Aurea of Paris

ON ST. AUREA OF PARIS, VIRGIN AND ABBESS, IN FRANCE,

IN THE YEAR ABOUT 666.

A HISTORICAL-CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

Aurea, virgin and abbess, at Paris in France. (S.)

BY J. G. AS AUTHOR.

§ I. The Saint's announcement in the Martyrologies: her cult and ecclesiastical Office, the notice of her Acts, and their doubtful credit.

St. Aurea the virgin made Lutetia of the Parisians, the chief city of the Gauls, more illustrious by the splendour of her virtues and by her death precious in the sight of the Lord, St. Aurea passed over by Ado and others, whom St. Eligius, afterwards bishop of Noyon, had set as abbess over three hundred maidens in the monastery built by him at Paris. It is a wonder that this Maiden worthy of God — by which name St. Ouen calls her in the Life of St. Eligius — was unknown, or at least passed over, in the ancient classic Martyrologies, if you except that of Usuard. Aurea, the Parisian virgin, says our Sollier in his Usuard illustrated, is purely Usuardine, unknown to all the other ancient Martyrologists, or at least passed over by them. For the fact that certain copies of Ado mark Aurea the virgin on this day does not in the least stand against Sollier's dictum. For Mosander and our Rosweyde most rightly judged, not from one or two codices, but from the diligent collation of very many most ancient ones, that it is an addition inserted into Ado's Martyrology by another hand; and they therefore banished Aurea to the Appendix. There is also the fact that Bl. Notker likewise omitted her, which he probably would not have done if he had found her commemorated in Ado, whom he everywhere transcribes no otherwise than the Hieronymian and Rabanus's Martyrologies. Nor should you argue from this that, since the Usuardine Martyrology likewise grew for the greatest part out of Ado, St. Aurea, whom Usuard announces, was found by him in Ado's Martyrology. For Usuard did not so follow him as to hold himself forbidden to proceed sometimes by a broader way, and to commemorate Saints better known to himself, especially Parisian ones, who were passed over by Ado.

[2] but announced by Usuard and various martyrologists Further, the Martyrology of Usuard praised above, published by our Sollier, commemorates her thus at this day: In the city of Paris, of saint Aurea the virgin; and this same announcement is read in the codices of Prato, of Hérin and others, which it would be long to review from Sollier. With these agree the Hagiologium of Franco-Gaul, excerpted by Labbe from an ancient Martyrology of the abbey of St. Laurence of Bourges; our Florarium, written by hand in the year 1486; the German Martyrology, commonly ascribed to Canisius; Galesinius, and other martyrologists, whose announcements I shall not transcribe here, because they scarcely, or not even scarcely, differ in the very words from the announcement of Usuard adduced. Yet the additions of others, both those that rest on truth and those that turn aside from the truth, it is worth reviewing here, so that from this the reader may learn beforehand in a few words certain things which will afterwards come to be treated at greater length concerning St. Aurea. And first indeed to the Usuardine announcement mentioned above Muneratus fittingly adds this: Whose (St. Aurea's) body rests in the church of St. Eligius near the palace (prope palatii), or prope palatium, as Molanus wrote, by the rules of Grammar. The Brussels Usuardine Manuscript codex likewise adds something, most rightly

reporting thus: In the city of Paris, the deposition of blessed Aurea the virgin, whom blessed Eligius set over the monastery of maidens which he himself built there (as will be shown below at number 20); and the very time in which St. Aurea flourished Maurolico designates thus by his announcement: At Paris, of saint Aurea the virgin, in the time of Heraclius: for Heraclius ruled the empire at the same time in which Dagobert I, king of the Gauls, handed over to St. Eligius at Paris those buildings which he, having turned them into a monastery of sacred virgins, committed to the watchful care and solicitude of our holy Abbess. And hence see how far Felice strayed from the truth when he invents that she flourished and was put to martyrdom in the time of the emperor Henry, of which name none ruled before the tenth century, writing thus: Aurea, Virgin and Martyr, famous at Paris in the time of the emperor Henry.

[3] But let us rather hear here Baronius and the other martyrologists better informed about our Saint. she is announced by more recent ones, and by monastic ones also, Thus he in the Roman Martyrology at today: At Lutetia of the Parisians, of St. Aurea the virgin; whom in his Notes he rightly establishes to have flourished in the times of Dagobert I, king of the Franks, about the year of the Lord 630. Castellan, in a marginal note to the Baronian announcement expressed in the French tongue, adds that she was the first abbess of St. Martial's at Paris under the Rule of St. Columbanus. With this agrees the Parisian Martyrology printed in the year 1727, when at the 4th day of October it reports thus: At Paris, of saint Aurea the virgin, set as abbess over the monastery of saint Martial within the city, by St. Eligius, who had gathered there three hundred maidens living under the Rule of St. Columbanus. And again at the 5th day: On the same day the feast of St. Aurea, who died yesterday. But Saussay in his Gallican Martyrology at the 4th day of October not only announces St. Aurea in the Baronian words, but adds to them an elogium — a lengthy one indeed, but, as often elsewhere, not in every part resting on truth, from which therefore he would better have abstained. Wion, Menard, Bucelin and other Benedictines, since they judge that St. Aurea is to be reckoned among their own, have entered her in the Calendars of their Order at this day: in which matter they had as a follower Arthur du Monstier in his Gynaeceum, where he calls her a Benedictine Abbess, most famous for the holiness of her life and the excellence of her miracles. Whether these things have been brought forward rightly or otherwise, there will be its own place for disputing below. Certainly St. Aurea is absent from several Martyrologies of the Benedictine Order; nor, after diligent search, has any contemporary or nearly contemporary author occurred to me who has left confirmed by his testimony those prodigies by which St. Aurea is commonly said to have been most famous while alive.

[4] The Canons Regular of St. Geneviève of Paris, of the Gallican Congregation, and she is honoured chiefly at Paris, in the Breviary for the use of their notable and royal abbey, both the old and the new, have inserted St. Aurea in their Calendar — not indeed as one of their own, but under the title of the common native place and of her relics existing at Paris — and venerate her with a semi-double rite, as they call it, on the 5th day of October; with which rite and on which day the Saint is also honoured in the Breviary of the church of Paris. And the reason why this Saint does not have her own proper cult on the very day of her death is the festival of St. Francis of Assisi, to be celebrated at Paris on the 4th day of October: hence the holy Virgin's feast is transferred to the following day, which is the 5th, as has been shown above from the Parisian Martyrology and Breviary. Yet this, on Baillet's testimony, two Parisian churches have as a special privilege — the one dedicated to St. Paul, where Aurea was buried, the other to St. Eligius and St. Aurea, where her relics are preserved — that in these the holy Abbess's feast is for the most part anticipated on the Sunday which immediately precedes the feast, and is always celebrated with the rite that is wont to be given to the patrons of churches. But these matters the Parisian Spiritual Calendar, which is in our hands, printed in 1686 and continued in the following years, sets out more distinctly and better. From this it appears that St. Aurea's feast in the church of St. Paul is always celebrated with a solemn rite of veneration on the first Sunday of October, whether this precede or follow the day of her birth in heaven, as the announcement assigned to that Sunday presents, sounding thus in Latin: At St. Paul's, St. Aurea, the feast of the second patron, a sermon, after Vespers a procession to her tomb. But in the church of St. Eligius, and in the chapel of the nuns who take their name from St. Aurea, on the 5th day of October, whether Sunday or any other weekday falls on this day, the holy Abbess's festal day is constantly kept, as is clear from the same Calendar, in which at this day the following are announced in the aforesaid church: At St. Eligius's of the Barnabites, the feast of St. Aurea as second patron, exposition of the venerable Sacrament and a sermon; through the Octave her reliquary is uncovered; and this in the said chapel: At St. Aurea's, the titular feast, exposition of the Venerable Sacrament and a sermon.

[5] and elsewhere in Gaul; nay, she has veneration at Rome also. And hence it is abundantly made known what and how great a veneration is paid to our holy Abbess in these churches. Nor at Paris only, but in various dioceses of Gaul — those, for instance, of Meaux, of Léon and of Beauvais — the honours of the heavenly citizens are shown to St. Aurea, either by an ecclesiastical Office or by the recitation of a single Lesson or of her prayer; nay — what perhaps you may wonder at — in the city of Rome itself St. Aurea does not lack a special veneration, as Castellan testifies in his Hagiology and from him Baillet. And lest anyone should think that in the Roman church of St. Eusebius it is not Aurea of Paris but Aurea, Virgin and Martyr of Ostia, who is honoured, both the very nomenclature of Aurea of Paris customary at Rome forbids it, and also Panciroli himself, an Italian writer, in his Treasures of the city of Rome, where in Italian words, rendered by me into Latin, he speaks thus at page 167: And although in the middle nave (of the church of St. Eusebius) the history of St. Aurea the virgin is to be seen depicted, yet it must not be thought that this was done by reason of her relics having been brought thither (for no writer mentions relics of our St. Aurea translated to Rome), but because in ancient times the French Cardinals who enjoyed this title renewed the memory of this Parisian Virgin, who led a most holy life in the monastery of three hundred nuns built by St. Eligius. Thus Panciroli, who also rightly distinguished St. Aurea of Paris from the virgin and martyr of the same name of Ostia, in the place cited and at page 758. For this virgin martyr, and not Aurea of Paris — contrary to what various writers seem to hint — has a basilica dedicated to God under the invocation of her name at Ostia on the Tiber, and had another also at Rome, which at this time, on the testimony of the praised Panciroli at page 758, is called the Holy Spirit of the Neapolitans.

[6] A notice of her ecclesiastical Office is given. But let us return into France, whence we digressed, and finish what remains to be said about the Saint's cult. Besides the three Lessons of the second Nocturn, taken from the apocryphal Acts of St. Aurea, and this old Rhythmic Antiphon: There came therefore to Paris a ray of virginity, and it lay hid under the bushel with the joy of humility — which are now abrogated — in past centuries everything in the Saint's ecclesiastical Office was read from the Common of one virgin. But in the year 1729 another Office, in every part new and proper, was composed for the nuns who bear the name of St. Aurea, which the most illustrious archbishop of Paris, Charles Gaspard Guillaume de Vintimille, approved in the year 1731, and judged might be recited in the chapel of those nuns on the day sacred to St. Aurea, and sanctioned by a published decree. The Prayer which is read throughout this whole Office and in the Collect of the Mass is this: O God, who heaped the virgin Aurea with a manifold gift of graces for the governance of your brides, grant that by her examples and protection we may trample upon harmful delights and be poured over with your heavenly unction. Through our Lord etc. And the Hymns which are recited at both Vespers, at Matins and at Lauds, as also the so-called Prose which is read before the Gospel in the Mass, embrace the deeds of St. Aurea in various metres, and agree with what St. Ouen wrote of her; wherefore they deserve to be set out here also.

[7] The Hymn at both Vespers runs thus:

Among the virgins whom the land of Paris and three hymns from it, the one at both Vespers. has vowed to God, a venerable superior, adorned with a thousand gems of virtues, Aurea shines.

The Virgin gathers three hundred companions, rivals with equal vows, pledging with manly heart to take up the blessed weight of the cross.

Whether they shine with illustrious titles and trace a lofty line of forebears, or lie hidden under a lowly birth, she receives them all.

The whole throng, singing in heavenly harmony, vies in striking the stars; taming the flesh, it is broken by no toil, hidden from the world.

The city, astounded, thence marvels at those chaste assemblies, and loves to shut within its walls so many doves, gazing at the stars, serene in their sighing.

Highest praise to the Father and to the begotten Word, and to you, Spirit equal to both, by whom the brides burn, and, docile, follow the commands of Christ. Amen.

[8] And at Matins the Hymn sounds thus:

He restores a house by royal gift, another at Matins, which he soon fills with a virginal band and governs by holy decrees — Eligius, well known to the city.

Nay, he provides ample revenues also, and founds a sacred house to you, Paul, in which he might then lay virginal ashes in a seemly tomb.

O what a one he sets over them in Aurea alone! How learnedly she rules the white-robed flocks! How her numerous offspring praises the Mother with eternal triumphs.

Hither, hither, maidens, break your chains, and, proud with a worthy disdain, spurn the fleeting pomps; this prison, brighter than a palace, carries you above the stars.

The cohort wedded to one God is intent on him, and makes itself drunk at the founts above, until in prayer it drinks the streams of delight unlocked in heaven.

Highest praise to the Father and highest to the Son, and let equal praise be to the kindly Spirit, by whom the throng of brides glitters, crowned with virginal garlands. Amen.

[9] and a third at Lauds Another Hymn follows this one at Lauds, framed in these words:

The glad day shines on which, venerable Virgin, having laid aside the body, you enter the shining citadels with your holy companions and enjoy God your spouse.

No fear seizes you, warned by the stars; you flee neither the corruption of disease nor your end: those whom you rule against their will you willingly teach to die, and you say your last farewell.

Kindled love suffers no delays. You leave your remains to the earth, and the plague joins your rivals to you; soon a sweet sleep unites them in a like tomb.

Happy death, lovely sleep, in which, a bride seeking Christ's peaceful bosom and leaping forth from your chains, you seize immortal radiance and living joys.

You whom the summit of virtue, virginal brightness, faith and the ardour of heaven commend — O Aurea, win us now to God: protect the people devoted to you.

Cherish the city, holy one, and, watching over us, remove all dangers, the enemies being conquered: grant that no storm shake Lutetia: let Christ reign in all.

Greatest praise to the Father, greatest to the Son,

and greatest to you, Spirit of them both, who in heaven bind the shining temples of the virgins with snowy lilies. Amen.

[10] together with the Prose in the Mass, And the Prose which stands in the Mass after the Gradual likewise celebrates the praises of St. Aurea thus:

Aurea, faithful to God, while she renounces the world, seeks the kingdoms of the upper air, and fills herself with Jesus her spouse.

While three hundred swarms of virgins do their soldiering for God, even to the end of life the woman goes before as leader of their vow.

Prayers, unceasing toil, vigils, silences, a flowing fount of tears, here thrive, and fastings too.

But behold, after her happy death you stand there, Eligius, in shining garments, marking the passing of the superior.

She, anxious with a thousand vows, longs to enjoy her spouse; she seizes the day, and makes ready the joys promised to her labour.

Besides the companions of her triumph, she bids farewell to her sisters, and consoles the survivors with divine discourses.

Virgin, keep Lutetia glad in your remains; and, fortifying it with your protection, make it impassable to enemies.

But among all the orders look kindly on this throng, which strives, under Christ's auspices, to follow the virgins of old.

Despising all earthly things, it does its soldiering under your standards: make it to be crowned with the laurel which ennobles you in heaven.

Supreme praise be to the Father of lights here and in our homeland; let equal praise be to the Spouse of virgins, let like glory be to Love. Amen.

[11] The rest that is proper in this ecclesiastical Office of the holy Abbess I shall not transcribe here, the rest being passed over, they are set out. both because it does not seem to me equally worthy of mention, and because it has now been abrogated as well, since, apart from the Lessons taken from St. Ouen, nothing proper to her is now recited in the ecclesiastical Office — as was signified to me, while I was investigating the Saint's cult, by a man praiseworthy no less for his learning than for his courtesy, the lord Mercier, keeper of the library of the royal abbey of St. Geneviève at Paris, whom I cannot mention without a testimony of gratitude, on account of the diligent labour bestowed by him in searching out the genuine Acts of St. Aurea and other documents, although an equal fruit did not answer to his effort, as he himself regrets and as I much lament: so that, with however much diligence applied, I have not been able to obtain other Acts than those which have long been kept in our literary furniture, or have already been published in print by some; of whose antiquity and credit we must now discourse.

[12] There have been some writers of almost every order and nation of men Her Acts, transcribed from the Bödeken Manuscript codex, who seem to have celebrated most copiously, as though in rivalry, the deeds and miracles of St. Aurea; so that, if the mere number of biographers, of whom one has transcribed another, could win for the Acts of Saints authority and undoubted credit, the Acts of St. Aurea, both manuscript and printed, would be called into suspicion of falsity undeservedly. But if you except from that numerous crowd of writers St. Ouen in the Life of St. Eligius and Jonas of Bobbio in the Life of St. Eustasius, who mention her in passing, there is not one man out of all those who was contemporary with the Saint or nearly so, or who can be said to have drawn his matter from a pure spring. That I may not so much assert this as prove it, there is no need of more than to have supplied a notice of the Manuscript Acts, and to have indicated the age of her biographers published in print. I begin with the former. Four manuscript copies of the Acts of St. Aurea have long existed in our literary furniture, of which it may generally be declared that they have not all one face, nor yet a different one: for however some may be fuller than others or more correct in wording, they cry out that their parent is a fabulist, and attest that they were drawn from the same muddy spring. The first of these copies was sent us by the Reverend Father Johann Gamans, S. J., a man who has often otherwise deserved well of our Museum. It was transcribed from the notable parchment Passional of the monastery of Bödeken of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, of the diocese of Paderborn, for the month of October, folio 122, page B. But that the reader may judge of how great worth these Acts are, I subjoin some specimen of them from the copy just cited, in almost the same words.

[13] Thus then the anonymous author of them determines concerning St. Aurea: an epitome of which is handed down, sprung from a most noble family and having journeyed abroad from the borders of Syria to Paris, she is there appointed abbess of three hundred maidens. But when she was at the sisters' farms, it is announced to her that her cellaress and key-keeper has died; the Abbess returns to the monastery, calls by her own name the woman dead three days — out of whose hands the keys of the workrooms could not be wrenched — and calls her back to life; she bids her render the accounts of the office she had administered, and when these are finished grants her leave to pass back to the Lord. Presently the anonymous writer slips off to another prodigy: lest the Saint should give place to the murmurings of the sisters when bread chanced to fail them, behold you, she enters the oven, drives out the burning coals and the ashes with her sleeves unharmed, cleans the furnace, and — that the miracle may be doubled — with no one ringing them, the sisters and the neighbours hear a festive sound of bells; the nuns fly together and sing the Hymn Te Deum laudamus, and then excellent loaves are supplied to them. Nor is this yet the end of the marvels which the anonymous writer narrates. But I forbear to report these, content to report still the last. A certain abbess in Syria, a city across the sea, having eyes indeed but not seeing at all, warned by an angel in a vision to seek out at Paris the virgin Aurea, a pilgrim from the borders of Syria, and to raise her from the earth where she was buried, reports the matter to the bishop of the city, and sets out with him on a journey into the Gauls; but she herself, worn out, remains on the road; and while meanwhile the bishop pursues the journey, she by his order orders a shrine to be made in which to lay the body of St. Aurea. The body is raised from the earth at Paris, one arm of the Saint is cut off, and behold blood flows from the veins; this is granted to the Syrian bishop, who returns rejoicing to his native land and finds the abbess of the Syrian city, to whom he hands over the severed arm. This precious gift is placed in that shrine, and presently she receives her sight, and in perpetual memory of so great a miracle founds a noble monastery in Syria.

[14] and its faults are laid bare, From prodigies so badly heaped together, from that fictitious city which is called Syria, from the suppressed names of the bishop of Paris and of the Syrian bishop, and from the vague manner of narrating the matter, it appears that that anonymous writer was some centuries removed from the times of St. Aurea, and perhaps wrote in the tenth or eleventh century, at which time nothing was more usual with most writers than to stuff their lucubrations with prodigies, to report visions and apparitions of angels, and to patch on in a vague manner and in general terms things drawn from popular tradition alone, and therefore very uncertain and often false; nay, sometimes even to lie for piety's sake, as some writers of a fine nose, contemporary with them, have with good reason complained of them. Since not a few have published so insipid a medley in print, it has not seemed good to me to reprint it again. Let him who has a mind for it read it entire in Vincent of Beauvais in his Historical Mirror, book 23, chapter 69 and following, or in Gonon in the Lives of the Fathers of the West, book 3, page 156. And, unless my opinion deceive me, the prudent reader will not at all be angry with us that we do not thrust such Acts into the light again, nor tread in the footsteps of those who, bound by the condition either of their native land or of their profession, whether true or pretended, either love their own darkness or follow with closed eyes those who have gone before, provided only they hope that some honour will thence accrue either to their native land or to the Order which they profess. More prudent than these, Jean Mabillon judged that nothing else about the deeds of St. Aurea should be published in the Benedictine Century — although he numbers her among the nuns of his Order — than what he found committed to writing about her in the praised St. Ouen in the Life of St. Eligius. Now let us weigh in a few words the remaining copies of the Acts.

[15] and other copies of the Acts, both Manuscript Of the same bran is that which the Prague Manuscript codex presents to us of the miracles and deeds of St. Aurea, in which, as the copy declares, there are certain Lives written by Bernard Gui. Nor is there any notable difference between the two copies of the Acts already adduced, except that the Prague Acts have grown somewhat by interpolation, being in other respects nothing better than those of Bödeken. Besides these, a third copy of the Acts is at our hand, taken from a parchment Manuscript codex of the monastery of St. Mark of the Dominican Fathers at Florence, after the Life of St. Eligius. But neither this, nor two sermons once delivered on the solemnity of St. Aurea, nor the rhythmic verses which are there presented after the Lessons of the Office, have I judged worthy to be committed to the press. That you may know in a few words that medley, bristling no less with prolixity than with absurdities, take it thus. To the miracles just related from the Bödeken copy it adds in many words other prodigies, no less stupendous but equally uncertain, not to say ridiculous. These Acts assign the Saint's native place in the parts of the East, in a city known to no geographer, which is called Syria; and they make that abbess, at whose request they report the Saint's body to have been raised from the earth, likewise journey into the Gauls from the city which is called Syria, which is beyond the watery regions. These, I believe, and other fictions which I willingly pass over, abundantly suffice that we should not defile our pages with that declaimer's prolix dirges, but rather explode such Acts as they deserve. The fourth and last copy of the Acts, which we have from a certain Manuscript codex of Chifflet, since it reproduces word for word a great part of that inept declamation, ought in no way to detain us, as we hasten to examine the Acts already published in print.

[16] If from the copies already mentioned you take away some interpolations and the common commonplaces of rhetoricians, and printed, are shown to be of doubtful credit. you will have the same Acts which Vincent of Beauvais, a writer of the thirteenth century, inserted in his Historical Mirror, book 23, chapter 69 and the three following; and which Peter de Natalibus, book 9, chapter 23, and St. Antoninus, part 2 of the Histories, title 13, chapter 6, §10, transcribed almost word for word. And although these are otherwise names of writers not to be despised, and apt to win credit for the things asserted; yet from this no worth or weight at all accrues to the aforesaid Acts of St. Aurea. For in historical matters much earlier than their own age their authority is no greater than that of those writers whom they themselves adduce as witnesses. Vincent of Beauvais himself hints at this in the Prologue of his whole Work, chapter 4, where he says that it is not simply his own Work, but rather that of those out of whose words he wove almost the whole of it; subjoining that it is theirs by their authority, but his only by the arrangement of the parts. Since therefore Vincent of Beauvais, Peter de Natalibus and St. Antoninus cannot so much be said to have wished to make themselves sureties for what they reported, as simply to leave to posterity the historical monuments themselves which they had found — although this was done by them with no very great

discrimination everywhere, surely no one will do them injury who rejects as they deserve the spurious Acts or documents reported by them, or weighs the doubtful ones by the rules of criticism. I know indeed that Jacopo of Bergamo, Trithemius, Wion, Gonon, Arthur du Monstier, Yepes and other more recent writers — French, Spanish and German alike — agree with the authors just praised, each of whom published the Life of St. Aurea in his own tongue: but since these are inferior to Vincent of Beauvais and the other ancients already praised — if not in merits and knowledge, certainly in age — and have transcribed all their material either from the aforesaid anonymous writer or from Vincent of Beauvais himself, they will in no way induce me by their authority to follow them as leaders, when I do not follow Vincent of Beauvais on the subject in hand. Leaving aside, therefore, their additions and commonplaces, I shall here illustrate only those things which have been committed to writing for us about St. Aurea by authors more worthy of credit, namely St. Ouen, bishop of Rouen, and Jonas of Bobbio.

§ II. The Saint's native land, parents, and monastic superiorship, more probably exercised under the Rule of St. Columbanus.

St. Aurea, of whom St. Ouen and Jonas of Bobbio make mention in passing, It very often happens to the biographers of Saints and to other historians that, when, as they hasten to the end of the Work undertaken, certain circumstances occur to them not closely pertaining to their purpose, they touch on them in passing and at once go on to treat those matters which, for the province they have undertaken, come to be unfolded more fully. Whence it comes about that, while they wish to be brief in indicating those circumstances, they not rarely become obscure, or at least give posterity a handle for disputing: which chiefly holds good when no other contemporary or nearly contemporary writer is found who has treated those circumstances more fully and by design. So St. Ouen and Jonas of Bobbio pursued at length the deeds of the Saints whose Life they had taken upon themselves to write, but concerning St. Aurea, as not closely pertaining to the province they were to adorn, they were content to make mention only in passing, and published scarcely anything which is not either open to dispute or in need of further enquiry — especially since either no ancient writer committed the Life of St. Aurea to writing by design, or at least that lucubration has not come down to us. Hence posterity has taken occasion of doubting or disputing about the Saint's birthplace, about the rule of Religious life under which she lived, and about the monastery built at Paris by St. Eligius — whether, namely, it was simple, that is, composed of nuns alone, or double, that is, made up of nuns and monks together.

[18] more probably born in the Gauls, And first indeed, in what region St. Aurea was born is no lightly controverted question among writers: for some, and those sufficiently ancient, have said that she was born in Syria; others, and chiefly the more recent French writers, that she was born in the Gauls. Those who make her a Syrian woman, as Vincent of Beauvais, Peter de Natalibus, St. Antoninus and many others, seem, with the aforesaid anonymous writer, to have assigned her Syria as her native land instead of Quiria, the Saint's mother; or to have confused our St. Aurea with the virgin and martyr of the same name of Ostia, whom St. Hippolytus, who had formerly lived long in Arabia, a neighbour of Syria, buried at Ostia on the Tiber: on which matter see volume IV of August, pages 506 and 756, likewise Le Cointe, Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, under the year 671, number 22. Others on the contrary, who will have her born in the Gauls — as Gérard du Bois in the Ecclesiastical History of Paris, volume 1, page 202, and other more recent writers — defend their opinion on this ground, that the names of her parents, Maurinus and Quiria, sound nothing at all Syriac, but are Roman words, or among those Gallican ones which still sounded of a Roman origin; and that St. Ouen nowhere hints that they were foreigners. Their opinion pleases me the better, since no contemporary author or one nearly contemporary with St. Aurea is against it, on this head too, that St. Ouen, whenever in the Life of St. Eligius he makes mention of foreigners, is wont to express their native soil expressly — Saxony, for instance, or Swabia or other regions — but for the most part does not express the native soil when he speaks of natives of the Gauls themselves; so that from his very silence about St. Aurea's native soil it becomes likely that she was a native of the Gauls. There is also the fact that it ought not easily to be believed that St. Eligius would have set over the noble matrons of France, whom he had gathered together with other maidens, a Syrian virgin to govern them with the authority of an abbess.

[19] But as regards the names of her parents, her parents being Maurinus and Quiria, which Jacopo of Bergamo in chapter 40 of On Famous Women, page 127, and other writers have denied to have been handed down in writing, either they must not have seen the Life of St. Eligius written by St. Ouen, or at least they had before their eyes a mutilated or corrupt codex. For in the praised Life of St. Eligius, which stands in volume 2 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, published in the year 1723, book 1, chapter 17, the praised bishop of Rouen speaks thus expressly: He (St. Eligius) began to build, within his own house which he had received in the same city (Paris) by the king's gift, a dwelling for the virgins of Christ: and a few things being interposed, he adds: And over them he set as abbess a maiden worthy of God, by name Aurea, the daughter namely of Maurinus and Quiria. It is clear therefore from these words that the names of St. Aurea's parents are not unknown; but what they did of note, or in what city of the Gauls they fixed their abode — whether at Orléans, as some contend, or at Paris or elsewhere — I have ascertained by no testimony of antiquity. Nor is it any more known to me whether under the training of her parents or of some most devout matron she sowed the seeds of those virtues for which she afterwards deserved to be called by St. Ouen a Maiden worthy of God. However that may be, this seems in no way doubtful, that the splendour of her virtues and other gifts was no common one, since St. Eligius in his singular prudence judged that she should be set over three hundred maidens gathered in his monastery at Paris, so that the strict discipline of the Rule, which he wished to be there established, might under her governance be exactly observed by all.

[20] Since no one can set out that matter and the building of the monastery itself more surely for us she is set over the monastery built at Paris by St. Eligius; than the bishop of Rouen already praised above, a writer not only contemporary but an eyewitness and most closely bound in friendship with St. Eligius, I transcribe his words here. Thus then he narrates that matter in book 1 of the Life of St. Eligius, chapter 17: He (St. Eligius) was thinking of building a hospice in the city of Paris; but, having conceived a more excellent plan by God's inspiration, he began to build within his own house, which he had received in the same city by the gift of the king (Dagobert I), a dwelling for the virgins of Christ: in which work labouring long and much with the utmost insistence, he at last built a worthy convent of holy virgins, where, establishing the strict discipline of the Rule, he gathered up to the number of three hundred maidens of divers nations, both from his own handmaids and from the noble matrons of France; and over them he set as abbess a maiden worthy of God, by name Aurea, the daughter namely of Maurinus and Quiria: he also assigned them ample revenues of land, and turned all his zeal wholly thither: you might see him drawing thither from every side, like a most useful bee, all things necessary for the monastery, vessels and vestments alike, and sacred volumes too and very many other ornaments: for whatever should be fittingly necessary for this sex (over which, as has been said above, St. Aurea presided as abbess) he provided, as a most devout father, with sufficiently skilful diligence in all things and with anxious care … Therefore, as the same holy writer goes on in chapter 18, when the whole work of the monastery had been accomplished, and all the buildings of the handmaids of God finished — for which he obtained the reward of his labour — he last of all built a basilica in honour of St. Paul the Apostle for burying the bodies of the handmaids of God, whose lofty roofs he covered elegantly with lead; in which basilica blessed Quintilian the abbot also lies buried. He also built, or rather renewed, a basilica in honour of St. Martial, bishop and confessor of Limoges, which, once handsomely established, he covered its roofs with lead.

[21] in which, whether under the Rule of St. Benedict, And these are the chief words of St. Ouen by which he recorded the superiorship of our Abbess and the beginnings of her monastery, and which words therefore had necessarily to have their place here. They compel me indeed to interrupt the series of St. Aurea's life already begun: but, since the necessity of enquiring into the truth demands it, it must be borne. And so I shall here set out for the learned reader what that strict discipline of the Rule recorded by St. Ouen is, and what authors think, or in my judgment ought to think, about the other doubt proposed at number 17. Many Benedictine writers contend that wherever in councils, in the Capitularies of kings, in the Acts of Saints or in documents published after the promulgation of the Benedictine Rule they find expressed the strict discipline of the Rule, the holy Rule, or other words of that kind, these must be so understood that by them nothing else is signified than the Rule of St. Benedict: whence they freely and boldly reckon among Benedictine nuns St. Aurea, who, on the testimony of St. Ouen so often praised, did her soldiering for God under the strict discipline of the Rule. But so far are they from proving as solidly and plainly as they assert it so generally, that they have as adversaries in this general assertion of theirs even Mabillon himself, that most excellent champion of the Benedictine cause, and the editors of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, as is clearly shown from the former's Preface to the 1st Benedictine Century, number 73, and his Preface to the 2nd Benedictine Century, number 14, and from the statements of the latter in volume 7 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 280. For the former judges in the places cited that by the holy Rule mentioned by abbot Eutropius in his Apologetic Letter the Benedictine Rule is not understood, nor was the same understood by Jonas of Bobbio in the Life of St. Columbanus; and the latter in the place cited think it more probable that St. Aurea, whom they knew from St. Ouen to have lived under the strict discipline of the Rule, nevertheless served God under the Rule of St. Caesarius.

[22] or under another she lived, is much controverted: That I may therefore set out the opinions of various writers on the rule of Religious life which St. Aurea followed: for the Rule of St. Caesarius stand the editors of Gallia Christiana already praised in the place cited; for the institutes of St. Columbanus contend our Henschen, Le Cointe, Castellan, Baillet, Louis Bulteau in volume 1 of the Historical Compendium of the Order of St. Benedict, page 443, the author of the Life of St. Aurea contracted into an epitome in French and prefixed to her new Office in the year 1729, the author of the Parisian Martyrology, and other learned writers also. For the Rule of St. Benedict very many Benedictine writers do battle; for the same Rule of their Father, together with the institutes of St. Columbanus

joined to it, Mabillon fights in part 1 of the Preface to the 4th Benedictine Century, at the beginning of number 131; and — what not everyone will easily understand — at the end of the same number the same writer contends for the Rule of St. Donatus, that is, for the threefold Rule of SS. Caesarius, Columbanus and Benedict, accommodated by St. Donatus, bishop of Besançon, to the uses of nuns. To reconcile authors of such great name disagreeing among themselves, and, by adducing the arguments of all and each, to decide that dispute, is forbidden both by the very length of the matter and by the very nature of the controversy; which, since it could only be brought to the point of a definite determination how long the Rule of St. Columbanus was observed in Columbanian monasteries without the company of the Benedictine Rule, seems rather to belong to the Life of St. Columbanus, to be illustrated in our Work on the 21st day of November, if it please the powers above, than to be handled here in advance. Yet since the plan of my design does not allow me to pass over that matter wholly untouched in this place, I have judged that I must set out what I myself think of the various opinions just reported.

[23] And first indeed one may wonder why the praised editors of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, volume 7, it is shown, however, that she did not under the Rule of St. Caesarius, column 280, departed from the opinion of their own elders, and, against the express testimony of Jonas of Bobbio, incline to affirm that St. Aurea did her soldiering for God under the Rule of St. Caesarius, bishop of Arles. Hear their words: He (St. Eligius) set Aurea over them as abbess under the Rule of St. Columbanus, as Jonas of Bobbio hands down in the Life of saint Eustasius, chapter 17, and after him Baillet; yet perhaps better under the Rule of St. Caesarius, which this Saint had composed for the convent governed by his sister St. Caesaria, and which St. Radegund had proposed to the sacred virgins of her monastery at Poitiers. For what they adduce from the Acts of St. Radegund — that this most devout queen prescribed the Rule of St. Caesarius to be observed by the sacred virgins of her monastery at Poitiers — makes nothing to our purpose, much less proves anything. For that concerning St. Radegund is clear as attested in writing by ancient and most trustworthy writers, as has been shown in our Work at the 13th day of August and in the Life of St. Caesarius at the 27th of the same month. But nothing of the kind has any ancient writer affirmed about St. Aurea; so that the opposite can rather be drawn from St. Ouen in the Life of St. Eligius, and the opinion contrary to that of the praised editors is, by their own confession, expressly handed down by Jonas of Bobbio, the biographer of St. Eustasius and a contemporary of St. Aurea. For it does not appear credible that St. Eligius fetched the rule of Religious life under which he placed his nuns from anywhere else than from the monastery of Luxeuil, to which he himself, burning with the desire of a holy manner of life (as the often praised St. Ouen says in his Life, book 1, chapter 21), greatly hastened.

[24] Indeed, as the same author subjoins, Luxeuil (which was the chief monastery of the disciples of St. Columbanus) was at that time more eminent and more strict than all others; but under the institutes of St. Columbanus for monasteries were not yet so frequent in the Gauls, and where there were any, they were not under regular discipline, but were altogether secular in the malice of the old leaven. Besides Luxeuil, then, which alone, as has been said, skilfully kept the strictness of the Rule (is it not that of St. Columbanus, its founder and institutor?) the monastery of Solignac was in the Western parts the head of this religious observance, from which at length many took both their beginning and their example, so that now too, by the Divinity's favour, innumerable kindly monasteries of either sex are held under Regular discipline throughout all Francia and Gaul. Who would not gather from this what I had just asserted, that St. Eligius did not wish to prescribe to the monks or the nuns for whom he had raised monasteries any other Rule to be observed than that very one which he had so often seen so holily observed at Luxeuil? And that this was the Rule of St. Caesarius, I do not know whether even one man has hitherto dreamed. Or who would not think that among those innumerable monasteries of either sex raised on the model of the Regular discipline of Luxeuil must be placed that which St. Eligius had founded at Paris, and over which he had set as abbess St. Aurea, a maiden worthy of God?

[25] did her soldiering for God; so that she does not seem If these things do not convince you, hear Jonas of Bobbio praised above, and, unless you charge that contemporary writer, most esteemed on many counts, with lying, you will, I think, give judgment with me. Thus then he in the Life of St. Eustasius, in our volume III of March, page 789, and in Mabillon, 2nd Benedictine Century, page 122, number 17: But Abellenus and the other bishops of the Gauls afterwards aspire to strengthen the institutes of Columbanus (namely after the synod of Mâcon held in the year of Christ 623, as Mabillon determines in the Benedictine Annals, in which, as its title in Sirmond, volume 5 of the Councils, column 1686, declares, the Rule of blessed Columbanus was defended and approved against the calumnies of Agrestius by abbot Eustasius). How many (of the bishops) now, in love of Columbanus and of his Rule, build monasteries, unite congregations, gather the flock of Christ. Among whom the then illustrious man Eligius, who now presides as bishop over the church of Vermandois, … built near the city of Limoges a noble monastery by the name of Solignac (the same of which St. Ouen speaks above) upon the river Vienne (in French la Vienne), four miles distant from the above-said city, and many other monasteries in the same places: and at Paris too he builds a monastery of maidens, which he had received from the royal bounty, over which he set a virgin of Christ, Aurea by name. I forbear to review the other monasteries which the praised Jonas of Bobbio asserts to have been raised by various men on the Rule of blessed Columbanus, and from the quoted words of St. Ouen and of Jonas I deduce these two conclusions: the first, how groundlessly the editors of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, against the testimony of contemporary authors, have said that St. Aurea lived under the Rule of St. Caesarius rather than under that of St. Columbanus; the second, on how solid an authority our Henschen, Le Cointe, Castellan and others rest, who contend that our Saint did her soldiering for God under the institutes of St. Columbanus, which his disciples, on Jonas's testimony in the Prologue of his Life, handed down to their congregations or pupils to be observed.

[26] [to be able to be called strictly Benedictine, nor in that sense in which various Benedictines will have it,] From Henschen and the other writers already praised those Benedictines dissent who will have it that the standard of SS. Benedict and Columbanus was perpetually and from its very beginning one, or who contend that the Rule of St. Columbanus is only an Appendix or a Commentary on the Benedictine institute; so that, since — as they say in the schools — the denomination must be taken from the nobler part, they contend that St. Aurea, although her monastery was founded in the love of Columbanus and of his Rule, must nevertheless be reckoned among genuine Benedictine nuns. But this opinion of theirs rests on so frail a prop that Mabillon thought he must proceed by another path to bring St. Aurea into his Order. Nay, he himself in the Preface to the 2nd Benedictine Century, number 14, refutes his own fellows in these words: Columbanus, as it seems to me at least (and most rightly), may not undeservedly be said to have brought into Gaul a manner of life different from the Benedictine. For first he came from Ireland, or from the monastery of Bangor, into Gaul before the Rule of St. Benedict had penetrated into the island of Britain, and so into Ireland. Then, settled in Gaul, he wrote for his monks a peculiar Rule, which may be read in the Codex of Rules together with his Penitential. In it scarcely any trace of the Benedictine Rule appears. Moreover Jonas in the Acts of Columbanus and of his disciples often mentions the Rule of St. Columbanus, nowhere that of St. Benedict. He does indeed in some places praise "the holy Rule", by which name the councils are wont to commend the Rule of St. Benedict. But Jonas seems to have designated the Rule of Columbanus, which he himself had professed. Besides, Columbanus and the monks instituted by him displayed the habit, the tonsure and other rites of the Scots, as appears from the council of Mâcon assembled for the cause of Agrestius (of which see number 25). Finally in that council Agrestius complained, on Jonas's testimony in the life of St. Eustasius, that the disciples of Columbanus departed from the custom of the rest. Since therefore — as the same Mabillon again confesses in part 1 of the Preface to the 4th Benedictine Century, number 127 — the monastic kind of St. Columbanus was at the beginning different and separate from the Benedictine, and the Columbanian monks at first observed, as is certain, a peculiar Rule, there falls to pieces on every side the opinion of those who, resting on the prop mentioned above, have numbered St. Aurea among genuine Benedictine nuns.

[27] Another way, as I have just said, Mabillon enters upon, [nor in that in which Mabillon will have it, who entered upon a way different from his fellows,] in order to insert into his Order St. Aurea — placed by him in the 2nd Benedictine Century, page 58, in the Index of Saints Passed Over, among the genuine nuns of the Order of St. Benedict — and other men and women illustrious for sanctity. Hence in number 14 cited above he discourses thus: Led by these arguments (which we transcribed in the preceding number) my mind inclines to concede that the monastic kind of Bl. Columbanus was at the beginning different and separate from the Benedictine. But I am persuaded that both coalesced a little afterwards into one manner of life, certain rites being taken away and tempered. And after a few things interposed he concludes thus: But that in Gaul, after the synod of Mâcon held in the year 625 (in his Benedictine Annals he assigns the year 623), the same (Benedictine) Rule was added to the rites of Columbanus, no one may rightly deny. If therefore we believe Mabillon, the Rule of SS. Benedict and Columbanus, joined immediately after that synod of Mâcon, is that very strict Rule and Norm on which monasteries of either sex were founded in the Gauls in the time of St. Eligius. This therefore is, he says at number 131 of part 1 of the Preface to the 4th Benedictine Century, that Norm or sacred Rule which the monks of Solignac followed, and others formed on their example, according to Ouen: that is, the Rule of the most blessed Fathers Benedict and Columbanus; as Eligius himself explains in his Testament for the founding of the monastery of Solignac. This, I say, is the Rule which the convents of nuns established in those times obeyed, such as St. Aurea's convent raised by Eligius at Paris, where I think the Rule of Donatus flourished.

[28] So indeed Mabillon; whose reasons, before I set about weighing their force, and whose opinion I confess I do not know how I can fitly reconcile his words adduced in the last place with one another. For when the learned man discourses of a rule of Religious life fused into one from the Rules of SS. Benedict and Columbanus, he asserts that the convents of nuns established in those times obeyed this twofold Rule so united, which he calls the sacred Rule, such as St. Aurea's convent raised by Eligius; and presently, with no word interposed, no longer that twofold Rule fused into one rule of Religious life, but the Rule of St.

Donatus — gathered, on the testimony of that Saint himself, out of three rules of Religious life, that is, out of the Rules of SS. Caesarius, Benedict and Columbanus — he affirms to have flourished in the same convent of St. Aurea. But either Mabillon reckons as the strict Rule, or sacred norm, which the convents of nuns established in those times obeyed, the Rule of SS. Benedict and Columbanus alone, fused into one rule of Religious life; or under the same name of Rule and Norm he includes also the institute of St. Caesarius and the Handbook of the Rules of St. Donatus. If the first, it must needs follow either that the Rule of St. Donatus did not flourish in the Eligian convent, or, if Mabillon will have it that this flourished there, that the Eligian convent of Paris was not formed on the example of the monks of Solignac, who never followed the Rule of St. Donatus, composed for women alone; or at least that it cannot be said to have obeyed the sacred Rule nakedly and simply, since he contends that besides this another rule of Religious life, adapted by St. Donatus for women alone, flourished in that convent. But if by the name of the Strict Rule or sacred Norm Mabillon wished the institute of St. Caesarius and the Handbook of the Rules of St. Donatus to be included as well, then, as it seems to me at least, the learned man's discourse will be exceedingly incomplete and maimed, since, wrapping these Rules in deep silence, he spoke above thus of the united Rule of St. Benedict and St. Columbanus alone: This, I say, is the Rule which the convents of nuns established in those times obeyed, such as St. Aurea's convent.

[29] it is weighed, and, as regards the Rule of St. Donatus, But let us enquire into the matter itself, and let us now investigate whether about the year 632 the Rule of St. Donatus flourished in St. Aurea's convent — afterwards to treat in its place of the Rule of St. Benedict, which Mabillon asserts was observed there from the outset together with the institutes of St. Columbanus. As I read the deeds of St. Donatus, bishop of Besançon, who, as he himself reports, excerpted from the Rules of SS. Caesarius, Benedict and Columbanus, gathering their flowerets into one, something after the fashion of a Handbook, which they call the Rule of St. Donatus, it seems by no means possible that this flourished from the beginning in the Eligian monastery of our holy Abbess. These considerations impel me so to think. That no Rule at all flourished there from the founding of this convent, no one will believe; but if any flourished — as no one can rightly deny — it cannot have been this Rule of St. Donatus, which it appears was not yet composed by that holy bishop of Besançon in the year 631, nay nor in 633, by which year St. Aurea's monastery had certainly been founded. For, as Bosch shows among us in volume 2 of August, page 198, St. Donatus was born about the year 594, whence in the year 631, or even 633, he counted only about forty years; but when he composed the aforesaid Rule, he seems to have been not a young bishop but a dim-sighted and broken old man, or at least a man of fifty, as our praised Bosch shows at page 199, number 9, and as St. Donatus himself hints in the Prologue of his Rule, where he asserts that, having long and much resisted before, he at last strove to satisfy the requests of the nuns and to make from the three Rules just mentioned one Rule after the fashion of a Handbook, in so far as, amid constant bodily infirmity, the divine mercy gave the power and the dimness of his blunted senses allowed. If therefore, as is most likely, St. Donatus composed his Rule only when he was older, or at least after the year 634, I do not know by what reasoning it can be maintained that it flourished from the beginning in St. Aurea's convent, built in the year 632 or at least 633.

[30] For the rest, since the Rule of St. Benedict itself was not received by nuns in Gaul before St. Donatus, bishop of Besançon, had adapted it for women — as Mabillon himself confesses in the Preface to the 1st Benedictine Century, number 48 — to which he subjects St. Aurea, he is refuted. it follows that neither was it observed, together with the Rule of St. Columbanus, in St. Aurea's convent before the year 633, in which the holy Abbess already presided over the three hundred nuns gathered by St. Eligius. The praised Mabillon does indeed assert there that the Benedictine Rule was adapted for women about the year 620, and therefore was in force before the founding of the Eligian convent at Paris; but I think the opposite has been sufficiently shown in the preceding number; so that on this head alone — that the Benedictine Rule was not received by nuns in Gaul before the composition of St. Donatus's Rule, in Mabillon's own judgment — St. Aurea might deservedly be excluded from the number of Benedictine nuns. But you will say: however these matters stand as to the time of the Rule published by St. Donatus, no one may rightly deny that the manner in which, after the synod of Mâcon mentioned above, the Benedictine Rule was joined to the rites of Columbanus is rightly set out by Mabillon in the Preface to the 2nd Benedictine Century, number 15; and therefore those two Rules could have been observed in St. Aurea's convent from its beginning, nay, really did flourish there from the first. I answer that the Mabillonian exposition of that fact — which let him read through who will — ought in no way to be taken in place of a proof; nor are the testimonies which the praised writer adduces, both at the number cited and often elsewhere in his Prefaces, so firm as to compel everyone to confess that after the synod of Mâcon the Benedictine Rule was at once joined everywhere with the institutes of St. Columbanus and observed in St. Aurea's monastery from the beginning. Let us therefore now weigh in a separate article the chief testimonies which Mabillon has adduced in confirmation of his opinion, so that thus, the weight of the reasons on either side being balanced, the fair reader may judge whether St. Aurea is deservedly and rightly reckoned by him among Benedictine nuns properly so called, or whether on the contrary she must be held as one adopted into the Benedictine Order.

§ III. Whether the other opinion of Mabillon, according to which St. Aurea is by him declared a Benedictine nun properly so called, rests on sufficiently firm testimonies; and whether Benedictine monks were introduced by St. Eligius into St. Aurea's convent together with the nuns.

Mabillon neither from the things done in the synod of Mâcon Having reported from Jonas of Bobbio the accusations which Agrestius had brought in the synod of Mâcon against the Rule of St. Columbanus, Mabillon, in order to prove that before the death of St. Eustasius, who died in the year of Christ 625, and consequently before the building of the Eligian convent, the Rules of St. Benedict and of St. Columbanus were united with each other, discourses thus at number 15 of the Preface to the 2nd Benedictine Century: Eustasius (he was a pupil of St. Columbanus) satisfied the other calumnies of Agrestius: to the accusation about the tonsure, because he could not dissemble the matter, nor perhaps thought it could be approved by others, he answered nothing. And a little after: Eustasius, having returned from the council of Mâcon, in order to shake off the scandal of the unusual tonsure (of the Scots) and of other customs foreign to the Roman Church, joined the Rule of St. Benedict with the institutes of Columbanus. But indeed, what chiefly prevents me from believing Mabillon in these assertions is that the things which Agrestius objected in that synod against the tonsure of the monks of Luxeuil, or of the disciples of Columbanus, appear to have been held even by the fathers of Mâcon as the words of a babbling calumniator; and that St. Eustasius deigned to answer them by nothing else than by citing Agrestius, as one chattering or blurting out petty and frivolous things, to the divine judgment within the circuit of the present year — where in fact within that same year Agrestius appeared, killed by his own servant whom he had himself redeemed; as Jonas of Bobbio narrates more fully in the Life of St. Eustasius, in our volume III of March, page 788, number 12, and page 789, number 15.

[32] nor from the things done in that council, But now, ought it to be believed that the frivolous calumny of a babbling man had merit and weight of such authority with the bishops that on its account they should prescribe a new Rule to be observed by the monks of Luxeuil, the pupils of St. Columbanus? Or is it more credible that the monks of Luxeuil, after they had seen the institutes of their father St. Columbanus vindicated from calumnies and approved with so great honour in the synod of Mâcon, should have wished to introduce a foreign Rule into their monastery, and that this should have been at once carried into execution by Eustasius himself, the glorious vindicator of the Columbanian Rule? If Eustasius had done this, he would in fact have professed himself no longer the victor but the vanquished, and Agrestius not a futile calumniator but a just and equitable accuser — a deed so contrary to the temper of a man triumphing that scarcely anyone would believe it even of a contemporary writer expressly affirming it. But not only has no ancient writer expressly reported it, but Jonas expressly affirms the contrary, when at number 16 of the praised Life of St. Eustasius he reports that the bishops of the Gauls afterwards aspired to strengthen the institutes of Columbanus, and that many in love of Columbanus built monasteries according to his Rule, among which he numbers St. Aurea's very convent built by St. Eligius; so that from the things done in the synod of Mâcon Mabillon has no support by which to prove that before the founding of the Eligian convent the Rules of St. Columbanus and of St. Benedict were united, and on that title to reckon St. Aurea among genuine Benedictines.

[33] The learned man takes refuge in the author of the Life of St. Salaberga and in the Prologue of St. Donatus, nor from the anonymous author of the Life of St. Salaberga bishop of Besançon, and, to establish his opinion thence, speaks thus in the same place: Hence the author of the book on the Life of Bl. Salaberga, praised above, affirms that under the governance of Waldebert, who succeeded Eustasius a little after the council, very many monasteries were built on the Rule of SS. Benedict and Columbanus only: which we have confirmed also by the testimony of St. Donatus and of others. The Life of St. Salaberga stands in our volume VI of September, page 521 and following, and its author wrote after the year 680, or, as he himself says, after the civil war that arose between the kings of the Franks, Theuderic (III) and Dagobert (II). Let us hear, then, what is said in the Life of St. Salaberga about St. Walbert or Waldebert to our purpose. After describing St. Salaberga's illustrious birth, her upbringing, her prodigious healing, her marriage, and at last the blessed passing to the powers above of St. Eustasius, by whose prayers she had been healed, a digression about Waldebert, the successor of St. Eustasius, is inserted into the Life of St. Salaberga, in which he is narrated to have succeeded St. Eustasius in the governance of the brethren, and after a few things these are recounted of him: In his (Waldebert's) time, throughout the provinces of the Gauls, bands of monks and swarms of sacred maidens began to sprout up, not only through the fields, farms, villages and strongholds, but even through the vastness of the desert, on the Rule of the blessed fathers Benedict and Columbanus only: whereas before that time few monasteries were to be found in those places. Let us grant that that digression was not slyly inserted by an interpolator of the Life of St. Salaberga; let us grant that in the copies of that Life no errors are found such as the boldness of copyists and the length of time have brought in;

yet let us see what can be made out of it for Mabillon's opinion.

[34] From these words of the anonymous writer, as they stand in the printed copies, words, of which an exposition is given, it could evidently be concluded that in the advanced seventh century the Rule of St. Benedict was not unknown in the Gauls, and therefore that the Benedictine monk of Der must be corrected, who in the book of the Miracles of St. Bercharius, number 9, in Mabillon, 2nd Benedictine Century, page 847, wrote thus: For the Rule of our most holy father Benedict, hitherto unheard of by the men of the Frankish empire, by the most skilful industry of that prince (Rudolph) poured the radiance of its brightness (in the tenth century) into very many churches. But it cannot thus be made out from the words of the former anonymous writer that already from the year 625, in which Waldebert was made abbot of Luxeuil, not even one monastery, whether at Paris or in the other cities of Gaul, was raised on the Rule of St. Columbanus without the Benedictine institute being at the same time introduced into it together with that Rule. And certainly those words of the biographer of St. Salaberga must be explained either in another sense than that which Mabillon will have — namely that from the year 625 to 665, during which course of time St. Waldebert presided over the monks of Luxeuil, the monasteries of the Columbanian Order began to multiply, while at the same time others began to sprout up on the Rule of St. Benedict: which sense being admitted, nothing absurd would be asserted in this digression, nor would anything be taken from Waldebert; or, if from the year 625 the Rules of St. Benedict and St. Columbanus were united with each other in the monasteries of the Gauls, and the institute of the latter was not propagated without the Benedictine, it will be necessary to confess that Jonas of Bobbio, a writer contemporary with St. Walbert and St. Aurea, must yield the palm of authority and good faith to an anonymous writer much younger, and did anything but what he professes himself to do — namely, to favour no one with a panegyric strain, and to commend to memory what is worthy of it.

[35] proves his opinion strongly, For if Mabillon's exposition stands, may not Jonas deservedly be accused of party zeal, nay of hatred of the Benedictine Rule, because he nowhere mentions it, and commends the Rule of Columbanus alone, whereas nevertheless, as Mabillon contends, the institutes of St. Benedict had already from the year 625 coalesced into one manner of life with the Columbanian Rule; and because, at the time when that conjunction of Rules was made, the Columbanian was always held as the less principal, and the Benedictine as the nobler, and from the latter, as they say in the schools, the denomination of the Order of St. Benedict had to be taken? Besides, with what appearance of sincerity could the praised Jonas have written that Abellenus and the other bishops of the Gauls aspired to strengthen the institutes of Columbanus, approved by the votes of the Fathers in the synod of Mâcon, and that in love of Columbanus and of his Rule they built monasteries — if immediately after that synod (as Mabillon will have at number 23), or even before it (as certain Benedictines will have), the institutes of St. Columbanus were strengthened in no other way than by enjoining on their followers the observance of another Rule? Or who at last would believe that the praised Jonas, who professes to commend to memory things worthy of it, would have passed over in silence a matter of the greatest moment among Religious men — such as the change of one institute into another, or the addition of a second Rule to the first — if such a change had really in his time already been introduced into the Columbanian monasteries, or had then begun to be introduced? What of this, that not only does Jonas of Bobbio keep deep silence about the matter, but the biographer of St. Philibert also, in the 2nd Benedictine Century, page 819, openly asserts that even after the death of St. Agilus, which happened about the year 650, many monasteries of the Gauls lived under the norm of St. Columbanus; and so distinctly separates from one another the graces of Basil, the Rule of Macarius, the decrees of Benedict and the institutes of Columbanus, that he hints that the Rule of St. Columbanus coalesced into one rule of Religious life no more with the Benedictine than with the Basilian or the Macarian. I pass over other writers of these times, who constantly call the pupils of St. Waldebert monks of St. Columbanus.

[36] nor from the Prologue of the Rules of St. Donatus, Nor indeed does the Mabillonian opinion find much support in the Prologue of the Rules of St. Donatus. For even if our adversaries should refute by solid reasons what we have discoursed at number 29 about St. Donatus's Rule — which, however, I do not think will happen — the opinion opposed to us would nonetheless be no more confirmed thereby. The words of St. Donatus, which Mabillon partly adduces in the Preface to the 2nd Benedictine Century, number 10, run thus: For which cause you often enjoin upon me that, having examined the Rule of St. Caesarius, bishop of Arles, which is more especially dedicated to the virgins of Christ, together with those of the most blessed abbots Benedict also and Columbanus, I should, by gathering as it were certain flowerets, so to speak, into one, excerpt or heap up for you something after the fashion of a Handbook. From these words of St. Donatus, with which he addresses Gauthstrudis and the other nuns of the monastery once founded by his mother Flavia, Mabillon infers this: Why, I ask, do the virgins of Jussan, living in the neighbourhood of the monks of Luxeuil, ask Donatus, the disciple of St. Columbanus, to adapt the Rule of St. Benedict for them, unless because they perceived that this was observed by the monks placed round about them, and desired to imitate them? To Mabillon thus enquiring, and thence inferring at number 15 that even while St. Eustasius was alive the Rule of St. Benedict and of St. Columbanus was joined at Luxeuil and elsewhere, this answer, not far-fetched, is ready to hand: that the nuns of Jessan, as is clear from St. Donatus's own Prologue, were able to read those three Rules, or at least to hear certain things about them, and to notice in them some points which they judged had been providently and usefully ordained; wherefore, earnestly desiring that these should be wisely adapted to their own sex, they most insistently asked St. Donatus, a most experienced guide of the Religious life, to excerpt from each of the Rules of St. Caesarius, St. Benedict and St. Columbanus the most excellent flowerets and to compose from them a Handbook for them. Nor do I see that, for nuns to make so just a request, it is necessary that the joined Rule of SS. Benedict and Columbanus had first flourished among the neighbouring monks, or that the nuns made so reasonable a request only as led by the example of those monks. Nor do I think that what Mabillon aims at follows from St. Donatus's words any more than, from a Handbook which some director experienced in the Religious life should now adapt for nuns out of the constitutions of St. Francis, St. Dominic and St. Ignatius, it could legitimately be inferred that in one or more monasteries of men two or three of the said Rules are now observed together in undivided partnership, or were observed before.

[37] Further, in the same number 15 of the Preface to the 2nd Benedictine Century Mabillon presses his point thus: [nor from the Scottish tonsure laid aside, as he contends, by the monks of Luxeuil] And indeed who would believe that Ouen, Eligius and Nivard would have summoned from the monastery of Luxeuil monks marked with a Simoniacal crown, which men devoted to Roman customs so abhorred? By which words he contends that already from the time of St. Eligius, or a little after the synod of Mâcon, the monks of Luxeuil, having laid aside the Scottish crown, had embraced the Benedictine institute. But from what does Mabillon prove that the Scottish tonsure of the monks of Luxeuil was held by the Fathers of Mâcon as truly Simoniacal and scandalous, and seemed to them less tolerable than it seemed long afterwards to St. Ceolfrid himself, abbot of Wearmouth, who, although he by no means approved that tonsure, nevertheless did not judge that those who wore it should be condemned? Nor indeed, he says in his letter to Naiton, king of the Picts, which Bede reviews in book 5, chapter 22 of his History, should you think that I have so pursued these matters as though I judged those who have this tonsure to be condemned, if by faith and works they favour Catholic unity; nay rather I confidently profess that very many of them have been holy and worthy of God. Since therefore, on the testimony of the same Ceolfrid, a difference of tonsure does no harm to those whose faith toward God is pure and whose charity toward their neighbour is sincere, and since Agrestius's accusation against the monks of Luxeuil about the Scottish tonsure appears to have been held in the synod of Mâcon as frivolous and unworthy of an answer, I should not easily believe that immediately after that synod the monks of Luxeuil changed their tonsure. This is persuaded me also by the ancient manuscript of Elnone, that is, of the abbey of St. Amand, in which, as Longueval reports in the Ecclesiastical History of Gaul, volume 4, page 134, after St. Amand's Testament there is displayed his effigy and those of the other bishops who subscribed to it, among whom appears St. Mommolenus, successor of St. Eligius in the see of Noyon and before that a monk of Luxeuil, wearing the Scottish tonsure. But what if it were granted to Mabillon that not long after the synod of Mâcon the pupils of St. Columbanus in Gaul, to conform themselves more to Roman customs, laid aside their Scottish tonsure: could they not have assumed the Roman tonsure without the Benedictine Rule just as they had admitted the Roman norm of celebrating Easter before the synod of Mâcon, and yet not on that account have embraced the Rule of St. Benedict before that same synod?

[38] nor does he sufficiently confirm it by other testimonies. Mabillon then heaps up, at number 17 and following and afterwards in his other Prefaces, various testimonies by which he strives either to establish or to illustrate his assertion. But since these strike rather those who set the propagation of the Benedictine Rule too late than tell against those who deny that immediately after the synod of Mâcon the Benedictine Rule was united in the Gauls to the Rule of St. Columbanus, I shall pass those over and discuss only one testimony adduced by him, from which his opinion, if from any head at all, may seem chiefly able to be proved against these. Here it is: St. Eligius, in a charter given for the monastery of Solignac in the year 631, as Mabillon published it in the Additions and Corrections to the 2nd Benedictine Century, page 1091, says that that house of ascetics was endowed by him on this interposed condition, that (the monks) should follow the path of religion of the most holy men of the monastery of Luxeuil, and firmly hold the Rule of the most blessed Fathers Benedict and Columbanus. But since St. Eligius may deservedly be said to have wished that the same Rule which he had introduced into the monastery of Solignac should also be kept with all care at Paris in the house of ascetics of St. Aurea, it will seem evident that already from the year 631, and therefore a few years after the synod of Mâcon, both the aforementioned Rules were joined; and that St. Aurea accordingly, who obeyed the Rule of St. Columbanus, is inscribed in the Benedictine Calendars on a most just and most certain title; whence, you will say, there was no need of words, nor need Mabillon have been opposed, when in part 1 of the Preface to the 4th Benedictine Century, number 131, and in the Index of Those Passed Over in the 2nd Century, he reckons St. Aurea among those who are genuine Benedictines.

[39] St. Eligius's charter for the monastery of Solignac, whose copies disagree, Let us look into the matter more deeply. Mabillon, when he published that charter in print in the place cited, says that he received it transcribed from a Manuscript codex of Solignac; but the Benedictine editors of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, in volume 2, among the Instruments of the church

of Limoges, column 185 and following, do not declare whence they have it; Le Cointe too says nothing of this when he reports it in volume 4 of the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, page 861 and following. Moreover there is some discrepancy between these editions of the charter: Mabillon omitted all but one of those dreadful imprecations with which Eligius strikes those who should attempt to oppose the disposition made by him, substituting in their place a series of some dots; but the Benedictines already praised suppressed none of these imprecations; while Le Cointe, with one exception, passed over them all, yet without substituting, as Mabillon did, a continuous series of dots. Whence you may see that the copies of that charter do not agree with one another very exactly. There is also another difference between the editions of this charter, which bears most upon our matter, and from which, if its original were extant and could be consulted, this controversy would more easily be settled. These words — That they may firmly hold the Rule of the most blessed Fathers S. Benedict and Columbanus — are read indeed in the Preface to the 2nd Century, number 23, and in the editors of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, yet with this slight difference, that in the cited volume 2 of Gallia Christiana the title of Saint is no more prefixed to Benedict than to Columbanus; but the learned author of the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, who is persuaded that in the monasteries of St. Columbanus at this time the Benedictine Rule had not been received, judges without hesitation that the words mentioned above must be struck out, and asserts that the charter is interpolated. Against him Philippe Bastide, a Benedictine monk, rises up sharply at pages 74 and 75 of On the Propagation of the Order of St. Benedict. But whether Le Cointe deservedly gets a beating here I leave to the reader's judgment.

[40] Assuredly, whoever has clearly seen, from the general charter of Charles the Bald given in the year 865, and the original was consumed by flames, which you have in Bouquet, volume 8, page 596, that the monastery of Solignac was once burned by the fire of the pagans together with all that (its monks) were seen to have had of the precepts of kings, or of the authorities of those charters by which property and some gift had been handed over to that church; or who knows, as is said in the Privilege given to the monks of Solignac by the synod of Soissons in the year 866, that, the cruelty of the Northmen raging, the earlier instruments (of the monastery of Solignac) were burned up in a fire, and that afterwards therefore Bernard, abbot of Solignac, laboured with all zeal and industry that, in place of the burnt precepts or charters, by a renewal of them made by royal and ecclesiastical authority, the monks of Solignac might thenceforth stand secure and, as that general charter also says, suffering no disquiet; whoever, I say, knows these things and weighs them with a fair mind will scarcely, or not even scarcely, be able to doubt that the original charter of St. Eligius, confirmed by Dagobert I, by which the estate of Solignac is assigned to the monks, then also perished in the fires of the Normans; as Mabillon himself too indicates not obscurely in book 1 of On the Diplomatic Art, chapter 7, number 6, asserting that the monks of Solignac, their privileges and charters, or earlier instruments, having been burned indiscriminately in the fire of the Northmen, entreated that they should be repaired or renewed by princes and bishops; whence no one will at once attach certain and undoubted credit on every side to the Eligian charter as it is published by the praised writer in the 2nd Benedictine Century, nor will he judge that Le Cointe must be attacked so sharply as Philippe Bastide did, because he, relying on the authority and good faith of Jonas of Bobbio, a writer contemporary with Eligius, contended that no mention of the Rule of St. Benedict was made in the original charter, and pronounced that document, as it is published by the Benedictines, in some part not free from interpolation.

[41] Nay rather, since it ought not to be believed that the ascetics of Solignac had greater care and solicitude for preserving the copies of their charters than the originals themselves, not preserved, as it seems, in every respect even granting that before the incursions and burnings of the Normans a copy of the Eligian charter existed at Solignac, anyone will with the greatest difficulty persuade himself that it was snatched from the flames in preference to the original. Wherefore one will be able, not altogether rashly, to suspect that Mabillon's Eligian charter owes its origin to some monk of Solignac, who, having read the original charter or perhaps a copy of it before the Normans' incursion fatal to Solignac in the ninth century, and these being now consumed by fire — but afterwards nonetheless confirmed in general by lawful authority, as regards the possessions assigned — tried to substitute a vicarious instrument for the perpetual commendation of St. Eligius his founder; in which he, supposing that the observance of those same Rules which was in use in his own time had flourished among his brethren from the beginning, added of his own to Eligius's words about the institute of Luxeuil these: And may you firmly hold the Rule of the most blessed fathers Benedict and Columbanus. And indeed it would not be so wonderful if into this Eligian charter, as into others which were newly composed to supply the loss of ancient instruments through wars and fires, there had crept in at least certain circumstances, making nothing closely to the sum of the matter, which ought not to be held as undoubted; since elsewhere some things are inserted into diplomas renewed in this way which are found to be certainly foreign to historical truth.

[42] genuine transcript of it, But if someone should say that by some happy but unknown chance the monks of Solignac preserved unharmed from the flames the genuine copy of the Eligian charter which mentions the Rule of St. Benedict, and that this was afterwards most exactly transcribed into the Solignac Manuscript Codex, whence Mabillon received it written out; one may be allowed to ask him whether in the time of the praised Bernard that copy existed among the monks of Solignac, or whether it was only afterwards so happily found. If at the time of the synod of Soissons, already praised, it was among them, why is it not read that in the very exposition of his case before the Fathers of Soissons abbot Bernard of Solignac had it in his hands in place of the burnt original, and offered it to the Fathers to be examined? Or if it was at hand, framed in the same words in which it is set out by Mabillon, with what face did he dare to report certain things about the foundation of his monastery otherwise than Mabillon's Eligian charter expressly states? For, to omit other things, he reports that the monks of Solignac were instructed by St. Eligius to hold inviolably the norm of St. Benedict, while on the contrary Mabillon's Eligian charter expressly asserts that they were instructed that they and their successors should follow the path of religion of the most holy men of the monastery of Luxeuil, and firmly hold the Rule of the most blessed fathers Benedict and Columbanus. But if anyone should maintain that that copy was happily found after the synod of Soissons held in the year of Christ 866, and at length accurately written into the Solignac Manuscript codex, by what arguments will he prove this fact? By what reasoning will he show that that copy is authentic, sincere in every respect, and free from every fault of copyists? Why does Mabillon not commend that Solignac codex on the score of antiquity or on any other title, whereas elsewhere he is wont to indicate the age of his codices, if they are commendable for antiquity or on any other ground, and to celebrate their authority?

[43] nor does he evidently show that St. Aurea was properly a Benedictine, But, you will say, the praised abbot of Solignac hints that his brethren from the first held inviolably the Norm of St. Benedict. I hear you: but whose authority ought deservedly to be preferred here — that of this Bernard, more than two hundred years later than St. Eligius, or that of Jonas of Bobbio, a writer contemporary with St. Eligius, who asserts in the 2nd Benedictine Century, page 122, that that monastery was built in love of Columbanus and of his Rule, at the time, namely, when the Columbanian Rule had already triumphed with a glorious issue in the synod of Mâcon, and Abellenus and the other bishops of the Gauls were aspiring to strengthen the institutes of Columbanus? Nor indeed may you say that what the praised Bernard reported in the synod of Soissons was all confirmed by that synod; since the Fathers of Soissons seem to have aimed at this one thing, that they should render the monastery of Solignac, founded by St. Eligius, immune from all usurpation, its authentic charters having previously been consumed by fire, and should by a new privilege repair the loss of the old charters — being for the rest little solicitous to enquire diligently into this, whether the monks of Solignac had lived from the outset under the Rule of St. Columbanus alone, or at the same time under the institutes of St. Benedict. However these things stand, I should prefer, with Le Cointe praised at number 39, to say that St. Eligius's charter for Solignac, as it has been published by the Benedictines, is interpolated in the matter in hand, or at least to withdraw in this matter from its doubtful authority and that of others like it, rather than, going contemptuously against the testimonies of Jonas of Bobbio reviewed at number 25 and the reasons adduced, to subject the monks of Solignac and holy Aurea with her nuns to the Benedictine Rule at that very time at which I find it so expressly handed down in writing that their monasteries were founded in love of St. Columbanus and of his Rule. And in this opinion I am the more strongly confirmed in proportion as it is less likely that for the Columbanian monasteries founded under Waldebert's governance or by his exertion, other laws were prescribed by him than the institute of his holy Father, which, on the testimony of Jonas of Bobbio, St. Eustasius his predecessor followed in all things, and which the same Jonas clearly hints that he handed down to his congregations or pupils, and especially to St. Waldebert, to be most exactly observed.

[44] I now proceed to the third head of the discussion, but the opinion that St. Aurea's monastery was a double one. and set about examining whether the monastery at Paris, over which St. Eligius set St. Aurea, was so founded that Benedictine monks also dwelt in it at the same time, in separate buildings however, namely on that norm which is observed in the monastery of Fontevrault. That this monastery, built by saint Eligius at Paris, was a double one, that is, of men and of women, the editors of the enlarged Gallia Christiana hold in volume 7, column 280, and they judge that this is gathered from du Breul, Antiquities of Paris, page 169, where Quintilian (see number 20), called Blessed by St. Ouen, is read as abbot of St. Aurea's or of St. Eligius's. Before them Félibien and Lobineau had gone, in volume 1 of the History of the city of Paris, page 51, number 65, where they speak thus in their own tongue about the basilica of St. Paul built by St. Eligius, which they wrongly call a chapel: Before the boundaries of the city of Paris were enlarged, that chapel had the surname "in the Fields"; now it is one of the chief parishes of the city. Here is honoured a certain holy abbot Quintilian, buried there while St. Ouen was alive. He was the superior of the monks who governed the nuns of St. Aurea; for most monasteries of nuns in the sixth and seventh centuries were double, so that besides the company of the nuns, which was the more numerous, a congregation of monks also lived within the same enclosure, in separate buildings however, much in the manner in which we see this done even today in the abbey of Fontis-Ebraldus (in French Fontevrault). Quétif had already recounted the like before, in the Life of St. Aurea, page 24 of the edition of the year 1625, expressly asserting also that that Quintilian and the other monks who inhabited St. Aurea's monastery in great number were Benedictines. So indeed do the praised writers think:

but, since they have not brought forward the testimonies of the ancients, their refutation will be much easier and readier than that of Mabillon, dealt with above.

[45] Let it be, as they maintain, that in the sixth and seventh centuries most monasteries of virgins were double: namely of nuns and of Benedictine monks. but certainly they do not prove that all were double. Hence it can be asserted only by conjecture that St. Aurea's monastery was so founded by St. Eligius that not only three hundred nuns lived there joined together in a community of dwelling, of table and of all things, but also that within its enclosure, though in separate buildings, a company of monks lived, which, if it did not equal in multitude that numerous band of nuns, was yet not so very much inferior in number. But this empty conjecture of theirs is overthrown by the deep silence about those monks kept by St. Ouen when he treats of this convent. Besides, no one will easily persuade himself that a hundred and sixty nuns were carried off at one time by plague together with their abbess St. Aurea, but that of the monks dwelling within the same enclosure not one perished; or, if the monks were not immune from that pestilence, why St. Ouen did not make mention of these as well as of those on the same occasion. The praised bishop does indeed report that in the basilica of St. Paul, which St. Eligius had destined for burying the bodies of the nuns, there lay a certain blessed Quintilian or Quintianus, an abbot (of whom there will be mention again at the 6th day of October from Menard in our Work); but St. Ouen nowhere called him abbot of the monastery of St. Aurea, nor does he indicate that he was the superior or provost of the Benedictine ascetics whom the more recent writers mentioned above will have lived there. That Quintilian may have been addressed by saint Ouen by the name of abbot because he was perhaps the spiritual father of the nuns, who, endowed with the priestly character, administered to them the most sacred helps of salvation: and an abbot of this kind, or spiritual father, could be taken as well from the secular clergy as from the monks; and even if he had been a monk, was he therefore at once a Benedictine, and superior of the Benedictine ascetics living in St. Aurea's convent?

[46] is much less solidly proved. Besides, it would be ridiculous even to suspect that it was forbidden by St. Eligius or by anyone else that any priest or monk, however illustrious for sanctity, could be buried in that cemetery unless he was a Benedictine ascetic. Finally, if at that time Benedictine monks were living in that monastery, set in a sufficiently numerous company over three hundred nuns, let someone explain to me why in the charter of Galo, bishop of Paris, which you have in volume 7 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 42, among the Instruments of the church of Paris, no mention is made of them. There, on the contrary, the bishop of Paris asserts that the monastery of St. Eligius (over which St. Aurea had been set by him) had anciently been assigned to the Order … of nuns; and the same bishop of Paris affirms that he adorns the holy place, with God's help, with a higher order of religion, when in the year 1107 he introduces into it, in place of the nuns, monks, and those Benedictines. These therefore had not been introduced there before, that is, by St. Eligius. The bishop just praised also says that it was then appointed that at least twelve monks with their Prior should be placed there to serve God, who, according to the Rule of St. Benedict, may seem to suffice for keeping order. Since therefore the Benedictines began to possess the monastery of St. Aurea only in the twelfth century by the grant of bishop Galo, it is evident that they were not from the first assembled in the same monastery, much less in so great a company with the nuns, on much the same norm which is today observed in the monastery of Fontevrault.

§ IV. St. Aurea's imminent death foretold, her death, burial, the translations of her body, her reliquary.

The Saint, by a heavenly apparition of St. Eligius The distinguished bishop of Rouen, St. Ouen, about whose words reviewed at number 20 there was need of disputing more fully than I could have wished, being content to have called our holy Abbess a Maiden worthy of God, kept the deepest silence about her virtues and the deeds she nobly performed up to her death, since these did not pertain to the Life of St. Eligius which he was writing. Nor — which is to be lamented — does any other ancient author exist, or at least is hitherto known, who has spoken of these things as they deserve. Hence I should prefer to pass them over in silence rather than to take many things from more recent writers, which indeed make marvellously for her praise, but, being destitute of the testimony of antiquity, cannot produce a sufficiently certain belief. Yet anyone will be able to judge that she shone with illustrious virtues and was especially pleasing to God, seeing that she was forewarned of her impending death by no common prodigy, and with prophetic mind designated some of her nuns whom she should have as companions in death. This fact St. Ouen, so often praised, narrates in book 2 of the Life of St. Eligius, chapter 53, in these words: It came to pass, therefore, when a dreadful pestilence was depopulating the city of Paris, and some virgins from the monastery of the holy man (Eligius), where Aurea by name presided as abbess, had already gone before to the Lord, that blessed Eligius appeared on a certain day to a certain youth in the basilica of the maidens, clothed in a white garment and decked with the covering of robes: and when he who was there, terrified with exceeding fear, sought a hiding place, the blessed man, addressing him gently and softly, bade him go quickly and tell the Mother of the virgins that she should hasten to him as soon as possible with the appointed virgins.

[48] And he who had heard this, running and coming more quickly upon Aurea, said: forewarned of the death impending on her and on many of her nuns "Rise swiftly, for the lord Eligius calls you into the church." And when she had heard this, being filled with great joy, she hastened without delay; but yet, when she had come, the vision of the blessed man had already faded; and the church, as a sign of the assurance that he had been seen there, was shown filled with a certain mist, so much so that the candlesticks and the veils also seemed to drip with a sudden overflowing of dew. Then therefore the aforesaid Aurea, having returned to herself, understood that she was being called out of this world; and at once, calling together all the sisters, she began to bid farewell to each, setting apart some of them who were to accompany her among the rest: then, when she herself was already passing to the Lord, the rest nevertheless followed after at length, so that at that time from that same monastery as many as a hundred and sixty nuns died. And this was St. Aurea's passing from this life to the powers above, memorable also for the preceding apparition of St. Eligius, which on this title St. Ouen judged should by no means be wrapped in silence among the other miracles wrought by St. Eligius after his death; and he attests that he had learned that it happened, as has been related above, at the time when the plague was raging at Paris, speaking thus in book 2 of the Life of St. Eligius, chapter 52: But among the rest I think this also should not be kept silent, which I have learned was done at the time of the mortality at Paris — not, assuredly, from the mere report of the crowd, to which so weighty and prudent a writer as St. Ouen would have given little, nay no credit, but, as must deservedly be believed, from the unanimous and constant testimony of the nuns who survived St. Aurea, who had either heard the things just said from the holy Abbess's own mouth or had themselves seen them with their eyes, and who would by no means have dared to impose upon St. Ouen in a matter of such moment.

[49] she devoutly dies before them But here the question might be raised how St. Aurea can be said to have foreknown by God's gift the death impending on herself and on many of her nuns, since, on St. Ouen's own testimony, the apparition or vision of St. Eligius had already faded before the holy Abbess had betaken herself with the appointed virgins into the basilica of the monastery, and therefore she could not in this way have certainly foreknown the death impending over herself and her nuns. But I answer that, although St. Eligius's vision or apparition had already then ceased, St. Aurea could not rightly doubt that that apparition had taken place, since, as the same St. Ouen asserts, the church, as a sign of the assurance that he (St. Eligius) had been seen there, was shown filled with a certain mist, so much so that the candlesticks and the veils also seemed to drip with a sudden overflowing of dew. And so I should believe that the Abbess, made certain of St. Eligius's apparition both by the testimony of the youth mentioned by St. Ouen and by so unusual a prodigy of the mist and the overflowing dew, poured out the most earnest prayers to God and to Eligius, the holy founder of her convent, and asked that it might be made plain to her by a divine light what that apparition and that prodigy portended; and that to her, either rapt out of herself or astounded with wonder, certain things were manifested, or a foreknowledge was divinely sent in; whence, having returned to herself, she understood that she and some of her nuns were being called out of this world, whom therefore she designated by name, and, with her motherly solicitude, exhorted to prepare themselves to meet death shortly in a Christian and devout manner. The event answered the prediction, and, as St. Ouen reports above, when she herself (St. Aurea, before the others) was already passing to the Lord, the rest followed after, so that at that time from that same monastery as many as a hundred and sixty nuns died.

[50] in the 34th or 33rd year of her monastic superiorship For the rest, from this narrative of St. Ouen and from his words presently to be reviewed I shall try to determine as nearly as can be how long St. Aurea presided over the Eligian nuns, and in what year she was taken from among the living. That she was set over them after the building of the monastery of monks at Solignac is clear from the following words of St. Ouen, which I repeat, in book 1 of the Life of St. Eligius, chapter 17, where he thus describes the origin of the convent of Paris: That monastery, therefore (of Solignac, of which he had treated in chapters 15 and 16), being perfected in every work and established in every part with skill, he (St. Eligius) was thinking of building a hospice in the city of Paris; but, having conceived a more excellent plan by God's inspiration, he began to build within his own house, which he had received in the same city by the king's gift, a dwelling for the virgins of Christ: in which work labouring long and much with the utmost insistence, he at last built a worthy convent of holy virgins, where, establishing the strict discipline of the Rule, he gathered up to the number of three hundred maidens of divers nations, both from his own handmaids and from the noble matrons of France: and over them he set as abbess a maiden worthy of God, by name Aurea, the daughter namely of Maurinus and Quiria. And so, since the monastery of Solignac, by the common consent of the learned, was not built before the year of Christ 631, and since it was when that monastery was perfected in every work that St. Eligius, on the testimony of the same St. Ouen, began to build within his own house at Paris a dwelling for the virgins of Christ, over whom he set St. Aurea as abbess, it follows that in that very year — in which it is not credible that a spacious dwelling for the virgins of Christ was built at Paris — St. Aurea was not set over the Eligian nuns, although Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals made mention of her monastic superiorship under the year of Christ 631.

But if, with Le Cointe in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, number 11 under the year 632, the building of this convent be more probably referred to that year, over which St. Eligius set St. Aurea either in the same or in the following year, it follows that she held the governance of the Eligian convent for 34 or 33 years, if indeed, as is commonly believed, she passed to the powers above in the year 666. But on what appearance of truth this rests it will be to the purpose to investigate here.

[51] That the apparition of St. Eligius mentioned above happened at least one year later than his happy passing to the powers above, but in the year of Christ 666, as is the common opinion. St. Ouen hints clearly enough, when, having narrated in book 2, chapter 47, the translation of the body of St. Eligius — which, on his own testimony, was made only at the turn, that is, at the close, of the year of his deposition — he reviews some miracles wrought at his tomb at that time, and to these in chapter 53 at last subjoins those words which have been transcribed by us above when treating of the death of St. Aurea. From these, therefore, it is plainly made out that our holy Abbess was alive at least one year after the death of St. Eligius. Hence, whether you refer the death of St. Eligius to the year 658 with Pagi, or attach it to the year 659 with Le Cointe, Baillet, Longueval, Bouquet and others, or even, with Jacques le Vasseur in the Annals of Noyon, remove the holy bishop's death as far as the year 665, you will consequently have to prolong St. Aurea's monastic superiorship at least one year longer. But since this is not the place to dispute at length about arranging and fixing the years of St. Eligius's episcopate (on which matter it will have to be treated by design at the 1st day of December), let us meanwhile suppose with our Cuper, volume IV of August, page 799, that St. Ouen was more probably consecrated bishop together with St. Eligius in the year 640, and then let us determine with Le Cointe, Baillet and others praised above that St. Eligius died in the year 659: from this opinion it will necessarily follow that St. Aurea, who, as we have said above, was forewarned of her impending death on the occasion of St. Eligius's apparition, was still alive in the year 660 or 661. But since the words of St. Ouen adduced are of such a kind that, their truth being preserved, that apparition can be extended three or four years further, the death of St. Aurea will not badly be attached, according to the common opinion of the learned, to about the year 666, after she had, namely, presided for 34 or 33 years with the utmost zeal and motherly solicitude over the monastery of maidens built by St. Eligius at Paris.

[52] Further, although St. Ouen, so very often praised, Her body, buried in the suburban basilica of St. Paul, thence neither in chapter 53 nor elsewhere expressly declares in what place St. Aurea was buried, yet from what he committed to writing in the cited Life of St. Eligius, book 1, chapter 18, one may safely affirm that she was first given burial in the basilica of St. Paul, at that time situated outside the boundaries of the city of Paris. For since St. Eligius, on St. Ouen's testimony in book 1, chapter 18, had destined this basilica for burying the bodies of the handmaids of God who died in his convent at Paris, it is not credible that he wished St. Aurea and her nuns to be buried elsewhere than in that very place which their holy Founder had designated for it. And that the remains of the holy Abbess and of the nuns who died with her could not be laid within the enclosure of their monastery, or in the church of their convent sacred to St. Martial, is shown from this, that that law anciently passed by the Romans, that the bodies of the dead should not be buried within the city, was still in force at this time at Paris no otherwise than in the other cities of Gaul, and that therefore at that time the cemeteries were outside the city walls. Whence even today those towns which from ancient times have not enlarged their boundaries have their cemeteries outside the circuit of their walls, as du Breul rightly observes in the Antiquities of Paris, page 817. That from this basilica of St. Paul, then in the suburbs of Paris, the sacred body of St. Aurea was translated after five years into the city itself, and that this translation of the body was adorned with various miracles, Jacques Quétif and various more recent writers write, with whom be the credit. But as regards the translation itself, which Le Cointe too attached to the year 671, or five years after St. Aurea's death: if this really happened in the year 671 (for the ancient documents do not affirm it), the author of the Antiquities of Paris has certainly erred, and with him Quétif, when they write that Rodobert or Chrodobert, bishop of Paris — who, as the enlarged Gallia Christiana has it in volume 7, column 25, had died before the year 671 — was present at the translation of St. Aurea.

[53] carried long ago to Paris, is transferred into a silver coffer, The rest which the same Quétif narrates about this translation I have no mind to review here, since they are fictions rather than historical facts, or at least lack the testimony of antiquity. This is certain, that the relics of St. Aurea were at some time carried into the city of Paris itself and deposited in the church of St. Martial, that is, of the monastery over which she had presided, where even today they are religiously preserved by the Clerics Regular commonly called Barnabites and held in great veneration. But when this translation happened has not yet been ascertained from ancient documents, as I hinted above. Further, the praised du Breul reports, in the Theatre of the Antiquities of Paris of the edition of the year 1612, page 101, that St. Aurea's first reliquary was made of wood and glass, and that the holy Virgin's remains remained in it until Guillaume de Corbigny, formerly an ascetic of St. Germain des Prés and Prior of St. Eligius's, had them transferred into a silver coffer on the 3rd day of April in the year (as he himself wrongly will have it) 1421, as the Benedictine writers of Gallia Christiana, volume 7, column 282, also record. These, however, differ from du Breul in this, that they say the silver coffer was made at Corbigny's own expense; while he ascribes its making, on the credit of Jean Rabel, in great part to the liberality of Isabeau of Bavaria, wife of Charles VI, king of the Gauls. However that may be — for it is neither worth the trouble to dispute more fully about this matter, nor will anyone easily be able to decide the controversy fairly for lack of documents — this is beyond doubt for me, that various more recent writers go astray when they report that that translation of the relics happened on the 3rd day of April in the year 1421 assigned above.

[54] not in the year 1421, if we follow today's reckoning of years, But lest this should seem to be asserted by me gratuitously, I will say what it was that drove them into error. In some Manuscript instrument preserved among the Barnabites of Paris they had read that the silver reliquary destined for laying away the relics of St. Aurea was made on the 3rd of April of the year 1421, and that on this day the remains of our holy Abbess, of St. Eligius and of other Saints were deposited in it by Guillaume de Corbigny, and on the following Sunday, which is called Palm Sunday, were carried in a solemn procession to the church of St. Paul, in the presence — besides a huge crowd of prelates, noblemen and people — of two bishops, of Thérouanne and of Beauvais, and also of the abbots of Vézelay and of St. Crispin of Soissons: hence, relying on the authority of this document, they everywhere attached the translation of the relics of St. Aurea in the best faith to the year 1421. But since those writers had not noticed that the aforesaid instrument is older than that famous edict of Charles IX, king of the Gauls, published in the year 1564, by which it was enjoined that in public and private documents the beginning of years should thenceforth be reckoned no longer from the feast of Easter but from the Kalends of January, it was easy for them to go astray in this matter, and to ascribe absolutely to that same year 1421 what they had read to have happened, by the old reckoning of years still in use in the Gauls in the fifteenth century, in the year 1421 before Easter, whereas nevertheless by today's manner of reckoning years that translation really happened in the year 1422 before Easter.

[55] For, as is clear from the Dominical letter E, and as Labbe rightly determines in his Miscellanea and in part 1 of the Chronological Concord, but in the year 1422 before Easter. Easter in the year 1421 fell on the 23rd day of March, and on its vigil, which was the 22nd day of March, the English were defeated and put to flight by the French, as Daniel too writes in the History of Gaul. In that year, therefore, Palm Sunday preceded the 3rd day of April by eighteen days, and therefore it could not be that the silver reliquary of St. Aurea, which was only finished on the 3rd day of April, was carried on that very Palm Sunday in a solemn procession to the church of St. Paul. But on the contrary, if these things be determined by today's reckoning to have been done in the year 1422, this instrument will keep its credit; and since in the year 1422 Easter fell on the 12th of April, that reliquary, made on the 3rd of April, could be carried on the following Palm Sunday, which was the 5th day of the same month, from the church of the Eligian priory to the church of St. Paul; and hence arose that custom whereby, in memory of this translation, that reliquary was of old carried every year on Palm Sunday, with a long train of suppliants accompanying it, to the aforesaid church of St. Paul, as du Breul asserts at page 102. Further, if anyone wishes to know more about the different manner of beginning the year among the French, let him go to the Glossary of the most learned du Cange, at the word Annus, where this subject is most learnedly handled, so far as the plan of a Glossary allows, with the places indicated of the authors who have published Commentaries on it by design.

[56] The history of the translation just mentioned and its various circumstances the praised Jacques Quétif has pursued most copiously and by design, however Quétif may contradict, who described the history of this translation. in a little book twice printed, to which he gave in French the title: The Life and Miracles of the blessed virgin St. Aurea, abbess of 300 nuns of the Order of St. Benedict. But he too in this Opusculum fell into the common error of the writers of his time, and set that translation of the relics in the year 1421, whereas he ought to have attached it to the following year, as has just been shown. It seems that, as he wrote this Life, either du Breul's Theatre of the Antiquities of Paris or perhaps a copy of the instrument preserved among the Barnabites of Paris lighted his way. There is, however, a point in which he rightly contradicts du Breul; for the latter hints that this custom flourished not only anciently but even in his own time, that the relics of St. Aurea were carried every year with solemn rite from the Eligian church to the church of St. Paul: and yet, as Quétif asserts at page 86, never since the year 1590 has this sacred reliquary been carried elsewhere out of the church where it is preserved. And a little after: Only three times a year, that the devotion of the inhabitants may be satisfied, is this venerable case let down from its higher place, namely on the two days sacred to St. Eligius

and finally on the feast of St. Aurea itself; in which matter the Parisian Spiritual Calendar cited at number 4 agrees with him. So that that custom introduced from the year 1422, of which du Breul in the preceding number, did not hold so very long. For the rest, if we believe the praised Quétif, Gérard du Bois in volume 1 of the Ecclesiastical History of Paris, page 202, and other writers, the city of Paris has often experienced the present help of St. Aurea, whether when the Seine overflowed or when fire devastated the city. But since those writers do not inform us more certainly of the times at which they narrate that these things happened, nor adduce documents of sure credit, there is no reason why our labour should be spent in examining or illustrating those prodigies.

§ V. Why the state and vicissitudes of the Eligian monastery of Paris are treated here: whether it was not different from the monastery of Christivilum: when and on what terms it was handed over by beneficiary right to the bishop of Paris: why at length the nuns were expelled from it.

From Sollier's promise the Eligian convent is treated of, Our Sollier, after observing some things about St. Aurea in his Usuard illustrated at this day, promised that what concerns this Abbess's convent, founded at Paris by Eligius (as we have shown at number 20) but afterwards extinguished, would be elucidated from trustworthy documents at this day in our Work. Wherefore, that I may make good the promise, besides what we touched upon at numbers 20 and 25 concerning that abbey from St. Ouen and Jonas of Bobbio, I have judged that I must now set out for the curious reader, from testimonies gathered from various writers, what was the state of that convent in the following centuries, and how various its vicissitudes. And that I may proceed from the less certain to the more certain, I take my beginning from what the Benedictine monks wrote about this monastery in their enlarged Gallia Christiana, volume 7, column 280. Thus they in the place cited: Mabillon suspects that this is the monastery of the lord Christivilum, of which there is mention in the charter of Vandemirus, an illustrious man, and of Ercamberta his wife, where there is talk of donations made to very many monasteries and churches in the time of Sigifrid bishop of Paris, toward the close of the seventh century. The words of that charter in Mabillon, On the Diplomatic Art, page 472, run thus: In like manner we give to the lord Christivilum, a monastery of maidens at Paris, where Landetrudis is seen to preside as abbess. On which words the praised Mabillon speaks thus at page 473: What Christivilum, a monastery of maidens, may be … we do not know, unless perhaps Christivilum be the convent of St. Aurea founded by Bl. Eligius.

[58] But since the catalogue of the abbesses of the Eligian convent has perished, as the editors of the enlarged Gallia Christiana themselves confess, which some gratuitously confuse with the monastery of Christivilum. and since it is not shown on any other ground that the said Landetrudis was abbess of this convent, or that any other name was at that time given to this monastery of maidens than from St. Martial, the patron of its basilica, and from St. Eligius its founder, that conjecture of Mabillon's is exceedingly weak; or, to use the words of Gérard du Bois, volume 1 of the Ecclesiastical History of Paris, page 213, this conjecture (of Mabillon's) is supported by no reason. It seems to me more likely — and the nearness of the names persuades it — that the monastery of the lord Christivilum was no other than the monastery of St. Christopher, called by some, on Castellan's testimony in his Hagiological Vocabulary, Christovel and Christofol in France; from which name Christovel the very appellation Christivilum could easily be derived. However that may be, it at least seems to me that in that diploma there was by no means any question, under the name of the monastery of the lord Christivilum, of our Eligian convent; so that consequently no increase in temporal goods accrued to the Eligian convent from the most lavish donations of Vandemirus and Ercamberta. With this opinion of mine about this convent's difference from the monastery of Christivilum agree the praised Castellan and the authors of the History of Paris published in French in the year 1725, volume 1, page 61, where they render the words adduced above thus in French, les filles de saint Christophle, that is, as the words sound in Latin, the nuns of St. Christopher, by which name you will nowhere, I think, find the Eligian nuns of Paris designated.

[59] More certain things about the Eligian convent over which St. Aurea presided About 240 years after the foundation of the Eligian abbey, are supplied us by three ancient charters, of which the first is that of Charles the Bald, king of the Franks, in Baluze, volume 2 of the Capitularies, column 1492; the second that of Louis the Stammerer in the same place, column 1501, which Gérard du Bois too reports in the History of the church of Paris, volume 1, page 498 and following; and the third that of Pope Benedict VII, published among the Instruments of the church of Paris in volume 7 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 20 and following. From these, namely, we learn that this Eligian abbey — after it had, as St. Ouen narrates in book 1 of the Life of St. Eligius, chapter 19, been prodigiously rescued by the prayers of its Founder from a fire raging through almost the whole city of Paris, and afterwards, as is clear from elsewhere, had stood for about two hundred and forty years in the manner of other monasteries of maidens — was granted by Charles the Bald in the year 871, at the request of Ingelwin, bishop of Paris and in high favour with Charles the Bald, not only for a time by beneficiary right, but also to him and to his successors the bishops perpetually, into their power and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Since the diploma published by him on this matter, which was confirmed by Louis the Stammerer in the year 878 and by Pope Benedict VII about the year 980, makes very much for the history of this convent, it has seemed good to transcribe it here entire from Baluze. Here it is: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Charles by the grace of God king. If, by taking counsel for the affairs of the churches, we bring their state to amendment for the love of Christ, we do not doubt that we shall receive a reward from him for whose honour we do these things. Let therefore the sagacity of all the faithful of God's holy Church and of our own, present and to come, know that Ingelwin, the venerable bishop of the holy church of Paris, humbly approaching the mildness of our sublimity, besought that, for the profit of ourselves and of our consort queen Richildis and of Mary the undefiled Virgin Mother of God, we should grant the abbey of St. Eligius — situated within the power of the church entrusted to him and granted to him by our munificence by beneficiary right — to the aforesaid church of the holy Mother of God Mary, and to himself and to the pastors who by God's will shall come after him, to be held in their power and ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and that in granting it we should confirm it by a precept of our untransgressable authority.

[60] the bishop of Paris Ingelwin, having obtained its lordship Whose petitions we granted the more willingly as we saw it would be the more to our advantage; and for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and of his Virgin Mary, and for the mutual betterment of both churches, formerly devastated by the pagans, and for the granting of offspring to us most usefully for the salvation of the Christian people by the Virgin Mother, we have ordered this precept of our privilege to be made and sealed; by which we grant the above-said abbey, with all the integrity of its property, to be held perpetually, assigning it to the present and future pastors of the aforesaid church; and in granting it we decree that it remain inviolably; and we transfer it from our jurisdiction into the jurisdiction and lordship of my Lady Mary the Mother of my God with due solemnity, in such wise that whatever the bishop appointed by God shall thereafter wish to do according to God's will and his own, he may have canonical discretion in doing it, just as with the other ecclesiastical goods entrusted to him. On this condition, namely, that the present and future bishop, with all the clergy committed to him, shall celebrate, with continual and assiduous prayers and Masses, the day of the deposition of our most excellent father the emperor Louis, which is the 12th of the Kalends of May, and of our most glorious mother the Empress Judith, which is the 13th of the Kalends of April; the day also of our birth on the Ides of June; and likewise the day of the unction granted us by God, which after our death shall be transferred to the celebration of that same day; moreover the birthday of our most beloved consort queen Richildis on the Kalends of August; and the bond of our union according to God's will; and besides the birth of our offspring, if by entreaty it shall be given by the fruitful Virgin; and a refection shall be most zealously carried out in both congregations on the day of the birth of our offspring, if, as we have said, it shall be given by the Mother of God.*

[61] from king Charles the Bald, But for the rest, for this increased amendment of both churches, let every bishop unceasingly approach to entreat God's mercy for us, for our consort and offspring, and for the state of the kingdom. And that the authority of this our most devout bounty may obtain in God's name the stronger vigour of firmness, we have ordered it to be marked with our bull, and have confirmed it below with our own hand. The sign of Charles the most glorious king. Adalgarius the notary has recognized it in the stead of …. Given on the 4th of the Ides of May, in the 4th Indiction, in the 6th year of the reign of Charles the most glorious king. Done at the palace of Silvagium in God's name happily. Amen. So far the diploma of Charles the Bald, published, as Bouquet writes in volume 8 of the writers of the Affairs of Gaul, page 635, in the year of Christ 871; in which, as the praised writer notes after Baluze, for the 6th year must be read the 31st, nay rather the 32nd; since this was issued later than the same king's two diplomas for the monastery of Elnone, which in the same Bouquet, volume 8, pages 632 and 635, display the 32nd year of his reign marked. Further, the name of the archchancellor omitted in Baluze's edition, the praised Bouquet has most rightly supplied in this way: in the stead of (Gozlinus) — of him, namely, who succeeded Louis, the grandson of Charlemagne by his daughter Rotrud and his own brother, in the dignity of supreme chancellor when he died, as he himself writes at page 426 of volume 8. And the same writer appends a notice of Silvagium at page 635 in these words: Silvagium or Silviacum, now the village called Servais, half a league distant from the town of Fère.

[62] For the rest, although down to the year of Christ 871, for the advantage of his own church or even of the abbey in which that diploma was given, the observance of monastic discipline seems to have flourished among the Eligian nuns, and although it does not appear that anything was committed by them for which they should deservedly draw upon themselves the bishop of Paris's censure, much less deserve to be stripped of their goods and possessions, nevertheless by the force of this diploma the goods of that abbey passed into the jurisdiction and possession of the bishop of Paris and of the cathedral church of Paris in such a way that almost no right remained with the abbess. The frequent incursions of the Normans into the Gauls seem to have given occasion to so great a diminution of the monastery's property and means. For when these under Charles the Bald not only overran the Gauls in plundering bands, but in the year 857 occupied Lutetia of the Parisians a second time, they burned the basilica of blessed Peter and of St. Geneviève, as the Annals of St. Bertin relate under this year, and all the rest except the house of saint Stephen (which was the cathedral church) and the church of saint Vincent and Germain, and except the church of saint Denis, for which a great sum of shillings was paid only that they might not be burned.

This disastrous calamity of Lutetia, then, which Paschasius Radbertus too bitterly lamented in book 4 on the Lamentations of Jeremiah, may have supplied Ingelwin, bishop of Paris, with a fitting cause why in the year 871 he should confidently press the king, in whose court he at that time had very great authority, that the abbey founded at Paris by St. Eligius should be transferred into the jurisdiction and lordship of his own church; so that by receiving the abbey's goods he might repair the loss of his church, which had been forced to redeem itself from burning with a great sum of money; or even that he might really, by his own care and authority, restore in some fashion this monastery of maidens, which is not read to have been immune from the Norman burning, and might gather the nuns, if any were still scattered, or, when gathered, keep them unharmed under regular discipline, so far as the calamity of the times allowed.

[63] Whether therefore Ingelwin had regard to the advantage of this convent, [he takes care that the donation made to him be strengthened by a diploma of Louis the Stammerer.] or rather wished, in seeking that abbey for himself and his successors, to serve the private convenience of his church, he obtained without difficulty from king Charles the Bald what he asked — especially since at that time it was not unusual in the Gauls to grant abbeys even to laymen themselves. And lest after the death of Charles the Bald, who died in the year 877, as Flodoard in his Chronicle, the author of the Chronicle of Fleury and others write, the abbey granted him by that king should perhaps be snatched from his hands, the same Ingelwin diligently took precaution, and took care that the donation made by Charles the Bald should be confirmed and strengthened by this diploma of Louis the Stammerer in the year 878, which I here subjoin from the praised Baluze, in the Appendix to the Capitularies, column 1501: In the name of the Lord, the eternal God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Louis by the mercy of God king. If, by taking counsel for ecclesiastical affairs, whose state we bring to betterment for the love of Christ, we do not doubt that we shall receive a reward from him, for whose honour we do this. Let therefore the present and future sagacity of all the faithful of God's holy Church and of our own know that Adelaide our dearest consort and Gauzlinus the venerable abbot, approaching our mildness, besought that, for the increase of our merit and the profit of Mary the ever undefiled Virgin Mother, we should, by our own precept anew, imitating our father's liberality, grant again to Ingelwin, the venerable bishop of the city of Paris, and to his church which is built in honour of holy Mary the Mother of the Lord, the abbey of St. Eligius, which is within the walls of the city of Paris, to be held in ecclesiastical jurisdiction and to be possessed eternally by him and by all his successors. But the aforesaid venerable bishop Ingelwin besought that from that same abbey we should grant a certain little estate which is called Gentilly, with its church and all things pertaining to the same little estate, to his aforesaid mother church for its lights, to be held perpetually by this very precept of our authority; whose prayers also we were unwilling to spurn.

[64] he takes care that it be strengthened by a diploma. Whence, for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and of his Mother, we have ordered a precept of our grant to be made again and given to the aforesaid Ingelwin, the venerable bishop, and to his mother church; by which both he and all the bishops who shall come after him may freely hold the above-said abbey with the integrity of all its property, as was appointed by our father, and may possess it perpetually in the ecclesiastical manner, in that same order, namely, as the other property which is held as granted to the same mother church; but let it hold the aforesaid little estate of Gentilly properly and continually for the lights; which we will that none of the bishops in the times to come shall keep for his own property or presume to give to anyone, but let it serve only for the lights. On this condition, namely, that the aforesaid bishop and his successors, with all the clergy committed to them, shall celebrate the day of the unction granted us by God, which is the 6th of the Ides of December, and the day of our future death, with continual and assiduous prayers and Masses, and that refections be most zealously carried out on the aforesaid days in both congregations. For the rest, for the present profit of both churches re-established by us, let every bishop take care unceasingly to entreat the Lord's mercy for us, for our consort and offspring and for the state of the kingdom. And that this authority of our renewed confirmation may be inviolably preserved through all times, we have confirmed it below with our own hand and ordered it to be marked with our ring. Wulfard the Notary has recognized it in the stead of Gozlinus and has subscribed the precept of this copy. Given on the 4th of the Nones of April, in the 11th Indiction, in the 1st year of the reign of the lord Louis, the most glorious king. Done in the city of Paris in God's name happily. Amen.

[65] to which afterwards was added the confirmation of Pope Benedict VII. The grant of Charles the Bald being confirmed in this manner, the Eligian abbey with the integrity of all its property was thenceforth so subject to the bishop of Paris that without his assent and without a charter confirmed by his seal and the seal of the chancellor the abbess could not bestow the freedom of the monastery on even a single bondwoman, as may be seen in the charter of Galo, bishop of Paris, in volume 7 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, among the Instruments of the church of Paris, column 43. At length, when to these two royal diplomas there was added about the year 980, as was said before, the Pontifical Bull of Pope Benedict VII, by which the same Pontiff confirmed the property of the church of Paris — among which the Eligian abbey is reckoned in the first place — and its privileges, there was left no hope for the Eligian nuns that it would ever be allowed them to return to their former state. The Bull of the aforesaid Pontiff you may see entire in volume 7 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, among the Instruments of the church of Paris, column 20 and following. We shall pluck from it only so much as is necessary for making plain what has been asserted above. Among other things these words are read in it: Let therefore the praiseworthy mildness of your excellency know that Elisiardus (he ascended the see of Paris about the year of Christ 980), bishop of the see of Paris, coming to the thresholds of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul at Rome, earnestly showing the royal precepts, which for the remedy of their souls, and likewise the privileges of our predecessors, handed over to the church of the Blessed Mother of God and Virgin Mary and of the holy protomartyr Stephen of the aforesaid place in a firm writing. Moved by this reason, he besought us with suppliant devotion that by Apostolic authority we should reconfirm to him the aforesaid writings and the bishopric of the aforesaid see with all its appurtenances and adjacencies, namely the abbey of St. Eligius … And we, having inspected the precepts of the most devout Augusti and of our fathers, were pleased to lend assent to the petitions of the same bishop, that under the jurisdiction and patronage of the holy Roman and Apostolic holy Mother Church all may remain firm and inviolate for ever.

[66] The Pontifical confirmation of the royal diplomas had been preceded by another loss of the property and resources of the Eligian convent. [This abbey, which had begun toward the end of the ninth century to be diminished by buildings,] For, as the ninth century was ending, at which time it was already subject to the lordship of the bishop of Paris, its most ample basilica, dedicated to God under the title of St. Martial, was cut into two parts by an intervening street, so that, as the editors of the praised Gallia Christiana write in volume 7, column 280, out of the choir (of the basilica of St. Martial) a parish was made, which retained the name of saint Martial, and the other out of the nave took, for the nuns, the name of St. Eligius the founder. Gérard du Bois hands down this matter more particularly in volume 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of Paris, page 63: But what is the reason, he says, that the basilica of saint Martial is now outside the precinct of the Eligian cell, and is itself no longer the basilica of that old monastery but a baptismal church; and that the basilica of the monastery or cell itself is dedicated under the name of saint Eligius? I will say, he says, what I think. While the Normans (about whom consult number 67) were repeatedly laying waste the territory of Paris, those who lived abroad outside the island withdrew into the city as into a safe stronghold (or at least a seat less exposed to the fury of the barbarians). And since the city, being too narrow, scarcely held the multitude, it was necessary to build new houses in the more open spaces. And at that time, as I think, in that part over which the precinct of the Eligian monastery spread, buildings were made and streets opened. At that time perhaps happened what the writers of Parisian antiquities record, that the basilica of the Eligian monastery, which was larger and older and had fallen down (or perhaps been burned by Norman fury), was cut into two parts (when, namely, the fallen buildings began to be restored), and the rear part remained the church of saint Martial; and, because houses had been built round about, it became a baptismal church. But where the front part of the former basilica had been built, under the name of saint Eligius another basilica was made, which was the church of the Eligian cell or monastery, which indeed was not so ample, yet more than sufficient to hold the fewer maidens who were then in the monastery. So the learned writer of the Ecclesiastical History of Paris.

[67] as also in the number of the nuns, on account of their vices, one of which But as, through the wickedness of the times, the number of the Eligian nuns notably decreased, so also — what is the more to be lamented — the early vigour of the monastic laws and the holy training of manners began among them gradually to slacken and at last to fail, so that, having fallen into the gravest diseases of the soul, they were expelled from their monastery in the year 1107 by Galo, bishop of Paris, with the consent of the Roman Pontiff Paschal II and of Philip I, king of the Gauls. And what was the occasion of so great an evil, and by what reasoning or on what terms the Eligian monastery passed to the Benedictine monks of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, the nuns having been cast out, the praised Gérard du Bois narrates in volume 1 of the Ecclesiastical History of Paris, page 765 and following, so accurately that scarcely anything can be added to his words, and scarcely anything taken away with the clearness of the narrative preserved. It will therefore be well to hear him himself speaking, in the place cited: The beginnings of this monastery have been related by us elsewhere, and we have said that this monastery was founded and endowed by St. Eligius, and that the virgin Aurea was set over this monastery by him; and it is established that at that time it flourished both in piety and in discipline, and, as I think, in the following years monastic discipline and a distinguished training of manners were greatly celebrated in that place. But I do not deny that that first vigour, as the years slipped by, contracted old age and decay, and that the maidens at last, through a long series of years, fell into the gravest diseases of the soul. Two things especially, he says, I think contributed to this evil, namely domestic wars and the incursions of the barbarians, which repeatedly afflicted Lutetia after the death of Louis the Pious, that is, from the year 845, in which the barbarians first occupied this city with none resisting, down to nearly the end of the ninth century, in the course of which time they took it again and afterwards once more besieged it, as various writers of Gallic affairs relate under the years 845, 858, 885 and others, in the Bouquet praised above, volumes 7, 8 and 9. Since therefore, as the praised du Bois rightly observes, it is difficult, amid the din of arms on every side, for maidens to keep the same

tenor of life, it was natural that the Eligian nuns should at first relax somewhat from the ancient institution of the monastic laws and use a looser discipline; to which evil, growing with the lapse of time, there was at last added another thing which brought destruction upon the Eligian convent.

[68] and another occasion is reported, at length Of this the same Gérard du Bois speaks thus in the cited place: But nothing, I think, made more room for the relaxing of discipline (among the Eligian nuns) than the nearness of the royal house; for since many are found at court who melt away in idleness and pleasures, it was easy, from the nearness, as though by contagion, to communicate the evil to the maidens. We have said elsewhere that the palaces of the kings of the Franks were built outside the island (of Paris) and in the suburbs. But those palaces were utterly destroyed when the kings of the Caroline race, setting Lutetia aside, began to dwell in royal villas and manors. Then the counts, in the kings' absence, began to build houses for themselves at Lutetia — not indeed, like the kings, in the suburbs, but within the circuit of the island itself, that they might protect themselves and the city from the barbarians. Thus Odo, and afterwards Robert and Hugh, dwelt on the island, and in that place which is now sacred to the administration of justice. That here was the old royal palace of the Franks of the Capetian race, those know who have touched our history even with the tips of their lips. Since therefore the palace of the kings was next to the monastery of maidens, it was easy for the courtiers to join company with the maidens — at first indeed, as happens, to converse decently, but by frequent intercourse and constant familiarity gradually to communicate their manners to the maidens. And once the honour of the mind had been corrupted by depraved conversations, and virgin modesty had departed, then the maidens went headlong wherever blind desire snatched them, and thenceforth kept no measure in their lives.

[69] Often had the Pontiffs reproved their evil associations, it is handed over to the monks of Fossés, the nuns having been cast out. now with the wisest admonitions, now with threats, striving to recall them to soundness: but in vain. The kings too ill bore that virgins vowed to God had put off all shame and were bandied about in men's mouths. Paschal (II) the supreme Pontiff had especially commended this monastery to Galo (bishop of Paris), and had charged him either to amend the monastery or to abolish it. Galo, when he had recognized that they had so hardened in wickedness that they seemed able to be broken sooner than corrected, having taken counsel with the king, cast the maidens out of the monastery (in the year of Christ 1107), and assigned their buildings and goods to the monks of Fossés (under conditions to be indicated below); and he carried this out the more willingly because Pope Paschal (II), who had come to Paris in that year, had repeatedly commended it to him. Thus far the often praised Gérard du Bois; who presently subjoins from the Chartulary of Fossés the charter of Galo and the royal precept of Philip I on that matter, which, not to be too long, I shall not reprint here. These may be read in the same du Bois, volume 1 of the Ecclesiastical History of Paris, page 765 and following, likewise in volume 7 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, among the Instruments of the church of Paris, column 42 and following. And this was the most mournful catastrophe of the Eligian nuns, the more vehemently to be deplored in proportion as they had at first, under St. Aurea's governance and in the following centuries, been an ornament to the monastic Order by the splendour of their holier life.

otherwise utrarumque* of both

* of July

§ VI. The Eligian convent, as handed over to them less canonically, is relinquished by the monks of Fossés to the bishop of Paris: it is given back to them again: it is united to the bishopric of Paris: secular priests are substituted in it for the monks, and at length for these the Clerics Regular called Barnabites.

The Eligian abbey, which the monks of Fossés first relinquished, When, therefore, as has been said above, those maidens had been cast out of the Eligian monastery, which they had disgraced by their depraved manners, the Benedictine monks of Fossés were introduced there with their Prior, under the conditions to be mentioned below, by Galo, bishop of Paris; and they began to possess this monastery in the year 1107 under the title of Cell or Priory — which, on the testimony of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, volume 7, column 280, was before the middle of the twelfth century called the Priory of St. Eligius and St. Aurea — under Theobald II, abbot of the monastery of Fossés, or, as he is called in the same place in the royal precept of Philip I, Tebbald, of whom see volume 7 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 292. Yet the Eligian monastery did not long remain quietly in the hands of the monks of Fossés. For about the year 1125, when Stephen occupied the see of Paris, there pricked Theobald's mind — not indeed, as the editors of the enlarged Gallia Christiana contend in the cited volume, column 293, an excessive scrupulosity, but, as Stephen himself, bishop of Paris, affirms, the consciousness of canon law neglected in entering upon possession of the monastery. Therefore, when Theobald had determined to return it to the bishop of Paris, Stephen received it and kept it until the year 1134, in which he restored it to the monks of Fossés at the entreaties of Pope Innocent II and of Louis VI, king of the Franks. But someone will ask what after all in this matter or its circumstances was done less canonically than was fitting, or what was done disorderly (for so too the same Stephen speaks) and not as it ought to have been according to God? Certainly, to omit the reasons alleged by Gérard du Bois, those nuns had not been overwhelmed by false accusations; the contrivances and evil frauds of impostors or forgers had contributed nothing to their expulsion; they had not been haled before an illegitimate tribunal, but had been condemned by their own bishop; and so far was the supreme Pontiff from resisting their ejection that he rather urged the bishop of Paris to accomplish their expulsion duly, after those nuns had incurred such infamy for the crimes they had committed that they were commonly held to be hardened in an incorrigible depravity. What then, says the same du Bois in volume 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of Paris, page 47, gnawed at the monks of Fossés? Or what cause at last can be devised why the monks of Fossés judged that the Eligian abbey received from the bishop of Paris must be given back and relinquished to him? But, the praised writer replies on the same page 47, if I can attain anything by conjecture, I will assert that the canonical order was not altogether observed in expelling the maidens, nor the form of judgments lawfully kept in that business.

[71] as unlawfully possessed, in the year 1134 And in what respect the order prescribed by the canons was less observed he presently discloses thus: The maidens (of the Eligian monastery) were indeed notorious for the baseness of their manners; they had repeatedly despised the admonitions of the Pontiffs, who tried to recall them to an honourable life: they had committed crimes worthy of expulsion before the eyes of all and in the sight of the royal city; which was too well known to be hidden from anyone. But the learned writer most rightly denies that these things sufficed for their canonical and lawful expulsion. For although, as he goes on, the fact was established; yet it was not lawful to cast out maidens consecrated to God without a lawful and canonical judgment: an enquiry had to be made into their corrupted manners; they had to be brought to the bishop's hearing; witnesses had to be produced (and those of entire credit, as the laws require); the acts of their shameful life had to be proved by public instruments; and when these had been brought to examination, a canonical judgment had at last to be decreed concerning them and concerning the abolition of their monastery. But since from no Acts, nor from Galo's own letter (the bishop of Paris), does it appear that anything of the kind was done, there is no doubt that many complained that no form of judgments was observed in their expulsion, and that the monks of Fossés were not lawfully retaining the property of the maidens. Those complaints pricked the abbot and the monks, who, stirred by the outcry of the people and by the goads of conscience, gave back the monastery with the monastery's property to Stephen (bishop) of Paris. But when nearly thirty years had passed after their ejection, and few or perhaps none of the maidens of this monastery were surviving, then by law it was free to the bishop to destine that abandoned and deserted monastery to any ecclesiastical use whatever. Stephen no longer hesitated (especially as Pope Innocent II and king Louis VI asked it) to hand it over to the monks of Fossés; nor did they refuse to receive it: since there was no longer any cause for refusing it.

[72] The very letter of Stephen, bishop of Paris, by which he gives back the Eligian monastery to the monks of Fossés, by Stephen bishop of Paris, as appears from his diploma since it expresses almost word for word the letter of Galo, likewise bishop of Paris, and since the latter has not been given above, I have thought could be set out here not out of place, from volume 2 of the Ecclesiastical History of Paris, page 48. Here it is: The examples of the fathers admonish us and reason counsels us so to love the order and cleanness of the Lord's house that we may strive to correct with judicial rigour those things which do not agree with the authorities of the Saints, and may with fatherly affection greatly desire to preserve in their state and order those things which justice and honour commend; so that we may both restrain the evil-living from their enormities by the fear of judgment, and kindle those who live well and honourably with fatherly love to a better way of life, and thus provide both for our own salvation and for theirs. I therefore, Stephen, by the grace of God bishop of Paris, wish it to be made known to all the faithful, both to those who come after and to those now living, that the monastery of saint Eligius of Paris was anciently assigned to the Order of nuns. But by reason of the excessive frailty of that sex, which, having broken the vow of chastity and cast away the purpose of religion, had fallen into an intolerable wretchedness of baseness, so that it had made the temple of God a cave of fornication; our venerable predecessor of good memory Galo, bishop of Paris, not bearing so great a plague, removed the infamous and incorrigible persons for the baseness of their life from the aforesaid monastery and utterly estranged them from it. Wishing also to adorn the holy place with a higher order, he gave and granted the aforesaid monastery of saint Eligius, with all things pertaining to it, to the church of blessed Peter of Fossés, to be held by perpetual right — yet less canonically than was fitting. And since indeed that gift was made disorderly and not as it ought to have been according to God, Theobald, abbot of the church of Fossés, a discreet and honourable man, taking counsel for his own good name and salvation and that of his subjects, gave back and relinquished the aforesaid monastery of blessed Eligius into our hand, and acknowledged that he and the monks of Fossés had neither obtained the aforesaid monastery according to God nor possessed it well.

[73] But when we had long held the same monastery in our hand, it is restored to them to be inhabited, at length mercy, which is the friend of all humility, offering itself to our eyes, seemed to us to require that what the aforesaid abbot relinquished to us, pricked by the fear of God and by humility, we should mercifully give to the church of Fossés. For it was not fitting that from that which he seemed to have done for the sake of humility any loss or inconvenience should follow for him. Nay, what the love of humility seemed, so to speak, to have taken away, mercy, which is its friend, ought to restore. Inclined therefore by the love of mercy, and bent by the petition of the lord Pope Innocent and by the prayer of the lord Louis, illustrious and glorious king of the Franks, and by the urging of religious men, with the assent also of Bernerius our dean and of our chapter, the aforesaid

monastery of saint Eligius, with all things pertaining to it, we give and grant to Ascelinus the abbot and to the church of blessed Peter of Fossés to be held perpetually, saving indeed in all things our right and that of our successors, and saving in all things and through all things the customs of the church of Paris; in such wise, namely, that the abbot of Fossés possess the aforesaid monastery as his own cell, and exercise over the monks doing their soldiering for God there the full and perfect power of an abbot, so long as he and his successors the abbots and the monks of Fossés shall remain in subjection to us and to our successors the bishops of Paris, and shall preserve and render to the church of Paris and to us our right and honour and our customs in all things. It is appointed, however, that at least twelve monks with their Prior be placed there to serve God, who according to the Rule of saint Benedict may seem to suffice for keeping order.

[74] under certain conditions, however, But it must be known that that same power which our predecessors had over the monastery of saint Eligius and over the abbess who was there of old, we have entire over the abbot of Fossés and retain in perpetuity — as much, namely, as seems to pertain to the monastery of saint Eligius and to the property of that monastery. But, that the annoyance of all dispute may hereafter be excluded, we have distinguished evidently and openly what power the bishop, and what right or custom the canons of holy Mary, formerly possessed and now possess, both over the abbess and over that monastery. It must be known, therefore, that as often as the bishop of Paris summoned to justice, she beyond doubt presented herself before the bishop, about to fulfil all justice. And if a manservant, or a maidservant, or a tenant of that monastery had done anything amiss against the person of the bishop or against his own property, the abbess, having first heard the bishop's command, would bring them into the bishop's presence to do justice; and after the bishop's justice the abbess would take her own penalties, if she wished. And if the abbess wished to bestow liberty on the menservants or maidservants of the monastery, or to alienate land, or to make a formal conveyance, she had no leave to do it without the bishop's assent and without a charter confirmed by his seal and by the chancellor's seal. This power, then, over the abbess and over the monastery of saint Eligius our predecessors are known to have had; and we too retain the same power over the abbot of Fossés, leaving or relaxing nothing of our right.

[75] burdensome and others, which are here And to the canons of blessed Mary the aforesaid monastery pays every year two feasts as a due, one on the festival of saint Paul, the other on the feast of saint Eligius. And so each feast is received in the refectory of the canons. It is also the custom that the community of the aforesaid monastery should make processions together with the canons of blessed Mary on the day of the Rogations and on the day of the Ascension and at the funerals of the canons: and other processions too, either for fair weather or for some storm or necessity, if the canons shall have arranged to make them; it is necessary that the aforesaid community follow the appointments of the canons, and, if they so order, accompany them in these processions. Moreover, as often as the mother church shall cease from the divine office, the monastery of saint Eligius shall of necessity cease. Under this distinction, therefore, we grant the monastery of saint Eligius to the church of Fossés to be possessed as a cell, on this tenor, namely, that as often as the abbot of Fossés shall make his due profession in the church of Paris, he shall, in the bishop's presence, acknowledge that he holds the monastery of saint Eligius by the bishop's gift and by the benefaction of the church of Paris. We will also to determine that the men of the aforesaid monastery ought not to go into the king's army without consulting the bishop; but the abbot or the Prior ought to send them into the army at the bishop's command.

[76] It has also been settled that on the feast of saint Eligius the canons of holy Mary shall hold the right-hand choir reviewed; and the monks the left; in such wise that with the canon who shall rule the choir either the Prior or the precentor of the monks shall rule the choir, and no other person be admitted to it; and either the abbot or the Prior shall sing the Mass. But if both be absent, someone from our clergy shall celebrate it. And it must be known that on that day the aforesaid feast is rendered in six live pigs of sound flesh, in two measures and a half of wine by the measure of our cloister, and in three sesters of well-winnowed grain. But the feast which is rendered on the feast of saint Paul consists of eight rams and two measures of wine and half a sester, and of two sesters and a half of well-winnowed grain, and of six pence and a halfpenny. And that this may remain ratified and unshaken, we have ordered the present charter to be made, and have marked it with our seal, and have handed it to the hands of our canons to be confirmed. The sign of Stephen the bishop. The sign of Bernerius the dean, etc. Done publicly in the chapter of holy Mary in the year of the Incarnate Word 1134, in the 27th year of the reign of king Louis, in the 3rd year of the raising of Louis to the kingship, in the 11th year of the episcopate of Stephen. Given by the hand of Algrinus the chancellor.

[77] Thus the Eligian monastery had been possessed for about four hundred years by the Benedictines of Fossés under the title of a cell or priory, but after about 400 years secular priests were substituted there for the monks when the face of its affairs was again changed. Hear the editors of Gallia Christiana, volume 7, column 280: But at last, they say, this priory followed the lot of the abbey of St. Maur; for when it … had been united to the bishopric of Paris in the year 1533, the priory too was united, into which Jean du Bellay, bishop of Paris (of whom see the cited volume, column 160) and the first dean of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, introduced secular priests. Let the curious reader go to the bull of Pope Clement VII and the letters of the commissaries, which stand in the cited volume 7 of Gallia Christiana, among the Instruments of the church of Paris, column 141 and following. It will be enough for me to review from them the causes of this change and the reasons of the fact. The aforesaid Jean du Bellay, bishop of Paris, and the Benedictines of Fossés themselves, with Francis I, king of the Gauls, interposing in the same matter, had urgently pressed Pope Clement VII that, since the ancient revenues of the bishopric of Paris were not sufficient for the convenient maintenance of the bishop for four months, the quality of the times and of affairs being weighed; and since the monks of St. Maur were greatly distracted from the observance of Regular discipline and from the Regular manner of living by the multitude of the faithful coming to their church for devotion's sake, it might please the Roman Pontiff by his Apostolic authority not only to suppress altogether the name of the monastery and of the priories, and in the church of the monastery of St. Maur to change the Regular state of the monks into the state of canons, priests and secular clerics, but also to permit that in the priories suitable secular priests, or Regulars of any Orders whatever, should be appointed who should exercise the care of souls incumbent on them; and that the goods of the monastery and of the priories should pass to the profit of the bishop of Paris and to the maintenance of the secular chapter to be erected. The Pontiff, having given a bull on the Ides of June in the year 1533, committed the execution of the matter to three named and deputed commissaries — Philip, abbot of the monastery of St. Geneviève of Paris; Germain de Brie, archdeacon of Albi; and Nicolas Quelin, treasurer of All Saints of Mauritania (in French de Mortagne) of the diocese of Séez — and these at length, by a definitive sentence, as they call it, passed on the 17th day of August in the year 1536, duly carried into execution what had been requested by the bishop of Paris and the monks of Fossés. Thus the Eligian monastery, which had passed from the Columbanian nuns to the Benedictines of Fossés, from these to Stephen, bishop of Paris, from him again to the monks of Fossés, returned once more to the bishop of Paris, who, on the testimony of Félibien and Lobineau, volume 2 of the History of the City of Paris, page 993, substituted for the Benedictine monks secular priests to perform the sacred ministry there.

[78] and for these at last the Clerics Regular called Barnabites. These at length were succeeded in the same place by the Clerics Regular of St. Paul, commonly called Barnabites from the church of St. Barnabas granted them at Milan, who restored the ruined church of St. Eligius with the utmost labour and equal industry, and serve God there to this day. On this subject Francesco Barelli has treated at length in the Italian tongue in volume 2 of the Monuments of the Origin and Progress of the Congregation of the Clerics of St. Paul, commonly called Barnabites, book 8, chapter 9, page 642 and following. And in French the same subject is treated more succinctly by Félibien and Lobineau in volume 2 of the History of the City of Paris, page 1349 and following. The chief points pertaining to our matter come back to about this summary. After the first archbishop of the Parisians, Jean-François de Gondi (of whom see the enlarged Gallia Christiana, volume 7, column 174 and following), reserving to himself, with the title of the priory, the revenues of the Eligian priory, had granted the Eligian house with all its sacred furniture to the Barnabites in the year 1629, these clerics' first care was to restore at their own expense the ruined house of God; but when they had set their hand to the work, they were at first forbidden by sacred and civil authority to finish what they had begun: but this prohibition being happily removed, when the archbishop of Paris had caused the instrument of the donation made by him to be lawfully drawn up by a public notary in the year 1631, in that same year he put the Barnabites into full possession of the Eligian priory; and, lest in the time following any trouble should be raised for them about the possession of this house, he ratified the donation made by him in solemn form in the year 1639, and the king's council duly approved it. In this manner the Barnabites, who had been admitted to Paris on the 9th of May in the year 1636 by a decree of the supreme council of Paris, were thenceforth allowed peacefully to possess the Eligian house of ascetics of St. Aurea, once subject to so many vicissitudes.