ON ST. QUINTINUS OF TOURS, MARTYR, IN TOURAINE, A PROVINCE OF GAUL,
AFTER THE MIDDLE OF THE SIXTH CENTURY.
A COLLECTION.
On his cult, and on the cause, place and time of his martyrdom.
Quintinus, martyr in Touraine, a province of Gaul. (S.)
BY C. S. AS AUTHOR.
This St. Quintinus, far different from the famous martyr of the same name who suffered among the Vermandois He is announced today and is honoured on the 31st day of this month of October, the Daveronense Manuscript codex announces today, reported among the Usuardine Supplements in our Sollier. It runs thus: In the district of Tours, of saint Quintinus the martyr. In plainly the same words and on the same day he is commemorated by our Manuscript Florarium Sanctorum, by the Lübeck-Cologne edition of Usuard's Martyrology, by Greven and by Molanus; and from the latter Philippe Ferrari in his General Catalogue of the Saints, where he similarly says: In the territory of Tours, of St. Quintinus the martyr. Somewhat more, but not better, has André du Saussay written of him in his Gallican Martyrology at this day, saying: Likewise among the people of Tours, of St. Quintinus the martyr, who, a most fervent champion of the name of Christ, willingly poured out his blood for him, and, having exchanged death for immortality, was carried from punishment to a perpetual triumph. Whoever reads this will scarcely doubt that this St. Quintinus suffered under the heathen for asserting the Christian religion, as befell Quintinus of Vermandois: but that it is not so will presently be established.
[2] Castellan in his Universal Martyrology hands down a fuller notice of him, in several Martyrologies; and sets out the cause and place of his martyrdom, in French words, which I subjoin in Latin. In Touraine, St. Quintinus, sprung from Villeparisis, slain for chastity on the bank of the river Angerisc. There are some of his relics in the church of St. Stephen at Meaux. Still more clearly speaks the author of the Parisian Martyrology, published at Paris in the year 1727, in which, among the Addenda and Corrigenda at this 4th day of October, page XIII, the following is read in Latin: In the territory of Tours, of saint Quintinus, born and brought up at Villeparisis; who, when he was serving in the army of king Gunthram, and was in vain solicited to unlawful love by an unchaste woman, was slain by her treachery at the river Agerisc (read: Angerisc). The cathedral church of saint Stephen at Meaux has been enriched with some of his relics. According to these, that Quintinus suffered not for asserting the Christian faith, but for preserving his modesty and chastity; and not at the hands of the heathen, but by the machination of an unchaste woman — yet truly a martyr, as slain for a virtue belonging to the Christian religion.
[3] but he is honoured on the next day in the church of St. Martin at Tours, So much for the Martyrologies in which I have found the memory of St. Quintinus marked on this day. But in the Breviary of the notable church of St. Martin of Tours, printed in the year 1635, that same man is celebrated with an Office of three lessons on the next day, that is, the 5th of October; which, however, I think comes about for no other reason than that the fourth day is taken up by the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, who has an Office of nine lessons on it. This Prayer is prescribed there: May the venerable passion of blessed Quintinus the martyr make us joyful, O Lord; and make us the readier to recall it worthily. Through our Lord. And the Lessons run thus:
Lesson I. Quintinus, noble indeed by birth but more excellent in his manners, was brought forth to us, as we believe, from the district of Paris, but was born in the city of Meaux. He, going to the district of Tours, there submitted himself to the service of a certain Gunthram, duke and count. And since he was of outstanding form and adorned with virtues, a certain lady by name Aga began to burn with love of him, so that she frequently tried to provoke him to unchastity with adulterous looks and nefarious persuasions.
[4] whose proper Lessons from its Breviary Lesson II. But the greater was the woman's shamelessness, the more constant was Quintinus's chastity, who could be led neither by the flatteries nor by the gifts of the unchaste woman to yield to her in any way; but, detesting her pestilent proposal, he pledged that he would not defraud his lord's marriage. And so Quintinus, returning to the duty enjoined upon him, in the place which is above the river Agerisc, where he was to stay for a while, rendered temporal service to his lord. Meanwhile Aga, seeing that she could not entice Quintinus by her flatteries to consent to fornication, blazing up with anger, considers by what means she might avenge the affront of the Young man.
[5] Lesson III. And so the impious woman sent wicked henchmen we here give to be weighed. to put Quintinus to death, charging the executioner above all not to spare with the sword the Young man who had disdained to be joined to her bed. The blade being therefore drawn, the head of the glorious Martyr was cut off, and thus, having gained the double palm of virginity and of martyrdom, he passed to heaven. His head, as they say, being taken from its own members, he carried it in his own hands, and baptized it with the waters in the spring which flows in that same place to this day; and going not far from thence, he rested by his own will. Thus far the three praised Lessons of the notable church of St. Martin of Tours, which, although they agree with Castellan and the Parisian Martyrology about the cause of the martyrdom, yet differ in some of the circumstances of the narrative. Let us weigh each point a little.
[6] Whether at Meaux — which is an episcopal city of Gaul and the capital of the province of Brie, I am not sufficiently certain whether he was born at Meaux or at Villeparisis. about ten French leagues distant from Paris, called in the vernacular Meaux — or at Villeparisis, called by the French Ville-Parisis, which is seen on the maps a little more than halfway on the road from Paris to Meaux, on the left; whether, I say, St. Quintinus was born in this place or in the city of Meaux, from more certain documents
I cannot determine. For Meaux stands the author of the Breviary of Tours, yet at the same time acknowledging that Quintinus came into the district of Tours not from Meaux but from the district of Paris, and, by adding the words As we believe, hinting that this opinion rests on no certain and sufficiently ancient testimony, but on tradition or on an argument not altogether convincing. This Breviary the writer of the Parisian Martyrology and Castellan were able to see; and nevertheless the latter in the topographical Table of his Universal Martyrology expressly noted that the holy Martyr was born at Villeparisis; and the former asserted that he was both born and brought up there; so that one may suspect that something more certain about the Saint's birthplace was known to these two authors. Yet between these and the man of Tours there is this difference, that the latter cannot be suspected of that excessive love of one's native place which often makes fellow-countrymen out of other people's Saints.
[7] About the name of the lord whom St. Quintinus served, the Parisian martyrologist agrees with the author of the Breviary of Tours; If it were established that one of the wives of king Gunthram for Guntrannus and Gunthramnus are the same name: but the Parisian called that Gunthram a king; the man of Tours, however, a duke and count — unless perhaps his obscure phrase must be explained otherwise. I repeat his words. There, he says, he submitted himself to the service of a certain Guntrannus, duke and count. The obvious sense of these is that Guntrannus, to whose service the Saint submitted himself, was a certain duke and count; but this sense too, though less obvious, is possible: that the Saint submitted himself to the service of a certain man who was the duke and count of king Guntrannus. By king Gunthram no other can be designated than the holy king of the Burgundians of that name, given in our Work on the 28th day of March, who began his reign after the death of his father Clothar in the year 561, and left it when he died in the year 593. Hence the Parisian martyrologist noted in the margin that the killing of St. Quintinus also happened before that year 593; and rightly, if it took place under the praised king.
[8] was the author of the killing of St. Quintinus, Of the condition of the wanton woman who proceeded from unchaste love to the Saint's killing nothing is established. In the first Lesson of the Breviary of Tours she is called a certain lady, by name Aga; but in the second Lesson it is not obscurely indicated that she was the wife of the lord whom Quintinus served, since he is said to have answered the woman who solicited him that he would not defraud his lord's marriage. Let us therefore suppose for a moment that the Guntrannus of whom there is talk in that place was king of the Burgundians, and let us see with how much likelihood any wife of that same king can be called into suspicion of so great a crime. From St. Gregory of Tours in the History, book 4, chapter 25, three wives of king Gunthram are known. For first indeed he joined to himself a certain handmaid by name Veneranda as a concubine, as the holy historian says, and by her had Gundobald; then he married Marcatrude, and, when she had been expelled and had died, Austrigild surnamed Bobila. After whose death, which happened in the year 580 or the following, he passed the remainder of his life in celibacy, although he had no son to whom he might leave his kingdom.
[9] the martyrdom of this man could be fixed between the years 561 and 580 or 581; That any of these wives was surnamed Aga I have nowhere read; but certainly the last two were not of such a disposition and character that the suspicion of the said crime cannot fall upon them. For Marcatrude killed her stepson Gundobald, the son of king Gunthram by Veneranda, with poison, and was cast off by that same king; and Austrigild, dying, after the manner of Herod asked her husband and obtained that at her death the two physicians who had attended her should be killed, so that their kinsmen too should mourn at her death; on the testimony of the same St. Gregory, book 5, chapter 36, where that wicked woman is also said to have breathed out her spirit. Wherefore, if it were established that the murderess of St. Quintinus was one of the wives of king Gunthram, the virtue of neither of these would sufficiently exempt her from suspicion of that crime; and the martyrdom of saint Quintinus would have to be fixed between the year 561, in which Gunthram began to reign, and the year 580 or 581, in which Austrigild, the last wife of that same holy king, died.
[10] but perhaps she was the wife of another Gunthram, contemporary with that king. But since in the often-mentioned Breviary of Tours it is not said that St. Quintinus was in the service of king Gunthram, but either of a certain Guntrannus who was a duke and count, or of a certain man of a name unknown to us who was the duke and count of king Guntrannus, another Guntrannus may here be indicated, by whose wife's crime the Saint was killed. For at the same time there lived a certain other Guntrannus, surnamed Boso, or called Gunthram-Boso, who was commander of the army of king Sigibert I, and was killed at Verdun in the year 587 by the order of king Gunthram, as one may read in the praised St. Gregory of Tours in the History of the Franks. That the same man was married is likewise established, but I have nowhere found his wife's name recorded. Of him, then, there is perhaps talk in the praised Breviary. Let the learned reader determine what he will; for to me at least nothing occurs from elsewhere which has weight enough to designate a certain author of the killing, or to determine which of the two Gunthrams is meant.
[11] [Another discrepancy of the writers: their agreement as to the place of the martyrdom] The authors of the praised Breviary and of the Parisian Martyrology also differ about the kind of service which St. Quintinus performed with his lord. For military service is ascribed to him in the Martyrology; but in the Breviary it rather seems that only domestic service or the care of the household is attributed to him, on a certain estate of Guntrannus situated by the river Angerisc. If Quintinus's nobility were as certain as is asserted in the Breviary of Tours, military service would suit him better than domestic attendance or the care of a household. All the martyrologists adduced place the holy Martyr's arena in the district of Tours; and Castellan, the Parisian Martyrology and the Breviary of Tours place it more distinctly by the river which is called by the latter, in Latin, Agerisc, by the former Angerisc, but in French l'Aindroix; and elsewhere it is also written l'Indrois.
[12] Adrien de Valois in his Notice of the Gauls, treating of the river Inger, in the district of Tours by the river Angerisc. otherwise also called Anger, Angera and Andria, which, rising in the province of Bourges, flows through the territory of Tours and below Montbazon mingles with the Loire, subjoins this to our purpose: There is also the Andrisius or Andria, l'Indrois, as it were the Lesser Andria, which, flowing past Villa Lupae, Villeloin, and Mons Thesauri (commonly Montrésor), is received into the Andria. Bruzen la Martinière in his geographical Lexicon writes that the same river rises in Touraine at the village of Ecueillé, on the borders of the duchy of Bourges, and thence flows within that same district of Tours past Villeloin, Montrésor, Saint Quentin and Chédigny, and empties into the Anger, commonly l'Indre. Let the natives know from which St. Quintinus — the one of today, or the martyr of the Vermandois — that village or parish is named; but, unless the contrary be established, it seems to me most likely that the same village took its name from the killing or the burial of today's St. Quintinus. Further, whether and how much of the same Saint's body survives here or elsewhere, besides the relics honoured at Meaux in the cathedral church of St. Stephen, I have not read.
[13] What of what has been said is to be held certain or most likely. From the things hitherto alleged, the martyrdom and its cause and place seem to be held sufficiently certain. Nay, even the time of the martyrdom appears most likely, namely after the middle of the sixth century, in which both Gunthrams lived. What is added in the Breviary of Tours about the head taken up and washed by the Martyr himself, and about his choosing his place of rest, seems a fable, which the author of the Breviary himself hinted was suspect to him, carefully adding the little words: As they say. The images of St. Quintinus carrying his severed head in his own hands, to show the kind of his martyrdom, may have given occasion to the fiction, as has often been observed elsewhere in our Work. More about this holy Martyr of chastity I do not have.