Pardulphus

ON ST. PARDULPHUS, ABBOT AND CONFESSOR, AT GUÉRET IN THE DIOCESE OF LIMOGES IN GAUL, IN THE YEAR DCCXXXVII.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Pardulfus, abbot and confessor, at Guéret in the diocese of Limoges in Gaul. (S.)

BY J. B.

§ I. The Acts of St. Pardulphus, his memory among the martyrologists, and his sacred cult.

St. Pardulphus, abbot of Waractum or Garactum, of St. Pardulphus, abbot of Waractum, whose Acts we exhibit today, a man lovable to God and to men, illustrated in a greater degree the lowliness of his birth by the brightness of his virtues and the frequency of his prodigies. Now Waractum or Garactum was in the sixth and seventh centuries a village of the territory of Limoges (to which diocese it belongs even today), situated about the tenth league from Limoges at the sources of the Wartimpa (la Gartempe): but after Lantharius, count of the people of Limoges, founded a monastery in that place to the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, of which St. Pardulphus was the first abbot, it gradually increased so that it grew into a town, and in this our age is called the capital of Upper La Marche. The French call it Le Gueret. And of the monastery of Waractum Denis de Sainte-Marthe, volume 2 of the Gallia Christiana, column 553, gives the following notice: Among the ancient monasteries of the diocese of Limoges, now buried in oblivion, is reckoned that of St. Peter of Waractum, founded by count Lantarius at the sources of the river Wartimpa, where now is Gueret, the chief city of La Marche. Of this place the most celebrated abbot was St. Pardulfus, St. Pardoux, whose Life you have in the 3rd Benedictine Saeculum, part 1, page 571. Now a priory in the nomination of the abbot of St. Savinus of Poitiers, as the manuscript codex of Solignac notes. For the rest, him whom I have called Pardulphus from the Acts, others have named Pardulfus, or Pandulphus, or Paradulphus.

[2] Among the more recent writers the deeds of this holy Abbot have been pursued by Ménard, book 2 of the Observations on the Benedictine Martyrology at the 3rd day of November, whose, besides the more recent Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals, volume 2, at the year 732, numbers XI and 12: likewise at the year 737, number 38; Baillet in the Lives of the Saints at this day. Some things also about him are related by Bernard Gui of the Order of Friars Preachers, bishop first of Tui in the kingdom of Galicia, then of Lodève in the province of Narbonne, snatched from this life in the year 1331, in the Treatise on the Saints of Limoges, in Labbe, volume 1 of the Library of Manuscript books, page 634. More by Geoffrey, Prior of Vigeois in the diocese of Limoges, who wrote in the year 1183, in the Chronicle which the same Labbe printed in volume 2 of the Library just cited, from page 280. We shall not rarely use Geoffrey's Chronicle below: but in chapter 64 it has this: But these things I shall narrate more broadly in the book of the Miracles of St. Pardulphus, where I have proposed to treat many things about the most holy Mystery (of the Eucharist) for the correction of many, if God permit. Whether Geoffrey kept his promises I do not know: the promised work, indeed, if he ever wrote it, has until now been hidden from the learned; and it would be to be wished that it were drawn out of darkness into light, both for the fruit of the faithful and for the greater glory of the holy Abbot. You have some writers who have treated of St. Pardulphus: now let us look at those who wrote his Life or Acts (mention of the martyrologists will be made afterwards).

[3] Among the biographers of St. Pardulphus, to begin from the more recent, some writers besides Baillet already cited, there seems to be numbered first Bernard, bishop of Lodève, of whom above: for Gonon, in book 4 of the Lives of the Fathers of the West, gives a Life of St. Pardulphus which he either copied or abridged from him; for he prefixed this title to the Life published by him: From Bernard, bishop of Lodève, volume 2 on the Lives of the Saints; and he notes in the margin that it is kept in the ancient parchments of the Library of the Dominican Fathers of Avignon. Further, this is its beginning as read in Gonon: The blessed and renowned servant of Christ Pardulphus, in the territory of Limoges, etc. We have a threefold Life of the Saint in manuscript, but none that begins with the words just transcribed: but the loss is easy, since more certain and more ancient monuments are available. Geoffrey, Prior of Vigeois, whom I cited above, is the authority, in chapter 32, that Ivo, Prior of Cluny, also composed the Acts of St. Pardulphus in a more lucid style from an older writer, truthful indeed but uncultivated, namely about the year of Christ 1101, whom he had mentioned a little before in chapter 31. His words are: Ivo meanwhile, Prior of Cluny, a scholarly man, coming to Limoges, being earnestly asked by the monks of St. Martial, strove to write out lucidly the Life of St. Pardulphus, which had been written with truthful faith indeed, but in an uncultivated style: and he composed a Hymn about the same most loving Confessor, beginning thus: "Let all the faithful rejoice, etc."

[4] Since Geoffrey added no mark of the Life of St. Pardulphus written by Ivo, exhibits the Life and Gonon perhaps changed the words of Bernard Gui, I do not know whether it is Bernard's or Ivo's, the Life of St. Pardulphus from the Prague manuscript sent from Prague in the year 1642 to our Predecessors, whose beginning is: Blessed Pardulphus was begotten in the territory of Limoges, in a village named Sardo, and of plebeian parents indeed, but was notably adorned with honesty of manners and abundance of virtues. Its style is somewhat more florid; but that Life is more abridged than the one which we call ancient, of which presently. It has at the end one or two periods about the relics of St. Pardulphus, which are read in almost as many words in the Work of Bernard Gui, as will be seen in its place: whence it can be conjectured to be Bernard Gui's: but as he copied those one or two periods from Geoffrey, Prior of Vigeois, so also Geoffrey perhaps borrowed them from Ivo. Mabillon, in the preliminary Observations to the Life of St. Pardulphus in the III Benedictine Saeculum, part 1, page 572, says that a certain Compiègne copy of the abridged Life of St. Pardulphus, collated with the Life published by him, perhaps has Ivo as its author: however it be, it is well that the ancient Life of St. Pardulphus, written by a nearly contemporary author, not very cultivated indeed, but in a sincere kind of writing, has been preserved in more than one place up to our age.

[5] an anonymous writer, Labbe printed the ancient Life of St. Pardulphus, From our old parchments, he says in volume 2 of the Library of Manuscript books, page 599, and from the Copy of the Reverend Father Jacques Sirmond, theologian of the Society of Jesus. He was followed by Mabillon in the Benedictine Saeculum just cited, where from page 573 to page 581 he exhibits the ancient Life of St. Pardulphus drawn from the Duchesne manuscript codex and the Labbe Library, collated with the abridged copy of the same, both the Compiègne and the Limoges one, and finally illustrated with his Observations. He inserted word for word in his Observations some lines of the Compiègne copy, where it differed somewhat from the Life published by him: I compared these with a similar abridged copy of the Life of St. Pardulphus which Dom Louis Nicque, librarian of the Celestines of Soissons, sent to our Predecessors in the year 1666, and found them wholly agreeing with the lines of the Compiègne copy inserted by Mabillon in his Observations. Besides that abridged copy of Soissons, we also have in manuscript a more prolix ancient Life of St. Pardulphus, to be printed here. It is much more correct than that of Labbe and Mabillon, so that in all likelihood the confusion of sentences and barbarism of style which from time to time occur in those ought to be attributed rather to the carelessness or ignorance of the copyists, as not rarely happens, than turned into a fault of its author. We owe it to Pardulphe Bourgeois of the Society of Jesus, who, led by love of his Patron, applied diligent effort to find it in his native country, perhaps Limoges; and, having found it, sent it through the help of Reverend Father Poussines to Antwerp in the year 1684, as is read in his letters given from Aurillac, a town of Upper Auvergne, where he was teaching humane letters, to Poussines, and transmitted by him to us.

[6] to which, as appears, But whence is it concluded that this Life of St. Pardulphus, as was said above, was written by an author nearly contemporary with the Saint? First, the author himself seems to suggest it at the very beginning of his Preface, writing thus: Most men, while they praise the ancient deeds of miracles of the fathers of old, omit the new ones which have lately been done… But it is better, I think, for both to be mingled in both ways. As if he should say that others are accustomed to celebrate in their writings the miracles of the old Saints; but that his purpose is to discourse not of an old Saint but of a recent one: nor do those words seem able to be so understood that he says he commits to writing both the old and the recent miracles of St. Pardulphus; since he brings forward specifically none of his miracles which St. Pardulphus did not perform while living, or which did not happen within a few years of his death. Then at number 18 he speaks of the city of Bourges, badly handled by the army of the Franks, in this manner: But when in modern time the cohorts of the Franks had depopulated the aforesaid city and burned all the houses with fire, the house in which the cradle (of the boy received from baptism by St. Pardulphus) was hanging they could in no way burn, nor burn up anything from it. In modern time, he says: but this happened in the year 741 or the following, when Hunoald, duke of Aquitaine, Charles Martel having been snatched from the living, rebelled against Carloman and Pippin: for then, says the continuator of Fredegar, part 3 (see volume 2 of the Writers of Gallic Affairs, page 458), Carloman and Pippin, the princes, brothers, having gathered an army, cross the bed of the Loire at the city of Orléans, trample the Romans, advance as far as the city of Bourges, and burn its suburbs with fire.

[7] Finally, manifest are the words which he sets down a little before at the same number: nearly contemporary in age; they run thus: Another miracle of this holy Man is reported, which the divine Clemency worked through him, and many survive who saw it. So that those are not to be listened to whom Baillet says suspect that the Life of St. Pardulphus was first written by Ivo, Prior of Cluny; most probably only for this reason, that he too is recorded to have done something of this kind. So much of the age of the author: his name he himself did not reveal, nor have I found it revealed anywhere: I conjecture, however, that he was an Aquitanian monk: a monk indeed, because in the Preface he calls the abbot Berthemarius his Father; an Aquitanian, because in the same place he addresses Berthemarius thus: We render no small thanks to the almighty Maker, because here in Aquitaine … you find very many philosophers and rhetors who are able to narrate in their style the Life or the Deeds of the miracles of St. Pardulphus the confessor. Who the abbot Berthemarius was, to whom the anonymous biographer dedicated the Life of St. Pardulphus,

is likewise uncertain: perhaps one of the abbots of Waractum, successors of the Saint, as Mabillon not absurdly suspects: he suggests another, however, in the Annotations, namely Berthemarius, abbot of St. Peter of Sens, who lived in the time of Charlemagne, as Clarius the monk testifies at the year 804. But from the words just adduced it appears more probable that both the anonymous writer and Berthemarius were Aquitanians, and, from the words written out at the preceding number, nearer to the disaster of Bourges. Now let us say a few things about the martyrologists.

[8] Although the sanctity of St. Pardulphus was spread far and wide not only through Aquitaine among some more recent but also through the neighbouring provinces of Gaul, yet neither Ado nor Usuard nor the other martyrologists of almost that age inserted him in their Fasti: I shall therefore review some more recent ones. Ferrarius in the General Catalogue of Saints at the 6th day of October has thus: In the territory of Limoges, of St. Pardulphus, hermit. Ménard in the Benedictine Martyrology, but at the 3rd day of November, which is peculiar to him, writes thus: At Limoges, of St. Pardulphus, abbot, illustrious for the glory of sanctity and miracles. Châtelain in the Universal Martyrology, but in French: At Waractum in La Marche of Limoges, St. Pardulphus, abbot of the same place, whose body is in honour at Arnac, near Pompadour. The Paris Martyrology, printed in the year 1727: At Waractum in La Marche of Limoges, of St. Pardulphus, abbot. Bucelinus in the Benedictine Menology somewhat more prolix: At Limoges, of St. Pardulphus, abbot, who, deprived from boyhood of the light of both eyes, but illumined by the brightness of divine grace, showed himself by his very manner of life to be a son of light, astounding in the maceration of the flesh, lavish towards the poor, conspicuous also for miracles, since he healed all the sick by the imposition of hands, drove out demons by pouring on blessed oil, and worked innumerable prodigies by the efficacy of his prayers. Made at length, although much resisting, abbot of Waractum, he formed pupils most worthy of heaven. When he was already eighty years old, a ladder of glory having been shown him by St. Michael, by which he might ascend to a better country, amid the words of prayer and blessing with which he prayed well for the people, he fell asleep in eternal peace. Waractum, as I have already noted, is situated in the diocese of Limoges, and St. Pardulphus obtained cult both there and at Limoges, as will appear below: hence of the cited martyrologists some announce the Saint at Waractum, Bucelinus, from Du Saussay, of whom presently, at Limoges.

[9] martyrologists André du Saussay, in the Appendix of the Gallican Martyrology, besides the words just cited, transcribed from him by Bucelinus, adds this: St. Pardulphus, who, distinguished in virtue and manners, seeking God, fleeing the world, dwelt in the desert, gave healing to the sick, cured the possessed, and loosed those contracted from birth. At length, called to Garactum by Lauterius, count of Limoges, he was set over the abbey which the latter had built in honour of the Apostles Peter and Paul; which he administered holily and prudently. The same put to flight from his oratory by divine power the Saracens routed by Charles Martel, and at eighty years of age departed not without the viaticum. His memory is celebrated in these regions. At Garactum his relics are venerated. And very many churches are inscribed to him, especially in the territory of Auvergne, where the patronage of the villages of Cyriacum, Blansacum and Turris has been entrusted to him. The things which Du Saussay records concerning the virtues and miracles of St. Pardulphus are drawn from the Acts. Of the villages of which he says St. Pardulphus is patron, the third is marked in Blaeu, after page 137, not far from the source of the Duranius (la Dordonne), in this way: S. Pardoux de la Tour. Three villages also, called S. Cirgue, are marked in the same Map of Blaeu showing Auvergne, of which perhaps Du Saussay designated one by the name Cyriacum. Blansacum is mentioned in the Codex of Benefices of the diocese of Clermont, printed at Paris in the year 1638, in these words, in French: The Pastorate of St. Pardulphus, and St. Vincent (of Blanzat) annexed to it.

[10] his memory, The same Du Saussay, in part 2 of the Gallican Martyrology, from page 1247, published the Martyrology of the monastery of the Benedictine Fathers of St. Savinus of Lavedan, written about 500 years ago, as he says, that is, in the twelfth century, in which at the 6th day of October these things are read: In the territory of Toulouse, in the village which is called Pompiacum, the birthday of St. Pardulphus, bishop and confessor; some of whose relics are kept there, as is the tradition of the natives, on the testimony of Simon Peyronet, parish priest of Our Lady of the Taur at Toulouse, in the Catalogue of Saints: but it is very credible that the Pardulphus venerated in the village of Pompeiacum is wrongly called a bishop, and is no other than the abbot of Waractum; which indeed seems to be suggested both by the latter's celebrity through Aquitaine and Auvergne, the name being common to several men and villages, and the day on which he is venerated; and finally by this, that this bishop Pardulphus is otherwise wholly unknown; and it could easily have happened that the people of Pompeiacum, somewhat more remote from the territory of Limoges, did not have a thorough knowledge of the Saint whose relics they believe they once possessed. In volume 2 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, New Edition, made in the year 1723, page 53, St. Pardulphus is read inserted in the Martyrology of Wandalbert at the 6th day of October after this verse of Wandalbert:

The virgin Faith on the day before triumphs by a happy death.

Which verse is followed by these words: In Africa, of Rogata, Saturninus, Faustinus, and St. Pardulfus, confessor: but that these were thrust in there by a more recent interpolator is not at all doubtful.

[11] Further, even from the things which I have adduced from Du Saussay's Martyrology, his sacred cult through various the ecclesiastical cult of the Saint in Auvergne, and perhaps in the diocese of Lombez, in which Pompeiacum is, is sufficiently clear. Several villages besides occur in the Geographical Maps of Blaeu, both of Auvergne and of the territory of Limoges, which have taken their name from St. Pardulphus, and so to which he is in all likelihood either patron or in sacred honours. And the Map of Auvergne indeed, besides the village already mentioned, S. Pardoux de la Tour, shows three others of almost the same name, signifying however, as I think, the same Saint; namely S. Padaux situated on the Sivolis or Seucaula (commonly la Sioule); S. Pardon on the Elaver (in French l'Alier); S. Pardon le Neuf in the part of the territory of Limoges contiguous to Auvergne. In the Map of the territory of Limoges, on both sides of the city of Tulle there occur two villages, the one towards the river Duranius (la Dordonne), which it names S. Pardouls; the other near the Visera (la Vesere), which it called S. Perdous, the name being slightly changed. Hence, having crossed the river (la Vienne), before you come to the river (Taurion), there will occur another village, S. Pardoulx, and likewise another beyond the river Crosa (la Creuse), S. Pardous les Cars. There is found finally in the cited Map, between the Wartimpa and the river (Vincon), a village to which it ascribes the name S. Pardons.

[12] The Codex of Benefices of the diocese of Limoges, printed at Paris in the year 1638, propagated through dioceses of Gaul; and the proper Office, besides one vicariate, enumerates XI pastorates which have their name from St. Pardulphus; of which one is in the diocese of Poitiers, and is placed in Blaeu, in the Geographical Map of the duchy of Poitou attached to page 121, not far from the source of a certain river washing Thouars and afterwards discharging itself into the Loire. Similarly also the codices of the dioceses of Tulle, of Périgueux (in which there is also a monastery of nuns of the Order of St. Dominic, called of St. Pardulphus, founded by the testament of Margaret, viscountess of Limoges, at the end of the 13th century, as Bernard Gui testifies in the History of the foundations of the convents of the Order of St. Dominic of the Province of Toulouse and of Provence, in Martène, volume 6 of the Old Writers, column 527 and the two following), of Maillezais, of Poitiers, of Saintes and of Sarlat enumerate one or more Priories, pastorates or vicariates which have drawn their name from St. Pardulphus: whence it can be gathered how great the celebrity of St. Pardulphus was already of old in those regions. Baillet writes that his cult was very celebrated and widely propagated already from the 12th century: nay, that he obtained sacred honours far earlier in Auvergne, and so most probably also in the diocese of Limoges, is clear from the Little Book on the holy churches and monasteries of Clermont, whose author lived about the year 950, and which Labbe inserted in volume 2 of the Library of Manuscript books, where on page 724 these things are read: In the church of St. Pardulphus, the altar of St. Pardulphus. In the diocese of Limoges, moreover, he is venerated on the 6th day of October with a proper Office and semidouble rite. In the Breviary of Limoges of the year 1625 the Prayer runs thus: O God, who gladden us with the annual festivity of blessed Pardulphus Your confessor, grant us, his merits interceding, both to be fortified with perpetual protection and to rejoice in salutary progress. Through our Lord, etc.

[13] by which in the Limoges The Lessons of the second Nocturn, drawn from the Acts, are composed in these words: the first: Pardulphus, born of a farmer father in the little village of Sardenum not far from Garactum, from the fall of a branch of a tree striking his head was deprived from boyhood of both eyes. From that time, illumined by a better light of the mind, he began to flourish in good works and miracles: for as a youth he secretly gave away to the poor the greater part of the slender food and clothing handed to him, and cured the sick coming together from all sides, even those occupied by demons, by applying blessed oil, sometimes also by the imposition of the hand alone. The second: Renowned for these and very many other virtues, he is set, although unwilling, over the monastery of Garactum, built in honour of St. Peter by Lantarius, count of Limoges; blind to the world, but with most perspicacious mind about to lead to heaven those who had professed the religious life. An absolute exemplar of sanctity, he forbade himself going out of the monastery and the eating of flesh perpetually, living for the most part on dry food once in the week; he spent sleepless nights in prayer, with body prostrate, as far as human strength could bear, with the utmost sweetness of mind.

[14] and Sarlat dioceses The third: Instructed by his ears, he continually turned over in his mind the Psalms, Antiphons and Responsories which he had heard while the divine Office was being performed; about the time of None he consoled the poor and the sick with what help he could, above all with the word of God. At length, about to obtain the rewards of his merits, a ladder having been shown him by Michael the archangel by which he might ascend into heaven, being about eighty years old, in the times of Charles the Great (nay Martel) and Hunoald, duke of Aquitaine, having prayed well for his own and for the lamenting people, amid these last words: "Sons, may the Lord keep you and defend you from all evil, and give you peace, that you may deservedly hear that desirable voice: Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom which is prepared for you from the origin of the world," he breathed out his holy soul on the day before the Nones of October. He is likewise venerated with a similar Office and rite in the diocese of Sarlat, but his feast is transferred there to the tenth day of October; while the sixth day of October is sacred to SS. Faith, Caprasius, Primus and Felician, of whom a proper Office is likewise then recited. Perhaps the people of Sarlat transferred the feast of St. Pardulphus to the 10th day of October from the time when the relics of St. Felician were brought from Limoges into the monastery of Issigeac of the diocese of Sarlat. These things are from the Proper of the Saints of the diocese of Sarlat, printed at Paris in the year 1677; from which likewise the proper Prayer of St. Pardulphus,

and the third Lesson of the second Nocturn (the argument of the others you have in those of Limoges already recited), I transcribe here.

[15] he enjoys. The former runs thus: O God, who in bodily blindness illumined blessed Pardulfus Your confessor with abundant splendour of the spirit, by his merits and prayers pour abundantly into us the heavenly light, by which, uncovering all the deceits of the world, we may strive towards the eternal brightness of Your glory. Through our Lord. The third Lesson of the second Nocturn is this: His body, buried in the monastery of Waractum, long afterwards, the sarcophagus and ashes being left, was translated into the monastery of Sarlat, and placed beside the body of St. Sacerdos, bishop of Limoges. But when the peoples arriving from every side on account of the acts of power which the Lord worked through His Servant disturbed the quiet and solitude of the monks, it seemed fair to deposit the sacred remains of Pardulfus in the church of St. John beside the monastery; whence, brought out about the year one thousand, at the instance of Guy de Las Tours, they were carried to Arnac: where Pardulfus shone with many miracles. And celebrated is that, that at the gate of the city of Limoges his body remained immovable until a blind man, brought before the people, was given sight. But also in the year one thousand and ninety-four, when a subcutaneous fire again vehemently afflicted the Aquitanians, supplications having been proclaimed to avert the wrath of God, the body of St. Pardulfus, with the relics of other Saints, was carried from Arnac to St. Martial of Limoges, where various miracles shone forth and very many sick were healed. So much thus far of the cult of St. Pardulphus: of the various translations of his remains there will be a place for speaking below, after we have discoursed of the things which the Acts furnish concerning our Saint.

§ II. The birth of St. Pardulphus, his life, both solitary and monastic.

Born in the Limousin of farming parents, The biographer of St. Pardulphus, nearly contemporary with the Saint, and using a style simple indeed and truthful, yet in all likelihood not so uncultivated as the copies or transcripts of Labbe and Mabillon display, as I have already noted, begins from his birth and the condition of his parents. It happens not rarely indeed that those who describe the Lives of the Saints attach to them a fictitious splendour of birth, as though the praise proper to the Saints and won by their merits did not suffice unless it were illustrated with fictions, sometimes even absurd. Not so our biographer: In the Western region, he says, of the parts of Aquitaine, in the diocese of Limoges, of tillers of the fields, in the village whose name is Sardenus, or on the mount of Sardenus, there was born a boy of faithful lineage, whose name was Pardulphus. The copies of Labbe and Mabillon agree; but they call the village in which he was born Seredinnum. The Codex of Benefices of the diocese of Limoges cited above calls it in French Sardent; but in Blaeu, likewise cited before, Sarden is read. It is situated not far from Waractum, whose situation I have set out above, and is separated from it in Blaeu's Map of the territory of Limoges by some intervening mountains or hills; whence you may understand why the biographer said, or on the mount of Sardenus. That his parents practised agriculture the other copies also affirm; that they were, however, freeborn, our Soissons copy and Mabillon's Compiègne one add; which, as I shall not find it hard to admit to be true, so what Adrien de Valois says in the Notitia Galliarum, page 629, that the biographer of St. Pardulphus teaches that he was born of noble senators, appears from what has been said wholly foreign to the truth, and is perhaps found in Valois alone.

[17] having lost his sight, At what time St. Pardulphus was brought forth into the world will be said more accurately when his death is discussed: from the Saint's birth the biographer proceeds to his virtues, with which he shone even in boyhood, which, because they need no commentary, it will suffice to have named cursorily. He commends him most of all for gentleness and modesty of manners, for sincerity, temperance, and outstanding compassion towards the poor, led by which he took away from his food, though slender, and from his clothing, that he might have something to bestow on the needy. He inserts among these an accident, harmful to his body but useful to his soul, by which, through the fall of a branch of a tree upon his head, he lost indeed the light of his eyes, but was thenceforth to be illumined inwardly by a more abundant supply of divine light. Blind indeed, he says, in body, but shining in work; tried for a time, but not put to death; deprived of sight for a little while, but filled perpetually with good work. The same things are read in the Life of St. Pardulphus in Mabillon and Labbe, as also in our Soissons manuscript. Whence it seems to follow that the former use of his eyes was gradually restored to the Saint. The biographer adds indeed that he offered himself, although he was blind, as a guide of the heavenly journey to others; but this while he had not yet passed through boyhood or adolescence, and was still living in the household of his parents. Our Soissons Epitome speaks more manifestly, which says that he remained blind for very many days, not for the whole course of his life: from which it follows that it is not certain that St. Pardulphus, as the Breviaries of Limoges and Sarlat suggest, lived in perpetual blindness. That he was instructed in letters before he was deprived of the use of his eyes our Prague manuscript adds; but since this is either of Ivo, Prior of Cluny, or of Bernard Gui, or of another more recent writer, it is not of great weight in this matter, and there will occur below some things from the ancient Acts by which rather the opposite is suggested, concerning which consult number 21.

[18] and having wrought many miracles. Further, of how great merit before God St. Pardulphus was even in adolescence, the frequent prodigies which he then performed declared: the biographer relates them in general in these words: To whom the Lord soon conferred so great grace that, if he laid his hand on any of those who came to him languishing with various infirmities, or anointed them with blessed oil, or gave them blessed water to drink, suddenly all infirmities of fevers were repelled from them; and also those who were vexed by demons, when they had been brought to him, their bodies possessed by demons were set free. These things concerning the Saint's prodigies performed in adolescence the biographer, as I said, gives in general; in all likelihood for this reason, that he had not a few things done later which were to be narrated more in detail. From the prodigies which he performed in adolescence and while still living, as far at least as appears from his manner of speaking, in his parents' house, the biographer turns his discourse to the construction of the monastery of Waractum and the headship of it held by the Saint: but before we follow him thither, we must stop for a little, and investigate whether he went directly from his father's house into the monastery of Waractum; or whether, on the contrary, having left it, he lived apart in solitude for some while, and was drawn back from it, although unwilling, to the headship of the monastery of Waractum.

[19] he undertook a solitary life: The copy which we publish, as has just been said, proceeding at once from the boyhood or adolescence of St. Pardulphus to his headship, passes over untouched that part of his life which elapsed between the two, and leaves it to be guessed what institute of life the Saint used meanwhile: for indeed it does not appear probable that the Saint, still a boy or adolescent, was appointed to the government of the monks of Waractum. The copies of Labbe and Mabillon labour under the same defect; as also, of the abridged copies, Mabillon's Compiègne one and our Soissons one. But the Limoges Epitome and the Prague copy expressly maintain a solitary life of the Saint before he came to Waractum: Mabillon cites from the former the following: Hence heavy sadness in both parents: but he who should have mourned in human fashion consoled his parents. Then, building a solitary dwelling, he was assiduous in prayers and vigils and fasts. The latter has thus: Now he does not permit his age to grow without increase of virtue, but, building for himself a solitary tabernacle or dwelling, being wholly free for prayers, vigils and fasts, and disdaining earthly things, he hastens to take part in heavenly ones. And what they say in this place is very probable: for that Pardulphus inhabited a solitary place when he was called to Waractum the words sufficiently indicate by which the biographer reports at number 7 that he answered count Lantharius, who was calling him, that he would never go out from that place until the end of his life. It is indicated also by the perpetual love of solitude which shone forth in the Saint even when he was living at Waractum, and from which he could never be torn from his cell, as the biographer testifies at number 8.

[20] Further, the place in which he most probably led the solitary life then called to Waractum by count Lantharius, was situated in his native district of Sardenus, as manifestly follows from number 6. But while St. Pardulphus lives here intent on God, and the fame of his virtues and miracles spreads more and more, Lantharius, count of the people of Limoges, founds in neighbouring Waractum a monastery to the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul: the work being now advanced, solicitous about procuring inhabitants worthy of the monastery, he sent in every direction men to invite servants of God and monks to inhabit it. Pardulphus, renowned from boyhood for the sanctity of his life and so many prodigies, could not escape the count's notice. Therefore he himself approaches the Saint, invites him to Waractum, and at length, though with difficulty, finds him hearkening to his prayers. Then, having been instructed in person about the excellent virtue and sanctity of the Man, he judged him worthy to be set as abbot over the monks gathered from all sides. It is wonderful to say with how great abstinence and austerity of life Pardulphus, set in this grade, shone as an example to his own. The biographer pursues all these things at number 6 and the three following: I have touched on them cursorily, because nothing occurred in them particularly to be annotated, and they are plain and clear to the reader. It ought not, however, to be passed over unobserved what the biographer reveals at number 9, speaking of his daily exercises: for in those words: But what remained after the night Hours he recited from memory from the Lessons which he had heard; but after Matins Lauds he meditated by chanting the Responsories or Antiphons of the holy Martyrs, there is contained an allusion to the Rule of St. Benedict, which in chapter 8 has thus: But what remains after the vigils is to be used by the brethren who need something of the Psalter or the lessons.

[21] This passage of the Benedictine Rule Ménard comments on thus in the Observations on chapter 23 of the Concordance of Rules: and set as abbot over the monks, The sense is that those who are ignorant of the psalter and the lessons should spend that interval which lies between the end of the night vigils and Matins in the meditation or reading of those same things. When therefore St. Benedict says, "Let it be used for meditation," there is understood, OF THE LESSONS AND THE PSALTER. That is, let it be used for the study of the lessons and the Psalter. Namely, that the less instructed may learn to read and pronounce the lessons and the psalter rightly, and also to interpret them: nay even commit the psalter itself to memory, if they can. And this was the ancient practice. So Ménard. Further, from the biographer and chapter 8 of the Benedictine Rule, as Ménard interprets it, two things may be gathered; the one, that St. Pardulphus followed the Rule of St. Benedict; the other, of which I made mention above at number 17, that he was without letters, and was thence compelled to learn the Lauds, Responsories, Antiphons and Psalms by heart. This, indeed, hold as a conjecture. But as regards the Rule of St. Benedict, which Pardulphus followed with his monks, it is perhaps not so to be taken but that also of St. Columbanus

he may have followed the Rule: for, on the testimony of the biographer at number 6, Lantharius sought out monks and servants of God from the neighbouring and suburban places also, and so it is very probable that he called some monks from the monastery of Solignac near Limoges to the neighbouring one of Waractum: and that one St. Eligius founded out of love for blessed Columbanus and his Rule, as Jonas testifies in the Life of St. Eustasius, whose words are recited by Le Cointe in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 631, number 24, and by Mabillon in the 2nd Benedictine Saeculum, page 122, number 17, in the Life of the same St. Eustasius.

[22] he continues to shine with miracles, In what year Lantharius founded that monastery the biographer neither declares, nor furnishes anything from which it may be gathered in any way: from the year of St. Pardulphus's death (737, as will be seen below) it is deduced only in a broad way that it happened towards the end of the seventh century or the beginning of the following; as also from the miracles which Pardulphus, having now been made abbot of Waractum, performed, and in narrating which the biographer is thereafter wholly occupied. The first which he relates of them runs nearly thus: When St. Pardulphus was of such abstinence that he used neither flesh nor fowl, a certain rustic, carrying to the holy Abbot some mushrooms found in the wood, met a certain Regnaricus, who ordered those mushrooms, taken away by force, to be set before him at table. Scarcely had Regnaricus tasted them when they so stuck in his throat that they could neither be taken in nor cast out, until, having begged pardon through a servant, he was rescued from the danger of suffocation by the prayers of the holy Man. Now Regnaricus, as the biographer says, was a counsellor of the most illustrious man prince Hunoald, and legatary or envoy of Charles (Martel). Hence further, and from the year of St. Pardulphus's death (namely of Christ 737) to be established, as I have said, below, the year in which this miracle happened is brought out as nearly as possible in this manner.

[23] one of which about the year 736, Very well known among the writers of Gallic Affairs is Eudo, duke of Aquitaine, celebrated for deeds done now against the Saracens attacking Gaul, now against Charles Martel. Eudo having died, his son Hunald succeeded in the year 735: In the year from the Incarnation of the Lord (say the Annals of the Franks of Metz, volume 2 of the Writers of Gallic Affairs, page 684) DCCXXXV duke Eodo died. Eudo having died, Charles Martel subjugated Aquitaine in the following year according to the Annals commonly called the Petavian: DCCXXXVI, they say, bishop Audoin died. And Charles fought against the sons of Eodo. But Charles, peace having been made with Hunald, gave Aquitaine to Hunald or Hunoald himself; as the Annals of Metz have it, referring all these things by anticipation to the year 735. To the words with which they record Eudo's death the following are immediately subjoined: Which when the invincible prince Charles had heard, having assembled an army, he crossed the river Loire, and occupied as far as the Garonne and the city of Bordeaux and the fortress of Blaye: and took and subjugated that region with the cities and their suburbs. And that dukedom with his wonted loving-kindness he gave to Hunald, son of Eodo; who promised fidelity to him and to his sons Pippin and Carloman. Since therefore that miracle happened under Hunald, already perhaps established by Charles as duke of Aquitaine, and St. Pardulphus died in the year 737, according to what is to be said, it is most probable that it ought to be referred to the year 735, or rather 736, or the following.

[24] The miracles which follow in the biographer from number 12 to 14 the other, however, need no commentary, nor have they any mark from which you might define about what time they happened, if you except that which is related at number 14 of the paralytic who had lain for five years in the porch of St. Martin of Tours, restored to health by the aid of St. Pardulphus. That happened, on the testimony of the biographer, when Audelandus was abbot over the monastery of St. Martin of Tours; concerning whom, since discussion will recur below, it will be helpful here to investigate beforehand the time at which he ruled the said monastery as abbot. The brothers Sainte-Marthe, in volume 4 of the Gallia Christiana, column 612, record the abbots of St. Martin of Tours in this series: namely third Vudelandus, fourth Gontrannus, fifth Autlaudus or Auctolandus. They record Vudelandus from a diploma of the Pancarta Nigra, written in the XIII year of the reign of king Theuderic on the 4th day before the Kalends of July, concerning things of his own property given in the Alamannic country, in the district of the Breisgau. The thirteenth year of Theoderic (namely of Chelles, of whom alone the discussion can be here) falls in the year of Christ 732; why then do they say, from the same Charter, that his successor Gontrannus sat under Ibbo, archbishop of Tours, and in the year 721? Therefore they seem to have wrongly distinguished Vudelandus from Autlandus, the successor of Gontrannus.

[25] Mention of Autlandus, abbot of St. Martin of Tours, is made in Martène, volume 1 of the Old Writers, column 34, in a diploma of Charlemagne for the same monastery in these words: happened before the year 734, The venerable Hitherius, abbot of the monastery of St. Martin, the eminent confessor of Christ, our special patron, of the city of Tours, where he himself rests precious in body, has made known to the serenity of our kingdom how his predecessor Autlandus the abbot established certain villas which ought to serve the brethren month by month through the whole year. Likewise in the Precept of Charles the Bald for the church of St. Martin of Tours in the said Martène, column 107, where among the predecessors of Fredegisus, abbot of St. Martin of Tours, Autlandus, Vulfardus and Itherius are numbered. Hence, I think, the brothers Sainte-Marthe placed Vulfardus after Autlandus as his immediate successor, no other intervening. But not Vulfardus but Teutsindus was the immediate successor of Autlandus: for Autlandus ruled the abbey of St. Martin of Tours, from what has already been said, in the XIII year of Theoderic of Chelles, that is, in the year of Christ 732: but Teutsindus presided over the same in the fifteenth year of Theoderic, which is connected with the year of Christ 734 in the Chronicle of Fontenelle, chapter 9, written under Louis the Pious. Its words in volume 3 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, page 210, run thus: Teutsindus, Father of the monastery of the church of St. Martin of Tours, obtains the place of rule (of the monastery of Fontenelle) in the year of the Lord's Incarnation DCCXXXIV, the II Indiction, which was the fifteenth year of the aforesaid king Theodoric. From which indeed I conclude only this in this place, that the miracle of the paralytic healed by St. Pardulphus, who had lain for five years in the porch of St. Martin of Tours, happened not later than the year 734: but from the same I shall refute below the opinion of Le Cointe about the year of St. Pardulphus's death. Now I return to the biographer.

[26] and gives an example of outstanding confidence in God The biographer relates at number 15 an outstanding example of fortitude, and of a mind full of confidence in God, given by St. Pardulphus. The Saracens, routed in a huge battle by Charles Martel and Eudo, duke of Aquitaine, were taking thought for themselves by flight: the defeat they had received sharpened the fury of the barbarous nation; and whatever it found in its way, whether sacred or profane, it gave over to fire and sword. And already a rumour had been brought to Waractum that certain destruction from the Saracens threatened the monastery of St. Pardulphus: the monks, terrified, deserting the monastery, betook themselves to safer places; Pardulphus alone could not be persuaded to flight; but, relying on God, he awaited the coming of the barbarians undaunted, a single servant lying hidden, who, bolder than the others, was waiting for the outcome of the matter. Shortly after, the Saracens arrived at the monastery of Waractum; but, Pardulphus persisting in prayer, they went away, the monastery unharmed, compelled by divine power. That defeat Baronius referred to the year 725 from the Annals of Fulda; which the more recent learned men put off to the year 732, and on their side stand most of the old Annals of Frankish Affairs. Of these I shall recite some, from which you will learn the place, year, month and weekday of the battle.

[27] in the year, as appears, 732 The Frankish Annals which are commonly called Nazarian, and run from the year 707 to the year 752, have thus: DCCXXXII Charles fought against the Sarcini (Saracens) on the Saturday at Poitiers. The Petavian, from the year 708 to the year 751: DCCXXXII Charles had a war against the Saracens in the month of October, on the Saturday. The Tilian, from the year 708 to the year 750: DCCXXXII Charles had a war against the Sareceni. The chronographer of Fontenelle, of whom above: In the second year of this man (Lando, abbot of Fontenelle and archbishop of Rheims), that is, in the seven hundred and thirty-second of the Lord's Incarnation, Eudo, duke of the Aquitanians, seeing himself overcome, and destitute of forces to defend his country against Charles, invites the perfidious nation of the Saracens to help him (nay rather Charles's companion and helper in this battle), who with their king, named Abd al-Rahman, cross the river Garonne, came to the city of Bordeaux, and there, the churches of God having been burned with fire and very many Christians killed, as far as the city of Poitiers, and burned the basilica of St. Hilary with fire, and strive with the utmost effort to set out to overthrow the church of the most blessed Maternus (read Martin of Tours). Against whom prince Charles drew up his line beside the city of Poitiers, and, the help of Christ being invoked, rushed undaunted upon them, and destroyed them with their king even to extermination. And, their spoils having been taken, glorifying the name of the Lord, the whole of Aquitaine being now subdued, he returns home in triumph. From which words it is to be gathered that the battle was fought between Poitiers and the city of Tours, and that it could have happened that some of the dispersed Saracens turned aside to Waractum, being about to return, by whatever way they could, into Spain through Gascony or Septimania, which obeyed the rule of the Saracens.

[28] Anastasius the Librarian referred the aforesaid defeat of the Saracens to Eudo, he gives an example. no mention being made of Charles Martel, under Gregory II, who passed from this life in the year 731. But Anastasius wrongly mixes up two battles with the Saracens; the one, in which Eudo routed the Saracens about the year 725, the other, in which Charles Martel together with Eudo is reported to have crushed the same again in the year 732. This is gathered from the very words of Anastasius: for the battle which he relates under Gregory II he says happened when the (Saracens) had already held the province of the Spains for ten years: but, on the testimony of Rodrigo, book 3, chapter 21, the Saracens overthrew the Gothic kingdom in the era 752, that is, the year of Christ 714. But on the other hand, since the same Anastasius says that there fell in that battle (which appears to have been reported not without flattery by various writers) three hundred and seventy-five thousand of the Saracens, which is generally related of the battle of Charles Martel with the Saracens, it is sufficiently apparent that Anastasius confused two battles into one and the same; which Paul the Deacon also did in book 6 On the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 46. Anastasius writes that the first battle was fought near the Rhône; but the later, as we have already seen, took place near Poitiers and the Loire. The Nazarian and Petavian Annals note that in the year 721 Eudo drove the forces of the Saracens out of Aquitaine: and the Chronicle of Moissac also writes that the Saracens besieging Toulouse were struck by Eudo with a huge defeat: Eudo therefore conquered the Saracens in several battles, of which at least one, of the year 732, is to be tied together with the miracle of St. Pardulphus related here by the biographer.

[29] The other miracles of St. Pardulphus which the biographer pursues from number 16 I pass over in silence, Another miracle of his,

concerning which, if anything occurs to be annotated, it will be done briefly in the Annotations: but concerning the last, which he relates at the end of number 18, since it has a note of time annexed about which Valois and Mabillon do not agree, it pleases me to discourse somewhat. The miracle runs thus: St. Pardulphus had received from the sacred font the son of a certain man of the district of Bourges; the boy having died some while after, his parents hung up in their house, in I know not what place, his cradle, which while he was alive was seen to rock of its own accord; and it happened afterwards that the Franks, having entered Aquitaine as enemies, burned with fire the other houses at the city of Bourges; but this one, in which the said cradle was hung, they could not burn. That irruption of the Franks into the territory of Bourges happened at the time when Hunald, son of Eudo and his successor in the duchy of Aquitaine, Charles Martel, to whom as also to his sons he had bound his fidelity, having now been snatched from the living, began to plot revolution, and was compelled by Carloman and Pippin, the sons of Martel, to return to his duty; which Valois relates at the year 742, Rerum Francicarum book 25.

[30] But Mabillon speaks thus in the Annotations on the Life of St. Pardulphus: which Mabillon to the year 741, This happened in the year DCCXLI, a little after the death of Charles Martel, as is read in the continuation of the Chronicle of Fredegar, chapter III. But neither does the continuator of Fredegar say this, nor does he oppose Valois: he says that Charles Martel died on the eleventh day before the Kalends of November, namely of the year 741 according to the calculation of Mabillon and others; the death of Charles having been narrated, he relates the marriage of Chiltrude, Charles's daughter, with Odilo, duke of Bavaria: then he continues thus: Meanwhile, the Gascons rebelling in the region of Aquitaine with duke Chunoald, son of the late Eudo, Carloman and Pippin, the princes, brothers, having gathered an army, cross the bed of the Loire at the city of Orléans, trample the Romans (that is, the Aquitanians), advance as far as the city of Bourges, and burn its suburbs with fire. Pursuing duke Chunoald they put him to flight, and, laying all waste, destroy Lucca (Loches near Tours), etc. These things the continuator of Fredegar, which could truly have been said by him, even if the things which he narrates in the words just cited had happened in the year 742 after Easter, or after the Kalends of April.

[31] Valois more rightly ties it to the following one. Nay indeed, that these things happened in the summer of the year 742 the continuator of Fredegar himself indicates, subjoining this immediately to the capture of the aforesaid fortress: Whence having returned about the time of autumn (certainly of the year 742), in the same year they again moved an army beyond the Rhine against the Alamanni. In the same year, he says, not that in which Charles Martel had died, but that in which, after his death, Carloman and Pippin had burned the suburbs of Bourges and stormed the fortress of Lucca. So that the continuator of Fredegar not only does not oppose Valois but supports him. To this are added the Annals of the Franks of Metz, volume 2 of the Writers of Gallic Affairs, pages 685 and 687, carried from the year 687 to the year 749, which in express words tie to the year 741 the death of Charles Martel and the expedition of Carloman and Pippin against their brother Grifo, who had shut himself up in Laon; and to the year 742 the war moved by the same against Hunald, duke of Aquitaine; which the Nazarian, Petavian and Tilian Annals also do, and these indeed in these words: DCCXLI Charles the Mayor of the palace died. DCCXLII Carloman and Pippin, Mayors of the palace, had led an army against Hunold, duke of the Aquitanians, and took the fortress which is called Luccas. Therefore it seems one must by all means stand by the opinion of Valois.

§ III. The death and translations of St. Pardulphus.

The 80th year of his life approaching, St. Pardulphus had already reached almost the eightieth year of his age, on the testimony of the biographer, when amid the tears of his own he ended the course of a most pure life with a blessed end, consoling his own, scarcely drawing breath, with these or similar words: Act manfully, and let your heart take courage, and wait for the Lord. Come to Him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be confounded. Nothing will be lacking to you if you fear the Lord, and He will not deprive of good things those who walk in innocence, so that you may deservedly at some time hear that desirable voice of the Lord: "Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom which is prepared for you from the origin of the world." The various circumstances which accompanied the blessed Man's death the biographer sets forth clearly enough, so that it is not necessary to dwell on them longer: I inquire only into the year of his death, which Mabillon contends was 737, and Le Cointe 743. The biographer suggests two chronological characters of that year, the one, that he died under Hunald, duke of Aquitaine; the other, that on the Lord's day; to which, if you join a third, not indeed handed down by the biographer, yet most probable, namely that he died on the 6th day of October, which has been sacred to St. Pardulphus from all past memory, you must go over to the opinion of Mabillon or of Le Cointe.

[33] Hunald held the duchy of Aquitaine received from Charles Martel from the year 736 until the year 744: the first the Annals partly of Metz, partly Petavian teach, but in the course of the year of Christ 737, whose words you have at number 23. The second the same Annals of Metz at the year 744, where they have thus: And in the same year duke Hunald, deceiving his brother, named Hatto, by false oaths, ordered him to come to him from Poitiers, whose eyes he at once put out and thrust him into custody. But not many days after, Hunald, the crown of his head being laid aside, and the monk's vow having been promised, entered the monastery which is situated in the island of Radis (l'Isle de Re in the Aquitanian Ocean), and left his son Waifar in the principality. Rightly therefore Mabillon, just as Le Cointe, circumscribed the death of St. Pardulphus within these same years. Further, in the year 737, which pleased Mabillon, the Dominical letter was F, and the 6th day of October fell on a Sunday: I hear, Le Cointe will say; but these things fit the year 743 equally with the year 737. Wherefore he strives to establish his opinion from elsewhere: namely partly from the year in which Autlandus took up the rule of the monastery of St. Martin of Tours, partly from the biographer, number 14. He argues thus, then.

[34] Teutsindus, abbot of the monastery already mentioned, died in the year 738, not 743, as Le Cointe, or certainly in the same year Wido succeeded him in the rule of the monastery of Fontenelle, as the author of the Chronicle of that monastery writes: but Autlandus succeeded Teutsindus (he was a military abbot endowed with two abbeys, as in the time of Charles Martel it was not rare for abbeys to be conferred on men of this kind) in the monastery of St. Martin of Tours. Further, he was already abbot of St. Martin of Tours while Pardulphus was still surviving, which is clear from the cited biographer. In the year 738, therefore, St. Pardulphus had not yet departed from the living. His year of death must accordingly be put off to the year 743, in which alone after the year 738, Hunald governing Aquitaine, the Dominical letter F ran. So nearly Le Cointe, but admitting here a twofold fault: the one indeed, in which he makes Teutsindus the predecessor of Autlandus without a fit witness. I confess that in the Precept of Charles the Bald, of which at number 25, the predecessors of Fredegisus, abbot of St. Martin of Tours, are reviewed in this order: Autlandus, Vulfardus, Itherius: but did all these besides succeed one another immediately? Not Autlandus to Teutsindus; but that the latter succeeded the former appears to me at least far more probable from what was said at numbers 24 and following, which consult. But the other fault of Le Cointe lies in this, that he did not notice that the same biographer, who makes Autlandus, already made abbot of St. Martin of Tours, contemporary with St. Pardulphus, likewise said at number 19 that St. Pardulphus ended his life not only under Hunald, duke of Aquitaine, but also at that time at which the most exalted Mayor of the palace Charles (Martel) ruled Francia, whom Le Cointe himself together with the other learned men writes departed from the living in the year 741. For the rest, Le Cointe rightly refutes Ménard, who writes that St. Pardulphus died in the time of Charlemagne; but, as regards the Saint's year of death, one must adhere to Mabillon. Finally, since from what has been said St. Pardulphus died in the year 737 at almost eighty years of age, there is no need for me to advise that he was born about the year 657.

[35] Geoffrey, Prior of Vigeois, older than Ménard, in part 1 of his Chronicle, chapter 15, much less did he die under Charlemagne, as others write: and following him Bernard Gui, served up the same error to their reader in these words: He (St. Pardulphus) flourished in the time of Pope Stephen the second, who began in the year DCCLII. But he passed away under king Charles, and Hunald, duke of the Aquitanians. Both are refuted from the biographer, number 19, where he says that St. Pardulphus died not under Charlemagne, king of the Franks, but under Charles the Mayor of the palace, or Martel. Perhaps Geoffrey was deceived by the Aquitanian war which, after the death of Pippin, Charlemagne waged against Hunald, or Hunold, of which Einhard in the Life of Charles: For Hunold also, who after the death of Waifar had attempted to occupy Aquitaine and to renew the war already almost finished, he compelled to leave Aquitaine and seek Gascony. But this Hunald is other than Hunald, father of Waifar, who entered a monastery in the year 744, as I related above; or, if he is the same, and, having deserted the monastery after the death of his son Waifar, strove to recover Aquitaine, he must be said to have waged wars not only with Charles, now made king of the Franks, but before also with Charles Martel; and so even thus Geoffrey, and Bernard Gui following him, have the biographer of St. Pardulphus against them.

[36] his relics first from Waractum to Sarlat, Further, what place received the remains of the deceased St. Pardulphus the biographer himself declares at number 17, writing of the church of St. Albinus of Waractum: Where afterwards the body of the holy man Pardulphus lies buried. Whether this St. Albinus is the bishop of Angers, whose Acts have been illustrated in our Work at the 1st day of March, to whom sacred buildings, temples and very many monasteries throughout the whole of Gaul are dedicated, is not ascertained by me. They say indeed that the body of St. Pardulphus was long with the people of Waractum; but after long courses of years it is reported to have been translated from Waractum to Sarlat, now an episcopal town in Aquitaine and the province of Périgord, and placed beside the body of St. Sacerdos, bishop of Limoges, in the church dedicated to him: consult the Proper of the Saints of the diocese of Sarlat cited at number 15. That St. Pardulphus became illustrious after his death by many prodigies at Waractum, while his relics rested there, can easily be gathered from numbers 17, 18 and 21 of the Acts: but that he was no less illustrious at Sarlat for prodigies is necessary: since indeed the monks of St. Saviour of that time (in the year 1561 they exchanged the Benedictine habit for the canonical), whose then was the church of St. Sacerdos, which is now the cathedral, on account of the frequent concourse of the people to St. Pardulphus caused his relics to be transferred from there into the church of St. John outside the monastery, as is read in the Proper of the Saints just cited. The people of Waractum indeed deny that the body of St. Pardulphus was ever with the people of Sarlat, at least permanently; and they contend that that pledge remained with themselves: but the people of Sarlat, that only the sarcophagus and ashes of the Saint were left to the people of Waractum,

they say: however it be, that the people of Sarlat had at least a part of the sacred body, and that this opinion settled in men's minds already of old, is most probable both from what has already been said and from what is to be said.

[37] but afterwards from Sarlat to Arnac, On what occasion or in what manner the people of Waractum lost the relics of St. Pardulphus, at least a great part of them, I have found nowhere: but in what way they came afterwards from Sarlat, from the church of St. John, to Arnac, Geoffrey, Prior of Vigeois, sets forth in his Chronicle; before reciting whose words it is helpful to set down first some things both about Arnac and about the time at which the relics of St. Pardulphus were carried there: Arnac, a little town, says Mabillon in the Appendix to the Acts of St. Pardulphus, is situated in the Limousin, one mile from the castle of Pompedorium, Pompadour, between the abbey of Vigeois and the city of Tulle: a Benedictine monastery of the same place also bears this name; of which Mabillon exhibits this notice: Afterwards the Saint's body was carried back into the monastery of Arnac, Arnac, in whose church it is kept until now. That monastery, reduced to a Priory, is destitute of a company of monks: concerning whose restoration the very noble lords of Pompadour are thinking, who have a place of burial in the church of St. Pardulphus. So much of Arnac: but concerning the time at which the Saint's relics were carried to Arnac, I observe that an error occurs in Geoffrey's Chronicle as it exists in Labbe.

[38] Geoffrey, beginning his Chronicle from the translation of the body of St. Pardulphus to Arnac, as Geoffrey writes, and being about to determine in some way the time at which it took place, uses a twofold note of time, namely the beginning of the reign of Robert, king of France, which, he says, began about 996, and the principate of William, duke of Aquitaine, called by the surname Teste d'Estouppe. Robert, from the death of his father Hugh Capet, held the helm of the French kingdom until the year 1031. But William, whose surname was Teste d'Estouppe, Besly writes died already from the year 963, from the Chronicle of Maillezais, whose words in Labbe, volume 2 of the Library of Manuscripts, page 204, are these: In the year DCCCCLXIII died William (Caput Stupae, as he is called a little before) at Saint-Maixent, where Odo was abbot. He is therefore wrongly recorded in Labbe's Geoffrey's Chronicle as having presided over Aquitaine in the time of Robert. In what determinate year that translation happened I have been able to find nowhere, nor to draw out clearly enough from Geoffrey. About the year one thousand, says the Proper of the Saints of the diocese of Sarlat; about the year MXXVIII, Baillet. Indeed, that it cannot be put off beyond this is manifestly concluded from the things which I shall presently relate from Geoffrey.

[39] He describes the translation of St. Pardulphus of which we are treating, in part 1 of the Chronicle, chapters 2, whose account of the later translation 3 and 4, thus: The body of the most sweet (he alludes to the French name S. Pardoux: for Doux in French has the same value as Dulcis in Latin: whence he calls him Perdulcis or Dulcissimus) father Pardulphus was carried long after his passing from the monastery of Garactum into the monastery of Sarlat, and placed honourably beside the body of St. Sacerdos, bishop of Limoges. There, inviting crowds of peoples by the signs of many acts of power, he brought disgust upon the monks then religious in that place. Wherefore, separating the abbot from the Pontiff, they transferred him into the church of St. John outside the monastery; thereafter, the frequency of signs being withdrawn, the divine Loving-kindness is said to have shown Pardulphus equal to Sacerdos. At that time Guy de Las Tours, who was surnamed the Black, was illustrious among the princes of the Limousin region by the title of probity. He had a wife not unequal in birth, named Engalcias, daughter of the prince of the castle of Malemort, who is narrated to have been the great-grandniece of St. Gerald of Aurillac through a niece. These were striving to enlarge for the better the church of Arnac, which was formerly in honour of St. Peter, small indeed, but parochial.

[40] A certain priest of Sarlat came to him, and promised that he would be, God being the author, the agent the narration for translating the body of St. Pardulphus. He, returning from Sarlat, transfers the Saint's relics from coffin to coffin. Then he hastens to go by night: and lest the thing should be known by day, he saddled an ass, and, to speak rustically, set upon it bastæ (baskets), in one of which he placed the Saint's relic, in the other he hid Gausbert his boy, all which he covered with a linen cloth: and to those who met him he said that he was carrying bread to and from the market of the castle of Salignac, which is held on the fifth weekday. And so he came to the bank of the Vézère (there was then the very greatest hostility between the viscounts on account of Ave the viscountess, who was called Blancha); on the day noted the renowned hero came to the river, promptly leading with him an armed troop of knights. Why say more? The treasure more precious than gold is received by the prince: and on the same day in the village of Perpesac not guests but lords were lodged: on the following day, that is, on the 19th day before the Kalends of January, they came to Arnac, and in his church the new guest was made perpetual possessor.

[41] is shown here Then, a solemn donation having been made, he conferred the monastery on the abbots of St. Martial (of Limoges), both Hugh and Geoffrey; this gift Jordan, pontiff of Limoges, afterwards approved, and Pope Benedict confirmed. Then, monks having been brought in, the chaplaincy is granted to Chargerius, but afterwards Guy de Las Tours committed the chaplaincy of Segonzac to the same, that the monks might enjoy liberty in their own church with entire freedom. For many things were then arranged in the church by the authority of lay princes; whence they are now called PROVISORES or DEFENSORES. For the church of Segonzac was first given to blessed Pardulphus, etc. The relics of St. Pardulphus having been laid up at Arnac, the church of that place was consecrated in honour of the Most Holy Trinity by Jordan, bishop of Limoges, mentioned above: Geoffrey teaches the year and day in chapter 9. At the request of this man (Odolric, abbot of St. Martial of Limoges) the lord Jordan de Laron, bishop of Limoges, before he departed to Jerusalem, consecrated the monastery of Arnac, in which the body of kindly Pardulphus rests, in honour of the most holy Trinity on the Ides of July in the year of the Lord's Incarnation MXXVIII. There was present there Guy de Las Tours with his venerable wife Engalsia, otherwise Emalsia, etc. But in chapter 29 he ascribes a new consecration of the church of Arnac to Peter of Bordeaux, likewise bishop of Limoges: He dedicated moreover the monastery of Arnac on the XV day before the Kalends of December, in honour of the Holy Trinity and of St. Pardulphus, whose body rests there honourably. Peter presided over the church of Limoges about the year 1100, but not for long.

[42] and is weighed, That the translation of the relics of St. Pardulphus from Sarlat to Arnac cannot be put off beyond the year 1028 I said at number 38: this is clear from the things which I recited from Geoffrey concerning the consecration of the church of Arnac by Jordan, bishop of Limoges, the relics of St. Pardulphus being already placed in it. The same Geoffrey, already cited, relates some things by which perhaps the year in which the relics of St. Pardulphus were brought from Sarlat to Arnac could be defined more closely: of this kind is that parenthesis: There was then the very greatest hostility between the viscounts on account of Ave the viscountess, who was called Blancha. But who those viscounts were, and who Avis or Ave, likewise viscountess, it has not been possible to learn. Geoffrey moreover mixes into his narration certain other things, which partly indeed seem foreign to the truth, but partly suggest that the said translation happened at least some years before the year 1028. It seems false that Jordan, bishop of Limoges, approved in the time of Geoffrey, abbot of St. Martial of Limoges, the donation of the monastery of Arnac made by Guy de Las Tours to the abbots of St. Martial of Limoges: for Geoffrey, abbot of St. Martial and predecessor of Hugh, departed from the living before Giraldus or Girardus, the predecessor of Jordan in the episcopate of Limoges. So Ademar, a contemporary writer, and at one time a monk at St. Martial of Limoges, afterwards of St. Eparchius: Abbot Josfredus (or Gaufredus) having died, Ugo succeeded him, to whom bishop Girardus was opposed, refusing out of jealousy to give him consecration, because he could not claim the abbey for himself, and therefore for two years there was no small civil sedition, says Ademar in Labbe, volume 2 of the Library of Manuscripts, page 176.

[43] Pope Benedict, however, the VIII of this name, [they are translated about the beginning of the 11th century; as also to Limoges, but only for a time,] who occupied the chair of St. Peter from about the year 1013 to the year 1024, could have confirmed the said donation in the time either of Geoffrey or of his successor, namely Hugh; and if this in fact happened, the relics of St. Pardulphus were brought from Sarlat to Arnac at least 4 years before the year 1028; nay perhaps even before the rule of the abbey of St. Martial was undertaken by Geoffrey, which the authors of the enlarged Gallia Christiana hand down, volume 2, column 557, began from the year 1008; so that hence some weight seems to accrue to the Proper of the Saints of Sarlat, which assigns about the year one thousand to the translation of the relics of St. Pardulphus from Sarlat to Arnac. Another translation of the relics of St. Pardulphus from Arnac to the city of Limoges, but only temporary, Geoffrey relates in chapter 27; hear him: In the year of the Lord MXCIV a repeated plague of subcutaneous fire was most atrociously scorching the Aquitanian people. These, fleeing as quickly as possible to their own patron, merited to receive help from the Saint. For from the whole Limousin the holy bodies of the Saints were carried to most holy Martial, throngs of peoples and princes flowing together from all sides. Then the Lord almighty adorned blessed Pardulphus with illustrious miracles, whose body had been carried there from Arnac with the greatest honour… This translation of the Saints was made about the festivity of the Nativity of the perpetual virgin Mary, in the year as above. He perhaps calls it a repeated plague because the same had raged a hundred years before in the Limousin, which, as also what was done on that occasion, Ademar describes thus in Labbe, often cited, partly on page 170, partly on the following.

[44] In these times a fire of pestilence blazed out over the people of Limoges. in the years 1094 For the bodies of men and women beyond number were consumed by an invisible fire, and everywhere lamentation filled the earth. Josfredus therefore, abbot of St. Martial (another than the one of whom at the preceding number and the two before), who had succeeded Wigo, and Alduinus the bishop, having held a council with duke William, proclaim a three-day fast. Then all the bishops of Aquitaine were gathered together at Limoges, the bodies also and relics of the Saints were solemnly carried there from every side, and the body of St. Martial, patron of Gaul, was taken up from the sepulchre, whence all were filled with immense joy, and every infirmity everywhere ceased, and a compact of peace and justice was mutually confederated by the duke and the princes. So he of the plague of the year 994. But the same plague raging again a century after, that is, in the year 1094, among the people of Limoges, of the miracles with which Geoffrey says, in the chapter cited, St. Pardulphus was then adorned by God, he records one in chapter 15 in these words: Whose holy body remained immovable at the gate of the city of Limoges until a blind man, brought before the people, was given sight.

[45] That there was long since a dispute between the people of Waractum and the people of Arnac about the body of St. Pardulphus, and 1212. I noted above: hence it came about that in the year 1212 the people of Waractum carried relics of St. Pardulphus to Limoges, to increase, as was formerly the custom, the church's

celebration of the consecration of St. Valeria; but they were by no means admitted by the abbot of St. Martial. Geoffrey, who was a monk of the monastery of St. Martial, describes the matter thus: In the year of Grace MCCXII (Mabillon wrongly corrects MCCLXII), on the feast of Victor and Corona (the 14th day of May), the church of the same (read: to the same), honourably adorned and painted, was dedicated by John de Veyrac, bishop of Limoges (who died in the year 1218). Then there was replaced there the reliquary of the same virgin (Valeria), and at the same time her image, with an innumerable company of knights and common people. We received the virgin's relics according to custom outside the walls in copes at the western gate of the monastery, the litter of St. Valericus, with the silver one of St. Pardulphus of Garactum. But because the people of Garactum boasted that they had blessed Pardulphus, the abbot or convent would not receive them in order, lest it should come as a scruple to the princes of Las Tours, who had brought the same Father into Arnac; the arm of our protomartyr Valeria being left, the rest returned. From the manner of speaking which Geoffrey uses here, it is easy to perceive that both he himself and the other monks of St. Martial believed that the body of St. Pardulphus truly rested at Arnac at that time, which I likewise noted above had long been the common opinion of men. So much of the translations of the relics of St. Pardulphus: to these it pleases me to add some things about the Saint's cult in the 11th and 12th centuries, which I shall excerpt here and there from the same Geoffrey.

[46] A few things about the cult of St. Pardulphus At the end of the 11th century, or the beginning of the following, the Office of St. Pardulphus began to be recited publicly in church among the people of Limoges: for so Geoffrey, chapter 31: Likewise it was instituted through many churches (a little before he makes mention of the liberation of Jerusalem in the year 1099) that morning and evening Lauds should be chanted, with the other Offices of the Hours, of the immaculate Virgin Mary, of certain other Saints; certain ones first and publicly were accustomed to do the same, as of blessed Valeria and of St. Martial, and others of others, although wholly privately, as we know certain persons to do who do so of the most sweet father Pardulfus. The 12th century having advanced to about the year 71, something of solemnity was added among the people of Limoges to the feast of St. Pardulphus; for, on the testimony of Geoffrey, chapter 67: In that very year (in which Richard, son of Henry, king of England, was saluted at Limoges as duke of Aquitaine) the feast of kindly Pardulphus is celebrated at Limoges for the first time in copes. In the year 1174 the feast of St. Pardulphus, then falling on a Sunday, was celebrated with singular pomp in the monastery of St. Martial of Limoges on the occasion of the election of the new abbot Isembert, which Geoffrey describes thus in chapter 69: The feast of most illustrious Pardulphus adorned the Lord's day when lord Isembert is elected, which the convent of St. Martial conducted so freely that it was not necessary to disturb the procession, which lord Ralph, abbot of Cluny, with ring and mitre or Roman cope, Peter of Vigeois with Hugh de Montmurat, abbot of Figeac, and also the same newly elected one, who sang the solemn Mass, rendered distinguished. We were almost more than a hundred monks in the procession itself in albs, at the Mass in copes: the sequence was sung with their own harmonious voice in the pulpit first by Aimeric Martel, second by Geoffrey de Nioil. Bishop Gerald indeed was present, but did not vest himself, because he was blind. Seguinus recited the Life of the sweet-flowing Father on that day at table.

[47] At these things Geoffrey himself, as is clear from his words, excerpted from Geoffrey and Bernard Gui. was present: yet some things occur in them which cannot easily be combined with those which Denis de Sainte-Marthe hands down about the abbots of St. Martial of Limoges and of Figeac. He, in volume 2 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 560, hands down that Peter, abbot of St. Martial, Isembert's predecessor, died on the Ides, that is, the 15th, of October (he should have said the 4th day before the Ides of September, as is read in Labbe, volume 2 of the Library of Manuscripts, page 274) of the year 1174: but Geoffrey determines that Isembert was already elected abbot of the same place from the 6th day of October. He, in volume 1, on the church of Cahors, column 174, records Ademar, the second of this name, about the year 1140, and Ebulus about the year 1180, as abbots of Figeac; he makes no mention of Hugh, who according to Geoffrey was abbot of Figeac in the year 1174. Moreover Geoffrey, a little after the words cited at the preceding number, mentions the abbot of Moissac, his name however suppressed, who in the same year had then recently been taken from the living on the day of St. Lucy: but the same author, in volume 1, column 166 and following, writes that Bertrand presided over the monastery of Moissac from the year 1165 at least to the year 1193. These things from Geoffrey about the cult of St. Pardulphus among the people of Limoges in the 11th and 12th centuries: that he likewise had it in these times among the Cistercians of Dalon Geoffrey says in chapter 73, but complains that the name of St. Pardulphus was afterwards erased from the Collectary, or book of Collects, of that abbey. Finally, with how great religion he was venerated at Waractum, gather from Bernard Gui's Opuscule on the Saints of Limoges in Labbe, volume 1 of the Library of Manuscripts, page 634, where he has this: The church of Garactum holds the sarcophagus of St. Pardulfus the confessor with his ashes, which, in testimony of his most chaste life, admits no woman.

LIFE,

By a nearly contemporary anonymous author,

From old parchments and the copy of Fr. Jacques Sirmond of the Society of Jesus.

Pardulfus, abbot and confessor, at Guéret in the diocese of Limoges in Gaul. (S.) BHL Number: 6459

By an anonymous author.

PREFACE.

The author, the Life and miracles of St. Pardulphus, Most men, while they praise the ancient deeds of miracles of the fathers of old, omit the new ones which have lately been done. They drink the old wine, as it were, with sweetness and hilarity, refusing the must as turbid, and deserting faith in a raw miracle (raw hearts ^a): but it is better, as I think, to mingle both in both ways, namely the old wine, that it may cherish the sweetness of the must and temper its austerity; similarly the austerity of the new wine sharpens the sweetness of the old. Namely, that the things which flow from one fountain may duly satisfy the thirsty with one flavour ^b. Therefore, my father Berthemarius ^c, we render no small thanks to the almighty Maker, because here in Aquitaine ^d, the heavenly grace illumining, through the infusion of the Holy Spirit you find very many philosophers and rhetors who are able to narrate in their style the Life or the Deeds of the miracles of blessed Pardulphus the confessor, and to impress them most clearly upon the ears of the faithful with lucid speech. And you ask me, so small and slight, and despicable to some, ineloquent and rustic, to undertake this Work ^e.

[2] relying on God, undertakes to write, It is very burdensome to me, because I have not the capacity in perfection, unless the Almighty inspire me and send His holy Spirit: the Truth saying, which says: "For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you ^f." Wherefore I scarcely dare to undertake, weak in understanding, slow to speak, to bring down the miracles of so great a Man, and the abundance of his words and deeds, to my most humble hesitancy. Truly I fear, which God forbid, to make of the sweet bitter, and of the bitter sweet: but I pray the clemency of Him who turned the waters into Falernian, and gave to brute animals the faculty of speaking. At least in rustic speech I undertake to teach ^g the reader, as I am able, the life or the signs of the miracles of this blessed man Pardulphus.

ANNOTATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

The birth and monastic life of St. Pardulphus.

St. Pardulphus, born in the Limousin, So then, the world now hastening to its setting, the evils increasing through the signs of its ruin enacted in the past, in the sun and moon and stars, or the distresses of nations, pestilence, famine, earthquakes and the other ruins which the Truth relates as to come, and the Gospel History records, and which it is long to enumerate one by one, in the Western region of the parts of Aquitaine, in the diocese of Limoges, of tillers of the fields, in the village whose name is Sardenus, or on the mount of Sardenus ^a, there was born a boy of faithful lineage, whose name was Pardulphus ^b. He, while he was passing the age and life of a boy, was seen to be most gentle and modest, with the greatest reverence, before the other youths.

[4] One day, when he was with other youths and was sitting under a certain tree, while still a boy he loses the use of his bodily eyes, as is the custom in the games and jests of boys, both for warming and for the spectacle of the tree's fall, they set fire in the same tree to burn it; which being burned through, the wind blowing and the rain stirring it, the aforesaid tree, torn from its roots, fell rolling to the earth, so that all the little ones who were present there took to flight: but the aforesaid little boy of God Pardulphus remained undaunted, and immovable, armed with the sign of the Cross. But the accident coming upon him, at once one of the branches of that tree wounded him in the head with a grave wound, and on account of this wound he lost the light of his eyes; but he merited to contemplate through his inner eyes the brightness of the true light by the infusion of the Holy Spirit. Blind indeed in body, but shining in work; tried for a time, but not put to death; deprived of sight for a little while, but filled perpetually with the light of good works, so that he was able to be a guide of the journey to those who saw the brightness of this world, of the fatherland

of heaven to those seeking the entrance without any stumbling-block, so that it should not be said of him with the reprobate, if the blind offer guidance to the blind, both fall into the ditch ^c.

[5] For he, blind in body, sincere in heart, bright in work, but illumined in mind, he shines with virtues and miracles: while he was leading his life with his own parents ^d, whatever he received from their hands of food or covering, as soon as he had gone out of the entrance, whatever poor man he found, he bestowed it on him with his own hands in secret: except that he reserved a little for the use of his life; to whom soon the Lord conferred so great a grace that, if he laid his hand on any of those who came to him languishing with various infirmities, or anointed them with blessed oil, or gave them blessed water to drink, suddenly all infirmities of fevers were repelled from them; and also those who were vexed by demons, immediately when they had been brought to him, their bodies possessed by demons were set free. These are the first rudiments of his adolescence, this is the game of his boyhood.

[6] While the merciful Maker, the heavenly grace illumining, caused such and other similar signs of miracles having become more advanced in age, to shine forth on all sides through the same His man Pardulphus, one of the nobles of senatorial rank, Lantharius by name ^e, having obtained the office of count in the city of Limoges ^f, enriched with very many riches, renowned and more eminent before others, powerful in resources and wealth, had decreed that, for the redeeming of his sins and also for obtaining the rewards of eternal life, he would build a monastery in a place of his own right which is called Waractus ^g, in honour of God and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and would enrich it with his own riches, and assign them for the food or clothing of monks and the poor; and, having sent out his scouts, he ordered them that whatever servants of God or monks they could find, both from neighbouring and suburban places and far off from any province or nation, they should gather with the utmost eagerness to the aforesaid sheepfold, as the prophet David says: "And He gathered them from the nations ^h"; and it was piously published by certain persons that in the aforesaid Sardenus the servant of God Pardulphus was leading a God-fearing and religious life, and, spending day and night in diligent and prolonged vigils and prayers, was sacrificing himself as a living victim to the Lord God.

[7] he is appointed abbot in the monastery of Waractum, Forthwith the aforesaid Lantharius, count of Limoges, having heard the report of the Man of God, and kindled by the divine spirit, ordered his horse to be saddled and prepared, and sent none other of his servants, but came himself in haste, and, prayer being made, ordered the Man of God to be summoned to him. Suddenly beholding his most bright countenance, his comely face, his elegant aspect, his most beautiful hair, he began to entreat him, soothing and coaxing him with gentle words, persuading him that he should turn aside with him to dwell in his monastery; but the Man of God, refusing his petition, said that he would never go out from that place until the end of his life ⁱ. But the aforesaid Lantharius, as much by entreating as by persuading, ordered him to be lifted upon his horse, and, leading the man of God Pardulphus to his monastery, increased the folds of Christ, despoiling the synagogues of satan. He also ordered two servants to be subject to his service and to observe his command with great diligence; and wherever Lantharius himself went through his county or into his own places, he always made him go with him, and in his chamber, where his bed was made, he always made the Man of God rest near at hand.

[8] in which he leads a life And when the enclosures of the monastery and all its fabric and all the habitable places had been perfected and completed ^k, the aforesaid Lantharius handed over to the Man of God, through the door of his own little cell ^l, the monastery to be ruled, and he is set as abbot over the monks gathered there. And because we have already spoken before of his genealogy and stock, that he had sprung from farmers, it came about, the divine clemency disposing, that he did not cease to be the keeper or cultivator of hearts, sowing or seeding assiduously the food of the word of God, so that the flock committed to him might be made fertile with abundant fruit. After this the aforesaid Lantharius, prostrated on both knees to the ground, begged, saying that when he should come before the tribunal of Christ he might be lifted up by his suffrages. His penance, moreover, was exceedingly arduous: for after he began to dwell in the aforesaid monastery, he never went out of the door of his little cell, never warmed by the sun except through the windows ^m, never used flesh or fowl for the nourishment of his life ⁿ, never sweated in linen, nor used a bath, except after he began to be sick ^o, at the persuasion of the brethren. Very rarely did he warm himself from hot stones, and when he had gone in where Waractus is, secretly carrying a sharp iron, he cut all his limbs most minutely, so that he might always be wounded, and the wounds made could scarcely be moved from their place [p], and he might well say with the Prophet: "There is no health in my flesh because of Your wrath [q]."

[9] He ate food once in the week, but most dry: very austere. but in the times of Lent he ordered his whole body, stripped, to be beaten with rods by his disciple, whose name was Theodenus; and at night, his whole body prostrated on the ground, with arms outstretched, both in summer and in winter, as long as he could, he lay in prayer: and rising from prayer he rested a little. But what remained after the night hours he recited from memory from the Lessons which he had heard: but after Matins Lauds he meditated by chanting Responsories or Antiphons of the holy Martyrs [r]. And from the third hour to the sixth he was free for prayer at each of the altars. But from the sixth to the ninth he applied himself to silence, and going out from the ninth he satisfied with the word of God, the bread of life, by preaching, the poor or sick who came to him. And when one night he had fallen asleep for a little, he saw in his sleep the archangel Michael standing by him, who said to him with a clear voice: Pardulphus, man of God, rise quickly and ascend by the steps of this ladder; direct your steps with the right hand, but do not go on the left, for there is darkness. Behold, you will find the Lord your God, whom you love, standing at the top of the ladder, having in His hands a crown, which He wishes to place on your head for your labours, and a staff, which He will give you for ruling His people, that as a follower of good works you may teach the way of salvation. Then the Servant of God, at once rising and kissing the place where he saw the feet of the angel standing, immediately gave himself to prayer with tears, and afterwards he gave to all the sick who came to him some of that very earth where he had seen the angel's feet stand, to sprinkle in their houses. But since we have set out his abstinence, we ought to narrate something of his acts of power.

ANNOTATIONS.

h. Psalm 105, verse 14.

p. Mabillon reads: And the wounds being made he could scarcely be moved from the place: that is, so that, the wounds being made, he could scarcely be moved from his place, or be transferred from his cell elsewhere.

q. Psalm 37, verse 4.

r. These things seem to allude to the Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 8, where these things are read: What remains after the vigils, let it be used for meditation by the brethren who need something of the Psalter or the Lessons: these things, as also those which I annotated at letters n and o, suggest that the Saint lived at Waractum according to the institute of the Benedictine Rule.

CHAPTER II.

Various miracles of St. Pardulphus.

He comes to the aid of one in danger of his life from the eating of mushrooms, A certain one of the common rustics, Gommus by name, while he was cutting wood in the forest for the use of fire, found mushrooms, which are commonly called Lemigæ ^a, adhering to an old tree, and, having gathered them, decided to carry them to the man of God Pardulphus. And when he was hastening quickly to the monastery to the Man of God, he met on the road a certain Regnaricus, counsellor of the most illustrious man prince Chunoald ^b, and also legatary of the most exalted Mayor of the palace of the king of the Franks, Charles ^c; and, being asked by him to whom he was carrying these lemigæ, he confessed, saying that he was carrying them to the man of God Pardulphus, who ate nothing of flesh or fowl. But the aforesaid Regnaricus, with rash daring, usurped the same lemigæ* from the hand of the man, and ordered his servant that, when the hour of eating had come, he should diligently prepare them for eating.

[11] he comes to the aid of one in danger, And when at the hour of dinner they had been brought before him, he at once put some of the same lemigæ in his mouth: but it came about that he could cast them out neither by throat nor by mouth, and he was so distressed that his throat and head swelled. Then one of the servants said that it was for the lemigæ which the man was carrying to the Man of God that he was suffering this evil. Then Regnaricus ordered his horse, on which he was accustomed to sit, to be saddled and adorned with great speed, and directed by it one of his servants to the servant of God Pardulphus, and so ordered him that, prostrated, he should kiss his feet, begging pardon, that he would remit the fault which he had committed against him, and entreat the mercy of God for him: and when the same servant had stood before the man of God Pardulphus and had related everything, the Man of the Lord, with most cheerful face and as if smiling, said: Oh son! the precepts of God are always contrary to the impious

of justice: but they, as the Lord said, shall not escape the snares of just vengeance: we, although we are set in great tribulations, yet are not altogether despised by God our Creator. But how will you give away your own things, who seize those of others? And straightway, making no delays, having entered the oratory, he entreated for a very long time the mercy of the Lord for him, and gave him with his own hands blessed oil and water. And when the man had returned to Regnaricus, and had anointed him with the holy oil, or put water in his mouth, the aforesaid lemigæ came back through his mouth with a great noise and enormous pain, and so he was made well: and again for many days, coming frequently to the Man of God, he gave thanks, confessing his sins, and gave praises to the Lord God ^d.

[12] Another miracle also is reported, which the Lord worked through him to His own praise. to a lame man his gait While one day he was sitting alone without the brethren, a certain lame man, named Marcellus, who from his mother's womb had his heels sticking to his loins, and walked no otherwise than with stools, coming to him began to beg him to entreat the Lord for the restoration of his gait. Then the Man of God, answering, said: Oh son! that power was with blessed Peter the Apostle when he found at the gate of the temple a lame man, who begged from him the means of living, to whom most blessed Peter, answering, said: "Silver and gold I have none: but what I have, this I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ rise and walk [e]." O what a miracle! while he sought bodily sustenance, he receives steadiness of feet from the holy Apostle. But we, son, have this miracle as a thing unwonted. But yet we remember what the Lord promised to His disciples, saying: "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Pass from here, and it shall pass, and nothing shall be impossible to you ^f." But you, son, agree to my counsel: go to my spring, which I asked to be built, and wash your naked body with that water, and then anoint your whole body with blessed water, and in the same night keep vigil in the oratory which is in honour of the holy and most blessed martyr Silvanus, situated beside the same spring; and we with the brethren will entreat the mercy of the Lord for the restoration of your steps.

[13] When it had been so done, and the same lame man was keeping vigil in the dead of night, he grants; he frees demoniacs, being a little weighed down by sleep, he fell asleep, and forthwith, uttering as loud a cry as he could, and raising himself upward, he embraced with his hands the steps where the brethren were accustomed to stand for psalmody. Then the priest, keeper of his little cell, Laudolenus by name, waking up, the door of the oratory being opened, went in and diligently inquired what had happened; to whom the aforesaid Marcellus, answering, said that the man of God Pardulphus had embraced him by his shoulders and raised him upward. Then the priest, prostrating himself in prayer with tears, glorified the memory of the Lord our Saviour Jesus Christ, who deigned to work such things through His servant Pardulphus; and so Marcellus, made sound, on the morrow, leaving his stools, came on his own feet to the Man of God. A certain Wodolaicus , a smith from the city of Limoges ^g, seized by a demon, bound with chains about the neck and arms, with two leaders, one going in front dragging and the other dragging behind, was presented to Pardulphus; he cruelly wounded or tore with hands or teeth whomever he could seize. But when he had been brought to the Man of God, he reproached him with many insults and upbraidings, calling him robber, forger, impostor. Then the Man of God, bearing all things patiently, ordered food and drink to be given him; forthwith, having entered the oratory, he entreated the Lord for him, and made him remain with him for some days, and so, made sound, sent him back whence he had come. Certain two others, Centulus and Benedict, filled with demons, were brought to him, whom the Man of God likewise freed by his prayers from the demons besetting them.

[14] he heals one labouring with blindness and throat, likewise a paralytic, A certain man named Demolenus from Gascony [h] had lost the light of his eyes, and was so weighed down by an emptiness of the throat that, unless he applied his mouth to someone's ear, no one could understand anything that he said. Immediately, when he was brought to him, he both received the light of his eyes and his tongue recovered the office of speaking. I shall not keep silent about another miracle which the Lord showed through him. A certain paralytic had lain for five years in the porch of St. Martin, bishop of Tours ⁱ, who could neither bring his hands to his mouth nor turn on the other side. A voice came to him in his sleep, saying: Rise and hasten more quickly to the man of God Pardulphus, and through him the Lord will restore health to you. When it had been revealed to him once and a third time, he disclosed everything to one of the monks of that monastery: and the aforesaid monk related to the lord abbot Audelandus ^k all that the paralytic had seen in the vision. And the venerable abbot ordered a little ass to be given him, and ordered two servants to go in his company, to bring him to the man of God Pardulphus; and when he had come to him, he placed the sign of the Cross upon him, and within a few days he was made well, and returned whence he had come.

[15] by his prayers he averts ruin from his monastery: At another time, when the nation of the Ishmaelites ^l had entered the city of Poitiers ^m, and the most exalted Mayor of the palace Charles, count of the Franks, had come to vanquish them, and, battle being joined, laying low the enemies, was taking spoils and recovering captives, very many of the same nation of the Ishmaelites took to flight, and through whatever places they were returning, whatever Christian man they found they slaughtered, and wherever they met monasteries or holy places they burned them with fire ⁿ. And so it was published that they were hastening to the monastery of the man of God Pardulphus. And when this had been announced to the Servant of God, he said to the brethren: Sons, if they come to the doors of the monastery, offer them food and drink, because they are weary from the journey. What do you think? With what charity was he on fire who strove to prepare banquets for pagan ^o warriors? Then the brethren of the monastery, who attended or ministered to him on all sides, [had] a wagon prepared and covered with veils *, to take him to places of the desert, lest he be endangered by the most wicked nation: but the Man of God, armed with the Holy Spirit, in no way consenting to their petition, said that he would never go out from that place until the end of his life. Then all the brethren who were then present took to flight; but the Man of God alone remained here undaunted, and one servant, bolder than the rest [p], named Euphrasius, remained hidden, that he might see his end: and when they were now drawing near at close quarters to the gate of the monastery, the aforesaid Euphrasius ran to the Man of God, saying: Father, leave off from prayer, for they are already approaching the gate of the monastery. Then the Man of God, not fearing the peril of his own death, but bearing solicitude for his monastery, straightway, prostrated in prayer, entreated the Lord, saying: Crush them, O Lord, and scatter the nation that wills wars, and do not permit them today to enter the doors of this monastery. Suddenly all, gathered and massed into one wedge, and struck with exceeding terror and blindness, stood a very long while talking with one another in their tongues, and continued the journey which they had begun. And so the Servant of God remained praying, undaunted and secure.

[16] A certain man named Sobolenus from the territory of Auvergne [q], coming to him, carried back from him a little flask full of water, [water blessed by him, wrongly refused, is lost; of one seizing others' goods, the horse's] strengthened with the sign of the Cross, that he might always have it for his own health and that of his household or the sick; which he hung above his little bed, where he rested. One day, however, sick persons coming to him began to beg that for the grace of charity he would give a little of the same water to drink or to anoint for the restoration of the body. But the aforesaid man, refusing their petition, gave them nothing: and on the next day, coming to his bed, he found the mouth of the flask hanging on the wall, and the flask poured out on his bed; and he who neglected to give to the sick could have nothing of that water for his own use; and straightway, trembling, with great reverence and fear he carries the empty flask to the Man of God, begging pardon, that he would remit the fault which he had committed [r]. A certain young man Arnulphus, a kinsman of the illustrious man prince Chunoald [s], taking away the grain of a certain widow, set it before his horse to eat. But she, crying out, said that she was a handmaid of the man of God Pardulphus, and had no more food for the present year. Then the same Arnulphus, fearing nothing, took away her grain indiscriminately and set it before his horse.

[17] But when he had gone out of doors, the eyes of that horse, come out of its head, hung suspended on its forehead. [he puts back in their place the dislocated eyes; by his prayers he lengthens a beam,] And Arnulphus himself, returning, found the grain untouched before his horse, and the eyes protruding, hanging from the head. Then, with great reverence and fear, dragging that horse, bereft of its eyes, to the Man of God, and confessing his sins, he related to the Servant of God all that had been done. But the blessed man of God Pardulphus ordered the brethren who were with him to put back the horse's eyes whence they had come out, and, anointed with blessed water, to bind them above with bandages. On the following day the former light of the eyes shone again, and he returned it sound to the aforesaid man whose it had been, and remitted the fault which he had committed against him. Liframnus, provost of the aforesaid monastery, decided to make steps in the basilica of blessed Albinus [t] the confessor, where afterwards the body of the holy man Pardulphus lies buried, and, the place of that basilica having been measured, he went with carpenters into the forest; a beam is fitted, and, placed on a wagon, is brought to the monastery; measuring which again, they found it a foot and a half, by a man's measure, shorter. Hence the Provost, kindled with the fury of anger, ordered corporal discipline [u] to be imposed on the same carpenters: then one of them, terrified with fear, fleeing to the Man of God, and throwing himself with bent knees at his feet, disclosed the thing that had been done. He ordered the Provost to come before him, and said to him: Son, do not be angry, nor carry out your anger, because anger is not the mother of virtues, and do no evil to these poor men; but wait for this night: and on the following day I will either have another cut down in the forest, or have this one diligently remade. After these words, at dawn on the following day, measuring the beam again, it appeared a foot and a half longer than was needful, to be shortened: and what was cut off from it is seen hanging even today in this basilica in testimony of the matter: whence those vexed with fevers or toothache, cutting off pieces, apply them as the best remedy for their pains.

[18] [one not obeying his words is punished, and he frees a certain man's house from fire.] Aunarius, pressed by a grievous toothache, came to him; and he, touching the place of his pain with his hands and spitting saliva from his mouth, ordered him to dip his finger and anoint the places of pain with it: but the aforesaid Aunarius, swollen with pride, with a disdainful motion secretly threw the saliva from his palm. But when he was going out through the gate of the monastery, his horse fell crashing to the ground and threw him headlong, his thigh being broken most minutely; carried to his lodging by the hands of others, he was sick for nearly a year, and scarcely came to health, paying a most grievous penalty for his contempt. Another miracle of this holy Man is reported, which the divine Clemency worked through him, and many survive who saw it [x]. A certain man from the territory of Bourges [y], Leodulphus by name, coming to the Man of God, asks that he would receive his son from the sacred font of baptism, to which the Servant of God agreed, and, having lifted the infant clad in white and kissed him, commended him to his father to be nourished. And the cradle of that boy was seen to rock of its own accord, no one moving it, and after his death it was hung up in the house. But when in modern time the cohorts of the Franks had depopulated the aforesaid city and burned all the houses with fire [z], the house in which the cradle was hung they could in no way burn, nor burn up anything from it.

ANNOTATIONS.

a. A kind of mushroom.

e. Acts 3, verse 6.

p. In Mabillon there is read less aptly: deterior worse.

q. A province of Gaul (l'Auvergne) between the Lemovices, the Boii, the Ruteni and the Gabali.

r. Why could these things not have happened without a miracle?

s. See letter b here.

t. Of the bishop of Angers? See number 36 of the preliminary Commentary.

u. See the word disciplina used for flagellation of the body: which, however, is expressed otherwise in the Compiègne codex: "He (Liframnus) began to threaten the carpenter vehemently: then one, etc." Mabillon. Our Soissons copy agrees with the Compiègne codex. For the rest, that word is taken in the same sense in the Laws of the Lombards in Baluze, in the Capitularies of the Kings of the Franks, volume 1, column 349, and elsewhere, as may be seen in Du Cange.

x. Hence you have that the author of the Life was nearly contemporary with St. Pardulphus; since in his age many were still surviving who had seen the cradle of the infant received by St. Pardulphus from the sacred font, of which the anonymous writer a little below, rocking of its own accord.

y. Biturix (Bourges) is an archiepiscopal city of Aquitanian Gaul. Elsewhere there is read: Turonico of Tours, as Mabillon says.

z. That thing happened more probably in the year 742. See number 29 and the two following.

* Elsewhere Gominus.

* Elsewhere Blandolenus.

* Elsewhere Godolaicus and Godo.

* Elsewhere Domolinus.

Elsewhere raucitate* hoarseness.

Supply: adduxerunt* they brought.

CHAPTER III.

The death of St. Pardulphus.

After a sickness of seven days In writing of the miracles of the blessed Man we have touched on a few: now it is fitting that we say something of his passing, as the Lord shall give through his intercession. The blessed Pardulphus, then, when he was now passing almost eighty years of his age, at that time at which the most exalted and illustrious Mayor of the palace Charles ruled Francia, and the illustrious man Chunoald [a] also ruled Aquitaine by the permission of Charles, the Man of God, white with the splendour of hoary age, comely with an angelic countenance, wearied from good work by no burden, sluggish from no heaviness, fierce from no age, hindered by no blindness, begged the Lord unceasingly that He would deign mercifully to end the course of this life and to place his soul with the predestined unto glory: forthwith, touched by pain of the limbs, he returned to his bed, bearing affliction of the flesh for the space of seven days: and when the Lord's day ^b came, indicating the failing of the body and the nearness of death, he fell asleep for a little. And when he had awakened from sleep, he said to the brethren who stood by ministering to him on all sides: Whose trumpet did I hear sounding at the gate of the monastery at this hour? But they, thinking that he had lost the sense of thinking, answering said: Oh holy Father! why do you say such things? We have never heard you speaking mad or vain words: but he, answering, said: I am not mad: but I heard sounding that trumpet which the illustrious man Eudo was accustomed to blow to signify battle. Which they hearing understood plainly that surely a choir of angels was about to receive his soul and to carry it to the ether of the heavens, as blessed Paul says: For the Lord shall descend from heaven with commandment and with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God.

[20] amid the tears of his own But a certain priest, named Scopilius *, while these things were being done, in another house was striving to put on his own feet the shoes of the Saint, which the same blessed Man had made, grieving tearfully and afflicting himself with most harsh lamentations. Then the Man of God said, with what voice he could: Sons, who is it that touches my shoes, or puts them on his feet? The brethren, seeking them, found in another house the aforesaid priest lamenting over them, and the crowd of the monastery with him. And the hours of Vespers being now past, many stood weeping around his bed, saying: Alas, abandoned flock! Who will be able to draw us away from vipers' bites? Or who to free us from the raging teeth of wolves? Why do you abandon us, good Father? Or where shall we seek any longer so angelic a doctrine, or what answer shall we give for you, and whom shall we look to in the place of the basilica where you were accustomed to stand? But he, scarcely, and as he could speak, exhorting and consoling them with divine words, said: Act manfully, and let your heart take courage, and wait for the Lord. Come to Him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be confounded. Nothing will be lacking to you if you fear the Lord, and He will not deprive of good things those who walk in innocence, so that you may deservedly at some time hear that desirable voice of the Lord: "Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom which is prepared for you from the origin of the world ^c."

[21] he dies, and, the angels singing, seeks heaven. And as he was saying these things, the peoples weeping, the angels rejoicing, that holy soul was loosed from the flesh. And at the same hour Theodenus, his disciple, heard the voices of those singing psalms in heaven, and, coming quickly to the Man of God, found him already dead, whom he had left alive a little before. Then, bursting into tears with enormous grief, he said: Woe to us wretches, and destitute of almost all consolation! Alas, Father! Who could not grieve at your absence, when he recalls to memory the good things of your virtues? O noble Confessor of Christ! how gentle and sweet, just and loving, and perfect and illustrious in every good work, you who were always accustomed to pant for heavenly things without defect or crime, now, mingled with an immaculate spirit with the companies of the angels, you reign already with Christ, to live without end. And after the multitude of the faithful had committed his body for burial with the utmost diligence, as is the custom, a certain man named Berthicus *, vexed by a most evil madness, reverently approached his tomb. Then the faithful men who were present and devout, beholding these things and pitying that most wretched insanity, groaned vehemently, grieving; and when all had made poured-out prayers for him to the Lord, forthwith made sound, the divine clemency bestowing it, all rejoicing, he returned to his own house: our Lord Jesus Christ helping, who with the eternal Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns God through infinite ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Elsewhere Scubilius.

* Elsewhere Berthericus.