words of the holy Pontiff must confess that in the Testament of Remigius also, which is had in Flodoard, a tacit mention of the heavenly ampulla is made. For so he says himself of the royal race of Clovis: "Which I chose to endure perpetually [] in the summit of royal majesty, baptized, received from the sacred font, and signed with the gift of the sevenfold Spirit, and through the anointing of the sacred chrism OF THE SAME ordained as king." It is manifest that the word OF THE SAME is referred not to the sacred chrism, of which there was before no mention, but to the Holy Spirit, and is to be explained of it; and accordingly that that oil with which he had anointed Clovis is called by Remigius the Chrism of the Holy Spirit; just as if he said: "Through the anointing of the sacred chrism OF THE SAME SPIRIT I ordained him king;" the word SPIRIT, placed just before, not being repeated. But that chrism could not be called the CHRISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT unless it had been sent divinely, although he does not explain the sending more clearly, as being very well known to all and superfluous in a testament.* These things Le Tenneur; which I wonder could have been brought forward by him so confidently.

[159] The Testament which is read inserted in Flodoard's History of Reims as though it were St. Remigius's the testament of St. Remigius is praised, being not genuine. is invalid for proving that matter; since it is commonly rejected by all as fictitious or interpolated, nor are the words alleged from it had in the shorter Testament of the same holy Prelate, which is commonly believed to be genuine. Let us suppose, however, for a little, that the longer one also is genuine, and that its word of the same is to be referred to the Holy Spirit; assuredly that chrism could be called the chrism of the Holy Spirit because it was the same chrism by whose anointing Remigius signed Clovis in the Sacrament of Confirmation with the gift of the sevenfold Spirit, as is premised. This exposition is no less clear and simple than Le Tenneur's is obscure and merely fastened on the words adduced from the Testament; nor do I think that Le Tenneur would ever have suspected anything similar in them, had he not judged it would be to his advantage for defending Hincmar's narration. Moreover, even if a heavenly chrism were indicated by those words, it is not on that account necessary to interpret them of the sending of the ampulla of Reims such as it is related by Hincmar, as I now undertake to say.

[160] Mabillon, in volume 1 of the Benedictine Annals, at the year of Christ 533, Mabillon doubted whether the sacred chrism and oil, number 18, where, as has been said, he tried to lessen the argument sought from the silence of the ancient authors, judging with Marlot that it is not likely that Hincmar was so impudent or imprudent as to thrust a new and recently invented thing as an ancient and sacred thing upon so illustrious an assembly of learned men (at Metz); especially since he related it only in passing and without preface, as a thing known to all and doubtful to no one; Mabillon, I say, concluded thence in the same place: The sacred ampulla, therefore, was even then a thing most received and most explored, but its origin perhaps not so. To the reasons set out by him against the silence of the ancients and for Hincmar's credit I seem to have answered sufficiently; wherefore let us hear him discoursing about the origin of the ampulla. Not of one only (so he has it in the same place) but of two ampullas an ancient author makes mention, who wrote a little book on the life of St. Chrotildis the queen, where he says that, the chrism failing, when St. Remigius was about to baptize Chlodovech, TWO AMPULLAS FULL OF OIL AND CHRISM were let down from heaven, with which blessed Remigius anointed the king according to ecclesiastical custom.

[161] Whence this author received this is not ascertained by us; unless in this place he confused another miracle, obtained divinely by St. Remigius on another occasion, related by Hincmar in the Life of blessed Remigius. For Hincmar narrates that the holy Pontiff, when he was making a journey, was summoned by a certain sick man, of no ignoble condition, not yet baptized, to wash him with the sacred waters. But when the exorcized oil had almost failed, and the chrism entirely, in two ampullas brought by the presbyter of the place, he laid the empty ampullas upon the altar, and, prayer being poured out to God, they were presently found full. Which indeed Hincmar relates before the baptism of Chlodovech. Nor should you think this was invented by Hincmar. For this was recalled anciently, that is, a thousand years ago, in the Preface of the Mass of St. Remigius in the Gallican rite, as is established from a very old codex of the church of Reims, written eight hundred years ago, in which a certain compendium of the Life of blessed Remigius and certain miracles are related from the Preface which was anciently said at the Mass, as the title of that fragment shows, in which one finds written thus about the two ampullas: "But while chrism was being sought for baptizing a certain sick man, and nothing was found, he ordered the empty ampullas to be put upon the altar, so that he himself meanwhile might prostrate himself in prayer. Then with heavenly dew it is poured over by the blessing of chrism." You have the entire fragment in the Appendix of this volume.

[162] did not give Hincmar occasion of erring, I do not know whether the writer of the Life of St. Chrothildis just praised looked to these two ampullas: which if it is so, he has given us room to conjecture that Chlodovech was anointed from these ampullas. Further, whether that ampulla which Hincmar mentions was one of those two, and he referred its not sufficiently ascertained origin to the baptism of Chlodovech, I should not wish rashly to assert. But whether it was this or another, I cannot doubt of its truth. After these things Mabillon warns that it cannot stand in the way that no mention exists of those two ampullas in Fortunatus and Fredegarius: since the first professes that from the original Life he discourses of few things, passes over very many; and the authority of the other cannot be greater than that of Gregory of Tours, whose History he contracted into a compendium. At length Mabillon determines thus from all the premises: Since therefore these arguments effect nothing against the truth of the sacred ampulla, the most ancient tradition of the church of Reims, nay of the whole Gallican church, about it must retain its authority. Mabillon therefore judged that the sacred ampulla kept at Reims, from which the Most Christian kings even in these our times are wont to be anointed at their coronation, contains sacred chrism divinely received, and that Clovis also was anointed from it; but he doubted solely about the place, time and manner in which that same chrism was received, and whether the ampulla itself also is a heavenly gift.

[163] our Longueval agrees; Next to him comes our Jacques Longueval, but he speaks his mind more openly, in volume 2 of the History of the Gallican church, book 5, page 231 and following, where in the context itself, as I noted above, keeping deep silence about the ampulla sent at the time of the baptism, he added the following annotation in the lower margin of the page in the French language: St. Avitus of Vienne, Pope Anastasius, St. Nicetius of Trier, Gregory of Tours, etc., who treat of the baptism of Clovis, have not mentioned the miracle of the sacred ampulla, as neither has Fortunatus in the Life of St. Remigius, which silence of so many so grave authors has seemed to some critics an invincible argument, against which they judge that neither the tradition of the church of Reims nor the testimony of Hincmar can prevail. Here is for you what appears to me more certain in this matter. The old Mass of the miracles of St. Remigius teaches that this holy Bishop, when, as he wished to baptize a sick man, chrism was lacking for making the anointings, placed two little ampullas upon the altar, and that these were miraculously filled. Hincmar narrates the same miracle. It is credible that Clovis was anointed with the same miraculous chrism sent from heaven. So it will be true that he was anointed with chrism sent from heaven; nor will it be a wonder that the praised authors, when they treated of his baptism, did not mention that miracle; namely because it had not happened on this occasion. This is enough to approve the tradition so glorious to our kings and to the church of Reims. Thus far Longueval, but in French words.

[164] which opinion appears not improbable, And so it is altogether: in this manner the argument from the silence of the ancients, which militated against the ampulla of Reims, will cease; and at the same time a likely reason will be assigned which gave occasion and beginning to the story of the same ampulla, which Hincmar is known first of all to have published. The argument from silence, I say, will cease: for what wonder, if those of the praised writers who only gave letters of congratulation to King Clovis on the baptism he had received, or only made mention of the same baptism, did not record a miracle which had not happened at the baptism; or if others were silent, who had undertaken to write not the Life of St. Remigius but the history of the Franks; or if finally Fortunatus passed it over, who professed that he had omitted very many of his miracles? It is altogether otherwise in the former case; because, since that miracle would have pertained not only to the glory of St. Remigius but also to that of Clovis and of the whole nation of the Franks, and would have been done at the very baptism of the king, there appears no likely reason for which it would have been passed over by all the aforesaid. Besides, since it was held from tradition that Clovis was anointed by Remigius at his baptism with chrism received from heaven, and that the ampulla which the rest of that chrism

contained was religiously kept in the church of Reims, and the true origin of the same ampulla was not sufficiently known, Hincmar, or whoever went before him, could without difficulty have opined that it was divinely brought at the very baptism of the king.

[165] It remains that we observe something about the Life of St. Chrotechildis just praised by Mabillon. but a certain biographer of St. Chrotechildis does not help it at all. He himself published it from a manuscript codex of St.-Germain-des-Prés among the Acts of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, Century 1, from page 98, and in it, at number 7, one may in fact read thus: And when the chrism had been lacking, by the will of God the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove, carrying two ampullas full of oil and chrism, which blessed Remigius devoutly received, and anointed the king according to ecclesiastical custom, and called him Lucdovicus, as it were Praiseworthy man. Our Henschenius had seen it, and had it from elsewhere from manuscript codices, when he illustrated the acts of St. Chrothildis at the III day of June, but because he had found that it was written some centuries after the death of the Saint, he preferred, omitting it, to put together another from the History of St. Gregory of Tours. That it is at least later than Charlemagne is proved by the mention made in it of emperors of the Romans from the stock of Clovis. In Mabillon, at number 2, it is said: For God, foreknowing the future, had foreseen that from Crothildis a royal seed would be born, and that by their offspring [] the empire of the Romans and the Franks would be governed. And in the last number there is treatment of the burial of the same St. Chrothildis, mother of the emperors of the Romans, and parent of the kings of the Franks.* Hence determine, first, that the anonymous author of this Life can be of no or slight weight: secondly, that the royal anointing of Clovis was probably unknown to him: thirdly, that he was not sufficiently informed about the ampulla of Reims, since he numbers two brought, instead of one, at the baptism of the same king.

[] otherwise about to reign*

§ X. Letters of congratulation of St. Avitus of Vienne and of Pope Anastasius II to Clovis: St. Remigius consoles him by letter on the death of his sister; by another he gives him salutary admonitions: the kindness of the same king towards churchmen.

St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, by a letter The conversion of the king and nation of the Franks to the Christian rites affected all Catholics, as was fitting, with great joy, most of all the presidents of the churches. Of these Anastasius II, supreme Roman Pontiff, and saint Alcimus Avitus, bishop of Vienne under Gundobad, the Arian king of the Burgundians, gave letters of congratulation, witnesses of their joy, to Clovis. The letter of Avitus, who seems to have written first, our Henschenius has already recited in the deeds of the same Saint at the V day of February; since, however, I have often praised it in this Commentary, and referred the reader to it, I shall reprint it here, as it exists more correct among the Works of Jacques Sirmond, volume 2, column 56 and the two following.

Avitus, bishop of Vienne, to King Chlodovech.

The followers of whatever schisms, by their opinions, various in view, diverse in multitude, empty of truth, seemed to veil the sharpness of your subtlety with the overshadowing of the Christian name. But while we commit our states to eternity, while we reserve for the future examination what each rightly thinks, even in present things the ray of truth shining through has flashed forth. For divine providence has found for our time a certain arbiter. While you choose for yourself, you judge for all; your faith is our victory.

[167] he congratulates Clovis on baptism received on the Nativity of the Lord: Very many are wont in this same cause, if they are admonished to believe for the seeking of health, either by the exhortation of priests or by the suggestion of any companions, to oppose the custom of their race and the rite of paternal observance. So, preferring a shame harmful to salvation, while they keep a useless reverence to their parents in the custody of unbelief, they confess that they in some way do not know what to choose. Let, then, harmful shame depart from this excuse after the miracle of such a deed. Content with nobility alone out of the whole pedigree of your ancient origin, you have wished that whatever can adorn the whole summit of generosity should rise up for your lineage from you. You have authors of good things; you have wished to be of better: you answer your ancestors in that you reign in the world, you instruct your posterity in that you reign in heaven. Let Greece then rejoice indeed that she has a prince of our Law; but no longer as one who alone deserves to be illustrated by the gift of so great a boon, since its own brightness is not lacking to the rest of the world too. Since in the Western parts also, in a king not new, the light of a new radiance flashes forth. Whose splendour the Nativity of our Redeemer fittingly began; so that it might appear that you were consequently regenerated from the water for salvation on that day on which the world received the Lord of heaven born for its redemption.

[168] he praises the king, and, promising victories, Therefore let the day which is the renowned birthday of the Lord be yours also: that on which, namely, you were born to Christ, on which Christ was born to the world; on which you consecrated your soul to God, your life to those present, your fame to posterity. What now shall be said of the most glorious solemnity itself of your regeneration? to whose ministries, although I did not come bodily, yet I was not absent from the communion of joys. Since the divine piety added this also of congratulation to our regions, that before your baptism the messenger of your most sublime humility came to us. Whence after this expectation the sacred night found us already secure concerning you. For we were conferring, and treating among ourselves, what kind of thing that would be, when by the hand of an assembled number of pontiffs, in the holy ambition of service, the royal limbs would be cherished in the life-giving waters; when the head to be feared by the nations would bend itself to the servants of God; when under the helmet he would clothe the hair grown long with the saving helmet of sacred anointing; when, the covering of the breastplates set aside, the spotless limbs would shine with like whiteness. That softness of garments, most flourishing of kings, will cause, if you believe anything, will cause, I say, that the rigour of arms will henceforth avail you more, and whatever felicity has provided hitherto, sanctity will add from now.

[169] I should wish indeed to join to your praises something of exhortation, [he exhorts him to strive to propagate the Christian faith among the pagan nations;] if anything escaped either your knowledge or your observance. Shall we preach faith to the perfect, which before perfection you saw without a preacher? Or perhaps humility, which you have long since paid to us in devotion, who only now owe it by profession? Or mercy, which a captive people, lately loosed [] by you, makes known to the world by joys, to God by tears? One thing therefore which we should wish increased: That, since God will make your nation wholly his through you, you should hold out from the good treasure of your heart the seeds of faith to the further nations also, which, set still in natural ignorance, no germs of perverse dogmas have corrupted: and let it not shame nor irk you, even by embassies directed to the matter, to build up the part of God, who has so raised up yours. So that the external peoples of the pagans also, about to serve you first for the empire of religion, while they still seem to have a property of their own over against others, may rather distinguish a nation than a prince. Let no country therefore claim for itself as a special seat those whom you raise by every grade of honours. It is established that you are that by which all things enjoy in common the one radiance of the sun. Neighbouring things indeed rejoice more in the light, but more remote things do not lack its brightness.*

[170] Wherefore shine perpetually, on those present by your diadem, he praises his mercy, and sends back an illustrious captive. on those absent by your majesty. The successes of the happy triumphs which that region wages through you all celebrate together. Felicity touches us also: as often as you fight there, we conquer. Amid these things, however, the care of showing mercy preserves in you the affection of the Catholic religion; and on the summit, which holds the helm of all affairs, sanctity is no less eminent than power. From which it certainly came about that you commanded by princely oracle that the son of your servant, the illustrious man Laurentius, should be directed to you. Which I suggest I have obtained from my lord, the king indeed of his own nation, but your soldier. For there is nothing in which he cannot serve. He commends the one sent; I rejoiced with the one sent, I envied him who is to see you. For whom it is to be reckoned less for his benefit to be restored to his own parent than to be presented to the father of all. Thus far the letter of St. Avitus from Sirmond's recension; on which consult certain things annotated by Henschenius in the Preliminary Commentary on the Life of the same holy bishop, volume 1 of February, page 263.

[171] In the same year 496, towards the end of which we believe the baptism of Clovis took place, Pope Anastasius II also congratulates him, Anastasius II was raised to the supreme Roman Pontificate, in the month of September according to our Papebroch, according to others in the month of November. He too, having heard so happy news, whether from fame or, which is more likely, from letters of St. Remigius or even of King Clovis himself from Gaul, sent a letter to the same king by Eumerius the presbyter, which Luc d'Achery first of all published in print in volume 5 of the Spicilegium, of the first edition, page 582, whence also it was brought by Labbe into his Collection of the Councils, and received by the learned as genuine. In the praised d'Achery it is recorded thus.

To the glorious and illustrious son Cludoechus, Anastasius the bishop.

We rejoice, glorious son, that your coming into the Christian faith has coincided with our beginning in the Pontificate. For the See of Peter cannot but rejoice at so great an occasion, when it beholds the fullness of the nations running together to it with swift step, and the net being filled through the spaces of the times, which the same fisher of men and blessed key-bearer of the heavenly Jerusalem was commanded to cast into the deep.

[172] and, commending to him the Church of God, prays for victories. Which we have wished to make known to your serenity by Eumerius the presbyter, that, when you have heard of the joy of your father, you may grow in good works, fill up our joy, and be our crown, and that mother Church may rejoice at the progress of so great a king, whom she has lately brought forth to God. Gladden therefore, glorious and illustrious son, your mother, and be to her as an iron pillar. For the charity of many grows cold, and by the cunning of evil men our little ship is tossed by fierce waves, and battered by foaming billows. But we hope in hope against hope, and praise the Lord, who has rescued you from the power of darkness, and in so great a prince has provided for the Church one who can protect her, and put on the helmet of salvation against the oncoming attempts of the pestilent. Go on therefore, beloved and glorious son, that God almighty may accompany your serenity and your kingdom with heavenly protection, and may command his angels to guard you in all your ways, and give you victory round about over your enemies. The deplorable state of the Catholic Church of that time I have already set out in §7; which, the more miserable it was, the more welcome certainly must the conversion to Christ of the Franks have been to Pope Anastasius, from whom, as a greater disaster to the Church in the Gauls had been to be feared, so now a greater hope of salvation shone forth. It is credible that letters were given on this matter to St. Remigius also, which we do not have.

[173] St. Remigius consoles the same king by letter In Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column 1268 and following, there exists one letter of St. Remigius himself to Clovis, which we believe pertains to this time, that is, to the beginning of the year 497, the winter not yet ended,

and it treats of the death of Albofledis, the sister of Clovis. From this letter we learn that Albofledis was not only brought to the Christian faith by the holy Prelate together with the king her brother, and baptized, but was also consecrated to God as a virgin. Yet that she did not survive long St. Gregory of Tours writes in the History, book 2, chapter 31, where, reciting the beginning of the praised letter, he says these things: His sister Albofledis also was baptized, who not long after passed to the Lord: for whom, since the king was grieved, St. Remigius sent him a letter of consolation, which took its beginning in this manner: "The cause of your sadness pains me, and pains me greatly, that your sister of good memory, Albofledis, has passed away. But on this matter we can be consoled, because she has so departed from this world that she ought rather to be looked up to than mourned." These things and no more Gregory; for which reason receive the whole letter from the praised Labbe.

[174] To the lord illustrious in merits, King Clodoveus [], Remigius the bishop. on the death of his sister Albofledis, The cause of your sadness pains me, and pains me greatly, that your sister of glorious memory, Albofledis [], has passed away. But we can be consoled, because she has so departed from this light that she ought rather to be looked up to [] in remembrance than mourned. For she was of such a life that she may be believed to have been taken up by the Lord, who, chosen by God, has passed to heaven. She lives for your faith; although she has been received from the sight [] of your longing, Christ has fulfilled that she should receive the blessing of virginity; she who has been consecrated is not to be mourned, who is fragrant [] in the sight of the Lord with the virgin flower; with which, namely, the crown is also covered, which she received for her virginity. Far be it that she should be mourned by the faithful, who merited to be the good odour of Christ, so that through him whom she pleases she can confer help on those who ask. My lord, drive sadness from thy heart: your mind being duly composed, govern the kingdom more wisely, taking up more lofty counsels with the zeal of serenity. With a glad heart strengthen your limbs; the torpor of grief being shaken off, you will watch more keenly for salvation. There remains for you a kingdom to be administered and, with God as guide, to be cared for. You are the head of peoples, and you sustain the government. Let not those who are accustomed to see happy things through thee see thee affected with bitterness in mourning.*

[175] Be thou thyself the consoler of thy soul, holding the vigour of that inborn providence, who had been baptized with him, and had consecrated her virginity to God. lest sadness withdraw brightness from thy mind. At the present passing of her who has been joined to the virgin choirs, the King, as I believe, rejoices in heaven. Saluting your glory [], I commend my intimate, the presbyter Maccolus, whom I have sent. I beg that you may have it of such worth [] as to pardon that I, who owed you a meeting, have presumed to send words of exhortation. Yet if you command through the bearer of these that I should go, despising the harshness of winter, neglecting the cold, trampling on the labour of the journey, I will strive, the Lord helping, to come to you. Ruinart also exhibits the same letter in the Appendix of the Works of St. Gregory of Tours, column 1326, from which I have annotated some discrepant little words in the margin. Whether, however, it is altogether pure in either place, the passage from Gregory of Tours just adduced makes me doubt, in which its beginning exists a little otherwise. For the rest, it seems to be referred to the year 497 by no other argument than that Albofledis is said by St. Gregory to have died not long after the baptism she received, and that it is established from the letter itself that it was written in winter time.

[176] I add here also another letter of the same holy Prelate, In another letter he gives the same king salutary admonitions, given at another time and on another occasion, in which, namely, he gave salutary precepts to the same king, either when he was about to go to war, or rather after a certain victory won by him. This exists published thus by Jacques Sirmond in volume 1 of the Councils of Gaul, page 175:

To the lord distinguished and magnificent in merits, King Chlodovech, Remigius the bishop.

A great rumour has come to us that you have undertaken a second administration of warfare. It is not new that you have begun to be as your parents always were. This is to be done first of all, that the judgment of the Lord may not waver [] from thee, where of thy merit, which through the industry of thy humility has reached the summit of height: because, as is commonly said, By the end the act of a man is proved. Thou oughtest to take to thyself counsellors who can adorn thy fame. And thy benefice ought to be chaste and honest; and thou wilt have to show honour to thy priests, and always recur to their counsels. And if thou shalt agree well with them, thy province can stand the better. Raise up thy citizens, relieve the afflicted, cherish widows, nourish orphans [], if rather than thou shalt instruct, that all may love and fear thee.

[177] while he was in readiness for the Gothic war, Let justice proceed from your mouth: let nothing be hoped for from the poor or strangers, lest thou shouldst wish rather gifts, or to receive anything. Let thy praetorium be open to all, that no one may go away from it sad. Whatever paternal riches thou possessest, from them thou shalt free captives and release them from the yoke of servitude. If anyone comes into your sight, let him not feel that he is a stranger. Jest with the young, deal with the old, if thou wishest to reign [] to be judged noble. Two places in this letter, which I have marked with an asterisk, are certainly faulty; but they are read in the same manner also in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column 1402, and in Ruinart in the Appendix to the Works of St. Gregory of Tours, column 1326 and following. The former place will give an entire sense if for where of thy merit, etc. one reads and from thy army, which through the industry of thy humility has reached the summit of height. The second place is perhaps to be restored thus: So rather shalt thou instruct them, that all may love and fear thee. Now as regards the occasion and time of the writing of the letter, Sirmond prefixed this title to it: Hortatory, when the king was girding himself for the Gothic war.* Labbe agreed in the Collection of the councils, Ruinart in the Annotations on the History of Gregory of Tours, and Longueval in the History of the Gallican church, in which therefore he reviewed the praised letter at the year 507.

[178] as it has seemed to some, These learned men seem to have gone into that opinion, first because in the very beginning of the letter Clovis is said then to have undertaken a second administration of warfare; interpreting it as the beginning or preparation of the war, and numbering it second perhaps from the Alamannic one. Secondly, because the same king can seem to have obeyed the admonitions given in this letter, when, about to move against the Visigoths, he prescribed to his army those commands for the immunity of ecclesiastical persons and things which he himself mentions in his letter to the bishops given after the Gothic war, and to be recited below. Although this opinion of theirs is not improbable, it appears more likely to me, however, that that same letter of St. Remigius was rather written after the same Gothic war. Those words placed in the beginning, A great rumour has come to us that you have undertaken a second administration of warfare, sound no less of a distinguished victory then won than of an imminent war. By the word second (secundam) understand prosperous; and then the obvious sense of this phrase will be: From a great rumour we have understood that the administration of warfare which thou undertookest has succeeded prosperously for thee.

[179] but perhaps written only about the end of the same war. With this exposition agrees what is subjoined: It is not new that you have begun to be as your parents always were, namely conquerors of enemies; and the admonition is added: This is to be done first of all, that the judgment of the Lord may not waver from thee, etc.; namely, lest the king and his army, elated by that new victory, should henceforth render themselves unworthy of the divine aids which the Christian humility of the same king had merited. The rest also of the same letter, in which besides no mention of war is made, contains precepts more opportune for a victorious prince, for justly administering a subdued province, than for one about to wage war. Finally, this letter of Remigius could equally have given occasion to the letters of Clovis directed to the bishops after the Gothic war, if it was given after, as if before, the same war. I do not deny, however, that the things which Clovis, about to proceed against the Goths, most religiously sanctioned for the immunity of the churches proceeded from the counsels of Remigius; for this is most likely from the pastoral care of the same holy Archprelate, and from the singular authority by which he prevailed with him. But this does not hinder that he wrote these things also after the victory won, and tacitly admonished him to stand by his promises; because, as he says in the same place, as is commonly said, By the end the act of a man is proved.

[180] However that may be, Clovis, Alaric, king of the Visigoths, having been slain, The precepts of the same king for ecclesiastical immunity and the whole of Aquitaine having been gained, extended his kingdom to the Pyrenean mountains. Then, that he might stand by his promises, he gave letters to all the bishops of the recently subdued region, which it has seemed good to reprint here from Sirmond's edition, because the sentiments most worthy of a Christian prince which they contain are without doubt the fruits of the instruction received from Remigius, and the religion of so great a disciple is the glory of so great a Master.

To the lords holy and most worthy of the apostolic see, the bishops, King Chlothovech.

Fame announcing it, what was done or commanded to all our army before we entered the country of the Goths could not escape your beatitude. First of all, concerning the ministry of all the churches, we commanded that no one should attempt to steal anything, neither concerning the holy nuns, nor concerning the widows who are proved to be devoted in the religion of the Lord. On a like condition also concerning the clerics, or the sons of the aforesaid, both of clerics and of widows, who were seen to dwell with them in their house: the same also was commanded to be observed concerning the serfs of the churches, whom, taken from the churches, it shall be established through the oaths of the bishops, that none of them should suffer any violence or damage.

[181] Which is to be acknowledged so entirely that, if any of these aforesaid had suffered the force of captivity, given on the occasion of this war, probably from the counsel of Remigius. whether in the church or outside the church, we command that they are altogether to be restored without any delay. Concerning the other lay captives, indeed, who were taken captive outside the peace, and shall have been approved, apostolic letters [] to whom you will of your judgment [*] is not to be denied. For concerning those, both clerics and laymen, who shall have been carried off within our peace, if you truly acknowledge it, let him direct to us in every way your letters sealed below with your ring, and you will know that the precept issued on our part is to be confirmed. Yet our people ask thus, that to whomever you shall have deigned to grant your letters, you will not delay to say with an oath by God and your blessing that that thing which is asked is true: because the varieties and falsities of many have been found; that it may be comprehended, as it is written: The just perishes

with the wicked. Pray for me, holy lords and popes most worthy of the apostolic see. Thus far King Clovis in the praised letter.

[] or loosed?*

[] otherwise Chlodoveus*

[] otherwise Albochledis*

[] or looked up to?*

[] otherwise from the sight*

[] otherwise is ablaze*

[] otherwise and* is added

[] otherwise so great*

[] that is, ruler*

[] that is, apostolic letters*

[] add to give*

§ XI. What is to be judged of the vicariate or primacy of St. Remigius: his other deeds for the conversion of the Franks are obscure: some also for converting the Arians: the I council of Orléans, celebrated perhaps at his persuasion.

The letter of Pope St. Hormisdas, attributed by Hincmar, Hincmar in the Life, number 96, immediately after the Gothic war, makes mention of dignities conferred on King Clovis by the emperor Anastasius, and on the holy Prelate by the Roman Pontiff. The first, which can be read there, he had learned from St. Gregory of Tours, as I shall show in the Annotations. The other, for which I know no witness older than Hincmar, is to be discussed here. In the place cited he has it thus: But also Ormisda, Pontiff of the Roman See, committed his vices in the kingdom of Ludovic, lately converted with his whole nation to the faith through his holy preaching, the Lord working with him and confirming the word with signs following, to St. Remigius, bishop of the ancient metropolis, which at that time had under it twelve cities and as many bishops presiding over them, in this manner: "To his most beloved brother Remigius, Ormisda," etc. Then follows the entire letter, which begins thus: Receiving the discourses of your fraternity full of congratulation, etc. The same exists in the Collection of the Councils by Labbe, volume 4, column 1420, where this title is read prefixed by the editor by way of compendium: Letter I of Pope Hormisdas to St. Remigius, bishop of Reims. After receiving letters of congratulation from him, he delegates to him, on account of the splendid excellence of his merits and the prerogative of a most noble see, the vicarial prefecture of the Apostolic See in Gaul.

[183] in which the primacy in the whole kingdom of Clovis The praised Hincmar cited the same in more than one place in his writings against his nephew by his sister, Hincmar, bishop of Laon, in order to show the primacy of his see. It will help to have given some texts from the edition of Jacques Sirmond, which I use. In volume 2 of the Works, chapter 10, page 419, he speaks thus: Blessed Hormisda, committing to St. Remigius the vices of the Apostolic See, wrote thus among other things, etc. In Chapter 16, page 435, he presses Hincmar of Laon thus: Nevertheless, whether you will or no, the holy Pope Hormisda will show you that he is primate of this province who is ordained bishop in the see of blessed Remigius at the metropolis of the Remi. For he says in the letter directed to him, etc. He subjoins the entire letter, which likewise he recites whole in chapter XI of the Opuscule which he wrote to the bishops on the right of metropolitans; and again in chapter 19 he says confidently: Finally in the kingdom of Clovis, lately converted with his whole nation to the faith through the holy preaching of blessed Remigius, the Lord working with him and confirming the word with signs following, blessed Hormisda committed his vices to the same St. Remigius, bishop of the ancient metropolis of Durocortorum of the Remi … through the Belgic and certain Gallican provinces, that he might bring back to their due state the churches of God which the Franks, while still pagans, had laid waste and burned, plundering everything, and whatever things had been done amiss, the privilege of the church of Arles remaining in the provinces anciently delegated to it.

[184] Finally Flodoard twice mentions the same Pontifical letter as written by St. Hormisdas; is given to St. Remigius, cannot be of the same Hormisdas, once in book 1, chapter 15, treating of St. Remigius; then in book 4, chapter 1, on Fulco, the next successor of Hincmar, by whom he asserts that it was alleged in letters sent to Stephen VI, supreme Pontiff, for the commendation of his see. Further, this letter published under the name of St. Hormisdas has not been received in the same manner by the learned moderns; because the Pontiff in it speaks of King Clovis as then still living. For in Hincmar, from whom we have it, its writer speaks thus: Our vices therefore through the whole kingdom of our beloved and spiritual son Ludovic, whom you have lately … converted to the faith with his whole nation … we commit by present authority. Cardinal Baronius, and others who with him, after Sigebert of Gembloux, believed that Clovis survived among the living after the year 514, in whose month of July St. Hormisdas succeeded St. Symmachus in the Pontificate, did not hesitate on Hincmar's credit to acknowledge that letter as Hormisdas's genuine one. On the contrary, of those who more rightly determined that the death of the same king cannot be deferred beyond the year 511, some hold it as fictitious, or, those who judge more mildly, think that it was wrongly inscribed with the name of Hormisdas.

[185] This only is certain, that Clovis, when Hormisdas was entering on the Pontificate, but it is perhaps of Anastasius II had been dead at least a full two years and some months; so that it cannot be a letter of Hormisdas in which that king is reckoned among the living. To say that his death was not known to the Pontiff when he was writing the space of time elapsed since it does not permit, and much less still the letters which that Hormisdas indicates in the very beginning had been sent to him by Remigius after he had entered on the Pontificate. For this cause perhaps Sirmond gave it no place in the Collection of the Councils of Gaul, and certainly both Papebroch in the Propylaeum of May, and Sollerius at the VI day of August on St. Hormisdas, and others, deservedly took it away from him. If it is really of some Pontiff, it must be either of Anastasius II or of St. Symmachus, with whose Pontificate the reign of Clovis from his baptism up to his death coincides. For Anastasius tells that he, in the letters recited in §10, congratulated Clovis recently baptized, and commended to him the protection of the Church of God, and on that occasion can seem to have committed his vices to Remigius, that he might order everything with greater authority among the nation recently converted by him, and complete the work happily begun.

[186] On the contrary, since Hincmar puts the same letter after the Gothic war, or rather of St. Symmachus. This error could have crept upon Hincmar its author is rather to be believed to be St. Symmachus, who held the supreme Pontificate from the year of Christ 498 until 514. In this opinion, which Le Cointe held in the Annales Francorum at the year 508, number 57 and following, the difficulty objected vanishes; and that letter can be referred to the beginning of the see of Symmachus: for the writer in it immediately mentions letters of congratulation, say on the Pontificate received, given to him by Remigius, and at that time the conversion of the Franks was very recent, which in the same letter is said to have been lately made by Remigius. That Hincmar, however, must consequently be said to have erred in the name of the Pontiff in all the places alleged is more tolerable and fairer than that he should be believed to have fabricated the same letter from head to heel, and to have impudently thrust it, to assert the glories of his see, upon Hincmar of Lyons and the other bishops of the province of Reims, not without manifest danger to his name. Nor indeed is a likely reason lacking by which he could have been led into this error.

[187] from the Liber Pontificalis and Anastasius the Librarian, The old catalogue of the Roman Pontiffs, published by our Henschenius in the preliminary Diatribe to volume 1 of April, page XXXVI, under Hormisdas has these things: At the same time there came a golden crown with most precious gems, a gift from the king of the Franks. This passage the author of the Liber Pontificalis interpreted thus: At the same time there came a royal gift with precious gems from the king of the Franks, Chlodovech the Christian, to blessed Peter the Apostle. Anastasius the Librarian transferred the same into the Lives of the Pontiffs, saying under the same St. Hormisdas: At the same time there came a regnum (that is, a royal crown) with precious gems from the king of the Franks, Chlodovech the Christian, a gift to blessed Peter the Apostle. From the time of the death of Clovis and the beginning of the Pontificate of Hormisdas it is clear that the name of Clovis was unskilfully added in both the latter places; and that in the older Catalogue of the Pontiffs by the king of the Franks one of the four sons of Clovis, Theodoric, Chlodomer, Childebert or Chlothar, among whom the paternal kingdom was divided, is designated with the name unspoken; or at least that that gift belongs to the time of the see of Anastasius II or Symmachus.

[188] where one reads that Clovis sent a golden crown to Hormisdas. However that may be, the assertion of the Liber Pontificalis, or of the Librarian, with whom he lived at the same time, lighted the way for Hincmar as he wrote and pleased him, and he added in this matter also its merit to St. Remigius. For presently at number 99 of the Life, after the often-mentioned letter, he continued in this manner: In the time of the Pontificate of this St. Ormisda the often-spoken-of glorious king Ludovic sent to blessed Peter, Remigius suggesting it, a golden crown with gems, which is wont to be called a Regnum. Nay more, that you may the less doubt whence he drew these things, he added: This blessed Pope Ormisda sent to Constantinople to the emperor Justin, on an embassy, Germanus, bishop of Capua: which embassy of St. Germanus is also read in the praised Liber Pontificalis and the Lives of the Pontiffs in the Librarian, and was related here by Hincmar from one or the other, out of order and place, as is evident. Let us suppose now that Hincmar found some copy, or even the autograph, of this disputed letter in the archives of his church, but with the name of the Pontiff so worn away that it could not be read; could he not easily, writing almost three and a half centuries after, and by no means accurate in chronological matters, have thought that it was of Hormisdas, to whom he had read in the cited places, and believed, that the above-said crown had been sent as a gift by Clovis?

[189] This primacy is otherwise sufficiently likely, For the rest, the vicariate or primacy itself then granted to St. Remigius seems sufficiently likely from the state of affairs in the Gauls at that time. For since the churches which the Franks, while still pagans, had reduced into their power had been despoiled in a wretched manner, and ecclesiastical discipline, as is wont to happen in such tumults of wars and in a new dominion of gentiles, had without doubt suffered not a little, it was fitting that after their conversion a certain peculiar power and authority should be committed by the Apostolic See to some prelate who could prudently and worthily order all things which seemed to pertain to restoring afflicted religion, and to confirming and promoting it in a nation recently converted to Christ with its king. And to whom would the Pontiff rather have committed this care than to the Apostle of the same nation, who both held a noble see, and flourished above the rest in the praise of wisdom, sanctity and miracles, and was of such authority with the king as the greatness of the business required, that it might obtain a happy outcome?

[190] Gaul had indeed its primate, St. Caesarius, bishop of Arles, especially if it was such as it is explained by some; to whom St. Symmachus also confirmed this dignity in the year 513;

but since the city of Arles obeyed the Arian Goths, he could not discharge his office sufficiently freely in the kingdom of Clovis, a Catholic king, and hostile to the Arian Goths. But also in the letter of which we are treating the primacy is granted to Remigius with this clause, the privileges being saved which antiquity decreed for metropolitans; by which words it is expressly provided that nothing should be taken away hence from the right of Arles, as Hincmar, reported at number 183, already observed, saying: The privilege of the church of Arles remaining in the churches anciently delegated to it. Moreover, if the primacy of Remigius was only personal, that is, given to Remigius alone, not to be transmitted to his successors, and if Symmachus added to the primacy of Arles, diminished by the temporary vicariate of Remigius, whatever Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, held in Gaul and Spain in his own name or in that of his grandson Amalaric, as Le Cointe, at the year 508, number 62, and at the year 533, number 59, and Thomassin in the Old and New Discipline of the Church, volume 1, part 1, book 1, chapter 30, judged; sufficient provision was made for the primacy of the church of Arles, which was only for a time restricted, for just causes, as regards the dominions of King Clovis, and had received increase from elsewhere.

[191] It is not sufficiently established how widely that primacy of Reims extended itself. and it was extended variously for varying times. In the Pontifical letter it is said to have been granted through the whole kingdom of Ludovic; by Hincmar, however, in the place just premised, in the kingdom of Ludovic … through the Belgic and certain Gallican provinces. By the Belgic understand both Belgicas, and the Germanias, which ancient Belgica embraced; by the Gallican, however, Celtic Gaul or Lugdunensis, part of which also obeyed Clovis. But just as he extended his kingdom at successive times through these provinces, so, according to the varying time at which the vicarial prefecture was committed to St. Remigius, this could have been more or less widely extended. He who wishes more on this subject, let him go to the praised Le Cointe and Thomassin; and to the letter itself in the Life to be published from number 96. Let us now proceed to set out the other deeds of St. Remigius. It cannot be doubted that he applied himself diligently and happily to bringing the rest of the nation of the Franks from idols to Christ, although we almost do not know his particular deeds, and Fortunatus is silent about them.

[192] In the Preface of the Gallican Mass, already frequently praised, the apostolic strength of the Man is celebrated on the occasion of the converted king in these words: St. Remigius applies himself to converting the rest of the nation, This is he, O Lord, whose tongue could not keep silent justice for thy cause, since in thy preaching he neither feared the purples of kings, nor shrank from the want of all things in sowing thy words. That most ferocious prince, held back by the error of gentilism, proves this, when, converted by his preaching to the divine worship, leaving the idols, he becomes a perfect Christian. Somewhat more, but only in a confused manner, Hincmar handed down, continuing thus in the Life, number 66, after narrating the baptism of the king and of many nobles. Many, finally, of the army of the Franks, not yet converted to the faith, lived for some time beyond the river Somme with the king's kinsman Raganarius, until, the grace of Christ co-operating, King Ludovic, having gained glorious victories, killed the same Raganarius, who was given over to shameful crimes, handed over to him in chains by the Franks, and obtained that the whole people of the Franks should be converted to the faith and baptized through blessed Remigius. Of Raganarius conquered and killed by Clovis consult St. Gregory of Tours, book 2 of the History, chapter 42, where he is called Ragnachar, and is said to have been king at Cambrai, which is an old city of Gaul in Belgica Secunda, situated beyond the river Sumna or Somona, in French la Somme.

[193] Clovis extending his kingdom, Ragnachar, moreover, on the testimony of the same holy historian, was so unbridled in lust that he scarcely spared even his near kinswomen: wherefore it is no wonder if a prince of so foul a lust spurned the Christian laws, and was a refuge to the Franks obstinate in paganism. Le Cointe thought his slaughter happened in the year of Christ 510, but did not prove it, and it could easily have happened a few years earlier. There was also killed then Richar, the brother of Ragnachar, and by that means the cities of Cambrai and Arras came into the power of Clovis. The praised writer of Tours had premised in the same place, chapters 40 and 41, that the same Clovis also gained the kingdom of Sigibert, king of Cologne, or of his son Chloderic, and also the dominions of Chararic (whom Malbrancq, book 2, chapter 38, names king of the Morini); and at length in chapter 42 he subjoins: And many other kings having been killed, or his first kinsmen, of whom he was jealous lest they should take the kingdom from him, he extended his kingdom through the whole Gauls: for Alaric also, king of the Visigoths, as was said above, he conquered and killed, and thence extended his dominion to the Pyrenean mountains.

[194] and helping him much, Further, as the kingdom of the Franks was extended, so likewise was the field for sowing the faith for the holy Prelate, a Christian and thoroughly Catholic monarch favouring him, whose individual deeds, although he could not approve them, he nevertheless used for the zeal of increasing the divine worship. If we believe Sigebert of Gembloux, the praised king also promoted the apostolic labours of the Man by an edict: for so he has it in the Chronicle at the year 499, of Le Mire's edition: King Ludowic … baptized by Remigius, bishop of the Remi, by his example and edict brings the people of the Franks to the faith of Christ. But whether Sigebert learned this edict from an older writer, or first praised it from conjecture, Clovis is said by Remigius himself, in the letter to the three bishops Heraclius, Leo and Theodosius, to be recited below, to have been not only the preacher of the Catholic faith, but its defender. As regards St. Remigius himself, interpret the words of Hincmar so that he is said, by converting the king, to have paved the way for the conversion of the whole nation of the Franks, and partly by counsels suggested to the same king, partly by his own work, partly also by that of other apostolic men, to have pressed it on strenuously and prosperously: for so great a thing could not be accomplished in a short time; nor did the greatness of the business and the extent of the lands allow that he alone should suffice.

[195] he shines with miracles, destroys idols. That he used miracles for these ends both the ordinary providence of God itself makes most likely, and, besides Fortunatus and Hincmar in the Lives to be published, the old author of the Conference held at Lyons, while Remigius was living, by Catholic bishops with the Arians expressly teaches, who left to posterity that brief indeed but plainly illustrious testimony on this matter: Everywhere he destroyed the altars of the idols, and powerfully amplified the true faith with a multitude of signs. In the letter also which wrongly bears the name of St. Hormisdas, Roman Pontiff, but which from what has been said may be of either Anastasius II or St. Symmachus, one reads: that Remigius converted Clodoveus, heavenly grace aiding, with his whole nation, very many miracles of signs, comparable to the times of the Apostles, accompanying the saving preaching. But these things said generally, besides a great esteem of the apostolic Man, only kindle a greater desire of knowing his particular deeds, knowledge of which has not come down to us.

[196] There was in the Gauls another pest of souls also, the Arian heresy, making an Arian bishop dumb, he converts him in a synod, which the neighbouring kings of the Visigoths and Burgundians professed with their people. That the teachers of this sect set foot even in the very court of the Franks is evident from Lanthechildis, the king's sister, whom we have seen above abjured their errors at her brother's baptism. The king having been baptized, and Lanthechildis having professed with him the Catholic faith of the most holy Trinity, there was without doubt no place for the Arians at court; but they had not on that account departed from the whole kingdom. What contests, however, the holy Prelate had with them, whether before or after, the ancients have not handed down, except one, in which he is narrated to have made an arrogant assertor of the same heresy dumb in a synod of bishops by his mere presence, and presently, when he was penitent and by nods promised better things, his faculty of speaking being restored, to have admitted him to favour. Hincmar relates the thing more fully in the Life, number 101 and following, and from him Flodoard, book 1, chapter 16, and it is read also in the Preface of the Gallican Mass already often praised, whose words I shall recite in the Annotations on the before-cited place of the Life.

[197] Of this synod, of which no memory is had from elsewhere, whose place and time are plainly obscure, no other acts exist, and obscure are the time, the place, the cause of its being assembled, and the bishops who took part in it. Cardinal Baronius, in volume 6 of the Annals, placed it at the year of Christ 514, and thought that it was convoked at Reims by St. Remigius after he had received from the Roman Pontiff the vicarial power in the kingdom of the Franks, that he might see to the elimination of the Arian heresy from the regions which the Goths had before possessed. But this opinion of the most learned annalist is not sufficiently likely from the circumstances of the same synod, such as they are related by Hincmar, than whom we have no older writer for it, unless perhaps the aforementioned Preface of the Gallican Mass is older. Let us hear him, then, beginning the narration. When at length (he says) the bishops of the provinces of Gaul and Belgica came together to a synod for the cause of the faith, they asked blessed Remigius, most learned in every way and most erudite in the holy Scriptures, and practised in ecclesiastical dogmas, to come to the same council. Flodoard agrees, beginning likewise thus in book 1, chapter 16: The prelates of Gaul once coming together to a synod for the sake of the faith, asked blessed Remigius, as a man most learned in the divine oracles and most practised in ecclesiastical doctrines, to come to the same council.

[198] Remigius therefore had not convoked this synod, but was invited to it by the Fathers of it, assembled elsewhere, because they cannot be certainly dug out from Hincmar, perhaps even outside the province of Reims, not on account of a Pontifical vicariate, but on account of the exceptional endowments in which he excelled. Guillaume Le Bègue, in Colvenere in the Scholia on Flodoard, opined that these things happened in the I council of Orléans, which is believed to have been held in the year 511: which opinion becomes even less likely from this, that among the bishops subscribed to that of Orléans Remigius does not appear, so that he seems to have been then prevented from being present by ill health or some other cause unknown to us; and that both Hincmar and Flodoard distinguish the synod of Orléans from that one, since they put that of Orléans (although wrongly) before the Gothic war, but mention the other first after the death of Clovis. For this cause perhaps Longueval, in volume 2 of the History of the Gallican church, placed the same about the year 512, since the king had died in the preceding year; while Le Cointe and Baillet judged that it could be placed even five years later.

[199] from whom that synod became known. It cannot, however, be concluded with sufficient probability from this that that synod was later than the death of the praised king; since Hincmar, in the Preface to the Life, number 8, warns the reader that he could not relate the individual things in the order in which they happened, and Flodoard, after he had narrated the king's death in chapter 15, began chapter 16 thus: The prelates of Gaul ONCE coming together to a synod for the sake of the faith, etc.; where by the word once, which no less to preceding

than to the years following the death of the same king can be referred, he left the time on both sides to be divined. Indeed Marlot, in volume 1 of the Metropolis Remensis, book 2, chapter 8, dissenting far from them, believed that this synod was celebrated not only before the death, but even before the baptism of Clovis; because it seemed to him by no means credible that, after the public confession of the eternal Trinity made by him, and after the Arian heresy had been abjured by Lanthechildis, anyone dared to defend it publicly in the dominions of the same king. But this reason too is weak. For let us suppose for a little that this synod was assembled, Clovis being already dead, or even while he was alive, in order to treat of bringing back to the Church the Arians living in the recently subdued kingdom of the Visigoths, or elsewhere under the rule of the Franks; what would be so much to be wondered at if one of them had been found who undertook to defend the cause of his party, and the fathers of the synod permitted him access that he might be publicly convicted? Finally, not to detain the reader in vain with more, I have read nothing hitherto alleged from which one may fix the time of this synod, which seems to have been unknown, equally with the place, to Hincmar, who perhaps first of all mentioned it.

[200] He seems also to have been the author of the conference at Lyons, It is likely that St. Remigius also laboured to exterminate the same heresy from the neighbouring regions too. From what has been said above, the Arian Burgundians ruled on the Rhône and the Saône, whose king Gundobad, although he himself also was entangled in the same errors, suffered Catholic prelates in his kingdom, and was not much estranged from the true faith, which he would even at one time have embraced, had not fear of his nation stood in the way. St. Remigius therefore, as far as appears, brought it about that the Catholic bishops who had their sees among them should ask leave of Gundobad to dispute publicly about the faith with the Arians in his presence. He assenting, a disputation of this kind was held in the city of Lyons, a compendium of which d'Achery first published in his Spicilegium, volume 5, from page 110 of the first edition, and from him Labbe in volume 4 of the Councils from column 1318, in both places under this title: Conference of the bishops, especially of Avitus of Vienne, in the presence of Gundebald, against the Arians. It begins thus: The Lord providing for his Church, and inspiring for the salvation of the whole nation the heart of the lord Remigius, who everywhere destroyed the altars of the idols, and powerfully amplified the true faith with a multitude of signs, it came about that several bishops, the king not gainsaying, were assembled, if it could be done that the Arians, who were rending the Christian religion, might be able to return to unity.

[201] held by the Catholics with the Arians in the presence of the king, These words can be taken in a twofold sense: first so that the prelates, roused by the example alone of St. Remigius converting the pagan Franks, are said to have attempted the conversion of the Arian Burgundians; in which manner Fleury interpreted them, volume 7 of the Ecclesiastical History, page 110. Secondly so that the same bishops did it at the exhortation or suggestion of Remigius; as Longueval took the same in the History of the Gallican church, volume 2, page 247, whose interpretation appears to me much more likely. For since the writer of the Conference says that, the Lord … inspiring for the salvation of the whole nation the heart of the lord Remigius, … it came about that several bishops, the king not gainsaying, were assembled, etc., to what purpose should we believe that by the whole nation the Franks alone and those subject to the Franks are designated; not likewise the Burgundians, for whose salvation that conference of Lyons is said to have been held, the Lord inspiring the heart of the lord Remigius; or why should we think that St. Remigius procured that matter only by the example of his zeal, and as it were unknowingly, to which the writer of the Conference asserted he was divinely roused? To me indeed he seems here to have recorded those splendid deeds of Remigius among the Franks solely in order to teach how great a Man he was by whose labour that conference of Lyons was held.

[202] It is not the business of this place to set out what was done in it, in which many Arians were converted, about the year 499. since it pertains chiefly to St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, who had the first part in it; I only add that the outcome of the twofold meeting was that, the Arians at the arguments of the Catholics first keeping silent, then madly vociferating, King Gundobad recognized the truth indeed, but did not embrace it; many others, however, of the Arians followed it once recognized. For, as is read at the end in the same place, from that day very many Arians came to penance, and after some days were baptized: and the Lord magnified our faith through the intercession of the lord Justus in the sight of all. Justus, of whom it is here spoken, is the holy bishop of Lyons, whose body was then kept in the same city, and whose illustrated Acts you have with us at the 2nd day of September. Unless for baptized one should read chrismated, there must have been a particular reason for baptizing these Arians, since from what was said in §7 the Arians were wont to be admitted into the Church through the anointing of chrism and the imposition of hands. For the rest, these things are believed to have happened about the year 499, at which time Clovis was planning the Burgundian war; because Gundobad is read in the same place to have answered the bishops commending the Catholic dogma: If your faith is true, why do your bishops not hinder the king of the Franks, who has declared war on me?… For there is no faith where there is covetousness of another's goods, etc.

[203] To the solicitude of the same holy Archprelate of Reims Hincmar and Flodoard also ascribe the celebration of the first council of Orléans; To his counsels is also ascribed the synod of Orléans but both at the wrong time. The former, in the Life to be published, number 92, says of Clovis, as then standing in readiness for the Gothic war: Then … by the counsel of blessed Remigius he convoked a synod of bishops in the city of Orléans, in which assembly many useful things were established. The other speaks even more clearly, book 1, chapter 15, saying: A synod having been held in the city of Orléans by the counsel of his holy patron Remigius, going against the Arian king Alaric, and receiving the blessing of blessed Remigius, he is rendered secure of obtaining the victory. This war was waged in the year 507, in which therefore, as the latest, the council of Orléans also would have been celebrated in the opinion of both; which opinion also pleased Baronius. But others better defer it up to the year 511, especially after Sirmond, in volume 1 of the Councils of Gaul, published its Acts from various codices, in which the consulate of Felix, which belongs to this year, was read ascribed, and that is now the most received opinion.

[204] celebrated in the year 511 at the command of Clovis, That it was convoked at the command of Clovis is clear both from the Preface prefixed to the Acts, and from the letter of the assembled fathers given to the same king, which in the volume cited, page 177, has it thus: To their lord, son of the Catholic Church, the most glorious King Chlothovech, all the priests whom you commanded to come to the council. Since so great a care of glorious faith rouses you to the cultivation of the Catholic religion that with the affection of a priestly mind you commanded the priests to be gathered into one to treat of necessary matters, according to the consultation of your will and the titles which you gave, we have answered by definition those things which seemed good to us, so that, if the things which we have established are also approved as right by your judgment, the consent of so great a king and lord may confirm with greater authority the sentence of so many priests, to be kept. The canons, which were framed in this council to the number of thirty-two, can be read there; here it will suffice to have noted that the tenth treats of heretical clerics who shall have come to the Catholic faith with full faith and will; or of the basilicas which the Goths in their perversity have hitherto held: from which it becomes manifest that the same synod was celebrated not before but after the Gothic war. This very thing the subscriptions of the bishops who had before been subject to Alaric also prove.

[205] at which, however, the Saint does not seem to have been present. But I wonder that among the prelates subscribed, thirty-three in number, the name of Remigius is not found; from which one may suspect that he could not then be present on account of bodily infirmity or another grave cause, and therefore perhaps had no other part in the same synod than that he was the author to Clovis of convoking it, and suggested to him the heads of matters to be treated by the fathers, and approved by his vote these things when sanctioned and, as we have seen, sent to the king, and brought it about that they were held ratified also by the royal consent: for there were among them certain things for ecclesiastical immunity which could not be put into execution without that consent. Clovis did not live long after these things, having died, according to the more common opinion, on the XXVII day of November of the year 511, in whose month of July, on the X day, the aforesaid synod had been held.

§ XII. The bishopric of Laon erected and founded by St. Remigius: other sees in Belgium restored, bishops being given them.

With the diminution of his own diocese Another care of the holy Metropolitan was, in the cities subject to his see, to substitute worthy prelates in the place of the dead, or even to erect new sees. The metropolis of Reims had anciently had, and then had, in its province eleven episcopal cities, on the testimony of Hincmar in Letter or Opuscule 44, chapter 19, volume 2 of his Works by Sirmond, where he enumerated them thus: Of Soissons, of Châlons, of the Vermandois, of Arras, of Cambrai, of Tournai, of Senlis, of Beauvais, of Amiens, of the Morini, that is, of Ponthieu, of Boulogne. Of the number and names of the cities it is established; not so whether they all each had their episcopal sees before the times of Remigius; but certainly they did not each have their several bishops under the same St. Remigius, as the same Hincmar in the Life to be given, number 96, too liberally asserted. To the ancient ones Remigius added a new one, namely that of Laon, which he erected with the diminution of his own diocese, and endowed with possessions given to him as gifts by King Clovis and the chief men of the Franks; bearing that loss gladly, provided he profited his flock, and proved to the neophytes that he was desirous not of their riches but of their salvation; as Hincmar teaches in the Life, number 66 and following.

[207] Flodoard, as usual, agrees, writing thus in book 1, chapter 14: he erects the bishopric of Laon, The king, therefore, and the powerful men of the Franks conferred very many possessions on blessed Remigius through divers provinces; with which he endowed [] both the church of Reims and some others. And no small part of the same goods he handed over to the church of St. Mary of Laudunum Clavatum, a castle of the diocese of Reims, where he had been brought up; and there he ordained as bishop Genebaudus, a man noble in the flesh, and learned in both sacred and secular letters, who, leaving his wife, the niece (as is handed down) of St. Remigius, had undertaken the religious life, and subjected the diocese of the county of Laon to the same castle. Almost the same things about the erection of this bishopric Hincmar handed down in his Opuscules, and by name in Letter 16 to Hincmar of Laon, addressing him thus: See, brother, that the province anciently subject to the metropolis of the Remi is certain; which metropolis had eleven cities under it, even before blessed Remigius, by the authority of the African*

council, ordained a bishop in the little castle in which you too were ordained a suffragan of your metropolis.

[208] Again after some things he continues thus: But also for many years in the time of the same blessed Remigius, and endows it with goods given to him by the king and nobles who, as the truthful Histories of our people show, spending LXXIV years and more in the episcopate, and renowned for many virtues, already in his old age ordained a bishop there, and sufficiently endowed the same bishopric with ecclesiastical goods (since according to the sacred rules whatever goods and slaves a bishop acquires in the order of the episcopate are held ecclesiastical, as are those which belonged to the church before). I omit more, because the matter is certain, and acknowledged by the people of Laon themselves; and I shall observe only a few things on Hincmar's sayings. To the younger Hincmar, with whom he had grave quarrels, he invidiously throws up the lowliness of his see of Laon, as being the last of the twelve sees subject to the metropolis of Reims, and erected in a little castle of the diocese of Reims, and founded from the goods of the same church; and, lest St. Remigius should seem to have done this against the canons, he warns that it was done by him by the authority of the African council.

[209] By this name he seems to have indicated the African council called the II, given to him, towards the end of the fifth century in whose chapter 5, in Labbe, volume 2, column 1160, without mention of cities or castles, it was established that dioceses which have never received bishops should not have them; and that diocese which at some time had one should have its own. And if, time advancing and faith growing, the people of God, multiplied, shall have desired to have its own ruler, namely by the will of him in whose power the diocese is set, it may have a bishop. This is the very case of which we are treating: for both the people of God had been vehemently multiplied there through the accession of the Franks to Christ, and Laon was of the diocese of Reims, set in the power of St. Remigius. Perhaps here also he used his vicarial power, if he had already then received it from the Roman Pontiff. Another thing to be observed pertains to the time; namely that the bishopric of Laon, on Hincmar's testimony, was erected by Remigius in his old age, after he had already ruled the metropolis of Reims for many years; which is congruous with the Life, in which that matter is placed after the baptism of Clovis, conferred, as I have said, in the year 496, and is said to have been done from the donations of the same king and of the neophyte Franks.

[210] or at the beginning of the sixth; and in it he created as first bishop Sigebert of Gembloux in the Chronicle recorded the same at the year 500, Le Cointe at 497; for no other cause, I think, than that the latter had tied the baptism of the king to the year 496, the former to the year 499, and both believed that the same took place immediately after his baptism. Not much different from these is Longueval, who records the foundation of the same bishopric at the year 499. He observes, however, that the cities of Boulogne and Arras are said by Hincmar to have had bishops before Laon, and that hence it can be believed either that SS. Antimundus and Vedastus were not the first bishops of those two sees, or that that of Laon was constituted by St. Remigius several years later; he observes, I say, that this can be believed, unless Hincmar were suspect in this place, writing against Hincmar of Laon, his nephew by his sister, with whom he was at law, and whose see therefore he tried to depress as much as he could. Of Antimundus and saint Vedastus I shall presently treat; and because certain credit cannot be had in Hincmar here, I judge with the praised writers that the beginning of the bishopric of Laon can be determined not very long after the baptism of Clovis; yet I do not see why it cannot also be placed a few years later, and in the VI century already begun.

[211] St. Genebaudus: he gives the people of Arras St. Vedastus as bishop, The deplorable fall of Genebaudus, whom St. Remigius constituted first bishop in that see, with his former wife, doubtless vehemently saddened the holy Old man, most of all on account of the stumbling-block which that thing could create in a nation lately converted; but the severe penance undergone by him for seven years, and his sanctity, on account of which he merited to be restored to his see, also consoled him very greatly, and he is venerated on the V day of September, at which his Acts have been given by us, from the Life of St. Remigius by Hincmar, which I shall print. Further, among the cities suffragan to the metropolis of Reims we have seen above numbered Arras, a very old city of Belgica Secunda in the present county of Artois, of which it is the head. It remained subject to the same metropolis until the year 1559, in which Paul IV, supreme Pontiff, made its see suffragan to the church of Cambrai, raised to archiepiscopal dignity. As the first bishop of theirs whom they certainly know, the people of Arras acknowledge St. Vedastus, given to them by Remigius; and since Hincmar has nothing about this in the Life, some things must be said here.

[212] whom, commended to him by King Clovis, he had kept with himself, In §6 of this Commentary I narrated from the Lives of the same St. Vedastus, namely the shorter one and the other, longer one, corrected by Alcuin, that this Saint, then not yet bishop, was taken as catechist by King Clovis when, returning victor from the Alamanni, he passed Toul, and was present at his baptism at Reims. What was done with him afterwards the author of the shorter Life goes on to set out thus: Proceeding thence (Clovis, after the sacred bath), returning victor to his homeland, he commended the already mentioned Vedastus to blessed Remigius. The same author subjoins that he remained with St. Remigius, and at that time was made illustrious by a miracle and resorted to by many on account of his sanctity and learning. And since his fame was now most celebrated in the aforesaid city of the Remi, and blessed Remigius strove to raise him with the honour of veneration, it was at length his counsel to make him pontiff of the city of Arras, that by teaching the nation of the Franks little by little and diligently admonishing them he might take care to draw them. Having then undertaken the burden of the pontifical chair, he came to the city of Arras. Alcuin set out the same a little more at length in the longer Life, which with that shorter one you have published in our Work at the VI day of February, on which St. Vedastus is venerated.

[213] Concerning the year of the ordination of St. Vedastus there are various opinions, and he endows his bishopric. some of which refer it, certainly later than is right, to after the death of Clovis; others to one or two years after the baptism of the same king. But Henschenius, on account of the things which are read about the stay and deeds of St. Vedastus with Remigius, preferred to believe that he was initiated into the episcopate in about the sixth year after Clovis was washed in the sacred font; which in the chronology which I follow would fall in the year 502. In what state he then found the Christian religion at Arras can be conjectured from this, that in the before-praised Lives he is said to have found the church in which he might perform sacred rites laid waste by Attila in the middle of the V century, and then, among pagan inhabitants, covered with foul squalor and briars. It is most likely that St. Remigius, by whom he had been ordained and sent here, came to his aid from his own riches which he had received from the Franks, both for raising up the sacred places and for founding the bishopric. This certainly Pope Urban II hints, when, about the end of the XI century, restoring to the city of Arras (which, as the praised Pontiff speaks, obtained Vedastus as bishop through blessed Remigius) its own bishop, he confirmed whatever … blessed Remigius conferred on the aforesaid church. See the Pontifical letters in d'Achery's Spicilegium, volume 3, page 123.

[214] The people of Cambrai also in Belgium, whose city Cameracum, To the same Saint he also committed the church of Cambrai, commonly Cambrai, situated on the river Scheldt, acknowledged the metropolis of Reims until it itself was made archiepiscopal by Paul IV, as I have said, can produce from certain testimonies no bishop of their see before the same St. Vedastus, whom they gratefully relate was likewise received from St. Remigius of Reims. These things, however, are not to be so understood as if Vedastus was at some time translated from the see of Arras to that of Cambrai, but that he, having his see at Arras, preached also to the people of Cambrai, and bestowed the other episcopal cares, and as bishop governed their church together with that of Arras. Consult, if you please, the augmented Gallia Christiana under the bishops of both sees. Yet St. Vedastus did not preach at Cambrai, at least publicly, until some years after he had undertaken the bishopric of Arras: for Ragnachar would not have permitted it, a pagan man and a favourer of the heathen Franks and a prince of unbridled lust, who reigned in that city until in the year 510, as Le Cointe judged, or perhaps a little earlier, he was conquered and killed by King Clovis, as was said in the preceding § from St. Gregory of Tours.

[215] But Ragnachar having been killed and the people of Cambrai reduced into the power of Clovis, which he ruled together with that of Arras after the killing of Ragnachar. Vedastus had the freest faculty of preaching among them; and (what Hincmar asserts) Clovis, the Christian king, obtained that the whole, that is partly the remaining, people of the Franks should be converted to the faith and baptized through blessed Remigius, and the apostolic men sent by him. In this sense, but in no other, Baldric, in the Chronicle of Cambrai and Arras, book 1, chapter 4, acknowledges Remigius as apostle of both cities, saying: For we have never heard that St. Remigius preached the word of God to the people in our parts; but we have learned that blessed Vedastus was directed by him and by the newly baptized king to this our city (of Cambrai) to convert the nation; wherefore we believe him the author of the business. Finally our Henschenius, in the Preliminary Commentary on the Lives of St. Vedastus at the VI day of February, §2, likewise admits that the church of Cambrai could then have been commended to him by St. Remigius; but at the same time observes that authors nearer to the age of both Saints are silent about this matter.

[216] [There are believed to have been ordained by St. Remigius also St. Eleutherius of Tournai, and St. Medard] Suffragan to the metropolis of Reims was also the city of Tournai, situated likewise in Belgium on the Scheldt, now since the year 1559 subject to the new archbishopric of Cambrai. Its first three bishops, of whom memory exists, Theodore, St. Eleutherius and saint Medard (for St. Piatus was indeed apostle of the people of Tournai, and a presbyter, but not a bishop), flourished at the same time as St. Remigius among the people of Reims, and are believed, in the opinion of some, to have been ordained by him. Of Theodore an obscure memory exists, nor is the opinion of various writers the same about the cause of his death. Clearer are the deeds of St. Eleutherius, illustrated in the Preliminary Commentary at the XX day of February by Henschenius, who there, in the Annotations on chapter 1 of the 1st Life, letter n, observed that Buzelin writes without testimony of the ancients that he was consecrated bishop by St. Remigius. Yet the time of the life of both, and the reasoning sought from metropolitan right, favour it. St. Medard was first bishop of the Vermandois, then, his see being translated, of Noyon, and finally also at the same time successor of St. Eleutherius in the bishopric of Tournai, as can be seen more fully in our Work at the VIII day of June, where Papebroch illustrated the deeds of the same St. Medard.

[217] [of the Vermandois, then of Noyon, and finally at the same time bishop of Tournai.] In the same place, page 90, in the Annotations at letter b, from a certain third Life, more recent than the others, one reads that the head of this consecration (for the see of the Vermandois) was St. Remigius, archbishop of the Remi, who, anointing blessed Medard with the oil of sanctification, set him as pastor over the flock of Christ, the Holy Spirit co-operating. This consecration Papebroch fixed about the year 530, and Le Cointe agrees. Concerning his taking up besides the government of the church of Tournai, the anonymous writer, whom he himself believed to have written at the end of the XI century or the beginning of the XII, says these things in the other Life, page 90, numbers 18 and 19: At length, overcome by the pontifical authority, namely of the metropolitan and of his comprovincials, and by the assent of the king and nobles … he (St. Medard) scarcely yielded, and by unanimous, that is, pontifical and royal authority made those two churches one; the excellent pastor … at length undertook both folds (of Noyon and Tournai) in the time of Pope Hormisdas, under the most holy Remigius, archbishop of the Remi, … and kindly granted that the honour of a cathedral should always remain to each church. So indeed that anonymous writer, but one whom Papebroch here, and Henschenius on St. Eleutherius, §2, noted to labour under a chronological error.

[218] as also St. Alpinus of Châlons; but Antimundus and Athalbert Their reason is that they tied the death of St. Eleutherius to the year 531, and that of Remigius to the year 530, and it was established that St. Hormisdas had already ceased to live from the year 523; so that therefore Medard could not have been substituted by St. Remigius into the see of the deceased Eleutherius; much less could he have administered the same see in the time of the Pontificate of Hormisdas. Concerning Hormisdas this is certain; otherwise concerning Remigius, who I said in §4 could have lived up to the year 532. I would not, however, take an argument for extending the life of St. Remigius up to this year from this Life of St. Medard, whose author in the same place committed so manifest an error in naming St. Hormisdas. Greater probability stands for ascribing to St. Remigius the ordination of St. Alpinus, bishop of Châlons in the province of Reims, concerning which matter the Preliminary Commentary on the Life of the same Saint given in our Work at the VII day of September can be consulted. Also lacking sufficiently ancient testimony is what some, after Matthieu Desprets and Malbrancq, have handed down about a bishopric of the Morini instituted by St. Remigius, and held by Antimundus or Aumundus, and then by Athalbert, ordained by the same holy Archprelate.

[219] This question has already been examined at the IX day of September on St. Audomarus, §3, were more probably not bishops of the Morini, and it was shown there that this episcopate of Antimundus and Athalbert is little likely, and that, if they laboured in the conversion of the Morini, yet they were more probably not bishops. And indeed, as the reasons alleged there leave their episcopate little probable, so from elsewhere it becomes sufficiently likely that either both, or one of them, was sent by St. Remigius to preach to the Morini. Chararic, who is believed to have been king of the Morini, St. Gregory of Tours also, book 2 of the History, chapter 41, makes a king, and signifies that at least towards the end of his life he was a Christian, when he writes in the same place: Chlodovech, indignant, went against him, and, having circumvented him with wiles, took him with his son, and, having bound them, tonsured them: and he orders Chararic to be ordained a presbyter, and his son a deacon. Then he narrates that the same son gave his father hope of recovering the kingdom, and subjoins: But he (Clovis, hearing this) ordered them likewise to be beheaded. They being dead, he acquired their kingdom with the treasures and the people. Fredegarius in the Epitome, chapter 27, called Chararic both a king and a kinsman of Clovis.

[220] These things being posited, it appears very likely to me that Chararic, yet they could have been sent by Remigius to preach to them. after he saw his kinsman King Clovis had embraced the Christian rites, asked him for a catechist, and that there was sent by St. Remigius the presbyter Antimundus, who at that time is said to have led the solitary life in the territory of the city of Reims. To him Athalbert, likewise initiated only into the presbyterate, could have been given as companion, or afterwards added or substituted. Perhaps also both were first sent by Remigius after Clovis had reduced the Morini into his power: yet that at least the sending of one of the two seems rather to have happened while Chararic was reigning is favoured by what I have just observed from St. Gregory of Tours about the Christian faith received by the same king. Further, from this labour bestowed on the Morini both could, some centuries after, when the memory of both was already very obscure, have begun to be believed bishops of the Morini. At least in this manner, the arguments which militate against their episcopate standing, a probable reason is given whence that opinion could have been born among the Morini.

[221] Gilles, monk of Orval, in the additions to Heriger on the Deeds of the pontiffs of Tongres and Maastricht, chapter 30, affirms that saint Agricola also was given as bishop to the people of Maastricht, after a long vacancy of the see of Tongres, by St. Remigius and other prelates in the I council of Orléans, in these words: Nor was St. Agricola of Maastricht ordained by him. At that time, I say, by the aforesaid Blessed Remigius, namely, and King Clovis and the other bishops and magnates of the Gauls, the first synod was celebrated at Orléans concerning the restoration of the kingdom and of the churches. There the whole clergy and the religious of monks grieved over the overthrow of the city of Tongres, nor did anyone presume to undertake the episcopal name there since Servatius had withdrawn from it, driven out. It was agreed therefore to a worthier grade of churches; and the man of venerable life Agricola, to cultivate the Lord's field, is chosen, consecrated prelate, directed to have his see at Maastricht beside the great-souled Servatius, etc. But these are trifles of Gilles, which our Bolland solidly refuted at the V day of February on St. Agricola, proving that this Saint died at the beginning of the V century, that is, before St. Remigius was born, and that saint Falco, who was the eighth bishop of Maastricht from the same Agricola, sat under Clovis when already a Christian; which will become manifest from what is to be said below about the quarrel that arose between the same Falco and Remigius.

[222] Perhaps from his counsel Aquilinus was established in the see of Cologne. Uncertain also is what Le Cointe, at the year 509, number 2, affirmed about Aquilinus being established in the vacant see of Cologne from the counsel of the same St. Remigius, in these words: Cologne, however, which since the death of St. Evergislus had laboured under a long interregnum of pontiffs, as soon as it came into the power of Clovis, received Aquilinus, or, as Démochares writes from Irenicus, Solinus, as bishop; for, by the counsel of blessed Remigius, the most pious king omitted nothing, so that, churches being built and pontiffs sent, he might repair the damages which heresies and the worship of idols had long before brought into the Gauls. So he affirmatively; but since he produces no testimony of the ancients, I greatly doubt whether he was supported here by any other argument than that it is likely that Clovis, having gained the kingdom of Cologne through the killing of Sigibert and of his son Chloderic, at the admonition of St. Remigius took care that a bishop should be given to the vacant see of Cologne. But about the time of the see of Aquilinus others do not agree. The brothers of Sainte-Marthe believed that he sat about the year 455, whom Denis de Sainte-Marthe also seems to have followed in his Gallia Christiana, volume 3, column 624, where he also places his successor Simoneus about the year 500, then Domitian, who he observes subscribed the council of Auvergne in the year 535.

[] otherwise enriched*

§ XIII. St. Remigius restrains with a sharp letter St. Falco, bishop of Maastricht, who was injuring the rights of the church of Reims: he defends his deeds in the cause of the presbyter Claudius against three bishops of Gaul.

When St. Falco, bishop of Maastricht, Such is the state of human affairs that even among holy and gentle men, and for the rest most patient of injuries, quarrels sometimes arise, especially when the matter concerns defending the rights of the churches of which they have undertaken the care, or administering ecclesiastical discipline more mildly or more severely. That this happened in St. Remigius also we understand from two letters of his which have come down to our times. His first quarrel was with St. Falco, bishop of Tongres or Maastricht on the Meuse in Belgium, whose little-known deeds Bolland mentioned in a few words at the XX day of February, on which he is venerated together with St. Eucherius, his predecessor and, as is believed, his own brother. The praised Bolland indicated in the same place that the beginning of the episcopate of Falco seems to be placed about the year 495, his death about 512, and rightly set out the said controversy thus at number 6: As regards the deeds of St. Falco, we have found nothing either, except the letter of St. Remigius to him, in which he sharply indeed reproves him because he had usurped jurisdiction for himself in the church of Mouzon against the rights of the church of Reims.

[224] We said at IX February, on the Life of St. Victor the martyr, in the church of Mouzon, which belonged to that of Reims, that Mosomagum, or Mosomum, is situated on the river Meuse and in the diocese of Reims; but on the borders of Trier and Liège. There St. Falco, at the beginning of his episcopate, while he was visiting the neighbouring places of his bishopric (ignorant perhaps that the place did not pertain to him, or thinking that, in a great necessity of the peoples, such as there was elsewhere too in Belgium in the turbulent beginnings of the Frankish domination, it was lawful to sow even in another's field what would turn to the profit of the common Lord), had ordained presbyters and other ministers of the Church; about which St. Remigius expostulates thus. Since Bolland gave only certain excerpts from this letter of Remigius, I reprint it here entire from volume 1 of the Councils of Gaul by Sirmond, page 205 and following.

To the lord truly holy, and most blessed in Christ, brother Falco the bishop, Remigius the bishop.

As far as I have learned, I have proved by the things done that it was the care of your beatitude sooner to inflict an injury on me than to bring me a greeting. O fitting beginning, which you have made, that you as a bishop should injure me before I should see you as a bishop.

[225] Too soon have you flown out on tender little wings, had ordered everything as though it were his own, St. Remigius, by a letter, by levity of mind, not by the counsel of maturity. For in the very beginning of your episcopate you try to enter another's right, who still ought modestly to have entered your own. Was it right, then, that you believed the church of the place of Mouzon was to be occupied by you with your unlawful ordinations, which the metropolitans of the city of the Remi, with the help of Christ, have always ruled by their own ordination? You do not yet, I think, know your own things, and already you invade another's. In which, therefore, when you have made Levites, consecrated presbyters, instituted archdeacons, the primicerius of the most illustrious school and militia of the readers; I do not complain that you did not see me for counsel in these matters; would that you had seen yourself! For if your sanctity did not know the canons, it was very precipitate that you should transgress before you learned. But if you knew the statutes of the churches, so much the more gravely and dangerously has your folly trampled on the decrees of the ancient and magnificent pontiffs. Beware, you who presume on another's things, lest you lose what you seem to have.

[226] *Since the rights of the ordination made are not established, by what counsel especially of the priestly office

will you defend your apprenticeships, he sharply reproves him, and, permitting him to preach to the people of Mouzon, if you mix obstinacy or impotence with the committed fault of rash transgression? It will be of greater peril that an ancient sanction has been violated than it is praise to stand in the place against the canons which you created. But what shall I say of the orders of those whom it was not lawful to be promoted by your beatitude? That is more, that if we discuss according to the statutes and severity of our forefathers, your episcopate will come into doubt no less than their status. The Lord in the Gospel says to Peter: "Simon son of John, lovest thou me?" And Peter: "Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee." To whom twice and thrice it is enjoined by the Lord under this answer: "Feed my sheep." I, because, being in every way unskilled, I cannot feed the sheep of Christ with the abundance of heavenly nourishment, admonish you, who are learned in sacred learning, to feed those which have been handed over to me at Christ's command, I forbid you to invade them. Act always so that worthy things may accompany you. Serve the Church which by divine dispensation you have merited to preside over, and watch as a solicitous pastor for the salvation of the Lord's flock.

[227] he admonishes him to abstain from jurisdiction and from exacting revenues, Would that those things were at the disposal of my mediocrity which in the name of the Lord I desire you to have! But because mine are lacking, or the services of the Saviour have been entrusted to me, I do not seek to be saved by a hireling. John in the Apocalypse indeed comprehends [] seven angels of his, and writes to each church. The merits, then, which are made for those set over them: what things are proved to need correction, he chastises. Since therefore under the name of angel the form of pontifical action is handed down, I grieve over the boldness of your presumption, that you, a new man, change old rights, you, rash, cautious ones, you, earthly, divine ones. Let them hear us, let them hear us, the priests whom you shall have chosen: let your priests themselves hear us. I trust that the sentence of the Creator will be pronounced by those who judge, not for you but against you. For who, for the uprightness of his sense, would not disapprove that he has broken out against the rule of the Church who ought to have guarded the rule of the Church? You command, as I hear, that the tributes of the tenants be brought to you, and you order that the revenues of the fields be delivered. It is given to be understood that you have coveted the property of the church, not the church; since as a solicitous exactor you demand what I, to whom it came by right, have remitted rather than sought.*

[228] and announces that those ordained by him there have been removed by himself. I would not have it hidden from you that the Levites and presbyters whom you made against order have already been removed from their order. For I considered that those whom it had not been lawful to be ordained by you it did not befit to be admitted by me. Alas! how much you have repelled me from the purpose of cherishing you, while you prefer to act amiss rather than to keep the bonds of brotherhood. For I had wished that you had remained a cleric; because you had been made a priest by force. But if this care does not touch your mind, I nevertheless profess out of sincerity that it pains my soul no less that you have inexcusably erred than that I have been despised. Thus far the letter of St. Remigius, in which some phrases occur obscure or mutilated, perhaps to be attributed to the fault of an old copyist; for they are read in the same manner as published by Labbe in volume 4 of the Councils. For the rest, if this letter seems to anyone somewhat too sharp, let him remember that the holy Archbishop here defended from his office not so much his own cause as the rights of his see, not a little injured, and the ecclesiastical canons, against which Falco had certainly not lightly stumbled.

[229] An observation on Mouzon, which is today of the diocese of Reims. The sanctity of Falco, however, altogether persuades us to believe that he did these things either from ignorance or from imprudent zeal, or at least, so admonished, amended his errors: for nothing more about the same controversy is to be read anywhere else, and Mouzon afterwards remained in the bishopric of Reims, in which it is reckoned even today. Flodoard speaks of it in various places in the History of the church of Reims, by name book 4, chapter 13, of Hervé, who obtained the see of Reims in the year 900, writing thus: This pontiff fortified the castle of Mouzon with repaired walls, and restored anew the church there, which had been destroyed, and dedicated it in honour of the holy Mother of God, as it had formerly been, etc. That castle or town still survives, called in French Mouson, which in Baudrand in the Geographical Lexicon is called a city of Gaul in the province of Champagne, on the river Meuse, with an abbey, on the border of the duchy of Luxembourg, etc., and is said to have been formerly under the beneficial dominion of the archbishop of Reims. He who wishes more, let him go to the augmented Gallia Christiana, volume 9, column 258 and following, where he will also find the catalogue of the abbots of that place.

[230] Another controversy St. Remigius had with three bishops of Gaul, The Saint, on account of Claudius ordained presbyter, Heraclius, Leo and Theodosius, of whom the first seems to have been bishop of Paris, the third of Auxerre, both of whom are read subscribed to the I council of Orléans of the year 511; the middle one is believed to be of Sens. Of these likewise two obtained ecclesiastical cult by the sanctity of their life; namely St. Leo at XXII April, St. Theodosius at XVII July, at which days they are inscribed in the Roman and other Martyrologies, and they were briefly treated of in our Work. The cause of the dissension between these holy prelates was concerning ecclesiastical discipline, since those three praised bishops wished it observed severely without any regard had to the prince, while Remigius judged more mildly. King Clovis had commended to Remigius a certain Claudius, otherwise unknown to me, or, as the latter says, had commanded him to ordain him presbyter. The holy Prelate, even if perhaps he noticed here something less consonant with the sacred canons, yet thinking that this could be granted to so great a king, who, to use again the words of the same Saint, was not only the preacher of the Catholic faith, but its defender, initiated the commended Claudius into the order of the presbyterate; nor is any of the bishops read to have raised a suit against Remigius on account of this ordination while Clovis survived among the living.

[231] But, such being human frailty, that same Claudius, now a presbyter, and the same, after his fall, dealt with more indulgently, afterwards slipped into a grave crime; what it was is not known, but certainly it was of such a kind that according to the sacred canons he was to be removed from his office in perpetuity. But the pious Prelate, moved by mercy, and thinking it fair that, for the sake of the king, who had deserved very well of the Church, although then dead, one should act a little more indulgently with him, desired to admit him to penance with hope of restoration to the place from which he had fallen. But since the canons stood in the way, and most recently in the I council of Orléans this ninth canon had also been framed, If a deacon or presbyter shall have committed a capital crime, let him be driven out both from office and from communion, the holy Prelate had recourse by letters to his fellow-bishops, begging that, remitting something of the severity of discipline, they would allow Claudius to be subjected to penance with that hope. In which matter there is certainly nothing which could rightly be reproved in a holy and gentle Bishop.

[232] But it seemed far otherwise to those three bishops, Heraclius, Leo and Theodosius, he is unworthily addressed in letters by three bishops: who, inclined to severity, not only spurned the pious prayers of the Saint as coming from a feeble old man, calling him contemptuously a jubilee; but charged against him the ordination of Claudius made by him, the more confidently because King Clovis was dead, with whom Remigius had been in the highest veneration, and at whose request he had ordained Claudius. Nay, they even dared to command the Archprelate to inquire into a certain Celsus, who had trusted Claudius, as they said, where he was, and to restore the moneys taken from him; though the Saint knew nothing either about Celsus or about the things taken away. Remigius therefore, struck by so unexpected an answer, in which he saw his age and dignity held in contempt, wrote back a letter in which, rendering an account of his deeds, he at the same time sharply expostulated with them about the violation of Christian charity. It exists in Sirmond, volume 1 of the Councils of Gaul, page 204 and following, from whom I transfer it here entire, especially because this controversy is known solely from it.

[233] To the lords truly holy, and deservedly most blessed in Christ, brothers Heraclius, Leo and Theodosius, Remigius the bishop.

to whom he, answering, sets out the reason of his deed, Paul the apostle says in his epistle: "Charity never falleth away": which did not remain in your senses, that you should send such letters to me. For I poured out a simple prayer for Claudius, whom you write is not a presbyter, that you might display against me the indignation of your breast. I do not deny that he sinned gravely: but it would have become you to defer to my age, even if not to my merits. Be it said with the Divinity propitious, I have presided over the episcopal see fifty-three years, and no one has addressed me so insolently. You say it would have been better for you not to have been born. This would have been opportune for me, that I might not have heard the reproach of a transgressor. I made Claudius a presbyter, not corrupted by a reward, but at the testimony of the most excellent king, who was not only the preacher of the Catholic faith, but its defender. You write that what he commanded was not canonical. Do you discharge the supreme priesthood? The Prelate of regions, the guardian of the fatherland, the triumpher over nations enjoined it. You have broken out against me, moved with so much gall, that you have not deferred even to the author of your episcopate.

[234] he admonishes them about showing charity and mercy, I asked that Claudius, the perpetrator of sacrilege, should be kept for penance: for we read, we read, that the Ninevites escaped through penance the destruction foretold by heavenly announcement: that John, the forerunner of the Lord, preached in the Gospel that, the kingdom of heaven drawing near, the peoples should do it, lest they perish. In the Apocalypse it is written to the angels of the churches, by the precept of the Lord the Saviour, that the things which they had done less worthily they should correct by the satisfaction of penance. From the angry speech of your sanctity I understand that you do not have mercy on one who has fallen, after his ruin; but I see rather that you wish that he should not be converted that he may live, although the Lord has said: "I will not the death of the dying, but that he be converted and live." This it befits us to follow; not to pass over this will of the Lord, but to hold it: because he has set us not for anger but for the care of men, and to serve piety rather than fury.

[235] and he complains that he is unworthily treated by them. You set down in your letter that a certain Celsus, who trusted Claudius, whither he has been led away, and whether he lives or is dead, you do not know, and you command me to be the inquirer of him, and you do not know whether he is to be sought in the world or among the dead; and you wish his goods to be restored by me, which I did not know had been taken away. You command impossible things, that you may carry out impious ones. You write that I am a Jubilee in the number of my years, mocking rather than rejoicing out of love, to whom, the bond of charity being broken, you insincerely neither show forbearance nor deference. This letter is certainly very sharp, but it would probably appear milder if we likewise had the letters of these three prelates to which this was given as an answer. Meanwhile it is clear from this that to Remigius

in his aged breast vigour was not lacking, by which, undeservedly attacked, he might protect himself and the dignity which he sustained in the Church of God.

[236] This letter was written, Clovis being dead, about the year 512. From those words about King Clovis, who WAS not only the preacher of the Catholic faith, but its defender, all rightly gather that this letter was written by St. Remigius after the death of the same king: which is also confirmed from this, that it is not likely that his adversaries would have dared so to accuse the Saint while the king was living who had commanded the ordination. It is also the common opinion that this quarrel arose not long after the same death; which, since it is wont to be tied to the year 511, the same letter is also wont to be referred to the year 512; and that it should not be referred much later is persuaded by the added fifty-third year of the episcopate of Remigius; as may be gathered from the chronology established above. It is most likely that St. Remigius also gave letters for Claudius to other bishops of Gaul, and received from them, if not from all plainly favourable, at least much milder answers, although no memory of these exists, as neither does of the outcome of the cause. It is right, however, to believe that the praised three bishops, of whom I have observed two are venerated among the Saints, if they thought they must thenceforth persist in the severity of discipline, at least laid aside their bitterness against the venerable and holy Old man, and amended what they had humanly sinned.

[] perhaps seven churches* is lacking here

§ XIV. Some illustrious disciples of St. Remigius are reviewed: the things are examined which are said about a twofold church built by him at Reims.

Among the Saint's disciples, besides blessed Vedastus and Techildis, Flodoard, in book 1 of the History of Reims, chapter 23, under the title Of the disciples of the same blessed Remigius, reviewed various persons of both sexes and orders, not because he believed that all of them were his disciples in the strict sense of the name, but because they belonged in some way to his domestic household or intimacy, and profited much by his admonitions, as is sufficiently clear both from the chapter itself and from its beginning, which is such: There were, finally, in the times of this our most blessed Father in this city most illustrious men, and acceptable to God for their virtues, both of the clergy and of the lay order; as those who served so great, so venerable and most holy a Father, etc. He received them from the shorter testament of St. Remigius, in which there is named besides Attolus, a powerful man, and distinguished for munificence towards the poor. For which reason, since I am about to give the shorter testament below, I forbear from reviewing them here; but of Attolus I shall speak after some other disciples more distinguished for sanctity, who have become known either from the same Flodoard or from elsewhere. Among them certainly is to be numbered St. Vedastus, concerning whom see what was said above in §12. To be numbered likewise, it seems, is St. Techildis or Theodechildis, daughter of King Clovis I, virgin and foundress of the monastery of St.-Pierre-le-Vif at Sens, of whom our Papebroch treated in volume V of June, at the XXVII day.

[238] With stronger right a disciple of the same holy Archprelate was St. Theodoric, illustrious was St. Theodoric the abbot, whose elogium Flodoard wove in the same place, chapter 24, beginning thus: There stood forth also in these times of the most blessed Remigius the blessed man Theodoric, pious disciple of his kindly Master, whom he did not wish to be begotten of so high blood, who had decreed to ennoble him loftily in the generation of the just, etc. He was celebrated for sanctity and renowned for miracles, whom St. Remigius, having instructed him in his youth, and he being then bound against his will in marriage at the command of his parents, helped in persuading his bride to virginity, and, she consenting, set him over a new monastery erected on Mont d'Or; initiated him into the priesthood, and used his labour both in converting pagans and for healing the daughter of King Theodoric, whom this holy abbot, while he was going to her at the precept of his Master, raised when dead. You have his deeds illustrated by our Sollerius at the 1st day of July; yet it will help to have repeated here a few things which pertain besides to St. Remigius. That monastery exists even today, acknowledging the same two Saints as its chief authors, and retaining the name of saint Theodoric, in French Saint-Thierry, distant about three miles from the city of Reims, and it is of the Order of St. Benedict. The vicissitudes of the same place and the Catalogue of abbots are related by the writers of the augmented Gallia Christiana, volume 9, column 180 and following.

[239] by whose counsel St. Remigius overthrew a brothel, At the counsel of this holy abbot also St. Remigius is read in Flodoard, book 1, chapter 24, to have changed a dwelling of harlots into a pious community of widows, whose words I transcribe here. It is handed down that at the suggestion of this blessed man St. Remigius changed the gathering of harlots, which up to that time is said to have kept brothels outside the city, the vaults being overthrown, into a congregation of forty widows, and instituted the expenses necessary for daily food, and decreed that the same number of widows should remain perpetually, as it still remains. For when St. Remigius, visiting the monastery of St. Theodoric, was passing beside the brothel singing psalms with the same most dear disciple of his, and the voice stuck in St. Theodoric's throat, and again, namely on returning, the same happened in the same place (as is recorded) and verse; the most holy Father wondering, and asking why his disciple, skilled in the praises of God, had faltered against his custom; he learns that the blessed man grieved over the loss of lost souls, and that in the vicinity of so holy a Father such great gains of so foul a turpitude should grow for the devil.

[240] and in its place substituted and endowed houses and a community And so it was persuaded to the most pious Father, the most chaste disciple suggesting it, to overthrow the lurking-places of the devil, and to bring over the deceived and deceiving souls into the chastity of Christ. These things Flodoard, which are absent from the older Life, or rather from the panegyric Oration published in the first place by Sollerius; they are read, however, in the same place in the other Life, written by an anonymous writer after Flodoard's History, chapter 2, in which, after narrating the suggestion of St. Theodoric, the author continues thus: For this cause the excellent Father, praising his disciple, gladdened, entreats the king, and obtains, as he wished, the filthy place where the works of the devil were practised. And all being expelled who had been gathered for the deception of souls, he overthrew to the ground the lurking-places of the harlots, which were caverns of demons, as is seen at present. And since that place of filthinesses was situated outside the city, having built receptacles of houses within the walls, he placed there, on the counsel of blessed Theodoric his faithful disciple, a number of forty nuns, equal to that of the harlots themselves, and obtained from the liberality of the king that from which they might have the expenses of the body for daily food.

[241] of forty widows, or penitent women; He instituted also that the same number should always remain, and that, as those, performing the work of pandering and carrying out the will of demons, paid the revenues of their own body to an earthly lord, so these, guarding purity of body and heart for the heavenly King, should present themselves with the fruit of good works. Therefore, because the spirit breathes where it will, and makes those burning with charity whom it inflames, he willed to intimate from heaven to the mind of his servant that he should cause his spiritual Master to be admonished by the love of charity to restore to their Creator the souls which the enemy rejoiced to have acquired, and that the execrable portion of the devil should remain diminished… Great Master, great also disciple, and after the Master, and with the Master, to be praised in this work! Baillet, at the 1st day of July, in the Life of the same St. Theodoric, judged that this monastery was built for a company of virgins; which opinion is in some way favoured by what the anonymous writer presently mentions about the purity of body and heart of its inmates, as also by the word nuns, by which our Sollerius also believed virgins were designated by him; warning, however, in the Annotations, that widows are to be retained with Flodoard, who is earlier than the same anonymous writer.

[242] Certainly Flodoard's words are clear, and, not of virgins, unless I am mistaken, are to be so explained that by widows are to be understood the harlots themselves and fallen girls, desiring to do penance for their offences. For what else do these words of Flodoard indicate: And so it was persuaded to the most pious Father … to overthrow the lurking-places of the devil, and to bring over the deceived and deceiving souls into the chastity of Christ? Nay, the anonymous writer himself too indicated this very thing in the same place not obscurely, when he brought in St. Theodoric speaking thus with St. Remigius on that matter: For I know that, if you will, and certainly you will, you can by a single intermediary obtain this from the munificence of the king, and restore to their Creator the sheep that have been circumvented and snatched from the jaws of the enemy. And again when he says that, the holy disciple suggesting it, it came about that the Master restored to their Creator the souls which the enemy rejoiced to have acquired, and that the execrable portion of the devil remained diminished.

[243] But how would St. Remigius be said here to have brought over the deceived and deceiving souls into the chastity of Christ, as it has seemed to some. how to have restored to their Creator the sheep that had been circumvented and snatched from the jaws of the enemy, and the souls which the enemy rejoiced to have acquired; if, the harlots having been expelled from that place and permitted to live elsewhere after their manner, he had only substituted chaste virgins? Wherefore Remigius seems, supported by royal authority, to have attacked those harlots, and to have shut up either all or some of them, brought back to a better life, in a monastery substituted for the brothels, the king supplying the expenses from which both these and as many penitent women of this kind might be perpetually maintained. And they could have been called by Flodoard by the more honourable name of widows; and by the anonymous writer nuns, on account of a certain appearance of religious Life and continence which they observed, shut up there, in modest habit and pious community. There could also have been some change made in the same monastery at the time when the anonymous biographer of St. Theodoric wrote. For the rest, Jacques Longueval observes, in the History of the Gallican Church, volume 2, page 325, that this is the first house which he had read of as erected in the Gauls for penitents of that kind.

[244] The praised Flodoard had premised the following in the same chapter 24 about the daughter of King Theodoric, St. Theodoric, sent by St. Remigius, raises the king's dead daughter, who had succeeded his father Clovis in part of the kingdom, healed by St. Theodoric sent by St. Remigius: It is found also that this magnificent herald of the Lord restored to the breath of life the daughter of the aforesaid king, dead, for whom, when she was languishing, the king had sent to saint Remigius, asking that he should come to him and lay hands with prayers on his sick daughter. But the pious Prelate, detained (as it is said) by some trouble of the body, commends the business which was asked, as a father to a son, to blessed Theodoric (whom he had brought up piously and chastely and instructed with spiritual teachings, and whom he saw filled with the grace of healings). He subjoins that Theodoric, obeying his holy Prelate, although he had learned on the way of the death of the royal girl, yet, that he might carry out the commands, went on to her, and, prayers having been poured out to God, anointed her with sacred oil and called her back to life. For which reason, he says, *the King therefore not

only the disciple, namely saint Theodoric, but also blessed Remigius, desiring to exalt with the gift of munificence, conferred by a precept of his authority the town which they call Vendera, situated on the river Matrona [], on the reverend father Remigius; and Gaugiacum in the district of Reims on saint Theodoric.*

[245] for which reason both are given gifts by the king. To confirm this fact Flodoard adds in the same place: In process of time, finally, Charles, son of the emperor Louis, governing the sceptre of the kingdom of the Franks, Angilram, one of the courtiers, ignorant of the donation, asks the king that Vendera be given to him. When the king had assented to this, the lord prelate Hincmar, who held the see of the church of Reims, hearing that this town was being confiscated, sends to Charles the charter of the royal precept, found in the archive of this church, containing the series of this donation, and busies himself to admonish him lest he usurp the property of the Church against the canonical law. In which precept it is manifestly read how King Theodoric, for the raising of his daughter obtained by the prayers of St. Theodoric, not only conferring on him the town noted before, honoured the servant of God with his gift, but also offered, by the grace of beneficence, the town of Vendera to the most excellent Master, namely Remigius, on whom the Lord had conferred so great a grace that he should have such a disciple, who by the gift of the Holy Spirit, as also the Master, raised the dead. Charles, perceiving from the very monuments of the charters that these things were so, desisted from the invasion of the town, and permitted the church to use its own freely. These things there, which are also read in the second Life of St. Theodoric published by us; but because they are absent from the older one, and it can no longer be sufficiently certainly established concerning the credit of the precept praised by Flodoard, they are suspect to some critics.

[246] Among his disciples are also numbered Susanna, virgin abbess, From the same Lives and Flodoard we learn that at the same time there flourished at Reims a likewise distinguished disciple of St. Remigius, named Susanna, set over a monastery of virgins, who also helped the praised Theodoric with her counsel, both in confirming his purpose of preserving virginity and in selecting the place for founding the monastery. The older Life, number 3, has it thus: There was then in the city of Reims a certain celebrated abbess, a most sacred virgin, named Susanna, who under the providence of the supreme pontiff blessed Remigius presided over a congregation of girls, a woman of manly spirit, a virago of profound counsel, a counsellor of loftier wit. To whose most gentle bosom, as to that of a most pious mother, St. Theuderic betook himself; namely, seeking counsel and help that he might keep inviolate the virginity which he had in vain striven to persuade to his bride. The virgin to the virgin (Susanna) lays open the secrets of his heart, known to God alone… St. Remigius, then, the common pious father of both, is consulted by both. By whose most wise counsel there is sent, to provide the place of the future monastery, virgin with virgin, holy woman with holy man, Susanna with Theuderic, etc. Flodoard more rightly inserts here that the bride of Theodoric was summoned by St. Remigius and brought to the purpose of virginity and to consent to her husband's chastity before treatment of founding a monastery was begun. More about this distinguished virgin abbess and her monastery I have not found. Arthur celebrates her with the title of Saint in the Sacred Gynaeceum at the 1st day of July, but with his customary liberality, as was said in the same place among the Passed Over.

[247] At the XVI day of June there was treatment in our Work of SS. Berthaldus and Amandus, hermits in the diocese of Reims, who tradition holds came there from Scotia or Hibernia in the reign of Clovis, SS. Berthaldus and Amandus, hermits, St. Gibrianus, presbyter, and were kindly received and instructed by St. Remigius, and the first of them also ordained presbyter by him; concerning which matter the compendium of their Life, wont to be read at the morning Office, has it thus in the same place, number 4. At that time blessed Remigius ruled the church of Reims, roused by whose virtues and learning Berthaldus sets out to him with his Amandus. By whom kindly received and instructed in sacred learning, and adopted as a spiritual son, he is at length promoted by degrees to the sacred Order of the presbyterate. Endowed with which honour, he returns joyfully with his companion to his customary things, about to offer holily and religiously the sacrifice of the Mass together with prayers and vows in the oratory which he had built not far from his little dwelling, in which he was often refreshed by divine visitations. A disciple of the same holy Archprelate is also believed to have been St. Gibrianus, presbyter, of whom Sigebert of Gembloux, or his interpolator, writes in the Chronicle at the year of Christ 509: Gibrianus the Scot, wandering as a pilgrim in Gaul with his brothers and sisters, illustrates the city of Reims both by his life and by his death.

[248] His life, miracles, and the translation of his body from the diocese of Châlons, with his brothers and sisters kindly received by him; where he had lived and been buried, made to the archmonastery of St.-Remi at Reims, Henschenius published in volume 2 of May, page 300 and following, where, from I know not what error, both in the margin and in the chronological Index which is prefixed to the same volume according to custom, the year of Christ CCCCIX is read ascribed in place of DIX, although from the little Preliminary Commentary and the Annotations there it is established that the latter year should have been marked; which it will help to have observed on this occasion. The names of the six brothers and three sisters of St. Gibrianus who came then with him into Gaul, and of whom some also obtained cult, can be read there. Of St. Remigius no mention is made there in the Life: but in the Breviary of Reims, printed in the year 1630, at the VIII day of May, one reads that St. Gibrianus, having set out from Hibernia into Gaul, was humanely and kindly received with his brothers by St. Remigius, the father of pilgrims, etc. One of the said brothers was St. Tresanus, in whose Life, given at the VII day of February, he is said to have been unjustly accused before St. Remigius and declared innocent by him, and a little after, St. Genebaudus, bishop of Laon, commending him, to have been initiated into the priesthood.

[249] Again another disciple of St. Remigius is said to have been St. Arnulph, martyr and perhaps bishop of Tours, likewise SS. Arnulph and Scariberga; whose twin Life has been given in our Work at the XVIII day of July, namely one in prose by an anonymous author, the other written in heroic verse by Letselius, neither, however, of great authority. In both it is said that his illustrious parents, converted by St. Remigius from idols to Christ and baptized, promised that, if they should beget offspring (for they seemed barren), they would give it to him as a spiritual son; and, having obtained their vow, performed it: and that the boy himself, received by him from the sacred font and called Arnulph, and instructed by the same after infancy, advanced so much that he both preserved virginity with Soariberga, a virgin of royal stock, whom King Clovis had given him as bride, she consenting, and at length, renowned for many miracles, was raised to the chair of Tours. Finally, after the death of his holy Master, approaching his tomb, he is said to have been killed in the forest of Yveline between Paris and Chartres by the servants of his wife, who thought their mistress was spurned by him, and he is venerated as a martyr. Scaeriberga herself also, who can also be reckoned among the disciples of St. Remigius, is inscribed in some Martyrologies on various days, and she was treated of with us on the same day as her spouse, the XVIII of July. Of St. Vulgisus, whom some assert without a suitable witness to have been a disciple of St. Remigius, I shall treat on this day.

[250] and Atolus, who is said to have erected 12 hospices. I said above that a certain powerful man Atolus also is placed by Flodoard among the disciples of the holy Apostle of the Franks. Of him he handed down the following in book 1, chapter 23. There shone also (in the city of Reims, while Remigius held the episcopate there) the illustrious man Attolus, who, as is read in the epitaph, from love and zeal for St. Remigius built twelve hospices from his own goods; and, buried with his son and daughter behind the altar in the church of blessed Julian the martyr, he is declared to have this inscription of his burial, marked on the pinnacle of the church.

Here then let it be hidden from none what [] the earth holds, Lest anyone, if he desire to learn, go away empty. For beneath stand three tombs of stone, In which the bodies of kindly ones are laid. Here is the father Atolus, buried with his son and daughter, And they await now the swift day of the Lord. His son certainly is recorded as Elanus, His daughter then is said to be Eufrasia. Who pleased God the supreme by words and deeds, Whose limbs now likewise the coffin holds. He furnished twice six hospices with his goods, Rightly cherishing the needy people with riches. So he carried over his own wealth to the lofty heaven, In which he received what he gave in pity [*]. All this under love and zeal for holy Remigius, On account of which he himself holds the gleaming pole.*

[251] whose son and daughter also were of grateful memory at Reims. Thus far there: but I do not see that it is so clearly asserted in this epitaph that those twelve hospices were founded by Attolus while St. Remigius was living, but that a doubt remains to me whether they were not erected after his death in his honour. Perhaps for this reason Marlot, volume 1 of the Metropolis Remensis, book 2, chapter 17, preferred to place these things under Romanus, the next successor of St. Remigius; but since the episcopate of Romanus, substituted for Remigius immediately after his death, was very brief, he, if he flourished under Romanus, must be said to have flourished also under St. Remigius, and could have been his disciple in this sense, that he gladly received his pious admonitions and put them into execution. Marlot adds in the same place: That the pledges of the aforesaid Atolus, founder, as is believed, of the church of St. Julian (in which the said epitaph was read in Flodoard's time), and of his children were afterwards translated into the church of St. Remigius, and laid beside his tomb, Larisville relates in the little book on the Dignity of the same church in these words: "There are also other gems in the same place; that is, three bodies of saints, of Atolus, Helanus and Eufrasia:" but the index of relics does not mention them. The same writer in volume 1, book 2, also makes some other disciples of St. Remigius, into all of whom I have no leisure to inquire here.

[252] The church which, in memory of the fire extinguished The praised Marlot, in chapter 3, after he had narrated from Hincmar that St. Remigius extinguished a huge fire of the city of Reims by his prayers and the sign of the Cross, continued thus: In memory of so celebrated a miracle performed, blessed Remigius built two basilicas, from the longer testament; of which the one, which is of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, situated not far from the Open gate, Constantius the dean rebuilt at his own expense about the year MXL, behind whose high altar two serpents (symbols of the demons, by whom Hincmar had written the fire had been stirred up) break out of the wall on either side, as if trying to return into the city, unless they were hindered. On the stone above the threshold of the gate by which one goes into the church,

the following verses, carved, lay open the history of the whole matter in these words.

*The merit of Remigius thus began to found a temple: The gate was called Open by certain figures, Here laying open an approach denied to the rest through wars: By chance, through the wiles of Satan, fire is kindled in the city: But the pious Prelate, seeing its strength rise up, Groans from the sanctuary, God, and, God, he says, be present; The Priest descending thence over the paved stones, Made the rock melt like soft mud, And when with swift course he was a little distant from the heat, He set himself against it, safe from the fire by the Cross of Christ; And so through this gate he drove out the flame with the demon. Afterwards, where the gate was, Constantius built, etc.*

[253] Thus far Marlot, omitting the other verses, to my great inconvenience, was built in the city of Reims, did not have as its founder because from them it was to be understood whether the praised dean Constantius is said to have been the first founder of that church, or only its restorer. For from the first verse, The merit of Remigius thus began to found a temple, its first building cannot be certainly attributed to Remigius, since its sense can be that the merit of Remigius, that is, the miracle done in the same place in extinguishing the fire, gave occasion for raising a temple in the same place. The last verse recited by Marlot, however, makes Constantius the founder, not the restorer, of the same temple: for it does not say, Remigius founded a church there, or, Constantius restored the one founded by him; but: Afterwards, where the gate was, Constantius built, namely a church on account of the merit of Remigius, that is, in memory of the above-said miracle. And these things indeed from that metrical inscription, as it exists in Marlot: for it is also certainly established from elsewhere that that same church was first erected in the XI century by the praised Constantius.

[254] I have as authority Anselm, monk of St.-Remi at Reims, St. Remigius, as Marlot believed, a contemporary writer, whom Marlot himself (which I wonder at) praises on his own side in volume 2 of the same History, book 1, page 79, writing these things of the same Constantius: Anselm hands down in the Itinerary of Leo (the Pope, ninth of that name) that Constantius not only repaired the old basilica built formerly by blessed Remigius at Reims above the crypts of the martyrs, but also elegantly built its front, and gathered servants of God there in its service. A charter of archbishop Rodulf, to be cited below, mentions the dean and canons. But the chapter of Reims long ago granted their prebends to the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, who have hitherto maintained some presbyters there under an ecclesiastical Preceptor. Let us see, therefore, what Anselm handed down on this matter in the praised Itinerary, in which he himself, an eye-witness, related the things which St. Leo IX, supreme Pontiff, did at Reims when in the year 1049 he celebrated a council there. This Itinerary others have published, and also Marlot himself in the volume cited, on whose page 95 Anselm, treating of the body of St. Remigius then solemnly carried about through the city of Reims, says these things.

[255] but Constantius, dean of Reims, who first built it Carrying which round the circuit of the city with joy, they make fitting stations at fixed spaces; and when they had come to that place where there had once been a gate, called by the ancient name OPEN, through which the same Saint, still living in the flesh, by his prayers expelled the enemy of the human race raging in the same city with visible destructions of fires; there they lay down the precious limbs (of St. Remigius), and keep the memory of that miracle with worthy devotion and spiritual canticles. For the memorial of which deed a basilica has been built in the same place in modern time, which a certain servant of God, named Constantius, elegantly put together at his own expense, and gathered servants of God for its service, as many as he could, while he lived, and caused it to be consecrated in honour of St. Mary Magdalene and saint Remigius. These things there on this subject, and no more Anselm; in which what even shadow is there of a church formerly founded in that place by St. Remigius? Nay rather, does not Anselm clearly indicate that Constantius erected a church there, where none had been before? Nay, it could even be doubted whether Anselm, when he says, For the memorial of which deed a basilica has been built in the same place in modern time, wished to indicate that it was built by Constantius in memory of the holy Body laid down for a little in that place in that solemn carrying about, or as a monument of the fire wonderfully extinguished by the same Saint.

[256] towards the middle of the XI century, whatever is read both of this The latter, however, is more likely, because in volume 9 of Gallia Christiana, column 171, in the Catalogue of the deans of Reims, Richard, the successor of Constantius, is said to be already mentioned in instruments of the years 1050 and 1051, at which time therefore he seems already to have died; while the above-said carrying about of the sacred body took place in the year 1049. Further, since Constantius is said in the same place to have subscribed a certain donation in the year 1034, the building of the often-mentioned church is to be placed before the middle of the XI century. Of the other basilica, which Marlot believed was set up by St. Remigius in memory of the same miracle, he did not even note the situation. But since above, at number 250, he praised the longer Testament for both, it is necessary to add a word about this also. In it, as it exists in Flodoard's published History of Reims, book 1, chapter 18, St. Remigius, making various legacies, is in fact brought in speaking thus: To the church which I built in honour of all the martyrs above the crypt of the Remi, when through the help of the power of God I rescued from the fire of the demon the city already almost wholly burnt up, two solidi. To the church which for the same sign of the power of God I built within the city in honour of St. Martin and all the confessors, two solidi.

[257] as of the other, in the Saint's longer testament. And so indeed it is read there; but that this testament is rightly held by the learned as supposititious I have already noted above, and that it was unknown to Hincmar as well as to Flodoard, or seemed to them not of good faith, I shall prove more fully in the following §. And as regards this place, Hincmar, in the Life to be published, number 34 and the four following, makes mention at length of that fire extinguished and discourses on it, and observes that a certain inhabitant of Reims was divinely punished who, against the prohibition of the holy Prelate, some years after had pierced the wall about that gate, formerly called Open, which the Saint had commanded to be kept perpetually closed, with the threat of heavenly vengeance; but about churches erected by him as a monument of that miracle he made no word. There is a like silence in Flodoard, book 1 of the History, chapter 12, in which he narrated the same miracle with its circumstances and the punishment of the transgressor; so that in the ninth and tenth centuries, in the first of which Hincmar, in the second Flodoard wrote, there seems to have been no memory among the people of Reims of either basilica as founded by St. Remigius; and accordingly that longer testament (for in the shorter there is no mention of either) ought to be held suspect from this head also.

[258] Again another church St. Hericus or Heiricus, in the books of the Miracles of St. Germanus of Auxerre, Nor is it sufficiently certain whether the church of St. Germanus which he dedicated in the year 876 or the following to Charles the Bald, augustus, and which you have published by us at the XXXI day of July, ascribes to Remigius as its founder. Chapter 6 of book 1 begins there thus: The most holy and in all the best things illustrious Remigius, precious pontiff of the Remi, in honour of the most blessed Germanus, in the place in which he had decreed to be buried, and which is distant almost a mile from the city of Reims, built a basilica with his own hand, as the most ancient authority of his testament lays open. This, as it is of long antiquity, so also it continues most renowned for the splendour of the miracles (of St. Germanus), etc. About this church the shorter testament again is silent, but in the longer Remigius says: To the church of St. Germanus, which I myself built on the soil of Reims, (I bequeath) two solidi. Whether Hericus praised here this or some other testament of St. Remigius can be doubted, because I have nowhere read that the holy Prelate ever wished to be buried in the church of St. Germanus; indeed in the published ones it is expressly said that he chose his burial in the church of the holy martyrs Timothy and Apollinaris.

[259] We believe Hericus, asserting it, indeed that in his time there existed in the territory of Reims some church of St. Germanus renowned for miracles; was built by him on the soil of Reims. but that it was built by St. Remigius we cannot hold for certain on the sole credit of the testament which he cites; since Hincmar is profoundly silent about it, who flourished at Reims at the same time as Hericus at Auxerre, and from whom that thing could be hidden so much the less because he was archbishop of that same city, and was writing the deeds of St. Remigius studiously sought out. There is a like silence about it in Flodoard, and how obscure its memory afterwards was among the people of Reims may also be gathered from Marlot, who in book 1, chapter 30, reviewing the churches of Reims which are named in the longer testament, says of this one only: A part of it is believed by some to be that oratory which adjoins the church of St. Remigius on the side towards the South, or the chapel of St. Marculf.

[] that is, Matrona* (the Marne)

[] otherwise which*

[] otherwise in pitying*

§ XV. The twofold testament of St. Remigius is discussed, and judgment is pronounced for the Shorter against the longer.

Hincmar promised to give the Saint's Testament after the Life, It must at length be inquired how much the Testaments are worth which are circulated published under the name of St. Remigius, and of which one is short, the other much longer. Hincmar, in the Life to be published, about to narrate the death of the Saint, premised these things in chapter 8 according to my division: After the aforesaid and other virtues which the Lord deigned to work through this his Saint, hearing his groans and sighs … the Lord revealed to him, consoling him, that the day of his death was imminent. For which reason, according to the sacred canons, he made a testament of his goods, hastening to that inheritance of which the prophet says: "When he shall have given sleep to his beloved, this is the inheritance of the Lord." And again, after some things interposed, Hincmar continued thus: The testament having been made, whose text we have thought it useful to subjoin to this little Work as an example for the bishops of our and of future time who shall wish to read it … he was deprived for some time of the light of his bodily eyes. In fact, in our codex, from which I shall give the Life, it is subjoined to the same Life with this title written in red letters: There follows a copy of the Testament of blessed Remigius.

[261] after which, both in our codex and in many of Reims Then there is added an admonition of Hincmar in letters, like the rest, black, about the value of the solidi, of which there is frequent mention in the same testament, such as I subjoin here. Copy of the Testament made by blessed Remigius, in which let the reader attend that the quantity of the solidi is reckoned at the number of forty denarii, as solidi were then reckoned, and as is contained in the Salic law of the Franks, and generally in payment up to the times of the great

Charles endured, as is found in his Capitularies. Presently the testament begins: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. I, Remigius, bishop of the city of the Remi, possessed of the priesthood, have made my testament, etc. Besides this we have also another exemplar, from an apograph of a similar Life indeed, but copied from a codex unknown to me, and collated with the manuscript of the monastery of Bonnefontaine, of the Cistercian Order in the diocese of Reims, as our Bolland formerly communicated it to Jean-Jacques Chifflet, and it exists printed by him in the new Disquisition on the Ampulla of Reims. But from wherever that apograph was received, it is either very similar to or the same as that which I have just praised from the codex of our Museum; while the Bonnefontaine one differs from both only in a few words. Philippe Labbe reprinted the one published by Chifflet in volume 1 of the Bibliotheca Manuscriptorum, some faults having been removed from it with the help of a sounder codex, as he says in the same place.

[262] there exists a short Testament, such as Flodoard had, Very similar also is that which Marlot published through the press in volume 1 of the History of Reims, book 2, chapter XI, from manuscript codices of the abbeys of SS. Remigius, Nicasius and Theodoric near Reims, and concerning which he annotated these things to our purpose: I have thought that the Shorter Testament of St. Remigius, neglected by others, should be set here, because in several manuscripts, and those of great antiquity, it exists with us at the end of the Work comprising the life and miracles of the aforesaid Remigius, studiously collected by Hincmar, no mention being made in them of the longer Testament: which may seem wonderful, since this (longer) alone has been published by many. That Flodoard had a copy of the same shorter one is proved from book 1 of his History of Reims, chapter 23, in which he names the same legatees, and no others, as are listed in it; he also mentions as subscribed only the same who are read to have subscribed it; saying thus of the latter: But some most illustrious laymen also shone, of whom Pappolus, Eulodius, Eusebius, Rusticolus, Eutropius and Dauveus took part in the private affairs of the blessed Man, and, subscribing his Testament, put their own names beneath. See the Testament to be published below: for in the longer many bishops besides are noted as subscribed.

[263] and which, published, has commonly and deservedly pleased the learned; Further, as soon as this shorter Testament appeared printed, first by Chifflet, to whom Bolland had given it, and then also by the others whom I have mentioned, it commonly pleased the learned, who had banished the other, longer one, which had hitherto been published, among the supposititious or interpolated. Certainly the shorter was admitted as genuine by Le Cointe in the Annales Francorum at the year of Christ 533, number 50, by Antoine Pagi in the Critica of Cardinal Baronius at the year 514, number 9, and again at the year 541, number XI, by Noël Alexandre in volume 5 of the Ecclesiastical History, Century VI, chapter 4, article 3, and by Jean Longueval in the History of the Gallican church, volume 2, page 392. On the contrary Adrien Baillet, on St. Remigius at this day, the writers of the Literary History of France, volume 3, page 160, and some others preferred to hold it suspect of interpolation or another fault. What especially displeased them in it they do not declare; but it could have displeased that, although it bears no mark of time, nevertheless at the end one reads: Done at Reims on the day and in the consulate written above. I confess that hence it must altogether be said that it has not come down to us entire.

[264] But this mutilation could easily have happened either from a fault of the autograph itself, but it is not entire in every part. Another is also circulated, worn by the lapse of more than three centuries up to Hincmar, or from the drowsiness or haste of the same Hincmar, or of the copyist who first copied it; and from a like cause some words could have been omitted in it, added, or changed a little; which indeed I shall readily grant. Yet I find nothing besides in the whole text which suggests a sufficiently solid argument for calling that Testament into suspicion of falsity. Wherefore I shall exhibit it to the studious reader, on Hincmar's credit, together with the codicil which he added to it for the expenses of his burial, after the end of the Life, because, since it needs various annotations, it cannot conveniently be given here. Before this was published in print, from what has been said above, there had come forth another, far more augmented, printed by Barnabé Brisson in book 7 On the Formulas and solemn words of the Roman people, from manuscripts of the church of Reims. It exists likewise in Flodoard's History of the same church, book 1, chapter 18, as this was brought to light first by the learned Jacques Sirmond in the year 1611, and then by Georges Colvenere in the year 1617.

[265] This would have been the third testament of St. Remigius: for the Saint is exhibited speaking thus in it: much longer, which is found neither in so many nor in so ancient manuscripts, Nor will the two former testaments, the first indeed, which I made fourteen years ago, and the other, which seven years ago, be able to stand against it, oppose it, or in any way harm it; because whatever was contained in them is known to have been inserted here in the presence of my brothers, and what was lacking added; and besides, what the Lord has deigned afterwards to bestow on me, added over. Besides the aforesaid six laymen, there are read to have subscribed it six bishops, namely Vedastus, Genebaudus, Medardus, Lupus, Benedictus, Eulogius, and besides three presbyters, Agricola, Theodonius and Celsinus. Marlot, after he had said in the words given at number 262 that the shorter Testament exists in several manuscripts, and those of great antiquity … at the end of the Work comprising the life and miracles of the aforesaid Remigius, etc., discourses thus in the same place about the longer: I confess indeed that the longer Testament also was found by me with the Shorter in some manuscripts; but not with the same credit. For the shorter immediately follows, as it ought (namely because Hincmar had so promised), the little Work of Hincmar; but the longer is thrown among the Miscellanea, as excerpted from elsewhere, and in a very recent character, so that it has nothing in common with Hincmar's Work.

[266] But since I have not been able to obtain the autograph of Frodoard, perhaps because it was carried off, as is said, from the church of Reims, it cannot be sufficiently discovered whether the longer, which is lacking in the codices of better stamp, Marlot observed, and showed by various reasons, was really inserted into the Life of St. Remigius by Frodoard after chapter XVII of book 1, or stitched on, or at least substituted for the shorter by more recent writers. Indeed one might deservedly suspect that no other testament was known to Hincmar besides the shorter published by us, and which he testifies that he subjoined to his Work… But since he subjoined only the shorter, from the manuscripts which remain, who would say that he acknowledged another? He then proceeds to prove by a twofold other reason that the longer was either wholly unknown to Hincmar, or at least seemed to him of such doubtful credit that he believed it altogether to be neglected. He proves it first by this, that, since the longer contains almost all the more splendid deeds of St. Remigius, there would have been no need for Hincmar, for writing his Life, to recur to fragments of parchments and little sheets and tradition, as he complains in the Preface there was need for him; nor would he have passed over some things which are read besides in the same testament; and all of which would have found the greatest credit from the testament of the Saint himself.

[267] that it was either unknown to Hincmar and Flodoard, His other argument is sought from the silence of the same Hincmar, not only in the Life, as has been said, but also in his other Opuscules, in which, for confirming his assertions about the primacy of the church of Reims, about the right of rebuking kings, about invaders of ecclesiastical goods and other such things, it would have been most opportune for him to cite that testament. Whence (so Marlot concludes after a few things in the same place) if at any time he seems to designate it in certain letters, whose fragments are cited by Frodoard, it is so obscurely and in passing that it becomes sufficiently known that he did not hold it as authentic. Thus far about Hincmar; about Flodoard also he disputes thus in the same place: But that it was not highly esteemed by Frodoard either may be divined from this, that he did not mention three testaments made by Remigius (as neither did Hincmar himself), that nowhere, if you except the aforesaid chapter XVII of book 1 (in which it is only said: "He made a testament of his goods"), does he make mention of it. Examples are everywhere obvious to readers (in book 1 especially): when he speaks of the church of St. Xystus (where also he rests), he is silent that Remigius bequeathed anything to it; which, however, he is read to have done in the longer testament. Likewise, discoursing of the church of St. Agricola in chapter 6, he is silent where there are things worth knowing which are in the longer testament; which are lacking in the shorter.

[268] or seemed of doubtful credit; Likewise concerning the church of St. Timothy he related the testament indeed and the Appendix, in which blessed Remigius bequeaths to it twelve solidi for making a vault and a silver dish; because they are in the shorter; but the four solidi likewise bequeathed by him to the same church, and listed in the longer, he did not relate. Finally in chapter XXV, treating of the disciples of St. Remigius, and of the most illustrious men who subscribed the testament, he names only those who are listed in the shorter; passing over, namely, the six bishops and three presbyters whom we have said are read subscribed to the longer testament. Add that he did not mention among the disciples of the holy Prelate either that virgin Genovefa, illustrious for sanctity and miracles, or St. Chlodoald, grandson of King Clovis, although she in the same longer testament is called the most dear daughter and sister of the same Saint, and is said to have been accustomed very often to visit the church of Reims; and he is called in the same place by the same "a most holy boy and one of one mind with me"; the shorter being silent about both. These things indeed seem to me sufficient for anyone prudently to determine; first, that the longer testament was either unknown to Hincmar or seemed of very doubtful credit, such as we shall see it in fact is: secondly, that it can be doubted whether chapter 18 of book 1 of the History of Reims, in which it is recorded, is truly Flodoard's, and whether that shorter testament should not be substituted for it.

[269] Nevertheless, that I should not believe that longer one was plainly unknown to both writers, which last appears more likely those fragments of letters of the same Hincmar stand in the way, of which mention has just been made, and which Marlot then called to his aid for claiming the longer. Flodoard, book 3, chapter 26, treating of the letters given by Hincmar to various illustrious persons, page 515 of Colvenere's edition, writes that he, in a letter to his friend Nantharius, denied that he had ever granted or would grant that the tenants of the goods of the church of Reims in the district of Worms should be constrained to spend their labour for others, or that foreign huntsmen should stay there for any time, and gave this reason: Because his predecessors had not dared to do this; because St. Remigius had forbidden this to be done with a great curse or threat. At page 517 and following Hincmar is said to have written back to Count Gerard concerning the goods of his church situated in Provence, that he would to no one

ever give them in benefice; because, as he says, St. Remigius terribly forbade this in his testament. In the same place, page 527, the praised prelate is handed down to have refused Bernard, count of Toulouse, his kinsman, who asked that he should grant him the usufruct of certain goods of the church of Reims situated in Aquitaine, because he did not dare on account of the testament of St. Remigius, which altogether prohibited this from being done. Finally, at page 533, the same bishop is narrated to have denied that he would ever permit anyone to detain the goods of his church, and to have alleged again this reason: On account of the bindings which St. Remigius laid down in his testament.

[270] In the same book, chapter 4, there is recited a diploma of King Charles the Bald, on account of some texts of Flodoard. by which he, restoring various possessions, and among these Épernay, Juilly and Cormicy, to the church of Reims at the request of Hincmar, speaks thus: And that we may conclude everything at the end, whatever of the same bishopric, when we received it from the hand of Fulco, we granted to anyone as a benefice bestowed, by this authority of our confirmation, the testament of saint Remigius having been inspected before the assembly of our faithful, both of the ecclesiastical and of the lay order, we presently restore with all integrity to the house of St. Mary and St. Remigius and to archbishop Hincmar, etc. Now no curse or threat of this kind against those who should grant ecclesiastical goods to laymen, nor any of the three towns expressly named by Charles the Bald, is read in the shorter testament; but both the former and the latter are read in the longer, so that it must altogether be said that the longer testament was known to Hincmar, and that he sometimes used it when necessity required; or at least that the shorter, such as it now exists, is mutilated in some part of it; as it is established from what was said at number 263 and the following that this at least is not entire in every part. He whom this suspicion pleases will easily reconcile the silence of Hincmar and Flodoard observed above with the places here adduced to the contrary.

[271] However these things may stand, in that very longer testament not obscure indications of supposition have deservedly displeased the learned moderns, Some manifest indications of supposition are reviewed, of which this is the sum. In it occur the words Austria, Neustria and archbishop, which at that time were unusual to the French. The Saint, threatening punishments against invaders of ecclesiastical goods, among other things speaks thus: Sparing only the royal race, which, for the honour and defence of the holy Church, together with my brothers and all the fellow-bishops of Germany, Gaul and Neustria, determining that it should reign perpetually in the summit of royal majesty, I chose, baptized, received from the sacred font, and signed with the gift of the sevenfold Spirit, and ordained king through the anointing of the same sacred chrism, I decree, etc. They deny, however, that any of the kings of the Franks before Pippin was inaugurated king with sacred anointing. Then what does that election to the summit of royal majesty by St. Remigius and his fellow-bishops mean? since Clovis obtained the kingdom in Gaul by arms, and his sons by paternal inheritance. St. Remigius continues in the same place, and enjoins on his successors, with most grave threatening, the office of rebuking kings if they should turn aside from the true religion, or occupy ecclesiastical goods, and, if they should be contumacious, of excommunicating them publicly, which is reckoned altogether foreign to the usage of that time in the Gauls.

[272] on account of which that longer testament He likewise attributes to his successors the power of convoking the metropolitans of Gaul to councils; which power they deny belonged then to any other than him who discharged the vicariate of the Apostolic See; and the vicariate, they say, was indeed granted to St. Remigius, yet not so as to be transmitted to his successors. He also records his deeds and miracles in such a way that he may seem, if not to have boasted of them, at least to have reviewed them less modestly. Besides, in the shorter testament (which certainly would have been the first of all, since in it no mention is made of an earlier one) he is said to have bequeathed the boy Ambrosius, the boy Leudocharius, and a certain little girl, daughter of Fedamia and Melanus; and he had determined that the little goddaughter Flavarasena should be free; all of which are repeated in the same words in the longer; as though these boys and girls had not yet grown up after the fourteen years intervening between the first and the last testament. Again in the shorter the holy Prelate, bequeathing to his church a silver vessel formerly given to him by King Clovis, orders a little tower and a figured chalice to be made from it; and subjoins: Which I shall do myself, if I have space of life. After these things he would have lived up to the last testament fourteen years, and therefore a sufficiently long time for these things to have been conveniently done; but nevertheless the same are read again in the longer, a few words being changed and added, and a golden vessel substituted for the silver in some exemplars.

[273] is commonly rejected by the learned moderns, I add also another argument of certain supposition. St. Remigius in the same longer testament says these things: But Duodeciacus, as it was confirmed by Clodowald, a boy of most noble disposition, may it serve thee, my heir (the church of Reims), perpetually. Again, of the possessions given by King Clovis before and after his baptism to the church of Reims, he speaks thus: Nor did I wish before to join to the church of the Remi from his kingdom so much as a foot's pace, until I obtained that he should fulfil this for all the churches; nor after his baptism, except Codiciacum and Juliacum, concerning which the already mentioned most holy boy, and one of one mind with me, Clodowald, and the inhabitants of that place, burdened with manifold dues, earnestly begging that what they owed the king should be paid to my church, compelled me to ask. Which the same most pious king, receiving it also gratefully, bestowed with most ready will. The boy of whom it is spoken here was St. Chlodoald, son of King Chlodomer, grandson of Clovis and of St. Chrothildis, who, after the killing of his father in the Burgundian war, was snatched from the common slaughter of his two brothers, and afterwards, tonsured of his own accord, yielded the right which he had to the paternal kingdom, and, having been made a presbyter, died holily, whose deeds have been illustrated in our Work at the VII day of September.

[274] He, then, if we believe the longer testament, confirmed the donation of the town of Duodeciacus to St. Remigius while living, and is in fact to be held as supposititious or interpolated. and was of one mind with him, and made the other donation in Codiciacum and Juliacum while his grandfather Clovis was living and consenting. That the first is improbable was shown in the Preliminary Commentary on the same man's Life, §2, because St. Chlodoald could have been only about ten years old when Remigius was dying; nor are boys of so tender an age wont to make donations of this kind, nor would he himself then have had anything to make them with. The other is even more manifestly false: for if Chlodoald was only about ten years old about the year 532, when St. Remigius died, by what reasoning could he himself, while his grandfather Clovis was living, that is, not after the year 511, or about twenty-one years before the death of the same holy Prelate, have done these things? Assuredly these things contain an anachronism which cannot be attributed to St. Remigius, a man certainly of sound mind, making his testament. I omit more; because what has already been said abundantly suffices for me to be compelled, with the above-praised critics, Le Cointe, Pagi, Noël Alexandre, Longueval and others, commonly to acknowledge that longer testament as supposititious.

[275] Marlot, however, in the place cited above, disputing on both sides, The praised Marlot tried to persuade and replying with difficulty to the arguments objected, at length concluded thus: To say briefly and ingenuously what I think, I judge that those two (the shorter and the longer) are by no means to be distinguished as testaments, as if the shorter preceded the other by many years; but that these were made by Remigius when labouring under his last illness (yet successively): the shorter was first taken down by the notaries, which the men of consular rank reviewed by Frodoard subscribed. But when the bishops of the province had come to Reims, according to custom, to visit their Archbishop, there were added the things which seemed lacking in the shorter, either by the Testator's own inclination, as often happens, new things occurring to his mind, or at the suggestion of the bishops themselves who subscribed the longer testament. He judged therefore that the two former testaments, of which the first is said in the longer to have been made fourteen years before, the second seven years before, were both different from that which we call the shorter. I confess that by this reasoning the difficulties are removed which at number 272 I objected from the age of the little children and from the little tower and chalice to be made; but the other arguments to the opposite stand, which Marlot strove in vain to weaken by reasonings which there is no need to relate here, since they do not press, and can be read in him.

[276] Moreover it must assuredly seem wonderful that those things that both are genuine; which is refuted, which he will have added to the shorter testament a little after, either by the Testator's inclination or at the suggestion of the bishops, those alone are liable to all the aforesaid difficulties. It is wonderful also that the same codicil is read added to both testaments in these words: After the testament was made, nay sealed, it occurred to my senses that I should assign to the basilica of the lord martyrs Timothy and Apollinaris a silver dish of six pounds, that from it the future seat of my bones may be constructed. For why did the holy Testator not insert these things into the longer testament equally with the others which either had occurred to his mind or had been suggested by the bishops? Why likewise is the day of the month and the name of the consul absent from both, and nevertheless both are signed: Done, or Accomplished, at Reims on the day and in the consulate written above or said above? The reason of these things readily appears if we say that those additions were made after the times of St. Remigius by an interpolator who, having got a copy of the shorter testament, in which, equally as in that which survives up to now, the name of the consul and the day of the month were lacking, was content to insert many things into it and to increase the names of the subscribers, and to leave the rest as he had found them.

[277] and it is concluded that the longer is the work of an inept interpolator. And lest anyone should suspect on the contrary that the shorter was rather contracted from the longer, there stand in the way first of all the things which I have observed in those additions to be foreign to the age and time of St. Remigius: but if some sufficiently critical one of the ancients should be said to have studiously omitted these things in the shorter testament for that reason, why would he have passed over also certain other things otherwise worth knowing, and not liable to similar difficulties, and the names of the bishops and presbyters which are read subscribed to the longer? It stands in the way besides that the shorter, not the longer, is subjoined next to the Life of St. Remigius in several manuscript codices of great antiquity, as Hincmar had promised, and that he likewise used the shorter in writing the same Life, so that he must be said, if not to have been ignorant of the longer, at least to have neglected it, although otherwise it would have been opportune for him to employ the longer. See what was said above. There are those who think that those additions or interpolations were made in the time of Charles Martel, and that he is designated by these words of the longer testament: *Let that prince, whoever he shall be, be admonished … and at length if … he shall not have laid aside the spirit of incorrigible contumacy, … the sentence of separation from the body of Christ by all to him

be extended. Their reason is that these things are there decreed against the invaders of the goods of the Church, and that it is established from elsewhere that Charles Martel, being entangled in wars, granted many goods of this kind to his soldiers as pay. But at whatever time this interpolation was finally made, it is inept, and betrays itself.

[278] His writings, praised by St. Sidonius, have perished: On this occasion let us also say something of the offspring of this holy Archbishop's genius. Of his remarkable eloquence we treated in §5 from SS. Sidonius Apollinaris and Gregory of Tours, from the first of whom it is established that he wrote Declamations. And that these were not few, the same Sidonius, cited there, teaches, when he wrote to St. Remigius himself of those which he says had come into his hands by a happy chance: A certain man, making from the Arverni for Belgica … after he had come to Reims, bled your scribe, or bookseller, … of a most copious sheaf of your Declamations, whether you will or no. Returning to us, and exceedingly boastful, as having obtained so many volumes, he pressed upon us as a gift whatever he had brought … But how highly he himself and the others with whom he had read them through esteemed them, he indicated in the same place thus: It was pronounced by the assent of all that few things like them can now be composed: and again, after he had given the reason for this judgment of his, he added: What more? There exists at present no oration of any living man which your skill could not, without labour, pass beyond and surmount. See more in the same place. Perhaps St. Gregory of Tours also read the same, on whose testimony, in book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 31, St. Remigius was a bishop of excellent learning, and thoroughly steeped in rhetorical studies. But these Declamations either lie hidden or rather perished long ago, and very probably had already perished in the tenth and ninth centuries, since neither Flodoard nor Hincmar made mention of them.

[279] John Baptist Villalpando, theologian of the Society of Jesus, very well known to the learned world by his Commentaries on the prophet Ezekiel, published at Rome in the year 1596, under the name of St. Remigius, bishop of Reims, Explanations of the Epistles of St. Paul, The Explanations of the Epistles of St. Paul are not his. taken from a manuscript of the eleventh century, which was kept in the Roman monastery of St. Cecilia across the Tiber. The same work was afterwards reprinted at Mainz in the year 1614, and it exists also in the Lyons Bibliotheca Patrum. But that these Explanations are not this holy Archbishop's is now admitted, as may be seen both in others and in Philippe Labbe, in the Philological Dissertations on Ecclesiastical Writers, volume 2, under Remigius of Auxerre, page 285 and following. In the Roman Breviary, at the Kalends of October, in the lesson on our St. Remigius, one reads: He interpreted many books of divine Scripture; whether this was said from certain testimony of the ancients, or only from a conjecture conceived from the letter of St. Sidonius Apollinaris, let others judge; but certainly nothing of the sort is now known to exist.

[280] There remain, then, only four letters of the holy Apostle of the Franks, Of Remigius's writings only four letters survive. of which two were written to King Clovis; of the two remaining, one to Falco, bishop of Maastricht, the other to three bishops, Heraclius, Leo and Theodosius. The first two I gave in this Commentary in §10, the last in §13. For the rest, when Casimir Oudin, in the Commentary on Ecclesiastical Writers, volume 1, column 1290, says that among the letters of St. Remigius of Reims there exists one to Pope Hormisdas, in the Collections of Councils of Sirmond, Labbe, etc., he was mistaken, and ought to have said, of Pope Hormisdas to Remigius: although we showed in § XI that this too is not Hormisdas's, but perhaps Anastasius II's, or St. Symmachus's.

§ XVI. The blessed death of the Saint, and his burial in the little church of St. Christopher, which, made illustrious by miracles, grew into a famous abbey: the first translation of the sacred body, made within the same church when enlarged.

Fortunatus, in the Life to be published in the first place, number 9, set forth the death of St. Remigius in a few words thus: Amid such distinctions, then, of his virtues, Blessed Remigius, athlete of Christ, receiving the passage of the deathly sleep, chose, old age now pressing upon him, to leave the storms of the world and to arrive at the haven of the heavenly dwelling. After whose death such remedies are granted to the faithful at the patronage of his body, that he who shone with such examples is recognised to live by his merits alone. Hincmar, in the Life, chapter 8, adds that he, sighing for the heavenly fatherland, having been divinely warned of his approaching death, and having made his testament, lived for some time deprived, by the divine good pleasure, of the light of his eyes, and having at last recovered it, after the celebration of Masses on the Ides of January, that is, on the Ides of January, died happily in the Lord, after he had served the Lord as a faithful Servant and prudent, most continently and most religiously, for twenty-two years in the clerical order, and for seventy-four in the episcopate, in the ninety-sixth year of his age. Of all these epochs I treated abundantly in §4, where I showed that the Saint appears to have been born about the year 436, ordained bishop about 458, and finally to have died happily about 532, on the Ides of January; which may be read more fully there. There follows here in Hincmar a eulogy of the most holy Man, who deserved so well of the Franks and the Gauls, and then he proceeds to his burial.

[282] The Saint's body, burial having been attempted elsewhere in vain, The holy Prelate had desired to be buried in the church of the holy martyrs Timothy and Apollinaris, and had indicated this wish of his by a codicil added to his testament; but, God willing otherwise, he was buried not in this, but in the small church of St. Christopher, then situated outside the city. Hincmar set forth the matter as it was done, in the same place, number 115 and the following, and after him Flodoard, book 1, chapter 17, where he moreover recorded an old monument or inscription existing there in his time. Receive the words of Flodoard. But when his most holy body was being borne to burial, prepared in the church of the holy martyrs Timothy and Apollinaris, the bier became so heavy in the middle of the street that it could in no way be moved, however much men strove. All being astounded, and begging the mercy of God that He would deign to show in what place He wished the body of His Saint to be laid, they designate the basilica of the aforesaid martyrs; and they cannot move the bier. They propose the church of St. Nicasius; nor can the coffin be lifted. They decide upon the shrine of SS. Sixtus and Sinicius; nor even so can it be moved. At length, constrained, since there remained a small church in honour of Blessed Christopher the martyr, and the body of no publicly known Saint was kept in it, though from antiquity the cemetery of the church of Reims was said to lie in the surrounding courts, they asked that the Lord would declare whether He decreed that that most sacred pledge should be laid in that same little church.

[283] [is buried in the little church of St. Christopher, where he soon shines with miracles] At which prayers they lift the coffin with such ease that those carrying it felt no burden. And the limbs of this most reverend Father were laid in this little church, by the governing of divine disposition, in the place where the altar of the blessed virgin Genevieve now stands. But where his bier is established to have grown heavy, many miracles are reported to have been shown afterwards. Here too there stands a Cross set up from that time, fixed to a column marked with these memorials: "When the great prelate blessed Remigius had passed from this world to the heavenly fatherland, he was worthily borne hither by the holy people, his body to be laid in the church of Timothy the martyr. Then he made a halt in this place, nor could he be moved, until the Lord revealed where he was to be placed: where now, by Christ's favour, he excels in miracles, bestowing here fitting benefits upon those devoted to God, sight to the blind, walking to the lame, and remedy to the sick. Therefore with outpoured prayers let us entreat the Lord that by his pious prayers we may merit pardon of our offences, and the joys of the heavens. Saint Remigius, precious confessor of the Lord, have mercy also on Adelold, thy servant." Hincmar also made mention of the Cross set in that place as a monument, but not of the inscription; either because this did not exist there in his time, or because he passed it over for some other reason: but that Adelold is otherwise unknown to me.

[284] The censure of Castellan is set forth, Claude Châtelain, canon of Paris, in the Notes to the Roman Martyrology translated into French and enlarged, at the 13th day of January, on which he rightly recorded the death of St. Remigius, writes that Flodoard handed down these things from popular rumour, and sets forth his censure of them in words which, like the rest, are French, thus. We have from St. Gregory of Tours that in his time the feast of St. Remigius was wont to be celebrated at the beginning of October; from which it is credible that his body had already then been translated, perhaps from the church of St. Timothy (in which we learn from his codicil that he wished to be buried) to the church of St. Christopher, which afterwards received the name of Saint Remigius from him. Nor is this opinion to be opposed by the story, such as are those of bodies grown heavy, which we know to have been invented for so many other sacred bodies; and this is very probably that translation which Flodoard mentions in chapter 18 of his History of Reims, although he signifies it as having been made only from one place of the church of St. Christopher to another, not long after his death, on the Kalends of October. Castellan therefore judged that the body of St. Remigius was first buried in the church of SS. Timothy and Apollinaris, as he had ordered in the codicil, and a little afterwards translated to the church of St. Christopher; but that Flodoard's assertions contrary to this are to be relegated to fables: let us see what this censure is worth.

[285] Castellan is deceived when he says that Flodoard received these things from popular rumour; relegating these things to fables, for he received them from the Life of St. Remigius written by Hincmar a whole century before, which see at number 115 and the following. Whence Hincmar learned the same is unknown; but one need not on that account have recourse to popular rumour alone. But, you will say, to what end would the last will of the most holy Man, indicated in the codicil, have been divinely hindered? I answer that, although the divine judgments are often hidden, a not wholly inept reason is alleged by both writers: lest, if he had been entombed in the church of SS. Timothy and Apollinaris, the miracles worked there by God for his sake should be ascribed to those two martyrs, whose bodies, famous for miracles, rested there; of which thing there was no danger in the church of St. Christopher, in which they observe that the body of no Saint was then kept. But indeed, if St. Remigius was first entombed in the church of SS. Timothy and Appollinaris, as he had commanded, why a little afterwards, as Castellan judged, was he translated from this into the church of St. Christopher against his express will?

[286] Was it so that he might be laid more fittingly? But this very thing could have been done in the same church of St. Christopher, but without solid arguments. in which he had been buried; which indeed was actually done, as the cited Hincmar in the Life, number 120, and Flodoard, to be quoted below at number 297, affirm. Each also cites for himself a monument of the event erected at Reims, which at least an ancient

one it was, appears from Hincmar, who asserts that the miracle of the body grown heavy occurred in the place where (he says) from then and now a Cross is set, and where God afterwards showed many miracles for St. Remigius. Suppose, then, that at some time a similar prodigy was falsely attached to certain other sacred bodies (which I do not here inquire into): is this one also, of which we treat, on that account to be held a fable? Nor, finally, does it favour Castellan that already from the times of Gregory of Tours the feast of St. Remigius was wont to be celebrated at the beginning of October; for, as we shall say below with him, that this was done on account of the first translation of the holy body, so, on account of his censure against the testimonies of Hincmar and Flodoard, we cannot deny that that first translation took place within the same church of St. Christopher, in which he had first been buried. This one thing can be conceded to him: that, on account of Hincmar's distance from the age of Remigius and his readiness in adopting fables, the prodigy mentioned cannot be held as certain. Now let us return to where we digressed a little.

[287] The Saint shines there with miracles, as is shown from SS. Nicetius and Gregory, With how many and how great miracles that venerable body of St. Remigius soon shone in this church of St. Christopher is proved by the letter, already cited elsewhere, of St. Nicetius, bishop of Trier, to Chlodosvinda, granddaughter of the great Clovis by St. Chrothildis, which Muratori with Pagi determine to have been written about the year 565, that is, about 30 years after the death of St. Remigius himself. In this Nicetius, admonishing Chlodosvinda that, after the example of her holy grandmother, she should care for the salvation of her husband Alboin, king of the Lombards in Italy, and should strive to lead him from Arianism to the Catholic faith, and challenging the Arians, for the truth of the same faith, even to come and see miracles, first praises the celebrated tomb of St. Gregory of Tours, and then adds: What of the lord Remigius and of the lord Medard, bishops, whom you, I believe, have seen? We cannot set forth how great wonders we see God work through them. In the same sixth century flourished and wrote St. Gregory of Tours, who himself also left a notable testimony on this matter in the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 79, which I transfer here entire. But Remigius, bishop of the city of Reims, who, as they say, completed seventy years or more in the episcopate, and by his prayer obtained that the corpse of a dead girl should be raised, very often extends the grace of healings to the sick, and most frequently shows himself an avenger against usurpers.

[288] who recounts twin examples, one of an unjust usurper Now there was not far from the basilica a field fertile in soil — for such the inhabitants call olcæ (Olca, in Du Cange's Glossary, is said to have formerly been commonly used for a portion of arable land, enclosed on all sides by ditches or a hedge) — and this had been given to the holy basilica; which one of the citizens usurps, despising the man who had conferred it upon the holy place. And when he had been frequently summoned by the bishop and by the abbot of the place to restore what he had unjustly usurped, making small account of the words that he heard, he defended the plundered goods with stubborn purpose. At length a cause arose, and not devotion, that he should go to the city of Reims; he hastens to the basilica of the Saint. He is again reproved by the abbot for the usurpation of the field; but he answers nothing worthy of reason: and, his business being dispatched, having mounted his horse, he makes ready to return home; but the injury done to the Priest opposes his effort. For, stricken by the blood (that is, seized by apoplexy), he fell to the ground; the tongue that had spoken of taking the field is bound, the eyes that had coveted it are closed, the hands that had seized it are contracted. Then, stammering, and scarcely able to bring out speech, he says: Carry me to the basilica of the Saint, and whatever gold there is upon me, throw it at his tomb: for I have sinned in taking away his property.

[289] divinely punished; the other of the plague of the groin But the giver of the field, seeing him coming with gifts, says: Do not accept, I pray, O Saint of God, his gifts, which you have never been accustomed to accept; be not, I beseech you, the helper of him who, with covetousness inflaming him, has become the wicked possessor of your goods. Nor did the Saint delay to hear the voice of his poor man: for that man, although he had given the gifts, yet, returning home, gave up the ghost, and the church received back its property. Thus far St. Gregory, who soon subjoins another, happier example, namely a common benefit conferred upon the people of Reims in the time of a dire plague, in this manner. But neither did it please me to pass over in silence what was done at that time, when the plague of the groin was devastating the people of First Germany. And when all were terrified at the hearing of this disaster, the people of Reims run together to the tomb of the Saint, to beg a remedy suited to this cause. Having lighted not a few candles and lamps, they keep vigil through the whole night with heavenly hymns and psalms. And when morning came, they search in deliberation what was still lacking to their prayer. For they find, God revealing it, how, prayer having gone before, the bulwarks of the city might be fortified with a still greater bulwark.

[290] Taking, therefore, the pall from the tomb of the Blessed one, they arrange it in the manner of a bier (as though the body of the Saint, driven back from the city of Reims. which rested in the crypt or tomb, lay upon that bier), and, candles having been lit upon crosses and candlesticks, they raise their voices in chants, they go around the city with its streets; nor do they pass over any dwelling which they do not enclose in this circuit. What more? Not many days after, the aforesaid plague attacks the borders of this city; but, approaching as far as that place to which the pledge of the Blessed one had come, as if it discerned an appointed boundary, not only did it not dare to enter within, but even those whom it had seized in the beginning it left, driven back by this power. Gregory also makes mention of this plague of the groin elsewhere, and namely in the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 6, number 6, where St. Gallus, bishop of the Arverni, is said to have kept his city immune from it. Le Cointe referred this event to the year of Christ 546, and Ruinart and our Du Sollier agree, in the Annotations to the cited place of Gregory — namely the latter here at the 1st day of July, on the same St. Gallus, and the former in the edition of the Works of St. Gregory — both judging that that plague began in the year 545 or at the beginning of the following one. If this is so, this miracle of St. Remigius will have occurred about the fourteenth year from his death, at which time, therefore, the esteem of his patronage among the people of Reims must already have been great, since they chose him before the other Saints whose sacred remains they kept as patron in so great a peril. Concerning the pall or sepulchral carpet which is believed to be kept at Reims, see what is to be said at number 350. For the rest, Gregory recounted only these two examples out of many, namely one of each of the kinds of which he had said: He very often extends the grace of healings to the sick, and most frequently shows himself an avenger against usurpers.

[291] In the seventh century flourished St. Salaberga, abbess, who died about the year 665, In the same church St. Salaberga obtained offspring by prayers, in whose Life, written by a weighty author nearly contemporary, and given by us at the 22nd day of the month of September, chapter 1, number 10, no less honourable mention is made of the same church and of the miracles wont to be obtained in it. For of the praised Saint, when she had been bound against her will by her father in a second marriage, he speaks thus: But when these (Salaberga and her holy spouse Blandinus), by the Lord's favour, were strong in good morals and led their life in the Christian manner, and could conceive no offspring, the most Christian woman, anxious at being deprived of so many privileges … sought the basilica of Blessed Remigius the pontiff, who was making illustrious the city of the Remi and the land of Champagne with sacred powers and wonders, and there, keeping watch in vigils and prayers, vowed a vow that, if offspring should be divinely granted to her, she would dedicate it to the Lord. Without delay, having returned home, what she had faithfully and anxiously asked was granted her by the Lord; and she conceived and bore a daughter, to whom she gave the name Saretrudis from the name of her grandmother.

[292] That the veneration of the same place among the Franks was great is further intimated by what St. Gregory of Tours and Fredegar also noted. and others obtained safety. For the first of them, in book 9 of the History, chapter 14, writes that Egidius, bishop of Reims, when, accused of the crime of lese-majesty, he had been summoned to Childebert, son of Sigebert, king of Austrasia, did not set out on the road before he had received an oath in the basilica of St. Remigius that he would suffer no harm on the journey; which seems also to have been religiously observed. And Fredegar, in the Chronicle, chapter 83, relates that Ermenfred, son-in-law of Aega, Mayor of the Palace of Clovis II, having slain Count Aenulf, took refuge in the same church, as in the safest and least violable asylum, in order to withdraw himself from the vengeance of Queen Nanthildis and of the kinsmen of the slain man. Ermenfred (he says) in Austrasia at Reims made his refuge at the basilica of St. Remedius; and there for very many days he remained, avoiding this hostility and out of fear of the king.

[293] A notable testimony of a writer of the tenth century concerning the same Saint. Honourable mention of our holy Archbishop is also made by the anonymous author who about the year 965 wrote the Life of St. Deicolus or Deicola, abbot of Lure in Burgundy, published by us at the 18th day of January, in whose chapter 1, recounting the chief Saints of the Gauls, at number 4 he speaks thus to our purpose: For it pleases me to pass over in the mentioning the notable excellence of the Remi, who, keeping vigil as old men, cherish the most longed-for clod of St. Remigius, bishop mighty in signs and apostle of the Franks; who, if not to others, is yet the Apostle of that people, because it is ascribed to his merits that their church is made fruitful with daily offspring. That by silicernium an old man is indicated has already been observed in the same place; and we have seen that Remigius died in decrepit age; but in the edition there it is wrongly read: Who, if to others, yet is not the Apostle of that people; which I restored as the sense required, unless perhaps only the punctuation is to be transposed in this manner: Who, if not to others, yet is the Apostle of that people. Moreover, this same church of St. Christopher, formerly lowly, enriched with so great a treasure and made illustrious by miracles, in a short time made great increases, and at length became that illustrious monastery of St. Remigius, flourishing up to this time, and, through his sacred body, which after so many centuries it keeps entire in a magnificent mausoleum, venerable to the whole Christian world, and especially to Gaul.

[294] This same church, soon enlarged Marlot treats of it at length in the History of Reims, and after him the writers of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, volume 9, from column 219, from which latter I shall here borrow only a few things, which pertain to its site and its first increases. The famous ARCHIMONASTERY of St. Remigius (they say) (so it was called by the Supreme Pontiffs John XIII and Innocent IV; indeed, Queen Gerberga even called it the Head of France) was at first a little shrine sacred to Blessed Christopher, which, formerly situated outside the pomerium of Durocortorum on the sloping plain of a hill toward the southern quarter, is now enclosed within the walls of the city. The Annals report that this was first employed for receiving the bodies of Christians, but in the course of time wholly neglected

lay until the death of St. Remigius, who, buried there about the year DXXXIII, won for his illustrious resting-place name and fame by frequent miracles. It is uncertain, and consigned to oblivion for many centuries back, to whom chiefly the beginnings of this basilica ought to be credited. Nor, moreover, is it better known who first, after it had received the remains of the most holy Prelate, enlarged and endowed it: although Romulfus and Sonnatius, at the close of the sixth century; then Lando, Nivardus, Reolus and Rigobert, bishops of Reims, and King Dagobert, are recorded to have furnished it with various gifts.

[295] Yet the matter seems to have stood thus. As soon as the miracles of Blessed Remigius grew frequent in this narrow little hut, grew into a famous basilica and monastery, the place itself seemed, either to the citizens, but especially to the bishops, or to the nobles of the kingdom, to require fitting out in a better and ampler form; and then that watchers of the sacred body should be instituted, who should apply themselves to the divine praises. This was done at no long interval after the death of the holy Prelate: for Gregory, bishop of Tours, makes mention of Epiphanius, abbot of Saint-Remi, under Archbishop Egidius. Read more there, if you please; for it is not the business of this place to pursue the history of that monastery and to examine each of their assertions. But certainly what I have just related from them concerning its beginnings is most probable; since it cannot prudently be doubted that the Franks, equally with the native Gauls, did not long delay to adorn according to its merits the burial-place of their Apostle and Bishop, most renowned for miracles before and after his death, and to furnish it with ministers according to its dignity. That already from the sixth century, in which St. Remigius died, an abbot presided over that place is proved by the testimony of Gregory of Tours cited by them, namely from book 10 of the History, chapter 19, where one reads that Epiphanius, abbot of the basilica of St. Remigius, was a partner in the wicked counsels of Egidius, bishop of Reims, and was deposed with him; Epiphanius (as it is said there), who presided over the basilica of St. Remigius, being removed from the office of abbot.

[296] Of an abbot of the same place, perhaps another, he also makes mention without a name in the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 79, concerning which some things are noted. in the words which I gave at number 288: and the cited writers of Gallia Christiana believe that the first guardians of the sacred tomb were monks, such as St. Remigius himself had instituted on Mont d'Or near Reims under St. Theodoric. They admit, however, that the common opinion is contrary to theirs, founded on Flodoard's History, book 2, chapter 17, where of Tilpin, who is believed to have been raised to the see of Reims a little after the middle of the eighth century, it is expressly said: Finally, he is related to have ordained monks in the monastery of St. Remigius and to have instituted them in the monastic life; whereas the same monastery is said to have had canons previously, from the time of Abbot Gibehard, who is found to have gathered that same congregation for the love of God and of St. Remigius, up to this time. What they answer to this can be read in the same place; where also, consistently with their opinion, at column 225, they placed Gibehard, the time of whose rule they acknowledge to be unknown, in the fourth place in the series of abbots, and wish him to be thought to have presided about the year 745. I omit more, because it does not properly concern St. Remigius, and I come to the translations of the same holy Apostle of the Franks.

[297] The first translation of that sacred body, made within the same church, The church having been enlarged, the body into a new crypt but enlarged, Hincmar narrates in the Life, number 120, alleging as its cause that many and astonishing miracles were being wrought in the same church through his merits by the Lord's grace. Flodoard, following Hincmar's narration as usual, rendered it thus in book 1, chapter 20: The body of the most blessed Remigius having been buried, then, in the aforementioned basilica, since many and astonishing miracles were being wrought in it through the grace of the Lord, the church itself was widened and raised, and a crypt was made behind the altar, into which the venerable pledge might be translated. They uncover the coffin from the earth, in order to lay it down in the prepared vault; but they cannot move it at all. But when night came on, many lights having been kindled, about the middle of the night sleep seizes all those keeping watch. When they awoke, the sarcophagus with the sacred treasure is found carried across, borne (by none but angelic hands) into the prepared dwelling: and all are filled with such sweetness of fragrance as human tongue cannot declare. Which delightful pleasantness persisted in the same church through that whole day, and also on the morrow.

[298] is divinely translated entire on 1 October On this day of his translation, then, namely on the Kalends of October, relics were taken with divine praises from his hair, and his chasuble and tunic; and his body, entire though dried, is established to have been wrapped in a red brandeum (that is, a silk veil). That the sarcophagus, or, as Hincmar speaks, the tomb, which on awaking they found to have been translated by night into the new crypt by angelic ministry (as is believed), was of marble, we learn from the same Life, number 133, where Hincmar also teaches that the same translation was made in the presence of the bishops of the diocese, or province, of Reims, and that the head of the Saint was covered with a sudarium. Concerning the time he has nothing further, except that on the day before the Kalends of October the translation was attempted in vain, and in the night following, or on the Kalends themselves, it was accomplished divinely in the manner described. Neither does either of them add a word from which either the author or the time of the event can be drawn out. But from Gregory of Tours it is certain that it had already taken place before the year 585.

[299] before the year 585, more probably For in book 8 of the History of the Franks, chapter 21, treating of the case of Duke Boso-Guntchramn, judged in the aforesaid year 585 by Childebert, king of Austrasia, at the villa of Belsonancum, he expressly mentions the feast of St. Remigius as already then wont to be solemnly celebrated at Metz at the beginning of the month of October. And it came to pass (he says) that after a few days the festival of Blessed Remigius, which is celebrated at the beginning of the month of October, was at hand. But what other could this have been than that of the Translation of which we treat, since this was both made on the Kalends of October, and St. Remigius died not on this day but on the 13th of January, on which day his heavenly birthday was therefore both celebrated of old and is now also kept in the diocese of Reims? But since Gregory does not speak of this festival as of one recently instituted, the same translation may have taken place many years before 585; but how many years remains uncertain. Further, that we may reach the author of the translation in some fashion: from the death of St. Remigius up to the year 585 only four bishops sat at Reims, the first of whom, St. Romanus, had as successor Flavius, already subscribed in the year 535 to the council of the Arverni.

[300] under Mapinius or Egidius, not Sonnatius, archbishops. To him Mapinius was substituted, for whom his deacon Potadius is read to have subscribed at the fifth council of Orléans in the year 549. Finally the fourth, Egidius, is said to have already been sitting in the year 565, and to have been deposed in the year 590. The time of Romanus's tenure of the see is too short and too near the Saint's death for us to ascribe the translation to him; of Flavius nothing is known beyond the name subscribed to the council of the Arverni in the year 535. There is greater likelihood regarding Mapinius and Egidius, both of whom (Egidius especially) we know from elsewhere to have increased the church of Reims with temporal goods. From what has been said, then, gather how far from the truth René de Cerisiers was when, in the French Life of St. Remigius, page 334, he wrote that this same translation was carried out by Sonnatius, archbishop of Reims, in the year 635. By the same stroke is refuted also the opinion of the writers of Gallia Christiana, who, volume 9, column 18, under Sonnatius, believed that it could have been done by him about the year 600, if he, as Le Cointe judged, was elected to that see at the beginning of the year 594.

§ XVII. The body, found entire, is elevated by Hincmar: by the same it is translated to Épernay; then by others to Orbais: by Fulk it is carried into the city of Reims: by Heriveus it is restored to the church of its first burial; for a little while it is laid down within the city.

Hincmar, the church having been enlarged, Better known is another translation or elevation of the same sacred body, solemnly celebrated by Archbishop Hincmar likewise on the Kalends of October of the year 852, and committed to writing by him, but with his own name kept silent, in the Life, number 133 and the following. Flodoard also related it in his History of Reims, book 1, chapter 21, whose words meanwhile receive. The venerable pledge of this our most blessed Father the lord Archbishop Hincmar, his church having been further enlarged, and a crypt of greater and more beautiful workmanship having been prepared, translated in the presence and with the assistance of the bishops of this diocese of Reims, and placed it entire, with the brandeum in which it had formerly been found wrapped, in a silver casket. But the sudarium which was upon his head, laid up with a part of the aforesaid brandeum in a little ivory chest, is kept from that time at Reims in the church of the blessed Mother of God, Mary. Thus far Flodoard from Hincmar, in whom moreover one reads that that new silver reliquary, with the sacred body enclosed, was then placed upon the marble tomb in which (it) had lain before, and that the relics which had been found at his head outside the tomb were placed by the bishops who were present at the solemnity in the tomb in which the body had lain.

[302] Longueval, in volume 6 of the History of the Gallican Church, page 33, reports two other circumstances from the discoveries of the year 1646, the body, found entire, he enclosed in a silver casket when the body of the holy Prelate was inspected anew. The first is that the face of the Saint had then been covered by Hincmar with a silk sudarium, violet on one side, green on the other, and bearing this Latin inscription embroidered around its border: Saint Remigius, precious confessor of the Lord, with loving-kindness remember me, Hincmar, bishop in name, not in merit, unworthy too, but thy devoted servant. The second is that there was then also placed under the head of the same Saint a cushion of red silk, with another inscription likewise embroidered, which noted that this was the work of Alpais, sister of Charles the Bald. Finally the cited Longueval adds in French words: This cushion and veil were found entire, equally with the body of St. Remigius, in the year MDCXLVI; which was the reason why there was not substituted for the same cushion another more precious one, which the abbess of Saint-Étienne of Reims had offered. Let us return to Flodoard, who pursues the rest pertaining to this.

[303] In the place cited he says this of the silver reliquary: in the year 852 on the Kalends of October But on the casket in which his body was then deposited, these verses, composed by the lord Hincmar, are read engraved.

Here Hincmar, servant of the Lord, laid the sacred limbs Of sweet Remigius, led by loving devotion; Who was holy before he was brought forth to the world by his mother, And was named great from heaven by the mouth of God. Bearing twice ten and twice one years happily, By God's allotment he took up the pontifical dignity. Sixty years, together with twice seven, he had remained The honour of this city, its Prelate, and the love of the world; Restoring life to the dead, and sight also to the blind; And while living he had wrought wonders very many. For he tamed fierce hearts, loving in mind, lavish of speech,

Consecrating the royal sceptres of the Sicambrian race. When he had completed ninety-six years, The splendid light forsook our darkness. When the month of Janus had its Ides now full, The veteran Soldier receives worthy rewards. This same Hincmar, the first priest in this see After thirty, stood in place and in number; Who, sixteenth under this shining lamp, Rendered dear services to Remigius at Reims. For seven years, and five months, he exercised The pastor's charge, performing these things to be remembered. In the eight-hundredth and fifty-second year, In which God was born man of a Virgin, And the third Charles was ordering the acts of the kingdom, And Octimber * gave its first day, And the three-hundred-and-eighth * year was touching, In which this just man of the Lord seeks the stars of heaven; Three hundred years there had been, and three and four tens, Since, rejoicing, he washed the Franks in the flood of life. By his prayers may he be placed in the heavenly seat, Who as a true lover honoured him on earth. Amen.

[304] and he carried it into a new crypt, These are absent from our manuscript Life in the place where this translation is mentioned; in the same codex, however, after the Testament and codicil of St. Remigius, they are set down as a separate chapter 33, under a twofold title written in red letters. The first reads thus: There follow the metrical verses written on the silver casket in which the entire body of blessed Remigius is laid up: and the second, before the verse This same Hincmar the first, etc., is as follows: These following verses are written on the shrine of the body of Saint Remigius, on the lower line round about. From the same codex I have added those few variant readings in the margin. That the calculations according to which Hincmar reckoned 308 years from the baptism of Clovis, and 343 or 354 years from the death of St. Remigius, up to the year 852, in which this translation took place, are faulty, I proved in §4, which consult. The third Charles could not here have been anyone else to Hincmar than Charles the Bald, then king of Neustria, who, although among the kings of the Franks of this name he is only the second, was called the third by him, Charles Martel being counted, who ruled the Franks not indeed with the title of king, but of prince. Observe also in passing that Hincmar here calls himself the thirty-first bishop of Reims, who in Gallia Christiana is numbered thirty-second. The rest is correct, for since Hincmar was elected archbishop of Reims in the month of April of the year 845 and ordained on the 3rd day of the following May, he numbered seven years and five months in the episcopate on the Kalends of October of the year 852, in which he translated the body of St. Remigius.

[305] and added a magnificent adornment. Concerning the adornment of the tomb by Hincmar, the often-cited Flodoard, book 3, chapter 9, noted certain things of which he was silent in the place cited above, either because it was added afterwards, or because it did not then come to his mind. Finally the aforesaid prelate Hincmar (they are Flodoard's words) built a crypt of splendid workmanship at the feet of St. Remigius, and translated into it the body of the same most blessed Patron from the place of the former crypt, together with his tomb, the bishops of the diocese of Reims having been gathered, as has already been said above; and before his tomb he wrought a remarkable work in gold and set it with gems; he made there a window, through which the tomb of the Saint might be seen, and around that little window he placed these little verses:

This tomb for thee, great Remigius, was built By Hincmar the prelate, led by love of thee, That the Lord may grant me rest, O Saint, at the entreaty And by the worthy merits, my venerable one, of thee.

He also enumerates thus the gifts conferred by Hincmar on the same church: He adorned a Gospel book with golden letters, and protected it with covers of gold set off with the brilliance of gems, and furnished it at the beginning with verses illustrious in gold. And he also covered the larger cross with gold, and decorated it with gems. A book of the Sacraments also, under ivory boards ornamented with silver; and also a Lectionary book for the Masses, beautified with equal adornment, he gave there, and assigned other books and a number of ornaments to the same venerable place.

[306] The same writer of Reims had also stated beforehand, in book 1, While it continued to be made illustrious there by miracles, chapter 21, that Rado, subdeacon of the church of Reims, who had come with his bishop Rothad to take part in the translation, was suddenly freed from a horrible pain of the teeth, by which he had then been tormented day and night for a whole year, when, while the bishops were placing the venerable body in the prepared silver case, he applied his afflicted jaw to the coffin from which it had then been raised; and moreover that two men contracted by disease, in the Ribuarian district, on this same day obtained soundness in an oratory dedicated in the name of St. Remigius; but concerning these consult Hincmar in the Life, number 134, whence Flodoard took them. In this same church the body of St. Remigius remained until the year 882, and meanwhile it continued to be made illustrious by miracles, as the same Hincmar attests, whose words these are again: For from the time of the first and second translation, as also before, many and remarkable miracles were wrought in the same place through the merits of the Saint himself, from diverse infirmities, which we have written down; but here, on account of their multitude, and because they are very often shown there, we have omitted to set them down.

[307] It rested there, I say, until the year 882, the Northmen infesting the Gauls, in which it was carried off by the same Hincmar, then an old man and of broken health, to Épernay, a villa of the bishopric of Reims, and thence, after his death, to the monastery of Orbais, whence it was brought back to Reims by Fulk, his successor. Of these three translations we have a contemporary writer, anonymous, perhaps Rotfrid, whose narration we shall give after the twofold Life: but since this has either reached us mutilated or was not carried to its end by its author, Flodoard opportunely comes to our aid, from whose book 1 of the History of Reims, chapters 21 and 22, we shall also exhibit the same three translations in continuous series after the anonymous's little night-work, such as it is. Concerning both, see this Commentary, §2. The cause of the first of these, made secretly, or certainly without any pomp, was given by the Northmen, who, having become bolder from the death of Louis II, king of Germany, and having already taken the city of Trier, in the same year, Louis III, king of Gaul, also having died, were spreading their terror widely through the rest of the Gauls, and were threatening the people of Reims. Consult, if you please, Pagi in the Critica, and other writers met with everywhere.

[308] Hincmar, therefore, being anxious for the body of the holy Apostle of the Franks, to which neither its suburban church nor the city of Reims itself, at that time not encircled by a wall, is withdrawn by Hincmar to the villa of Épernay could afford a safe asylum, carried it away with him to Sparnacum, now a town, in French Espernay, then a villa, situated five leagues from the city of Reims and on the left bank of the river Marne toward the South, which the Saint himself had formerly purchased for his see from the powerful man Eulogius at a great price; as may be seen in the second Life, to be published, number 86 and the following, where I shall also note more concerning the same place. And so, crimes at length increasing (says Flodoard, book 3, chapter 30), against which (Hincmar) had always stood like an impregnable wall, the nation of the Northmen spreads through the whole kingdom of the Franks. And since this city (of Reims) was then inhabited without a wall, he, taking what he held dearer among his treasures, namely the body of Blessed Remigius, sought wooded places across the river Marne, and at the villa of Épernay kept the same sacred body for some time.

[309] in the year 882, in the month of November, The time of the translation's being made he assigns in book 1, chapter 21, as the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCLXXXII, under King Carloman. Rotfrid agrees, who moreover added other chronological notes, and the month and day, writing thus: In the year of the most happy Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God almighty, eight hundred and eighty-two, the first of the orthodox King Carloman, holding the sceptres of the kingdom of the Franks, but the thirty-eighth of the episcopate of Archbishop Hincmar … on the fifth of the Sabbath, the eighth day of the eighth month, which among the Latins is called November. All these chronological notes agree with the year 882, as I show in a few words. Carloman, son of Louis the Stammerer, who died in the year 879 in the month of April, succeeding with his brother Louis to his father's kingdom, first obtained Burgundy and Aquitaine; but then he likewise succeeded the same brother of his, Louis III, king of Gaul, who died in the month of August of the year 882. Carloman, therefore, in the month of November of this year was passing indeed the fourth year of his reign in Burgundy and Aquitaine, but only the first in his brother's inheritance; which latter epoch alone concerned the people of Reims, who had hitherto obeyed Louis.

[310] on the eighth day; Hincmar dies there The same author, whom it pleased to speak in the manner of the Hebrews, called November the eighth month, the beginning of the year being taken, namely, from the Hebrew month Nisan, which answers partly to our March, partly to April. Hence also he numbered the days of the week by Sabbaths, so that the first of the Sabbath is for us Sunday, the fifth of the Sabbath for us Thursday or the fifth Feria; which the Dominical letter G of the same year 882 proves to have coincided then with the 8th day of November. The time of Hincmar's episcopate as ascribed is also correct, who, in volume 9, column 39 of Gallia Christiana, is read to have been ordained archbishop on the 5th of the Nones of May of the year 845. Further, Hincmar, on the testimony of the same Flodoard, book 3, chapter 30, while he was staying there, closed his last day at the same villa; whose body was brought back to the monastery of St. Remigius, and buried behind the tomb of the Saint himself in the sepulchre which he had prepared for himself. His epitaph, dictated by him, is had in this form. but he is entombed at Reims: the year and day of his death is assigned.

[311] Of this epitaph, which is metrical, receive only the last verses, in which he indicated his confidence in his holy Patron.

May the devotion of sweet Remigius profit him *, With which he loved thee in heart and mouth and hand. Wherefore he humbly asked that his limbs be placed here, As it well pleased him: and so at last he died.

But the time of his death was added to the epitaph by another thus: In the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCLXXXII, but of his episcopate the XXXVIIth, in the VIIth month and the fourth day. It is certain that thirty-seven years and seven months completed are to be understood here, and if you reckon these together with four incomplete days from the 3rd day of May of the year 845, on which we said Hincmar was ordained, you will arrive at the 7th day of December of the year 882, on which he must have died at Épernay, after he had come thither with the body of St. Remigius from the 8th day of November of the same year. Sirmond, however, in the chronological synopsis before volume 1 of the Works of Hincmar, marked his death on the 21st day of December, deceived by I know not what monument, or led by a hallucination.

[312] Hincmar having died, the sacred remains of Remigius did not long remain at Épernay; [The body of St. Remigius is translated to Orbais in the same year or the following.] but of a safer asylum

for the sake of this, a second translation also followed, which Flodoard, book 1, chapter 21, related briefly thus: Finally, after the death of the Pontiff Hincmar, this longed-for treasure of sacred limbs is conveyed to the monastery of Orbais. Here too, by the suffrages of this our most blessed Patron, every favourableness of the air, with unwonted fertility, is attributed to the inhabitants dwelling round about. Rotfrid, who is to be published, has the same, asserting himself to be an ear- and eye-witness of the unwonted fertility and kindly air in which the neighbouring people of Orbais rejoiced at the arrival of the body of the Apostle of the Franks, while others elsewhere were struggling with the inclemency of the air. Now Orbacum, in French Orbais, is an old monastery of the Order of St. Benedict, whose situation I here transcribe from the enlarged Gallia Christiana, volume 9, column 422. It is situated at the furthest borders of the diocese of Soissons, on the bank of the river Surmelin, rising gently in a narrow valley, which is distant from Augusta Suessionum thirteen French miles, nine from Reims, eleven from Châlons; from Épernay, finally, Vertus, Sézanne, and Château-Thierry it is removed by only five leagues. Concerning the time of the translation neither of the cited writers added anything, but from what is to be said below it will be established that it took place either in the same year 882 or at the beginning of the following.

[313] Fulk, Hincmar's successor, in the year 883, the same sacred body Much more celebrated and joyful is the fourth translation, made by Fulk, who, when in the year of Christ 883 he had been substituted for Hincmar in the episcopate, being anxious to fortify the city against the onslaughts of the Northmen, soon began to restore the wall which Ebo, Hincmar's predecessor, had thrown down, and, using the leisure which the barbarians gave, brought back the remains of St. Remigius from Orbais, and laid them down within the city in the basilica of the most blessed Virgin Mary. Both writers, namely Rotfrid and Flodoard, set it forth at length; but the former of these, in our Prüm manuscript, did not carry it as far as the city, as I have already advised above. And so, since these things are to be given from those two after the Lives, I shall only touch upon them briefly in this place, and first of all, for the sake of chronology, I shall set forth the time of the event from Rotfrid. Straightway (he says of Archbishop Fulk), in the first year of his prelacy, in the third month, Siban, which in Latin is called June, on the 15th day of the same month, he came to Orbais; and the author observes that the next day was the day of the Lord's Resurrection, that is, the Lord's day, as we now call it.

[314] That Fulk was consecrated bishop of Reims in the year 883, at the beginning of the month of March, [on the 16th day of June from Orbais to Calmiciacum, the next day amid many miracles] the often-cited writers of Gallia say, and so he was still passing the first year of his see in the month of June of the same year assigned by Rotfrid. The month Siban is in fact the third month of the Hebrews, which coincides partly with our May, partly with June; and in the year 883 the 16th day of June was a Sunday, as we have from the Dominical letter F. On the 15th of June, therefore, which was a Saturday, Fulk, with some bishops of his province, and the clergy and a great throng of the people, came towards evening to Orbais, and spent the night there, a wholesome shower meanwhile refreshing the parched earth. On the following day, Sunday, after the divine offices had been solemnly celebrated, he ordered the sacred treasure to be taken up, and, setting out with it, the neighbouring people running together from all sides, he reached the villa or village of Calmiciacum. There that night they laid it down in a small church, which Rotfrid says, from the opinion of some, was formerly consecrated by the Saint himself, but Flodoard that it was dedicated in his name.

[315] [into the Saint's suburban church; on the third day he translates it within the city of Reims.] On the next day, or the 17th of June, the divine mysteries having again been celebrated, Fulk, pursuing his journey, brought the body, amid illustrious miracles, some of which may be read in what is to be published, into its suburban church, in which it had rested before, and commanded the people to return on the morrow. When morning came, therefore, they were present in great numbers, and among others a certain woman, Erluindis, seized in part of her body by a five-year languor, creeping thither, merited to be suddenly healed. At the appointed time Archbishop Fulk came with the clergy and the chief men of the people, and, the sacred coffin having been taken up, at length on the 18th day of June, that it might be kept more safely, he brought it within the walls of the city, and placed it in the basilica of the most blessed Virgin Mary, which was the metropolitan church, on the step of the altar. Nor were these things accomplished without miracles: for, on Flodoard's testimony, the Lord worked here on this day such a greatness of miracles that four men, and nine women, merited to recover sight; and two men also their walking. See the rest in the same place.

[316] Heriveus, substituted for Fulk, brings back the Saint's body Finally Flodoard annexed to the foregoing another translation, made by Heriveus, who, having succeeded Fulk, slain in the year 900, and there being now less to fear from the Northmen at Reims, brought back the body of St. Remigius with great pomp from the basilica of St. Mary into the suburban church in which it had first been buried. He makes mention of the same translation again in book 4, chapter 12, which, because it contains certain circumstances omitted in the former place, I shall recite here entire. This prelate (namely Heriveus) arranged to bring back the body of Blessed Remigius, which up to then was kept in the city, placed behind the altar of the Mother of God of the greater church, to the basilica of the burial of the Saint himself. Now it was winter time, and to celebrate the solemnity of the Lord's Nativity both King Charles (surnamed the Simple) and a number of his nobles had come together into this city. And since in these days, many rains threatening, there was excessive mud through the whole city and round about, many began to complain how they could then carry that holy body to the destined place.

[317] to its suburban church; while this is done, a paralytic is healed, But it came to pass that on the night after the feast of the Holy Innocents, on the following day of which that work was arranged to be completed, the north wind rising unexpectedly at midnight, the whole enormity of the mire was suddenly frozen; so that, the moisture of the ground and the mud being dried, over the surface of the ice suddenly given they were able to carry the sacred limbs of the Pontiff with dry and free footstep. But when, outside the city, they came to the place from which his monastery was now reached by a direct road, a certain lame man, of whom we have already related above (book 1, chapter 22, from which I shall give these things with the other translations), was raised up by divine power and restored to soundness. And since a great multitude of people was there, crowds flowing together from all sides, from Richard, prince of Burgundy, hemmed in by the density of the throng, scabbards adorned with gold and fittingly embellished with gems are cut from his belt. These a certain merchant bought and carried through various markets, nor could he sell them anywhere, until after a year he brought them back to the same prince in Burgundy; who received them with thanksgiving and with the blessing of St. Remigius. Of that lame man, who, creeping along supported on stools, was then granted the free use of his limbs, Flodoard, book 1, chapter 22, says: Whom, his health recovered, we saw for very many years sound, walking upright, and rejoicing in the prosperity bestowed upon him.

[318] And in memory of so great a miracle, on the same witness, of which miracle an erected monument exists. there stands a column set up there thereafter, with a cross fixed on it, containing the memorials of this glorification. It stands to this day, or certainly it still stood in the century just past, when Marlot inserted the inscription of its base in volume 1 of the History of the Metropolis of Reims, book 4, chapter 6, such as I here exhibit. In the nine-hundred-and-first year of the incarnate Lord, on the fourth of the Kalends of January, and the second of the Sabbath, the glorious body of our Lord and Patron blessed Remigius being borne from this city, with the honour of the dignity of both orders the people devoutly ran together with Heriveus the prelate, King Charles following with Prince Richard, rejoicing harmoniously with one mind in praises to Christ. When the most holy pledge had been borne hither, by power descended from heaven, straightway (wonderful to say *) a certain lame man leapt forth, his knees straightened, from here following with new step his Remedy, by whose aid may we be helped here and for ever.

Saint, have mercy on Sigloard thy monk, Who, led by love of this miracle wrought, Erected this inscription for its memorial.

[319] In exactly the same manner Colvener recited this inscription in the scholia to Flodoard, This translation was made in the common year 900, published very many years before Marlot's History; so that I cannot prudently doubt that the reckonings expressed in it are genuine, especially since Marlot, writing at Reims, saw it surviving. But these reckonings prove that the ascribed year 901 of the incarnate Lord is Dionysian, the beginning being taken from the 25th day of March of our common year 900, and thus that this translation took place towards the end of our common year 900, unless the inscription of the monument itself is faulty; which I see has not been observed by others. Receive the reason in a few words. The translation is here said to have been made on the fourth of the Kalends of January and the second of the Sabbath; that is, on the 29th day of December, Monday. As to the 29th day of December, Flodoard, just cited, agrees exactly, who says that it was made on the day following the feast of the Holy Innocents, which is celebrated on the 28th. But the said 29th day of December of the common year 901 was not the second of the Sabbath or Monday, but the third of the Sabbath, or Tuesday, as is clear from the Dominical letter D of the same year. On the other hand, our common year 900 in the month of December had the Dominical letter E, which shows that the Feast of the Holy Innocents then fell on a Sunday, and the 29th day of December consequently was the second of the Sabbath, or Monday.

[320] Jacques Longueval, in volume 6 of the History of the Gallican Church, page 415, reporting the same inscription in French, unless the inscription of the monument is faulty. retained the year 901 of the Lord's Incarnation and Monday, or the second feria; but for the day of the month he put the 28th of December; which I do not know whether he took from some copy in which the fifth of the Kalends was read instead of the fourth of the Kalends of January; or whether he did it in order to emend the apparent error from the year and the day of the week. But thus, against the clear assertion of Flodoard, the translation would have to be said to have taken place not on the day after the feast of the Holy Innocents, but on their feast itself. For the rest, since Heriveus is read to have been ordained bishop on the day before the Nones of July in the year 900, nothing prevents his having been able to do this towards the end of the same year. We believe, therefore, that those venerable mortal remains of the great Apostle of the Franks were brought back in the first year of the archiepiscopate of Heriveus, but in the year of Christ 900 according to our manner of reckoning, into the church of their first burial and into the mausoleum erected by Hincmar, after they had been carried in the year 882, in the month of November, first to Épernay by Hincmar, a little afterwards to Orbais, and finally by Fulk in the year 883 within the walls of the city of Reims to the basilica of Blessed Mary the Virgin.

[321] From fear of the Hungarians it is laid down in the city. In the same century that sacred pledge was again laid down within the same city for the sake of security, on the witness of the same Flodoard in the Chronicle at the year of Christ 926, where one reads: The body of St. Remigius, and the pledges of certain other Saints, were brought from their monasteries to Reims for fear of the Hungarians. How long they then

remained there he does not declare, nor, so far as I know, does he afterwards make mention of the bringing back of the body of St. Remigius; that there was alarm also in the following year from fear of the same Hungarians he indicates thus: Meanwhile fears of a false rumour of the Hungarians, and flights, are stirred up through the kingdom of Lotharingia and Francia. But at whatever time it was brought back, it is established that it was brought back to its own church, in which to this day it rests magnificently, as I shall set forth below.

* Ms. October

* Ms. ter centenos, and soon annos

* i.e. Hincmar

* perhaps mirum dictu?

§ XVIII. The building of the new Remigian basilica and its dedication by St. Leo IX, Pope: the synod then held in it: the body of the Saint laid down by him in the crypt: Privileges granted by the same and a solemn annual feast proclaimed.

The old church of St. Remigius threatening ruin, A century and a half later there occurred another most celebrated translation of the same sacred body, and the dedication of the church, made by the very Vicar of Christ St. Leo IX in the year 1049, which Anselm of Reims, monk of the Remigian monastery, a spectator of the event, set forth in writing at the command of Herimar his abbot, who had brought it about, in a Little Work which he called the Itinerary of the same St. Leo. This Little Work others published piecemeal, as the subject matter required, and Mabillon published it entire, in the Acts of the Saints of his Order, Sixth Century, part I, from the Reims manuscripts, under the title History of the dedication of the church of St. Remigius at Reims. There, in the preliminary Observations, he also cites some other writers who made honourable mention of it. I shall reprint that History below in its place from Mabillon, not entire, however, but with the synod of Reims cut away, which was then celebrated by the same St. Leo in the same church dedicated by him, with the reliquary of St. Remigius exposed before them, and which can be read in Labbe in the collection of the Councils.

[323] Further, that I may continue with the narration of the translations I have begun, Airard began a new one, and after Theodoric, Herimar completed it, it has seemed good to weave here also a compendium of this one, some things being added which were taken from elsewhere, or which are not to be recounted in the history itself to be published. The old basilica of St. Remigius, which we said had been enlarged by Hincmar, threatening ruin, Airard, abbot of the same place, began to build a new one. Theodoric, substituted for him when he died in the midst of his undertaking, perceiving that the work begun was of greater magnitude than could easily be completed, himself started another, which, dying in the twelfth year of his prelacy, he left unfinished. Herimar succeeded him, who, following in Theodoric's footsteps, at length completed it, and, what his predecessor had also desired, gave his further care to whether in any way it could be obtained that it should be dedicated by the supreme Roman Pontiff. And an opportune occasion offered itself. For in the year 1048, Damasus II having died after a very brief Pontificate, the emperor Henry designated as successor St. Bruno, bishop of Toul, who, going to Rome at his command, was likewise elected by the Roman clergy and people and enthroned as Pontiff, taking the name of Leo IX.

[324] Now Bruno had lately promised Abbot Herimar who also asked St. Leo IX, Pope, to dedicate it; that at the time of the next Lenten fast he would come on foot to the tomb of St. Remigius; mindful of which promise Herimar, before he had undertaken the Roman journey, asked him by letter that, if ever he should return to the Gauls, he would stand by his promises, and at the same time intimated his desire concerning the church's being dedicated by him. The holy Prelate surpassed the wishes of the suppliant, promising that, even if no other advantage of the Church should call him back, he would return to the Gauls for the sole love of St. Remigius and dedicate his basilica, if the divine kindness should assent. Nor did he long delay his promises: for in the same year 1049, on the 12th day of whose month of February he had been enthroned as Pontiff, having returned into Gaul, he dedicated that new church of St. Remigius, and held a synod in it. I record nothing here of the machinations by which perverse men, both clerics and laymen, fearing evil for themselves from the holy Pontiff on account of their crimes, laboured with Henry I, king of Gaul, that he should not be permitted to enter Francia and to celebrate a synod; for these, like many other things, can be read in the same place.

[325] Further, St. Leo, in the cited year 1049, on the 29th day of September, in the morning, came to the monastery of St. Remigius, [assenting to which, he came from Rome to Reims; whither a vast multitude of the neighbouring people] and, having venerated his tomb, entered the city of Reims, where in the metropolitan basilica of the most blessed Virgin Mary he solemnly celebrated Mass and spent the night in the nearby palace. On the next day, very early in the morning, the 30th of September, in order to avoid the throngs of the people flowing together, accompanied by only two chaplains, he returned to St. Remigius. And how great a multitude of men then flowed together thither for the solemnity to be celebrated on the following day may be gathered even from this, that there was room neither for the monks to discharge the accustomed divine day offices, nor for the supreme Pontiff himself to celebrate Mass in that church, and that Pontifical commands, promises and threats had to be applied to empty the church, so that at least the night offices might be carried out in it by the monks. Nor were these Franks only, but also foreign nations, whom the name of the great Remigius and the solemnity of the feast and the letters and presence of the supreme Pontiff had drawn thither in great numbers from the surrounding regions. See Anselm, setting these things forth at length in chapter 2 of the History to be published.

[326] I add here Wibert, archdeacon of Toul of St. Leo himself, and of foreign nations, a multitude of men, and also of bishops in the Life of the same Pontiff given by us at the 9th day of April, chapter 2, numbers 12 and 13, writing briefly thus: He (St. Leo, Pope) is invited by Herimar, abbot of the venerable monastery of St. Remigius, Pontiff of the Remi, to consecrate the church rebuilt in his honour: where it is not easy to say how great a multitude came from the ends of the earth, of Spaniards, Britons, Franks, English, to behold his presence. In which concourse there was present also no small assembly of pontiffs. But Henschen observes in the Annotations there that in the manuscripts Scots is read instead of Franks. And the Prelates at the synod are recounted thus in Anselm: of Reims (Archbishop Wido), of Trier (Archbishop Eberhard) … Berold of Soissons, Drogo of the Morini, Rollandus * of Senlis, Adalbero of Metz… Aylenard, archbishop of Lyons, Hugh of Langres, Geoffrey of Coutances, Ivo of Sées, Herbert of Lisieux, Hugh of Bayeux, Hugh of Avranches, Theodoric of Verdun… Hugh, archbishop of Besançon, Hugh of Nevers, Eusebius of Angers, Pudicus of Nantes, a bishop of the English, and John of Porto, who had come with the Pontiff from Rome.

[327] and a great number of abbots had assembled. So much of the bishops; but the abbots are recounted in this manner: The abbot of St. Remigius, Herimar, the lord Hugh of Cluny, Sigefrid of Gorze, Fulk of Corbie, Robert of Prüm, Rainold of St. Medard, Girvinus of St. Riquier, Godfrey of Vézelay, Arnold of Pothières, Rodulf of Mouzon, Oylard of Châlons, Milo of Montier-en-Der, Norgaud of Hautvillers, Albert of St. Theodoric, Stephen of St. Urban, Wulfric of St. Augustine's of Canterbury, Alwin of St. Benedict from the land of the English; then the others, who, as was related above, were together nearly fifty in number. Those three Englishmen had been sent by the holy King Edward, as far as we learn from a fragment of the book of the foundation of the monastery of St. Benedict of Ramsey in the county of Huntingdon, published by Spelman in volume 1 of the Councils of England, in which one may read this: These things were done after the abovesaid abbot (of Ramsey) Alfwin had returned home, coming back from the great council which was celebrated at Reims by Pope Leo in the year of the Incarnate Word MXLIX, to which there had been honourably sent by King Edward Duduc, bishop (of Wells in the county of Somerset), and Alswin himself of Ramsey, and Wulfric of St. Augustine's, Abbots.

[328] [The Pontiff, while the Saint's body is carried around the city, enters the basilica,] Further, for the same reason for which the holy Pontiff had ordered the people to go out of the church, namely lest the divine Office be disturbed by the excessive concourse, on the following day, which was the 1st of October, long sacred to St. Remigius on account of the earlier translations, he brought his body out of its crypt, and having placed it on a bier he himself carried it forth into public on his own shoulders also, and handed it to others to be borne to the basilica of Blessed Mary the Virgin, where it rested honourably the remaining day and night amid the ecclesiastical offices. On the following day a solemn procession with it was instituted around the circuit of the city, St. Leo meanwhile consecrating its new basilica. The dedication being completed, that venerable pledge, brought back to the doors of its church (for the doors had remained locked for the reason just alleged), was brought in through a certain window, and placed by the same Pontiff on the principal altar, which he himself had consecrated. After this he celebrated a solemn Mass of the dedication of the church, and again proclaimed the synod to be begun in it on the following day.

[329] On the third day of October, therefore, the synod was begun, and continued for three days, and before it, placed upon the altar, he celebrates the synod; from which I shall here excerpt only those things which pertain to the posthumous glory of St. Remigius, the reader being referred for the rest to Mabillon or to the editors of the Councils. From what has just been said, the Pontiff had not brought back the body of the holy Prelate to its crypt, but had left it exposed on the altar, of which thing he himself, on Anselm's witness, gave this reason, namely that (he) might appear evident and conspicuous to all eyes in the synod to be celebrated, in which, if any erring person should presume to assert anything frivolous or adverse to ecclesiastical religion, the Man of God might exhibit towards him, through the presence of his body, the potency of that power which, while still living in the world, he exhibited towards the Arian heretic, who, when in an assembly of bishops he was striving to overcloud the light of the Catholic faith with the shadow of his cloudy dogma, at his arrival he deprived by divine power of the office of voice (that is, he snatched away the faculty of speaking), but a little after, when he acknowledged his guilt with humble satisfaction, he transferred him, endowed with health of soul and body, to the sons of adoption. Which intention of the Pope, as he concluded, proceeding from a heavenly prompting, in no way lacked effect, as this Little Work will declare in its place.

[330] It declared it in the Acts of the synod of the second and third day, [in which, when the archbishop of Besançon was preparing to defend the guilty bishop of Langres] namely in the case of Hugh, bishop of Langres, whom, accused of Simony and other grave offences, Hugh, archbishop of Besançon, preparing to defend, was suddenly deprived of the use of his tongue. Receive Anselm's words. Not only can he (Hugh of Langres) not excuse himself from the crimes objected, but even from his advocate, that he may not be able to bring forth anything in his defence, the office of the tongue is divinely taken away. For the bishop of Besançon, while he was determining to plead the business he had undertaken, and to propose certain unfitting things for the excusing of the criminal, felt, unexpectedly to himself, the support of his voice denied him by the divine will. Without doubt the great Father Remigius, exposed for this very purpose, as was said before, in the sight of the synod by the Pope of blessed faith, shone forth here also with the potency of that same power by which he once, while he still sojourned on earth, brought to nothing the machinations of that Arian. For then the heretic

who was purposing to prate blasphemies against the Catholic faith he condemned to silence, lest he should accomplish what he attempted, but rather that by repenting he might become one of the faithful; but now a man, although of the faithful, lest he should offend by defending a criminal, he deprived of the use of speaking. And truly the incomprehensible power of the divine sublimity shone forth wonderfully in both these deeds, which both there conferred so much authority upon the glorious soul, although still enclosed in bodily wrappings, and now shows powerfully, around its lifeless body, with how great glory it has already beatified it. Concerning the Arian made mute and healed, see the Life to be published in the second place, number 101 and following.

[331] On the following day, which was the last of the synod, it was announced striving wrongly to excuse him, he was struck dumb; that Hugh of Langres, driven by the consciousness of his crimes, had fled, and he was excommunicated by the synod. Hearing which (says Anselm), the archbishop of Besançon rose, and revealed before the same assembly how on the day before, striving to excuse the same guilty man, he had been condemned to silence by divine power through the merits of Blessed Remigius, very devoutly asking pardon because he had until then negligently concealed the novelty of the same miracle. Here, out of pious devotion and eagerness of heart, the lord Pope, pierced to tears, spoke thus: "Blessed Remigius still lives". Then at his command all rose, and, prostrate with him before the tomb of the same Saint, they sang most devoutly the Antiphon Sancte Remigi entire. Wibert, already cited, is nearly in accord, in the Life published by us, chapter 3, number 13, where he says: Hugh, bishop of Langres, defamed by many and horrible accusations, was called to render an account; who sought for himself as advocate and spokesman the aforesaid archbishop of Chrysopolis (that is, of Besançon), as being most eloquent. He therefore, compelled by the Lord Apostolic, undertook to plead his cause (but suddenly he was struck dumb in the presence of all: so that it might plainly be revealed that God did not will that the tongue of so great a Pontiff should be defiled by false excuses of true crimes.

[332] [as he himself confessed there: for which reason thanks were solemnly rendered to God and to Remigius.] Hugh of Langres, therefore, terrified by this miracle, fled by night, fearing the judgment of the council. And all being afflicted and weeping for the misfortune of the archbishop present, the Lord Apostolic, turning to Christ with the utmost contrition of heart, loosed his impeded tongue by his holy prayers. But on the morrow the same bishop (of Langres), being sought in the synod and found not to be present, was, the sentence having been read, called a third time. Then the bishop of Besançon rose, and revealed before all how, having attempted to defend the same guilty man, he had been struck dumb. Hearing which, the Lord Pope ascribed this miracle to the merits of Blessed Remigius, and, rising with all who were present, rendered thanks to God, and then to the lord Saint Remigius, with great psalmody. Wibert here subjoins the notable penance of Hugh of Langres, afterwards voluntarily undertaken by him, the absolution of his crimes imparted to him by the same St. Leo, and finally his pious constancy in fasts and mortification of the body until death; which we note to the glory of the most merciful God and to the commendation of Hugh himself.

[333] The holy Pontiff, in the same synod, the altar of St. Remigius, In the same synod, on the third day, which was the fifth of October, the same Pontiff, on the witness of the same Anselm in the same place, confirmed the privilege which he had made for St. Remigius, recited there in the sight of all, and ordained that it should be inviolably preserved for all time, as it was contained in writing; and so, the blessing having been given, he dissolved the council. This privilege he had granted on the very day of the dedication of the church, but it was written down a little afterwards, as appears from the text published by Mabillon, from which I transfer it here entire. Leo, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Herimar, abbot, and to the whole congregation of the monks of Saint Remigius, perpetual salvation. Not unmindful of, and not ungrateful to, the divine goodness, which by its grace has raised my lowliness to the Apostolic See of the holy Roman Church, lest my negligence should work peril to me and ruin to the churches, I have purposed to order in Catholic fashion, to rule and to amend the churches which lie subject to our Apostolate, and also to make them immune and free by Apostolic authority, if the kindly favour of the Holy Spirit shall assent to me. Whence, from the obligation of our Apostolate, after some churches which, kindled with the zeal of charity, I have visited, and, the divine mercy going before me, have amended as I could, I have come to dedicate this church of blessed Remigius, and also to treat of and determine ecclesiastical causes, trusting to be helped by his most holy merits to obtain the mercy of God, if I should do anything worthy and memorable to his honour and glory.

[334] This church, therefore, having been dedicated, it has pleased us to leave to it fitting and laudable memorials of our authority and of our visitation. [which he had consecrated, he ennobles with a notable privilege, and of the same church] We deliberate, therefore, and before this holy synod we promulgate, ordain and confirm, that this church have this privilege of our authority above the other churches of Francia, namely that no person of the ecclesiastical order, great or small, presume to celebrate Mass at this altar which we have consecrated, except the archbishop of the Remi, and the abbot of this place, and one to whom he shall grant licence; the same licence being permitted to the canons of the church of Reims twice in the year, namely at Easter and at the Rogations, to seven lawful presbyters deputed to this office, whom learning adorns, and gravity of morals and probity of life commend. Moreover, since this church has suffered grave and manifold injuries to its property from wicked usurpers, we forbid, by the authority of blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, that anyone henceforth impose grave and wicked exactions upon the villas of blessed Remigius which it possesses or shall possess, or upon the men placed within or without those villas; and those which have hitherto been unjustly imposed, by the same holy and inviolable authority we interdict, that they be done no further; this authority being preserved in all things, that the customs which have justly been established for it of old remain ratified and inviolate.

[335] This also we confirm by our authority, that the share which Wido, archbishop of the Remi, he confirms its old rights, and adds new ones: at our request, gave to blessed Remigius in the market *, which was on the 12th of the Kalends of November, on this condition, that no one in that market carry off by violence the value of five pence, no one, except the abbot of this place, or one to whom he himself shall order it, receive anything there. Let no one strike, impede, or carry off anything by force from those coming together to the same market, which we ordain and promulgate for the 12th of the Kalends of November, in coming and returning. Ordaining under the adjuration of the divine judgment that whoever shall presume to violate this privilege of the holy Roman See shall incur eternal damnation. Under the same adjuration also, at our request and with the voluntary assent of the aforesaid archbishop, there has been remitted to the church the charge which the archbishop of Reims used to receive on the feast of Saint Remigius. Given on the 3rd of the Nones of October by the hand of Peter the deacon, librarian and chancellor of the holy Apostolic See, in the Ist year of the lord Pope Leo IX, Indiction III. Anselm also makes mention of this privilege in the History of the dedication to be published, number 29, where we shall note some things.

[336] The aforesaid synod of Reims being happily finished, the holy Pontiff, about to return thence into Italy, he brings back the sacred body into the crypt, and having returned into Italy, on the following day, which was the sixth of October, returned into the church with the bishops, abbots and the other men of the ecclesiastical Order, and after a solemn Mass, which he caused to be celebrated before him, he brought back the body of St. Remigius, which he had hitherto left placed on the principal altar, again placed on his own shoulders, to the crypt fittingly and handsomely prepared, and, having poured forth pious prayers and tears there, he set out on his way. Not long afterwards, but, as far as appears, having already returned to Rome, he directed a letter to the whole clergy and people of the Franks, by which he both testified his love for St. Remigius and instituted the annual feast of the translation made by him, to be observed in Francia on the Kalends of October. We have as witness the same Anselm, closing his Little Work with these words: Finally the venerable Man (St. Leo, Pontiff), honouring our often-mentioned Apostle with so much the more fervent love, and desiring above all to honour him, and to ennoble his monastery by his authority, directed a letter full of his praise to the sons of the holy Church established in Francia, by which he decreed that among them the festival of the Saint himself should be held solemn, which is kept on the Kalends of October … the text of which letter, since the order of the narration seems to require it, we have judged worthy to insert in this Work. And the copy of it is of this sort.

[337] by a letter given to the Franks he testifies his love for St. Remigius, Leo, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, to the Catholic brethren and sons established throughout the whole kingdom of the Franks, salvation and Apostolic blessing. We believe it is known to your charity that after our consecration, namely that by which the kindness of God willed that our lowliness should preside over the holy Roman Church, we visited Germany and Gaul, and, coming to the city of the Remi, with the greatest desire and the highest devotion we dedicated with great glory the church of blessed Remigius, as we had long before desired, God assenting, and the merits of the same most holy Man lending their patronage; and after the consecration of the church, celebrating a synod in it, we confirmed by statute very many things necessary for the advantage of the Christian religion, by the counsel of our fellow-bishops, with the assent also and approval of the clergy and people, whose countless multitude had flowed together to the celebration of so great a devotion: all which, arranged in chapters, we commanded to be held among the canons, and afterwards in all the synods that we held we took care to confirm the same.

[338] [and he ordained that his feast be solemnly celebrated every year on the Kalends of October.] And since we know most blessed Remigius to be the preacher and apostle of the nation of the Franks, we ought, as far as we can, to venerate and honour him whom the Lord has made wonderful on earth and in heaven: especially since the love of him always burns more fervently in our breast from this, that, translating with our own hands the most precious body of that most holy Man, we laid it again in the place prepared for it and adorned with the wonderful beauty of exquisite work. Whence we wish to admonish your love that, as you perceive us to rejoice in his service, so you also, for the sake of our love, and chiefly out of the debt of paternal honour, hold his solemnity, which is on the Kalends of October, as a feast; because, although to others he is not an apostle, yet he is to you: for you are the firstfruits of his apostleship in the Lord. Show, therefore, this honour to your Father and Apostle, that according to the promise of the Lord you may merit to live long upon the earth, and by the prayers of the same Father to possess the felicity of eternal blessedness. Farewell. To this letter no note of time or place is ascribed, nor have we anything for either beyond what Anselm indicates, that St. Leo was impelled to write it partly by a miracle which had befallen the same Pontiff in the second year after the events at Reims, while he was staying at Rome. Further, that this decree concerning the celebration of the feast was renewed by the Gallican clergy in the year 1657, we shall see in its place.

* otherwise Frollandus.

* otherwise motus

* rather qua

* i.e. at the fair

§ XIX. The holy Apostle of the Franks' magnificent

mausoleum and silver reliquary: the integrity of the body confirmed in the XVIIth century: what relics were honoured of old in the territory of Nevers, and others in the Abbey of Berceto in Italy.

Cardinal Robert de Lenoncourt caused to be made The body of the holy Apostle of the Franks continued to rest in its crypt, into which I said it was brought by St. Leo, Pope, in the year 1049, until the advanced sixteenth century, when it was translated anew into a truly magnificent mausoleum, in which it is religiously kept to this day. Marlot, in words to be given shortly, names as the author of this most sumptuous work Cardinal Lenuncurtius, or de Lenoncourt. The writers of the enlarged Gallia Christiana agree, in the series of the abbots of St. Remigius of Reims, volume 9, column 238, where one reads: Robert de Lenoncourt II succeeded his paternal uncle (in the abbatial office of the same monastery) in the year MDXXIII, afterwards made bishop of Châlons, then Cardinal, then bishop of Metz. That most sumptuous mausoleum of St. Remigius, which we described in the Prologue, he erected in the year MDXXXIV. Baillet, citing Saussay's Posthumous Glory of St. Remigius, a Work which has not come into our hands, asserts that it was begun by the same Cardinal's paternal uncle and predecessor in the abbacy, Robert de Lenoncourt, who was first archbishop of Tours, then of Reims, about the beginning of the said sixteenth century, but completed by the cited Cardinal. The cited authors of Gallia Christiana described it from Marlot's History of Reims, volume 1, book 3, chapter 9, whose words deserve a place here also.

[340] Behind the high altar (says Marlot) stands the mausoleum of St. Remigius, a most sumptuous mausoleum of precious and varied marble, of a beauty and magnificence worth seeing; for it is the most beautiful of all that are in Gaul, of which we reproduce the figure from our little book entitled The Tomb of the Apostle of the Franks. This mass rises in height to twenty feet and more, and, adorned on either side with six statues skilfully wrought of white and smooth marble, it represents the first twelve Peers of France with such exquisite artifice that the whole thing seems composed wholly for majesty, fashioned wholly for wonder. The statues are separated one from another, each by a column of white-and-purple jasper, and by as many niches hollowed out in the marble mass itself. On one side six Peers of the clergy, on the other as many laymen of the first nobility, each worth seeing and notable by his own symbols and tokens, sacred and profane: on these the military cloak, on those the robes of state; on these crowns, on those mitres; on these the collars of knights and swords, on those, carried in the hand, pastoral crooks. Finally, to all their fixed and distinguishing marks, shields of honour, and the symbols of royal majesty and power which each bears before him at the inauguration of a king. On the tops of the columns then rests a common architrave, running round on all sides, upon which a cornice is placed, with its friezes and the projections of its parts, which lends wonderful elegance to the work.

[341] Supported on high by this columned cornice there rises over the whole mass of the tomb an arched vault of shining stone, adorned with gold and silver and gems, drawn out lengthwise with an even vaulting, except that it ends in two end pediments in arched form, and in the middle of each side opens another pediment as well; but at the back, in an open little space above the rear columns, is seen the holy prelate of the Remi, Remigius, seated on a raised throne, who, between Clovis in the middle and Lord Theodoric standing by him on the left, with such native gravity of countenance, such lovely grace of eyes and brow, such venerable and lovable majesty of face and of the whole body, addresses Clovis, who approaches him as a suppliant to God, as though either he were opening to him the first mysteries of the faith, or commanding the Sicambrian, now milder, his ferocity laid aside, to bow his neck to the most sweet yoke of Christ. Where the sloping roof of the tomb, bending down above towards the sides, rests upon the cornice, one may see, in fifty-four compartments arranged in a double row lengthwise, reliefs, twenty-seven on each side, in each of which, between twin little columns of jasper, the most noble deeds of the holy Prelate are seen represented in painted and chased silver.

[342] such as is here described from Marlot. The front face of the tomb, as it is the first presented to those who come, so it shines splendidly with an adornment especially precious and magnificent. This first front opens with a double quadrangular window, each of which glows, worth seeing, with a huge plate of refined and solid gold, with golden lilies standing out in cast half-relief; and the lower one indeed, between two columns of most precious porphyry, wholly, wholly, as great as it is, so radiates with metals melted to the hue of orpiment, so gleams with translucent stones in most beautiful order, with pearls, and some of these of unusual size and price, that it appears lovelier than the sky with its stars. Besides these there are countless reliefs in silver, jewelled garlands and cast roses of pearls; likewise, of gems and pearls most beautifully linked together in gold, lions, eagles, elephants, doves, huge crosses, and six hundred other most excellent works of the goldsmith's and jeweller's art of that kind. But all this exterior beauty and elegance of the mausoleum, great as it is, erected about a hundred years ago by the liberality of Cardinal de Lenoncourt, is less, if it be compared with those things which are within.

[343] [In it is kept the Saint's body enclosed in a double silver case, likewise the holy ampulla,] For it contains, as an immortal deposit, the body of the renowned Apostle of the Franks, consisting in all its parts, and as though exempt from corruption, in a silver casket recently wrought with skill, coming very near to the form of the aforesaid mausoleum. This silver casket, which is here carefully said to have been recently wrought with skill, will not have been made by the cited Cardinal de Lenoncourt, but a whole century later by Léonor d'Estampes de Valençay, archbishop of Reims, as far as may be gathered from volume 9 of Gallia Christiana, column 161, where in the eulogy of the same Léonor one reads: In the year MDCL he caused the old casket of St. Remigius, made already from the times of Hincmar, to be laid up in a silver coffin. Since, therefore, Marlot published the first volume of his metropolis in print in the year 1666, he doubtless indicated this very coffin by the silver casket recently wrought with skill. In the same, and at the feet of St. Remigius, is kept the Chrism sent from heaven, which they call the AMPULLA, in a silver vessel, overlaid with gold, sprinkled and made illustrious with stones and pearls, to which a little chain is attached, which the abbot puts about his neck when he carries the sacred unction with notable pomp from the monastery to the greater church for the inauguration of kings.

[344] There is also in the aforesaid mausoleum the staff of St. Remigius, and the pastoral crook of the Saint. covered with golden plates, which they say was sent by Hormisdas when Remigius was created Apostolic legate throughout the kingdom of Clovis; although in the charter to be cited below, chapter 14, he is said to have put a demon to flight from the city of Reims by means of it; which, however, does not overturn the earlier tradition. What I think of the ampulla received from heaven I have said sufficiently above in this very Commentary, in which I also showed that St. Remigius could not have been constituted Apostolic Vicar in the kingdom of the already baptized Clovis, with the circumstances they wish, by St. Hormisdas, but that the matter ought to be referred to Anastasius II or St. Symmachus. As regards the figure of this magnificent mausoleum, it is lacking in our copy of Marlot's History of Reims, nor have we the other Little Work of the same author, entitled The Tomb of the Apostle of the Franks; wherefore I was compelled to give to our engraver to imitate the same, drawn by G. Baussonnet in the year 1633 and engraved in copper by E. Moreau, from the French Life written by René de Cerisiers, in order to present to the eyes of the studious reader two of its four sides.

[345] Marlot goes on in the same place to set forth what was afterwards added to the work of Cardinal de Lenoncourt, Other ornaments afterwards added around the aforesaid mausoleum and at the time when he was writing was not yet finished. Both to the principal altar and to the mausoleum much splendour and light is now brought by screens of white stone, with columns of bronze and marble gleaming intermixed, with architraves and a gilded cornice, set with exquisite art between each of the larger columns of the sanctuary which support the vaults of the choir, on the completion of which diligent care is being bestowed, so that it is to be hoped that the whole space between the columns will shortly be wonderfully enclosed. The more beautiful of these, enclosing the gate by which access is had to the tomb, was built at public expense and by the piety of the senate of Reims; another by the liberality of the most distinguished man, Lord Talon, advocate-general in the supreme court of Paris; the rest at the expense of the Reverend Lord Wilquin, Grand Prior of the same monastery, a very great friend to me, who, emulating his predecessors, by whose sparing living the church has been adorned with altars, caskets and silver statues, an organ, painted panels and other works, applies himself especially to this, that the elegance of the screens, which hitherto seemed lacking to the complete adornment of the choir, may receive its final beauty. So much concerning that precious mausoleum, surviving to this day with the more precious deposit enclosed in it.

[346] In the year 1646 the sacred body was found entire, Baillet, under St. Remigius, makes mention of a certain visitation or inspection of the same sacred body made in the year 1646 by the same most illustrious Archbishop Léonor, by whom, as we have just said, the old Hincmarian reliquary was enclosed in a new one in the year 1650. Receive his words in Latin from the French. Archbishop Léonor d'Étampes de Valençay, in a solemn visitation of the reliquary made in the year MDCXLVI, declared with many notable witnesses that the body of the Saint was found entire in all its parts, and even then covered with its skin, the shroud adhering to it in such a way that they did not dare to remove it, lest they should at the same time take something from the body, but from which nevertheless it sufficiently appeared that the flesh was dried, such as Hincmar noted it to have been when in the year DCCCLII he made the second translation of the same body. This prelate adds that in this visitation, which was repeated with greater solemnity on the 13th day of November of the same year, only the head of the sacred body was examined; that its forehead was seen covered with its skin, the eyes with their lids; its mouth wholly open, and in it four or five very shining teeth seen; some hairs also about the temples, and finally a beard found fairly thick, but short, as though it had been shaved only eight or nine days before.

[347] Of this visitation the cited writers of Gallia Christiana also make more sparing mention under Léonor, in these words: and an instrument was made concerning its integrity. In the year MDCXLVI he caused a document to be issued by which the integrity of the body of St. Remigius is attested and confirmed. Longueval, finally, also makes mention of it in the History of the Gallican Church, volume 6, page 33, on the occasion of the translation formerly made by Hincmar, whose inscription embroidered on the silk veil with which he then veiled the face of St. Remigius was found in the aforementioned year 1649, as was said at number 302. Marlot did not carry his history to the same year, nor have I obtained from elsewhere the document of Léonor cited by the writers of Gallia Christiana, so that I am compelled here to abstain from more, and I do not know whether this integrity of the body

inspection gave occasion for the making of the new silver case, or whether the inspection itself was made in order that the same case might be made.

[348] With the asserted integrity of the body there agrees entirely what we have concerning the scrupulousness of the ancient people of Reims in preserving it entire. This integrity of the body is confirmed from the fact that no relics Hincmar, in the Life, number 120, narrating its first translation, says this of the relics then set apart: And on the very day of his translation there were taken with divine praises relics from his body, namely from his hair, and his chasuble and tunic; and his body was wrapped, entire but dried, in a red brandeum (that is, a funeral veil). Nothing, then, was cut off at that time from the entire body of the Saint except a part of the hair. Still less was taken from it by Hincmar, who afterwards, at number 133, treating of its translation, which he himself solemnly carried out in the year 852, says: The most holy body itself, as in the earlier translation by the bishops of the diocese of the Remi, was found entire, and wrapped in a red brandeum. And when it was transferred from the tomb itself into a silver casket, a part of the brandeum, with the sudarium which had been upon his head, taken up in a little ivory chest, is venerated with due honour beside the altar of holy Mary in the city (which is the cathedral church).

[349] That these, and no other, relics of St. Remigius, given by Hincmar to his cathedral church, are read to have been separated from it, except hair, were kept there in his time, Flodoard sufficiently indicates, book 1, chapter 21, saying thus: But the sudarium which was upon his head, with a part of the aforesaid brandeum, laid up in a little ivory chest, is kept at Reims in the church of the blessed Mother of God, Mary. Indeed, so great was Hincmar's scrupulousness in this matter that he did not dare to comply even with Louis Transrhenanus himself, or the king of Germany, when he asked for relics from the body of the same Saint. So we learn from the same Flodoard, book 3, chapter 9, citing the letter of Hincmar himself in these words: But from the body of the most blessed Remigius himself he (Hincmar) did not dare to take anything, as he himself also testifies in a letter to Louis, the king beyond the Rhine, who was asking this as a gift from him. But this * Pontiff asserts that he held it to be the greatest presumption to break up his body, which the Lord had preserved entire through so long a time. That what Hincmar did not dare to do for the favour of King Louis his successors did not dare thereafter either is proved by the integrity of the sacred body, confirmed about the middle of the seventeenth century by the testimony of Léonor, archbishop of Reims.

[350] the sudarium, the pall, etc., and perhaps teeth; of which something Consequently to this, the Saint-Remi monks of Reims themselves also acknowledge that no other relics of his, distinct from the sacred body itself, are kept among them except the holy ampulla and the pastoral staff, enclosed in the mausoleum, and the pall, or sepulchral hanging. At least Marlot knew of no others there, who, in book 3 of the History of Reims, chapter 10, among the sacred relics kept outside the mausoleum in the Treasury of the same place, makes mention only of the latter, writing thus: There is kept there the pall with which the tomb of St. Remigius was covered as a sign of sanctity, before the body was translated from it. Gregory of Tours makes mention of this, chapter 79 of the Glory of the Confessors. It is of white colour, set off with little red branches and lions; it is commonly called the Sudarium, but improperly. When Champagne labours under drought or an epidemic disease, it is wont to be carried around the streets of the city by the religious in procession, that God, by the intercession of the holy Prelate, may turn the evil far away. The words of Gregory of Tours I gave above at number 289 and following; where it was said that by the invocation of St. Remigius and the carrying around of his sepulchral pall the people of Reims happily repelled the most imminent danger of the plague of the groin. See also Hincmar in the Life, number 117, and what is to be noted there.

[351] [may formerly have been in the territory of Nevers; and something by St. Moderamnus] Of relics of this kind, namely of hair, veil, or other things which had in some way pertained to the body of St. Remigius, or perhaps also of teeth, it must be said that there was something that shone with miracles among the people of Nevers, as Hincmar related in the Life, number 126, as follows: A certain noble Man of the territory of Nevers, having obtained relics of Blessed Remigius, built an oratory in his honour on his own property; where the Lord showed many miracles through the merits of His Saint himself. Of the same kind were the relics which St. Moderamnus, bishop of Rennes in Gallic Brittany, in the eighth century is said to have carried with him into Italy and, by divine command, to have deposited in the monastery of Berceto of St. Abundius the martyr, which from them was afterwards called of St. Remigius. We have again as author Flodoard, whose words from book 1, chapter 20, I here transcribe. In the time of King Chilperic there is said to have lived Moderamnus, prelate of the church of Rennes, a man sprung from noble lineage, who, arranging by leave of the aforesaid king to visit the threshold of St. Peter, turned aside into the monastery of Blessed Remigius, situated in the suburb of the city of Reims. Where, liberally received by the brethren of the same place, he obtained from Bernehard, the keeper of the sacred things, relics from the stole, the hair shirt, and the Sudarium of St. Remigius.

[352] bishop of Rennes, in the 8th century, is said to have been brought into Italy These having been gratefully received, pursuing gladly the journey he had begun, while he was passing through Italy, having his lodging one night on Mount Bardone, he hung the aforesaid relics on the branches of a holm-oak. And when, rising at daybreak, he took up the journey he had begun, forgetful of them (by divine command, as is believed), these pledges remained in that place. But when the bishop had gone on somewhat further, and became mindful of the relics left behind, he at once sends his cleric, named Vulfadus, to recover them. When he came to them, he could by no contrivance touch them, since, by a wonderful sign, as he wished to reach them they were lifted on high. The aforesaid bishop, having heard of this miracle, returning, pitched his tent in the same place; but he could in no way recover the pledges left behind that same night, until, morning having come, celebrating Mass in the monastery which is called Bercetum, built there in honour of St. Abundius the martyr, he vowed that he would leave there a part of the aforesaid gifts; and so, receiving back what had been snatched from him, having venerably fulfilled his vow, he resumed the journey he had begun.

[353] Liutprand, the vigorous king of the Italians, meeting him, and given to the monastery of Berceto who had already learned by hearsay of this power of the sacred objects, led by love of Blessed Remigius, assigned the same monastery, namely Berceto, with all its appurtenances and the whole abbey, containing (as they relate) eight hundred manses, to the aforesaid prelate Moderamnus, and in the presence of his faithful men made him legal investiture of it after the custom, and a charter. And the aforesaid prelate, returning from the city of Rome, came to venerate the tomb of Blessed Remigius, and as the aforesaid king had handed over this land to him, so likewise he conferred the same upon St. Remigius. And so, having returned prosperously to his bishopric, he had a successor ordained for himself, and bidding farewell to his sons, he sought again the monastery of Berceto, and until the day of his death he lived in that place, conducting himself with moderation and honour as a servant of God. Which place also was thereafter made illustrious and renowned by a number of miracles. He mentions the same monastery again in book 2, chapter 19, under Ebo, archbishop of Reims, the immediate predecessor of Hincmar, who entangled himself too much in the business of the palace, on the occasion of which he writes this.

[354] While, then, the prelate Ebo was frequently staying at that time in the palace, which on this occasion is said to have begun to be called after St. Remigius, a vision of this kind concerning him was revealed in the monastery of St. Remigius (of Reims). There was there a certain monk, named Raduin, a Lombard by race, who had formerly been abbot of the monastery which on Mount Bardone in Italy flourishes with the celebrated memory of most blessed Remigius, dedicated through the zeal of Moderamnus, bishop of Rennes. In which monastery, while the aforesaid Raduin was performing the duties of the monastic profession, led by love of the merits of Blessed Remigius, he sought the threshold of his tomb. And he, leading a religious life with the brethren of the same place, strove worthily to prepare himself for the heavenly warfare. There follows the vision of the cited Raduin, which does not pertain here. Nearly the same things concerning Moderamnus are read in our manuscript codex, from which we publish the Life composed by Hincmar; which chapter, however, since we believe it is not Hincmar's, we shall pass over. In this codex the bishop is called Moderannus, and the monastery of Berceto is said to have been named in the writer's time At Saint Moderannus; and instead of eight hundred manses only eighty are read. Of Raduin one may read there only this: A canon of which place (Berceto), named Radoin, coming in process of time into Francia for love of Blessed Remigius, was made a monk in his monastery (of Reims), and for his probity obtained the honour of the provostship.

[355] This St. Moderannus is inscribed in some Martyrologies, and by Liutprand, king of the Lombards, and is venerated with a proper office of double rite on the 22nd of October throughout the diocese of Rennes in Lesser Brittany, and he also has his own particular cult at Berceto, founded, where his body rests. At that day, therefore, he will have to be treated in our Work, and there will have to be added whatever else of his deeds may become known from elsewhere. Meanwhile receive here what belongs now to our argument. Nicola Coleti, in the Additions to Ughelli's Italia Sacra, volume 2, column 144, records the abbey of Berceto and the town of the same name in the diocese of Parma. Its situation is assigned a little more clearly by Augustin Lubin in the Abbeys of Italy, namely in the duchy of Parma near the Alps called of Bardona, on Mount Bardone, to the East of the city of Parma. Paul Warnefrid, deacon of Friuli, in the deeds of the Lombards, Muratori's edition, book 6, chapter 58, records the same monastery among the sacred buildings of King Liutprand thus: On the summit of the Alp of Bardo he built a monastery, which is called Bercetum. But Muratori, or whoever is the author of the notes added there, after Mabillon, determined from the words of Flodoard given above that it was enriched and increased with goods and buildings by the cited king on account of the relics of St. Remigius deposited there by Moderamnus, not first founded.

[356] or rather was restored and increased: And indeed the authority of Paul the deacon is the weightier, since he, himself a Lombard and an Italian, wrote in the same eighth century in which Liutprand reigned; Flodoard, a Gaul, first composed his History of Reims in the tenth century in Gaul: since, however, Paul's words admit Muratori's interpretation without difficulty, there is no reason why we should accuse Flodoard of error; especially since the history of the monastery of Berceto could easily have been known at Reims from Raduin, who, as we said, in the ninth century, from a pupil or abbot of the same place, was made a monk of Reims; and all the more so if, as Flodoard asserts, the monastery of Berceto was at some time subject to that of Reims. However it may be, both writers agreeing on Liutprand, it does not seem to be doubted that this pious king at least increased Berceto in honour of St. Remigius, and that on the occasion alleged by Flodoard. Certainly that it was afterwards called by the name of St. Remigius is proved by two of the kings'

diplomas of Italy of the tenth century, published by Muratori in volumes 6 and 2 of the Antiquities of Italy.

[357] Was it also ever subject to the monastery of Reims? The first, given in the year of Christ 922, is King Rudolf's, by which he confirmed the abbey of Berceto, built in honour of Saint Remigius in the county of Parma, formerly given with all its appurtenances to the bishopric of Parma. By the other, Hugh, likewise king of Italy, in the year 930, confirming the same donation, used the same words: Namely the Abbey of Berceto, built in honour of Saint Remigius, etc. Hence, further, it is clear that that monastery was of the jurisdiction of the bishopric of Parma in the tenth century, to which other diplomas also, reported by Ughelli in volume 2 of the enlarged Italia Sacra under the bishops of Parma, teach that it had already been given from the ninth century, in which, however, it is called only the abbey of Berceto, without any title of St. Remigius or of St. Abundius or Moderamnus. But concerning its subjection to the monastery of Reims I have found nothing of the sort: wherefore, if that donation was ever made by St. Moderamnus, it does not seem to have held long. Add that it must seem quite remarkable if Liutprand, king of the Lombards of Italy, permitted an abbey of his kingdom to be given to another situated in Francia.

* otherwise id

§ XX. Relics from the Saint's teeth, hair, etc., honoured in various places: what is to be thought of sacred bones which are assigned elsewhere as though they were his: a church dedicated to him at Florence: his ancient and more recent cult.

Besides the churches named in the preceding §, there are many more still [Relics of the Saint from his hair, hair shirt, etc., given to a certain priory in Provence,] which glory in relics of the same holy Apostle of the Franks given to them. In Marlot, volume 1, page 357, I read that a certain donation of them was made by the Remigian monks of Reims in the year 1251 to the priory of St. Remigius in Provence, of the diocese of Avignon, which at that time depended on the monastery of Reims. Marlot recites there the instrument of donation from the capitular Acts, and from this I subjoin as much as pertains to our argument. To all who shall inspect the present letters, Henry the Prior, John the Cantor, and the whole convent of St. Remigius of Reims, etc. We transmit to you some of the hair shirt, of the chasuble, of the hair and of the sarcophagus of most blessed Remigius, of the bones of Saint Clement, Pope and Martyr … of the staff of Saint Remigius, by which he put a demon to flight from the city of Reims… Given at Reims in the year MCCLI in the month of January. So it is there; but I doubt whether the month or the year is correct, because Marlot, observing that this instrument was made while the abbatial see was vacant, had nevertheless stated beforehand in the same place that the death of the last abbot, Pierre de Sacy, fell on the 8th day of October of the same year 1251. Further, since in the same instrument no mention is made of the bones of St. Remigius, this donation suffers no difficulty on that score.

[359] In our Work, volume 1 of February, page 403, such perhaps as are also those which are ascribed to some other places: number 49, from Adam of Bremen and Albert of Stade, St. Anskar, archbishop of Hamburg, in the ninth century, is said to have kept at Bremen, with great honour, treasures of Blessed Remigius … That St. Remigius of Reims is here in question is manifest from what precedes. In the same place, pages 791 and 792, under St. Vedast, bishop of Arras, one reads that in the year 1287 there was made at Arras a most solemn translation of sacred relics, and among these of SS. Vedast, Remigius and Hilary, whose annual feast is wont to be kept there on the second Sunday after Easter with an Office of greater double rite. In volume 3 of the same month of February, page 4, number 45, and page 103, number 15, among the relics which St. Angilbert, abbot of Centula, deposited in his church, some of St. Remigius are also recorded. Again, page 453, numbers 19 and 20, in the Dedication of the basilica of St. Matthias the apostle at Trier, made by Eugenius III, supreme Pontiff, some of Remigius are said to be kept in the principal altar, and likewise in another erected at the tomb of the same St. Matthias, placed there at that time. Finally (for it would be long and tedious to run through each of our volumes), in volume V of September, page 415, certain relics of St. Remigius are read to be honoured also at Monte Cassino. All these, if they are only from the stole, chasuble, veil, hair shirt, or even from the hair or teeth, nothing prevents their being able to be the holy Apostle of the Franks'; otherwise if from the bones, on account of the integrity of his body asserted above.

[360] Arnold de Raisse, in the Hierogazophylacium Belgicum, records still more, of which certainly some cannot be the holy bishop of the Remi's. but bones which, as though of St. Remigius of Reims, in various places, On page 42 he attributes something of Saint Remigius to the collegiate church of St. Amatus at Douai: on page 82, some of the bones of St. Remigius, bishop, to the monastery of St. Autbert at Cambrai, which is of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine: on page 269, to the cathedral church of Liège a tooth of St. Remigius: on page 305, to the Cathedral church of Arras Relics of SS. Vedast, Remigius and Hilary: finally, on page 315, to the cathedral church likewise of Tournai two portions of the bones of the head of St. Remigius, archbishop of the Remi. Aegidius Gelenius, in the sacred and civil Greatness of the city of Cologne, writes that some relics of the same Saint are likewise kept in that city; namely, page 310, something of St. Remigius, bishop, in the collegiate church of the Blessed Virgin Mary ad Gradus; and page 456, in the Charterhouse, a large bone and another small one of St. Remigius, bishop of Reims.

[361] and above others Bucelin ascribes them more liberally, But no one was more liberal in ascribing relics of the holy Archbishop of Reims to other places than Gabriel Bucelin, in the Benedictine Sacrarium which he added to the Menology of his Order, and in which he did this in such a way that (which you may wonder at) he left plainly nothing of the whole body of the same Saint to the people of Reims. For at the Kalends of October, after a brief eulogy of St. Remigius of Reims, His sacred body, he says, is kept in the monastery of St. Medard; the head is kept at Münsterlingen, Pistorius says; but the heavenly chrism for anointing kings at St. Remigius's: a notable bone of the same Saint in the monastery of Georgenberg. By the monastery of St. Medard he designates that of Soissons, of the Benedictine Order; Münsterlingen, in the Topography of Germany, part 2, page 63, he says is a celebrated monastery of virgins of the Benedictine profession, on the shore of Lake Constance, situated not far from the city of Constance: of Georgenberg he gave this notice in the same place, page 39: St. George's mountain, commonly Jergenberg, on a very lofty rock above Schwaz in the Tyrol, a monastery, likewise of the Benedictine Order, situated in an almost inaccessible place, in which a very great treasure of holy relics indeed is kept.

[362] perhaps they are of St. Remigius of Rouen, Of all the aforesaid sacred bones it can be said in general that they are not of St. Remigius of Reims, for the integrity of his body stands in the way, which I have not hitherto read impugned, much less overthrown by any authentic instrument. But in particular it is permissible to pronounce of Bucelin that he was deceived, in attributing the body of the same St. Remigius to the Benedictines of Soissons, by a confusion of names and times. In the eighth century flourished St. Remigius, otherwise also called Remedius, archbishop of Rouen, who was treated in our Work at the 19th day of January, on which he is venerated. His sacred body is said there, at number 7 and following, to have been at one time translated from Rouen, where it had been buried, to Soissons, and deposited in the basilica of the monastery of St. Medard, Charles the Bald reigning and being present; and finally to have been brought back thence to Rouen in the year 1090. For which reason there is corrected in the same place the error of Doctor Jacob Mennel, who, because he did not know of the bringing back of that body, had said in a certain book printed at Freiburg in Breisgau in the year 1520 that it was honoured at Soissons with singular piety even in his time.

[363] whom Bucelin here confused with the one of Reims, The continuators of Gallia Christiana agree with us, volume 11, column 20, in these few words: His body (of St. Remigius of Rouen), laid in his cathedral, was afterwards carried to St. Medard of Soissons, and in the year MXC brought back to his people of Rouen into the basilica of St. Ouen; but in the year MDLXII, with very many other pledges of the Saints, reduced to ashes by the innovators (the Huguenots). Bucelin therefore confused St. Remigius of Rouen with the one of Reims, and moreover, either following the erring Mennel, or otherwise not knowing of the bringing back of the sacred body to the people of Rouen, believed it to have been kept in the Medardine church of Soissons up to his own times. It is credible that it came about from the confusion of namesakes that those who had relics of some St. Remigius, perhaps of Rouen, easily and willingly persuaded themselves that they were the great Apostle of the Franks'. I speak of bones; for from what has been said nothing forbids that various people obtained something of his hair, garments, or similar things pertaining to him in any way. Let the same judgment be made about the teeth; because in the visitation made in the year 1646 by Léonor, archbishop of Reims, only four or five teeth were seen in his sacred mouth, as was said above.

[364] Of the head kept at Münsterlingen I have read nothing anywhere besides, or of another Saint of the same name; as also the bone kept at Florence nor does Bucelin express the place in which Pistorius asserted it; but certainly that it is not of St. Remigius of Reims is established more than sufficiently from what has been alleged. The same reasoning holds of the two portions of the bones of the head which I said were attributed by Raisse to the cathedral church of Tournai: nor do I inquire whether these and that are of Remigius of Rouen, or of another Saint unknown to me. Finally, the relics which Bucelin says are venerated in the monastery of Georgenberg in the Tyrol, these are not of St. Remigius of Reims, but of St. Remedius or Romedius, venerated also elsewhere in the Tyrol as a native, of whom we have treated on this very day. At Florence also in Tuscany, Giuseppe Richa, presbyter of our Society, writes that one bone of St. Remigius, bishop, is held in esteem, in the Historical Notices of the Florentine churches, published there in the Italian tongue in the year 1754 and sent to us as a gift, part 1, volume 1, page 259. He writes, I say, that that bone is honoured at Florence in a church sacred to St. Remigius of Reims, whom they call in the vernacular there San Romeo. Concerning this sacred pledge the same difficulty returns as concerning the aforesaid, of which I add nothing here.

[365] But on this occasion we must treat of that Florentine church, in the church called San Romeo, especially since Papebroch was ill informed about its titular Saint. In volume VI of May, in the Appendix at the 28th day, is published the Life of the venerable Maria Bagnesi, a Florentine virgin of the third Order of St. Dominic, in which, in the same place, page 115 *, number 7, she is said to have entrusted the secrets of her heart to her confessor, the reverend master Raphael, rector of St. Romaeus. Papebroch, in the Annotations to this, letter f, thought that this Romaeus, patron of that church, was the one of the same name

Blessed one, honoured at Lucca in Etruria, where his body rests, and otherwise little known, of whom Henschen had treated together with St. Avertanus at the 25th day of February. But Papebroch was deceived by the change of the name made by the common people and adopted by the biographer: for it is certain that Romaeus is used there for Remigius. So it is established altogether from the cited Richa, who, adducing instruments, proves that the church which at Florence is wont to be called San Romeo, otherwise also San Remigio, and besides which there exists no church of the name of Romeo in the same city, is dedicated to no other than St. Remigius.

[366] This very thing is also clear from the book, as they call it, of baptisms of the same church, which nevertheless has St. Remigius as patron. from which we have copied an authentic testimony of the baptism of the cited venerable Maria Bagnesi conferred in it in the year 1514, which Rev. Fr. Ferdinando Bagnesi, presbyter of our Society, a kinsman of the same Virgin, transmitted to us. Richa gives a description of the church, in which the Bagnesi family has its chapel, and teaches from an ancient instrument that in the same place there was formerly a public hospice or xenodochium of the Franks making pilgrimage to Rome; and hence he opines that the word Romeo is a corrupted word, and perhaps derived from the fact that a pilgrim making for Rome was perhaps formerly called Romeo by the Florentine common people. He judges, finally, that this church, when the circuit of the city was extended about the year 1078, was made parochial, such as it is today. These things are probable; but why may one not also suspect that the sacred bone kept there, which cannot be of St. Remigius of Reims, is perhaps of the above-mentioned Blessed Romaeus of Lucca, and that from him the church, the title of St. Remigius to whom it had been dedicated being neglected, began to be called by the people after St. Romaeus? I confess, however, that the suspicion is very uncertain, and to be wholly overturned if it is established that the aforesaid sacred bone is not of Romaeus of Lucca, or was brought to Florence after the name of St. Romaeus had already attached itself to the same church; both of which the learned men of Florence will perhaps easily be able to declare.

[367] His feast on the Kalends of October was already celebrated in the 6th century I omit more about the relics, and add some things about his festivals. I shall not repeat here the ancient and more recent Martyrologies which I recited at the beginning of this Commentary, and in which his name is read inscribed chiefly at two days, namely at the 13th of January, which is his death-day, and at the 1st of October, on which the translations of his sacred body set forth above took place. Of this latter festival there exists an older and more celebrated memory, as being wont to be celebrated already from the very sixth century in which he had died. So testifies the writer of the same time, St. Gregory of Tours, in the History of the Franks, book 8, chapter 21, where, narrating that Boso-Guntchramn on that day ordered the body of a deceased matron, who was a kinswoman of his wife, buried in the cathedral church at Metz, to be impiously stripped of all her ornaments, he says this: And it came to pass that after a few days (from her burial there) the festival of Blessed Remigius, which is celebrated at the beginning of October, was at hand. And many departing from the city (namely to celebrate that feast in a certain suburban church) with the bishop, and especially the elders of the city with the duke, the servants of Boso-Guntchramn came to the basilica in which the woman was buried, etc. From this event, which took place in the year 585, it is clear that that festival was already then celebrated; since it was kept with so great a concourse of the people even at the city of Metz, outside the province of Reims.

[368] in Gaul, and it is found in ancient Rituals, The same, with its Vigil, is also marked in the codex of Reims which Hugues Ménard used for his edition of the Book of the Sacraments of St. Gregory the Great, who determined that it was written under Charlemagne, and among the Annotations there, page 181 and following, asserts that one reads in it thus: On the day before the Kalends of October, the vigil of St. Remigius, Prayer. This solemnity, begun for us by the merits of most blessed Remigius, thy confessor and pontiff, etc. Over the offerings. May thy mercy, we beseech thee, O Lord, descend upon this sacrifice, etc. Contestata (that is, the Preface). By whose intercession, therefore, Blessed Remigius thy confessor, we suppliantly beg the mercy of thy loving-kindness, etc. After Communion. We believe this great mystery of loving-kindness. So much of the Vigil; but of the feast itself he subjoins these things from the same codex: Kalends of October. The Birthday of St. Remigius, bishop and confessor. Prayer. Grant, we beseech thee, almighty God, that, Blessed Remigius thy confessor interceding, etc. Over the offerings. That this may be acceptable to the Lord, etc. Preface. Always to give thanks, and in thy praises with joy and exultation to tell the proclamations of St. Remigius thy confessor, to raise up praises, and to exult continually; the feast of whose deposition we celebrate today by an annual Solemnity, etc. After Communion. Grant, we beseech thee, that, thy holy Bishop interceding, the glory of whose blessedness in the sight of thy Majesty we celebrate on this day with worthy praises, etc. Over the people. Hear us, O holy Lord, almighty Father, eternal God; by the merits of thy holy bishop and confessor Remegius guard this people with thy wonted compassion, etc.

[369] Thus far Ménard, who had stated beforehand in the same place, page 15, as also his name in the Canon of the Mass; the synod of Mainz that in the same codex, and in another of the tenth century which he called Ratold's, the name of Remigius is read inscribed in the very canon of the Mass. I observe also that, although the Saint's death-day is believed to have been the 13th of January, nevertheless on the Kalends of October his feast is marked as his Birthday on account of the celebrated translation of his body which I said was made on this day. Nor is this without example in other Saints, whose feasts of birthday or death were transferred to other days for a similar cause. The same day of the Kalends of October the fathers who, at the will of the same emperor, celebrated the synod of Mainz in the year 813 wished to be sacred to the holy Apostle of the nation of Francia throughout the whole empire of Charlemagne, whose canon 36, which, as being very honourable to St. Remigius, I transfer here from Labbe's collection of the Councils, volume 7, column 1250, reads thus. We ordain that the feast days in the year be celebrated. That is, that the Lord's day of Easter be venerated with all honour and sobriety; in like manner we have decreed that that whole week be observed. That the day of the Lord's Ascension be fully celebrated. Likewise Pentecost, in like manner as at Easter.

[370] On the Birthday of the apostles Peter and Paul, one day; he commanded to be observed in Gaul under Charlemagne, the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, the Assumption of holy Mary, the Dedication of Saint Michael, the Birthday of St. Remigius, of St. Martin, of St. Andrew. At the Lord's Nativity four days, the Octave of the Lord, the Epiphany of the Lord, the Purification of holy Mary. And we have decreed to observe those festivals of Martyrs or Confessors whose holy bodies rest in each parish. In like manner also the Dedication of the church. Observe that here, among those few feasts common everywhere to all, place has been given to only two Saints of the Gauls, Remigius and Martin; which is to be ascribed to the singular veneration of the fathers of the synod of Mainz towards both. Although they do not express the day of the month sacred to Remigius, yet that not the 13th of January but the 1st of October is designated is manifestly gathered from the order of the feasts, since it is placed midway between the Dedication of St. Michael, which is kept on the 29th of September, and the Birthday of St. Martin, which is celebrated on the 11th of November. For the rest, this canon is reported in the 35th place in the Capitulary of the emperor Louis the Pious, in Baluze, volume 1 of the Capitularies of the kings of the Franks, book 2, column 748.

[371] Mention is made of the same festival in the council held at Pîtres on the Seine, and in the XIth century St. Leo IX, Pope, renewed it. a river of Gaul, in the year 862, in whose chapter 3 a space for making satisfaction is granted to certain wicked plunderers until the Mass of St. Remigius, that is, the Kalends of October. See Labbe's Councils, volume 8, column 780. It is uncertain, however, how long the aforesaid ordinance of Mainz was observed; but at least in many places it seems to have either fallen into disuse or grown cold in the eleventh century, in which St. Leo IX, supreme Pontiff, after the body of St. Remigius had been translated by him at Reims on the same day, the 1st of October of the year 1049, and his new church at Reims dedicated on the following day, and having now returned to Rome, directed Apostolic letters to the Franks that they should henceforth keep his solemnity as a feast on the Kalends of October. I have already recited the letters above at number 337 and following, which, however, Marlot, volume 2, page 105, suspected were given by him not so much to restore an intermitted festival as to persuade the Gauls to celebrate with greater solemnity one already observed for so many centuries; which, he says, could be proved from the older Breviaries to have been then religiously observed by them.

[372] This piety of the Franks towards their holy Apostle After this the cited historian of Reims complains that this well-deserved testimony of veneration of the Franks towards their Apostle had again cooled, until, at the suggestion and urging of the Rev. Fr. Dom Étienne Wilquin, Grand Prior of the Saint-Remi monastery of Reims, it was in some fashion restored in the general assembly of the Gallican clergy of the year 1657. To this end he brings forward two authentic instruments from the Acts of the Gallican clergy in the assembly of Paris, one of which, written in Latin, I shall transfer here; the other, which is French, it will suffice to have set out briefly beforehand. And so in the year 1657, on the 17th day of March, the most illustrious lord Félix Vialart, bishop of Châlons, in the cited assembly held in the great convent of the Augustinian fathers, set forth in the name of the province of Reims that St. Remigius had always been acknowledged as the Apostle of the Franks, celebrated with great eulogies by the supreme Pontiffs and by persons of the first rank, held in peculiar veneration by the kings, and had deserved extremely well of the whole nation; that for these causes his festival had been kept zealously, solemnly and piously through the whole kingdom of the Franks for many centuries; but that afterwards, especially in recent times, it had been neglected in many places.

[373] the Gallican clergy endeavoured to recall That it was, moreover, a matter worthy of the zeal of that sacred assembly to revive the public piety of the clergy and people towards the glorious Patron of France, and to exhort all the bishops to commend it each in their own dioceses, and to bring it about that his Office be celebrated everywhere, at least after the manner of other feasts and doubles. After this request of the bishop of Châlons, the lord Le Gentil, vidame of the church of Reims, presented letters of his chapter by which the same things were demanded. The pious petition pleased the assembled fathers, and by their unanimous consent the following encyclical letters were written in the Latin tongue.

To all the bishops throughout the Gauls, the assembly of the Gallican church, salvation in the Lord. Although the festive celebration of Saint Remigius, archbishop of Reims, has been clearly ordained through so many centuries both by the councils of the Gallican church and by the decrees of the supreme Pontiffs and by the Capitularies of our kings; yet this has come to pass, to be lamented, that what ought rather to have been commended by its antiquity, the piety of the peoples growing cold, has been blotted out and is almost passed over in silence, or at least the memory of so great an Apostle and Doctor of the Franks, celebrated with honours not worthy of him, is growing cheap.

[374] in the general assembly celebrated at Paris in the year 1657 For he, as your charity knows very well, like a second Silvester, the mortal purple having been made subject to Christ the king, taught our Clovis, as a new Constantine, casting away his empty gods, to adore what he had burned, and to burn what he had adored; and at length, the peoples having been brought with their prince to the communion of the faith by miracles and doctrine, and the stain of idolatry of the Franks, that is, of the old leprosy, having been washed away in the saving laver, he dedicated to Christ the firstfruits of this Christian kingdom under most Christian kings, and brought forth firstborn sons and defenders for his Church. And whereas Greece rejoiced that it alone had the prince of our law, he showed that its own glory was not lacking to the rest of the world also; since in the recurring * parts the light of a new radiance flashed forth in a king not new. Certainly, if ever the ruins in the faith of neighbouring nations, set before their eyes, made them suppliants to their heavenly Patrons, what kind of homage towards Saint Remigius, its apostle, will the piety of the Franks not render with prayers joined more earnestly together? when, alas! the fire of heretical depravity having been spread from the neighbouring regions, the Deity avenging our sins, religion, driven back, is receding.

[375] Wherefore we exhort your charity that, the devotion of your subjects having been stirred up to render honour to Saint Remigius on the first day of October with more solemn rite, whose encyclical letters are here given. we may labour together with one mind; and that we, after the example of so great a Prelate (who, on the witness of Hormisdas, gave the proofs of a supreme pontiff, since he both did the things that were to be preached, and did not delay to instil them), may diligently apply ourselves to this, that, working the justice which conquers kingdoms, we may save both ourselves all and those who hear us. At Paris, on the 22nd day of May, MDCLVII.

Your most devoted servants and fellow-brethren, the archbishops, bishops and ecclesiastical men assembled in the general assembly of the Gallican clergy.

Claude, archbishop of Narbonne, president.

By mandate of the most eminent and most illustrious archbishops, bishops, and of the whole ecclesiastical assembly, gathered in the name of the clergy of France.

Henri de Villars, Jean de Montpezat secretary. de Carbon, secretary.

What success these letters had Marlot passed over in silence, but that it was slight Baillet relates at this day under St. Remigius, asserting that his Office even after them continued in most dioceses such as it had been before.

[376] Of the people of Reims Baillet observes in the same place that they too were wont of old to keep the principal feast of their holy Prelate and Patron on the Kalends of October, His Offices at this time in the dioceses of Reims, Lyons, and that no particular Office for the 13th day of January is found in the ancient Sacramentaries of the church of Reims; but that in his time the chief solemnity of the same was observed of precept in the same diocese on the aforementioned 13th day of January; but on the Kalends of October only out of devotion; and Châtelain agrees, in the Notes to the Roman Martyrology, that the same day of January is observed of precept by the people as well throughout the whole diocese of Reims. In the Breviary of the same church, published in the year 1559 by the authority of Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, archbishop, a twofold festival is also prescribed. Of the first, at the 13th of January, one reads thus: Remigius and Hilary, Pontiffs, greater double, kept as a feast, having an Octave not solemn. This whole Office, after the manner of the ancients, is almost proper, the rest being added from the common of a confessor pontiff; but in it I have read no mention at all made of St. Hilary, as neither on the octave day, which also bears the title of St. Remigius alone. The other, at the Kalends of October, is noted thus: Translation of Saint Remigius, greater double. There exists in our Museum a Missal of Laon printed in the year 1500 or 1506, in which at the 13th day of January a Mass of double rite of St. Remigius is prescribed; and at the Kalends another of his translation, with an Octave.

[377] and other Gallican ones, and in our own of Antwerp. Finally, in the various Breviaries of other churches that we have, the Office or Commemoration of the same holy Archbishop is placed partly at one or the other day, partly also at both. In our diocese of Antwerp, which, before it was made illustrious with its own episcopal see, was part of the diocese of Cambrai, and with it subject to the metropolis of Reims, his feast-day is kept on the Kalends of October with an Office of double rite with proper lessons of the third Nocturn; but in the Roman Breviary on the same Kalends only with a simple Office with a proper third lesson.

* occiduis the western

SHORT LIFE

By Fortunatus, presbyter, afterwards bishop of Poitiers.

From a manuscript codex of our Museum collated with other manuscripts and printed editions.

Remigius, bishop of Reims, Apostle of the Franks, at Reims in Gallic Champagne. (S.)

BHL Number: 7150

By Fortunatus.

Remigius, about to be born, is foretold to his mother by Montanus The holy deposition of most blessed Remigius the bishop has presented to us today the day of a mystical solemnity, which every year, as it turns round upon itself in the course of the seasons, is renewed for our longings. ^a This man, then, sprung from his first birth, shone with the nobility of his parents, whom the divine loving-kindness chose not only before he was born, but before he was conceived: so much so that a certain monk Montanus ^b, while he was resting in a very light sleep, had been stirred by admonition a third time, to foretell by a truthful report to his blessed mother Cilinia ^c that she would conceive a male child, so that he should designate his name and merit. He straightway fulfilled the command, and announced to the most fruitful mother the joys of the offspring ^d she was to conceive. And she, as she did not appear doubtful in the faith of belief, so she received in childbirth him whom she had foreknown in the womb. Nor was she tardy; as one assured, she presently, in security, brought forth the most happy pledge which she had first conceived in the body ^e.

[2] in the 22nd year of his age, elected bishop of Reims, he shines with miracles: In whom his sweet infancy constantly signified the merits of the age to come, and what his mother had recognised before his conception she now saw before its time. He strove to overcome his tender years by maturity of morals, and to season the kindness ^f of his heart with the honey of charity. What more? When, with favourable successes, vying in the pursuits of holy living, the youth had duly entered upon the beginning of his twenty-second year ^g, in this city of the Remi, by the wishes of all generally, he is known to have been snatched up rather than elected to the summit of the pontificate. In which he at once appeared so fit and devoted to the office as though he had continually presided in that to which he had newly ascended ^h. He was therefore liberal in almsgiving, diligent in vigils, devout in prayer, perfect in charity, lavish in humility *, pre-eminent in doctrine, ready in speech, most holy in conduct. Never did the adversary of the human race find in him either ⁱ anything to deceive by fraud, or anything to darken by pretence.

[3] He showed the sincerity of his mind by the serenity of his countenance, of which a few are recorded: he has sparrows tame of their own accord: and he displayed the loving-kindness of his most gentle heart by the mildness of his speech. Whatever can pertain to eternal salvation, the most Blessed one fulfilled no less in deed than he taught it by the preaching of his speech. It would be long, then, to go through in words, lest we inflict upon our hearers weariness from excessive prolixity, if I should set forth ^k how great adornments of all good things, which are either precious or very great, the prerogative of heavenly reward conferred upon him. Let us strive, therefore, to discourse of a few things, and to pass over very many ^l: for if we should begin to tell the so great distinctions of his virtues, either the dryness of our speech could not adorn them, or the memory retain them: the present day could sooner have its end than the page contain them ^m. The blessed man Remigius strove to flee the boast of virtues, in whom lofty grace could not lie hidden. And when it befell him to hold a rather private ⁿ banquet among his household, and he was delighting in the freedom of his dear ones, sparrows fearlessly ^o came down to him, and gathered the remnants of the table in his hand. Some departed satisfied, others approached to be satisfied. So was the wildness of birds made tame in the working of miracles.

[4] And it happened at a certain time, when after the pastoral custom he was going round the parishes with diligence, he cures a blind man possessed by a demon: so that, if anything was negligently done in the divine worship, the faithful Servant of Christ might learn of it, that he came likewise, in the zeal of his devotion, to a village whose name is Calmiciacum [p]. Where, while a certain blind man was begging the help of mercy from him, he began to be tormented with a vexation of the body by the assault of a demon, by which he had long been held captive. Then St. Remigius prostrated himself with bodily diligence in prayer, to which his holy soul was always intently devoted, and swiftly he restored its former light to the eyes, and put to flight the pest of the unclean spirit. O ineffable grace of loving-kindness; from whom, while substance alone is asked, a threefold remedy is obtained. He fed the needy man with food, he endowed the blinded man with sight, he restored the captive to liberty; and so it came to pass through this notable mystery that, while one appeared in the poor man, the Trinity showed itself for his salvation. *

[5] Thus, then, as ever, the adversary of the human race does not cease to show his power of harming virtues [q]; at the same time, globes of flame suddenly rising, a vast devastation having broken out, he had set fire to the city of the Remi, and the burning, carried through, had already consumed nearly a third part, the embers standing out, and the victorious flame was licking what remained: then, when the news of this matter had reached the hearing of the most blessed bishop Remigius, straightway, like an unconquered athlete, he ran with swift speed to the ruin of the city, and, having completed a prayer, showed himself in the face of the fire: [at once, as though broken or cut down by some guilt, the people being witness, the devastation of the fire draws itself back [r]] and, fleeing through an open gate, it departed utterly, so that it might be shown to all that the Man of God, full of the fire of faith, burned the hotter, who both overcame and extinguished the fury of so great a wrath by his merits [s].

[6] Now a certain girl, born of illustrious parentage from the city of Toulouse [t], a possessed girl, who had been brought to Rome in vain, was held captive from her early childhood under the siege of a raving spirit. And since her most pious parents loved her with tender love, they brought her to the tomb of St. Peter in the city of Rome with a very great multitude and much devotion. There a certain servant of God [u], with the help of the sacred body, was fulfilling very many signs of power. Yet since he had not been able to purge this girl by any intercession, nor had availed to expel from her the venom of the crafty demon; thence the ancient enemy, constrained by the adjuration of the divine name , gave the answer that he could never be expelled from that same dwelling by the cleansing of another than this most blessed bishop Remigius. Then her parents, supported by recommendations both of the blessed man himself [x] and of Alaric, king of the Goths [y], came with their bound offspring to Saint Remigius the bishop, beseeching that they might know his power in the cleansing of their offspring, which they had foreknown in the confession of the robber. [z]

[7] he delivers her, and a little afterwards, when dead, Then most blessed Remigius, when with [aa] a lengthy struggle he asserted that he was not worthy, and resisted with his wonted patience, was overcome by the prayers of the supplicating people, so that he poured out prayer for her, and grieved with the tears of her parents. Then St. Remigius, armed with the merits of holiness, commanded by the authority of his word that the wicked robber should depart by the way he had entered, and of Christ

set free the handmaid. And so, with excessive vomiting and a foul stench, he went out through the mouth by which [bb] he had been let in. But a little after, the Pontiff departing, yet within the space of that very hour, while, exhausted by excessive toil, she was tottering, she lost hope of life [cc]. Once more therefore the crowd of suppliants runs back to the Physician: but blessed Remigius accuses himself of having rather committed a crime than granted the reward of health, and of having become guilty of homicide, not of having brought a remedy.

[8] by his prayers he recalls her to life. He returns therefore, prevailed upon by the entreaty of the people, to the basilica of St. John, where the lifeless body lay, and there St. Remigius, with tears, prostrates himself in prayer [dd] on the pavement of the Saints, and exhorts the rest to do likewise. Then St. Remigius, having poured out a shower of tears, rising, raised up the dead girl whom he had before healed when sick. She, straightway taking the hand of the Pontiff, rose with entire soundness, and returned happily to her own home [ee]. For we can judge how great in the present miracle was the weeping of the parents for joy, the praise of the people for the triumph. Do you think, with what groaning, and how great devotion they sang Glory to God in the highest, who merited to see the divine mysteries through the sacred Bishop? For he could snatch his people from the fall of any impending danger, who availed to restore life to a dead girl.

[9] He dies, and after death shines with miracles. Amid such distinctions, then, of his virtues, Blessed Remigius, athlete of Christ, receiving the passage of the deathly sleep, chose, old age now pressing upon him, to leave the storms of the world and to arrive at the haven of the heavenly dwelling. [ff] After whose death such remedies are granted to the faithful at the patronage of his body, that he who shone with such examples is recognised to live by his merits alone. [To whom it is recognised that the penalty of martyrdom was lacking, not the devotion of a confessor [gg]. In those divine oracles of the temples, then, where we venerate his patronage, * whatever is asked with faith is found, and what is hoped for with zeal is granted in effect. With prayers outpoured, then, with one mind we entreat that, in the space of this saving life, the intercession of St. Remigius the pontiff, with the help of the Redeemer, may obtain for us indulgence of our offences. May his entreaty also give generally in this world tranquil times of peace, whose entreaty has promised eternal things to the just. Which may He deign to grant, who reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, who is blessed unto the ages. Amen. [hh]

ANNOTATIONS.

p. The Chifflet has Calmaciaco; the St. Bénigne of Dijon Calmatiacus; Mombritius Calmatiaco, Surius Calmaciacus; Hincmar, just cited, number 27, Calmitiacus; Flodoard in the History of Reims published by Colvener, book 1, chapter 12, Calmiciacum. The same editor in the scholia to the said chapter notes that it is also sometimes called Colmisciacum and Culmisciacum, and by other related names, by Flodoard, who in book 4, chapter 28, writes that he himself at one time governed the church of the village of Colmisiacum. Colvener adds that that place is called Cormicy, Chaumysy and Chaumuci by Nicolas Chesneau, dean and canon of St. Symphorian in the city of Reims, in the History of Flodoard translated into French.

q. In the Chifflet: But as ever against the detriments of the human race the adversary does not cease to show his power (in the Dijon, of strength) of harming virtues, etc.

r. What is enclosed in brackets I copied from the Chifflet: for in ours it was read more faultily thus: Fracta vel concisa populi testa in se vastationem reducit incendii. Surius has rotatu for reatu.

s. The Chifflet: He burned the hotter than the fury of so great a wrath; which he both overcame by his merits and extinguished. Concerning the extinguishing of this fire see more in the 2nd Life, from number 33, and what is to be noted there.

t. Tolosa, in French Tolose or Toulouse, a city of Gallia Narbonensis on the river Garonne, archiepiscopal, the chief city of the province of Occitania and seat of a Parlement, is commonly known.

u. In the Chifflet alone there is here added: Named Benedict; but certainly wrongly, as we shall say shortly.

x. This word benedicti, placed adjectivally by Fortunatus, concerning the aforesaid servant of God who was wont to work miracles at the tomb of St. Peter, Hincmar took substantively in the Life to be subjoined, and believed that he was that great patriarch St. Benedict, which others also, and among these very probably the interpolator of the Chifflet codex, judged after him. But see this opinion discussed at length and refuted in the Commentary, number 73 and following; where it was also shown that the same servant of God of whom Fortunatus speaks was very probably St. Abundius or Acontius, whom St. Gregory mentions in book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 25.

y. This Alaric, the Arian king of the Goths or Visigoths, had his seat at Toulouse; and he is the very one whom Clovis overcame and slew in the year 507 in the battle of Vouillé.

z. That is, of the devil.

aa. In the Chifflet one reads: Ille cum etc., these being omitted: Tunc beatissimus Remigius.

bb. The Chifflet: quo: Surius: quod fuerat ingressus.

cc. There this period is recorded thus: But a little after, the Pontiff departing, immediately within the space of that very hour, failed by the warmth of life, she lost her spirit (in the Dijon is added salus). Mombritius rendered the last words thus: while, exhausted by excessive toil, she was being nursed, estranged from the vital warmth, she lost the spirit of life. Surius too speaks a little otherwise.

dd. In oratione is lacking in the Chifflet.

ee. Either this, or the lengthy Life of which this is a compendium, St. Gregory doubtless praised, when in book 2 of the History of the Franks, chapter 31, he wrote of St. Remigius: For there is now a book of his life, which says that he raised a dead person: for that by the dead person a girl is designated is clear from his book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 79, where he says of the same Saint: By his prayer he obtained that the corpse of a dead girl should be raised.

ff. In the preliminary Commentary, §4, we fixed his death about the year 530, when he was numbering the 96th year of his age.

gg. This period enclosed in brackets, which was lacking in ours, I transcribed from the Chifflet manuscript, because nearly the same is read also in the St. Bénigne of Dijon, in another manuscript, and in the editions of Mombritius and Surius.

hh. The Chifflet ends in this manner: With prayers outpoured, then, with one mind let us entreat that the intercession of Saint Remigius the pontiff, with the help of the Redeemer, may obtain for us the space of life of salvation (in the St. Bénigne of Dijon: in the space of saving life) and indulgence of our offences. May his entreaty also give generally to all in this world tranquil times of peace, whose entreaty has promised eternal things to the just. Here ends the deposition of Saint Remigius.

* se is absent elsewhere.

* otherwise &

* otherwise vel

* Chiff. præsciebat

* Divion. humanitate

* otherwise in lenitate

* otherwise posset

* otherwise sanctus

* otherwise cælica

* Chiff. eum

* ibid. circumire

* Chiff. qui

* ibid. adds etiam

* ibid. in salute

* ibid. hujus

* read reducitur

* Chiff. in Romana urbe

* otherwise hoc

* Chiff. Numinis

* ibid. ab is lacking

* ibid. posset

* Chiff. Iteratis precibus

* ibid. illi

* otherwise exanime

* Chiff. præ

* ibid. præ

* ibid. mortui potuit

* Divion. ejus

* Chiff. remediaque

* otherwise veneramur

A LONGER LIFE, SPRINKLED WITH FABLES

By Hincmar, archbishop of Reims.

From a notable parchment manuscript codex of our Museum.

Remigius, bishop of Reims, Apostle of the Franks, at Reims in Gallic Champagne. (S.)

BHL Number: 7152, 7153, 7155, 7156, 7157, 7158, 7160,

By Hincmar, archbishop of Reims.

PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.

The original and ample Life of the Saint, Hincmar, bishop in name, not in merit, and servant of the people of God, to our beloved brethren and fellow-ministers, sons of this holy church of Reims. As I learned ^b by faithful report from old men, of advanced age too, religious men, who from the time of Tilpin, prelate of this city, were still living when, God being the author, I was elected and promoted to the service of this holy church, and who lived for some years afterwards, they heard it told by their elders that they had seen a book of very great size, written in an ancient hand, concerning the birth and life and miracles and death of blessed Remigius, our most holy Patron.

[2] after Fortunatus made a certain compendium of it Which perished on this occasion: since Egidius, the fourth bishop of this city after blessed Remigius, asked a certain religious man named Fortunatus ^c, distinguished in metrical verse, who was then invited to various places in these Gallic and Belgic regions by many powerful and honourable men on account of the merit of his life and learning, to extract from the same book, composed in the Gallic buskin, in plain speech, some miracles which might be recited among the people; so that the same people might be able to hear them without weariness and lay them up in mind, and through them be stirred up to the love and honour and devotion of God and of their Protector himself. Which the reader can also notice in the same extract, where it is written: Let us strive to discourse of a few things; to pass over very many ^d.

[3] ceased to be read; and soon, through the calamity of the times, And when that Extract began to be frequently read among the people, and to be transcribed by many on account of the ease of its brevity, the great codex itself began to be held more negligently by the negligent, until, in the time of the prince Charles ^e, who, on account of the discord and contention over the principate between him and Raganfrid, and the frequent and civil, nay more than civil, because intestine and parricidal wars, the religion of Christianity was almost abolished in the Germanic and Belgic and Gallic provinces, so that, bishops remaining in few places, the bishoprics were given to laymen and their property divided by them: so much so that a certain Milo ^f, a cleric by tonsure, irreligious in morals, habit and act, a layman, usurping at once the bishoprics of the Remi and of the Treveri, ruined them for about forty years. In whose unhappy time not only were all precious things taken away from this church of Reims, but also the churches and houses of the Religious were destroyed and the property was divided off from the bishopric. Those few clerics also who were remaining sought their living by trade, and the pence which they acquired by merchandise they sometimes tied up in charters and in the leaves of books ^g.

[4] And so the aforesaid book, with others, partly rotted by dripping water, partly gnawed by mice, partly divided by the cutting away of leaves, almost entirely perished. perished to such a degree that few and scattered leaves of it were scarcely found. But when, in the time of King Pippin, son of the aforesaid prince Charles, a revelation had been shown to Eucherius, bishop of the city of Orléans, concerning the eternal damnation of the same Charles ^h, who had divided the property of the churches, the same Pippin was *, as also to the bishoprics of other churches, restored to this bishopric of Reims part of the ecclesiastical property, and consented that Tilpin be ordained bishop in this city of the Remi. For in this church, in the latest time of the world, there befell, concerning the aforesaid book and others too, what Saint John Chrysostom, in a homily on the Gospel according to Matthew ⁱ, records to have happened in ancient time concerning the authentic Scriptures, saying: For many of the prophetic monuments perished, which it is possible to prove from the history of the Paralipomenon.

[5] For the Jews being slothful, and not only slothful, On this occasion the author, discoursing of sacred books lost but also impious, some they lost negligently, others they both burned and cut up profanely. And of such profanity Jeremiah reports ^k; but of the negligence we read in the fourth book of Kings, that after a long time the volume of Deuteronomy was scarcely found, buried in a certain place, and almost destroyed ^l. But we also read many things of the Scriptures mentioned in those which we have, which we do not have: as also the book of the Just, which is mentioned in the books of Kings; and as is the book of the Wars of the Lord, of which mention is made in the book of Numbers. Nor the Songs of Solomon, nor his most wise disputations concerning the nature of trees and of all herbs, and likewise of beasts, birds, reptiles and fishes; or what is said in the book of the words of the days: But the rest of the works of Solomon, first and last, are written in the words of Nathan the prophet, and in the books of Ahijah the Shilonite: in the Vision also of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam the son of Nebat; and many volumes of this kind, which are indeed proved to have been written, but today are established not to exist.

[6] For Judea having been laid waste by the Chaldeans, as we read in the letters of the Fathers, and partly restored through Ezra, the library also, gathered of old, was consumed by hostile fire among the other riches of the province, from which the few books which are now contained in holy Scripture were afterwards restored by the industry of Ezra, pontiff and prophet. Whence it is written of him: Ezra went up from Babylon, and he was a swift scribe in the Law of Moses ^m. Swift, namely, because he found figures of letters readier than the Hebrews had up to then. And in the letter of the king of the Persians: Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, most learned scribe of the Law of the God of heaven, greeting ⁿ. Whereas, on the other hand, we too, many other things having been lost, have many things in certain histories and in diverse little slips ^o, and in customary report left by those going before to those after, concerning the birth and life, or the miracles and death, of our lord and most holy father and protector Remigius, which are not contained in the aforesaid extract.

[7] Whence it has pleased your good desires that my service should gather those things into one for the knowledge of the ignorant and of those coming after. he professes that, after vainly seeking the original Life of St. Remigius, Which I would have done long ago, had not a vain hope deluded me, certain persons saying that in this place and that I could find a great book concerning the life and miracles of this our Lord and Patron. Sending to which, I found what had been promised me to be wholly false. [p] But now, with the help of the Lord, who promises to one trusting in him and wishing to speak of his works, He who is wonderful and glorious in his Saints, saying, Open thy mouth, and I will fill it, aided by the merits of the holy Apostle of the Franks himself and our Patron, and by your prayers, I shall undertake what I have long put off, beginning from his forefathers and his birth; and so, both those things which I have found concerning him in the Histories published by our Elders, and those which I have found scattered in diverse leaflets; and moreover arranging in series those things which I have received by common report; because it was said not long before us, and it is also found in the holy Scriptures, and even in the Gospel truth, that the true law of history is simply to commit to writing, for the instruction of posterity, those things which are gathered as fame spreads them abroad [q].

[8] he will collect his deeds In all of which let not the diversity of style disturb the reader; since the things which I shall take from the Histories of the elders, and those which I shall find in ancient leaflets, I shall set down just as they were found [r]. But those which I have received from the ancients by common report, and those which I shall add for the instruction of readers or hearers, I shall take care either to set down in the words of those from whose sayings I shall borrow them, or to dictate in my own speech, wishing, by offering something of the homage I owe in praise, which he does not need, to repay my Benefactor himself for all the things which he has bestowed upon me, unworthy, freely rather than repaid for any merits. Finally, in the description of his miracles I shall not be able to keep the order in which the Lord deigned to work them through him; but I shall describe them as I received them either in writing or by hearing. For so, saving the higher gift of prophetic inspiration brought by a divine mystery, Saint Jerome says that the psalms too are arranged in order not as they were composed, but as they were found by Ezra at diverse times.

[9] and sets forth the aids and manner of his writing. Nevertheless, as I shall find knowledge of the times, or see the deeds to agree with an order, I shall take care to arrange them. And in those things which, concerning the written miracles of power worked by the Lord through our most blessed Patron, I shall strive to subjoin from the sayings of Catholics, according to the measure of my understanding, for the exhortation of readers or hearers, I shall endeavour to follow, though I may not be able, the footsteps of blessed Gregory; who, describing the acts of the Saints and the falls of the wicked, taking exhortation thence, according to the wisdom given him by God, interposed many things necessary and useful to readers and hearers [s]. But I think that I shall not be seen by anyone to be acting beside the purpose if I repair the things which have been found concerning the birth and deeds and death of our Lord and protector in leaflets almost destroyed by age, and bring them back from hiding into the light; and if I take care to commit to writing those things which I have learned by the certain report of the ancients; since, as I stated before, we know that the sacred Scriptures, abolished by the sloth and profanity of the impious Jews, were restored by the zeal of the holy pontiff Ezra, and that not only was the Gospel and Apostolic history most sacredly composed by the Evangelists, but also the deeds of very many Saints by very many masters of the Church for the instruction of many, and also historiographers the contests of secular

men for the memory of posterity; and that the gentile poets also strove to display their fictions in grand-sounding measures, as we read. Here ends the Preface.

ANNOTATIONS.

n. Ibid., verse 12.

p. That Hincmar also wrote to St. Ado, archbishop of Vienne, that, if he had anything concerning St. Remigius, he would deign to share it with him, I observed from Flodoard in the preliminary Commentary, number 21.

q. No Critic will admit this law of writing history universally; nor could Hincmar have proved it from the sacred Letters; and how unhappily indeed it turned out for him we shall see in the course of the work.

r. That this was truly said by him I shall observe several times.

s. He cites St. Gregory the Great, who in the books of the Dialogues mingled moral precepts and salutary admonitions with historical narratives; which our Hincmar did so prolixly that, after the example of Surius, I was compelled to cut away very much. See the preliminary Commentary, number 25 and following.

* fuit is superfluous

THE OLD DIVISION OF CHAPTERS.

Here begins the text of the Life, acts and death of blessed Remigius, pontiff of the Remi and apostle of the Franks, whose deposition is on the Ides of January, but his translation on the Kalends of October.

Chapter I. How Saint Remigius, before his birth, was designated by name to the monk Montanus, and how through him the Lord was to restore to him the light of his eyes.

II. That we read that he was called Remedium; and that immediately after his school years he gave himself up to reclusion.

III. How Saint Remigius was elected to the episcopate; and of the signs shown from heaven at his election.

IV. How Saint Remigius was ordained bishop; and what sort of man he soon showed himself in the episcopate.

V. How fearless sparrows gathered the remnants of the table in his hand; and of John the apostle; and how from this deed of blessed Remigius we are able to take for ourselves the greatest edification of instruction in the loving affection of our dear ones, and in discreet condescension to our frailty.

VI. How he freed from the demon a blind man possessed by the invasion of a demon and asking for support, restored his sight to him, and furnished the aid which he was asking; and that what he then furnished by a bodily miracle he will furnish spiritually every day to the faithful who ask.

VII. How from a little liquid in the villa of Celtum he made wine overflow from a vessel of no small size, and that we, through his prayers, if we ask faithfully, shall be able to be filled with the abounding grace of God, so that there may be in us the fountain of life, and in his light we may see light, and, steeped in right faith, may be inebriated with the sober inebriation of the spirit.

VIII. How he freed the city of the Remi, set on fire by the demon, from the conflagration; and that we, if we ask faithfully, shall be able by his merits and intercessions to be freed from the flames of vices and from the everlasting fire. Whence, a comparison being taken, the falsity of the Predestinarian heretics, who say that God has predestined some to the everlasting fire, is briefly mentioned; and hence the truth of the Catholic faith is demonstrated.

IX. How he first freed from the demon a girl held captive from infancy by the siege of a malignant spirit, brought to him with letters of blessed Benedict and envoys of Alaric, king of the Goths, and afterwards raised her when dead; and that, stripped of the frailty of the flesh and joined to the angelic choirs, he is able by his merits and prayers to snatch his people and anyone who asks with faith from the fall of any impending danger, and to raise anyone converted from evil to good from the death of any sin whatever; and also to free from the future everlasting death, he who, while still placed in the prison of corruptible flesh, availed to restore the life of a dead girl; with necessary admonitions, that we may diligently have before the eyes of the mind the hour of our departure from the body: and whom it will profit that they request burial beside the body of the Saint himself.

X. How by prayer he caused empty ampullas to be filled with exorcised oil and holy chrism.

XI. Of the coming of the Franks through Germany into Belgica and the regions of Gaul, and how Louis took up the kingdom of the Franks; and of the miracles which were done through blessed Remigius, and of the ewer carried off from Reims, and struck with an axe by a certain fickle Frank in the king's presence.

XII. How Louis, king of the Franks, took to wife the most Christian niece of Gundobad, king of the Burgundians, named Rothildis, and how the same Louis enlarged his kingdom, and of the sons of Louis, whom Rothildis caused to be baptized against his will.

XIII. That King Louis, frequently exhorted by his wife to receive the faith of Christ, would not hear her; but when the army of the Franks and the Alemanni were warring with one another, hard pressed by distress, he made a vow to Christ, and conquered; and then, having returned, told his wife that he wished to believe and be baptized.

XIV. How Queen Rothildis called Saint Remigius to her, beseeching him to preach the way of salvation to the king, and how on the day of the Lord's Passion, the day before the king was baptized with the people, while blessed Remigius was catechizing the king, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to them and spoke to them; and how Saint Remigius, by the spirit of prophecy, foretold what things were to come to the same king of the Franks and to his posterity.

XV. How King Louis came to the baptistery; and of the miracle shown, how the form of a dove brought in its beak an ampulla with sacred chrism to Saint Remigius as he prayed, all seeing it: and how of the army of the Franks, together with the king, three thousand men, besides little children and women, were baptized, and afterwards the part of the nation of the Franks which remained was converted to the faith with Raganarius through blessed Remigius and baptized.

XVI. How Saint Remigius handed over a great part of the property given him by the Franks throughout various provinces to various churches, and of those things which had been handed over to him in the province of Reims he handed over no small part to the church of holy Mary in the fortress of Laon, Lugdunum Clavatum, of the diocese of Reims, where he had been brought up, and there ordained as bishop Genebaud, a man noble in the flesh and learned in letters, who, having left his wife, had sought the religious life; and how that Genebaud, having fallen with the same woman, and having been thrust by blessed Remigius into the reclusion of penance, did penance, and how, consoled by the grace of God with an angelic visitation, he was restored to the episcopal order through blessed Remigius; and how the sentence of the Canons is to be held, which most solicitously commands that after a fall one who has done public penance shall not approach an ecclesiastical grade, or remain in a grade, or return to a grade.

XVII. How King Louis established his seat in the city of Soissons, and gave to Saint Remigius the villas of Codiciacum and Luliacum; and of the miracles which God then showed through him.

XVIII. That the holy apostles Peter and Paul were helpers to Saint Remigius as he prayed.

XIX. How he purchased the villa of Épernay from Eulogius; and also how he bought part of a forest in the Vosges for a price; and of the miracle done there through him.

XX. Of the blessed wine which Saint Remigius gave to King Louis as he went against Gundobad.

XXI. How King Louis established his seat in the city of Paris; and of the blessed wine which Saint Remigius gave to him as he went against Alaric.

XXII. How the emperor Anastasius sent codicils for the consulate to King Louis; and Pope Hormisdas committed to Saint Remigius his office as his vicar in the kingdom of Louis; and of the death of King Louis; and how Saint Chlodoald gave Douzy to blessed Remigius.

XXIII. How a heretic, when Saint Remigius entered the synod, was struck dumb, and again at the command of Saint Remigius received the faculty of speaking.

XXIV. Of the vengeance inflicted by him upon the people of Celtum, who burned the haystacks of blessed Remigius.

XXV. How God revealed to blessed Remigius the day of his death, and of the testament made by him; and how he was for some time deprived of the light of his bodily eyes, and again given back his sight; and of his death and the length of his age.

XXVI. Of the miracle which was shown when his holy body was being borne to burial; and of the miracle which was shown through the pall of his tomb against the plague of the groin; and also of the miracle which was done upon a man who presumed to take for himself an olca given to the Saint.

XXVII. How by angelic ministry his body was translated from the place of the first burial to another burial; and how Pippin

the king in the villa of Avisiacum he scourged.

XXVIII. Of the miracle shown through the dust of the pavement of his church, which a tenant of the villa which is called Plumbea Fontanata, gathering it, carried with him against his oppressors from the fisc of Rosetum.

XXIX. Of the miracles shown upon the foresters of the emperor Louis, who presumed to invade the part of the forest in the Vosges which Saint Remigius had purchased.

XXX. Of the miracle shown in an oratory of the district of Nevers, and of the wife of Richuin, whom he struck as she lay at Juliacum; and because some complain that in our times miracles are not done through him as they used to be done before.

XXXI. Of the second translation of blessed Remigius, and how on that very day a certain cleric Rado was healed there of a toothache.

XXXII. How blessed Remigius, living in the body, was full of the spirit of the holy Fathers both of the old and of the new Testament, and after death shone as their partner in miracles.

XXXIII. Of the relics of blessed Remigius carried into Italy by Saint Moderamnus.

XXXIV. How blessed Remigius in the valley of tears of this world disposed ascents in his heart, and, advanced by the grace of God, grew from virtue to virtue, and for whom he himself and the other Saints of God pray, who reign with God in spirit in heaven, and how those praying at his tomb ought to prepare themselves in order to be heard, and how, fortified with the body and blood of Christ, and made one with him, we must depart from the body.

XXXV. How he beat the archbishop of Mainz, and recovered his property.

XXXVI. That he who sold wine in his church lost his senses and his life.

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's birth and name divinely foretold: his parents: his studies of letters and virtues: his solitary life: his election to the archbishopric of Reims approved by heavenly signs.

Montanus, praying for the church of the Gauls, After ^a the vengeance for crimes which was wrought by the Lord in the slaughter of the Gauls, the cruelty of the Vandals persecuting ^b, the heavens dropped down mercy; when, to mitigate the vengeance of divine chastisement that was to come upon the nation of the Franks through its barbarous ferocity on account of persisting iniquities, they brought forth to the world a prelate predestined by God, the pontiff Remigius, in this order. There was a certain monk, venerable and worthy in profession, and by name Montanus ^c, leading a solitary life in reclusion, continually applying himself to fasts, vigils and prayers, and also by the distinctions of the other virtues rendering himself so commendable to the Divinity that he often enjoyed the converse of angels and was frequently present at heavenly visions and revelations. He, then, while watching in prayer for the peace of the holy Church, which was being harassed by many and diverse afflictions in the provinces of the Gauls and of the Belgae, and entreating the clemency of almighty God with unwearied prayers, one night, prolonging his prayer more than usual, remained in contemplation until the dawn of light.

[2] And when, the weariness and frailty of the flesh compelling him, learns divinely that St. Remigius he had given his limbs a little to sleep, suddenly, by divine grace, he was present among the choirs of angels and the assemblies of the souls of most blessed men, already reigning in spirit with God, still awaiting the immortality of their bodies, and began to hear a most familiar conversation. Among the other things, then, which he heard in that heavenly assembly, those holy spirits, eager for human salvation, began also to inquire about the downcast state of the Gallican church, and to turn over frequently in speech what needed to be done in such a situation; saying that it was now the time to have mercy on it. For it had received double for all its sins, although its dregs had not been emptied out. While they were thus conversing among themselves, suddenly a voice was present from the higher and more secret sanctuaries, sounding most healthfully and most sweetly, which both consoled the sadness of the spirits present, and promulgated what was to come in a rejoicing sentence, speaking thus.

[3] The Lord hath looked forth from His holy height, the Lord hath beheld the earth from heaven; that He might hear the groaning of them that are in fetters, that He might release the children of the slain; would be born of Cilinia; that His name may be declared among the nations, when the peoples gather together in one, and the kings, to serve the Lord. Cilinia, conceiving in her womb, shall bear a son named Remigius, to whom the people to be saved by me shall be committed ^d. For blessed Cilinia, intent upon pious works, though she was held in the body in the world, was yet in mind conversing in heaven. She, in the flower of her youth, had borne to her only husband Emilius ^e Principius, afterwards holy bishop of the city of the Suessiones, and his brother, the father of blessed Lupus, bishop, successor of the same Principius ^f, who exercised the priesthood up to the last times of the glorious Remigius, and so died.

[4] which, when he had with difficulty persuaded her, already of advanced age, And that venerable man, having received so great a consolation amid the innumerable dangers of that time, made known to Cilinia the divine oracle received by the grace of God. But she said to Montanus: How can it be that I, an old woman, should suckle a son, when the ways of women have ceased with me for times long past, and my husband Emilius is old, and in his aged body the blood stands cold about the heart, and the works of pleasure have wholly withered in him? For both were noble by race and very renowned in favour among their people; and because, parents of children, they had advanced in many days, worn out, and now infertile in the flesh, they did not seek conjugal intercourse, nor was there in them any further hope or desire of begetting offspring. To whom blessed Montanus answered: Know that when you have weaned the boy Remigius, you shall anoint my eyes with your milk, and I shall receive sight. For, that merits might increase to him, as also to holy Tobias, according to the divine word, that the just may be justified still, the same blessed Montanus had lost the light of his bodily eyes.

[5] The boy is born and is called Remigius. At length, the parents believing the words of the man of God, there is joy that they were to receive such Offspring, in whose conception there would be no ardour of fulfilling lust, but love of begetting offspring according to the divine presage. The future Pontiff of Christ is therefore conceived, and, the mercy of Christ assisting, the most blessed mother happily bore the son whom she had conceived under God's auspices, and caused the name Remigius to be imposed upon him in baptism according to the Lord's word. And when weaned, as his forerunner had foretold, anointing the eyes of his prophet with his mother's milk ^g, his mother acting as midwife, he restored his sight to him by divine grace. Nor ought it to seem incredible if this Boy, before by the age of his body he knew how to call his father and his mother, worked miracles by divine gift, whom, although as a man he was conceived in iniquities, yet his mother bore, contrary to the custom of the human condition, not in the offences of transgression, but in the grace of remission.

[6] as had been divinely commanded; For it is not to be doubted that the Holy Spirit, who foretold that he would be such, and by whose gift he was conceived, also absolved him from sins. For it is established by the truthful sentence of the Fathers that the gift of the Holy Spirit is not constrained by law. And besides, He who consecrated Cornelius and his house by His grace before the reception of baptism, He surely poured forth the gift of the same grace upon blessed Remigius not only before his baptism, but even before his birth ^h. And this holy Man was born of an old woman and an old man long barren, by promise, like Isaac and John; designated by name before he was born, before he was known to the world, in the district of Laon ⁱ, of high blood of his parents, so that it might be shown in his birth what he was to be in his deeds. And an indication of singular merit is given whenever a name is either imposed upon men by God or changed. So Abram *, because he was to be the father of many nations, was called Abraham: so Jacob, because he saw God, merited to be called Israel ^k: so Josiah, on account of the summit of his eminent virtue, was named by God long before he was born.

[7] So John, because by the assistance of divine grace he merited to be more than a prophet, because none among those born of women has arisen greater than he; and Peter took his surname from the firmness and stability of the rock. concerning which imposition of the name And he who before was Saul was afterwards named Paul, since, raised up by zeal for the Law against Christ, laid prostrate from heaven to earth by Him whom he was persecuting in His members, he became Paul in his own eyes, that is, small, little and humble; at length by the grace of God he was made a great defender, as a vessel of election, and the excellent master and preacher of the whole Church. And the sons of Zebedee, because they thundered the word of God terribly to a sinning world, took the surname Sons of thunder. And our Lord and Redeemer was surnamed Jesus, that is, Saviour, before He was born in the flesh; because He was to save His people from their sins.

[8] So therefore blessed Remigius also obtained from God the surname of Remigius from the fact that he was to steer the church entrusted to him amid the wave-tossed windings of the world. the author observes some things, For it is proper to the servants of God to be known by God by name: whence it is said to one of them: I know thee by name: and to blessed Jeremiah, about to go to the preaching of the divine word, it is said: Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee, and in thy mother's belly I sanctified thee. For Jeremiah, about to recall the people from the worship of idols, is sanctified in the belly; John, about to enlighten the people by his speech, received prophetic grace in his mother's womb; and blessed Remigius, about to lead the nation of the Franks from the darkness of ignorance to the light of the Gospel, was likewise endowed with divine grace, that what he was to accomplish by his ministry he might shine forth in, with a gift equal to his fellows: and he who, as has been said, was by God's predestination to steer the Church of God, but with special care the city and province of the Remi, with the oarage of holy wings, namely by word and example, by merits and prayers, and, the contest being finished, was to seek in spirit the heavenly kingdoms, borne up surely by the help of angels, was rightly called Remigius by the command of God.

[9] Nor is this to be passed over in silence, that in charters made at a recent time after his death, as also concerning the name Remedius, by which he is called in some places. and also after many courses of years, concerning property handed over to this church of Reims, we read that he was named Remedius. Which, whoever attends to his merits and deeds understands to be fitting, that he was called by this name; who, a mitigator of the fury of the Lord, in the time of wrath was made reconciliation, and, magnified by the Lord in the sight of kings, by his words, as we shall show in what follows, appeased monsters, namely fierce pagans. Rightly, then, would we believe that he was named Remedius in baptism, had we not learned in the more correct deeds that he was to be called Remigius by the divine oracle through Saint Montanus. So in metrical verses composed by himself, and by his command carved on a certain vessel consecrated by him, we read thus:

"Let the people draw hence life from the sacred blood Poured in, eternal, which Christ shed from His wound. Remigius the priest renders his vows to the Lord ^l."

Which vessel lasted up to our times, until, melted down, it was given for the ransom of Christians, so that the price of the silver chalice might redeem from the Northmen, ministers of the devil, those whom the blood of the chalice of Christ, poured out, had redeemed from the power of darkness, namely by His passion.

[10] Conspicuous in learning and virtue, at 22 years of age Handed over by his parents to school to be imbued with letters, in a short time he became more excellent in learning than those of his age and even than those older than himself ^m. He strove also to overcome his tender years by maturity of morals, and to season the kindness of his heart with the honey of charity, to avoid the throngs of crowding peoples, and, as he had learned that his herald ⁿ had done, to serve the Lord in a solitary life in reclusion: which place is pointed out to this day in the fortress of Laon, and is venerably honoured. In which reclusion, with favourable successes, vying in the pursuits of holy living, the just Youth served the Lord. And when he had reached the twenty-two years of his age, Archbishop Bennadius having died, in this city of Reims, by the wishes of all generally, he is known to have been snatched up to the summit of the pontificate rather than elected ^o. There is therefore a concourse of the people, diverse indeed in sex, condition and rank, and also in age, but of one and the same mind: all acclaimed him truly worthy of God, and one who ought to be set over the peoples.

[11] he is elected bishop of the Remi, and, having sharply resisted, But the most blessed Man, pressed down by these straits, was affected with excessive anguish; because neither did a place of flight lie open anywhere, nor could he in any way satisfy the people so that they would come back from the purpose they had begun. For it was of the divine will that he who was to provide for the salvation of all should be elected by the acclamations of all, and that he who was to provide for the unity of the faith with those already faithful and those who were to be faithful should be raised to the seat of priestly honour by the union of the whole people. The most sacred Man indeed, when he saw himself urged by these acclamations, began to complain of the infirmity and time of his age; and he confessed with public voice that the ecclesiastical Order did not receive an infirm age to this dignity. For he feared lest his unripe age, attacked by the wiles of the enemy, should contract something sinister. But divine grace both made the voice of the peoples persist most constantly in his election, and protected the holy Man from the malignity of the ancient enemy.

[12] after manifest signs of the divine will And while the multitude of the people was acclaiming, and the most holy Man was resisting with great constancy, it pleased almighty God to show him by most manifest signs what judgment He Himself had concerning him. For while he was striving to resist in the manner aforesaid, all who were present seeing it, there suddenly descended a ray of new light upon the head of the holy Man himself, as though the sun itself, moved from heaven, had fallen upon him; and because a light of souls to be enlightened was being prepared, he too, when he was being taken up for this work, had to be declared by a visible light. For he was the lamp which was to be placed not under the bushel of bodily care, but upon the candlestick of a most pure way of life beloved of God, so that he might furnish the light of the best instruction to those who were to be in the house of the holy Church.

[13] he consents to his election. It pleased the divine Omnipotence also to add to this miracle another, for the showing of the merits of the most blessed Man. For as the aforesaid ray was shining upon him, he felt the liquid of a sacred unguent poured on his head, with which his whole head was anointed [p]. And rightly, so that he who was to anoint the peoples with spiritual oil — their heads indeed with visible, but their minds by preaching, the Holy Spirit speaking in him, with invisible chrism and the grace of the same Holy Spirit — should himself also first be distinguished with such an anointing. Having received, then, such and so great auspices, he feared to go against the divine ordinances: nor could it seem safe to him, so many signs going before, to contradict the divine command; especially since, illumined and anointed within by the light and unction of the Holy Spirit, who is designated by the visible oil, he had learned, like holy Isaiah, that he ought rather to offer himself to be sent into the divine ministry than to refuse [q].

ANNOTATIONS.

Consequently to this the same Hincmar, among other verses, inscribed on the casket of St. Remigius this one also: Who was holy before he was brought forth to the world by his mother. In an ancient Preface of the Mass also one read: This is that Remigius who was consecrated before he was begotten. But the prudent reader will doubtless with me require a more certain argument than these authorities and reasonings are, for so eminent a privilege. Nor does it appear to have seemed otherwise to Flodoard, who, in book 1, chapter 10, adopting the rest from Hincmar, cautiously passed over the sanctification of Remigius in his mother's womb.

p. Fortunatus makes mention neither of the heavenly ray nor of this anointing divinely made. Flodoard, book 1, chapter XI, followed Hincmar, but with the word "it is related" put before it. An old Preface of the Mass agrees in these words: The Youth beheld the infusion of chrism coming upon him from heaven. But since the age of this Preface is not established for me, I do not know whether it lit the way for Hincmar, or Hincmar for the author of the Preface.

q. Isaiah chapter 6, verse 8.

* read Abram

CHAPTER II.

The Saint's ordination and episcopal virtues: the innocence of his life proved by the prodigy of the sparrows: the author's exhortation to the readers.

Ordained bishop, All doubt then being set aside and hesitating judgment removed, by the unanimity of the bishops of the province of Reims he is clothed with the priestly insignia, consecrated with the episcopal blessing, and placed in the seat of the prelacy of this city of the Remi. Where he at once appeared as fit and devoted as though he had continually presided in the office to which he had newly ascended. He was therefore liberal in almsgiving, diligent in vigils, devout in prayer, perfect in charity, lavish in humanity, pre-eminent in doctrine, ready in speech, most holy in conduct. He showed the sincerity of his mind by the serenity of his countenance, and he displayed the loving-kindness of his most gentle heart in the mildness of his speech. Whatever could pertain to eternal salvation, the most Blessed one fulfilled no less in deed than he taught it by the preaching of his speech ^a. O Man worthy of God in all things! The beauty of his soul stood out in his very bearing; in the appearance of the outer man you would have thought the very image of sanctity expressed.

[15] with all pastoral virtues He was terrible in aspect to the irreverent, reverend in gait, to be feared for severity, to be venerated for kindness. The mildness of humility tempered the censure of authority. To offenders indeed the austerity of his brow threatened; but the serenity of his heart coaxed them. Towards those who did well Peter appeared in his countenance: towards offenders Paul in his spirit; and so, the diversity of graces meeting in one, he was the emulator of the loving-kindness of the one, of the strictness of the other; so that, though anyone could scarcely sustain his presence, he could not bear his absence. But the forms and shapes of his inward goods, as no one could fully behold them, so no one suffices to unfold: which, as he strove to cultivate them, so he laboured to hide them, and while he wished them to be increased, he was unwilling that they be recognised. But because this is the nature of justice, that the more zealously it desires to be hidden, the more clearly it becomes known, and the very concealment is a proclamation, the fame of such great goods flew about through the peoples. He stood out in the admiration of all, like a city set on the top of a mountain; nor could the lamp any longer lie hidden under the bushel.

[16] That glorious soul opened the riches of heavenly gifts hidden in it, soon shines forth, and from the cupboard of sweet-smelling virtues poured out the spices of its sanctification and graces over all this church. Neglecter of rest, fugitive from pleasure, seeker of labour, patient of abasement, impatient of honour, poor in money, rich in conscience, humble as regards merits, proud as regards vices, he so cultivated in himself the diverse virtues of graces that scarcely a few held each of them singly in the way he fulfilled them all. Always in the exercise of work, always

in the affection of compunction. He had no more inclined care of all than either to speak of God in reading and preaching, or with God in prayer. He strove, his bones worn down by continued fasts, to triumph over the persecuting enemy by a long martyrdom, incessantly ruminating this with himself in place of food and drink: My tears have been my bread day and night: My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh have rejoiced in my God: My soul hath fainted for thy salvation; my soul hath thirsted for thee, for thee my flesh, O how many ways! my soul hath thirsted for God, the living fountain; when shall I come and appear before the face of God!

[17] And consoling himself: Why art thou sad, O my soul, and always panting for heavenly things, and why dost thou disquiet me? I will hope in God, for I will still give praise to him, the salvation of my countenance and my God. I shall be satisfied when His glory shall appear. For because he was not yet satisfied with the sight of his Creator, for which he panted, desiring Him with continual sighs and groans, with tears by day and by night, the holy soul, raised up to the joys above in place of mourning, fed itself by weeping. And within indeed he endured the groan of his grief, but he received the food of refreshment by that by which the force of love here flowed out through tears. Besides life he hungered for nothing eagerly, besides justice he thirsted for nothing with delight. Present things, as empty and past, his spirit being absent, he did not see, and things laid up in the future he longed for as though placed before his eyes. And truly happy the land which begot such a one, and sent forth for us from a nursling a patron, from a man an angel and a teacher. Well, then, and fittingly, according to the prophet, we say of him: The just shall be in everlasting remembrance.

[18] For worthily is he kept in the memory of men who has passed to the joy of the angels: at the same time he has vigorous care of his flock, who found the grace of God, glorified, for this reason, that, aided by the grace of God, he did not seek the glory of the world: who, holding manfully the helm of faith, has now laid down the anchor of hope in a tranquil station: who against the onslaught of the devil held the shield of God so unweariedly that he came to the victory. We have in him a physician from heaven, with whom sanctity, nay the very Author of sanctity, entered our city. To how many blind, wandering from the way of truth, did he open the sight by which Christ might be seen; and into the ears of how many did he pour the precious hearing of the heavenly commandments by his discourses! How many wounded within did he heal by the art of his angelic mouth and the power of prayer! How many souls, already dead in the body through sins, did he raise up by calling them to amendment, as to the light! He taught his sons daily not to covet the property of others; that the wives of others should not be fair to them, nor the poison of sin penetrate the soul through the gaze. From the hearts of how many, whom iniquity and impiety possessed, did he put to flight luxury, drive out ^b anger, quench envy; recalling thither faith and chastity and mercy!

[19] and brings back much fruit. How many did that apostolic Man, the guardian of souls, raise up from the death of sins by the medicines of penance, cutting back cupidities, suppressing angers, extirpating malices. That Man would have been more necessary in these times, in which so great iniquity grows strong, gathering strength daily as justice fails. And indeed he, placed in this pilgrimage of the world in the body alone, yet in thought had his conversation in that eternal fatherland, who, crucified and dead to this world, transferred whatever he laboured at from this life to that one, and always sent it over from the left hand to the right, and laid up his sweat in heaven. And amid all these things the blessed Man strove to flee the boast of virtues, in whom lofty grace could not lie hidden. So much so that not only did His faithful and prudent Servant, knowing how to give his fellow-servants their measure of wheat in season, that is, to measure out according to the capacity of the hearers and seasonably to minister the food of the divine word, tame to the meekness of Christ the hearts of men cruel with a beastly wildness; but even birds, so that the innocence and power of the first Adam before he sinned, to whom all irrational things were subject, as Scripture shows, might be understood to have been restored in this holy Man through the second Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ.

[20] Sparrows come to him to be fed: For when it befell him to hold a rather private banquet among his household, and he was delighting in the cheerfulness of his dear ones, sparrows fearlessly came down to him, and gathered the remnants of the table in his hand. Some departed satisfied, others approached to be satisfied: and so was the wildness of birds made tame in the working of miracles ^c. For his delight in the cheerfulness of his dear ones was such as we read of blessed Job, that the light of his countenance fell not to the ground, because indeed he was accustomed to keep his countenance in such gravity that it was never relaxed in contemptible mirth; but whenever he showed himself more cheerful to those present, he always did this for a certain cause of their advantage. So too this Saint, discreet in all things with religious gravity, did this not out of the boastfulness of vanity or out of dissoluteness; but that the grace conferred on him by God might be shown, and that the hearts of his people might be stirred up to the love and faith of Him who, wonderful in His Saints, deigns to console His servants in many ways and to make them wonderful, and that they might give themselves up more readily to His service.

[21] concerning which deed the author But it seems that one should not pass by without consideration why this Saint, in the pleasantness of his dear ones, delighted more in the tameness and feeding of sparrows than of other birds. And, to speak first simply, men are wont to have other domestic birds in their houses; but sparrows, although they are wont to dwell on roofs, as we read and know by seeing, rejoicing in human neighbourhood, yet men are not wont to have them as domestic within their houses. Whence it is established that if he had fed in his hand birds which are wont to be kept domestic in houses, it would be held no miracle, nor would there be anything whence delight might come to the banqueters. Into a more private house also there was no means of coming for other birds, which are not wont to be kept domestic within chambers, except for sparrows, which are wont to dwell on roofs rejoicing in human neighbourhood, for the showing of this divine grace conferred on the Servant of God. But if we wish to search out something deeper in this deed of the Saint of God, we can understand that no birds are so often commended in the Scriptures as the sparrow, the dove and the turtle-dove.

[22] For the dove and the turtle-dove, which are wont to give forth groans in place of song, he observes certain things, designate the mourning of the Saints in the present age and their desires for things above, through the secret tears of prayers and the public assemblies of the Church. But the sparrow, a bird small in body, but anxious with the greatest sagacity, which is neither easily entangled in snares nor deceived by greed for food through the gluttony of the belly; this, on account of its weakness, lest either it itself be caught by a predator, or its young be devoured by the snares of serpents, hastens to the lofty tops of houses. To this every prudent and humble man is rightly compared, who, fleeing the frauds of diabolical cunning, hastens to fortify himself within the enclosures of holy Church by vigils and prayers and tears of penance. Our Redeemer and Saviour also has deigned to designate Himself a sparrow, the psalmist being witness, who says: For the sparrow hath found herself a house. For already the sparrow has found itself a house, because our Redeemer has entered the eternal dwelling of heaven: where He has been made as a sparrow alone upon the housetop, because, alone free among the dead, He sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels as He has inherited a more excellent name than they, that He should be and be called the Son of God.

[23] To Him the soul of every faithful man, placed in this pilgrimage, sighing, thus rejoices, and, discoursing at length, when through right faith and holy desires and through good works it feels its mansion to be prepared in the kingdom of heaven, as the sparrow exults in the hole of the wall; that is, the faithful man, now truly in the hole of the wall, namely in the unity of the Church, which is watered with the laver and the cup from the side of Christ pierced on the cross, protected from the malignity of the malignant spirit and his members, exults; and he who had been born of bloods and of the will of the flesh and of the will of man, redeemed from the power of darkness by the blood of Jesus, the true Son of God, and born again and incorporated of water and the Spirit, by which the same Lord our God was born of the glorious ever-Virgin Mary, our Lady, and himself born again of the virgin mother the Church from the immaculate womb of the divine font, exults with unspeakable joy and exultation. Whence we can draw such things also from this deed of the blessed Apostle of the Franks (for the Franks are the seal of his apostleship, as we shall show in the course of the work), considering them for the increase of our profit, comparing it with the action of John the Apostle.

[24] It is related by the report of the elders that when a bird which is called a partridge, alive and sound, had been offered by someone to the blessed Apostle John, he began to handle it, stroking it with a gentle hand. Which a certain youth seeing, said laughing to those of his age: See how that old man plays with a little bird, and explaining the reason of the deed like a boy. But the blessed Apostle, knowing these things by the spirit, called the youth to him, asking what he held in his hand. The youth said to him: A bow. And blessed John: What office has that which you hold in your hand? And the youth: We shoot with it, he said, beasts, or birds, or other things whatever. And blessed John: How, he said, or in what order? And the youth, having bent the bow, stretched it, and held it stretched in his hand. But blessed John followed him up with nothing in speech; after some space the youth unstrung the bow. Blessed John said to him: Why, he said, did you unstring the bow? To whom the youth: Because if it were held stretched longer, it would shoot its darts more weakly. And to this the holy Apostle: So too human frailty, if it should always persist in the rigour of contemplation, and not condescend to its frailty, is lifted up less strongly, as needs must, on the wing of contemplation ^d.

[25] exhorts his readers Which is done by the pious provision of our Creator and Saviour, that through the grace conferred we may grow in the progress of virtues, and through the recognition of our infirmity we may learn to guard the virtue of humility. For the eagle too is wont to fly higher than all birds, to fix its gaze on the rays of the sun more clearly than all living things; yet by the necessity of nature it is wont to lower its lofty flight to a carcass. So too our frailty, mindful of its condition, since we cannot continuously contemplate Him for whom we sigh in the time or place of this pilgrimage, the mind, drawn back a little as it were from the desired effect of contemplation, by frequent renewal strives more ardently and more strongly towards heavenly things. By which deed and word he both conferred great edification of instruction on those hearing him who were present, and left it to those following him. So too from this deed of blessed Remigius the greatest edification of instruction both in the loving

affection of our dear ones, and in discreet condescension to our frailty, we are able to take for ourselves.

[26] to good works. As he, ministering to sparrows, which sow not, neither gather into barns, but God feeds them, when some were satisfied received others to be satisfied, so we, who have received property and means either by succession of kinship or by the bestowal of the faithful, ministering with joy what good things we can to the brethren who have not prepared for themselves (for the Lord loveth a cheerful giver), take on others to whom we may minister good things, rejoicing more in a good work than in a good possession, so that God also may rejoice together at our good work, who foretold that He would say in the judgment to the workers of loving-kindness: What ye did to one of these my least brethren, ye did to me: come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which is prepared for you from the beginning of the world. But in this deed also we shall foresee for ourselves the greatest advantage of salvation, if we busy ourselves to render ourselves zealous for the daily exercises of good works: so that, as we render to our bodies their daily portion of food, of drink, of sleep and of the other necessities, so we take care to render to our souls daily nourishment from fasts, vigils, almsgivings, prayers and outpoured tears, and sacred oblations. For as we need the daily refreshment of the body, so we, who are daily darkened from the beauty of the newness we have taken on, need the daily renewal of the soul. ^e…

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER III.

A man possessed and at the same time blind cured by St. Remigius: Wine multiplied: the footprints of the same Saint impressed on rocks: a fire extinguished: a possessed girl, dead after the demon was expelled, restored to life. A sick man anointed with sacred oil and chrism divinely received, and healed.

A poor blind man, possessed And it happened at a certain time, when with pastoral diligence he was going round the parishes after his custom, so that, if anything was negligently done in the divine worship, the faithful Servant of Christ might learn of it, and, like a good husbandman, might cultivate what was uncultivated to bear the fruits of good working, that he came to a village whose name is Calmitiacus ^a. Where, when a certain blind man, possessed at intervals of time by the invasion of a demon that hid itself, had begged the help of mercy from him, since it could not be hidden before the presence of the holy Man himself (for it was of that kind of which the Lord says in the Gospel that it is not cast out but by prayer and fasting), the same blind man began to be tormented with vexation of the body by the assault of the demon, by which he had long been held captive. Then blessed Remigius, in prayer, with which he was always intent in mind upon the Lord, humbly prostrated himself on the ground in body, which was incessantly affected by fasts and the exercise of good works, and at once restored its former light to the blind man's eyes, and put to flight from him the pest of the unclean spirit, and commanded it in the name of Christ that it presume not to vex him further, and granted the poor man the help of sustenance he had asked for.

[28] he endows with alms, sight and liberty. O ineffable grace of loving-kindness! from whom, while substance alone is asked, a threefold remedy is obtained: he fed the needy man with food, he endowed the blinded man with sight, he restored the captive to liberty. And so there came about, through this notable miracle, the mystery of the holy Trinity; that, while one appeared in the poor man, the Trinity showed * itself in his salvation. Whoever, then, feels himself pressed by the assault of the ancient enemy through temptations, whether hidden in the mind or open in the body, let him earnestly ask to obtain the help of his intercession; and if he asks faithfully, let him not doubt that he will be freed by the grace of God from the assault of the unclean spirit through his merits and prayers. Whoever does not know the light of heavenly contemplation, who, pressed by the darkness of the present life, while he does not at all behold the life to come by loving it, and does not know whither to direct the step of his work; let him ask of the Lord's loving-kindness through his intercession the light of understanding and contemplation and the necessary compunction of heart, in nothing hesitating, because he will certainly receive it. Whoever acknowledges himself straitened by spiritual poverty of food and clothing, namely of faith, hope and charity and the other virtues, or even feels himself afflicted by temporal necessities and tribulations, let him seek the solaces of his intercessions with groans and tears; and let him trust that he obtains the solaces of consolations which the poor, blind and possessed man obtained through him ^b…

[29] While he visits his diocese, For this most blessed Prelate did not diminish the care of inward things in the occupation of outward ones; nor did he abandon the provision for outward things in the solicitude for inward ones. When, then, going round his diocese with pastoral solicitude, he was passing through the demesne ^c of a villa of the bishopric whose name is Tudiniacus ^d, he saw reapers cutting the harvest, and, approaching them with the word of preaching, he exhorted them, giving food and drink in consolation of their labour. And while they were doing this, it happened that his cousin, named Celsa, consecrated to God, was passing by just then, and going to a villa of her own property, named Celtum ^e. When she learned that Saint Remigius was near the road of her passage, she came to him, and, received kindly by him as was fitting, she asked the same holy Man that he would deign to go together with her to her house, whither she was going. The same holy Man, as he was ready to oblige in just petitions, gave assent to the request of this cousin of his.

[30] he turns aside to the villa of his cousin, And when they had now come together to the house, and were holding familiar and spiritual conversations with one another, Celsa's servant came, saying into her ear that her steward had already sold * the wine which had been in the same villa, except for a tiny quantity which he had kept back for the saving of the cask ^f. Saint Remigius, seeing her face suffused with a blush, asked what her servant had said in her ear. She answered him readily, since she was ashamed of that news not so much on his account as on account of those who had come with him. But the cause being known, blessed Remigius consoled her with a cheerful countenance, saying: For this matter, daughter, do not be saddened: for the Lord will give from it, by the largeness of His loving-kindness, the wonted consolation, who promised through His prophet that nothing is wanting to them that fear Him. And he told this cousin of his, those who were present hearing, to attend to other things, but that he himself meanwhile wished to go round her garden and orchard and buildings, and see how she was faring.

[31] And so, going round other things first on purpose, he came as far as the door of the cellar, where from a little wine a cask of no small size and asking what was kept in that building, the servant answered that it was the cellar. And the same holy Man said that he wished to go in there. And when no one dared to contradict him, he asked the cellarer whether he had any wine in any of those casks. And a cask having been pointed out, in which some wine had remained, he said: Shut the door, and stand on this side, until I return to you. And going to the other end of the cask, which was beside the wall, he made the cross over the same cask, which was of no small size, and bending his knees to prayer, prayed for a long time. And the wine began to overflow through the upper hole, through which it had been poured into the same cask, so much that it flooded abundantly over the floor of the building itself. And while the holy Man was still lying down in prayer, the cellarer, struck with fear, cried out, saying: In the name of Christ, who ever saw such a thing!

[32] When Saint Remigius heard this, he rose from prayer, is divinely filled and overflows and commanded him to tell this to no one; but to say to his mistress that he had wine obtained from the servants ^g, from which they would be able to serve. And the Saint of the Lord, returning to his aforesaid cousin, consoled her, saying: Daughter, be not saddened, but hope in the Lord, and do good, and thou shalt be fed in His riches. You have wine now: let us rejoice and exult in the Lord. When she and her men had learned this deed through the cellarer (because, as it is written, It is honourable to declare the works of the Lord), his cousin said to him: Now I know, holy Father, that by divine inspiration I called you today to this house. Therefore I will make you and your church heir of this villa by perpetual right: and on the spot she handed over that villa to the church of Reims, and made the same holy Prelate a charter and investiture of it according to the lawful custom ^h.

[33] We wonder that, according to the word of Elijah, the barrel of meal did not fail, he obtains by his prayers. and the cruse of oil was not diminished: we wonder that, according to the word of Elisha, from a little liquid of oil great vessels poured with oil were filled ⁱ; let us wonder that, by the blessing and prayer of our lord and father and patron Remigius, a cask of no small size, from the little liquid that was in it, overflowed with wine poured over even on to the floor of the cellar. And we, who, drunk with the pleasures of the flesh, have made others also drunk with sins by causing them to sin, and have enticed them to sin either by our example or by our word, emptied of Christ, vessels empty of spiritual gifts, if at the memory of this blessed Pontiff we shall have vomited up from the bottom of our hearts the poison of our iniquities, which we have drunk with delight, like wine, gulping it down, through pure confession with contrition and roaring of heart, emptying ourselves of the gall of sins with which we are filled, and shall have washed ourselves with tears, lifting up our hearts with pure hands without wrath and disputing to the Lord, let us believe that we can obtain by his merits and prayers that we be filled with the abounding grace of God, and that there be in us the fountain of life, and in His light we may see light ^k…

[34] Since the adversary of the human race does not cease to show the power of his malignity by harming, A huge fire of the city of Reims by his instigation, globes of flame suddenly rising,

set fire to this city of the Remi, and, excessive devastation having broken out, the burning, carried through, had already consumed nearly a third part, the embers standing out; and the victorious flame was licking what remained. When the news of this matter had reached the hearing of the most blessed bishop Remigius, straightway he prostrated himself in prayer in the basilica of blessed Nicasius ^l, pontiff and martyr of this city (for he was then staying there); and rising from prayer, looking up to heaven, he groaned and said: God, my God, attend to my voice. And with hastened course, by the steps built of stones before the church itself, he made for the city (in which stones his footprints were impressed as though upon soft mud, and are shown there to this day in memory of the divine miracle ^m) and so he ran with swift speed, and set himself against the fire.

[35] [he extinguishes it with the sign of the Cross: a command given by him on this occasion] And at once, as with his right hand stretched out against the fire, with the invocation of the name of Christ, he made the sign of the holy Cross, that whole fire, as though its guilt were recognised, its force broken and cut down and dashed back upon itself, began to flee before the presence of the Man of God. Which the Man of God continually pursued, and set himself between the fire and the things which still remained, with the sign of the holy Cross and the invocation of Christ. And so by divine power he drove out the whole globe of flames, fleeing before him, through the Open Gate (for so it was called at that time, because, the other gates being closed for the guarding of the city, it lay open by day for the convenience of those going out and coming in), and, another gate having been deputed for this office, he closed the aforesaid gate, and forbade that it should ever be opened by anyone, with the threat of vengeance upon whoever should presume to open it; as Joshua also imprecated vengeance upon him who should rebuild the walls of Jericho cast down by the power of God ⁿ.

[36] a certain man, violating it, pays the penalty. But after some years a certain citizen, named Fercintus, dwelling beside that gate, made ^o a hole in the masonry with which the same gate had been blocked up, through which he might throw out the dung of his yard. Which such vengeance soon followed that, destruction coming upon it, neither man nor beast remained in the same house. In which miracle, by the grace of God, it was declared to all that the Man of God, full of faith, burned the hotter with the fire of divine love, who by his holy merits overcame, drove out, and extinguished the fury of so great a wrath. For in this, that his footprints were impressed on the flints; and that the steps of blessed Peter were solid upon an unstable element at the Lord's command; although in a different manner, yet not with a different faith and grace, we behold the working of Christ. For we read also in the old histories that in the holy city of Jerusalem there is kept a most hard stone, on which are shown the loving footprints of the Redeemer, when He stood before Pilate the judge, on whose heart, harder than stones, His words, his faults requiring it, could not be impressed.

[37] The author, concerning the footprints of the Saint impressed on the stone And by the footprints of His Servant Remigius impressed on the flints, who was about to fight against the malice of the devil, of whom Pilate was a member, He deigned to show that He had given him, as He had said to His disciples in the presence of the flesh, power to tread upon all the might of the enemy; [p] but also by this deed He wished to show, by the grace of His power, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, that preach good things: through whom He was taking away from the hard of heart, and was about to take away from the unbelieving Franks, hearts of stone, and was giving to the obstinate, and was about to give to unbelievers, hearts soft to receive the seeds of the divine word, that they might bring forth fruit in their season through patience. But the Lord also, who through Himself built the Church by His side pierced on the cross, pouring forth water and blood, by which the same Church is watered with the laver and the cup: through this His Servant also, to whom He committed His church to be governed, by the footprints impressed on the stone (since footsteps were shown stronger than stones, and stones softer than footsteps) willed to show figuratively what He foretold of the same church through Moses in figurative speech: His shoe shall be iron and brass [q].

[38] For the shoe in holy Scripture is taken for the defence of preaching; and discourses concerning the extinguished fire. as it is written: Your feet shod in the preparation of the Gospel of peace. Because, then, by iron strength, and by brass perseverance is expressed, he says his shoe shall be iron and brass, since his preaching is fortified with sharpness and at the same time with constancy. For by iron it pierces adverse evils, and by brass it long-sufferingly keeps the good things it has set before itself. In this, that this holy Man (who with his colleagues could say, We are the good odour of Christ unto God in every place), standing between the fire and what was not yet touched by the burning, with the sign of the Cross and the invocation of the name of Christ forbade the flames to pass over, the miracle of God was represented when Aaron the high priest, to appease the wrath of the Lord, took a censer with fragrant incense, and stood between the living and the dead [r]. By whose merits and prayers let us ask that the flames of vices be extinguished in us, and that we be freed from the everlasting fire of intolerable torments [s]… From this, that the aforesaid citizen presumed to open, against the prohibition of blessed Remigius, what he had closed, and did not lack vengeance, let us also greatly fear to make small account of the words and commands of the Saints; because, God speaking in them, their speech, which passes, expresses sentences which remain without change.

[39] A certain girl, born of illustrious parentage from the city of Toulouse [t], A possessed girl, exorcised in vain by St. Benedict, was held captive from infancy by the siege of a malignant spirit. And since her most pious parents loved her with tender love, they brought her to the tomb of Saint Peter in the city of Rome with a very great multitude and much devotion. For in those parts there was then a Man of venerable life, Benedict [u] in grace and in name, shining with very many miracles. Hearing his fame, the parents of the girl brought her to the same servant of God. He, labouring with many fasts and prayers for her cleansing from the most hostile demon, strove to entreat the power of the Lord. But since he had not been able to purge her by any intercession, nor had availed to expel from her the venom of the crafty demon, the ancient enemy, adjured with many and most powerful exorcisms, constrained by the adjuration of the divine name, gave this answer: that he could never be expelled from that same dwelling by the prayers of another than this most blessed bishop Remigius.

[40] Then her parents, with the letters of the man of God Benedict himself, set out to go to this city of the Remi. is freed by St. Remigius, And since the parents of the aforesaid girl were greatly honoured and familiar with Alaric, king of the Goths, who established his seat in the city of Toulouse, and together with the Gothic kingdom held a great part of the Gauls for himself, and, as it was said, were his kin in the flesh, they came with his letters and envoys to blessed Remigius for the cleansing of the often-mentioned girl from the ancient enemy, bringing her with them bound into this city, that they might know through her the power of Christ which they had foreknown by the confession of the demon. But when blessed Remigius, with a lengthy struggle, asserted that he was not worthy for so great a work, and resisted with his wonted patience, he was overcome by the prayers of the supplicating people, so that he poured out prayer for her, and grieved with the tears of her parents. Then, armed with the merits of holiness, he commanded by the authority of his word that the wicked robber should depart by the way he had entered, and set free the handmaid of Christ. And so, with excessive vomiting and a foul stench, he went out through the mouth by which he had entered.

[41] and, dead a little afterwards, she is raised to life. But a little after, the Pontiff departing, yet within the space of that very hour, while, exhausted by excessive toil, she was tottering, failed by the warmth of life, she lost the spirit of life. With repeated prayers, therefore, the crowd of suppliants runs back to the Physician: but the holy Man accuses himself of having rather committed a crime than granted the reward of health, and of having become guilty of homicide, not of having conferred a remedy. He returns, then, prevailed upon by the entreaty of the people, to the Basilica of Saint John the Baptist, where the body lay lifeless, and there Saint Remigius, with tears, prostrates himself in prayer on the pavement of the Saints, and exhorts the rest to do likewise; and, having poured out a shower of tears, rising, he raised up the dead girl whom he had before healed when sick. For taking her hand, he said: Girl, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, arise. And she at once, with entire soundness, as she herself afterwards confessed, rose from the very gates of hell, and returned happily to her own home [x].

[42] The author, for obtaining the life of the soul by the patronage of the Saint, For, stripped of the frailty of the flesh and joined to the angelic choirs, he is able by his merits and prayers to snatch his people and anyone who asks with faith from the fall of any impending danger, and to raise anyone converted from evil to good from the death of any sin whatever, and also to free him from the future everlasting death; he who, while still placed in the prison of corruptible flesh, availed to restore the life of a dead girl. Therefore, since there are two deaths in each one of us, namely one of the soul through sin, and the other of the body on account of sin, for the punishment of sin: because it is the death of the soul when God forsakes it on account of the greatness of its sins; and it is the death of the body when it is forsaken by the soul: and there are two resurrections, the one now of the soul in the Church through the Son, the Word of God, when through His grace it rises from the death of iniquity.

[43] exhorts the reader. And this is the first resurrection, which whoever has, in the second, which is of the body, happily rises to eternal life through the Word of God made flesh, the Son of man, who has received power to execute judgment: which judgment will be at the end of the world, and there will not be a resurrection of souls, but of bodies. Let us ask, then, with a contrite and humbled heart, with tears, good works lending their support, that through the merit of this our Patron we be raised from the death of the soul in the present life, that we may live with Christ, firmly believing that through his intercession we can obtain this from the Lord's mercy, if we ask faithfully, since in the healing of the aforesaid girl first from the demon, and afterwards in the raising of her body from death, we have received a most certain pledge of his merits [y]…

[44] With oil and chrism divinely received he anoints a sick man and heals him. Finally, when a certain sick man of a not ignoble family, not yet baptized, asked to be visited by Saint Remigius, and, as though already placed at his last breath, confessed that he believed and demanded to be baptized, the sick man having made his renunciation, and the font having been blessed, Saint Remigius asked the presbyter of that place for exorcised oil and chrism. He answered that he had simple oil; but that the exorcised oil and chrism had already wholly failed in the ampullas in which they had been. But Saint Remigius commanded the ampullas themselves to be brought to him; which, empty, he placed upon the altar, and prostrated himself in prayer. And rising from prayer, the ampulla

in which the label [z] of the exorcised oil was held, and the other ampulla, in which the label of the sacred chrism was contained, he found full. And so the sick man, who had before made his renunciation, after the renunciation he anointed with the exorcised oil; and finally, when baptized, he anointed him with sacred Chrism according to the Ecclesiastical tradition: who, having soon received health of soul, merited also soundness of body [aa].

[45] Whom, dearest brethren, whom ought we to notice that blessed Remigius imitated and followed in this miracle, The author's observations on these things if not Him who at the marriage, to which He deigned to come and to sanctify it by His presence, commanded the empty water-pots to be filled with water, and at His nod turned that same water into wine [bb]. And indeed the Lord, who at the beginning of the world's creation created all things from nothing, could have filled the empty water-pots with wine: but He preferred that the water-pots be filled with water, and to make wine from that very water, so that by the service of the ministers the water-pots might be filled with water, and at the nod of His blessing the water be turned into wine; that He might openly show that, as He made all things from nothing, so also by His sanctification He changes the natures of things as He wills.

[46] And blessed Remigius, the servant and friend of the Bridegroom of the Church, concerning these things. associating the believer to His body through the divine mysteries, could by the solemn words have exorcised simple oil and holy chrism, as also consecrated the font; but he preferred that the Lord should fill, one by one, by the power of His blessing, the ampullas in which the sanctified Sacraments had been, and that He should show Himself faithful in His words, in which He had said, If ye shall ask the Father anything in my name, He will give it you, by the service of His Servant, for the confirming of the faith of the believing neophyte. It is certain that He who at the beginning of creation blessed each creature, and by that blessing ever makes them grow and multiply for the uses of men, and from the creatures of bread and of wine mixed with water, and also of oil, according to His tradition, at the invocation of the priest always creates good things, not making what they already were, but making the most holy mysteries to exist, which they were not yet; namely His body and blood, and the chrism of eternal salvation; He it was who filled the ampullas one by one with oil, and at the invocation of His Priest poured into them, one by one, the blessing of sanctification.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Luke chapter 10, verse 19.

q. This is the blessing given by Moses to the tribe of Asher, Deuteronomy 33, verse 25.

r. Read the book of Numbers chapter 16, from verse 46.

s. There is inserted here, through seven columns of the book, a disputation against the Predestinarians concerning true predestination, concerning grace and free will, concerning the foreknowledge and omnipotence of God, concerning His sincere will to save all, and the death of Christ for all. And these things, he says at last, we have mentioned for this reason, since the remnants of the Predestinarians still mutter in these Gallic provinces with a whispering throat; that those reading these things, steeped in the Catholic doctrine of this our Father and Pontiff and of his companions, may stand fortified against the deadly hissings of the ancient serpent, etc.

t. See the short Life, number 6 and the two following, whence Hincmar took and interpolated these things.

u. Fortunatus did not say this. See what was observed on the short Life, letter X, and this fable concerning St. Benedict, patriarch of his Order, refuted at length in the preliminary Commentary from number 73.

x. This twofold cure of the girl is reported in the Preface of the old Mass in these words: And a girl of the people of Toulouse he purified from a demonic spirit, and afterwards raised her when dead. Consult also the Annotations to the short Life, letters ee.

y. I omit here again a long discourse of five columns, in which the author, commending to his readers the remembrance of death and of the divine judgment, exhorts them to prepare themselves diligently for these things; and discourses of the diversity of eternal reward and punishments after this life, according to the diversity of merits.

z. Brevis is used by writers of a later age for an index of things, names, etc.; and so here for the inscription of the ampulla, which indicated for the use of what thing it was.

aa. Of this miracle there is no mention in Fortunatus: but in the Preface of the Mass, in this manner: But when chrism was sought for a certain sick man to be baptized, and none was found, he ordered the empty ampullas to be placed upon the altar in such a way that he himself meanwhile might prostrate himself in prayer. Then it is poured over with the heavenly dew of chrism by the blessing. Flodoard, book 1, chapter 12, as usual followed Hincmar. bb. John chapter 2.

bb. John chapter 2.

* ostenderit

* i.e. vendidisset had sold

CHAPTER IV.

The fabulous origin and seat of the nation of the Franks: the esteem of King Chlodovech, then still a heathen, for St. Remigius: the marriage of the same king with St. Chrotildis: the victory of Tolbiac, and, following upon it, the same king's accession to Christ with his nation, and his baptism.

Of the nation of the Franks, after Chlodio, Merovech Whereas of the nation of the Franks, as the Histories relate, from the city of Troy, the Greeks attacking and storming it, part went with Aeneas into Italy, part of them, namely twelve thousand, came into the neighbouring parts of Pannonia beside the Maeotic marshes, and, arriving there, built a city, which in memory of themselves they called Sicambria ^a. In which they dwelt many years, and grew into a great nation up to the time of the emperor Valentinian, and so, under long-haired princes succeeding one another from time to time according to the custom of the nation, through Thuringia, a region of Germany, from the castle of Dispargum, in which they dwelt long ^b, they advanced to the cities of Tournai and Cambrai of the province of Belgica; and thence they occupied part of the province of Belgica as far as the river Somme, where they lived for very many times under Chlodio ^c and Merovech, a useful king, from whose most celebrated name the Franks were called Merovingians; as by the emperor Valentinian they were called in the Attic tongue Franks, that is, Fierce ^d.

[48] and Childeric, Clovis having been made king, To this Merovech succeeded in the principate Childeric ^e, who by Basina, queen of the Thuringians, had a son Louis ^f, who was a great king, above all the kings of the Franks before him, a most warlike and excellent fighter. In those days or times the Franks took the city of Agrippina on the Rhine, which they called Cologne, and the city of Trier on the Moselle, which had previously been destroyed and afflicted by the Huns, took it, setting it on fire ^g. At that time in these parts about the Rhine as far as the river Loire dwelt the Romans, whose prince was Aegidius. But beyond the Loire the Goths held dominion, whose prince was Alaric. The Burgundians also, Arians like the Goths, dwelt beside the river Rhône as far as the city of Lyons and the cities bordering it, whose prince was Gundobad ^h. At that time Aegidius died, and there succeeded in the principate of the Romans who dwelt in the Gauls his son Syagrius ⁱ.

[49] the leader of the Romans in the Gauls having been vanquished, although a pagan, And Childeric having died, who with his Frankish army the cities of Orléans and Angers

occupied and laid waste, Louis his son shrewdly took up the kingdom of the Franks. In the fifth year of Louis's reign, Syagrius, son of Egidius, leader of the Romans who dwelt in the Gauls, was residing in the city of Soissons, which his father had held; against whom Louis came with an army, and conquered him; and having received him, sent over to him by Alaric, with whom at Toulouse he had dwelt for some time, fleeing Louis, he ordered him to be slain, and subjected to his power all that had been his ^k. At that time many churches were plundered by the army of Louis. For they were, like their king, fanatics and pagans; yet, hearing the miracles which were done through blessed Remigius, they revered him, and, though pagans, they loved him, in whom the light of heavenly grace shone forth to all. And their king willingly heard him, and, having heard him, did many things, and restrained himself from many wickednesses.

[50] he makes much of St. Remigius, and, assenting to his prayers, For Saint Remigius was a wise and most holy man, an excellent rhetorician, illustrious in miracles, restoring sight to the blind, repairing life to the dead, casting out demons, and furnishing remedy for the languors of all infirmities ^l. And the king, making his passage near the city of Reims by the road which to this day, on account of the barbarians' journey along it, is called the Barbarian road, would not enter that city, lest any harm should be done there by his army. But without his will and knowledge a certain part of the undisciplined (since there was no temporal power of the inhabitants to resist them) entered the same city, and, seizing certain ornaments and sacred vessels thence, as robbers are wont, carried them off, among which they seized and took away a ewer of great size and beauty. And Saint Remigius sent his envoys to King Louis, begging that, if he did not merit to receive back anything else of the sacred Vessels of the church, he would at least order that ewer to be returned to his envoys.

[51] Hearing this, the king said to the church's envoys: Follow us as far as the city of Soissons, he restores the sacred vessel taken from the church of Reims, because there all that has been acquired will have to be divided. And when that ewer shall have fallen to me as my share, I will fulfil what the Bishop asks. And coming to the city of Soissons, he asks that all the booty which had been carried off or acquired be brought into the midst. And when all had been brought into the presence of the king, he said: I ask you, O bravest warriors, that you do not refuse to give me this ewer. When the king said this, those Franks who were of good mind say: All things, glorious king, which you see are yours, and we are subject to your dominion; what seems good to you, do: for no one dares to resist your power. And when they had said this kindly, one fickle Frank, with a shout, raising his axe, which by another name is called the Francisca ^m, struck that ewer, saying: You shall receive nothing hence, king, except what the true lot shall have given you. All being astounded, the king, bearing his injury patiently, gave the ewer he had received to the church's messenger, keeping his anger hidden in his heart.

[52] A year having passed, King Louis, that he might see the brightness of all the arms, and afterwards slew the violator of the ewer. ordered the whole army to come with the equipment of arms according to custom to the Field of March; for so they called that assembly, from Mars, whom the pagans believed to be the god of war, from whom they also called the month March, and the third feria Mars's Day. Which assembly the later Franks ordained to be called the Field of May, when kings are wont to go forth to wars ⁿ. Now as the king went round the whole army, he came to that man who in the past year had struck the ewer with the axe; and he said to him: No one here has such uncared-for and dirty arms as you have; for neither shield, nor lance, nor axe is serviceable. And the king took his francisca, which is called an axe, and threw it on the ground: and when he had bent down to pick it up again, the king at once, raising his hand, drove his own francisca into his head, and said: As you did to that ewer in the city of Soissons the year before, so I also do to you. And he being dead, the king ordered the army to depart from that field to their homes in peace: and great fear and dread arose among the people of the Franks on account of this matter ^o.

[53] Louis, in the tenth year of his reign, having set his army in motion, subjugated the province of Thuringia to himself [p]. Then, Chlodovech marries St. Chrothildis, by the mediation of Aurelianus, his counsellor and envoy, by divine command he took to wife the niece of Gundobad, king of the Burgundians, namely the daughter of his brother Chilperic, whom he had slain with the sword, named Rothildis, a very beautiful girl and truly most Christian; as the reader can read more fully in its place [q]. In those days King Louis enlarged his kingdom as far as the Seine: at a following time he occupied it as far as the river Loire, and Aurelianis received the fortress of Melun, which he also held as a duchy [r]. At length Rothildis conceived and bore a son, and when she wished him to be consecrated with holy baptism, the king would not agree with her: for he did not yet believe in the Lord God of heaven. For the queen preached Him to him daily: but he would not hear her. Meanwhile the queen prepares the son for baptism, adorns the church with veils and hangings, that she might prick the heart of the king to believe.

[54] who strove to lead him to the faith of Christ. The boy was baptized, whom she called Ingomir, and who died in his white garments [s]. Whence the king, greatly saddened, laid it * to the queen's charge, saying to her reproachfully: That if the boy had been dedicated in the name of my gods, he would surely have lived long, unharmed: but because he was baptized in the name of your God, he could not live. But the queen said: I give thanks to God, who has not held me unworthy, that He should deign to receive into His kingdom the firstborn from my womb: and I retain no grief in my heart for this cause. But afterwards she bore another son, whom in baptism she called Chlodomir [t]. And when he had begun to be sick, the king said: Nothing else can happen but that it be done with this one also as it was with his brother, that, baptized in the name of your Christ, he quickly die. But the queen praying, and the mercy of the Lord going before, he recovered health. The queen also did not cease to preach to the king that he should worship the true God, and forsake the vain idols which he worshipped; but in no way could she move his mind to believe; until at length at some time he waged war against the Alemanni and Suevi, in which he was compelled to confess the God whom he had before denied [u].

[55] Chlodovech, after vanquishing through the invocation of Christ And it came to pass, the army of the Franks, namely, and the Alemanni and Suevi warring with one another, that the army of Louis was being greatly overthrown. Aurelianus his counsellor, looking at the king, said: My lord king, only believe in the God of heaven, in whom my lady the queen believes and whom she preaches, and He, the King of kings and the God of heaven and earth, will give you the victory [x]. And he, lifting his eyes to heaven, moved to tears, said: O good Jesus, in whom Rothildis my queen believes and whom she preaches, and whom good Remigius, archbishop of the Remi, preaches to be the Son of the living God [y]; who helpest in tribulation, who givest aid to those who hope in Thee, I devoutly ask Thy aid, that, if Thou shalt give me victory over my enemies, and I shall have experienced that power which the peoples proclaim of Thee, I will believe in Thee, and will be baptized in Thy name. For I have called upon my gods, and, as I experience, they have gone far from my aid: whence I believe that they are endowed with no power, who do not succour those who believe in them. Thee I call upon as the true God and Lord, and in Thee I desire to believe; only let me be freed from my adversaries.

[56] the enemy at Tolbiac, St. Remigius having been summoned, And while he was crying out these things in prayer, the Alemanni, falling into flight, turned their backs, and, seeing their king slain, they submit themselves to the power of Louis, saying: Spare, we pray, lord king, lest more of the people perish: we are yours now. Then the king ordered the threatening slaughter to cease, and took the Alemanni, and placed them and their land under a tributary yoke. And so, the victory having been won, he returned into Francia to his queen, and told her how through the invocation of the name of Jesus Christ he had merited to obtain the victory. These things were done in the fifteenth year of Louis's reign [z]. Then the queen, that the saying of the Apostle might be fulfilled, The unbelieving husband shall be saved by the believing wife, called Saint Remigius, bishop of this city of Reims, beseeching him to preach the way of salvation to the king. And the holy Priest preached to him to come to baptism, through much teaching of the saving life. And he said: I will willingly hear you, most blessed Father; but one thing remains; that the people which follows me will not leave its gods. But I will go and exhort them according to your word.

[57] And the king, coming to the people, began to exhort them [together with his people he offers himself to be instructed; and while he is doing this,] to believe in the God who had given them the victory; since their gods had been able to profit them nothing in their tribulation [aa]. And all acclaimed, the mercy and power of God going before: We forsake mortal gods, glorious king, and we are ready to believe the true immortal God whom Remigius preaches. He announced these things to Saint Remigius: and he too, filled with great joy, instructed the king and people in plain and brief words how they ought to renounce the devil and his works and pomps, and to believe in God; and, since the day of holy Easter [bb] was imminent, he proclaimed to them a fast according to the custom of Christians. And on the day of the Lord's passion, which ecclesiastical usage calls the Parasceve, namely on the day before the king and his people were to receive the grace of baptism, while Saint Remigius and the venerable consort of the king, Rothildis, were spending the night in prayer for the salvation of the king and his people, the Bishop in the house before the altar of holy Mary, pouring out many tears, and the queen in the oratory of Saint Peter next to the royal house; the prayer being completed, the Pontiff approached the door of the royal chamber to knock, namely so that through the deep silences of the night he might more freely commit the sacred mysteries of the word to the king, freed from other cares.

[58] Him the king's chamberlains, the doors * having been opened, reverently receive, on the day before his baptism, by heavenly light, a voice and with due honour lead him into the king's inner apartments. And the king too eagerly leapt forth to meet him, and having embraced him, went forth with him and his venerable consort into the oratory of the most blessed Prince of the Apostles, Peter, which, as we have said, was contiguous to the king's chamber. And when those three, namely the Pontiff and the king and the queen, had sat down, seats having been arranged, certain clerics standing round about,

who had come with the Pontiff, and the familiars of the king and queen, and while the holy Prelate was instructing the king with salutary admonitions and imbuing him with the Gospel disciplines, to confirm the preaching of the true faith set forth by the holy Pontiff the Lord willed to show also visibly what He promised to all the faithful: Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them; suddenly a light so abundant filled the whole church that it surpassed the brightness of the sun; and with the light there was likewise heard the voice of one saying: Peace be to you: it is I, fear not; abide in my love.

[59] And after these words the light which had come withdrew, and fragrance, before the king and queen, and an odour of incredible sweetness remained in the same house, so that it might be openly shown that the Author of light and peace and sweetness had come thither, whom none of those who were present, except the Bishop, were able to look upon, struck with fear on account of the brilliance of the light; and such a glory of brightness suffused the holy Pontiff that the splendour proceeding from him rendered the house in which they were sitting more conspicuous than the lights of the lamps shining there. The king and queen therefore prostrate themselves at the feet of the holy Priest, and with great dread and groaning seek his consolation, and with great devotion ask what they ought to do pertaining to their profit and salvation, ready to hear and to fulfil in deed what they should learn from the holy Pontiff.

[60] For the light which suffused them outwardly also enlightened them inwardly, and illustrated by other things: he foretells many things to them and stirred them to seek salutary counsel. For they were delighted in those words which they had heard, although they were terrified by the brightness of the light. But the holy Man, filled with holy wisdom, began to instruct them that this is the custom of divine and angelic vision, that at its coming it terrifies the hearts of mortals, but by subsequent consolation soothes the preceding fear, instructing them from the authority of the holy Scriptures how to each of those to whom they appeared they both struck fear into those seeing them at the beginning of the apparition, but afterwards through the grace of consolation afforded to their hearts the most welcome cheerfulness of joy. And when the holy Man had now sufficiently instructed them in such things, filled with the prophetic spirit he foretold all the things that were to befall them or their seed.

[61] and shines like Moses. Namely how their succeeding posterity would most nobly propagate and govern the kingdom, and exalt holy Church, and would possess every Roman dignity and kingdom, and obtain victories against the incursions of other nations, unless perchance, degenerating from good, they should forsake the way of truth, and should follow the diverse windings of vices by which Ecclesiastical discipline is wont to be neglected, and by which God is offended; and through which kingdoms are wont to be overthrown and transferred from nation to nation. What we read written of Moses, that his face was made splendid while the Lord looked upon him, this we have heard was done also in blessed Remigius, illuminated by a splendid light; since as Moses was appointed by the Lord lawgiver to the old people, so also blessed Remigius stood forth, chosen by the gift of Christ, as bearer of Gospel grace to the people shortly to be renewed through the font of baptism [cc].

[62] The Saint leads Chlodovech to the baptistery, Meanwhile the way of going to the baptistery from the royal house is prepared, and is hung on either side with painted veils and hangings and shaded from above. The streets are strewn and the churches arranged, the baptistery is sprinkled with balsam and other perfumes; and the Lord ministered such grace among the people that they thought themselves refreshed with the odours of paradise. And so, the most holy Gospels and crosses going before, with hymns and spiritual songs and litanies and the names of the Saints acclaimed, the holy Pontiff, holding the king's hand, proceeds from the royal house to the baptistery, the queen and the people following. And while they were proceeding together, the king questioned the Bishop, saying: Patron, is this the kingdom of God which you promise me? To whom the Bishop said: This is not that kingdom, but the beginning of the way by which one comes to it. But when they had come to the baptistery, the cleric who was carrying the chrism was intercepted by the people, so that he could not come to the font.

[63] and with chrism divinely brought he consecrates the font, But the font having been sanctified, by divine disposition the Chrism was lacking: and since, on account of the pressure of the people, no one had a way of going out of the church or coming in, the holy Pontiff, his eyes and hands stretched out to heaven, began to pray silently with tears. And behold, suddenly a dove whiter than snow brought in its beak a little ampulla, filled with holy chrism, with whose wonderful fragrance, above all the fragrances which they had before perceived in the baptistery, all who were present were filled with inestimable sweetness. And when the holy Pontiff received that little ampulla, the form of the dove vanished [dd]: of which chrism the venerable Bishop poured into the consecrated font. And the king, having seen so great a miracle, having renounced the pomps of the devil and his works, asked to be baptized by the holy Pontiff. The new Constantine proceeds to the saving laver, in which the diseases of the old leprosy were to be blotted out, and the foul ancient stains of sins washed away, blessed Remigius serving the divine gift, in whom by apostolic doctrine and the grace of miracles a second Silvester seemed to be represented [ee].

[64] And when Louis had entered into the life-giving font, the holy Bishop said with eloquent mouth: and the king himself Bow down thy neck meekly, Sicambrian [ff]; adore what thou hast burned, burn what thou hast adored [gg]: and instructing him with salutary precepts, taught him with humble devotion to venerate the churches built for the worship of religion, that he might adore God in those which he had been accustomed to burn with rigid profanity; and that, kindled with the ardour of faith, he should burn by casting down the idols which in their sanctuaries he was wont to adore as god. Whose wisdom is to be wondered at in the brevity of the words, by which he showed the distinction between that adoration and service which we often read was shown by holy men, with the honour of veneration and the love of homage, to angels and men; and that adoration and service which, by the worship due to the divinity, we know from the reading of the holy Scriptures is to be shown to God alone according to His precept, and not to any creature.

[65] And so, after the confession of the orthodox faith at the questioning of the holy Pontiff, according to ecclesiastical custom, he was baptized by threefold immersion in the name of the holy and undivided Trinity, and baptizes many others. Father and Son and Holy Spirit; and, received by the Pontiff himself [hh] from the holy font, he was anointed with sacred chrism with the sign of the holy Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ [ii]. And there are baptized of his army three thousand men, besides little children and women [kk]. His sisters are baptized, Albofledis and Landehildis [ll]: and there was great joy on that day to the holy angels in heaven, and to devout men on earth. Concerning the miracle which the Lord deigned to show through the form of a dove in the bringing of the chrism, as also concerning the others, the sure sentence of the Catholic Fathers is to be followed, in which it is said: The divine operation, if it is comprehended by reason, is not wonderful, nor has faith merit, to which human reason furnishes proof [mm]…

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Gregory of Tours again went before here, adding thus in the place just cited: He waged many wars and won victories. For in the tenth year of his reign he made war on the Thuringians, and subjugated them to his dominions.

q. She whom he here calls Rothildis is called by St. Gregory of Tours in the same book 2, chapter 28, and elsewhere, Chrotechildis, now more commonly Clotildis or Chrotildis, under which name this holy queen was treated in our Work at the 3rd day of June, on which she is venerated. Further, since Hincmar writes that this marriage was arranged by the mediation of Aurelianus, he indicates sufficiently that the anonymous in the Deeds of the Franks lit the way for him, whose fabulous narration on this subject our Henschen reviewed and exploded in the Annotations to chapter 1 of the Life of the same Saint, letter a.

r. Both he learned again from the same anonymous. Le Cointe referred the first expedition to the year 493, the second to 494, from the Chronicle of Sigebert, in which the latter is said to have occurred in the thirteenth year of Clovis, the former in the twelfth. For the rest, the Sequana, in French la Seine, and the Liger, la Loire, rivers of Gaul, are commonly known; the city of Aureliani is Orléans, Milidunum or Melodunum, Melun.

s. In albis, that is, within the octave from the receiving of baptism. For in baptism they used to be clothed in a white garment, which they laid aside on the eighth day. Further, all these things Gregory of Tours has in almost the same words, book 29 and 30; yet Hincmar took them not thence, but from the anonymous's Deeds of the Franks, as will be manifest to one comparing them.

t. By Gregory of Tours he is called Chlodomeres, and he is one of the four sons of Clovis who divided their father's kingdom among themselves.

u. Of this war I treated in the preliminary Commentary, §6, where I showed that it is to be referred, with the baptism of Clovis, to the year 496.

x. St. Gregory makes no mention of Aurelianus, who wrote that Clovis, thus pressed by the enemy, invoked the aid of Christ of his own accord. Hincmar again followed the anonymous here.

y. Whom good Remigius, archbishop of the Remi, etc., are Hincmar's alone, not St. Gregory's, nor the anonymous's.

z. These are read in as many words in the anonymous in the Deeds of the Franks. Ruinart observes in the Annotations to his edition that in Du Chesne's edition of the History of St. Gregory of Tours, and in three or four copies of it, one also reads here, Done in the XVth year of his reign; but that he did not read it in the other printed and unprinted copies; wherefore he omitted these words, and judged them to have been intruded from the aforesaid anonymous; which Henschen had already noticed before him. For the rest, according to the more common opinion, which begins the reign of Clovis from the year 481, the XVth year of the same reign falls in the year of Christ 496, in which we believe Clovis to have been baptized.

aa. These do not agree with the words of St. Gregory, who says of Clovis, book 2, chapter 31: And coming together with his people, before he spoke, the power of God going before, all the people acclaimed together: We cast away mortal gods, etc.

bb. Since in §7 of the preliminary Commentary I proved that Clovis was washed in the sacred font not at Easter but at the Nativity of Christ the Lord, what Hincmar, Flodoard and others after them said about the Lenten fast and Easter must be corrected. As regards the baptism conferred on Clovis at Easter, Fredegar had gone before in the Epitome, chapter 21; but Gregory of Tours and the often-mentioned anonymous were silent on this matter.

cc. Whatever things are narrated here from number 57 and the words But on the day of the Lord's Passion, etc., are unknown to all the more ancient writers, and rest on the sole faith of Hincmar; and who could divine whence he took them? But certainly he erred as to the time, as has been said. But what follows is partly conformable to the narration of St. Gregory, partly amplified, partly also different, as I showed in the preliminary Commentary, and shall observe several times in the Annotations.

dd. This miracle of the ampulla divinely received at the baptism of Clovis is unknown to all writers more ancient than Hincmar, who did not indicate whether he read it in any other. See the preliminary Commentary, §§8 and 9, in which it was treated at length.

ee. Of the leprosy of Constantine and the baptism conferred on him by St. Silvester I, Pope, St. Gregory of Tours also makes mention here; but see these matters discussed in our work, volume 5 of May, under Constantine the Great, chapter 2.

ff. These words of Remigius to the king were taken from Gregory of Tours.

gg. He calls him Sicambrian from Sicambria, a region of the Franks situated beyond the Rhine.

hh. Some have believed that St. Remigius, because he received Clovis from the sacred font, was not his baptizer, whose opinion I refuted in the preliminary Commentary, §7; where I also said that these things were done nowhere else than in the city of Reims.

ii. This sacred anointing, which Gregory of Tours also records in the same place, was the Sacrament of confirmation, not a royal anointing.

kk. Gregory of Tours here: And of his army more than three thousand were baptized.

ll. So again from the anonymous in the Deeds of the Franks; but St. Gregory contradicts both, continuing thus in the same place: His sister Albofledis also was baptized, who not long after passed to the Lord… For another sister of his also was converted, Lanthechildis by name, who had fallen into the heresy of the Arians, who, having confessed the Son equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit, was chrismated. See the preliminary Commentary, numbers 119 and 120. And the cited holy historian interposed, where I have put dots, the beginning of the letter of consolation which St. Remigius gave to Clovis grieving for the death of this sister of his Albofledis, which I reported entire in the Commentary, number 174 and following. The letters also by which St. Avitus, bishop of Vienne, and Anastasius II, Pope, congratulated Clovis on the baptism he had received I set out beforehand in the same place from number 166.

mm. It is so; rightly do the Fathers teach this concerning the submission of the human intellect to divine authority in the mysteries of the faith and in the other things revealed by God. By the same saying of the Fathers Hincmar would also rightly have proved that miracles are not to be rejected on this ground alone, that they exceed the grasp of the human intellect. But how does that pertain here, where it is a question of a miracle resting on human faith alone, and handed down by no one, so far as is known at least, before Hincmar? Nor does he prove it any better in the discourse which he subjoins, in which, namely, he discourses of the apparitions of the Holy Spirit related in the divine Scriptures and in other histories; of the power of working miracles promised to the faithful by Christ the Lord; of the holy chrism, and of the Sacrifice of the Mass; which I have cut away here as contributing nothing to the deeds of St. Remigius.

* i.e. imputabat imputed

* i.e. ostiis doors

CHAPTER V.

The conversion of the rest of the nation of the Franks, and their munificence towards St. Remigius: the bishopric of Laon erected by him, and St. Genebaud set over it: his fall, penance, restoration to office, and sanctity.

The Saint converts the whole nation; Finally, many of the army of the Franks, not yet converted to the faith, lived for some time beyond the river Somme with Raganarius, a kinsman of the king, until, the grace of Christ co-operating, King Louis, having gained glorious victories, slew the same Raganarius, who was given to the crimes of foulness, handed over to him bound by the Franks, and obtained that the whole people of the Franks should be converted to the faith and baptized through blessed Remigius. ^a And the king, having been baptized with his entire nation, both he himself and the powerful Franks gave very many possessions throughout various provinces to Saint Remigius, which he handed over to various churches, lest the Franks should think him greedy of temporal things, and that he had called them to Christianity for that reason, and should hold the faith of Christ and the holy priesthood cheap ^b. Of which property in the Eastern parts of Francia, at the request of the donors, he joined a certain portion to the bishopric of Reims.

[67] He erects a bishopric at Laon, Genebaud being ordained bishop there, And of those things which had been handed over to him in the province of Reims he handed over no small part to the church of holy Mary in the Fortress of Lugdunum Clavatum, of the diocese of Reims, where he had been brought up, and there ordained as bishop Genebaud, a man noble in the flesh, and learned both in the holy Scriptures and in secular letters, who, having left his wife, namely a niece of blessed Remigius himself, had sought the religious life; and the diocese of that county of Laon to the aforesaid

fortress he made subject ^c. Which Genebaud, trusting more than was necessary in his previous life and the sublimity of his rank, when he ought to have reflected that he was not holier than David, nor wiser than Solomon, who were imperilled by the blandishments of women, incautiously permitted his wife, whom in leaving he had changed into a sister, to visit him rather frequently, as though for salutary instruction, forgetful of the Scripture which says: The waters hollow the stones, and by flooding the earth is consumed, the rock is removed out of its place.

[68] whom afterwards, with his former wife, Whence it came about that frequent visits and the coaxing and frequent conversations of the woman softened the bishop's heart, hard against the softness of luxury, and, as it were, removed the stony rock from the place of sanctity to the defilements of luxury. And likewise, against the Scripture which says: Who shall bind fire in his bosom, and his garments not be burned? The straw being brought near the fire, that is, the matter of womanly flesh, the fire of lust, by diabolical persuasion, as though a vehement wind were stirring it up, the ardour of luxury burst into flames, and, lying with that former wife of his, the woman conceived, and after the birth sent word to the bishop that she had borne a son. And Genebaud, confounded and grieving, said to the messenger: Since he was begotten by theft, in the hiding-place of the chamber, that what could not be hidden from God might be hidden from men, he shall rightly be called Latro Robber: let her give him that name. And since the fault had not become known to men, lest suspicion should arise from it if that woman withdrew herself from her accustomed visiting, she began, as before, to frequent the bishop's house. And so it came about that, the fault being hidden from men, and the ardour of luxury hidden in the hearts both of the bishop and of the woman (since, as is known, The more the fire is covered, the more the covered fire rages), the bishop, pricked with compunction against his fault, yet after weeping returned to the fault, and forgot what he had lamented, since he would not extinguish what was burning through desire.

[69] having grievously fallen, and at length penitent He repeated the sin which he had committed, and the woman conceived again, and, a messenger having been sent, sent word to the bishop that she had borne a girl; whom he ordered to be named Vulpecula Little Fox. Why he wished her to be so named, whoever knows the frauds and significations of that animal in the Scriptures, which he referred to the tricks and craftiness of the deceiving devil and to the allurements and windings of wanton flesh, readily enough perceives. At length, the Lord, who looked upon blessed Peter, and he wept most bitterly for his denial ^d, looking upon him, Genebaud, returning to himself, sent to Saint Remigius, asking him to come to Laon; because such matters had arisen there as he could not determine by himself. And blessed Remigius, as Genebaud asked, came to Laon. And having been received with due reverence, and seeking the privacy of the chamber, he asked Genebaud for what cause he had called him. But Genebaud, with the greatest weeping and wailing, wishing to take the stole from his neck and to fall at the feet of Saint Remigius, was held back with great strength by blessed Remigius, so that he should not take the stole from his neck. And after both had wept for a long time (for blessed Remigius had understood that Genebaud had committed a crime for which he wished to lay aside the stole), HARDLY, with sobs and tears, did Genebaud relate in order all that he had committed.

[70] Saint Remigius, seeing him contrite and almost despairing, St. Remigius, summoned, consoled him gently, saying that he grieved not so much for the crime committed by him as that he thought so ill of the goodness of the Lord, to whom, according to the Gospel truth, no word is impossible, and who made all things from nothing; and who by grace saved the first parent, in whom all sinned, and despises no sinner who returns to Him, who came to redeem sinners by His blood; and who, sympathising with the tears of the sisters, which signified the anxious and tearful thoughts of penitents, wept for Lazarus four days dead and already stinking, and raised him from the dead, and admitted him, raised, to His banquet; who also did not refuse to let His most holy feet be touched by the hands, polluted with iniquity, of that woman who had been a sinner in the city, He who sits at the right hand of the Father above the heads of all the angels, and who denies to no one dead through sins however great or of whatever kind, or buried under the mass and enormity of crimes, the grace of resurrection from sins, and restores him who worthily does penance and bewails his sins through the gate of reconciliation to the communion of the most holy altar; he ought not to distrust that He would not deny remission of the whole sin to one who asked it.

[71] For when Stephen was dying for the faith, Saul was keeping the garments of those who stoned him: he consoles him with the hope of obtaining pardon, he himself, then, stoned with the hands of all, who made all ready for the stoning; and yet he went before in the labours of holy Church the very man whom by persecuting he made a martyr. And many bishops also denied that Jesus Christ is the true Son of the living God, and spoke blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; and, coming to their senses, by the confession of the Catholic faith and by worthy fruits of penance and outpoured tears, not only merited indulgence, but also remained in the ecclesiastical order, and attained to the fellowship of holy priests. And since one apostatizes from God in two ways, namely by faith and by works, as those apostatizing in faith obtained mercy, so he too who, by sinning criminally, as the Apostle says, denied God by his deeds, yet did not decline from the belief and confession of the true faith, could easily obtain pardon of this sin from the divine mercy, if he performed worthy fruits of penance.

[72] For no one, terrified by the greatness of his crimes, and, stirred up to do penance, he shuts him up in a little cell; ought in any way to doubt of obtaining pardon, if he has done worthy fruit of penance; since it is established that pardon was granted even to the men of Jerusalem, who blasphemed and crucified the Son of God, as sacred Scripture shows. For He is faithful in His words who promised us by the prophetic voice: In that day there shall be a fountain open to the house of David for the washing of the sinner and of the menstruous woman. For the house of David is a fountain open to us sinners for washing, because, mercy being now opened for the filth of our iniquities through the Son of David, our Saviour, we, repenting and confessing, are washed in His blood. And as he was most learned and a most eloquent orator, gathering into one testimonies from the breadth of holy Scripture and examples of penitents, he set them before him to hearten him, and, having exhorted him, enjoined penance upon him. And a little dwelling having been made, with a bed in the manner of a tomb, and with the very smallest little windows and an oratory, which remain to this day beside the church of St. Julian, he shut Genebaud up in it.

[73] Genebaud in it, after seven years, learns from an angel And he governed the clergy and the people of his diocese for seven years as his own diocese, and celebrated one Sunday at Reims, the next at Laon. In which reclusion of penance, of how great contrition and continence the same Genebaud was, the divine mercy showed. For in the seventh year, on the vigil of the Lord's Supper, when the same Genebaud was spending the night in prayer and weeping over himself, since he who had been ordained for this, that on that day he should reconcile penitents to the Lord, did not himself, his crimes requiring it, merit even to stand among the penitents in the church; about midnight an angel of the Lord came with great light to him in the oratory, where he lay prostrate, and said to him: Genebaud, the prayers of thy father Remigius for thee have been heard; the Lord also has accepted thy penance, and thy sin is forgiven. Arise and go out hence, and perform the office of the episcopal mystery, and reconcile to the Lord the penitents from their crimes.

[74] that his sins are forgiven, and by St. Remigius, But Genebaud, struck with excessive terror, could answer nothing. Then the angel of the Lord, strengthening him, exhorted him not to fear, but to rejoice in the mercy of the Lord conferred upon him. And he, heartened, said to the angel: I cannot go out hence, because my father and lord Remigius has the key of this door * with him, which he also sealed with his seal. And the angel to him: That thou mayest not doubt, he said, that I am sent by the Lord, as heaven lies open to thee, so shall that door also lie open. And at once, the seal and the bolt being intact, that door was opened. Then Genebaud, casting himself in the form of a cross on the threshold, said: Even if the Lord Jesus Christ Himself should deign to come to me, a sinner, I will not go out hence unless he come who in His name placed me in this reclusion; and at once the angel of the Lord departed from him. And blessed Remigius was spending the night in prayer in the crypt which was behind the seat of the church of holy Mary at Reims, and, as though sleeping, was rapt in ecstasy, and saw an angel standing by him, who narrated all these things as they had been said and done, and commanded him to make for Laon as quickly as possible, and to restore Genebaud to the episcopal see, and to persuade him to perform the episcopal ministry in his presence.

[75] admonished by an angel, he is restored to his see, Straightway Saint Remigius, doubting nothing, made for Laon with the utmost speed, and on the threshold of the door, opened with seal and bolt intact, found Genebaud lying, whom with outstretched arms, with joy and tears praising the divine mercy, he raised up, and hastened to restore him to the episcopal see and office, as the angel of the Lord had commanded, and returned to Reims with joy. Genebaud, then, afterwards spent all the days of his life in sanctity and justice by the grace of God, preaching to all how great things the Lord had done for him; so that no one should trust in his own justice, no one distrust the mercy of God, which then stands out more evidently when the sinner is sanctified and the cast-down is raised up (for neither does the measure of heavenly gifts depend on the quality of our works, nor in this world, in which the whole life of man is a temptation, is that rendered to each which he merits; so that, if the Lord should mark iniquities, no one could sustain His judgment); saying that there was for him great cause of rejoicing to the glory of God, who, that He might be much loved by him, forgave him much, and, that He might make His grace wonderful, conferred His gifts upon one in whom He found no support of merits, and, when after the gifts conferred he sinned grievously, did not destroy him with his sins, but mercifully recalled him to pardon.

[76] In which preaching of the mercy of God he followed the Apostle, who says: and, exercising the episcopal office, he praises the mercy of God, A faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief. But for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first He might show forth all patience, for the information of those who shall believe in Him unto life everlasting. We read in the sacred History ^e that blessed Peter the apostle, to whom the Lord had said, Whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven, was bound with chains in prison by Herod, for whom without

ceasing prayer was made by the Church to God, and who was loosed from the same chains by an angel. We have Bishop Genebaud, upon whom the power of binding and loosing in heaven and on earth had been conferred, bound with the chains of sin by the devil, the head of Herod, and for that reason, by the decree of blessed Remigius, given over to custody by his own judgment, lest he should be judged by the Lord, where, since his penance was worthy, it proved also fruitful. We have heard that he was loosed by an angelic voice from the chains of sins at the prayers of blessed Remigius, and that to him after penance heaven was opened, which had been closed to him through sin, and that what had been done concerning him invisibly by spiritual grace was shown by a visible and bodily miracle.

[77] And indeed almighty God could have released his sin in silence, and, an old man, he dies holily, and his son succeeds him. and, by the consolation of His spirit, restoring a certain hope of pardon to one grieving for the perpetration of sin, have relieved his mind from the affliction of sadness; but by speaking through an angel, by unbarring the door, the seal and bolt being intact, He willed by the example of His mercy to shake our hearts to penance. Let us, then, dearest brethren, have confidence in the mercy of our Creator through the intercession of this our intercessor, blessed Remigius. Let us consider what we are doing, let us reconsider what we have done, let us look upon the largeness of the heavenly loving-kindness, and let us come with tears to the merciful Judge while He still waits. For considering that He is just, let us not neglect our sins: but considering that He is loving, let us not despair. God made man gives us sinful men confidence before God: there is great hope for us penitents, because our Advocate has been made our Judge, who both advanced blessed Genebaud, and laid him low, and raised him up by most merciful grace, and made him, when raised up, persevere in right faith and good works. Genebaud, then, died in peace, numbered with the Saints of God, living so long in the episcopate that his son Latro succeeded him as bishop, and he too a saint ^f. …

[78] And lest anyone, delighting against the Apostle in novelties of words, should presume to say The author, on the occasion of this deed, either that the sacred rules have been established against this example of the Lord's mercy, or that blessed Remigius acted by divine command in this work against the sacred rules concerning Genebaud, or that Genebaud himself remained in his rank after his fall against the regular constitution; let the harmonious sentence of the Catholic Fathers satisfy him, saying: That it was established in the Church that no one after penance for any crime should receive clerical office, or return to clerical office, or remain in clerical office, was done not out of despair of indulgence, but by the rigour of discipline. Otherwise it will be disputed against the keys given to the Church, of which it was said, Whatsoever ye shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven. For in what is said, Whatsoever ye shall loose shall be loosed, nothing is excepted, nothing is left not comprehended.

[79] observes certain things concerning the power and discipline of the Church. To the whole Church of the elect, then, is given, according to the measure of faults or of penance, the authority of binding and loosing sins however great or of whatever kind, namely that, the causes of sinners having been learned, those whom it knows to persist in the sins they have committed it should declare to be bound to everlasting * punishments: but whomsoever it sees humble and truly penitent, these it should now in compassion absolve from the fear of everlasting death, and restore them, purged, to the most holy altar. But lest perhaps the mind of any sinner, swelling with the hope of ecclesiastical honour even after his crimes were uncovered, should do penance proudly, it was most severely decided that after penance done for a damnable crime no one should be a cleric, so that, by despair of temporal elevation, humility might be a greater and truer medicine. For holy David too did penance for deadly crimes, and yet persisted in his honour: and blessed Peter, when he shed most bitter tears, surely repented of having denied the Lord, and yet remained an apostle. But the diligence of later men is not therefore to be thought superfluous, who, where nothing was taken away from salvation, added something to humility, whereby salvation might more safely be found; having experienced the feigned penances of some through the affected powers of honours. For the experiences of many diseases compel the finding of many medicines.

ANNOTATIONS.

* i.e. ostii of the door

* i.e. perennibus everlasting

CHAPTER VI.

Villas given to St. Remigius by Chlodovech: the Saint honoured by the heavenly ones while praying: other possessions acquired for the church of Reims: Chlodovech's victories over the Burgundians and Goths.

The Saint, villas from King Chlodovech, King Louis, establishing his seat in the city of Soissons, whence he had expelled Syagrius, delighted in the presence and conversation of blessed Remigius. But since he had given the villas which the king and the Franks had given him in the districts, namely of Soissons and Laon, as was said above, to the bishopric of Laon and to other houses of God, he had in the neighbourhood of that city of the Suessiones only one little villa, which had been given ^a to Saint Nicasius: whence, the most religious queen persuading, and the inhabitants of the places asking, who were burdened with manifold dues ^b, that they might pay to the church of Reims what they owed to the king, the king granted to Saint Remigius that as much as he should go round while he himself was resting at midday, he would give him the whole. And Saint Remigius, going along the boundaries which lie most manifestly open, set down marks of his journey. On which boundary a certain man having a mill ^c repelled Saint Remigius, lest he should enclose that mill within those boundaries.

[81] Blessed Remigius, addressing him gently, said: those who opposed him having been divinely chastised, Friend, let it not be hard for you that we have this mill together. But he rejected him; and at once the wheel of the mill began to turn backwards. And the same man cried out after blessed Remigius, saying: Servant of God, come, and let us have this mill together. To whom Saint Remigius: Neither mine nor yours. And so such a ditch came about in the same place that from then and now and for ever a mill cannot be there ^d. And because he was repelled by certain men, lest he should enclose a certain little wood within his bounds, he said that neither should leaves ever fly from that wood within his bounds, though it was contiguous, nor should a stick fall thence towards those bounds: which also was observed as long as that wood remained. Proceeding also from there, he came to a villa named Caviniacum ^e; which, wishing to enclose within those boundaries, he was rejected by the men of the same villa.

[82] Then he, with cheerful countenance, now rejected, now approaching again, he receives as a gift. set down marks along his journey; as the places show, along which, rejected, and along which, approaching again, he went. At length, repulsed, he said to them: Labour always, and endure want ^f; as the force of his words, a sentence that remains, shows to this day. The king meanwhile rising from his midday sleep, Saint Remigius returned to him, and all that the compass of his circuit contained the king gave him by a precept of his authority, which the church of Reims (of which properties the heads are Luliacus ^g and Codiciacus) possesses by quiet right to this day. We read in the sacred and ancient History that holy David cursed the mountains of Gilboa, that neither dew nor rain should come upon them; nor should they be fields of firstfruits. We have Saint Remigius who with prophetic mouth cursed insensible creatures, so that their possessors should be smitten with the loss of barrenness in the vengeance of retribution.

[83] Wont to come before the Matins lauds in the church, For the destruction of the doubt of many, who do not believe that souls can live apart from bodies, nor have mutual knowledge, this is one more notable and unknown miracle, and very useful to the holy Church of God. The holy father Remigius was wont in the silence of the dead * of night to come before the clergy to the church alone, for the sake of prayer, so that the more remote from men, the freer he might become for praying, and while he wished to be alone, he was never less alone than when alone. He chose for himself, however, specially a place in which he might immolate himself as a living victim pleasing to God, and direct stealthy prayers to God, He assenting, and Saint Michael ministering, to be placed in the golden censer of the love of God, and to be kindled with the fire of the Holy Spirit, so that the aromatic smoke might ascend to the throne of the glory and Majesty divine in an odour of sweetness. While he was frequently doing these things, a certain familiar of his, for the sake of trial, follows him without his knowing, to learn what he was doing alone in the church, or how he was conducting himself.

[84] someone sees him, with SS. Peter and Paul, He found him standing and stretching his hands to heaven, and lifting his eyes thither. He did not hear the prayer, but soon recognised through his helpers sent to him from heaven that he was celebrating the matins lauds. They came to the reading of the lesson, and behold there came forth the ethereal key-bearer, Saint Peter, venerable with whiteness of the hair of his head and beard, his head crowned and his beard trimmed, clad in a white garment; and that heavenly primate and prince of the apostolic choir, bowing his head, asked a blessing for reading the lesson from a man living on earth, whose conversation, however, according to the apostle, was continually in heaven. Remigius blesses, Peter reads the Lesson. After the lesson they sing the Responsory together. These being finished, Peter, his head bowed, reverently withdrew. Soon came the leader of the word, the vessel of election, the teacher of the gentiles, with black hair of the head, a long beard, a venerable baldness, asked and received a blessing from Remigius, read the Lesson; after the Lesson they sing the Responsory together; and, having saluted Remigius, his head bowed, Paul devoutly withdrew.

[85] performing the same. They left the third Lesson for him to read, so that he might truly know the blessing from

God that was to be given. The follower of the holy Father saw all these things; but it did not escape him either, and when morning came, he asked him where he had been at the matins vigils. And he said: Overcome by heavy sleep I rested in my bed. And the holy Father said: It is not so; but tell what you saw. And he, trembling, said: In that form in which Peter and Paul are shown in painting, they asked a blessing of you separately. You gave it; each of them read a Lesson; they sang the Responsories with you, and, bowing their heads and saluting you humbly, departed. And the holy Father said to him: Beware lest you tell the vision to anyone while I live; but after my departure tell it to the church, that it may know how propitious God is, and how ready to hear all who call upon Him in truth; and how ready the heavenly citizens are to succour their weaker brethren ^h.

[86] A certain very powerful man, Eulogius, convicted before King Louis of the crime of lese-majesty, He refuses to accept a villa for his good deed, since he could not clear himself, took refuge in the church of holy Mary and in the intercession of blessed Remigius. For him Saint Remigius obtained from the king both his life and the possession of his property. And he, for the sake of recompense, wished to give Saint Remigius his villa of Épernay ⁱ in perpetuity: but Saint Remigius would not receive a temporal reward for the benefit of his intercession. But since the same Eulogius, given over to the confusion of shame, because against his birth he had merited to have his life granted him through another's indulgence, would not remain in secular habit, Saint Remigius told him that, if he wished to be perfect, he should sell all his goods and give to the poor, and follow Christ.

[87] And so he gave Eulogius a price assessed from the church's treasury, but, the price having been paid out to the poor, he acquires it for his church. namely five thousand pounds of silver, and purchased the same villa into the possession of the church; leaving a good example to all bishops, both those living in the flesh in his time and those succeeding him in order after him, that, succouring the poor or widows or orphans, or on behalf of those who flee to the mercy of the church, who suffer injury, or who, sinning, are condemned to exile or to islands, or who indeed undergo any sentence whatever, according to the sacred canons, or doing whatever they do, they should not do good for a temporal reward; but according to the Lord's word, Freely ye have received, freely give, what they have received by the grace of God, that is, given freely, they should bestow freely also, that is, without temporal reward, upon their neighbours. Whence well, when the Prophet ^k was describing the just man, he says: Who shaketh his hands from every gift: for he does not say, Who shaketh his hands from a gift only; but he added: From every: because one gift is from service, another gift from the hand, another gift from the tongue. For the gift from service is subjection unduly rendered; the gift from the hand, money; the gift from the tongue, favour. He, then, who confers sacred Orders, or any good whatever, for which he desires a reward to be rendered him by God in the world to come, then shakes his hands from every gift, when in divine things he requires not only no money, but not even favour.

[88] He also purchased for a price the greatest part of a forest in the Vosges ^l, He buys another possession for his church: and established small holdings ^m there, which from the waters on which they are established are called Cosla and Gleni; and he arranged that men from a neighbouring villa of the bishopric, which is called Berna, given to him by the Franks, should dwell in those holdings, so that they should furnish pitch annually to the religious places of the church of Reims ⁿ, to whom he also gave a weight, which is kept to this day by the inhabitants of those places; with which they pay their due ^o; and he so marked out [p] the boundaries of his purchase all round that the marking out itself lies open to all who see it, and the markings made by him are to this day called by name and pointed out from generation to generation. In which markings, in a certain place, in a hollow tree-trunk [q], he placed a stone with his hand, which all who wish can put their hand into the hollow in which the stone is placed, and turn the stone itself, and they can by no contrivance draw it out of the hollow.

[89] But after some time a certain man, envious that many held this as a religious object to the praise of Saint Remigius, wished to draw that stone out of the hollow with his hand. Being unable, he tried to enlarge the hole [r] itself with an axe; the envier of his glory is punished: the Saint's solicitude and raising the axe to strike the trunk, his right hand withered, and he lost the light of his eyes; and he who wished to extinguish the fame of Saint Remigius increased the veneration of his praise. In this solicitude which Saint Remigius showed about the pitch to be provided [s] for the religious places of the church of Reims in his own time or that of his successors, he openly showed the rectors of the church that, while not abandoning the solicitude for inward things, they ought not to diminish provision for outward things, lest either, given up to outward things, they fall from the inmost, or, occupied only with the inner, they do not bestow upon their neighbours what they owe outwardly.

[90] The author praises. But let them so make leisure for spiritual things for themselves as not to abandon the administration of outward things, lest, when they wholly neglect to care for bodily things, they in no way come to meet the necessities of their subjects, and if they do not provide them with the necessaries of the present life, they are not willingly heard either. For the word of doctrine does not penetrate the mind of the needy man if the hand of mercy does not commend it to his soul. But then the seed of the word easily germinates, when the loving-kindness of the preacher waters it in the breast of the hearer. Whence it is necessary that the rector, that he may be able to pour in inward things, should also provide outward things with a harmless thought. This solicitude of pastors Paul stirs up, saying: He that hath not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. How much this solicitude of blessed Remigius pleased the Lord He evidently showed by the miracle shown upon him who envied his good works.

[91] Chlodovech, after vanquishing the Burgundians, as Remigius had foretold, King Louis, with God's blessing received through Saint Remigius, secure of the victory foretold to him by him, and receiving in command that he should go on fighting as long as the blessed wine given to him by him should suffice him for drinking in daily use [t]; set out against Gundobad and Godegisel [u], his brother, a very great army having been moved. And the Burgundians came with a huge multitude against him on the river Ouche [x], beside the fortress which is called Divion; and there, clashing fiercely with one another, Gundobad and Godegisel with the Burgundians turned their backs, and, slipping away in flight, scarcely escaped. Louis being, as he was wont, the victor, Gundobad shut himself up in Avignon [y], and through Aredius, his counsellor, sought peace from Louis. And Louis, having carried off the treasures, returned to his own land with very great booty and the army of the Franks.

[92] about to go against the Goths, he builds a church, convokes a synod, And sending an envoy named Paternus, an industrious man, to Alaric, king of the Goths, he sent word concerning the terms of friendship between them [z]. But Alaric, when he wished to deceive Louis through Paternus, was himself deluded, Paternus having explored what things were about him, and having by skill got an earnest of his treasures [aa]. In those days King Louis, having come to the city of Paris, where he established his seat [bb], said to the queen and to his people: It is very vexatious to me that the Arian Goths hold the best part of the Gauls. Let us go with God's help, and cast them out of that land, and subject it to our dominions, since it is very good, having justice against Alaric, to whom we directed an envoy for the terms of friendship, through whom he wished to deceive us. This counsel pleased the nobles of the Franks. Then, by the counsel of his queen, he made a church in honour of the apostles Peter and Paul [cc] in the city of Paris, and by the counsel of blessed Remigius he convoked a synod of bishops in the city of Orléans [dd]; in which assembly many useful things were established.

[93] The most devout king also, going against Alaric the Arian, and relying on the Saint's promises, asked a blessing of Saint Remigius: to whom he both gave a blessing and pledged victory in the word of Christ, and gave him a full vessel, which common custom calls a Flask [ee], of wine which he had blessed; as he had also done when after baptism he had gone against Gundobad, commanding him that he should go forward so far to war as long as that wine of the aforesaid flask did not fail him and his men, to whom he wished to give of it. The king, then, and the royal household and a numerous crowd of the people drink of it, and are most abundantly satisfied from it; and the vessel of wine suffers no loss, but by the blessing of God, put into it through Saint Remigius, it is refilled with an overflowing after the manner of a fountain [ff].

[94] And the king moved his whole army of the people of the Franks towards the city of Poitiers [gg]: Alaric having been slain in battle, he subjugates the Goths. for there at that time Alaric, king of the Goths, was staying; and so, going through the district of Tours, and showing reverence to blessed Martin and to Saint Hilary, as the reader will find in their places [hh], he joined battle with Alaric, king of the Goths, in the field of Vouillé on the river Clain [ii], at the tenth milestone from the city of Poitiers; and while they fought with one another, the Goths with their king, greatly crushed, turned their backs: Louis, as he was wont, stood forth the victor. And when he was slaying Alaric, two Goths strike him from the opposite side in the flanks with pikes; but on account of the breastplate with which he was clad, they could not hurt him: rather the Lord helped him, clad with the breastplate of faith through the prayer of Saint Remigius, his father and patron. The victory then having been won, and many cities subjugated to his dominion, he went on as far as Toulouse, and, taking the treasures of Alaric, passed through the city of Angoulême [kk], whose walls fell down before his sight. The Arian Goths who were there having then been slain, he returned to his own land with a glorious victory over many cities.

[95] Let us compare, brethren, with those things which we read in the old History, The author's observation. those which we turn over in the History of this our Patron. For there it is written: The barrel of meal did not fail, and the cruse of oil was not diminished, until the Lord gave rain upon the earth, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by the hand of Elijah [ll]: and the flasks of wine did not fail, until, God co-operating, the victories having been won, the king returned to his own land, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by the hand of Remigius.

ANNOTATIONS.

any gifts whatever, and sometimes also (as here) was used for any tribute which was to be paid under the name of a gift.

p. That is, described or marked the limits: for exterminatio, which word follows immediately, was also used in the middle age for the term or limit of fields, in other instruments too, adduced in Du Cange's Glossary.

q. That is, in a hollow tree: for fustis was used in the middle age to signify the trunk of a tree. Flodoard, in the place cited, has thus: In which boundaries he is related to have cast a stone with his hand into the hollow of a certain piece of wood.

r. He used pertusum substantively for a hole, as Flodoard has in the same place.

s. Surius, to emend the solecism, substituted consulturus.

t. See what is to be noted here below at letter ff.

u. This whole narrative of the Burgundian war, which Flodoard adopted, book 1, chapter 15, is to be corrected from St. Gregory of Tours, book 2, chapter 32. Gundobad, king of the Burgundians, was the paternal uncle of St. Chrothildis, whom Clovis had married, and whose father Chilperic Gundobad had slain with the sword, and had drowned the wife of the same Chilperic, a stone tied to her neck. So he had stated beforehand in chapter 28. Then in chapter 32 he says: At that time the brothers Gundobad and Godegisel held the kingdom about the Rhône or the Saône with the province of Marseilles. And both they and their peoples were subject to the Arian sect. And while they were attacking each other, Godegisel, hearing of the victories of King Chlodovech, sent an embassy to him secretly, saying: If you will furnish me support in pursuing my brother, so that I may be able to slay him in war, or cast him out of the kingdom, I will pay you each year such tribute as you yourself wish to impose. Which he gladly accepting, promised him aid wherever necessity should demand. And at the appointed time he moved his army against Gundobad. Hearing which, Gundobad, not knowing his brother's treachery, sent to him, saying: Come to my aid; because the Franks are moving against us, and are coming into our region, to take it… And he said: I will go with my army, and will furnish you aid. And these three, moving their army together, that is, Chlodovech against Gundobad, and Godegisel otherwise Godegelus, with all the equipment of war, came to the fortress whose name is Divio. And engaging on the river Ouche, Godegisel joins himself to Chlodovech, and both armies wear down the people of Gundobad. But he, perceiving the treachery of his brother, which he had not suspected, turned his back, and took to flight, and, running along the banks and marshes of the Rhône, enters the city of Avignon. But Godegisel, the victory having been obtained, having promised Chlodovech some part of his kingdom, departed in peace, etc. After this it is said there that Clovis besieged Gundobad, shut up in the city of Avignon, and at length, by the counsel of the deserter Aridius, having made a pact with him about tribute, withdrew thence. Compare these things with the narrative of Hincmar, and determine how far he is to be trusted. This war is commonly referred to the year 500.

x. The Oscara, otherwise Oscarus, commonly l'Ouche, a river of Gaul, waters Divio, to the natives Dijon, the capital of the duchy of Burgundy, of which mention will soon be made, and not far from Saint-Jean-de-Losne flows into the Saône.

y. That is, Avenio, which is a very well known city of Gallia Narbonensis, commonly Avignon, on the river Rhône, now of the Pontifical dominion, but which then obeyed the Burgundians.

z. St. Gregory of Tours, book 2, chapter 35, writes that Clovis, asked by Alaric, king of the Goths, made friendship with him on an island of the Loire which was next to the village of Ambacia (now the town called Amboise) of the territory of the city of Tours. But that Clovis, having learned of the fraud of Alaric from Paternus his envoy, made war on him, Fredegar relates in the Epitomized History, chapter 25; whom consult, if you please.

aa. In our other codex P. Ms. 22, and in Surius, one reads: Et thesauris ejus ingenio subarratis, the preposition de being omitted: in both the phrase is obscure.

bb. That is, Parisios; for Parisius is often used indeclinably by writers of the middle age. And there indeed Clovis established the seat of his kingdom, not however before, but after this Gothic war, on the testimony of St. Gregory, book 2, chapter 38.

cc. This is now called St. Genevieve's.

dd. The first Council of Orléans, of which Hincmar here speaks, was really held in the reign of Clovis, not however in the year 507, to which the Gothic war is bound, but in the year 511, as was said in the preliminary Commentary, number 203.

ee. St. Ardo also said a Flask of wine, in the Life of Blessed Benedict, abbot of Aniane and Inde, given in our Work at the 12th day of February, where on page 616, in the Annotations, letter i, our Henschen observed that, besides Hincmar here, Alcuin in the Life of St. Willibrord and Walafrid in the Life of St. Othmar, writers of the ninth century, also used the same; and that it is derived from the Teutonic word Flesche or Flasch, which signifies a flagon, or an earthen or glass vessel suitable for keeping wine. So the French say flascon, Flaccon and Flacon, the Spaniards likewise flascon, the Italians fiascone, etc.

ff. Flodoard, in his usual manner, agrees, book 1, chapter 15, saying thus: To whom (the king) the holy Man also, as he had done before, gave a vessel, which they commonly call a flask, full of wine blessed by him; commanding this same thing as before (namely to Clovis when setting out against Gundobad), that he should go forward to war so long as this wine of the aforesaid flask did not fail him and his men, to whom he wished to give of it. The king therefore drank of it, and very many of his men; yet the vessel of wine suffers no loss. The same things are reported in the often-mentioned Preface of the Mass in this manner: But by his prayer a cup is given to be drawn from with largeness; and the royal household and a countless crowd of the people are most abundantly satisfied: and the vessel suffers no loss, but by his blessing is refilled with an overflowing after the manner of a fountain. Twice was this miracle shown. As it is certain that Hincmar lit the way for Flodoard, so it becomes manifest even from the very phrasing either that Hincmar took the same from this Preface, or the author of the Preface from Hincmar. And so for so unusual a miracle we have as the first author known to us Hincmar, or a Preface of uncertain date, which was perhaps composed by him or from this very Life. Wherefore I do not doubt that the prudent reader will with me seek a better surety for a prodigy which appears next to a fable.

gg. Pictavum, now Poictiers, is a city of Gaul on the river Clain, capital of the province of Poitou, and episcopal under the metropolis of Bordeaux.

hh. Read, if you please, Gregory of Tours, book 2 of the History, chapter 37.

ii. Moglotinse and Glinno our other codex P. Ms. 22 and Surius's edition also have. Du Chesne, volume 1 of the Writers of Frankish History, page 539, reads from his codex Mogotense: but it does not seem doubtful that the word is corrupted. For St. Gregory of Tours, book 2, chapter 37, testifies that that battle took place in the Vogladensian field, at the tenth milestone from the city (of Poitiers). Similarly Fredegar also, chapter 25 of the Epitomized History: In the Vogladensian plain, at the tenth milestone from the city of Poitiers. Further, by Vogladum they commonly judge that there is indicated Vougle, a little town or village on the river Clain, four leagues distant from the same city, on the testimony of Baudrand in the geographical Lexicon. The similarity of name and site supports this opinion: for the river beside which Hincmar, and the anonymous older than he in the Deeds of the Franks, chapter 17, and finally also Rorico, assign the place of the battle, and which by the former is called Glinnus, by the two others Clinnus, but by Gregory, book 9, chapter 41, Clennus or Clenus, is certainly the Clanis, otherwise Clanius, in French le Clain, which waters Poitiers, and below this city discharges itself into the Vienne. Wherefore the opinion of Bouchet in the Annals of Aquitaine and Poitou, part 2, chapter 2 (which also pleased the brothers de Sainte-Marthe in the Genealogical History of the family of France, book 3, chapter 5), interpreting that place as Civaux, a village situated five or six miles above the city of Poitiers between Cubort and Lussac near the river Vienne, does not seem likely to me.

kk. So Du Chesne also has; but our other codex more corruptly Equosilinam; Surius rightly interpreted it as Engolisma. And this and the preceding narrative of the Gothic war is taken from Gregory of Tours, book 2, chapter 37, where the same city is called Encolisma, which is a city of Gallia Aquitanica, commonly called Angoulesme, the capital of the province of Angoumois, and episcopal under the metropolis of Bordeaux.

ll. 3 Kings, chapter 17, verse 16.

* intempestæ

CHAPTER VII.

The rest pertaining to Chlodovech: the Saint constituted Pontifical vicar in the Gauls: he takes away speech from an Arian bishop, restores it to him when penitent: he provides for the corn supply: he divinely chastises wicked men.

Chlodovech is honoured by the emperor Anastasius: St. Remigius At the same time King Louis received from the emperor Anastasius codicils for the consulate; with which codicils Anastasius also sent him a golden crown with gems and a purple tunic; and from that day he was called consul and Augustus ^a. Moreover Hormisdas ^b, Pontiff of the Roman See, committed to Saint Remigius, bishop of the ancient metropolis, which at that time had under it twelve cities and as many bishops presiding over them ^c, his office as vicar in the kingdom of Louis, lately converted with his entire nation to the faith through his holy preaching, the Lord working with him and confirming the word with signs following, in this manner. "To his most beloved brother Remigius, Hormisdas. Receiving with full congratulation the converse of your fraternity, in which the tidings of your genuine welfare, the soundness of your body upheld together with your spiritual offices, have gladdened us, we have perceived it to be fitting to open in words this very joy which we bear in mind. For you give the proofs of a supreme pontiff, since you both do the things that are to be preached, and do not delay to instil them.

[97] Vicar of the Apostolic See in the kingdom of Chlodovech We have therefore taken a prerogative * of our judgment in choosing you; since we have learned that you have wrought that which we more urgently command others to do, namely that in provinces separated by so great a distance you strive to maintain both the vigour of the Apostolic See and the guarding of the rules of the Fathers. Our office as vicar, therefore, throughout the whole kingdom of our beloved and spiritual son Louis, whom lately, with the assistance of heavenly grace, very many miracles of signs, comparable to the times of the Apostles, accompanying your saving preaching, you converted to the faith with his entire nation, and consecrated with the gift of holy baptism; saving the privileges which antiquity has decreed also for metropolitans, we commit to you by the present authority, increasing by the participation of this ministry the dignity of your zeal, relieving our watches by the remedy of the same dispensation. And although you do not need to be taught in particulars, by whom we have already proved that all things are more keenly observed, yet it is wont to be more welcome if the path is shown to those who are to go, and the form of the enjoined work is pointed out to those who are to labour.

[98] is said to have been constituted We command, then, that the paternal rules and the decrees defined by the most holy councils be observed by all. In these we show your vigilance, in these your care, the admonitions of fraternal exhortation. These being guarded with such reverence as is worthy, no obstacle of holy observance leaves room for fault. There right and wrong are prescribed; there is prohibited that to which no one should dare to aspire; there is granted that which a mind that would please God ought to presume. As often as the cause of religion requires a universal council, let all the brethren assemble at your summons; and if the purpose of a special business urges any of them, restrain the quarrels arisen among them, determining the contests by the sacred law after discussion. But whatever shall have been established for faith and truth, or enjoined by provident dispensation, or confirmed by the authority of our person, let the whole of it come to our knowledge, with the attestation of an instructed embassy. So it comes about that both our mind enjoys the charity of the office given, and yours the security of the office received. May God keep you safe, dearest Brother."

[99] by Pope Hormisdas: Clovis dies: In the time of the Pontificate of this holy Hormisdas the often-mentioned glorious King Louis directed to blessed Peter, at the suggestion of Saint Remigius, a golden crown with gems, which is wont to be called a Regnum ^d. This blessed Pope Hormisdas sent to Constantinople to the emperor Justin on an embassy Germanus, bishop of Capua ^e, whose soul Saint Benedict saw borne by angels to heaven, he who directed his letters to blessed Remigius for the healing of the demoniac girl ^f. After all these things King Louis ^g died in peace, and was buried in the basilica of Saint Peter the apostle, which he and his queen had built. And he died in the fifth year after he fought with Alaric, king of the Goths, and he reigned in all thirty years ^h. And at the same moment in which Louis died at Paris, the spirit revealing it, Saint Remigius, although he was at Reims, knew that he had died, and indicated it to those standing by him ⁱ.

[100] These things being thus done, the son of Chlodomir, son of King Louis, the pious munificence, holy death and burial of St. Chlodoald. named Chlodoald, his brothers having been slain, whom Queen Rothildis was bringing up together with him after their father's death, tonsured himself as a cleric, and in process of time, by the merit of his life and religion, obtained part of the inheritance from the kings his paternal uncles, of which he handed over the villa of Douzy in the district of Mouzon with its appurtenances to Saint Remigius and the church of Reims ^k, and assigned the villa of Riviliacum in the district of Bourges to Saint Denis; but the villa of Novientum in the district of Paris, with all things pertaining to it, he gave to the mother church of the city of Paris, where he had been ordained presbyter. In which villa, passing to the Lord full of virtues, he was buried in body in peace in the church which he himself had built.

[101] When, finally, the bishops of the provinces of Gaul and Belgica assembled at a synod for the cause of the faith ^l, He divinely takes away from an Arian bishop the use of his tongue; they asked blessed Remigius, most learned in every respect and most erudite in the holy Scriptures, and practised in ecclesiastical dogmas, to come to the same council. At which synod a certain Arian heretic was present, a most keen disputant, and trusting in dialectical propositions and conclusions, and thence excessively puffed up. And when Saint Remigius entered the council of bishops, he is received by the multitude of the brethren who were waiting, all rising, reverently, as an angel of God: but the proud heretic, and thinking ill of the true Son of God, disdained to rise to him. Who straightway, when Saint Remigius passed before him, was so struck dumb that he could not utter even a single word. And when all were waiting for that heretic to say something after the address of Saint Remigius, he could say nothing, but falling prostrate at the footsteps of Saint Remigius, he asked pardon by nods.

[102] To whom Saint Remigius said: In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amended and thinking in Catholic fashion, he restores it to him. the true Son of the living God, if you truly think thus of Him, speak, and believe and confess concerning Him as the Catholic Church believes. At whose voice the formerly proud heretic, now humble and Catholic, confessed in Catholic fashion the Catholic faith concerning the holy and inseparable Trinity and concerning the Incarnation of Christ, and professed that he would remain in the same faith of his confession. And so, to one lost in soul through unbelief, and condemned in his bodily voice on account of pride, Saint Remigius by divine power restored health both of soul and of body ^m, openly showing to all the priests who were present, or who were to read or hear these things, from one sinning by thinking ill against Christ, who through His humanity deigned to become our neighbour and brother, how they ought to act towards those who sin against themselves or against the Church, and are rebellious; and towards those who afterwards acknowledge and repent.

[103] Those who sin, says the Apostle, reprove before all, The author, concerning this deed of St. Remigius, that the rest may have fear. And likewise it is written: He that shall confess his sins and forsake them shall obtain mercy. The pastors of the Church, then, ought to remove from him the punishment which he merited, who did not blush to confess what he did. And Christ says to every Christian: If thy brother sin against thee, rebuke him. If he do penance, forgive him. Whence in the Law also it is written: When thy brother oweth thee anything, and thou hast taken a pledge from him, restore the pledge before the setting of the sun ⁿ. Whence the Apostle says: Let not the sun go down upon your anger. For we call sins debts. And our neighbour becomes our debtor when he is shown to have offended in something against us: from whom we receive a pledge when, from him who is known to have sinned against us, we now hold the confession of his sin, by which we are asked to release the sin which has been committed against us.

[104] observes certain things, He who confesses the sin which he has committed, and asks pardon, has already, as it were, given a pledge for the debt: which pledge indeed we are commanded to return before the setting of the sun, because before the sun of justice sets in us through grief of heart, we ought to render the confession of pardon to him from whom we receive the confession of fault, so that he who remembers that he has offended against us may feel that what he committed has been at once released by us. So blessed Remigius, according to the precept of the Law, justly executed what was just, because, in the assertion of justice or in the execution of authority, seeking nothing other than that same justice, he refuted before all the heretic who thought ill, by making him become dumb by the power of the Lord, and, when he asked pardon by nods, absolved him by granting it. Which likewise the Lord figuratively commands in the Law, saying: Thou shalt not take in place of a pledge the upper or the nether

millstone ^o. The pledge, as we have stated before, of the debtor is the confession of the sinner. The upper and the nether millstone are hope and fear: for hope lifts up to high things; but fear presses the heart down to the lowest. But our upper and nether millstone are so necessarily joined to each other that one is held uselessly without the other; because mercy is hoped for in vain if justice is not also feared: justice is feared in vain if there is not also confidence in mercy.

[105] and illustrates it. The upper or the nether millstone, then, is taken away, if by the tongue or action of the preacher either fear is divided from hope or hope from fear in the breast of the sinner. We read in the sacred History that, as the apostle Peter passed by, the sick were healed by his shadow [p]: whereas, on the contrary, the proud heretic became dumb as Saint Remigius passed beside him. There faith and humility merited health; here unbelief and pride, vengeance. We read in the holy Gospel that Gabriel the archangel, who stands before God, announcing good tidings to Zachary that he would have a son in his old age by his wife, who was now advanced in her days; because he did not believe the same archangel, remained dumb until the things which the archangel had announced were fulfilled in their time. But the angel's promises being fulfilled, the mouth of Zachary was opened, and he prophesied [q]. And on the testimony of the prophet Malachi, the priest is the angel of the Lord. By an angelic office, then, blessed Remigius by divine power took away the voice from one who thought ill and therefore was unbelieving, and by announcing the good tidings that Christ Jesus is the true Son of the living God, restored the voice to him when he believed, and made him confess the Catholic faith.

[106] Foreknowing an impending famine, he gathers corn for the poor, Now as Saint Remigius was growing old, and the Spirit of God revealing to him that famine would follow upon the abundance of that year, following the prudence of holy Joseph, of the corn which had grown in the villas of the bishopric, or which he had purchased from others, he made heaps, which we call Metae stacks, so that he might be able to succour from them the people who would afterwards labour with famine. Whence also in the villa which is called Celtus [r] he ordered several stacks to be made. But the men of Celtus themselves were always rebellious and seditious: who one Sunday, being drunk, began to say among themselves, What did that jubilarian [s] (for so Saint Remigius was called on account of the length of his age) want to do with those stacks which he had gathered; did he want to make a city of them, since, as towers along the walls of a city, so the stacks were set round the circuit of the court? And, the devil persuading, they exhorted one another to throw fire into them. When this was carried by a swift messenger to Saint Remigius, staying in a neighbouring villa which is called Basilica curtis [t], he mounted his horse, to come to Celtus to restrain so great a presumption.

[107] When he arrived there, the stacks themselves were already burning. And blessed Remigius, cold both from his age and from the evening chill, and curses those who set them on fire: as is wont to happen in autumn, got down from his horse, and began to warm himself from a distance, saying with tranquil heart and mouth: A fire is always good, if it cannot [get] above [u]: nevertheless, may all who did this, and who shall be born of their stock, the men become ruptured [x], and the women shall become goitrous [y]. Which was so fulfilled: for up to the times of the emperor Charlemagne, who exterminated those same men from Celtus, because they slew the vidame [z] in the same villa by a most cruel death, the authors having been slain, and caused those consenting to be dispersed through various provinces and condemned to perpetual exile, and ordered the same villa to be restored [aa] from the other villas of the bishopric of Reims; so the men and women remained punished, as the sentence of the holy Man had promulgated. Some also of their progeny, who, having slipped away in flight when the others were being dispersed, remained, and returned to the same villa, we have seen bearing this sentence of vengeance, as Gehazi with his house was punished with leprosy by the curse of Elisha [bb]…

[108] It must also be known concerning the sentence of vengeance inflicted by blessed Remigius upon the people of Celtus, how the Saints do this, the author explains. that when holy Men utter a sentence of cursing, they do not break out into it from a wish for revenge or from the spite of vengeance, but from the weighing of justice. For within they behold the subtle judgment of God, and they know that the evils rising up outside ought to be smitten with a curse, and in that curse they do not sin, because they do not disagree with the inward judgment. Hence it is that Peter hurled the sentence of cursing against Simon when he offered him money, saying: Thy money be with thee unto perdition [cc]. For he who does not say, Is, but Be, signified that he said these things not in the indicative mood, but in the optative. Hence Elijah said to the two captains of fifty coming to him: If I be a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you [dd]. With how great reason of truth the sentence of both of these prevailed, the end of the matter showed: for both Simon perished in eternal perdition, and the flame coming from above consumed the two captains of fifty. The power that follows, then, testifies with what mind the sentence of cursing is uttered: for when both the innocence of the one who curses remains, and yet the curse swallows up him who is cursed even to destruction, it is gathered from the end of both parties that the sentence, taken from the good and inward Judge, is hurled against the guilty.

ANNOTATIONS.

Concerning the year of the death of Clovis see what was said in the preliminary Commentary, §4. The church in which he was buried is called by St. Gregory of Tours, book 2, chapter 43, of the Holy Apostles, namely Peter and Paul, now St. Genevieve's, on account of the body of this virgin kept in it. Longueval, volume 2 of the History of the Gallican Church, page 319, notes that the anniversary of the same king is celebrated there every year, which is also said in the Spiritual Calendars of the city of Paris at the 27th day of November, which is believed to have been his death-day, and in the same it is added that that anniversary is celebrated in violet vestments. I observe these things because our Papebroch, in the preliminary Commentary to the Life of St. Chrothildis, volume 1 of June, page 292, number 6, either ill informed, or because the matter then stood otherwise, said that no anniversary memory of him, either as a Saint (which is true) or at least as a benefactor, any longer survived in the same church. On the reliquary of St. Chrothildis, whose figure was given in the place cited, the same king is indeed seen adorned with rays as a Saint; yet it has been sufficiently observed that he is not venerated there. Aimoin of Fleury, in the Deeds of the Franks, book 1, chapter 25, recites his old epitaph, ascribed, on I know not what witness, to St. Remigius as author, in these words: Upon his tomb, as is said, this epitaph was written by Saint Remigius:

Rich in wealth, mighty in virtue, and famous in triumph, King Clovis founded this seat, and the same, A Patrician, shone sublime with great honour. Full of the love of God, he scorned to believe a thousand Deities, portents that bristle with varied shapes. Soon cleansed by the waters and reborn in the font of Christ, He bore his hair fragrant with poured-in chrism;

And gave an example, which a very great crowd Of the gentile people follows, and, their own error spurned, Is by worship led to God otherwise the Author, the true Father. Happy in these merits, he surpassed the deeds of those before, Ever to be dreaded in counsel, in camp, and in wars. The king himself, good in exhortation and strong in heart, First in the column, made firm the drawn-up battle-lines.

For the rest, Clovis, although he is read to have done certain things unworthy of a Christian prince out of excessive desire of domination, is nevertheless worthy of eternal memory on account of the divine religion which he received and propagated, and his other virtues.

p. Acts of the Apostles, chapter 5, verse 15.

q. Read chapter 1 of the Gospel according to Luke. And what he cites just below from Malachi is read in his chapter 2, verse 7.

r. It is also called Celtus by Flodoard, book 1, chapter 17, and is said to have been a villa of the bishopric of Reims; but otherwise this place is unknown to me.

s. That St. Remigius was also so called in mockery by the four bishops accusing him, we saw in the preliminary Commentary, number 235.

t. Flodoard in the same place: In a neighbouring villa, which they call Basilicæ cortis. Colvener in the margin expressed the name in French as Bazancourt.

u. So also have our other codex, Surius and Flodoard. The phrase is obscure, by which the holy Old man, growing cold, and jesting placidly, seems to me to have wished to indicate that at least the heat of the fire is of use, if from the burned heaps of corn nothing can be left over, or saved. For the French version of Nicolas Chesneau does not please me, which Colvener in the Scholia rendered in Latin thus: If it does not exceed, and is not too powerful.

x. Ponderositas is a hernia or another similar defect of the genitals, concerning which see St. Gregory the Great in the Pastoral Rule, part 1, chapter XI, and other examples in Du Cange's Glossary.

y. Gutturosi and gutturnosi are said of those whose throat grows out with a foul swelling, such as I have seen many in the Alps.

z. Vicedominus is one who holds the place of the lord. Flodoard, in the place cited, calls him Vidame of the church of Reims, by which name the steward of the same church seems to be indicated, as is wont elsewhere.

aa. That is, I think, he substituted in their place other men summoned from the villas of the bishopric of Reims.

bb. Read 4 Kings, chapter 5. But let the credit of the crime and punishment of the people of Celtus rest wholly with Hincmar. He mingles here some things about the punishment which sons sometimes pay for the offences of parents by the most just decree of God.

cc. In the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 8, verse 20.

dd. 4 Kings, chapter 1, verses 10 and 12.

* perhaps prærogativam?

* otherwise fraternæque

* otherwise determina

CHAPTER VIII.

His impending death revealed to the Saint: the light of his eyes taken away and restored: his holy death and burial: the plague of the groin checked by him: the translation of his body: the unjust chastised: the dust of the church employed against serpents.

Foreknowing his impending death, he makes his testament, After the foregoing and many other miracles which the Lord deigned to work through this His Saint, hearing his groans and sighs, in which he said: When shall I come and appear before the face of God? I shall be satisfied when His glory shall appear, the Lord revealed to him, consoling him, that the day of his death was imminent. Wherefore, according to the sacred canons, he made the testament of his property, hastening to that inheritance of which the Prophet says: When He shall have given sleep to His beloved, this is the inheritance of the Lord. Every one who sleeps in death loses his inheritance; but when He shall have given sleep to His beloved, this is the inheritance of the Lord; because the elect of God, after they have come to death, then will find the inheritance; as Saint Remigius, leaving the earthly inheritance, received the eternal, because he stood forth as a fruitful olive through bright works of mercy in the house, namely the Church of God: whence he hoped rightly in the mercy of his God, saying truly: My tears have been my bread day and night, because as the body is satisfied with bread, so the soul is refreshed with tears, since it hopes thence to have remission of sins.

[110] And day and night are put for the diversity of the world; and, panting for heavenly things, he loses the light of his eyes; because, whether in prosperous or in adverse things, the soul, desiring God, pours out the tears of its desire, knowing that it is written: It is vain for you to rise before light; rise after you have sat, you that eat the bread of sorrow. For to rise before light is to rejoice in the night of the present life before the brightness of eternal reward appears. One must therefore first sit, that afterwards we may rightly rise; because whoever now humbles himself of his own accord, him the glory that follows exalts. And he eats the bread of sorrow, by which he groans in this pilgrimage, and pants with heavenly desire for the eternal fatherland. The testament having been made, then, whose text, for the example of the bishops of our and future time who shall wish to read it, we have thought it useful to subjoin to this Little Work ^a, and all things having been disposed; since, as it is written, the true husbandman purges every branch of the true vine that bears fruit, that it may bring forth more fruit, he was for some time deprived of the light of his bodily eyes, so that with the eyes of the mind he might be able to contemplate more intently the things that are above, for which he panted with his whole desire.

[111] and, having recovered it, he celebrates Mass, and dies full of years, And he strove in the temptation of his probation always to give thanks, to give himself day and night to the hymns and praises of God, understanding with faithful mind that those who humbly receive the scourges are, after the scourges, sublimely received into rest. Which the Lord, wishing to show in him also in the present, as a pledge of eternal light, restored his sight to him before he departed: whence, as also for the loss of his sight, he blessed the name of the Lord. And after no long space, knowing that the day of his passing was at hand, after the celebration of Masses and the bestowal of holy communion, bidding farewell and giving peace to his sons, after he had served the Lord as a faithful and prudent Servant most continently and most religiously for twenty-two years in the clerical order, and for seventy-four in the episcopate, in the ninety-sixth year of his age, on the Ides of January, the course of the holy contest being finished, the faith kept, with manifold fruit of good works and gain of souls, as he had long desired ^b, his soul penetrating the heavens, he rendered his body to the earth, receiving the white robe, namely the everlasting blessedness of the soul, until in the resurrection he receives another robe, namely the blessed immortality of the body to be glorified, taken up again * together with the soul.

[112] heavy with merits and gain of souls, For since the life of the ancient fathers, which was prolonged to seven hundred and eight hundred years, and even more, has been contracted in us on account of sins to seventy, or, if much, to eighty years, so that those of seventy are called long-lived, and those of eighty decrepit, and whatever is more, labour and sorrow occupy those already very old ^c, of the length of that age and of those like him the psalmist sings: They shall still be multiplied in a plentiful old age. Because, when their life is prolonged, their strength is always brought forth for the better, and through the increases of times the gains of merits also grow for them. And they are well patient, that they may declare, because, preaching heavenly things, they endure adversities the more stoutly, the more richly they bring back, through their endurance, the advantages of souls; as did Saint Remigius, an excellent triumpher among the nations, a confessor in office, a martyr too in zeal, unconquered in the contest, seeking the palm by blood; the blessed athlete of God, whom, although the sword of persecutors did not touch him, did not lose the dignity of martyrdom.

[113] to whom the palm of martyrdom also Since it befell him to live long in the body, it was necessary for him also to endure the longer temptations of the flesh and of the devil and of wicked men. For because, the Lord helping him, he strove to keep bravely the virtue of patience, he both lived in the peace of the Church, and yet held the palm of martyrdom. For there are two kinds of martyrdom; one in the mind, the other in mind and action together. And so he was a martyr even without the sword of smiters. For to die at the hand of a persecutor is martyrdom in open work; but to bear insults, to love one who hates, to slay unlawful desires in oneself, is martyrdom in hidden thought. For that there are two kinds of martyrdom, one in hidden work, the other in public, the Truth testifies,

which questions the sons of Zebedee, saying: Can you drink the chalice which I shall drink? And when they at once answered, We can; straightway the Lord answered, saying: My chalice indeed you shall drink. For what do we understand by the Chalice, except the pain of the passion, of which He says elsewhere: Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me.

[114] And the sons of Zebedee, that is, James and John, did not both fall by martyrdom; the author endeavours to ascribe. and yet each heard that he would drink the chalice. For John did not end his life by martyrdom; but yet he was a martyr, because the passion which he did not undergo in the body he kept in the mind ^d. So too blessed Remigius, by this example, was a martyr without the sword, because he truly guarded patience in his soul, and slew unlawful desires in himself. And so by morals and life, by word and example, he openly showed the way of human salvation to all who heard and saw him, and, his course being happily completed, the precious Confessor of the Lord came gloriously after the death of the body to the fellowship of the holy Apostles and martyrs, as the apostolic grace conferred on him attests, namely the Frankish nation converted through him to the faith of Christ and consecrated with the grace of baptism; the palm of martyrdom, the long-suffering of patience in the length of his life; the glory of confession, the preaching of the orthodox faith, and the illustrious showing of miracles both in the life of his body and after his death.

[115] Now when the most holy body of blessed Remigius was being borne to burial towards the church of the holy martyrs Timothy and Apollinaris ^e, The Saint's body, after burial had been attempted elsewhere in vain, beside the church of Saint Christopher the martyr, in the place where from then and now a cross is set, and where God afterwards showed many miracles for Saint Remigius, the bier became so heavy that it could in no way be moved by any contrivance or by however many men. And all being astounded and beseeching the omnipotence of God that He would deign to show in what place He wished the body of this His Saint to be laid, they designated the basilica of the aforesaid martyrs; and the bier could not be moved. They proposed that it be borne to the church of Saint Nicasius ^f; and it could not be moved. They proposed that it be borne to the church of Saints Sixtus and Sinicius ^g, and not even so could it be moved.

[116] At length, constrained, since there was a small church in honour of the blessed martyr Christopher, he is entombed in the little church of St. Christopher. but no body of a named Saint lay in it, and in which and in the courts lying about it there was from antiquity the cemetery of the church of Reims, they asked that the Lord would declare whether He wished that most holy body to be placed in that same little church. And so the bier was moved with such ease that those carrying it felt no burden * ^h. And that venerable body was buried in the same little church, in the place where there is an altar in honour of Saint Genevieve, who was a very intimate friend of blessed Remigius ⁱ. Which, it is manifest, was done by divine disposition and by his own will, so that, as the properties acquired in his name were united according to the sacred laws to the bishopric of the church of Reims, so also those which were to be acquired thereafter by his merits should be united to the church of Reims, in whose territory he lay.

[117] After whose death, when the plague of the groin was devastating the people of First Germany ^k, and all the provinces of the church of Reims were terrified at the hearing of this disaster, Invoked, he wards off the plague of the groin from the city. the people of Reims ran together to the Saint's tomb, to beg a remedy suited to this cause. Having lighted not a few candles and lamps, they keep vigil through the whole night with heavenly hymns * and psalms. And when morning came, they search in deliberation what was still lacking to their prayer. For they found, God revealing it, who willed that His Saint, whom He held glorified with Himself, should be made wonderful among men, how, prayer having gone before, the bulwarks of the city might be fortified with a still greater bulwark. Taking, therefore, the pall from upon the tomb of the Blessed one ^l, they arrange it in the manner of a bier ^m, and, candles having been lit upon crosses and upon candlesticks ⁿ, they raise their voices in chants, they go around the city with its streets, nor do they pass over any dwelling which they do not enclose in this circuit. What more? Not many days after, the aforesaid plague attacks the borders of this city: but, approaching as far as that place to which the pledge of the Blessed one had come (as if it discerned an appointed boundary), it in no way dared to enter within; but even those whom it had seized in the beginning it left, driven back by this power ^o.

[118] A usurper of a field of his church, often admonished in vain, Which most blessed Pontiff, both in the life of the body and after death, as he gave the grace of healings to the sick, so also most frequently showed himself an avenger against usurpers [p]. Now there was not far from the basilica a field fertile in soil (for such the inhabitants call Olcae [q]), and this had been given to the basilica of the Saint, which one of the citizens usurps, despising the man who had conferred it upon the holy place. And when he had been frequently summoned by the bishop and by the provost [r] of the place to restore what he had unjustly usurped, making small account of the words that he heard, he defended the plundered goods with stubborn purpose. At length a cause arose, and not devotion, that he should hasten to the basilica of the Saint. He is again reproved by the provost of the place for the usurpation of the field; but he answered nothing worthy of reason. And his business being dispatched, having mounted his horse, he makes ready to return home; but the injury done to the Priest opposes his effort.

[119] at length he is punished divinely with death. For stricken by the blood [s], he fell to the ground; the tongue is bound which had spoken of taking the field; the eyes are closed which had coveted it; the hands are contracted which had seized it. Then, stammering, and scarcely able to bring out speech, he says: Carry me to the basilica of the Saint, and whatever gold there is upon me, throw it at his tomb: for I have sinned in taking away his property. But the giver of the field, seeing him being carried with gifts, says: Do not accept, O Saint of God, I pray, his gifts, which you have never been accustomed to accept greedily. Be not, I beseech you, the helper of him who, with covetousness inflaming him, has become the wicked possessor of your goods. Nor did the Saint delay to hear the voice of his poor man: for that man, although he had ordered the gifts to be given, the Saint of the Lord showed that he had not accepted them: whence the usurper, returning home, lost his spirit, and the church received back its property [t].

[120] The Saint's body is translated entire by angels. Now the body of blessed Remigius having been buried, as we said before, in the church of Saint Christopher, when many and astonishing miracles were being wrought in the same church through his merits by the Lord's grace, that church was enlarged and raised, and a crypt was made behind the altar, into which the most holy body might be translated. It was dug up from the place in which it was, that it might be laid down in a grave made in the aforesaid crypt; but it could in no way be moved. And when night came on, and the brethren were spending the night in hymns and canticles, many lights having been kindled, about midnight sleep fell upon all. And when they awoke on the Kalends of October, the tomb with the most holy body was found placed by angelic hands in the grave of the crypt made behind the altar: and all who were present, on awaking, were filled with such sweetness of fragrance that human tongue cannot utter it; and so through the whole day and on the morrow that fragrance persisted in the same church. And on the very day of his translation there were taken with divine praises relics from his body, namely from his hair, and his chasuble and tunic; and his body was wrapped, entire but dried, in a red brandeum [u].

[121] In process of time, finally, King Pippin, the father of Charlemagne, King Pippin is chastised by him. wishing to take the villa of the bishopric of Laon which is called Anisiacus as though under a rent, as he had also done with certain others, came to stay in it. Where, while he was sleeping, Saint Remigius came to him, saying: What are you doing here? Why have you entered into this villa, which a man more devout than you gave me, and which I have given to the church of my Lady, the holy Mother of God? And he scourged him quite harshly, so that afterwards bruises appeared on his body. And when blessed Remigius had disappeared, Pippin rose, and, seized with a violent fever, withdrew from that villa as quickly as possible; from which fever he laboured no small time. And thereafter no prince of the kingdom stayed there up to modern times; as neither at Codiciacum or Juliacum, except that Louis, king of Germany, when he invaded the kingdom of his brother Charles, stayed at Juliacum, and thence on the morrow, fleeing shamefully before that brother of his, scarcely escaped [x].

[122] In our age [y] a certain tenant of a villa of the bishopric of Reims, A certain tenant, by unjust harassers which is called Plumbea fontana, dwelt next to a royal fisc which is called Rosetus [z], and could have neither livestock nor harvest nor meadow in quiet on account of the harassment of the fiscal servants [aa]. Whence he often sought justice from the royal officials, which he could not obtain. At length he found for himself a salutary counsel: for he baked loaves and meat, and took beer in little vessels, as he could, all which he placed in a vessel which is commonly called a Benna [bb], and put it upon a cart, and so, the oxen having been yoked, he hastened with a candle in his hand to the basilica of Saint Remigius. Arriving there, he fed the matricularii [cc] with the bread and meat and beer; he placed the candle at the tomb of the Saint, and sought his help against the fiscal servants who oppressed him. Dust also from the pavement of the church, as much as he could, he gathered and tied in a cloth, and put it into the aforesaid benna, and arranged a linen cloth over it, as is wont to be done over the body of a dead man, and returned with his cart to his home.

[123] And whoever of those meeting him asked him by the Saint's help he is wonderfully freed: what he was carrying in that cart, he answered that he was carrying Saint Remigius: and all wondered at his saying and doing, thinking him mad. And arriving with the same cart at his meadow, he found herdsmen pasturing animals of diverse kinds from the fisc of Rosetus. And Saint Remigius having been invoked to help him against his oppressors, the oxen and cows began with the greatest bellowings to attack one another with their horns, he-goats to assail he-goats, she-goats she-goats with their horns, pigs to fight with pigs, and wethers to dash against wethers, the herdsmen to strike one another with sticks and fists. And a very great tumult having arisen, the herdsmen wailing, the animals, each according to its kind, with the greatest sound and din began so to flee towards Rosetus as though a very great multitude of pursuers were chasing them with whips. Which the fiscal servants seeing and hearing, struck with excessive terror, did not think that they could live even one hour. Whence, corrected from their presumption, they ceased so much from the affliction of the poor man of Saint Remigius that afterwards the same poor man his own

property the same man possessed peaceably and without disturbance [dd].

[124] The dust of his church wards off serpents. And since he dwelt beside the river Serre [ee] in a muddy place, he suffered very great annoyance in his dwellings from serpents. He, taking the dust which he had gathered from the pavement of the church of Saint Remigius and carried with him, scattered it through his dwellings, and afterwards no serpent appeared in those places in which the dust had been scattered. By which miracles shown we can gather by sure indication that, if, not hesitating in faith, we shall ask from the heart the help of Saint Remigius in our tribulations, we shall be freed by his merits and intercessions both from the assaults of the angels of Satan, who, speaking in the serpent, had deceived the mother of the human race, and from the wickednesses of perverse men.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. What is contained in this and the following number Hincmar again transcribed almost word for word from St. Gregory of Tours, as will be plain to one comparing his narrative, which I gave in the Commentary, number 287 and the two following, with Hincmar's.

q. The cited holy Historian used the same word here. And Ruinart observes in the same place that it is called in French une ousche or osche, which old French word in fact signifies a portion of arable and fertile land enclosed by ditches or hedges. Du Cange's Glossary will give more.

r. St. Gregory, both here and below, has abbot instead of provost: but whether this abbot was of monks or only of clerics who, serving the same place, led a common life there, cannot be gathered from this. Consult the Commentary, number 294 and following.

s. That is, by an apoplectic disease.

t. St. Gregory of Tours has the same, as I said, on whose credit Hincmar related these things.

u. A brandeum is a silk veil. Further, of this translation, for confirming which we have no writer older than Hincmar, I treated at length in the Commentary from number 297. I observe, however, that already from the age of St. Gregory of Tours the festival of St. Remigius was celebrated on the 1st day of October, which is certainly not the anniversary of his death (for this falls on the 13th day of January) but of this first translation of the same, whatever may be the case with the prodigious circumstances of the translation.

x. This war pertains to the years of Christ 858 and 859, in the first of which Louis, king of Germany, invited by some of the nobles of Charles the Bald, his brother, invaded his kingdom, and compelled him, betrayed by his own men, to flee; but in the following year was also driven out thence by the same, returning with strong forces. Among the Works of Hincmar edited by Sirmond, volume 2, from page 126, there exist letters given on this matter by the same Hincmar and other bishops to the same kings.

y. Flodoard, book 1, chapter 20, about to narrate these things, has in modern time; from which a doubt arises for me whether they were not drawn from Flodoard and inserted into the Life of St. Remigius, as I have said was done elsewhere in the preliminary Commentary, and shall prove below in its place. The reason is that Flodoard, a whole century later than Hincmar, when he afterwards subjoins another thing which Hincmar, number 131, wrote had lately happened, says expressly that it happened in the time of the lord prelate Hincmar, not in modern time or in his own age. Nevertheless, since these things are also ascribed to Hincmar in our other manuscript codex and in Surius's edition, and some difference occurs here between his and Flodoard's narrative, I did not wish to cut this out of the Life, as I cut out other things which are certainly not Hincmar's.

z. Since it is said below that the villa of Plumbea fontana was beside the river Serre, Rozoy seems to be indicated here by Rosetus, which is marked as a little town in Blaeu's Maps about two leagues from the source of the Sarra or Serra, in French la Serre, a river of Picardy in the district of Thiérache, which near La Fère discharges itself into the Aesia, commonly l'Oyse.

aa. That is, those who were set over the royal fisc.

bb. Flodoard, book 1, chapter 20, reporting these things, calls the Benna not a vessel, but a vehicle, saying thus: All these he placed on a vehicle, which is commonly called a Benna. In fact Cato, On Agriculture, chapter 23, used the word Benna for a certain rustic vehicle; and Du Cange in the Glossary brings forward examples of the same thing from writers of the middle age. Since, however, both in this

place of the Remigian Life and just below, our other manuscript codex and Surius's edition agreeing, the benna is clearly distinguished from the vehicle, it is most probable that a Benna was also a kind of vessel; especially since in Du Cange's Glossary too an instrument is cited in which benna is used for a vessel in which the vintage or bunches of grapes are gathered.

cc. Matricularii are those who are inscribed in the matricula, that is, the catalogue, as belonging to a certain place. These are of two kinds in ecclesiastical matters: for some matricularii are clerics, who by that title become sharers in the ecclesiastical stipends of the place to which they are enrolled; others are poor matricularii, who are entered into the number of those whom the churches sustain with their alms. Hincmar very probably speaks of the latter.

dd. Not undeservedly will these things seem to some less worthy of belief; yet since either Hincmar or Flodoard speaks of an event of his own time, it is not to be rashly rejected. On this occasion it will also help to have observed, for what follows, that St. Remigius, already from the time of St. Gregory, became renowned for examples shown of just severity against wicked usurpers of this kind. For in the book On the Glory of the Confessors, chapter 79, he says of him: He most frequently shows himself an avenger against usurpers.

ee. See the Annotations here at letter z.

* resumpti

* onus

* hymnis

CHAPTER IX.

Punishments divinely inflicted on unjust usurpers of the property of the church of Reims: a twofold translation of the sacred body, conspicuous for its integrity: the author's epilogue.

Unjust usurpers, one deprived of life, the other of his eyes. In the time of the emperor Louis two Frankish brothers, his foresters ^a, invaded part of the forest which, as we have shown above, Saint Remigius in his lifetime had purchased for a price in the Vosges uplands within its boundaries ^b, saying that the forest itself belonged rather to the emperor's fisc than to the portion of Saint Remigius. And the men of the jurisdiction of the church of Reims contradicting, one of them, in the course of the dispute, came to his pigs, which he had sent into the same forest for pasture, among which he found a wolf. Which, mounting his horse, he swiftly pursued, and, wishing to strike it, his horse taking fright, he dashed his head against a tree-trunk ^c of that same forest, so that his brain flowed out on the ground: and he died. But his brother, going hastily to the other part, came to a certain rock, and said: Let it be known to all that as far as this rock this forest is the emperor's. And striking the same rock with an adze ^d which he carried in his hand, particles leapt from it into his eyes, and he was blinded. And so both received the reward of their presumption and lying.

[126] A violator of a church, his foot sticking to the door, A certain nobleman of the territory of Nevers, having obtained relics of blessed Remigius, built an oratory in his honour on his own property ^e, where the Lord showed many miracles through the merits of His Saint himself. And when, the emperor Louis having died, the Aquitanians, with the inborn fickleness of their race, without the yoke of a prince, began, each as he could, to exalt themselves and to attack one another and to run riot * through the neighbouring districts, poor men were anxious to lay up their little substance in churches. Whence, trusting in the report of the miracles which were done there, all who could vied in laying up their goods in that same oratory to save them. And robbers, hearing that that oratory was stuffed with the many riches of very many people, set about plundering them. One of whom struck the locked door with his foot, to break the bolt; and at once his foot stuck to that door, and the presumptuous man fell on his back to the ground.

[127] then punished with his leg and thigh rotting. The others seeing this fled. But the wretch himself, compelled by the torment, began with the greatest wailing to confess his fault, and to profess with most bitter tears that, if God through the merits of Saint Remigius would release his foot from that fetter, he would never again take anything from that or from any other church, or in any way consent, so far as lay in him, that anything be taken. He also gave his horse with its saddle and other things that he could to the same church; and so, after confession and tears and vow, his foot was released from the door to which it had stuck. Nevertheless he afterwards remained lame from that withered foot, until, his leg and thigh rotting, after long suffering he died.

[128] The Saint, to one unjustly occupying his house, after a twofold warning, When three brother kings, Lothar, Louis and Charles, divided the kingdom among themselves after the death of their father ^{f g}, Charles divided among his men the bishopric of Reims, which Fulk the presbyter ^h was holding: the villa of Juliacum he gave in benefice to Richuin ⁱ. And when his wife, named Bertha, was lying in the chamber of that villa, Saint Remigius came to her, saying: This is not your place for lying; he who ought to have this villa and to lie in this chamber must be of another merit and office. Arise as quickly as possible and depart hence. Which she made small account of, thinking that she was seeing an empty vision. A second time Saint Remigius came to her, and said to her: Why have you not departed hence, as I commanded you? See that I find you here no more. Which she, as before, held as nothing. A third time Saint Remigius came to her, and said: Did I not command you once and a second time to depart hence? But since you have scorned to go hence, you shall depart by the carrying of others; and he struck her with the rod which he held in his hand.

[129] inflicts death. And she, her whole body turned to a very great swelling, told what she had seen to her husband Richuin and to very many others, and, tormented most severely for some days, ended her life. Whose body her husband caused to be carried to the church of Saint Remigius, and her to be buried there. Some wonder that, though he drove her from the aforesaid villa by deadly vengeance, he also received her body to be buried in his church. Which no one will wonder at if he weighs with what intention the Saints put forth vengeance upon offenders: namely that, if they acknowledge themselves, they may receive here what they merit, lest after death they be tormented with eternal punishments (as is read in the book of Kings of that prophet who was disobedient to the mouth of the Lord, and perished, struck by a lion, and after the vengeance was received, his body remained untouched by the lion ^k); but if those against whom the vengeances proceed do not correct themselves here, that others may be amended by their scourges and, fearing, be corrected; as it is written: When the pestilent man is scourged, the little one shall be wiser ^l.

[130] Some also complain that Saint Remigius does not now avenge himself upon the usurpers of his property and the oppressors of his household, The author teaches why so many miracles do not happen in his time, as he had done in former times, using the verse of the psalm: We do not see our signs, they say, there is now no prophet, and he will know us no more. But this is not to be complained of, but to be grieved over and feared; because there is being fulfilled in our times what was foretold in ancient times. For it is written in the Apocalypse: The sun became as sackcloth of hair. For in our last time the sun is shown as it were as sackcloth of hair, because the shining life of the preachers is found rough and despised before the eyes of the reprobate, and the miracles of the saints are withdrawn by a just judgment from sinners through contempt; as it is written: Lest at any time they should be converted, and I should heal them: so that those who now rejoice even in their offences may be more fully overwhelmed with punishments.

[131] Nevertheless this Saint, the imitator of his Lord, and narrating a recent one, who does not avenge all things, that His patience may be shown; nor leaves all things unpunished, that His providence may be proved; although he does not so frequently put forth vengeance upon the pernicious, does not in our times leave the crimes of the presumptuous everywhere unpunished. For ^m a certain Blitgarius lately obtained for a price from Bernard the custodian a manse ⁿ of the treasury of the church in the villa of Tenoilum, whence he ejected the servants of Saint Remigius with whips, they crying out to Saint Remigius to help them. To whom the same Blitgarius answered with mockery: Now it will appear how Saint Remigius will help you: see how he comes to your aid. And amid these words he groaned with the greatest outcry, and, inflating incredibly, swelled up, and so burst asunder in the midst and died.

[132] Hearing which things, dreading divine vengeance upon ourselves, he piously admonishes the reader. let us greatly beware of blasphemy against God and His Saints, taking care that we do not treat the household of the church cruelly, and are not drawn, against the evils of our neighbour, to the returning of evil or to the spite of hatred; that we are not seduced, at the temptations of the devil, to delight in or consent to sin; that we do not rush, against the scourges of the supreme Maker, into the excess of murmuring. For although such frequent and reverend miracles are not done for us through this His Servant, yet we ought to be certain that the continual aids of his intercessions are not withdrawn from his city and from us his citizens; as we read of Jeremiah ^o: This, he says, is a lover of his brethren and of the people of Israel, this is he that prayeth much for the people and for all the holy city Jerusalem.

[133] In the year of the Lord's Incarnation eight hundred and fifty-two [p], that church having been lately further enlarged, The Saint's body is transferred into a silver case: when the tomb together with the body of blessed Remigius was translated from the place of the former crypt into a crypt made with greater and more beautiful work, the most holy body itself, as also in the earlier translation, was found entire by the bishops of the diocese of the Remi, and wrapped in a red brandeum. And when it was transferred from that tomb into a silver casket, a part of that brandeum, with the sudarium which had been over his head, taken up in a little ivory chest, is venerated with due honour beside the altar of holy Mary in the city [q]. And the silver casket with the body of the Saint himself was placed on top of the marble tomb in which it had lain before, and the relics which had been found at his head outside the tomb were placed by the aforesaid bishops in the tomb in which he had lain, on the Kalends of October, on which day of the Kalends his other translation also had been celebrated many years before [r]

[134] [meanwhile there a man is freed from toothache; elsewhere two contracted men are healed.] And when his most holy body was translated from the tomb into the aforesaid silver casket, Rado, then subdeacon of the church of Soissons [s], who had come thither with his bishop Rothard [t], had for a whole year been so vexed day and night with toothache that he feared to lose his senses for excessive pain. He, while the bishops were intent upon the placing of the holy body, applied the jaw with whose pain he was vexed to the place in which the holy body had lain; and at once freed from that pain, thereafter he felt no toothache; as the same man took care to report after twenty-five years [u]. And on that very

day in a certain oratory where the memory of blessed Remigius is venerated, in the Ribuarian district [x], two contracted men were healed. For from the time of the first and second translation, as also before, many and notable miracles were wrought in the same place through the merits of the Saint himself, from diverse infirmities, which we have written down, but here, on account of their multitude, and because they are very often shown there, we have omitted to set them down.

[135] The author, briefly repeating all the foregoing, From the miracles set out it is most abundantly clear with how notable glory and honour the Lord has deigned to crown him, and, as he was in His sight, to show him wonderful to men. Of which, dearest brethren, let us recall certain things in a brief epilogue, that we may contemplate how this our most blessed Patron and Protector, living in the body, was full of the spirit of the holy fathers both of the old and of the new Testament, namely of the diversity of operations of one and the same Spirit received by diverse persons, and after death, as their partner, shone with miracles. For in this, that he was foretold from heaven and designated by name, we see represented to us Isaac the patriarch and John the Baptist; in this, that he was sanctified before he was born [y], and from youth avoided the presence of the people in reclusion, likewise Jeremiah and John the Baptist; in this, that, elected by the bishops of the province of Reims and by the clergy and people, and signs having been divinely shown over him, he was ordained bishop, Matthias, who, elected by the Apostles and the other faithful and offered to the Lord, was ordained apostle by the divine lot.

[136] St. Remigius with eminent In this, that amid the most bitter waves of this world he steered holy church to the haven of eternal salvation with the oars of merits and virtues, of prayers and preachings, Noah, who steered the ark, prefiguring the Church, in the flood. In this, that his face was made splendid by the presence of Christ, Moses. In this, that he stood between the flames and the remnants which the fire had not yet devoured, and forbade the fire to pass over, Aaron. In this, that cursing insensible things he condemned their cultivators with barrenness, David [z]. In this, that he baptized on the vigil of holy Easter [aa] three thousand men converted by his preaching, and raised a girl from death, blessed Peter, who at holy Pentecost converted so many thousands of Jews to the faith and caused them to be baptized, and raised Dorcas from death. In this, that he mitigated most ferocious barbarians from their savagery, and shut them up at Reims for baptizing, to whom after holy baptism he gave the Bread of heaven and spiritual drink, Elisha, who shut up the enemies coming into Samaria, to whom he commanded food and drink to be given. In this, that he made the very smallest liquids overflow, Elijah and likewise Elisha.

[137] In this, that by the prophetic spirit he foretold to King Louis the holy men of both Testaments what things were to come to him and to his posterity, Isaiah, who foretold to King Hezekiah what things were to be for him and his. In this, that, placed far off in body, present in spirit, he knew of the death of the king, likewise Elisha, whose spirit was present when Naaman got down from his chariot to meet Gehazi. In this, that, the Holy Spirit revealing it to him, foreknowing the famine that would follow, he applied providence as to how he might succour the people that would labour with famine, Joseph. In this, that, that the just might be justified still, he lost for some time the light of his bodily eyes, and afterwards recovered sight, Tobias: and also, because, a fruit-bearing branch of the true vine, he was purged that he might bring forth more fruit, with the light of the eyes of the mind, which he had not lost, he recovered the light of the bodily eyes, which he had for some time lost. In this, that, patient in temptation and rendering praises, but proved after the temptation, the light of his bodily eyes being recovered, as in the loss, he blessed the Lord, we consider Job, who, patient in temptation, blessed the name of the Lord, and, proved after the temptation, possessed double his goods.

[138] In this, that, the day of his departure being known, he bade farewell to his sons through the celebration of Masses, he compares. and died, blessed John the apostle and Evangelist [bb]. In this, that by the pall of his tomb he extinguished and repelled the plague of the groin, the illustrious Paul, by whose handkerchief and aprons the sick were healed. In this, that from zeal for justice, both living in the body and after death, he exercised vengeances upon offenders, likewise Moses, Phinehas, Joshua and Elijah, Peter, the smiter of Simon the magician, of Ananias and Sapphira, and Paul, the blinder of Elymas the magician. In this, that his most holy body was first buried in the church designated by divine command, and afterwards was carried by angelic ministry from place to place, Habakkuk the prophet, who was carried by the hand of an angel from Judea over the lake of Babylon, and thence brought back into Judea, and Moses, who was buried by the Lord, surely by angelic ministry, whose sepulchre, as no one knows to this present, so no one knows in what manner the sepulchre of this Saint was translated [cc].

ANNOTATIONS.

b. Namely number 88.

k. 3 Kings, chapter 13.

p. This second translation of St. Remigius, which he here begins to narrate, Hincmar himself, although he keeps silent his own name, instituted with great solemnity, and I set it forth at length in the preliminary Commentary, §17, to which, that I may not repeat the same things here, I refer the studious reader.

q. He indicates the cathedral church of Reims, dedicated to the most holy Mother of God.

r. Namely the first translation, of which he treated in this very Life, number 120.

s. Or of Soissons, in French Soisson, which is among the suffragans of the archbishopric of Reims.

t. He is that very Rothard who ordained Hincmar bishop in the year 845, and who afterwards suffered many unworthy things from him, concerning which see, if you please, the enlarged Gallia Christiana, volume 9, column 340 and following.

u. Hence gather that this Life was not written by Hincmar, or at least not carried to its end, before the year 877.

x. Flodoard agrees, book 1 of the History, saying that that oratory was in the Ribuarian district. But what district is this? In Colvener it is here called in the margin in French Bruieres en Lannois, that is, Bruyères in the Laonnois. But I do not know on what argument; for between the Latin and the French name there is no similarity. Nay, that that place was far elsewhere is gathered from the same Flodoard in the Chronicle at the year 923, where he writes that Henry, king of Germany, came to meet Robert, whom the Franks had elected king for themselves against Charles the Simple, as he was setting out into the kingdom of Lotharingia, in the Ribuarian district on the river Rur. And the Rura of which he speaks here, commonly de Roer, is a river of Germany, which, rising in the Eifel, flows through the duchy of Jülich, and at Roermond in Guelders mingles with the Meuse. And so the Ribuarian district in which that oratory is said to have been is not the name of some village or town, but of the tract of the Ripuarians, which is believed to have been between the Rhine and the Meuse, and on the Rur, which flows between these two rivers. Hence also the opinion of the interpreter of Flodoard's Chronicle does not please me, who interpreted the Ribuarian district in French as Ribemont (which is a little town of Picardy on the river Oise), on the testimony of Ortelius in the Geographical Thesaurus, volume 2.

y. I have already said above that it is proved by Hincmar by no argument that Remigius was sanctified in his mother's womb.

z. Perhaps he here had regard to that imprecation of David, 2 Kings, chapter 1, verse 21: Ye mountains of Gilboa, let neither dew nor rain come upon you, neither be they fields of firstfruits. The other places of sacred Scripture I shall not note, because they are cited too frequently.

aa. Nay rather at the Nativity of the Lord, as I proved in the preliminary Commentary, §7.

bb. The deeds of St. John, apostle and Evangelist, are to be illustrated in our Work at the 27th day of December, on which he is venerated.

cc. There follows here in our codex a new chapter under this title: Of the relics of blessed Remigius carried into Italy by Saint Moderannus; which, since for the reasons given in the preliminary Commentary, number 27, I do not believe it to be Hincmar's, I here pass over, especially because I have already reviewed the same history from Flodoard in the same Commentary from number 351. I pass over also the long discourse which follows in the same place, and the two chapters inserted into it, concerning which consult what was said in the Commentary, number 25 and the two following.

* debacchari

THE TESTAMENT OF ST. REMIGIUS

From Philippe Labbe's Library of Manuscripts, volume 1.

Remigius, bishop of Reims, Apostle of the Franks, at Reims in Gallic Champagne. (S.)

From the printed text.

The church of Reims, with St. Lupus and Agricola, In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, glory to the Lord ✠ Amen ^a.

I, Remigius, bishop of the city of the Remi, possessed of the priesthood, have made my testament by praetorian law, and have directed that it avail in the manner of codicils, if anything of law shall seem to have been lacking to it ^b? Whensoever ^c I, Remigius the bishop, shall have passed from this light, be thou my heir, holy and venerable catholic church of the city of the Remi; and thou, son of my brother, Lupus the bishop ^d (whom I have always loved with a special love), and thou, my nephew Agricola the presbyter ^e, who hast pleased me by thy service from boyhood, in all my substance which has fallen to me by my lot before I die, except what I shall have given, bequeathed, or ordered to be given to each, or shall have wished each of you to have as a preferential legacy. Thou, holy church of Reims, my heir, shalt possess the tenants whom I have in the territory of Portensis ^f, whether from my paternal and maternal substance, or those whom I exchanged with my brother of holy memory, Principius the bishop ^g, or have by gift. Daragedus, Profuturus, Prudentius, Tenuaicus, Maurilio, Baudoleifus, Projunciolus, Niviatena, Lauta, Suffronia, female tenants; Amorinus also, a slave, thou shalt claim for thy dominion. Also the fields ^h which I possess in the district of Portensis, with meadows, pastures, woods, thou shalt call back to thyself by the authority of this testament.

[2] he institutes his heirs, but at the same time To the future bishop, my successor, I leave the white Paschal amphibalum ⁱ; two dove-coloured coverlets, three veils, which are at the doors of the dining-room, the storeroom and the kitchen on feast days. A silver vessel of eighteen pounds I have distributed, as I wished, the Lord assenting, between thee, my heir, and thy diocesan church of Laon ^k, patens and chalices having been made for the most holy ministry. Another silver vessel, which the lord King Hlodowic of illustrious memory, whom I received from the sacred font of baptism, deigned to give me, that I might do with it what I myself should wish, I order to be made for thee, my heir, the church above mentioned, into a censer ^l and a figured chalice ^m; which I shall do myself, if I shall have space of life. If I shall close my last day before, thou, son of my brother, Lupus the bishop, mindful of thy order, shalt carry out the aforesaid things. To my fellow-presbyters and deacons who are at Reims I leave in common twenty-five solidi to be divided equally. The planting of vines above my vineyard, situated at the suburban estate, they shall likewise possess in common, with Melanius the vine-dresser, whom I give in place of the church's man Albovichius, that Albovichius may enjoy the fullest liberty.

[3] to many others To the subdeacons I order twelve solidi to be given; to the readers two solidi, to the doorkeepers and the juniors two solidi. To the poor placed on the matricula ⁿ, waiting for alms before the doors of the church, two solidi shall be brought, wherewith they may refresh themselves. Of Vaculiacum ^o, I direct that Frunimius, Dagaleifus, Dagaredus, Ductio, Baudovicus, Uddulfus, Vinofeifa be free. Tennaredus, who is born of a freeborn mother, let him enjoy the status of liberty. But thou, son of my brother, Lupus the bishop, shalt claim for thy dominion Nifastes and his mother Muta; the vineyard also which Enias the vine-dresser cultivates: Enias and Monulfus, his younger son, I order to enjoy liberty. Mellovicus the swineherd *, and Paschasiola his wife; Vernivianus with his sons, except Widragasius, to whom I grant liberty, thou shalt assign to thy right. My slave from Cessurnicum I direct to be thine. The part of the fields which my brother Principius the bishop held thou shalt call back to thyself, with woods, meadows, pastures. My slave whom Mellonicus held, Viteredus, I leave; Teneursolus Capalinus and his wife Teudorosena I make over to thy right and dominion.

[4] Teudonivia also, by my direction, let her be free. then to particular persons, Edoveifa, who was joined to thy man, and her kindred thou shalt retain. The wife of Aregildus and her kindred I order to be freeborn. My part of the meadow which I have at Laon next to you, situated ad imitatem montium, and the little meadows which are jovia [p], which I have held, thou shalt call back to thyself. But to thee, my nephew Agricola the presbyter, who spent thy boyhood within my domestic walls, I hand over and make over the slave Merumvastes, and his wife Menatena, and their son named Marcovicus. His brother Medovicus I order to be free. Amantius and his wife Daero I leave to thyself; their daughter Dasovinda I direct to be free: the slave Alaricus I assign to thy portion; whose wife, whom I redeemed and manumitted, I commend to be defended as freeborn. Bebrimodus and his wife Mora thou shalt claim for thy dominion; their son Monacharius shall rejoice in the benefit of liberty. Mellanricus and his wife Placidia thou shalt call back to thy dominion; let Medaridus their son be a freedman; and the vineyard which Mellaricus works at Laon I give to thee, and the slave Brittobaudes, and also Gibericus. The vineyard which Bebrimodus works I leave to thee on this condition, that on feast days and all Sundays my oblation be offered at the sacred altars, and that annual banquets be provided for the presbyters and deacons of Reims.

[5] And I assign to my nephew Praetextatus Moderatus, Tottio, then to colleges Marcovicus, and Innocentius the slave, whom I received from Profuturus, my originarius [q]. Four of the larger spoons, a vinegar-cup, the cloak [r] which the tribune Friaredus gave me, and a figured silver tablet [s]; to his little son Paro : a vinegar-cup and three spoons, and the chasuble whose fringes I changed. To Remigia I make over three spoons which are inscribed with my name, and her [t] everyday hand-towel which I have. I also give her the hichinaculum [u] of which I spoke to Gundobad. And I assign to my blessed daughter Helaria the deaconess a handmaid named Nora, and I give the measure of vines [x] which is joined to her vineyard, which Cattusio works, and I make over my part of Talpusciacum for the services which she unceasingly renders me. To Aetius my nephew [y] I give the part of Cessunicum which fell to me by the lot of division, with all the right which I held and possessed; the boy Ambrosius also I transfer to his right and dominion. I order Vitalis the tenant to be free; and his household to pertain to my nephew Agathimerus; to whom I give the vineyard which I planted at Vindonissa [z], and established by my labour, on this condition, that by his fathers * on all feast days and Sundays an oblation be offered at the sacred altars for my commemoration, and that annual banquets, the Lord granting, be provided for the presbyters and deacons of Laon.

[6] and to churches I give to the church of Laon eighteen solidi, which the presbyters and deacons shall distribute among themselves in equal division. Let the church of Laon call back to itself entire my part of Secia. I commend to thy holiness, son of my brother, Lupus the bishop, those whom I direct to be freedmen, Cattusio and Auliateva his wife, Nonnio, who works my vineyard, Sunnoveifa, whom I redeemed as a captive, born of good parents, and her son Leuberedus, Mellaridus and Mellateva, Vasanta the cook, Cesaria, Dagaraseva, and Baudoroseva, the niece of Leo, and Marcoleifus the son of Tottio: all these, son of my brother, Lupus the bishop, thou shalt defend as free by priestly authority. But to thee, my heir, the church, I give Flavianus and his wife Sparagildis; their little daughter Flavaraseva I have ordained to be free. Fedamia, wife of Melanius, and their little girl the presbyters and deacons of Reims shall possess. I direct Cispiciolus the tenant to be free, and his household to pertain to my nephew Aetius: to both, that is, to Aetius and Agathimerus, the colonica of Passiacum * is to come.

[7] he makes various legacies. To my grand-niece [aa] Praetextata I give Modoroseva; to Profuturus I hand over the boy Leudocharius; to Profutura I order Leudovera to be given. To the subdeacons, readers, doorkeepers and juniors of Laon I leave four solidi; to the poor placed on the matricula one solidus shall be given for their refreshment. And I assign eight solidi to the church of Soissons [bb] for the commemoration of my name; to the church of Châlons [cc] six solidi; to that of Mouzon [dd] five solidi; to that of Vonc [ee] a field at the workshop of the mills which is established there; to the church of Chaourse [ff] four solidi, and as many shall be brought to that of Portensis for the commemoration of my name. Having enjoyed the familiar services of Ursus the archdeacon, I give him a fine chasuble of home-woven stuff [gg], and another fuller one; two delicate cloaks; the coverlet which I have on my bed, and the better tunic which I shall leave at the time of my passing. My heirs, Lupus the bishop and Agricola the presbyter, you shall divide my pigs equally among you. Friaredus, whom I bought for fourteen solidi that he might not be slain, let him have two remitted: let him give [hh] twelve for making the vaulting of the basilica of the lord martyrs Timothy and Apollinaris.

[8] The subscription of the testament, and the added codicil. These things I thus give, thus bequeath, thus testify: be ye all others disinherited, let them be so [ii]. And from this my testament wicked fraud is absent and shall be absent; in which, if any erasure or scratching [kk] shall be found, it was made in my presence, while it was being re-read and amended by me. Done at Reims on the day and in the consulship above written [ll], the signatories intervening and mediating.

✠ I, Remigius the bishop, have re-read my testament, signed, subscribed, and in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the Lord helping, completed it.

I, Pappolus, a most distinguished man, was present and subscribed [mm].

I, Rusticolus, a most distinguished man, was present and signed.

I, Eulodius, a most distinguished man, was present and signed.

I, Eutropius, a most distinguished man, was present and signed.

I, Eusebius, a most distinguished man, was present and signed.

I, Daweus, a most distinguished man, was present and signed.

After the testament was made, nay signed, it occurred to my mind that I should assign to the basilica of the lord martyrs Timothy and Apollinaris a silver dish [nn] of six pounds there, that from it the future resting-place of my bones may be fashioned.

ANNOTATIONS.

In our codex and in Marlot's edition Gloria Domino is lacking. In our other manuscript copy, and in the edition of Jean-Jacques Chifflet, this whole beginning is absent. Further, in place of a title there is prefixed, both in the printed texts and in our codex, the following notice, which may seem to be Hincmar's. A copy of the Testament made by blessed Remigius, in which let the reader attend that the amount of the solidi is reckoned at the number of forty denarii, as solidi were then reckoned, and as is contained in the Salic law of the Franks, and generally in payment lasted up to the times of Charles, as is found in his Capitularies. The same notice, in the same words (except that the surname Great is added to Charles), is read in our codex and in the cited editions of Chifflet and Marlot, as I said. Now the solidus was a gold coin, the denarius a silver one; which it will help to have noted beforehand, because in this Testament frequent mention is made of solidi.

father, as some assert; others prefer to believe him his paternal uncle. We assented to the latter in our Work at the 25th day of September, on which that St. Principius is venerated. St. Lupus, the nephew of St. Remigius by his brother, has his cult on the 19th day of October. Consult, if you please, our preliminary Commentary, number 35 and following. That the same St. Lupus, together with the church of Reims and Agricola the presbyter, soon to be named, was written heir by St. Remigius in his testament, Flodoard also teaches, book 1, chapter 23.

p. So all the copies have except one, which Chifflet followed, in which novia is read. Jovia is likewise read in all the copies of the longer Testament, on the testimony of Colvener in the Scholia, where he adds from Nicolas Chesneau that perhaps quæ juxta sunt is to be read. I, to confess the truth, do not know what the word jovia means here.

q. An originarius is one who by reason of his origin owes servitude or other service to his lord: wherefore that word admits various explanation. That Profuturus, of whom there is question here, was not a home-born slave or chattel is clear enough from the fact that he is here said to have given the slave Innocentius to St. Remigius.

r. Chifflet and Marlot read lucernam. The lacerna is a garment known to the ancient Romans and used at home and in war, especially in rainy weather.

s. Our codex and Marlot, Cabutam; in which way it is also read in the copies of the longer Testament, Colvener asserts in the Scholia to Flodoard, and adds that cambutam is had in Brisson. Cabuta, cambuta and cambuca are ordinarily used for the pastoral or episcopal staff. I prefer the reading of Labbe, with which Chifflet agrees; but at the same time I confess that tabulam could easily have been formed from cabutam, and vice versa.

t. Elsewhere: mantile, that is, a small cloak; but I suspect that ipsi is to be read for ipsius. Flodoard mentions the donation made to Remigia in this testament, book 1, chapter 23.

u. So all the copies of the longer Testament also have, except in Brisson, where there is Hiclinaculum; which is of equally unknown meaning. Du Cange in the Glossary suspects that hichinaculum is the same as Hichinarium and Hicinarium, which he affirms are recounted among the sacred vessels in the History of the bishops of Auxerre.

x. A pedatura of vines is a space planted with vines, limited by a certain number of feet. You have more examples in the cited learned Du Cange. Flodoard also recounts Hilaria the deaconess among the legatees of St. Remigius, book 1, chapter 23.

y. He too is named among the legatees of the Saint by Flodoard in the same place, as also Etius or Aetius, who will be named below with Agathimerus.

z. Adrien de Valois in the Notitia Galliarum teaches that this Vindonissa or Vindenissa is a villa in the district of Reims, now commonly called Venderesse; and that there is also another Vindenissa, a villa or village in the district of Laon.

aa. So I have corrected from others, since in Labbe pronepoti was read here. Flodoard in the aforesaid place makes mention by name neither of Praetextata nor of Praetextatus.

bb. Suessio, commonly Soissons, a city of Gaul in the province of the Île-de-France, has a bishopric suffragan to Reims.

cc. Catalaunum, in French Chaalons sur Marne, is another episcopal city under the metropolis of Reims, in the province of Champagne.

dd. Mosomagum, otherwise Mosomum, to the natives Mouson, is likewise a city of Gaul on the river Meuse in Champagne and on the border of the duchy of Luxembourg, and in the diocese of Reims, of which I said a little more in the preliminary Commentary, number 229.

ee. Of the district of Vonc in Gallic Champagne Flodoard makes mention, book 2 of the History, chapter 18, and book 3, chapter 10, of the municipium of Vongum. See more, if you please, in Valois in the Notitia Galliarum, who says this of the site and present-day name of the same place: This is, as I judge, a village situated on the Aisne, midway between the city of Reims and Epusum or Epoissium (in French Yvoix); commonly called Von; or certainly rather Vouzi or Vousi, which place is situated on the same river, and is not far distant from Von, and is much larger and more famous and more frequented than that village.

ff. This place seems to be the one otherwise called Caturigae, and to it seem to pertain the things which the cited Valois has on page 140 in these words: There is also another place of the same name in Champagne of Reims, called by Aethicus Caturrigae or rather Caturigae, in the Theodosian table Caturicae… It is distant from Durocortorum of the Remi 39 thousand paces, from Nasium 9, from Tullum 25. Of the Portensian district, which follows, enough has been said elsewhere.

gg. So all the copies of the longer Testament also have, with this difference only, that in some that compound word is drawn apart into two, domi textilis. Du Cange in the Glossary suspected that auritextilis is to be read. Flodoard, book 1, chapter 23, reporting the same, says: He gives him a certain fine chasuble.

hh. St. Remigius seems, then, to have lent those fourteen solidi to Friaredus for his redemption, of which he now gave him two, and ordered the rest to be given to the church of SS. Timothy and Apollinaris.

ii. In our codex the word suntote is lacking; in Chifflet sunto is more rightly read.

kk. Charaxare is to write: but here charatura is used for the alteration of words, blotting out, etc. For the rest, the cited Du Cange brings forward more examples of instruments in which the same formula was employed.

ll. Hence it is clear that the copies of this Testament which exist are not wholly entire, since neither the time nor the consul is recorded above. The longer Testament labours under the same defect, which we think was enlarged from this shorter one.

mm. Flodoard, book 1, chapter 23, writes that this and the five following most distinguished men subscribed the testament of St. Remigius, not the others who are read subscribed in the longer testament. See the preliminary Commentary, §15.

nn. A missorium is a dish in which food is carried to the table. Concerning the burial chosen in the church of SS. Timothy and Apollinaris, and yet not made, consult the preliminary Commentary, §16.

* otherwise portarium

* otherwise Parovio

* otherwise Cersunico and Cosurnico

* otherwise partibus

* otherwise Coloniam Passiarum

TRANSLATIONS OF THE SACRED BODY

By perhaps Rotfrid, a contemporary.

From the Prüm manuscript codex.

Remigius, bishop of Reims, Apostle of the Franks, at Reims in Gallic Champagne. (S.)

BHL Number: 7166

By perhaps Rotfrid, a contemporary.

The body, from fear of the Northmen, is translated to Épernay by Hincmar, In the year of the most happy Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God almighty, eight hundred and eighty-two, the first of the orthodox King Carloman, holding the sceptres of the kingdom of the Franks, but the thirty-eighth of the episcopate of Archbishop Hincmar ^a, it came about, the enormity of crimes requiring it by its deserts, and the cruelty of the greatness of the perils, namely of the people of the Franks, on account of fear of the Northalbingians ^b, that the body of the most holy and most precious prelate Remigius, on the fifth of the Sabbath, the eighth day of the eighth month, which among the Latins is called November ^c, was translated from its own place of station to Épernay ^d. For it was a night, indicating the whirlpool of our sins in manifold ways: otherwise, had it not happened that we were involved in many sins, and weighed down by the enormity of offences, or wounded by the mass of misdeeds, and also laid asleep in the death of deadly guilt, he could have snatched us from the impending danger of destruction, who, the Lord helping, was able long ago to shine forth by working many signs.

[2] and, he having died there, to Orbais. And the most holy clod of the body was there until the death of the aforesaid pontiff ^e, and a little after, for some days. And so the most blessed Father gave this to this people as a gift, that, when after the passing of the aforesaid Hincmar the borders of the Christian region were everywhere ravaged in every direction by the faithless, and most especially those of this see, they alone by his intervention were made immune from the pestilence of disaster or calamity. And from there, for the sake of the same thing, it was carried over to the monastery of Orbais ^f. And it came about that by his influence and by the gift of the bountiful giving of God almighty the inhabitants of that place suffered no loss or inclemency of the elements round about; but whatever they sowed in the diverse kinds of seeds was bestowed manifold beyond their reckoning; as I myself, from their reports, drank in with my ears, or proved by seeing with my eyes ^g: and when in other places there was inclemency of the air, namely, first frost, and afterwards the treacherous drought of the sun; here it is determined to have been driven far off and at a distance. The kindly limbs of the body, then, were in that same place not a few days.

[3] What more? It came about that the Parent of things and Fashioner of all, distilling mercy from the beginning, looked upon the people of Reims, who were destitute, Fulk, substituted for Hincmar, about to bring it back to Reims, and also wasted away with the sickness of grief and sorrow at the bodily absence of the aforesaid kindly Bishop. Meanwhile, inspired by a certain prompting of the Deity, they strove with all their efforts to elect Fulk ^h. And he, clad about with the priestly fillet, anointed with the oil of sacred sanctification, crowned with the garland of kindness, began carefully to inquire and with the utmost diligence watchfully to busy himself, and, after the likeness of blessed David, to handle all things with orderly management and prudent counsel. For as he, endowed with skill and excellent genius, and burning with every ardour of goodness, strove to bring back the ark of the Lord to the city and the holy place, so this man, thinking over and arranging all things prudently in every respect, so that he said it was first needful to inquire what counsel there was for him in such matters, or what was to be done: and while for a long time they weighed the cause in every direction as far as they could, at length they came to the issue of the judgment that he found that the life-giving pledge was to be carried back to its own home.

[4] But amid these varieties of thoughts, and while refining the continual arrangements of his meditations, he comes with other bishops and the clergy to Orbais, when he found out what was to be done, straightway, in the first year of his prelacy, in the third month, Siban, which in Latin is called June, on the 15th day of the same month ⁱ, an assembly of clerics having been joined to him, and a throng of the people also gathered, the venerable bishops of his diocese also having been summoned, and priests not a few, he strove to go with much religion and faithful administration of reason to the place where the most precious pearl was kept. And when, after the fast, the aforesaid pontiff withdrew late with his men to dine, and the ox-drivers with their laden wagons of the various things of the Saint's own furniture were hastening with the fervour of desire to speed the whole journey, and the face of the sky was translucent with the brightness of the sun and tranquil with the serenity of the air, the day too now declining towards evening, and the setting of Phoebus's lamp calling on the darkness, wonderful to say, when suddenly on every side the serenity of the sky is overcast with a dark gloom, and the air being gathered into clouds, rain began gradually to be let down; but afterwards, little by little and growing by increases, it increased to such a magnitude of rain-storms that the surface of the earth, which, wasting away with the aridity of drought, had grown squalid, so that it remained foul with the filth of dust, was soaked far and wide, and remained fit for every work to be done.

[5] But after the pallor of night yielded to the saffron light, and likewise the gleam of the stars to the splendour of Phoebus; and on the next day, taking it up with great pomp and now the dawn, diminishing a little the darkness of the dusky night, was presenting with rosy splendour the day of the Lord's Resurrection ^k, then from every age, of both sexes, and of every grade of dignity or profession, from wherever they could, they come into the church where the body of the magnificent Confessor was resting, awaiting the hour of the most glorious bringing back. Therefore the aforesaid venerable Fulk, in whom the highest care and a huge ardour of desire had boiled up to accomplish this, when he perceived that the opportune time was at hand, with his fellow-bishops, presbyters and deacons, and every grade of the church, approached thither, armed with the warmth of faith, to celebrate the office; and the priestly ministry having been carried out with great honour and reverence, as indeed the office likewise required; and all things having been duly performed, singing a Responsory with holy fear and the utmost devotion, they raised the most worthy pledge, and took care to hasten with great caution on the journey they had begun.

[6] Now then, prudent reader, note the words, mark the mysteries. Note that it is said that in the first watch of the night, in the thick darkness, at the beginning of winter, the body of the Most Blessed one was taken away as if by stealth by a few, which we have set out succinctly above; but here, that on the day of the Lord's Resurrection, at about the third hour ^l, he sets out on the journey towards Reims; the sun now blazing, and advancing on high, when the Holy Spirit came upon the Disciples, at the first beginning of summer, with a great band of the people in a crowd, not by chance or fortuitously, but by the fellowship of sacred dispensation, we record that the return took place; weigh it with diligent discussion. For at this [m] return not only angels and men rejoiced, but even the elements themselves are said to have been glad with manifold ministration. For truly, as at the passion of the Son of God almighty they appeared sad, so on the contrary at the return of this notable Man they appeared pleasing; so much so that nothing of contrariness opposed that day, no contrary wind blew, nor dust seeking the upper air, or being harmful to the eyes; no dense cloud appeared, or one darkened with the gloom of obscurity; the sun also, scattering rays of light that it might illumine all things, scorched less by burning.

[7] the people running together from every side, and praising God; And so there began, from every quarter, hither and thither, as the report had been spread, every rank, every age, both sexes, young men and virgins, old men with the younger, mothers with little children, rich and poor, the bent ploughman, the grimy vine-dresser, and the ragged ox-driver, shepherd or swineherd, with great joy and unspeakable gladness, with the utmost haste, some to meet it, others behind, some from the opposite side; each one striving, according to the capacity of his health, to run to meet it with happy course: and there is a concourse and a great assembly; and there is a harmony from every grade and from both sexes: although [n] the modulation of the ecclesiastical voice was heard unequal, yet the affection of rejoicing and the glorification of exultation is understood to have been equal. And those, then, who went before, and those who followed, cried out in the highest, saying: Hosanna! and Kyrie eleison: and just as once the people of the Hebrews, accompanying the King of kings seated on an ass, sang, and cutting down branches from the trees went to meet Him, and spread their garments in the way; so these, as they could, strove man by man to do all things in orderly fashion. What, then, dearest brethren, do you think prepared the hearts of these by stirring them to this? Who gave them the sense and the gift of understanding to accomplish this, but God almighty, and the Holy Spirit, who fills and inflames the hearts of the faithful, over whom He presides and whom He rules according to the abundance of His distribution and loving-kindness?

[8] and when he had spent the night at Calmiciacum, With such a procession of dignity, then, they come to the village whose name is Calmiciacus ^o, where the most holy Bishop, while living in the flesh, had long ago, the Lord granting it, worked many miracles; and in a very small little church, which he himself, as some say, had formerly consecrated, the most sacred treasure is laid down, and, guards having been diligently set, each goes to dine, and, refreshing their bodies with food and drink, they withdraw to rest. But on the morrow, when now the next dawn was illumining the lands with Phoebus's lamp, and Aurora had removed the dewy shade from the sky, behold, on this side and that are heard the voices of those rejoicing, praising God, and saying: Blessed be God, who restores to us the Pastor, Protector and Defender of our souls, under the protection of whose wings we believe that we are freed from straits and from all afflictions; because it is he who daily intercedes with God for our sins; nor have we been disappointed of his presence. Meanwhile the often-mentioned pontiff, with all diligence, without delay [p], the Sacraments of the mysteries having likewise been celebrated, chose to take the road and to climb the slope of the mountain which was nearby, with the praises of Christ, and the faithful troops of the multitude with him.

[9] And when they had come with the pious Bishop to the brow of the summit of that mountain, and on the following day as it were standing in a more eminent place, he looked around the whole very wide region which was of the jurisdiction of his diocese, and the people running forward from every side, with tears and groans and frequent sighs imploring his intercession, blessing, and manifold support of eternal distribution; whose vows and entreaties, as is found, he by no means spurned, but rather, sympathising, being made in agony, he strove to pray at greater length for their offences, that they should not be led any longer bound by the chain of the guilty, and be liable before God, entangled in the snares of the devil; like to him who once mitigated the wrath of the Lord against Israel for the guilt of the calf which they had made [q]. For if, when living, he was once able to obtain this, when, the Lord assenting, he was able to draw out a most bitter king [r] with his people from the jaws of the devil, much more, now reigning with Christ, could he merit it.

[10] And so, since God almighty, foreknowing things to come, who desires and always seeks the salvation of souls; was pursuing the journey he had begun, who wills not the death of the sinner, nor rejoices in the perdition of those who die, willed to look upon and be propitious to His people, that it might no longer wander, and deprived * of its own and loving Pastor; and that His truthful voice might be proved, which says: "A city set on a mountain cannot be hid, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house; so let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven"; namely willed to show our patron Remigius, most dear to Himself, the excellent triumpher [s], how great his merit was with Him, to those growing torpid and sluggish in the sloth of good works; and that He might urge those who could not yet grasp the mystic mysteries to rise to things unknown by shining signs; so that his sanctity of virtues might shine forth flashing before all, and the peoples, enjoying the sweetness of the signs, might glorify God, the maker of such great works; and that those who should pray to him with faith, confessing and renouncing the offences of crimes committed, might know without doubt, or believe and hold firmly, that, as they once had him as teacher on earth, so they would always have him as intercessor in heaven; and that he is able to intercede with the merciful Judge for the sins of many peoples, because he is a member of that Judge Himself, and a great part of the heavenly city of Jerusalem.

[11] When they had gone on a little from there, a certain woman, a blind woman sight, named Doda, who for a long time, her sight lost, had lived in blindness, having heard that the body of the most holy Prelate was passing that way, giving her hand to one guiding her steps, began, stumbling with her feet, to hasten her way at what speed she could; and as soon as she came close, she merited to obtain sight before all at his imploring. Which being done, all were turned to wonder, and in some manner struck with amazement of mind, and moreover also filled with excessive and unspeakable joy. They run to the bishop, who was then riding not far off, but on account of the crowd of the people, which, with rejoicing exultation, was flowing together importunately, had withdrawn a little space apart; and when some had run with most rapid course, he who had announced it last thought he was the first to reveal it: when suddenly the venerable pontiff Fulk, filled with the greatest joy, in a great office of devotion and religion, commands the hymn Te Deum laudamus to be sung most dutifully by all the clergy with worthy rejoicing.

[12] a man recovers the lost faculty of walking, a woman the use of her hands. While they were bringing forth the melody in this order, there arose on the other side no less a praise of the magnificence of the Almighty from both sexes; and although the sound was different, yet the intention of the exulting people was equal: for the jubilation of this wonder had not yet ended from their mouth, when behold, a certain man, openly before all, received with entire soundness, by the enriched bounty of the gift, the walking of which he had been frustrated for many days. And from there, when they had gone on a little, a certain woman obtained health of her hands. Which the surrounding company seeing, rendered countless thanks to the Lord, that He willed in such a manner to commend the most precious support of His Prelate [t].

Thou, whoever thou art who shalt gladly read through this book,

Say, O gentle God, have mercy on Rotfrid [u]; That as reward there may remain to the writer life everlasting By the merits of the kindly pontiff Remigius. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. So I corrected, since in our copy diu moram was certainly faultily read.

q. He speaks of Moses: read Exodus chapter 32.

r. Namely Clovis.

s. To complete the imperfect period, a few words being added, read thus: He placed him upon the candlestick, that he might show how great his merit was with Him to those growing torpid, etc.

t. In our copy suffragationis is wrongly read. And no more is read in it, besides the verses subjoined; so that I do not know whether the author ended here, or (which appears more probable) the scribe of the Prüm codex mutilated the author's Little Work in its last part. However it may be, we shall give the rest from Flodoard.

u. See my suspicion about Rotfrid in the preliminary Commentary, number 31.

* perhaps privaretur

TRANSLATIONS

By Flodoard,

From the History of the church of Reims, book 1, chapters 21 and 22.

Remigius, bishop of Reims, Apostle of the Franks, at Reims in Gallic Champagne. (S.)

BHL Number: 0000

By Flodoard.

The Saint's body laid down, for safety's sake, first at Épernay, then at Orbais And it came to pass ^a afterwards, the deserts of sins requiring it, that in the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCCLXXXII, under King Carloman, the aforesaid lord Archbishop Hincmar busying himself about it, the venerable pledge of the body of this most sacred father and our lord Remigius was translated (on account of the harassment of the pagans) to his villa already mentioned above, named Sparnacum; because the city of the Remi at that time did not have a wall in its circuit ^b. By whose influence the safety of the whole district at that time, to which this most beloved gift is held to have been carried, is proved to have been provided for from the invasion of barbarians or the incursion of robbers. Finally, after the death of the pontiff Hincmar, this longed-for treasure of sacred limbs is conveyed to the monastery of Orbais. Here too, by the suffrages of this our most blessed Patron, every favourableness of the air is attributed to the inhabitants dwelling round about, with unwonted fertility of the soil ^c.

[2] Fulk, Hincmar's successor, to the city of Reims But after the decease of the often-mentioned prelate Hincmar, when Fulk had undertaken the honour of the pontificate, in the first year of his prelacy he decided to bring back the kindly bones of this our most blessed Father. And when he set about this, as he was now arriving with his fellow-bishops and very many of the clergy at the place where the precious pledge was kept, although there was great serenity of the sky, but a very burning drought, suddenly so great a rain poured itself out that it seemed to have abundantly watered the surface of this whole land. But on the morrow, while they set forward to bring back the sacred gifts, all things are rendered bright, all pleasant, all delightful with worldly beauty; and, the peoples flowing together from all sides with prosperous progress, they come to the village of Calmiciacum, in which this eminent Father, while still enclosed in the flesh, is known to have shown some great works.

[3] solemnly brings it back. Here, laying down the venerable limbs in the church dedicated in his name, they relieve their weary bodies with the quiet of the night. After the help of rest, the radiance of the sun now illumining the lands, voices resound on all sides of those blessing God and praising Him that He was restoring to them bodily their own Pastor, Patron and protector, whom they trust that they always have as intercessor and constant advocate with the divine Clemency. The aforesaid prelate meanwhile, the sacraments of the heavenly mysteries having been duly celebrated, climbs with praises the ridges of the mountain close at hand, thronged on every side by the accompanying crowds of the peoples. Here, when he had poured forth prayer to the Lord for the offences of the people and the mitigation of the heavenly wrath, and they had gone on a little, Christ, disposing still to make clear, to make wonderful and to glorify on earth this our most blessed Father, whom He had chosen to magnify with the angels in heaven, decides to make known to the multitude running together how great is his merit with Him.

[4] On the way two blind men, three crippled in their limbs There approaches, then, a blind woman, named Doda, leaning on the hand of one guiding her steps; who, as soon as she hastens close, obtains before all that her sight be restored to her. Which the prelate hearing, filled with great joy, celebrates with the people a hymn of the praise of God. They had not yet finished the odes filling heaven with exultation, and behold a certain man, frustrated in walking for many days, comes forward rejoicing with entire soundness. They went on from there a little with praises; and a certain woman follows, having obtained health of her hands ^d. The accompanying columns, then, double and triple their thanksgivings. All those nearest, trembling at the greatness of the wonders, deliberate for a while to withdraw from the sublimity of so great a sanctity. Nor had the answering voice of those praising failed from their mouth, when a certain boy, Grimold by name, long deprived of sight, his mouth also miserably twisted from its right place, and disfigured by a hateful deformity, carried by his parents to meet it, obtained the former sight which he had long lost, and was wonderfully restored to his own likeness by the help of this most holy Father.

[5] are divinely cured, and the people therefore glorifying God, After the interval as it were of one hour, another boy was happily raised up from the contraction of his body by the suffrages of the same Patron. The devout company, then, by no means sufficing to resound with melodies the songs of David, moved by the greatest affection of heart, amid the voices of praises, joy drawing them forth, began to water their faces with outpoured tears, and to form sighs and sobs in place of canticles. The excessive crowding also of the throngs running together, desiring to kiss the casket bearing the sacred gift, began by their violent importunity to halt the steps of those carrying it. For the report of the wonders which were being done was growing widespread, and both the sound and those worn with diverse calamities strove eagerly to hasten, desiring to behold the great works which the Lord almighty had purposed to multiply in the glorifying of His Saint. For each reckoned it a great loss to himself, nay counted it a fault, not only if he did not go forth, but if he approached last. And the citizens hastening to meet it, when they see the welcome gifts being borne, prostrating themselves on the earth, kiss the surface of the ground ^e; and looking up, when they behold the casket, the bearer of the precious gem of the divine diadem, they pour forth many tears amid exceeding joys; beseeching that they may no longer be deemed to suffer the absence of the same Father, but may merit to rejoice in his perpetual presence.

[6] The most blessed Father meanwhile, favouring the devotion of his sons with illustrious signs, very many others, by various languors adds still further to gladden his people manifoldly with divine wonders. For while the clergy with the priests intone psalms, hymns and spiritual canticles, and the people also resound with voices of immense jubilation, so that they might proclaim with still more joyful minds God wonderful in His Saints, a multitude of the languishing is manifestly seen to recover their former health, very many being relieved from diverse pestilence of their bodies; and so much, almost at every moment, were heavenly miracles laid open, that they could scarcely be reckoned as countable for these intervals of places or times. Then, therefore, a certain woman, Osanna, to the wonder of those rejoicing, merited to recover her sight with swift prosperity. And after a little a certain lame man obtains walking by a happy gift. A certain Deodata, the doors of her ears being opened, obtains hearing. A certain man, named Teuto, obtains the desirable gift of illumination: likewise a certain woman rejoices, gladdened by the same benefit. Similarly Ausold also, with the sight which he burned with excessive desire to obtain, as he believed with faithful mind, enjoys the most loving suffrage of this Father. A certain Gerbert was healed of the dissolution of palsy: a certain other also exults here, having received the largess of the same gift.

[7] And when all, vying with one another with the zeal of pious devotion, strove to run to meet it, seized with diseases and infirmities and brought not only the intention of a kindly heart, but also the offering of temporal things, as each one's means allowed; a certain poor little woman, hastening from the city to meet it, carried in her hand a candle which had never been lit. Wonderful to say! suddenly from heaven, by divine command, the candle was lit in the hand of her who carried it; and while she carried it along the whole way, confessing the miracle of God, it by no means lost the benefit of the heavenly light, until the pledges of the wonderful Father were carried into the house of its own station, and here solemn Masses were celebrated by the Pontiff. Then the woman hands over the candle, blazing with the wonderful light, to the custodian of the basilica, who, for the joy of the heavenly grace which had befallen, orders all the lights which were seen to be burning throughout the church to be extinguished, and to be lit again with this light divinely given: and part of this candle he decides to be kept in testimony of the miracle given from heaven.

[8] A certain woman, Rotgardis, of the district of Castricium ^f, lacking the faculty of walking, are wonderfully healed around the sacred body: rejoices with the gift of former soundness; so that she, who had been brought on a wagon carrying her, was afterwards able to return home on her own feet. Moreover a certain woman brings with her a little girl of about six years

daughter, named Vulflidis; who, while one day she was playing with those of her age, had been struck on the head by some woman passing by chance. Hurt by which blow, so that her occiput seemed to stick bent back to her neck, nor could she bend her head to the other side; and she could take no sustenance of food except liquid: she had passed nearly a whole course of a year under such affliction. Her mother, loving her with tender affection, and anxious for the recovery of her health, strove to bring her to meet it. And while she could not approach near on account of the density of the multitude, she contrives to go a little ahead of the crowd. Soon, prostrating herself together with her offspring on the road by which the journey was to be made, supported by strong faith, she directs prayers to the Lord with devout mind. She had not yet ceased from prayer, and behold, her daughter began to cry out. And her mother, rising and looking at her that she might console her with maternal caresses, sees her head returned from its bending to its own straight line. Then, filled with excessive gladness, but also trusting in the health of her child, examining the place of the wound, she sees it wet with blood, and the sinews long contracted stretched out and extended like ropes. So, having received the blessing of mercy which she had sought, she returns home glad, with thanksgiving.

[9] Before the same, brought into the church, a woman by a dire evil, The company, then, thronged with this dignity of glorification and with wonder at the things done, and with the vow of rejoicing, was busy traversing with hymns and canticles the journey it had undertaken with the whole effort of fervour. The prelate indeed had gone ahead, but, having returned, the choirs of the clergy accompanying, he takes the most precious treasure on his own shoulders; and so bears it with great glory of jubilation to the Father's own house. But when they came into the church, the things which seemed fitting having been duly arranged, the immolation of the spiritual Victim having now been begun, a certain woman of the district of Troyes ^g, punished with a shaking of all her limbs, coming before the altar fell upon the pavement; and there, having been miserably vexed for a long time, by the compassion of this most loving Consoler she rises made sound. Who, questioned about the occasion of so great a calamity, confesses that she had committed the killing of her own mother. Finally, the solemnities of the Masses being carried out according to custom, each one seeks his own home, to return early on the morrow for bearing this defence of their protection into the city.

[10] [and another, while she makes her way to it with difficulty, are freed from palsy.] When morning had now come, while they were eagerly making for the appointed meeting, a certain woman Erluidis, living not far from the city, was preparing to go out to the spectacle of so great a procession, so that she might merit to enjoy the gift of desired health. And since, pressed by languor now for five years, she carried the right part of her body as though dead beforehand and almost useless, with what effort she could approach, she strives to move herself forward to see also the casket of this sacred gift. And when with such endeavour she had now traversed nearly half the space of this journey, unable to go further, she fell down, overcome with heavy toil. She thinks of returning home; but she could in no way accomplish this. And after she had lain for some time in this hesitation, at length, the daring of the effort being taken up again, she tries whether she can yet come a little nearer. And soon, the divine clemency having mercy, vigour is added to her feeble efforts, and, her strength being recovered with health, hastening with free speed, and dancing with excessive gladness, she began joyfully to hasten with agile gait whither, sick, she had determined to drag herself. Carrying in her hand also the staff, the solace of her infirmity, she completes the appointed journey; not that she needed its help any more, but that she might show it in testimony of this health given her. And arriving where she had desired, she joyfully renders devout thanks to her Intercessor; and leaving here the little staff she had brought, the solace of her former calamity, now brisk, and no longer in need of this help, she goes back over the road she had traversed, bringing back gladly the support of divine consolation she had sought.

[11] The pontiff, arriving, thronged by a column of clergy and great men, [While it is translated within the city into the cathedral church, very many are healed:] the Victim of salvation having been offered, clad in white vestments, with choirs of psalm-singers leads the most welcome treasure to the walls of the city. And while they were happily advancing thither and gladly making for the destined place, the Lord almighty in the glorifying of this His Dearest one deigned to pour forth abundantly the fountain of His kindness and largess; so that scarcely any tongue can utter the things which are proved to have been done on this journey through the almost momentary intervals of hours. For the Lord worked here on this day such a greatness of miracles that four men, and nine women, merited to recover sight; and two men also their walking. With the wonder of this illustrious rejoicing, then, they come into the city to the church of the Mother of God with most prosperous exultation: and so this lamp, shining and burning eternally, is set on the step of the altar. While the prelate, then, approaches to consecrate the gift of the life-giving mystery, who bore so iron a breast, so stony a heart, that he did not utter groans, beat his breast, pour out tears, while he beheld such astonishing gifts of divine charisms? For who could enumerate the abundance of wonders poured forth here from heaven on that day? No one in truth, who could avail to set forth in speech how many sick were healed, how many tottering were set upright, how many on that very day were here released from diverse disasters.

[12] Departing after the sacred rites of the mystic things were completed, all were hastening to go back to their homes: a storm suddenly arising is calmed: but while they were going away a menacing terror began to arise, most foul and terrible clouds to rise up, to close the sky with savage gloom, lightnings to flash, thunders to crash, and hail, not the smallest, to beat the ground. Struck by which terror very many returned, beseeching the clemency of the Most High, that by the intercession of this most blessed Father they might merit to be rescued from these impending dangers. In a wonderful manner the disturbance which had struck terror began to be changed, the darkness of the clouds to thin out, the lightnings to cease, the thunders to be mitigated, and the whole storm to be calmed and dispersed, and, the savage hail turned into a desirable rain, the surface of the earth, which was glowing, parched by the excessive heat of the sun, soaked with fruitful * moisture, is healthfully refreshed. And so it is given to be manifestly discerned that the commotion of indignation, stirred up for an hour, was changed into a support of salvation. Finally, by the solace of this most kindly Father, the corruption of the whole dire pestilence seems to have been banished from our borders: the air wholesome, the rain given seasonable; the fear also of the enemy, which had pervaded the kingdom, is gradually turned into hope of security by the tranquillity of peace.

[13] On this same aforesaid day, namely of the bringing of the sacred body into the city, on the same day a certain man, mute, deaf, weak in feet and hands, when the burning wheel of the sun was already seeking to be dipped in Ocean, a certain man named Nivolus, from the villa which is called Dominica, situated on the side of the mountain of the Remi, deaf and mute, weak also in his hands and feet for nine years, with what effort he could through the whole day, creeping from the very light of the rising dawn for about five thousand paces, at length scarcely reached, as it were at the tenth hour, the threshold of the very church of the tomb. And when on arriving he had found that the sacred body was not there, and saw the doors of the temple closed, their bolts diligently fastened, falling on his face upon the ground, with a certain importunity of presumption, he began to knock at the ears of sanctity with a secret cry; complaining that he was wearied with so great a toil; and that he would not be permitted even to see the casket bearing the sacred pledge, while yet he in no way distrusted that its lofty protection could succour him.

[14] [at the suburban church of the Saint, the body having now been taken thence, is made sound] While at last he was turning over such things in his mind, the vigour of health began gradually to creep through all his limbs, and at the same time he is amazed that he is recovering the former strength of all his senses. And when the rumour of such a working, certain people announcing it, struck the ears of very many, all run forward vying with one another, gladly behold the wonderful great works of God; triumphantly lead the man to the place of the venerable tomb, ring the bells, thunder praises to God with joyful voices. Very many, moved by the fame of this miracle, seek the house of the church, desiring to see the great works of God. Seeing, as they had heard, the signs of the divine powers, with hands gladly stretched to heaven they bless the Lord. Which miracle of the divine kindness is known to have been then of great profit for the solace of those who were complaining that they were bodily forsaken by so great a ^h Patron: to whom, however, he declared by such an indication of loving-kindness performed that he was not spiritually lacking.

[15] In the church also in which the body lay various people were healed, In the church also of the blessed Mother of God, where the venerable pledge of this Father was kept, a number of sick persons were meanwhile cured of diverse languors. For a certain man named Natalis of Burdenacum, a certain woman also called Teutberga, likewise another woman, named Gonthildis, merited by the patronage of this Father to recover sight. Another certain woman also recovered in the same house the lost sight of one eye. Moreover a certain girl, surnamed Flotgildis, from the villa which is called Caucella, situated beside the little river Libra, being about four years of age, having slipped and fallen, had weakened both her knees, and was made so lame that she could neither fix a step at all nor stand on her feet. Whom her parents, although poor, yet anxious for her health, took care to carry to the various churches of the Saints. But when for the space of nearly twelve years she was vexed with such bitterness of languor, and could find no remedy for her pain; learning of the bringing back of the sacred body and of the miracles of its works, she began to creep with what effort she could, nor did she allow herself to be placed in a carriage, but was eager to make that journey by dragging herself (as she could).

[16] among whom a girl lame in both knees. And arriving at the temple in which she had heard that the precious gift of salvation was, pouring out vows she beseeches the clemency of the Lord for her deliverance; and she is also said to have moistened the pavement with her own tears. And after she had done so for three days, while she was again applying herself to prayers, the divine grace coming upon her, scarcely able to bear the force of the medicine, she began to make a noise with loud cries and to utter bitter wailings. And so, the knots of her sinews being loosed, and every contraction of her hams relaxed, for the space of about one hour, exhausted of strength, she lay as though dead. But He who conferred the help of release added also the vigour of strength: and soon, as though awaking from a heavy sleep, when she felt that the heavenly benefit had come to her, she seeks the casket of the kindly pledge, by whose grace she did not hesitate that the remedy had befallen her. Then, giving thanks here, and gratefully deciding to live there, and applying herself to frequent prayers, she keeps the vigils due to her Healer, and offers daily the oblations of the saving libation.

[17] And that most sacred body of our most blessed patron Remigius was at Reims in the aforesaid church of the Mother of God, [It is brought back by Heriveus to its church, at which time a contracted man is healed,] while the aforementioned bishop, the lord Fulk, discharged the office of the prelacy; namely until the episcopate of the venerable Archbishop Heriveus ⁱ, who, the persecution of the Northmen ceasing, peace having been recovered by the sole clemency of God ^k, decided to bring back that same heavenly gift within the walls of its own burial ^l. And while he was hastening to do this, certain nobles of the kingdom having been called together ^m, the Lord did not delay to heap up the glorification of him who was seeking again the seat of his bones. For it came about, while he was thronged by a great crowd of the people flowing together, after they had gone out of the city, that a certain lame man, contracted also by the drying up of his sinews and hams, named Abraham, who, clinging to little stools, only dragged himself along the ground as he could; when, coming near the city,

he had begun to direct his way towards the basilica of the Saint, touched by divine power, the hardness of his joints being loosed, he began to be stretched out to the remedies of health.

[18] Whom, his health recovered, we saw for very many years sound, whom the author saw sound many years afterwards. walking upright, and rejoicing in the prosperity bestowed upon him. And in that place where this gift of health befell, there stands a column set up thereafter, with a cross fixed on it, containing the memorials of this glorification ⁿ. And both very frequently before and afterwards the church of his tomb is often adorned with most illustrious and manifold miracles, which are by no means held comprised in writing; for they are of many kinds.

ANNOTATIONS.

* perhaps fecundo?

THE DEDICATION OF THE CHURCH AND THE TRANSLATION OF THE BODY OF ST. REMIGIUS

Made by St. Leo IX, Pope. By Anselm, a contemporary monk of Reims, from Mabillon's Acts of the Saints, Sixth Century, part I.

Remigius, bishop of Reims, Apostle of the Franks, at Reims in Gallic Champagne. (S.)

BHL Number: 4825

By Anselm.

PROLOGUE

The author, commanded by his abbot to write, this Little Work To the brethren beloved in Christ, serving God under the protection of Blessed Remigius, the author ^a of the following Little Work wishes the great multitude of uncircumscribed sweetness which God has promised to those who fear Him. Since our life upon earth is a temptation, because it is pressed down by the weight of oldness, we ought to be lifted up to the joy of newness in the height of charity, which God has commended in us in the humility of His Only-begotten Son. Wherefore, at the command of the lord abbot Herimar ^b, I will not suffer the course of the dedication of the church of this most holy Father to be blotted out by silence: but since it was made by Pope Leo the ninth of blessed memory, God being the author, I shall the more hand it down to writing as worthy, according to the measure of my little talent. Whence first of all I shall touch briefly by whose industry the earlier church was built, and from what cause this one, which now, God being propitious, stands, took its beginnings, the former already threatening ruin from age.

[2] It is added also that, since on the occasion of this dedication many scandals were stirred up by ministers of the devil, he modestly commends to his brethren. and afterwards many useful things resulted from the synod celebrated there by the same Pope. Then at the end of this Little Work I shall subjoin the miracles wrought through the precious patron of the Franks, Remigius, after the dedication itself, which I learned either by sight or by hearing. But you, brethren, whom the fervour of sincere devotion makes to dwell with one mind in the divine house ^c, … receive this service, however small, with fraternal benevolence; nor will you consider in these things only the grace of a lovely and polished speech: whence let it not irk you to read this sometimes; because, although you have very many vessels of gold and silver in the house of your God, from which you draw the grand speeches and most sweet draughts of the Holy Spirit; yet sometimes this water, although from an earthen vessel, may refresh you.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

The new basilica of St. Remigius, begun by the abbots Airard and Theodoric, is completed by Herimar: St. Bruno, bishop of Toul, designated supreme Pontiff, promises that he will dedicate it, for the sake of which he afterwards returns from Rome into Gaul.

The church formerly built by Archbishop Hincmar The basilica, then, distinguished by the body of the glorious confessor of Christ Remigius, which lasted up to these modern times, begun formerly by the zeal of the archbishops of Reims, and completed by Hincmar of venerable memory, their successor, was dedicated by him in the year of the Incarnate Word eight hundred and fifty-two ^a. Which indeed was not made solid with the strength of a very laborious building, since the barbarous nations infesting this province at that time hindered the aforesaid prelates from such an intention by frequent incursion; whence within a hundred and fifty-two years it was so worn with age that, now approaching its fall, it seemed to demand its repair. But in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand and five, and the sixty-second after the repair of monastic religion made there by Hugh the pseudo-bishop ^b, there was ordained for the same place by Archbishop Arnulf Abbot Airard, a man of special goodness and vigorous in the cenobitic life *, the sixth in order after Hincmar ^c.

[2] Abbot Airard dies while restoring it: meanwhile St. Remigius This Airard, when he considered with sagacious mind that many pastors of the Lord's flock had shone forth through the Gauls in his age, who had striven to reform their churches from decay into a better state, determined himself also to apply his effort to the renewal of that which had been committed to him. Wherefore, men who were reported skilled in architecture having been called in, he began to raise from the foundations the fabric of the future temple of squared stones, much more laborious indeed than those which, as * has been noted, were renewed in the Gallic kingdom, and more ambitious; and therefore not to be completed by himself and the men of that age. For when he had administered the pastoral office for about twenty-eight years ^d, worn out with old age, and not putting an end to the work he had begun, he departed this life. In his time, then, the divine power declared itself at the tomb of Blessed Remigius by very many miracles, two of which, which I saw as a boy, I have thought it worth while to insert into this narrative. For your love ought to grant pardon if, besides the things which the Prologue promised, I insert some things, which yet, if you know them, will not be useless.

[3] shines with miracles, among which two contracted men In the villa of St. Denis the martyr, which is called Curtis-superior ^e, there was a certain beggar pressed, by the hidden judgment of God, by the misfortune of so great a calamity that his feet denied him the support of walking, and his heels, bent backwards, clung to his buttocks as though naturally. Whence, not being able, as is the custom of other contracted persons, to drag himself along the ground with stools to beg, he was led round by his brother in a certain vehicle through holy places, both for the sake of asking alms and of recovering health. Wherefore it came about that he was brought also to the basilica of our often-to-be-mentioned protector Remigius, and at the hour at which the sacred solemnities of Masses were being celebrated, was carried by that same brother of his before the holy altar. And when that incorruptible Banquet was now being received by the ministers, from that unfailing fountain of mercies the gift of health flowed forth. His heels began in a moment to be torn away from the hinder parts on which they had been fixed, and, returning by divine command to their fitting order, streams of blood flowed thence in token of the miracle: which great works of God the brethren who were present considering, the bells being rung, they sing devout praises to the working Majesty.

[4] the author records to have been suddenly healed in the same church in his time. Devotion grows upon devotion, and the power of the Almighty declares the merits of His beloved Remigius by a corresponding miracle. For after the same poor man stood upon his feet, gradually strengthened, behold, another contracted man was coming, dragging himself on little stools, who, having learned of the novelty of the Lord's work upon the invalid, entered hastily, that he too might merit to enjoy the benefit of recovered health. Nor did the hope of the hastening man long prove vain; but before he reaches the tomb of the Saint, the desired health was present; the sinews beneath the knees, which, long since drawn back, had grown rigid, are stretched out; he who had come bent strives at the office of the feet, long unaccustomed, the heavenly grace raising him up, and enters to give thanks before the sacred limbs of him through whose intervention health came to him. The assembly of the brethren seeing these things redoubles the divine praises, and those who, placed nearby,

hear these things, flow together eagerly to so pleasant a spectacle. They behold two needy men, a little before fettered by the misery of human corruption, although unequal, there set free; and thence, praising together God wonderful in His Saints, they return gladly to their homes. And one of them, who had been released from the greater misfortune, bound fast by a special love for his Intercessor, persevered until death in the services of the monastery; but the other, affording help to the bakers for some time, at length departed.

[5] These things, then, being left, that we may return to the course of the narrative proposed, Abbot Theodoric, Airard's successor, the restoration of the church to Abbot Airard, taken from life as has been said, succeeded Theodoric, ordained there by Wido ^f, archbishop of Reims. He, when he determined to arrange very many things that would be of profit to the advantage of the church, deliberated to put the hand of completion to the repair of his church, which his predecessor had begun. But since that undertaking was too heavy and not to be fulfilled by him, his deliberation too, if he aimed to fulfil it, seemed not about to have effect. Wherefore, using the counsel of those who were held more prudent among those committed to him, and of the elders of the province of Reims, he with difficulty set about pulling down the work begun: which being almost pulled down, and certain foundations being left which seemed to the architects to be necessary for the future buildings, he began to build the divine house with an easier structure indeed, but not a less seemly one, as it is easy for those who apply their eyes to discern. Which being happily begun in the fifth year of his ordination, many Catholic men were kindled with the fervour of divine religion, so that for the abolition of their crimes and for the rest of their parents, whose bodies were buried there, they strove to furnish, as far as they could, worthy supports for that work.

[6] Some also of the ecclesiastical household bestowed their help with ready benevolence, otherwise promotes; to whom, meanwhile dying, and with their wagons and oxen brought loads suited to so great undertakings; and so, foundations being laid in the places where there were none, and columns from the demolished former building being fittingly disposed, arches diligently turned began to rise upon them, and the fabric of the basilica began to shine forth between the hands of the craftsmen. Then, the walls of the porches having now been raised on every side, and the roofs of the inner temple lifted higher, the old church, anciently dedicated by Archbishop Hincmar, as has been said, was overturned from its foundations, and meanwhile a little covering of mean roof was built over the choir of the brethren, where they could give themselves to the divine praises without disturbance of winds and rains. And over the tomb of Blessed Remigius a crypt was built, small indeed, and therefore unsuited to the whole * body of it, yet beautifully supported by columns and arches. For the aforesaid abbot, standing by as a constant exhorter, strove with all his might that the same work should rise to the summit of its completion in the time of his life, and burned with the greatest desire that, the Roman Pope being summoned into the Gauls, if he could in any way, he might cause it to be consecrated with the Apostolic blessing. Which, although it proceeded from the affection of a pious will, yet the divine disposition, deferring it, reserved it to his successor to be carried out. For, overtaken by an untimely death, he closed his last day, leaving the misfortune of the greatest grief to those who loved him, having completed eleven years and eight months in the rule of the monastery ^g; who, as he was strong in a generosity descended from his forefathers, flourished also in an eminent nobility of morals, humbling himself with special mildness to those who showed him reverence, cherishing with devoted devotion his subjects, and especially the lovers of holy religion, affable to all great and least; and therefore lovable to very many of the nobles of the Franks, he exalted, and wished to exalt, as far as he could, the honour of the church entrusted to him.

[7] Herimar, substituted, completes the same, and from St. Bruno, But since the occasion of death intervening took away the effect of his pious will, while still living * he chose as his successor the provost of the same place, Herimar [h] by name: for he believed that he would vigorously fulfil what he had had in desire, who had been his helper and co-worker before all in the execution of the aforesaid work, and had furnished very great supports from the revenue of the villas committed to his providence. He, then, substituted in place of the deceased father by the unanimous judgment of almost all the brethren, by the ordination of the aforementioned Wido, archbishop of the Remi, did not long suffer the memorable undertaking of his predecessor to hang interrupted; but first indeed he caused the right cross-arm of the basilica, for the greatest part already begun, and the left, having as yet nothing but its foundations, to be built, with spiral stairs ⁱ by which there should be ascent to the upper parts. And the crypt which had been built over the tomb of Blessed Remigius, since, as was related above, it seemed by its smallness unsuited to the rest of the work, he caused to be pulled down, and another more eminent one to be put in its place. Then, beams having been brought from the forest situated next to the monastery of Orbais ^k, the roofs of the same temple follow, and so the whole house appeared most seemly in its parts.

[8] the bishop of Toul, designated to the supreme Pontificate by the emperor, Wherefore the same Abbot Herimar began to treat with prudent counsel with certain wise men of the province of Reims, how he might cause the same to be consecrated with the Apostolic blessing, namely that he might satisfy the devout desire of his predecessor; and that he might not lack the means of carrying out what he wished, the graciousness of the divine disposition offered an opportunity of time. For Pope Damasus having died, who had been bishop in the city of Brixen, which is in the province of Istria, and, enthroned in the Apostolic see, had lived there only thirty days ^l; the Romans, an embassy concerning his death having been directed to the emperor Henry ^m, asked that another should be substituted by him for the Church widowed of its Pastor. He, seeking the counsel of the bishops and great men of his empire on this business, found that, among others, the lord Bruno ⁿ, prelate of Toul, was fit to undertake the same office; inasmuch as he seemed conspicuous by maturity of age and by the brilliance of morals and learning, and was near to himself by affinity of blood. Whence the insignia of the Apostolic dignity were adjudged to him, and he was ordered by the august one to visit the Roman walls to receive these according to the ecclesiastical sanctions; but since the solemnities of the Lord's Nativity were at hand, he arranged to celebrate them with the clergy of whom he had been pastor, and, having celebrated them, to go whither he had been commanded.

[9] The acquaintance of this Pontiff, then, the aforementioned Abbot Herimar had obtained at a conference held not long before [he asks that, if he returns into Gaul, he consecrate the church; which he having promised,] by the aforesaid emperor and the king of the Franks ^o for the sake of confirming peace and friendship, from whom also he had received a promise that in the next Lenten fast he would visit the tomb of Blessed Remigius without the help of a horse; because, when at one time, carrying the familiar messages of the same kings between them, he had passed through the neighbouring region, he had neglected to visit the place of the Saint himself for the sake of prayer. Which the same abbot sagaciously recalling in mind, directing his writings, suggests to him that, since he is arranging to go to Rome for the office of the Apostolic primacy delegated to him, if ever he should be recalled to his kindred borders by a certain advantage of the Church, the promise made by him to the Apostle of the Franks should not be made void. And he sends as a gift a vessel suitable for drinking, most seemly decorated with gold within and without, intimating to him with a petition his desire concerning the dedication of the church of the Saint himself. To this the same bishop kindly replies that, even if no other advantage of the Church should call him back, he would return to the Gauls for the love of St. Remigius alone, and would dedicate his basilica, if the divine kindness should assent.

[10] Having celebrated, then, in the see of the city of the Leuci [p] two days of the Lord's Nativity, he goes to Rome and is ordained Pontiff: thence he seeks the Gauls again, on the third, bidding farewell to his clergy, he sets out to take the road leading to Rome. Arriving there, he is honourably received with the favour of the whole people, and is distinguished with the insignia of the Apostolic dignity at the Hypapante of the Lord, is enthroned in the Chair of Blessed Peter, and is named Pope Leo in the Roman manner [q]… And some course of time having slipped by, both the promise made to Blessed Remigius and his concern for the orthodox faith, grown so lukewarm in those parts, persuade him to revisit the Gallic soil. Whence, having sought leave of the Romans, making his way through certain cities of Latium, he arranges in them many things suited to ecclesiastical seemliness, and at length goes to the emperor Henry, staying in the Saxon region [r]. Meanwhile the aforementioned abbot, certain from the promise of the Pope himself that he would obtain his desire, goes to meet the king of the Franks [s], coming to Laon, at the solemnity of Pentecost, and seeks his counsel and favour concerning the consecration of the aforesaid temple with the Apostolic blessing, admonishing and asking that he show his presence at these proceedings, and cause the bishops and princes of his kingdom to be present with him. To whom the same king at present * assented with kindly mind, and asserts that, unless the chance of some hindrance should intervene, he would be present at so great a festivity.

[11] Gladdened by which promise the abbot returns, and thence goes to meet the Pope, coming to Cologne with the emperor on the feast-day of the Apostles Peter and Paul, about to dedicate the church of St. Remigius at Reims and to hold a synod, from whom he inquires more diligently the time and order of his coming to the soil of Reims, and of the things to be done there. And he, informing him, discloses how he had first deliberated that he would come thither on the eighth day from the festivity of the Saint himself, which is held most celebrated on the Kalends of October, and, dedicating his monastery, would afterwards celebrate there a synod gathered from the bishops of Gaul. Which judgment being changed, he declares that he will come to the same place on the solemnity of St. Michael the archangel [t], and will celebrate the sacred rites of Masses on the same day in the church of Blessed Mary at Reims; but he assigns the feast of the glorious father Remigius to the elevation of his precious body, the following day to the consecration of the basilica, and the other three days thereafter to the celebration of the synod.

[12] Having heard which things, the abbot returned to his monastery, and directed his writings through Francia and the provinces adjoining it, inviting the faithful of holy Church to which he convokes bishops and abbots. to run together with most ready mind to the participation of so great a joy, both for the love and veneration of the same Patron, and that they might merit to be fortified with the Apostolic blessing. And the Pope, having departed from Cologne, came to Toul on the Exaltation of the Lord's Cross [u], and thence ordered the bishops and abbots of the surrounding regions to be commanded by letters of his authority that on the appointed day they should meet him to celebrate a synod in the basilica of the aforesaid Apostle of the Franks; that in the presence of him through whom they were initiated in the rudiments of the orthodox faith they might obtain the repair of the divine religion grown lukewarm in them. The pious devotion of the faithful rejoices at such mandates, preparing itself zealously to fulfil what is promulgated to it by the edict of the Apostolic dignity.

[13] Certain men, conscious of their guilt, try to persuade the king of Gaul But the venomous serpent, who from the beginning of the world gapes for the ruin of the human race, strives to oppose the obstacle of his devising to so salutary a purpose. For to fulfil the will of his perfidy he stirs up certain powerful laymen, who, giving themselves to incestuous marriages, and entangling themselves in the wicked practices of other crimes, were violators of ecclesiastical seemliness; and therefore they feared to bring the hiding-places of their guilt into the light. But he also joins to them some bishops and abbots, who had broken into the Lord's sheepfold some other way, not by the door, and in their churches the sanctions of the Catholic Fathers

had permitted certain contrary things to spring up, which they feared would be made manifest, to be cut away by the examination of the synod agreed upon. For as it is written: "Every one that doeth evil hateth the light"; and therefore he applies more and more the clouding of concealment to his sins. Men of such perversity, then, instructed by the crafty suggestion of their instigator, suggest to the king of the Franks that the glory of his kingdom would be brought to nothing if he permitted the authority of the Roman Pontiff to hold sway in it; or if, meeting him as he had decreed, he showed the favour of his presence for the assembling of a council. They add also that none of his predecessors is found ever to have granted that entry into the cities of Francia should lie open to any Pope for a similar cause [x]: and that times of peace and tranquillity are suited to the doing of these things, but the state of his kingdom is in no small disturbance, certain powerful men refusing the yoke of his dominion, and alienating lands and castles whatever from his jurisdiction.

[14] so as to hinder both; but the Pontiff holds to his undertaking, Wherefore they say that it befits the royal dignity to provide by his wisdom for the advantage of the commonwealth, rather than to attend to synods; to move his princes and the power of his whole army against the rebels; they judge too that the bishops and abbots themselves, with whom is the greatest part of the resources of the kingdom, ought not to be exempt from this expedition. Before others the abbot of St. Remigius; whom they slandered as having, as though presuming on the abundance of his resources, called in the Pontiff of the city of Rome to consecrate his monastery for the love of vainglory. By this shifty persuasion, then, the king was softened, and, bent from his honest purpose into the byways of seduction, sends word to the Pope through the bishop of Senlis [y] that he and his pontiffs with the abbots are compelled to repress the obstinacy of those resisting him, and therefore cannot meet him at the appointed term for holding the council. Whence let him defer his coming into Francia to another time, when, such business being finished, he may receive him with due honour. To this the Pope sends back word that he cannot make void the promise made to blessed Remigius, but would without doubt come to dedicate his basilica, where, if any lovers of divine religion should assemble, he would hold the business of a synod with them.

[15] The report of this mandate being brought to the king, [and the abbot of St. Remigius, leave having been obtained from the king, prepares everything for the matter.] he nevertheless sets out on the journey against the rebels, the huge force of his army having been gathered into one. And the bishops too, and most of the abbots, going thither against their will, those perverse rulers of churches also thrusting themselves forward into that business of their own accord, who, that they might escape the vicar of the supreme Pastor coming to examine their acts, had laboured with deadly artifice to contrive that same expedition. Along with them is brought also the aforementioned abbot of St. Remigius, very sad and groaning, as though he were not about to see the effect of his desire. But the power of divine consolation was not lacking to his sorrow: for scarcely was a journey of one day and a half completed, when leave to return was granted him. He, having returned most swiftly, seeks the Roman Bishop, still tarrying at Toul, and learning that he had not changed, for the royal mandates, the purpose he had long since conceived, returned rejoicing to the monastery, busying himself urgently to prepare the things which would be necessary for the gathering of so great a Father and of the sons of holy Church flowing together. For already the end of the days was near which had been assigned for the completion of the above-mentioned arrangement.

ANNOTATIONS.

Airard's epitaph agrees, which in Marlot, volume 1, page 351, has thus: For eight and twice ten years he ruled the fold here. Further, if we add 28 complete years to the year of Christ 1005, we shall arrive only at the year 1033: nevertheless both Marlot in the same place and Mabillon, volume 4 of the Annals, page 408, referred the death of the same Airard to the year 1036. See the cited Gallia Christiana.

Herimar in his epitaph in Marlot, page 352, is written to have ruled the Remigian abbey for a thousand three hundred courses of weeks, seven being added. He presided, then, for twenty-five years, as Marlot rightly noted in the same place; who, since he says moreover that the same man died in the year 1071 on the 7th day of September, the beginning of his rule will have to be sought from the year 1046, and Theodoric will have to be said (if he truly died in the year 1048) to have lived two years after he had abdicated his prelacy in favour of Herimar, or had appointed him as his colleague or successor.

o. He was Henry I.

p. That is, of Tullum, in French Toul, which is the city of the Leuci, and over which he himself presided as bishop.

q. St. Bruno was indeed elected Pontiff at Rome by the clergy and people at the Hypapante of the Lord, or on the 2nd day of February of the year 1049, but first enthroned on the 12th day of the same month, as may be seen in our work in the place just cited. In Mabillon there follow here a few things about his first deeds at Rome, which, as contributing nothing to our argument, I have passed over here.

r. Concerning this journey, which he undertook in the same year 1049, and the things done on it, consult, if you please, our Henschen in the preliminary Commentary, §2, and the Life by Wibert, his archdeacon, given in the same place, book 2, chapter 3.

s. To Henry I, as has just been said.

t. That is, on the feast of the Apparition of Michael the archangel on Mount Gargano, which is celebrated on the 29th day of September.

u. The memory of the Exaltation of the holy Cross, when it was recovered from Persia by the emperor Heraclius, is kept on the 14th day of September.

x. That this was falsely alleged by those malevolent men our Longueval notes, volume 7 of the History of the Gallican Church, page 311.

y. He was Frollandus I, who was present at the synod of Reims then held by St. Leo, as we shall see below. And Silvanectum, commonly Senlis, is a city of Gaul in the province of the Île-de-France, having an episcopal see suffragan to the metropolitan of Reims.

* add instituto

* read quas

* toti

* Marlot juvenem

* faceret

* otherwise preces

CHAPTER II.

The solemn arrival of St. Leo IX, Pope, at Reims: the body of St. Remigius translated by him; the church dedicated, and other things done there: his devotion towards St. Remigius, proved also by a miracle.

St. Leo is most solemnly escorted to the monastery of St. Remigius, At length the lord Pope, departing from the city of the Leuci, took the road leading to the city of Reims, and, lodging being taken in suitable places each night, on the vigil of the festivity of St. Michael he came to the villa of Curmolum ^a; and the aforesaid abbot, meeting him there, furnished abundantly to him and all his retinue whatever necessary use required. And on the following day he came to Saint-Remi, accompanied by three archbishops, namely of Trier, of Lyons, of Besançon [b], and other honourable men, among whom was John, bishop of Porto, and Peter, deacon of the Roman Church, and prefect of the city itself. Here forthwith the whole congregation of the brethren is gathered into one, and with them a countless assembly of abbots, monks, clerics, who had already flowed together from many parts; of all of whom a most seemly procession is arranged in the court of the basilica, three bishops, namely of Senlis, of Angers, of Nevers ^c, going before the ranks set out at length, and carrying the text of the Gospel with holy water and the fragrance of spices. So arranged, then, they receive the Pope on his arrival, and as he enters the church the Responsory Lætentur

cæli they sing with fitting modulation, and while he prays before the altar of the holy Cross, they finish singing another Responsory, namely Summæ Trinitati.

[17] And when he had advanced as far as the altar of St. Christopher, and had completed his prayer before the tomb of the venerable Apostle of the Franks, again they jubilate the hymn Te Deum laudamus with harmonious outcry of voices. [and after pouring out prayers there, to the basilica of Blessed Mary within the city;] And he, sitting a little while on a seat fittingly prepared for him, gladdened those standing by with the Apostolic blessing; and going out thence, he is escorted by the same choirs of psalm-singers with divine praises as far as the walls of the city. And the clergy of Reims, going forth to meet him with their archbishop [d] and certain other bishops, arranges the numerous ranks of a splendid procession in the court of St. Denis the martyr [e], where, singing canticles suited to the reception of so great a Pontiff, it accompanies him as far as the church of St. Mary with the glory of the greatest jubilation. There, having completed his prayer before the altars of the holy Cross and of the same Mother of God, he sat a little while on the archiepiscopal throne, the archbishop of Reims at his right hand, and the one of Trier sitting at his left. Then, the ministers of the altar having been prepared, each according to the fitness of their offices, he himself too, crowned with the priestly insignia, went forth to celebrate the solemnities of Masses. Which being completed, and the people standing by being fortified with the Apostolic blessing, the aforesaid archbishop of the Remi furnishing the necessary expenses for him and his, he took refreshment in the greater palace situated next to the church.

[18] [on the next day he returns to St. Remigius, an innumerable multitude of the people] But on the following day, fearing lest he be hindered by the crowd of the peoples flowing round, accompanied only by two chaplains, while the night vigils were being completed by the brethren, he returned to Saint-Remi, and, a bath having been made for him, was washed and shaved, as one who, about to celebrate on the morrow the impending solemnity of so great a Father, was arranging to translate the venerable pledge of so precious a gem: and a certain house contiguous to the church having been prepared for him, he sought there a privacy for staying; because he feared to go out into public. For to the tomb of the Saint, stirred up as though from the whole world, such a number of men were flowing together that the capacity of the spacious temple scarcely sufficed for those entering. For there flew thither, as much from the neighbouring as from distant regions, countless persons of both sexes; rough Francia poured forth, to the honour of its glorious Apostle, villagers ^f, townsmen and citizens; and Gaul too, from almost all its parts, sent thousands of peoples hither [g]. Among whom noble columns of bishops, abbots, monks, clerics hastened. The ignoble did not know how to yield to the noble, or the needy to the rich, but all ran together in a mass with one devout intention, and, imprinting sweet kisses on the tomb containing the heavenly pearl, each one offered the gifts of his oblations as he could. But those who, repelled by the violence of those crowded together, could not approach nearer, alas! how much groaning that they were deprived of the effect of their desire, throwing from afar the gifts which they had brought, overwhelmed the Saint's tomb with pious devotion, as though with stones.

[19] running together to the solemnity and to the holy Pontiff, Now there is before the doors of that basilica a certain spacious court, in which, whenever it could not endure its own density, the crowd of such great assemblies spread itself out, led thither by eagerness to see the very vicar of Blessed Peter: for after gaining the suffrage of Blessed Remigius it gaped with the utmost eagerness for the sight of him; who, that he might satisfy the great-hearted longing of those desiring him, seeking a more eminent balcony of the house in which he was staying, whence he could both behold those standing by and be seen by them, and be heard when speaking, gladdened them with the Apostolic blessing, and, these withdrawing, and others and yet others filling that * court by crowds, imparting three times on the same day the salutary admonitions of his exhortation, he made clearly known what things were to be avoided, and what things were to be sought by them for the salvation of their souls. Finally, in the same house he caused the sacred mysteries to be celebrated for him, because no suitable place was given anywhere for entering the church, nor were the brethren themselves able, on account of the importunity of the throngs, to discharge there the accustomed task of the divine Office.

[20] Night meanwhile coming on, and yet the abundance of those flowing together not thinning, and by night keeping vigil with candles outside the church. but growing thicker and thicker, the lord Pope, fearing lest those serving God in the sacred vigils should be hindered by the importunity of the people from carrying out the solemnities of the divine service, and also lest the opportunity of translating the precious body of the Saint himself and of dedicating the church should be prevented, through his clerics delegated to the aforementioned abbot of the same place commanded that the spacious temple be wholly emptied, and, the doors being diligently locked, that the means of entering be shut off from all. He commanded also that it be announced to the people on his part that they should withdraw for the hour, and without any disturbance of their onrush permit the solemn watches of that night to be celebrated with fitting devotion by those serving God; he promises that on the following day he would without doubt satisfy their desires and expose to their sight the desirable treasure which they were seeking; but if they refused to assent to his commands, he would withdraw, the business for which he had come being undone. When this had at length been obtained with the greatest difficulty, most of the multitude of the peoples, however, keeping watch outside with abundant lights, awaiting the effect of the same promise, the church being lit within with the abundance of candles as though with the manifold splendour of stars, the choirs of those serving God passed the spaces of that night most fittingly in spiritual canticles.

[21] And when morning came, there was received by the lord Pope within the church the holy martyr Cornelius [h], [On the third day the Pontiff, the people still being shut out, entering the church,] whom, with other pledges of Saints, the clerics of Compiègne had brought thither on account of the many violences which their church was suffering from certain evildoers. Then about the third hour ⁱ the same Apostolic one, crowned with the priestly insignia, proceeds to the tomb of the glorious father Remigius with censers [k] and crosses, four archbishops being associated with him, namely of Reims, of Trier, of Lyons, of Besançon, with certain others, and also the abbot of the place itself, and the lord Hugh ^l, venerable father of the monastery of Cluny, and very many of that Order; with whom, a litany ^m having been made, and no small fragrance of incense having been kindled over the holy body, he sang the Responsory Dirigatur oratio mea; which, with its verse, being completed, he moved the bier of the Saint a little from its place, that, fitted to prepared appliances, it might be rendered handy for carrying, and sang the antiphon Confessor Domini Remigi.

[22] And when it had been suitably arranged, as the matter required, he carries the body of the Saint on his shoulders and exposes it, he himself before others, with the aforesaid archbishops and abbots, putting his shoulders under it, devoutly weeping, carried it forth and began the Responsory Iste est de sublimibus, following whose voice the choirs of psalm-singers, triumphing, burst forth into a dance of jubilation, and for the eagerness of heart, O how many faces of those weeping did the overflow of tears water! how many minds were pricked into the sighs of blessed groans to gain the suffrages of so great a Father! And the lord Pope, handing over the same precious treasure to the wishes of those thrusting themselves forward of their own accord, withdrew from the disturbance of the crowds into the oratory of the holy Trinity, which had been fittingly built towards the southern quarter within the circuit of the church itself by the zeal of a certain Harduin ⁿ, a monk of that place, containing the Lord's sepulchre, elegantly represented after the likeness of that one at Jerusalem in which our salvation rested. This, then, he caused the archbishop of Trier to consecrate in his presence on the same day, with the consent of the aforesaid archbishop of the Remi, relics of many Saints having been brought together there.

[23] which, the people being admitted, is borne to the city, At length, the doors of the monastery being opened, when that heavenly gem was exposed to the gaze of the longing peoples, then indeed you might have seen the mingled common people clapping their hands for excessive exultation, countless persons bursting forth into divine praises with rejoicing outcry, the powerful, the powerless, the noble, the ignoble, each one striving to the utmost according to his strength, that he might merit to touch more nearly joys so longed for. Great faith, without doubt to be rewarded with a great prize, which, lest it be rendered without share in so great a benefit, is not called back even by the danger of impending death! For some, headlong for excessive haste of their desire, falling among the crowded wedges, unable to rise, perish suffocated and trampled. The case of the precious body is snatched and tossed rather than carried, the throng of so many thousands driving it on from every side, like a ship tossed hither and thither by the violence of the sea's waves: now these, now those, by wresting them, claim for themselves happy gifts; and, that many things may be concluded in a few words, and the attention of readers may not fail through long circumlocutions, through the whole interval which lies between the city and the fortress of the Saint himself so pleasant a contention is carried on.

[24] where in the basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary, honoured that day and night, The clergy of Reims is present with a multitude of citizens, labouring to carry its Apostle to the walls of its own city, whom, scarcely torn away from the density of such an onrush, it brings into the church of the holy Mother of God [o], so that to her, for whom, while living in the body, by the worthy labours of the present life, he had procured many advantages, and had added the fitting insignia of the Catholic religion, the presence of his bones might show, even for the little delay of one night, exultation and sanctification together. Having placed him, then, upon the altar of the holy Cross, the archbishop of Besançon, proceeding to the altar of Blessed Mary, celebrated with the same clergy the solemnities of Masses of the festivity of the glorious Father himself. And these being completed, while the devotion of those running together gathers more and more, the course of the day meanwhile having elapsed, night follows, by whose darkness, however, the sanctuaries of that basilica are in no way made obscure. The lights of so many rejoicing assemblies, bearing as it were their own day, gleam on every side. The monks there keep watch around their Patron in glad vigils and complete the course of matins with twelve Lessons and their Responsories.

[25] the next day it is borne most solemnly around the circuit of the city. After whom the canons take up the same vigils to be solemnly carried out, and, completing the Offices of matins with nine Lessons, they prolong them until light. Who, morning having come, singing Prime, Terce, and the Mass with the Hour of Sext before the accustomed times, carry forth the venerable body with divine praises from the church of the blessed Mother of God. Which, bearing it with gladness around the circuit of the city, they make fitting stations at appointed spaces. And when they had come to that place where there had once been a gate, called by the ancient name of Patens Open, through which the same Saint, while still living in the flesh, by his prayers drove out the enemy of the human race, raging in the same city with visible destructions of fire [p]; there they lay down the same precious limbs, and celebrate the memory of that miracle with fitting devotion and spiritual canticles. As a memorial of which deed a basilica has been built there in modern time, which a certain servant of God, named Constantius, elegantly put together at his own expense [q], and gathered servants of God for its service, as many as he could, while he lived, and caused it to be consecrated in honour of St. Mary Magdalene and Saint Remigius.

[26] While, then, that circuit is being made outside the walls of the city, [Meanwhile the Pontiff, the doors being shut, consecrates the church of St. Remigius,] the lord Pope, the bishops having been called together within the hidden parts of the monastery to be dedicated, assigned to each one an altar to consecrate; but he appointed the archbishop of Reims to make the threefold circuit outside, with crosses and relics of the Saints according to the ecclesiastical order, and there to fulfil the office of consecration: but he himself, remaining within with those necessary to him, the sanctification of the divine tabernacle

he carries out vigorously and diligently. After, then, they had come to that point where, according to the decrees of the orthodox Fathers, the pledges of the Saints and all sacred things must be received within the dedicated church, the aforesaid canons, as has been said, having carried the body of Blessed Remigius around the circuit of the city and of the fortress and of the township adjoining it, came with it as far as the gates of the monastery, where the crowd of so many thousands had grown so great that by their density the glorious Father himself was shut off from the leave of entering the house prepared for him. For the Pope himself had forbidden those doors to be unbarred, lest the onrush of those rushing in with the same Saint should be both a peril to himself and a hindrance to the completion of the dedication begun. Wherefore some by-way is sought by which he might be let in, and at length, scarcely drawn away from the disturbance of the crowds, he is let down through the window which is above the oratory of the holy Trinity.

[27] Whom the lord Apostolic one, receiving him with the greatest devotion and spiritual canticles, and places his body, let in through a window, upon the altar; did not for the present lay again in his own place, but placed him upon the principal altar, which he had consecrated in honour of the apostles Peter and Paul, and of the martyrs Clement and Christopher, and of Blessed Remigius; and for the sake of what thing he had decided to do this, he subjoined a sentence of reasoning worthy of memory: namely that he might appear evident and conspicuous to all eyes in the synod to be celebrated, in which, if any erring person should presume to assert anything frivolous or adverse to ecclesiastical religion, the Man of God might exhibit towards him, through the presence of his body, the potency of that power which, while still living in the world, he exhibited towards the Arian heretic, who, when in an assembly of bishops he was striving to overcloud the light of the Catholic faith with the shadow of his cloudy dogma, at his coming he deprived by divine power of the office of voice: but a little after, when he acknowledged his guilt with humble satisfaction, he transferred him, endowed with health of soul and body, to the sons of adoption [r]. Which intention of the Pope, as he concluded, proceeding from a heavenly prompting, in no way lacked effect, as this Little Work will declare in its place [s]. He celebrates Mass, preaches, institutes an annual feast,

[28] For this cause, then, the body of Blessed Remigius being so placed, all * the columns of bishops, abbots, monks, clerics being most seemly disposed through the choirs, the same Pontiff celebrated the solemnities of Masses of the festivity of the Dedication; and, the Gospel having been read, ascending the pulpit, he made a sermon of exhortation to the people standing round, who in great numbers, the doors of the monastery (as has been said) being locked, had made themselves an entrance by breaking in through the windows. To whom, having preached many useful things from the sanctification of that temple, he commanded that that day be kept as a feast throughout the confines of the bishopric of Reims, condemning with the penalty of anathema all those who should inflict the vexations of any hindrance upon those flowing together every year to the same place for the sake of this solemnity, or returning thence.

[29] [he establishes a privilege for the altar, dismisses the people, proclaims the synod.] He ordained also that at the altar which, as has been said before, he had consecrated in honour of the apostles Peter and Paul, of the martyrs Clement and Christopher, and of the glorious confessor Remigius, the most holy mysteries should not be performed indiscriminately by anyone, as hitherto; but, according to the custom of the Roman Church, only seven priests, who should be held the worthier in that Congregation, should be deputed to this office, the power of celebrating Masses there being conferred only on the archbishop of Reims and on the abbot of that monastery, and on one to whom the same abbot should give licence, at times indeed when the consideration of reason requires it; and also on the clergy of Reims twice in the year, namely on the Monday of the Paschal feast, and on the vigil of the Lord's Ascension, when they make solemn stations there from ancient tradition. That these decrees might never be made void by the lapse of time, he commanded them to be committed to writing [t], and to be sealed with the seal of his authority. Then, the aforementioned people making public confession of their sins according to the words of his instruction, he absolved them, and, the divine Offices being completed, sanctifying them with the Apostolic blessing, he dismissed them. But the pontiffs, and the rulers of monasteries and the other ministers of the sacred Order who were present there, he commanded to return to the same place on the morrow, that he might hold with them the business of the synod which he had appointed [u]…

[30] St. Leo, about to return into Italy, bids farewell to all, In such an order, then, the Pontiff of the Roman See, devoted to blessed father Remigius, celebrated his fourth translation [x], and happily completed on the sixth of the Nones of October the sanctification of the divine house; which also, as has been declared, he distinguished with the celebration of a synod continued for three days, in the one thousand and forty-ninth year of the most happy Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore, as he had deliberated, having been made master of his desire by divine disposition, on the day following after the completion of the synod he came into the chapter * of the brethren, and made known to them that he wished to hasten his return. Whence, soothing them with spiritual discourses, he both devoutly asked and received their fellowship, and himself bestowed his own on them humbly asking, and absolved them prostrate for public confession, and, all having kissed him in order, sanctified them with the Apostolic blessing.

[31] [and brings back the body of St. Remigius on his shoulders to its place, a notable lover of him.] After this, going out, he called together the bishops and abbots, and the others of the ecclesiastical order who had not yet withdrawn, and, entering the church with them, caused the solemnities of Masses to be celebrated. Which being completed, he approached with humble devotion the Saint's tomb, which, as has been said, he had placed upon the altar of St. Christopher after the dedication of the basilica, and there, his prayer being completed, putting his shoulders under it, he devoutly carried it forth thence, and laid it again with divine praises in the station fittingly prepared for it: where, again and again prostrating himself with tears, at length he went out on his way, and, accompanied as far as the entrance of the fortress with spiritual canticles by the brethren and a countless * assembly of the people, bidding farewell to all, he withdrew. And withdrawing thence, he carried back as recompense of his labour the fruit of a great reward, namely, in the secret of his devoted breast, the fire of a special love, with which from that time he is known to have burned greatly towards the same glorious father Remigius; as he himself confesses in a certain letter directed afterwards to the bishops of Francia, which we shall take care to set down in its place in what follows [y].

[32] From which grace he also obtained the benefit of another grace, Those who had opposed St. Leo here are divinely punished. when the divine power afforded him vengeance upon certain men who had tried to put hindrance in his way as he came into the Gauls, through the merit of the Saint himself whom he had served. For, to pass over many who were opposed to him, Gibuin [z], bishop of Laon, and Hugh of Braine-castle [aa], who stood out as standard-bearers among his detractors, ended their life in the same year by an ignominious death. For the former, because he suggested the deadly artifice to the king, that he might avoid the Apostolic presence, and, while the greatest part of his clergy devoutly sought that presence, himself fled far from his see; neither sanctified, on account of his malice, with the viaticum of the Lord's Body, nor refreshed at the last by his same clergy with the consolation of a visit, by divine judgment died alone outside the borders of his bishopric, as a stranger. But the other, because he had threatened that he would cut off the head of the Minister of Christ, was mutilated by the cutting off, by a hostile sword, of the sacrilegious mouth with which he had uttered the impious words.

[33] It is worthy to add to the above, for the memory of posterity, another miracle, A cup given to the same Pontiff by the abbot of St. Remigius, which the divine power worked in the hands of this Pontiff from the devotion with which he burned towards our Patron. For in the second year after the completion of the things set forth above, while he was staying at Rome, by an accident through the carelessness of the cupbearer, that vessel was broken which, as was recorded at the beginning of this Little Work, had been given to him by the aforesaid Abbot Herimar [bb]. When he knew this for certain, he took it somewhat heavily: for although he had many things of greater price, yet he loved that above the rest, because he asserted that it had been sent to him at the beginning of his Apostolate on the part of St. Remigius; and therefore it was wont to be more delightful to him for drinking than the others which were in his service. While, then, with certain spiritual men who were present with him he was complaining of the same loss with placid countenance, as he always had, and was commanding that a goldsmith skilled in repairing such a break be sought out for him; some of them, jesting, said with serious and cheerful answer that this Saint, in devotion to whom he so greatly embraced it, was of such merit with God that he would restore the same vessel entire to him by his intercession. And he, answering with spiritual gladness that he in no way distrusted this, and extolling his miracles with manifold speech, commanded the broken vessel to be brought to him.

[34] And it being brought, he put back in its place the little piece torn off from it, afterwards broken by accident, is wonderfully found entire. and, as though it were being kept for a goldsmith to repair, yet cautiously impressing on it, as is said, the sign of the Cross, he ordered it to be put away. Which on the morrow, brought before him as though for the sake of repairing, was found so entire by divine working that no trace of a break could be found in it. The venerable Pope, then, seeing this, praised the omnipotence of God, and ascribed the novelty of this miracle to the merits of Blessed Remigius, through whose intervention the efficacy of his faith merited to obtain it. And lest we be accused of lying from this report, and the memorial of this writing therefore be held frivolous, we bring forward three suitable witnesses, by whose judgment * it befell us afterwards to learn it: namely Hugh, bishop of Nevers, and Hugh, deacon of the church of Reims, and a certain cleric, chaplain of Aylenard, formerly archbishop of Lyons, named Benedict: of whom the first two were present at the council held by the same Pope at Rome, as was his custom, on the fifteenth day after the Lord's Resurrection; and learned from those who saw it present that what we have related was truly done; but the third was present in person with his lord; and what he learned by seeing he told us, inquiring, after some years [cc].

[35] The same St. Leo proclaims an annual feast of the Saint in Gaul. Finally the venerable Man, honouring our often-mentioned Apostle with so much the more fervent love, and desiring above all to honour him, and to ennoble his monastery by his authority, directed a letter full of his praise to the sons of the holy Church established in Francia, by which he decreed that among them the festival of the Saint himself should be held solemn, which is kept on the Kalends of October. Very many things also pertaining to ecclesiastical advantage, which he had treated in the aforesaid synod held in his basilica, he commanded to be arranged in chapters among them and to be numbered among the orthodox canons; the text of which Letter, since the order of the narration seems to require it, we have judged worthy to insert in this Work [dd].

ANNOTATIONS.

e. Mabillon notes

here from Flodoard, book 2, chapter 15, that there was the burial-place of the canons of Reims, and adds that Gervase, archbishop of Reims, canons Regular of St. Augustine having been placed in it, raised the same basilica into an abbey in the year 1067, which continues to this day.

p. Read the Life written by Hincmar, number 34 and following.

q. See what I said at length about this church in the preliminary Commentary from number 252.

r. See the Life by Hincmar, number 101 and following.

s. The thing happened there in the synod on the second day, namely when Hugh, archbishop of Besançon, trying not rightly to defend Hugh, bishop of Langres, gravely accused, was struck dumb. See the preliminary Commentary, number 330 and following, where I reviewed these things, intending to pass them over here, because they properly pertain to the synod.

t. This Bull of St. Leo I gave in the preliminary Commentary from number 333 from the recension of Mabillon, who added the following annotation in the same place. Further, the same Pontiff granted a similar privilege to the altar of the greater church of Cologne, where those seven presbyters are called Cardinals; which is also observed by our Remigians. And this arrangement of things, ordained by the Pontiff, is religiously kept to this day in the Remigian basilica. Concerning the church of Cologne, Wibert, archdeacon of St. Leo himself, also testifies to this in the Life in our work, chapter 3, number 12, writing thus: And he is received at Cologne by Herimann, the most noble and most reverend archbishop of the whole nation; at whose request the lord Pope granted this privilege to the see of the church of Cologne, that at the altar of St. Peter seven cardinal presbyters should daily celebrate the divine office in sandals.

u. Here there is subjoined the synod celebrated on the following three days by the holy Pontiff in the Remigian church, and before the body of St. Remigius publicly exposed, which, as foreign to the argument which I treat, I have cut away here. It can be read in Mabillon in the same place and in Labbe, volume 9 of the Councils, from column 1036. At length, after Anselm had said that St. Leo dissolved the synod on the third day, he proceeds in the words which I subjoin.

x. Since he calls this translation only the fourth, he understands only the more solemn ones; for otherwise it would be the seventh. The first occurred in the same century in which St. Remigius died, when, the church having been enlarged, his body is said in the longer Life, number 120, to have been translated into a more seemly crypt. The second was made by Hincmar in the year 852, which is read in the same Life, number 133 and following. The third and fourth I set forth in the preliminary Commentary, number 308 and following, namely when the body of the Saint was carried by the same Hincmar to Épernay, and after his death to Orbais. The fifth Fulk instituted, Hincmar's successor, who brought it from Orbais to Reims into the cathedral church; and finally the sixth Heriveus, who solemnly restored it to its former church. See the same Commentary, number 313 and following.

y. That letter I gave in the preliminary Commentary, number 337 and following.

z. He is also written Gebuinus, volume 9 of Gallia Christiana, column 523, and he seems to have been one of those who, as Anselm stated before, had broken into the Lord's sheepfold some other way, not by the door, and in their churches had permitted certain things contrary to the sanctions of the Catholic fathers to spring up, which they feared would be made manifest, to be cut away by the examination of the synod agreed upon.

aa. Why this layman feared evil for himself from the coming of the holy Pontiff becomes plain from the same Anselm, on whose testimony he (the Pope) in the same synod of Reims excommunicated also… Hugh of Braine, because he had put away his lawful wife, and had joined another to himself in marriage.

bb. Namely above, number 9.

cc. Wibert, archdeacon of the same St. Leo, narrates the same miracle of the restored cup, but with circumstances a little varying, in his Life given in our Work, volume 2 of April, page 660, number 16, where he cites as eyewitness Hugh of Chrysopolis, that is, the archbishop of Besançon, thus: Of this thing there is present a fitting witness, the venerable Hugh already mentioned, archbishop of Chrysopolis, who testifies with tears that he was present, and rejoices that by a devout theft he carried off that vessel from the holy man. Henschen, in the Annotations there, cites for the same event also Blessed Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino, who, afterwards made Pontiff, was called Victor III, and St. Bruno, bishop of Segni. As regards the material of the cup, Anselm, cited at number 9, says only that it was most seemly decorated with gold within and without; Wibert calls it a cup of precious marble, Henschen suspecting that materiæ is perhaps to be read for marmoris; finally Blessed Desiderius calls it a wooden goblet, St. Bruno a wooden cup.

dd. See this Letter given in the preliminary Commentary from number 337.

* otherwise e cunctis

* otherwise numerosa

* otherwise aliud

* otherwise numerosis

* Ms. Capitolium

* otherwise numeroso

* otherwise indicio

APPENDIX

Concerning some miracles.

Remigius, bishop of Reims, Apostle of the Franks, at Reims in Gallic Champagne. (S.)

From the printed texts.

The Saint, appearing a third time to the archbishop of Mainz, In the preliminary Commentary, number 27, I advised that in our notable codex, from which I published the Hincmarian Life of St. Remigius, two chapters are read inserted out of their place into the eulogy of the same Saint, likewise composed by Hincmar, which, however, cannot be this author's, and therefore seemed to me to be relegated to the Appendix. The first chapter bears this title: How he beat the archbishop of Mainz, and recovered his property. Flodoard, from whom this narrative was taken, has thus, book 1, chapter 20: Formerly in our days a certain Warner, count of the district of Worms, invading the aforementioned properties of St. Remigius situated in the Vosges, had distributed them to his men. And Blessed Remigius, coming to Heriger, prelate of Mainz, appeared to him in sleep, commanding him to go to King Conrad, admonishing him to order those subject to him to give up the land of his jurisdiction. He, rising from sleep, although he wondered at the vision, yet omitted to indicate it to the king. Again, after some days, St. Remigius, appearing to him, rebuked him, why he had not fulfilled his commands, admonishing him again not to put off announcing his orders to the king.

[2] Again, as before, he, reckoning the vision empty, neglected to carry out the command. he orders him to see to it with King Conrad that his property be restored, The third time the Saint, now approaching him with a scourge, rebuked his contumacy, and, taking him by the arm, seemed to have dragged him out of bed. And so, beating him with the scourge which he held, he dismissed him sharply cut and humbled. For, no longer presuming to despise his orders, he soon goes to the king, asks a private audience, lays aside his garment, shows his livid body, and faithfully discloses in order what was said and done. And it happened that on the same day an envoy of our lord Heriveus, named Tendoin, came to the king with gifts from the same senior (that is, lord) of his to ask back those same properties, and, standing outside, was waiting for the hour at which he could be presented to the king. And when the king, wondering at the thing done, had ordered it to be inquired whether perhaps anyone from our parts was to be found there among his men; he is found to be present, waiting outside for this very matter; it is announced to the king; at his command he is brought before him, and the thing which had been made public is disclosed to him.

[3] He, giving thanks, reveals that he has been sent for those very properties, which at length he does and obtains. receives the properties, the king restoring them, and, with his favour, commits them to be guarded by the aforesaid pontiff Heriger in fealty to St. Remigius. And afterwards the lord prelate Heriveus, while he lived, received from those same properties the due rent annually without contradiction. The same things are read in our manuscript codex almost always in the same words, as though they were Hincmar's, the name of Archbishop Heriveus, however, being cautiously omitted; since he succeeded to Hincmar after Fulk, it is manifest that these things could not have been written by the same Hincmar. This same thing nevertheless is clear from Harigarius, otherwise Heriger, and Conrad, also named in the same codex, of whom the latter obtained the kingdom of Germany, the former the archbishopric of Mainz, only in the tenth century: and Conrad indeed the first from the year 912 until 919, within which space of years these things must have happened, in the lifetime of Flodoard, from whom I have copied the same.

[4] Many years later also happened what follows in the same place in the same codex of ours as though handed down by Hincmar, Another unjust possessor of such property but is again taken from Flodoard, from whom therefore I here copy it. These same properties the lord bishop Artald had formerly committed to Duke Conrad; which he had assigned to a certain Ragenbald of his men. Which Ragenbald greatly afflicted the tenants of the same properties. And they, for their affliction, often cried out to St. Remigius, coming to Reims, and seeking the patronage of their Patron himself. For which matter lately, in the past year, we spoke with King Otto and the aforesaid duke, when we were sent to Aachen to the same king. But we could not obtain that the same Ragenbald should desist from the plundering of those properties.

Whence it came about this year (that is, in this year) that, while one Saturday he had the same tenants gathered to carry out a certain work, and commanded the presbyter not to ring the evening bells until nearly night, and was urging on the completion of the work, he was struck by an unseen smiter.

[5] And while he was asking who had struck him, and all denied that they had seen it, and the harasser, divinely struck, expires: driven by furies he lost his senses, and, grievously vexed, breathed out his spirit. Learning which, Duke Conrad, exceedingly terrified, came to St. Remigius, and gave back to him those properties, which the aforementioned prelate Artald assigned to Abbot Hincmar and the other monks for the supplement of their sustenance. Thus far Flodoard. Further, the persons here named pertain to the tenth century, namely Otto, the first of his name, who in the year 936 succeeded Henry the Fowler in the kingdom of Germany, and afterwards in the year 962 was crowned emperor at Rome. And Conrad was duke of Lotharingia, who in the year 952 fought for the same Otto in Italy, and, fighting bravely with him against the Hungarians, was slain in the year 955. At the same time Artald held the archbishopric of Reims, and Hincmar II presided as abbot over the Remigian monastery, to whom and his monks Artald is said, in volume 9 of Gallia Christiana, columns 55 and 226, to have restored in the year 952 a certain abbey named Cosla, situated in the Vosges; by which name it seems certain that the possession of St. Remigius of which Flodoard here speaks is indicated, because both Flodoard in the same History and Hincmar in the Life, number 88, relate that St. Remigius purchased for a price a great part of a forest in the Vosges, and established necessary buildings, one of which was called Cosla.

[6] concerning which a few things are observed. But that the reader may understand what Flodoard means when he says that Ragenbald, when one Saturday he was forcing the tenants of St. Remigius to work, forbade the presbyter to ring the evening bells at the usual time, it must be observed that it was the custom in various regions that, out of reverence for the Lord's day, they ceased from servile work on Saturday after sunset. You have an example in St. Gregory of Tours, book 3 of the Miracles of St. Martin, chapter 31, where it is said of a certain paralysed woman: For whom this was the cause of her suffering these things; because on the day of the Sabbath, after sunset, which adjoined the Lord's night, she wished to shape bread. Another example you have in the same place, chapter 56. Ragenbald therefore, that he might keep the labourers longer, forbade the presbyter of the place to announce the cessation from work on that day by the ringing of the bronze bell at the accustomed time, but to put it off almost until night. Further, in our often-mentioned codex only Ragenbald and Duke Conrad are named, King Otto, the prelate Artald and Abbot Hincmar being omitted, from the first two of whom it was more manifestly clear that this narrative could not be the archbishop Hincmar's.

[7] Likewise another violator of a church of St. Remigius In the same codex of ours there follows in the same place another also under this title: That he who sold wine in his church lost his senses and his life; which likewise is certainly not Hincmar's, but Flodoard's, in whose words from the same chapter 20 receive it. At Vulfiniacus Rivus, in the district of Laon, there is an oratory dedicated in honour of St. Remigius: in which, while King Rodulf was persecuting Count Heribert, who held the bishopric of Reims entrusted to him by the king, the men of that villa were eager to lay up their property on account of hostile incursions. But when the aforesaid king had come to besiege the city of Reims, and had encamped at Culmissiacum, his army occupied the neighbouring villas. And one of those who had their quarters in the aforementioned villa, namely Vulfiniacus Rivus, seizes the wine which had been laid up in the church for fear's sake; and, setting up as it were a tavern in the same church, he began to sell it to his fellows. While he was doing these things, struck suddenly with disease, he lost his senses, his mouth being twisted almost to his ear; and, long tormented with torture, ended his life. Which the others seeing, showing thereafter due reverence to the same sacred place, restrained themselves from presumption of this kind.

[8] pays the penalty by a dire death. Rodulf, otherwise Radulf, of whom he speaks here, son of Richard, duke of Burgundy, created king of the Franks against Charles the Simple in the year 923, consented that Hugh, the five-year-old son of Heribert, count of the Veromandui, by whose aid also he had obtained the kingdom, should become bishop of Reims, and committed that bishopric meanwhile to the same Heribert to be governed. But afterwards, enmity having arisen between them, Rodulf besieged the city of Reims, and took it, and caused Artald, already mentioned above, to be ordained prelate for the people of Reims. This siege Flodoard bound to the year of Christ 931 in the Chronicle. And as these things are later than the times of Archbishop Hincmar, so they are contemporary with Flodoard, who complains in book 3 of the History, chapters 20 and 28, that he was unjustly deprived by the same Count Heribert of the church of Colmisiacum or Culmissiacum, which he governed, and suffered other things. So much for the chapters which, taken from Flodoard, someone ineptly inserted into Hincmar's eulogy of St. Remigius.

[9] By way of a crowning conclusion I add the letters which the vicars of the church of Reims, in the time of the dire and almost universal pestilence in the year 1349, gave as encyclicals to the bishops and the rest of the clergy of the province of Reims, While the plague rages, the vicars of Reims, by letters and which Marlot printed, volume 2 of the History of Reims, book 4, chapter 12, with this preface: God too being propitious, while so many evils were raging through the Gauls, the power of Remigius shone forth wonderfully upon almost countless persons held and afflicted by various diseases, whereby he proved himself, when things were almost desperate, the true tutelary and Alexicacus of France: which the vicars-general of the archbishopric of Reims, having sufficiently learned it not from scattered rumours of the common people, but from the faithful narrative of witnesses and due inquiry, as is the custom, left to posterity by this charter, which we have drawn from the archive. "The vicars of the reverend father in Christ and lord, the lord John, by the grace of God archbishop of Reims, now notoriously absent from his city, diocese and province of Reims, to all and each of the reverend fathers in Christ, suffragans of the said province of Reims, and to their vicars and officials, abbots, provosts, deans, priors, presbyters, curates, and the other rectors of churches and ecclesiastical persons to whom the present letters shall come, with all devotion and due reverence, greeting."

[10] "You who serve under the human religion of the Catholic faith, [given throughout the province of Reims, teach that by the patronage of St. Remigius] receive with glad mind what we joyfully report; sing psalms, and give thanks with suppliant heart to the supreme Trinity, that the blessed Apostle of France, the morning lamp, who first led the king of the Franks with his followers to the Catholic faith, and consecrated the said king, and very many kings his successors in his kingdom, with the holy chrism sent from heaven, St. Remigius, before he was born announced by name by divine oracle through the monk Montanus to Cilinia his mother, long barren, like the Forerunner of the Lord, to prepare for Him a perfect people, etc. This blessed Apostle of France also the Lord chose beforehand and most excellently adorned with the diadem of His glory, and, making him illustrious while still enclosed in the flesh among men with the gift of countless miracles, now in the heavenly fatherland amid the hosts of the Saints he has not ceased, watchful and intent, to stand forth as a worker of solicitude and of miracles, that the name of the Lord may be exalted in this His said Saint by the praises of the peoples.

[11] both others from various evils, and very many from that plague, have been freed; To a number of the sick he has restored health, hearing to the deaf, sight to the blind, walking to the contracted, liberty to those possessed by a demon, life to the dead; and those running to him with devout prayers he has preserved and preserves unharmed from the epidemic disaster long since commonly prevailing, and also recurring in modern times; and some infected with the said epidemic infirmity in these times, and also very many labouring in extremity and placed at the point of death, through the mediation of prayers by the merits of the said most blessed Confessor, are freed from swellings and bochiæ (I understand pestilential carbuncles) and from bitter fevers, and are restored to their former health. Most recently a certain woman, deprived of sight, having heard of the miracles of St. Remigius, coming to the tomb of the said Saint, recovered her clearness of sight; little infants too, dead at their mothers' breasts, carried to his tomb, recovering life, received, the divine grace favouring, the gift of holy baptism, etc.

[12] and therefore they exhort that his help be invoked. Having been diligently informed concerning the foregoing, we, making known the foregoing to you all and each through public notaries and otherwise competently, exhort you and each of you that in sermons and to the clerics and laymen assembling to hear the divine offices you diligently publish the foregoing and cause it to be published, in such a way that the faithful of Christ may know and be able in their infirmities to have recourse to the aforesaid Intercessor, Physician, Pastor and Patron. In witness of which thing we have thought fit to affix to the present letters the seal of the court which we use in this matter. Given by the lord John de Goinguelies, Official, and master Remigius de Ambonay, canon of Reims, vicars of the said reverend father, in the year of the Lord MCCCXLIX, on the Saturday before the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin."