Enimia

ON ST. ENIMIA, VIRGIN, PERHAPS OF ROYAL BIRTH, AND ABBESS, IN THE DIOCESE OF MENDE IN OCCITANIA,

PERHAPS IN THE 6TH, 7TH, OR 8TH CENTURY.

HISTORICO-CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

Enimia, virgin, perhaps of royal birth, and abbess, in the diocese of Mende in Occitania. (S.)

BY C. S.

§ I. Her sacred memory among the more recent martyrologists: her certain cult on this day: the place in which her relics are kept: a compendium of her Life from Mabillon and the proper lessons; various opinions about her parents.

Châtelain, in his Universal Martyrology at this 6th day of October, among the Saints of Gaul, prudently reviewed this Virgin, better known by her cult than by her deeds and the other things pertaining to her, This Saint, celebrated in the more recent Martyrologies, in these few words, but French: In the diocese of Mende of the Gabali, St. Enimia (in French Enimie), virgin, whose relics are kept in the priory church of her name on the river Tarn. In the margin he adds that she is called in French by Sanson sainte Eremie; and in the Additions and Corrections at this day he observes that she is pronounced sainte Eremie or Ermie in the district of Rodez and in almost the whole of Auvergne; Enimie at Montpellier, Enemie at Mende. Châtelain was followed by the author of the Paris Martyrology published in the year 1727, in which there is likewise read in few words: Among the Gabalitani, of St. Enimia, virgin. Concerning the name the others to be cited below also agree, except that in some Enymia is written for Enimia.

[2] But Molanus in his Usuard Martyrology called her in Latin Emmia, others call her Emmia; Ferrarius doubled her, announcing one at Paris, and ascribed to her a royal Merovingian birth, saying: In the Gauls, of St. Emmia, virgin, daughter of king Clovis, of outstanding chastity. Filippo Ferrari, in the General Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, from this diversity of names, and perhaps from the two fathers which are ascribed to her, made two out of one, of whom he announced one at Paris, the other in the territory of the Gabali on this same day. For first he says thus: At Paris, of St. Emmia, virgin, daughter of king Clovis. Then he noted whence he had received this, in these words: From Molanus in the Additions; although it is lacking in some codices. Concerning her in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium. Molanus (as we have seen) announced St. Emmia in the Gauls indeed, not however at Paris. I have in hand two editions of his Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium, the one of Louvain of the year 1595, the other of Douai of the year 1616; in neither have I found mention of St. Emmia. I return to Ferrarius.

[3] In the list of the same day he says again: In the territory of the Gavali, announcing another among the Gabali; of St. Enymia, virgin; and he notes that this was received from the Martyrology of Usuard (understand the enlarged one) and from the monuments of the monastery built by her and named after her, in which it appears that she was the sister of king Dagobert, daughter of Chlothar, not of Clovis, as is read in Usuard (the enlarged). There exists a town in the territory of Mende with a convent of virgins, called by her name. I do not know what Martyrology of Usuard he cites here; for neither in his genuine one, nor in any of his additions, both manuscript and printed, which our Du Sollier reviewed in his edition of the Usuard Martyrology, is Enymia or Enimia read. The rest we shall examine afterwards: meanwhile let it suffice to have observed here that St. Emmia, whom Molanus has, is not different from St. Enimia, of whom we now treat, and whom Ferrarius for the said reasons wrongly pulled apart into two.

[4] Du Saussay, calling the same Enymia, twice André du Saussay, calling the same Saint Enymia, gave a twofold eulogy of her on this very day. The first, in the Gallican Martyrology itself, runs thus: In the territory of Mende, of St. Enymia, virgin, foundress of the monastery of virgins of her name, where she rests; who, daughter of Chlothar the Great and sister of king Dagobert, spurning the world and its pomps, preferred the thorny diadem of Christ to a jewelled crown, and, crucifying her flesh, willed to die to herself that she might live to Christ. Intent on which pious pursuits she passed to the heavenly kingdom, which she had merited by contempt of earthly principality. The other eulogy of which I spoke, in the Supplement of the same Martyrology at this day, is composed in this manner.

[5] adorns with a eulogy at this same day. In the territory of the Gabali, the glorious passing of St. Enymia, a royal virgin, who, when she was being pressed to earthly nuptials, having obtained from the Lord leprosy for the guarding of her virginity, admonished by an angel went to the Burle spring, where she was healed. But when her virginal constancy was again assailed, being struck up to the third time with a similar wasting, with the assent of Dagobert, her brother the king, a double monastery having been built at the mountains overhanging the river Tarn, whither she had fled, she was consecrated with solemn rite abbess of virgins by blessed Iserus the bishop; and, strong in virtues, honoured with the frequent attendance of the angels, to whom virginity is always a friend, by a death precious in the sight of the Lord she obtained the joys of the heavenly kingdom. So Du Saussay; which Arthur du Monstier transferred into the Sacred Gynaeceum, and of what worth they are I shall examine below.

[6] However these things may be, this holy Virgin is venerated in the church of Mende with an annual Office of double rite on the 6th day of October, She is venerated on this day in the dioceses of Mende and Albi, which I have in hand among the Propers of the same cathedral church, printed at Lyons in the year 1619 by the authority of the most reverend Charles de Rousseau, bishop of Mende. It is taken from the Common of Virgins, not martyrs, with the Prayer Hear us, O God, and with proper Lessons of the second Nocturn; those of the third from the Homily on the Gospel: The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field, etc., from the Common of neither virgins nor martyrs. That she is venerated with a similar Office in the diocese of Albi also I gather from Mabillon, volume 1 of the Benedictine Annals, at the year of Christ 656, number 44, where she is said to be honoured with annual cult in the district of the Gabali, or of Mende, and of Albi on the day before the Nones of October.

[7] She has without doubt a special veneration in the little town of the diocese of Mende at the Burle spring and near the river Tarn, called Sainte Enimie after her, and in the priory of her name, where her body rests. where her body is kept in the priory church, which is believed to have been once the monastery of virgins founded by her, but which, being almost destroyed by about the middle of the 10th century, was handed over to Dalmatius, abbot of the monastery of Chamalières of the Benedictine Order, and restored by him and converted into a priory of men; under which title of priory it has remained subject from that time until now to the same abbey of Chamalières, as we shall see in its place. Meanwhile, correct from this Ferrarius above at number 3, who calls that priory in his time a convent of virgins, such as it perhaps was before the middle of the tenth century. But that the body of St. Enimia lay in its church already in the said 10th century is beyond doubt from the charter of Stephen, bishop of Mende, to be recited below, by which that place was given to the abbey of Chamalières; so that accordingly the ancient cult of this holy Virgin, equally with the present one, cannot be called into controversy. Would that as much could be said of her deeds!

[8] Arthur du Monstier, in the Sacred Gynaeceum at this day, Her Life displeased Mabillon, pleased Le Cointe: writes that a Life of St. Enimia, whom he calls Emmia, exists in the royal Library at Paris. Neither this nor any other has come into our hands; but Mabillon makes us miss it less, who had most probably seen it, when in the Passed-over to the Acts of the Saints of the 2nd Benedictine Saeculum, page LIX, he pronounced thus: Enimia, virgin in the district of Mende, of whom we have read three Lives, crammed with faults and errors, is venerated on the 6th day of October. Le Cointe seems to have thought otherwise of the same or a similar Life, when at the year 628, number XI, after he had related the eulogy of St. Enimia given above from Du Saussay, he determined thus concerning St. Ilerus, bishop of Mende, who is mentioned in it: Concerning the time at which he sat there ought to be no controversy: for the Sister of king Dagobert (St. Enimia) was consecrated abbess with solemn rite by him.

[9] Mabillon gave in the same place a compendium of the first only of those three Lives which he had read from the first of which a Compendium of the Life is shown (perhaps because he judged the rest more faulty and sprinkled with more errors), and inserted his observations into it, distinguishing the words of the Life by a different type, which I shall here enclose in quotation marks. It runs thus, then: In the first Life these things are read: "Enimia was sprung in that province of Germany which is named Francia, namely begotten of a father who was a king, named Chlodovech, son of Dagobert, whose ancestor, of the same name, Chlodovech, first among the kings of the Franks received the faith." Then what displeases him in these words the said Mabillon indicates thus: But Chlodovech begot only three males, no female. Presently he continues from the Life: Enimia, fleeing the bond of marriage, is said to have been struck divinely with "leprosy," and by divine admonition to have withdrawn "into the parts of the Gabali," and at the spring "Burla," near the bed of the river Tarn, to have laid aside her leprosy, where she built a convent of girls, and a basilica "in honour of the holy Mother of God," consecrated "by Hilerus, or Ilerus, prelate of the church of the Gabali."

[10] the first of the three which he had read. "Hearing which, king Chlodovech her father, and Dagobert her brother, sent courtiers and envoys of prefectorial rank to provide for the Virgin's monastery from their own revenues." Finally, that Enimia after death was buried in the same place, together with a kinswoman and her little god-daughter, who died on the same day, whose body "Dagobert, the brother of Enimia" (namely Dagobert II, son of Sigibert, king of Austrasia), deceived by an error of name, carried into Francia in place of his Sister's body. Thus far Mabillon, subjoining afterwards his own very different suspicion concerning the same holy Virgin, to be related below. It displeased Mabillon, then, that Enimia is said to be the daughter of Chlodovech II, who is read to have begotten only three males, no female. He could have added that among these three males there was no Dagobert who could have been the brother of the same Enimia. Nor could he have been Dagobert II, son of Sigibert III, king of Austrasia; for he would have been not the brother but the paternal cousin of Enimia, if she had been born of Chlodovech II as her father.

[11] There is given also another, from the proper Office of the same He who composed the proper Lessons of St. Enimia for the church of Mende, which I mentioned above, had before his eyes a Life partly dissimilar from Mabillon's: for in these she is said to have been the daughter not of Chlodovech II but of Chlothar II, and Dagobert is called only the brother of the same Saint, not her full brother. It will be helpful, while we have nothing else, to have recited these Lessons here. Lesson IV. The blessed virgin Enymia, illustrious by the lily-bearing stock of the most Christian kings of France, being daughter of Chlothar the Younger; but more illustrious by the stock of divine virtues and of unblemished

virginity as her dowry, a most holy spouse of Christ, when she is pressed by her parents to the nuptials of an earthly spouse, by a rare example of divine love asks and obtains by prayer from her heavenly Spouse that at the cost of her beauty and health she may keep her virginity entire for Christ. The body of the royal Virgin is disfigured by leprosy, and, while by the horror of her face Enymia extinguishes the loves of a mortal spouse, she kindles by the beauty of her mind the love of Christ, the immortal Spouse. But, her virginity now placed in safety, an angel glides down from heaven to her as she prays, and admonishes her to go to the Burle spring among the Gabali, to wash her little body in its waters, and to wash away the leprosy. The king her father, joyful, sends his Daughter with royal equipage; the spring designated from heaven is found; the Virgin washes her body in its waters, and in the Burle Jordan, in the name of Jesus, Enymia is healed of leprosy.

[12] with the Lessons of the second Nocturn, Lesson V. The royal Virgin, about to return to her parents at Paris, had already passed the steep mountains of the river Tarn, when behold, a second time the Virgin's body is defiled by a sprinkling of leprosy; she returns to the spring; Christ, invoked, hears her vows, and plunges the leprosy in its waters and wipes it away. And now the Virgin, healed, thanks having been rendered to the divine Deity, was returning, when a third time the leprosy infects her face. In vain (says Enymia) do we struggle against You, heavenly Spouse; I hear the gentle whispers of One calling. So, full of divine ardour, having returned a third time to the Burle spring, she is cured of leprosy by the sprinkling of the waters. The kings of the Franks, Clovis her father and Dagobert the Virgin's brother, admonished of the divine will, send back great wealth to Enymia; the whole * region far around is bought, and a monastery of virgins is consigned to God through the Virgin. Two churches, the one to the Mother of God, the other to St. Peter, and Enymia as abbess, and the virgin disciples, the blessed Ilerus, prelate of Mende, being summoned, consecrates with solemn rite.

[13] Lesson VI. The virgin Enymia, loving Christ, from time to time withdraws out of zeal for solitude into a nearby cave, which are recited here also. and collects her mind in the contemplation of heavenly things. There by fasts, weeping and prayers she reconciles the lovable Spouse, the Lord Jesus, to herself and to her father's kingdom of France: there she has a hard rock for a bed; there the innocent Virgin describes for the guilty a rare example of penance; there the heavenly Spouse speaks to the heart of the Spouse; there she enjoys the frequent converse of the angels; there blessed Enymia represents the Spouse of God sung by the royal prophet: The queen stood at the right hand of Christ in gilded clothing of charity, surrounded with the variety of all the virtues. And almost one of the first of the lily-bearing family of the most Christian kings, she kindles the zeal for virginity in the virgins of the royal house who came after, about to follow in a great company; so that the song of David ought deservedly to be attributed to Enymia: After her shall virgins be brought to the King, royal ones, and her neighbours shall be brought to You.

[14] There is therefore absent from the Lesson of the Office of Mende the principal error which displeased Mabillon in the Life, [In these she is said to be the daughter not of Clovis II but of Chlothar II, which pleased Le Cointe,] by which St. Enimia was said to be the daughter of Chlodovech II, and Dagobert his full brother. Du Saussay also reads Chlothar in his Gallican Martyrology in the words given above, and Le Cointe agreed with him in the Annals of the Franks at the year 628, number X and the following, where he asserts that Dagobert, the I of this name, and Enimia were born of the same father Chlothar II, but she of Bertetrude, the second wife of the same Chlothar, he of the first, named Haldetrude; which the Lesson of Mende does not forbid, since in it Dagobert (the I of this name) is called not the full brother but only the brother of St. Enimia. According to the opinion of these, then, St. Enimia will have flourished before the middle of the 7th century, in whose XXVIII year Chlothar II died. Of the same opinion perhaps was the author of the Paris Martyrology cited above, who, although he made no mention of the royal birth of this holy Virgin, yet wrote in the margin as the time of her death After (the year) DCXXVIII.

[15] There are also those who would have it that St. Enimia was the daughter of Clovis I, [by others she was believed the daughter of Clovis I: the judgement of Valois on these things.] as Adrien de Valois testifies, Rerum Francicarum book 20, at the year 654, where he records a threefold opinion concerning the father of the same Saint thus: Some say that Blessed Emmia was born of Chlodovech, son of king Dagobert, who vowed her virginity to God and built a convent of girls among the Gabali, and died there at a great age and was buried, and is venerated yearly in the district of the Gabali and of Albi on the day before the Nones of October; whom others number among the children of Chlothar the Younger, others of Chlodovech the Great, his great-grandfather. The opinion of the latter he had already rejected in book 7, where, treating of the children of Clovis I, he says: Theudechild, or Theuchild, seems to me no more to have been the daughter of Chlodovech than Emmia or Emma, inserted on the day before the Nones of October in the Martyrology of Usuard (enlarged by others), and called St. Emmia, a virgin of outstanding sanctity, daughter of king Chlodovech.

[16] Mabillon's suspicion concerning her parents is set forth, Mabillon suspected something far different from all these, subjoining this to the words recited at number 10: Could St. Enimia perhaps have been the daughter of St. Berta, who is said to be the daughter of Ursana, sister of St. Bathild, which Bathild married Chlodovech, son of Dagobert? By St. Berta he here designates the saint of this name, widow and abbess of Blangy in Artois, whose Life, written by an anonymous author, the same Mabillon in part I of the III Benedictine Saeculum, from page 451, judged should be passed over, because its author mixes in (he says) not a few doubtful things, certain inept ones, some fabulous; our Du Sollier however, at the 4th day of July, although he thought of it not much more favourably, nevertheless published it for the reasons alleged there. Further, in chapter 1 of this Life Ursana is said to have been the niece of St. Bathild the queen, and to have borne St. Berta by her illustrious husband Rigobert, and the latter, given in marriage to Sigefrid, to have brought forth five daughters, of whom one was called Emma.

[17] which appears by no means founded. Then in chapter 2 the same Emma is narrated to have been given in marriage to Waraclinus, king of the Anglo-Saxons, but, having been treated by him in unworthy ways, to have died at sea while being carried back to her mother. The whole of Mabillon's suspicion therefore rests on a single little word, Emma, of so dubious a Life, from which Enimia could have been made, all the other things which are related both in the Lives of this holy Virgin and in that of the said St. Berta being against it. Wherefore this suspicion of the learned man appears to me in no way probable. Perhaps, however, it did not displease Châtelain, since he wrote the VIII century in the margin at the announcement of today's St. Enimia in his Universal Martyrology, about the XXV year of which century our Du Sollier, in the place just cited, determined that St. Berta died. Let us return, then, to the opinions of others.

Read tota* whole.

§ II. The opinions related above are weighed: who St. Ilerus, mentioned in the Saint's deeds, may be: what may be held for certain about the same holy Virgin.

Perhaps the Saint's father was Chlothar II, From so varied a sense of the writers related the reader will easily gather that no ancient monument exists from which it can be drawn out of what father St. Enimia was born; although all of them (if you except Mabillon, who suspects otherwise) would have her sprung from the royal stock of the Merovingians. Those who assign her Clovis I as father are supported by no reason at all; those who give her Clovis II, and at the same time Dagobert as full brother, follow the Life of the same Saint which Mabillon calls crammed with faults and errors; nor will they be able to assign any Dagobert son of Clovis II who was full brother of St. Enimia. For which reason, if a royal birth from the Merovingians is by all means to be adjudged to Enimia, the opinion is to be preferred of those who, with the Lesson of the Office of Mende, say that her father was Chlothar II and her brother Dagobert; for that he, the first of that name, was the son of Chlothar II is beyond all controversy; nor can he be convicted of falsity who believes that Enimia was born of the same Chlothar.

[19] Yet who could say how ancient a monument lighted the way for the first writer of the same Lesson which, however, we do not know by how ancient a testimony it is asserted. of Mende? For my part I have found no older memory of St. Enimia than that in the middle of the 10th century in the charter of donation of Stephen, bishop of Mende, to be reprinted below from Mabillon; from which, however, we know nothing else than that at that time there was in the diocese of Mende a certain place, anciently called Burlatis, founded in honour of the blessed Mother of God Mary, and that in it there then rested the body of the blessed virgin Enimia; which place, at that time badly plundered through negligence and secular cupidity, so that, want requiring it, the state of religion there seemed wholly annulled, Dalmatius, abbot of St. Theofredus, at the instance of the said bishop of Mende, admitted to be restored and to be annexed to the monastery of Chamalières with the title of Priory. But from this we know nothing of the stock of this Enimia, the age in which she flourished, her deeds and kind of life, and the other things pertaining hereto, except the virginity practised by her and the ancient veneration of her sacred body kept in the same place.

[20] Nothing more, nay less, is known of St. Ilerus, Nor can the Acts of St. Ilerus contribute anything here, sometimes also called Hilerus, Islerus and Iserus, who in the Lives is narrated to have dedicated the double church of the monastery founded by Enimia, and to have instituted the holy Virgin herself as abbess. This Ilerus also has his Office of double rite among the Propers of the church of Mende at the 1st day of December, in whose Lesson V these few things are to be read about her: By his (St. Ilerus's) prayers, the virgin Enymia accompanying him, God restored abundant waters to the Margavillaeus spring, dry for seven years. This about St. Enimia there, and no more; whence these things perhaps seem to have been taken I shall presently say. Ilerus himself is known only from his cult and the Lives of St. Enimia, and for no other reason was he placed by Denis de Sainte-Marthe in the Catalogue of the prelates of Mende between Agricola and St. Fredaldus or Frodoaldus than that he held it as ascertained that St. Enimia flourished at that time. It will be helpful to have reviewed Denis's words from volume 1 of the Gallia Christiana, column 87 and following.

[21] He speaks thus: This pious prelate has a place in the Proper of the Saints known only from the Lives of St. Enimia, whom the church of Mende venerates with special cult; and two feast days are assigned to his memory in the Calendar, the day before the Nones of October and the Kalends of December; of which one is of the Deposition, the other of the Translation. He is known from the Acts of St. Enymia, virgin, sister (as they say) of king Dagobert and daughter of Chlothar II, who in the district of the Gabali, with the help of her brother king Dagobert, founded a double monastery, and was consecrated abbess by blessed Iserus the bishop. Therefore this prelate sat in the year DCXXVIII, in which Dagobert began to reign in the whole of Gaul, and consequently in Aquitaine, or in the following years; whence he did not precede Agricola, whom we have shown to have presided in the year DCXXV; namely

against the brothers Sainte-Marthe, who had thought otherwise in their Gallia Christiana. Le Cointe had gone before Denis here, who pronounced the time of Ilerus's episcopate to be placed beyond controversy from the same Life of St. Enimia. We gave his words above at number 8. The Benedictine writers of the most recent History of Occitania also testify that Ilerus was known to them from no other source, in book 7, number VI, where they make mention of him from the deeds of St. Enimia, in these words, but French: As regards St. Ilerus, we know only that he is honoured as a Saint by the inhabitants of that region.

[22] Not two, but a single feast day of his, namely at the Kalends of December, I find in the often-mentioned proper Offices of the church of Mende; [venerated at Mende, but passed over in the Martyrologies of Châtelain and of Paris,] but none in the Martyrologies of Châtelain and of Paris; perhaps because to the authors both of the latter and of the former that Iler or Hiler did not appear different from St. Hilarius or Hilarus, bishop of the same see, whom the same Châtelain reviews first at the 25th day of September, and again with the Roman Martyrology at the 25th of October. The Paris Martyrology likewise has Hilarius on the latter day, Ilerus being everywhere passed over. Whether rightly or otherwise can be discussed more broadly at the aforesaid Kalends of December; yet I cannot be wholly silent on the matter here, by reason of the time in which St. Enimia, contemporary, as they would have it, with Ilerus, is to be believed to have flourished. For if Ilerus or Hilerus, known from the Acts of St. Enimia, is not different from St. Hilarius or Hilarus, celebrated in the Roman and other Martyrologies at the 25th day of October and venerated in the church of Mende on the same day, that holy Virgin will have to be referred to the 6th century, or the things which are read about him in her Life will have to be held as fables.

[23] perhaps because he did not seem different from St. Hilarius, That St. Hilarius was bishop of the Gabali in the 6th century is established from the council of Clermont, held in the year 535, to which, among the other bishops, in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column 1805, there is read subscribed Hilarius, in the name of Christ bishop of the church of the Gabali. To the same is believed also to have been written the metrical salutation of Venantius Fortunatus, book 3, number 21 of the edition of his Works by Christoph Brouwer. He is venerated, as I said, in the church of Mende on the 25th day of October, but only with an Office from the Common of a Confessor Pontiff; whereas Ilerus (as was likewise said) has three proper Lessons of the second Nocturn on the 1st day of December. Yet we have a Life of St. Hilarius or Hilarus, bishop of the Gabali, from the Rouge-Cloître manuscript, collated with codex 569 of the Most Serene Queen of Sweden, from which we also received the opening, which was lacking in the Rouge-Cloître manuscript. Whoever reads this will think that he has read, with the name changed, the very Life of St. Ilerus, such as it is set out a little more briefly in the three proper Lessons of the second Nocturn of his Office at the 1st day of December, and will in no way be able to doubt that either these were contracted from it, or it amplified from these: so great is the conformity between them.

[24] in whose Life the same things are read as in the Office of St. Ilerus. The name of Enimia is not indeed read in that Life of St. Hilarius, but yet the very fact which is related in the Office of St. Ilerus is also narrated in it. It will be helpful to have related the words of both. Lesson V of Ilerus runs thus: By his (Ilerus's) prayers, the virgin Enymia accompanying him, God restored abundant waters to the Margavillaeus spring, dry for seven years; but the Life of St. Hilarius thus: In the villa (for the following word, deleted, the word Martravillae is substituted in the margin from the manuscript of the Queen of Sweden) of the virgin, the spring, flowing with abundant water *, suddenly dried up for seven years, all moisture being wholly taken away. To which place the father (Hilarus) came, the Virgin being his companion, and poured forth prayers to the Lord, having been entreated: at once the water, its course recovered, returned, and served the uses of men with abundant largesse. The same fact, as you see, is in both; and there is also some affinity between the words Margavillaeus and Martravillae, which of the two is more rightly expressed in its place I do not discern: meanwhile this is beyond doubt, that nothing at all is read in the Office of St. Ilerus of Mende which is not read in that Life of St. Hilarius. It remains, then, that we see to which of the two the same Life should rather be believed to have been falsely attached.

[25] To this end it will be helpful to have compared another text also. In the Life of St. Hilarius this is to be read: When the most blessed man (St. Hilarus) was hastening to Theodebert, king of the Franks, for remedies for the province committed to him, From the approach of St. Hilarius to king Theodebert asserted in his Life, and had come to the place whose name is Animi sensus (in the margin, from the manuscript of the Queen of Sweden, there is read * Arisencus), at dead of night Leo the tribune, while he was lying with a boy near his tent, beheld with astonished wonder a ball of immense light rising from his couch, cleaving the air, and stretching to the heavens; he heard also certain men speaking with the father (St. Hilarus). After a little delay blessed Hilarus admonishes Leo to keep silent about what he had seen, and announces the prosperity of the journey to come and the swiftness of a favourable return. Meanwhile he came to the king, was received with the utmost veneration, the things hoped for are granted, and he returns to his country having obtained his wish. Now let us hear the text from the Office of Ilerus of Mende.

[26] As he (St. Ilerus) was hastening to Theodebert, king of the Franks, for certain affairs of the province committed to him, at Arcsentum at dead of night Leo the tribune beheld with astonished wonder a ball of immense light rise from his couch which is likewise asserted of St. Ilerus in his Office, and ascend to the heavens: he heard also certain men conversing with the same most holy father. Which the blessed pontiff, foreknowing by prophetic spirit, admonishes the tribune to keep silent about what he had seen, and announces to him the prosperity of the journey to come. In a short time he reaches the king, is received with the utmost veneration, and, having obtained his wish, returns to his country. Theodebert, named in the Life of St. Hilarus, is the very first king of Austrasia of this name, with whose consent the 1st council of Clermont was held in the year 535, to which I observed above that the same St. Hilarius subscribed. For which reason this approach of St. Hilarus to king Theodebert agrees both with chronology and with history.

[27] This cannot so easily be said of the approach of Hilerus to Theodebert, the deeds of St. Hilarius seem to have been falsely attached to St. Ilerus, who could have been no other than Theodebert II, who died in the year 612. Le Cointe and Denis de Sainte-Marthe place Agricola immediately before Hilerus in the series of the bishops of Mende, because Flodoard, book 2 of the History of Rheims, chapter 5, relates that he was present at the synod of Rheims (held in the year 625). According to their opinion, therefore, Hilerus will not yet have been bishop while Theodebert II was reigning, and on that account the aforesaid approach of Hilerus to him conflicts with sound chronology. But no reason favours your placing Hilerus before Agricola, except his approach to king Theodebert asserted in the Office of Mende, of which we are treating. Since therefore it is established from the subscriptions of the council of Clermont, held in the reign of Theodebert I, king of Austrasia, that Hilarius presided over the church of the Gabali in the year 535, while Hilerus is known only from his own and St. Enimia's Offices of doubtful credit, it ought to seem most probable that the approach of St. Hilarus to king Theodebert, which fits the time, was transferred from his Life into the Office of St. Hilerus of Mende, in which it is narrated almost always in the same words, rather than from the latter into the former.

[28] Exactly the same must be judged of the other deeds of Hilerus related in that same Office of Mende, concerning whom it can accordingly be doubted whether he ever existed. since these, no less than that one, are read in like manner in the Life of St. Hilarus. From all these things my suspicion is confirmed that St. Hilarus or Hilarius is reviewed by Châtelain and the author of the Paris Martyrology, Hilerus being wholly passed over, because they reckoned him, as known only from the Lives of St. Enimia of dubious credit, to be Hilarius reproduced with a changed name. And Hilerus could the more easily be born of Hilarius or Hilarus because the latter is called in French saint Hilaire, whence Hilair, and in Latin Hiler, Hilerus and Iler could be formed, and this one could seem, from the deeds of St. Enimia which make her the daughter either of Clovis II or of Chlothar II, different from St. Hilarius, who subscribed to the council of Clermont of the year 535. These things can (as I said) be discussed more thoroughly at the 25th day of October: meanwhile it appears to me not a little probable that St. Ilerus, of whom the Acts of St. Enimia speak, is that elder St. Hilarius, and that therefore, if the things which are read in the Offices of both about the deeds of this holy Virgin with Ilerus are to be admitted, she must be referred to the 6th century, nor can she be reckoned the daughter of Clovis II or Chlothar II and the sister of Dagobert.

[29] Nor is it sufficiently established to me concerning the monastery From Acts of the Life of St. Enimia so uncertain, what wonder if I am compelled to doubt also concerning the condition of the same Virgin's life and the monastery built by her. In her Office of Mende she is said to have built a monastery of virgins, with two churches added to it, of which one was dedicated to the Virgin Mother of God, the other to St. Peter. Mabillon, from the Life which he had read, makes mention of only one monastery and one church; others, who say that it was double, interpret it as the one of men, the other of girls; and all agree that it was situated in the territory of Mende on the river Tarn, where namely there still survives today a priory of men, distinguished by the name of St. Enimia, and already from the middle of the 10th century subject to the abbey of Chamalières, of which more below. In the said manuscript copy of the Life of St. Hilarus this Saint also is said, burning with the ardour of faith, to have built a monastery near the river Tarn with wondrous work and sumptuous labour, in which he placed an abundant multitude of Brethren.

[30] founded by the same Saint. With these again the Office of St. Ilerus of Mende agrees in these words: Burning with the ardour of faith (St. Ilerus) watched very much over the building of a monastery near the river Tarn with wondrous work. Whichever of these prelates you prefer to have lived with St. Enimia, perhaps the discourse there is of the same monastery as in the Acts of St. Enimia; especially if it was double, namely of men and of virgins; of which the latter could be specially ascribed to one or other of the prelates on account of the help given to the same holy Virgin in founding it, and the care in administering it. The place certainly favours this, in which St. Enimia is said to have founded hers, and St. Hilarus and Ilerus theirs; nor among the abbeys of the diocese of Mende do I find in the Gallia Christiana of Denis de Sainte-Marthe any trace of a monastery of Hilarus or Ilerus; but only, among the abbeys now destroyed, the Priory of men, which is believed to have been formerly the monastery of St. Enimia; which itself too I cannot confirm by a sufficiently certain argument.

[31] From the charter of Stephen, bishop of Mende, I have found no older mention of St. Enimia, and of her monastery, or of the place in which her body rests, than that in the middle of the 10th century in the charter of Stephen, bishop of Mende, to be reprinted below from Mabillon. But from this too we know only that there was at that time in a certain place of the diocese of Mende, already anciently called Burlatis, a place founded in honour of the blessed Mother of God Mary, where (the words are Stephen's) the body of the blessed virgin Enimia rests; and that this place was then badly plundered and almost demolished through negligence and secular cupidity, and in it, want requiring it, the state of religion … seemed wholly annulled *; and that on this account it was given by the said bishop Stephen to Dalmatius, abbot of Chamalières, that he might restore it, and always assign there Brethren living regularly according to the norm of father Benedict; and that this was then done; from which time it has obeyed until now the abbey of Chamalières under the name of a priory of men.

[32] From this we learn indeed that already certainly in the middle of the 10th century Enimia was held and venerated as a holy virgin, these things cannot be certainly defined; and that there already then existed there from antiquity a sacred place or monastery dedicated to the most holy Mother of God, in which the body of the same holy virgin Enimia rested; but it cannot be determined from it who this holy virgin Enimia was, of what stock she was born, whether she was foundress and abbess of the same place, or formerly a Religious inhabitant of the same place, or brought thither from elsewhere on account of her known sanctity. No more do we know from it whether that monastery was, from its primeval foundation, or before it was converted into a priory of the abbey of Chamalières, of men or of women: for neither is said in that charter, although it may seem more probable that it was of men in the 10th century, when it was handed over to be restored and inhabited by the monks of Chamalières, not by sacred virgins. It is also to be observed that no word is made in the same charter of a church dedicated to St. Peter, which the proper Office of Mende mentions as the other church of the monastery, whether single or double, founded by St. Enimia; from which silence gather that either this church of St. Peter, and, what some say, a second monastery, never existed, or no longer survived at all in the middle of the 10th century.

[33] Why do we linger over more? From what has been alleged hitherto it is not sufficiently established to me concerning the royal lineage of this holy Virgin, but something must be granted to tradition. the century in which she flourished, her Religious profession, and the monastery founded by her, whether one or double. Nevertheless, since the things which we have disputed against these are not of such a kind as to prove the opposite; and even Acts not to be despised sometimes have their inserted errors, I think something must be conceded to the tradition of the people of Mende; nor would I dare to adjudge away from Enimia a royal Merovingian lineage, nor the building of a monastery and the headship of virgins exercised in it. But as regards the century in which she is to be believed to have flourished, I have preferred to write in the margin above the sixth or seventh (both doubtfully) or perhaps the VIII, both on account of the uncertain credit of the Lesson of that Office of Mende, in which she is called the daughter of Chlothar the Younger and the sister of Dagobert, and on account of the things which I have discussed concerning St. Hilarus or Hilarius and Ilerus or Hilerus, perhaps one and the same bishop of Mende.

[34] Mabillon, who, as we saw above, Another Enimia wholly unknown to me. reviewing St. Enimia among the Passed-over of the 2nd Benedictine Saeculum, not for lack of her cult, but either because he could not claim her for his Order, or because he judged her Lives unworthy of print, besides the things which he narrated there from the first Life, and which we copied from him, added this also: Finally (understand, The same Life relates) that Enimia after death was buried in the same place together with a kinswoman and her little god-daughter, who died on the same day, whose body Dagobert, the brother of Enimia (namely Dagobert II, son of Sigibert, king of Austrasia), deceived by an error of name, carried into Francia in place of his Sister's body. On this I have nothing to annotate, except that that second Enimia and the translation of her body are wholly unknown to me.

Read profluæ manantis undæ* of the abundant flowing water.

That is, annullatus* annulled.

§ III. The charter by which Stephen, bishop of Mende, handed over the place of St. Enimia to the abbey of Chamalières to be restored and possessed.

The bishop of Mende the place in which the body of St. Enimia rests Since we know no more about this holy Virgin, I subjoin here the often-cited charter of donation of Stephen, bishop of Mende in the 10th century, since it is the principal monument from which the ancient cult of the same Saint is established. Mabillon shows it from the chartulary of St. Theofredus, book 6 De Re Diplomatica, among the instruments, number CXXXVII, whence I transcribe it here. In the name of almighty God, who is three in persons and one in essence. Be it known to all faithful Christians, both present and future, that in the VII year of the reign of king Louis I, Stephen, bishop of the church of Mende, when I was providing to the best of my power for the clergy and people subject to me, with the consent of Peter the archdeacon, and Manfred the provost, Ingelvinus the dean, and the other clerics of the aforesaid see, and also of the faithful laymen, Bernard, and his brother Hector, Hugh and Peter my brothers, Bernard the viscount, Cancelinus, Fredelo, Stephen, Ubo, Bertrand, Rigaldus, there fell into my heart the desire that we should restore to its former state the place founded in honour of the blessed Mother Mary, where the body of the blessed virgin Enimia rests, which had been badly plundered through negligence and secular cupidity, and, want requiring it, the state of Religion there seemed wholly annulled *.

[36] he offers to Dalmatius, abbot of Chamalières, to be restored; For which cause we earnestly besought the lord abbot Dalmatius, a venerable man of the monastery of St. Theofredus, that he would take the aforesaid place into his lordship, and always assign there Brethren living regularly according to the norm of father Benedict. He refused, asserting that he did not wish to labour in foreign affairs, or in another's power. But we, searching out the will of his mind, received this answer from him: that neither he himself nor any of his monks would labour in that almost demolished place unless he first received a hereditary confirmation, namely a privilege, sufficiently firm and strengthened by our hands, whereby that little place should remain through all succeeding generations in the power and lordship or subjection of the monastery of St. Theofredus the martyr; and that all the abbots of the same monastery through all succeeding times should have power to dispose, rule, govern and order that that * little cell according to their will, whether according to God or according to the world, without anyone's contradiction.

[37] both of whom, certain conditions being agreed, go to Rome, Hearing this, we put it off for some while, hesitating what we should do about it; but, having taken counsel with our whole clergy and the faithful people, with the counsel also and will of lord Raymond the marquis, and of all our clerics and faithful, we gave assent according to his will in all things; on this condition, namely, that daily, feast days excepted, for us and our successors, and kinsfolk, and all the benefactors and kinsfolk and helpers of our see and place, they should chant on bended knees the VII Psalms for the dead, or, when it should be possible, a Vigil and Mass. And because the time was at hand at which * we were preparing to set out for Rome for the cause of prayer, namely lord Raymond and I, bishop Stephen, and together with us Peter the archdeacon, Maganfred the provost, Ingelvinus the dean, with some other clerics; abbot Dalmatius, noticing this, said that he too wished to set out with us, and before the sacred presence of the body of blessed Peter the Apostle, by Apostolic authority and licence, to begin the buildings of that place.

[38] Hearing this, we praised the zeal of his mind and there before the body of the Prince of the Apostles and the industry of his solicitude towards that place. And coming before the presence of the sacred body of blessed Peter the Apostle, and before the presence of the lord Pope Agapitus, and also of many bishops, and priests, and the other grades, and of Alberic the senator, and a multitude of other nobles, we laid open our desire concerning the rebuilding of the aforesaid place, and recited in their sight the privilege already mentioned; which when they heard, both the lord Pope Agapitus and the other faithful who were present praised it and decreed that that place should be restored for the perpetual habitation of monks.

[39] But it pleases me now to insert again this also which has been said above: they draw up a charter on the matter, according to the petition of the venerable man, abbot Dalmatius, and of his monks, it was decreed and enacted by all that that place, already anciently called Burlatis, which is consecrated in honour of the blessed Mother of God Mary, where the body of the blessed virgin Enimia rests, should remain and persist in the power and providence or subjection of the monastery of Chamalières, which is founded and consecrated in honour of the Prince of the Apostles, most blessed Peter, where the blessed martyr Theofredus rests in body with the pledges of other Saints; and that both the abbot and the congregation of that monastery should have the aforesaid place in their power for ruling and disposing, without hindrance from any person, through all future generations of men, by perpetual right.

[40] This charter or privilege, moreover, in the basilica of most blessed Peter, before his sacred tomb, Pope Agapitus confirming and, among others, subscribing, and before the aforesaid company, together with the often-mentioned place, we handed over into the hand of abbot Dalmatius and of his monks, to be kept to the end for the memory of those who come after. But if anyone rashly presume to infringe this, let him know himself condemned by the excommunication both of us and of the fellow bishops present, and by perpetual damnation, before the sight of Christ the just Judge. Sign of the lord Pope Agapitus, by whose authority this charter was confirmed. Sign of the same bishop Stephen. Sign of Gotescalc, bishop of Le Puy. Sign of the other witnesses, clerics and laymen. This charter was made on the III day before the Nones of May, the second weekday, the VIII day of the moon, Louis reigning, king of the Franks and Aquitanians. Thus far the said instrument of donation in Mabillon, whose observations on it I subjoin.

[41] This charter is worthy of observation (he says), not in the year of Christ 950, especially because Pope Agapitus II subscribed it, who sat from the year DCCCCXLVI for ten years. But this charter was given in the year DCCCCL, in which year the III day before the Nones of May fell on the second weekday, and the XV year of Louis d'Outremer was running, in whose VII year this donation was made; and accordingly the charter on this matter was written eight years afterwards, as we have said of other similar ones in their place, namely in chapter XXVIII of the second book, number IX. So he; now to be weighed for a little. The year of the charter's date, 950 of Christ and the fifteenth of the reign of Louis d'Outremer, he gathered from the time of Agapitus's Pontificate and from the 3rd day before the Nones of May and the second weekday written on it. For since, from a lapse of memory, he thought that in the whole time of Agapitus II's pontificate, from the year

namely 946 to 955, no second weekday fell on the III day before the Nones of May except in the year 950, he consequently tied that charter to this year.

[42] but 951. But a slight error crept upon the learned man here: for the III day before the Nones of May in the year 950 was not the second weekday but Sunday, as is evident from the Dominical letter F of the same year; but that the same day of May in the year 951 coincided with the second weekday the Dominical letter E likewise teaches. In this year and day too (not the preceding year) the fifteenth year of Louis was running, the beginning of his reign being reckoned from the 20th day of the month of June of the year 936, on which he was crowned. Therefore, if the III day before the Nones of May with the second weekday is to be retained in the said instrument, it must be tied to the year 951; which Mabillon himself also did more rightly in the Annals of his Order at the same year 951, number 50. Now let us come to Mabillon's other observation.

[43] Mabillon believed this donation made eight years before the said instrument, It cannot be denied that the same charter of Stephen, bishop of Mende, if it is nowhere faulty, was written eight years after the donation of the place of St. Enimia is said in it to have been made by him to abbot Dalmatius; for just so much time elapsed between the seventh year of king Louis and the year of Christ 951. Nor shall I deny here that some instruments of donations were first written long after the donations were made; but concerning this one, which I am now examining, there is a special and not light reason for doubt. Indeed the whole of that compact between Stephen and Dalmatius about the place of St. Enimia is narrated in the charter as begun and completed while the time was at hand in which the former of them was preparing to set out for Rome for the cause of prayer, so that it is very difficult to admit the space of eight years between the beginning of the same compact and the said Roman journey.

[44] from the year VII of Louis written on it; Nor is it probable from the rest that so much time intervened between the first donation and the charter made of it at Rome. Dalmatius refused to accept from Stephen, offering the donation of the place with the burden of restoring the buildings, unless he first received a hereditary confirmation, namely a privilege sufficiently firm and strengthened by the hands … (of the same Stephen), etc. To him demanding it, Stephen, after holding counsel with his own, assented according to his (that is, Dalmatius's) will in all things; and accordingly either granted or promised the written instrument of donation demanded by him. Now if in the seventh year of Louis d'Outremer he only promised this, and did not grant the charter of this matter before the fifteenth year of the same king, it cannot be numbered among the donations whose charters were first written long afterwards: for on this reckoning the donation would not have been made before the cited XV year of Louis, since Dalmatius would not accept it without an instrument of this kind first given. Moreover, if Stephen promised this already from the VII year of Louis, why is he to be thought to have put off giving it for the whole space of eight years?

[45] But if Dalmatius already from the said seventh year of Louis accepted the donation offered by Stephen without any written instrument, but that this year is faulty, why had he not yet begun the restoration of the place of St. Enimia agreed upon, in the eighth or ninth year after? That he had not yet begun it then is clear from the same charter, in which he himself is read to have set out for Rome at that time with the same bishop Stephen, because he wished to begin the buildings of that place (of St. Enimia) before the sacred presence of the body of blessed Peter the Apostle by Apostolic authority and licence. Nor indeed did Stephen censure Dalmatius's eight years' sloth and delay in the agreed restoration, but praised the zeal of his mind and the industry of his solicitude towards that place, for the restoration of which, namely, as has been said, he wished to bind himself at Rome through the instrument to be received there.

[46] For these reasons it appears to me most probable that there is an error in the year VII of the reign of king Louis, seems to be gathered from the same instrument. in place of which, if the year XIV or XV is substituted, the latter of which the other chronological notes at the foot of the charter designate, the difficulties raised will vanish, and all Stephen's assertions in it will cohere in a natural and obvious sense in this manner. Stephen, in one or other of the said years, offered the almost destroyed place of St. Enimia to Dalmatius, and, when he refused to admit that burden without the security of the often-mentioned instrument, consented with certain conditions. But because the time was at hand at which * Stephen was preparing to set out for Rome for the cause of prayer, Dalmatius preferred to join himself to him as companion of the journey, so that he might receive at Rome, before the sacred tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, the promised charter of donation confirmed by the Apostolic authority of Agapitus II. Stephen praised the purpose, and, having set out with him to Rome, granted it to him, the said supreme Pontiff subscribing, on the III day before the Nones of May, the second weekday, and accordingly in the year of Christ, as we have said, 951, to which therefore the first donation of the place of St. Enimia is to be referred.

[47] Some notice of the monastery of Chamalières, to which the priory of St. Enimia For the rest, the aforesaid monastery of St. Theofredus, over which the said abbot Dalmatius presided, is said in volume 2 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 761, to be otherwise called Calmeliacense, in French Saint Chaffre, and le Monastier Saint Chaffre, and to be an old and distinguished monastery of the Benedictine Order in the diocese of Le Puy, founded on the river Colansa and at the foot of mount Mézenc, about three leagues from the city of Anicium, that is, Le Puy-en-Velay. Hence gather why Gotescalc, bishop of Le Puy, who was perhaps then present at Rome, is read as subscribed to the same charter; namely because the monastery of Chamalières, to which that donation was being made, was of his diocese. He would have subscribed the more willingly if before entering the episcopate he was abbot of the same monastery of Chamalières, as Denis de Sainte-Marthe thought probable in the cited volume of the Gallia Christiana, columns 694 and 764. And that from that time of the donation the place of St. Enimia remained in the power of the monks of Chamalières even in the 17th century Mabillon teaches in the Passed-over of the 2nd Benedictine Saeculum, page LX, in these words: The monastery of St. Enimia was converted into a priory, subject to the abbey of St. Theofridus among the Vellavi, in which the relics of St. Enimia are venerated.

[48] remains subject until now. The Benedictine writers of Occitania asserted the same in this present 18th century, in volume 1, printed at Paris in the year 1730, on page 332 of which there is read in the French tongue: The monastery of St. Enimia survives even today among the Gabali, not indeed with the title of abbey, but of a conventual priory of the Order of St. Benedict: it is subject to the abbey of St. Theofredus among the Velauni (in French: de saint Chaffre dans le Velai). Regular Observance, of which no trace survived in that monastery in the 10th century, was then restored there at the instance of Stephen, bishop of Mende. The relics of this Saint are kept until now in the same place, whose feast is observed annually in the tracts of Albi and of the Gabali.

Perhaps qui*?

Perhaps direptus*?

annullatus* annulled

illam* is superfluous

Read quo* at which.

Nay, quo*.