Pipio

ON ST. PIPIO, DEACON AND CONFESSOR, AT BEAUNE IN THE GÂTINAIS IN GAUL,

In an uncertain century.

HISTORICO-CRITICAL SYLLOGE

Concerning his cult, deeds and age.

Pipio, deacon, confessor, at Beaune in the Gâtinais tract of Gaul. (S.)

BHL Number: 6853

BY C. S.

Of the two places of Gaul called in Latin Belna, in the vernacular Beaune and Beaulne, This Saint, little known to the martyrologists, the one is an ample and cultivated city of the duchy of Burgundy, which Bruzen de la Martinière in his geographical Dictionary says is situated three French miles from the river Saône, between Dijon, Autun and Chalon: the other now a small, formerly larger, town of Gaul in the province of Vastinensis, commonly le Gastinois or Gatinois, distant, as the same witnesses, four and a half leagues from Brivodurum (in French Briare), two and a half from Bellogardia (Bellegarde), and about one and a half from Boscocommunis (Boiscommun), under the tribunal of Montargis, which the French call an Election. This town is also customarily called, lest it be confused with the aforesaid city of Burgundy, in French Beaune en Gatinois, in Latin Belna Vastinensis. Adrien de Valois also observes in the Notitia of the Gauls, page 326, that in the Acts of the council of Soissons (as he says) held in the year 862, the villa Belna, situated in the territory of the Gâtinais, is numbered among the villas of the monastery of St. Denis. Whoever wishes more of this place may go to Guillaume Morin in the General History of the provinces of the Gâtinais, Sénonais and Hurepoix, page 281 and following.

[2] Further, in the same place on this 7th day of October St. Pipio is venerated with the title of deacon and confessor, the place of cult, not the day, Saussay, known to so few martyrologists, both foreign and French, that I have found his memory consigned in only two, namely Saussay and Chastelain, and not even rightly. And the former indeed, assigning rightly the place of his cult in the Gallican Martyrology, but not so the day, says on the second of October: On the same day at Beaune in the Gâtinais, the deposition of St. Pipio, levite, companion of St. Mathurin. Then he subjoins a fairly ample elogium of him according to his custom, which, because it is composed from the Lessons of the same Saint's Office, to be given below, I shall not recite here. So Saussay judged, because Pipio is read in the same lessons to have rested in peace on the 6th day before the Nones of October; but in Labbe, who edited them, at the place to be indicated below, the following annotation is added at the end: On the seventh day of October that Office and feast is customarily celebrated, although St. Pipio is said to have died on the (add second) day of the same month. For this cause we, on the 6th day before the Nones of this month among the Passed-over (where by the fault of one little letter Pipia is read for Pipio), deferred his deeds to the present day.

[3] Further, as Saussay assigned a wrong day of cult, so Chastelain in the Universal Martyrology assigned a wrong place, Chastelain rightly assigned the day, not the place. from confusion of the twin Beaunes naming the Burgundian for that of the Gâtinais. For he has thus on this 7th day of October, but in the French tongue: At Beaune in Burgundy, St. Pipio (in French Saint Pipe), deacon. Of other martyrologists, as I have already said, none other that I have read mentions him either on this or on any other day; at which I wonder the more, the more ancient the Lessons of his Office make this Saint, and the more celebrated his veneration is in the tract of the Gâtinais; for he is venerated not by the people of Beaune alone, but also from the surrounding towns and villages they run to him in crowds in the rite of suppliants, as to a powerful patron, to obtain rain for the parched fields, as will become plain from what is to be related.

[4] [His first translation, on the 4th of June, and a second, perhaps on the 28th of October, are also venerated;] Moreover, Saussay had set down beforehand another annual festivity of St. Pipio, namely of the Translation of his sacred body, on the 4th day of June, in these words: At Beaune in the Gâtinais, the Translation of St. Pipio, levite, whose sacred body Louis, archbishop of Sens, on account of the splendour of the miracles with which it shone, having exhumed it, carried into a little casket, and exhibited it to the faithful to be venerated with perpetual reverence. So Saussay, rightly, as I think, for the first translation of Pipio is read in the Lessons to be edited to have been made on the 4th day of June, and our Papebroch, in a Manuscript Annotation set aside for the same day of June, advised thus: The Translation of St. Pipio is celebrated on the 4th day of June, which was the first; and the things which in Labbe are subjoined thus to the words, given above at number 2, concerning the birthday of the same Saint customarily celebrated on the 7th day of October, seem also to insinuate the same: The first translation was performed on the 4th day of June in the year MCCCCLXII. See what is said in

by us among the Passed-over on the same day of June, whence the reader was referred to the 2nd or 7th of October. Perhaps also another translation of the same sacred body is celebrated at Beaune, of which Papebroch again subjoined in the Annotation just mentioned: But the second is venerated on the 28th day of October, which was made in the year of the Lord MDCLIII; and in Labbe likewise it is added: But the other (namely translation was performed) on the 28th day of October in the year of Christ MDCLIII.

[5] concerning each of which translations Before I proceed to the deeds of St. Pipio, such as they exist, I set down beforehand his cult among the people of Beaune in the Gâtinais. In the Lessons of his Office he is said to have rested in peace about the year of the Lord three hundred; and yet I find no indication of his sacred veneration before the year 1462, on the 4th day of the month of June of which his sacred body was raised by the archbishop of Sens, Louis de Melun, and brought with a great concourse of the people into the church of Beaune, as the author of the same Office witnesses, in which this too is added: The relics of the holy Confessor, then, being collected and laid up in a casket, that his memory might be had for ever, he granted XL days of Indulgences to those visiting the church and bestowing of their goods and means as it should seem good to each; namely the praised archbishop. The time of the see of Louis Meledunensis, or de Melun, agrees in the Catalogues of the archbishops of Sens which Claude Robert, the Sainte-Marthe brothers and Hugues Mathoud published, in the last of which he is said to have been frequent in visitations of such pledges of the Saints, and some of these are recorded as met with, among which that of St. Pipio does not occur.

[6] Not on that account, however, is there any ground for doubting that translation of his, a few things are noted. which Saussay too entered into his Gallican Martyrology, and which, from what has been said above, it is probable is recalled by the people of Beaune with an annual memory. It may be wondered, however, if St. Pipio died as early as about the year of the Lord three hundred, that no argument of his cult much older than the 15th century is brought forward. That miracles obtained at his tomb gave the occasion for making the elevation of the body I easily believe Saussay, asserting so at number 4; but from what century they began to be obtained I would rather be taught, for the age in which the Saint himself may seem to have lived, to be investigated in whatever broad way. Of his second translation, which in the words given at number 4 is said to have been made in the year of Christ 1653 on the 28th day of October, I have found nothing either in the Lessons of the Office, because these are about two centuries older, or elsewhere. Some years too before the cited 1653, namely in the year 1630, Morin published his already often-said History, at which time he records, page 283, that the sacred body of Pipio rested in the underground ample church of the church of Beaune; from which whether it was perhaps brought out in the year 1653 and translated to the upper one I have not ascertained.

[7] Morin had set down in the same place beforehand that SS. Martin and Pipio are patrons of the same church of Beaune; He is the other patron of the church of Beaune; his celebrated spring. then after other things he subjoined that one French mile from the town itself, on a sloping place around marshy ground, there gushes forth a notable spring, called St. Pipio's, in French la fontaine de S. Pipe, to which, as I said above, companies of suppliants are accustomed to come in great number to ask for rains by the patronage of the same Saint; which he also illustrates with examples, saying: In the year MDCX in the months of August and January *; in MDCXIII on the 20th day of May, and in the year MDCXIX on the 9th day of June, above sixty companies of such suppliants, and among others from Nemosium (Nemours), from Mons Argisus (Montargis), from Pithiviers, Lorris, Boiscommun and other places, were present there, and after Mass was celebrated it rained vehemently, which both the priests and the parish priests who had come with the companies of suppliants testified by an authentic instrument. These things Morin seems to have learned from Jacques Boucher, master of arts and parish priest of the said church of Beaune, from whom he stated beforehand that he had received the Lessons of the Office. See also what is to be said in the same Lessons below at number 15.

[8] Let us come to the Ecclesiastical Office of the Saint at Beaune, already frequently named. From his proper Office and Mass Papebroch, for whom the same Manuscript which Labbe used in his New Library of Manuscript Books, or an apograph of it, lighted the way, observed in his Manuscript Annotation praised elsewhere that in his Office and Mass all things are proper; but, by Labbe's example, he deservedly did not care to copy the Antiphons and Hymns, because they contained nothing historical, and referred the reader to Labbe for the Lessons; yet he did not omit to transcribe entire the Prose, of which Labbe published only the last four little verses, and which, because it is a certain compendium of the Life, I subjoin here.

[9] [the Prose is recited, which narrates both the deeds of the Saint and that his relics] Let the joyful assembly resound to the Servant of the King on high, By whose kindly favour the region of Beaune rejoices, Which, long since rejoicing, cared for a pleasant birth, And instructed it in most gentle manners and virtues. For, lest tender youth be broken by inertia, Lest the world or the demons should move their battles, He applies the zeal of his mind to feeding his father's sheep, He feeds the sheep, but better is fed with heavenly dew; Enticed by whose sweetness he began to love letters, Afterwards he binds himself to the service of the sacred altar, Cleaving to the fellow-soldiership of Mathurin the priest, Whom, dead, he brought back from Rome to his ancestral sepulchre. He rejoices in the honour of the Levite, but, a stranger to envy, Refuses to climb the grade of the order of priest. Remarkable humility draws him back, but charity And gentleness of manners and integrity commend him. Living he languishes, and buried he heals languors, he strengthens Frail limbs, and drives away feverish heats by prayer. While the English fury rages, and the sword devours all things, The church is set aflame, the Host remains entire, And by the merits of Pipio the casket remains unharmed, The little Client, companion to the King, is preserved out of the ashes. Who, enjoying the repose of heaven, serves Him in glory, Excusing before the Lord the lapses of our crimes, May the grace of Christ, through his suffrages, Lead us after the present misery to the glory of the Saints. Amen.

[10] remained unharmed in the burned church. What this Prose contains of the Saint's deeds I omit to set out here, because they are read a little more broadly in the Lessons of the same Office: but the things which are said in it of the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist and of the relics of St. Pipio preserved unharmed in the church of Beaune burned by the English are not had in these, but there probably pertain here the things which the praised Morin noted at page 282, and which, made Latin from the French, sound thus: There exists a diploma of King Charles VII (of France), from which it is established that the church of Beaune, which the English had burned, was rebuilt by the same king, and the same diploma makes credible that the most holy Sacrament of the Body of Christ was found in the same among the ashes. And although there is no mention here of the relics of St. Pipio, it is probable that the author of the Prose treats of the same burning of the church of Beaune by the English of which Morin here. Further, the very grievous war between the English and Charles VII, king of France, at the beginning of this reign is known; but I have not found more things which contribute to my purpose. For the rest, I have already noted that Labbe published the last four little verses of the same Prose, in which that miracle is contained.

[11] The Lessons of the Office relate the Saint's birth, youth, Now I record the Lessons of the Office themselves from Philippe Labbe, volume 1 of the New Library of Manuscript books, page 779 and following. They exist there with this notice set before them: Life of St. Pipio, levite and confessor. From the Lessons of the Office which the R. F. Louis Jacob of St. Charles, of the Order of the B. Mary of Carmel, copied from an old Codex of the church of the town of Beaune in the Gâtinais, which belongs to the most illustrious lord Achille de Harlay, count of Beaumont, master of requests etc. The Lessons follow, eight in number, whose divisions I have knowingly omitted to note.

In the Gallic countryside, in the village whose name is Beaune, in the Gâtinais, the renowned confessor of God St. Pipio the levite was born of a shepherd father, who in his first years, himself also following his father's pursuits, fed the sheep, relieving the necessity of his parents by his labour; by whom, well brought up and taught in the Law of God, he began to think of a loftier pasture. For while he spent his time in pastoral leisure, turning over in his mind many things concerning the heavenly Shepherd, he went in and out of His fold again and again.

[12] The holy Man, wishing to keep a chaste purpose, his progress in letters, his promotion to the diaconate, bereaved of his parents in the first years of his youth, having bestowed his inheritance for the most part on the poor, kept little for himself: who, having then set out to Orléans, applied himself with admirable prudence to the studies of the liberal arts, that he might enjoy the pastures of the Scriptures more fully. For abhorring all luxury of feasts and wantonness of the flesh, he macerated his body with fasts on alternate days. And having become older and more learned, he set out with Blessed Mathurin to Lorris, to Polycarp, Archbishop of Sens, to receive holy Orders. And Mathurin indeed being ordained priest, the beloved servant of God Pipio refused to be promoted above the Order of the diaconate: who, while with great humility he drew himself back from the loftier summit of Order, is set nearest to almighty God.

[13] A few days having intervened after the Order received, he began to go on pilgrimage in hermit's habit; [the journey to Rome, and his return to his fatherland with the body of St. Mathurin,] but in the middle of the journey, seized with fever, he stayed for some time in the parts of Toulouse. At length, health being recovered, resuming the journey begun, with happy success he at last arrived at Rome, where Mathurin was; where, St. Mathurin having died not long after, he is read to have been renowned for many miracles, so that the Romans, moved by the very greatness of the miracles, strove to retain him with most ample gifts and promises; which being disregarded, the holy Confessor of God, clothed round about with a black mantle, procured that the body of his dead friend be brought back to his father's house. Whence it came about that, God so willing, he returned to his own fatherland.

[14] Restored to his own people, the holy man Pipio, who had buried the lamented body of his friend, his preparation for the death he foreknew, took care for his own death and burial, for which he built a certain underground chapel, in which afterwards he was interred by the counsel of the people of the province. And wishing, devoted to God as he was, to join a church also to the chapel, he was cut off in the very middle of the work and fell asleep in the Lord. For being afflicted and wasted by a long fever, when he was near to death, he was visited and comforted by an angel, and happily heard of the crown of glory prepared for him. From which time he breathed and uttered nothing earthly, but, as if he already dwelt in the heavens in mind, all things divine, for so long, until, about the year of the Lord three hundred, on the 6th day before the Nones of October, he rested in peace: by whose prayers and merits we believe that many are healed today of plague, fevers and various kinds of languors.

[15] Whose holy body was afterwards raised by Louis de Melun, and the elevation of his body and miracles. archbishop of Sens, in the year of the Lord MCCCCLXII, on the 4th day of the month of June, and translated into the aforesaid church with a great concourse of peoples. The relics of the holy Confessor, then, being collected and laid up in a casket, that his memory might be had for ever, to those visiting the church, and of their goods and means

bestowing as it should seem good to each, he granted XL days of Indulgences. And God almighty willed to honour His Saint after death by the excellence of many miracles: for it became known to all that very many, by entering his tomb, were released from the languor of fevers, and are daily released, by the merits of St. Pipio. Rains too, obtained by prayer in time of drought, the relics of the same Saint being carried through the villages, we have heard of from our fathers, and we ourselves have very often seen with our own eyes, when we went in devout order to the spring near the village, La Fontaine de Saint Pipe, which the holy Man is believed to have dug with his own hands.

[16] The author of this Office is not older than the middle of the 16th century, Thus far the Lessons of the Office from Labbe's recension; let us now weigh how much they seem to be worth. Opportunely Papebroch, in the often-said Manuscript Notice, transcribed the Preface of the Office's author omitted by Labbe, which I too exhibit here.

Sprung from Luçon, glad in the honour of Pipio, Thomas Picard has rendered this Office. To a thousand and five hundred join eleven four times over in years, You have the time: he who wrote the present Work for you, The watchman of Beaune and the gentle ruler of the fold, Grieved that the Saint lacked his praise. Therefore, O Christ, as he repays honours to Thee and to the Saints, Repay to him after death Thy gifts.

The author of the Lessons set down above, then, was a certain Thomas surnamed Picard, parish priest of the church of Beaune, but born at Luçon, which is a small city of Gaul in the province of Poitou, enjoying however an episcopal see, under the metropolis of Bordeaux, and called elsewhere Lucionium and Luciona, in the vernacular Lucon; and he wrote in the year 1544, which the numbers a thousand five hundred and four times eleven make.

[17] and accordingly not a sufficiently fit biographer. This epoch can be excellently reconciled with the years of the translations which I mentioned above; for of the former of these, made in the year 1462, express mention exists in Lesson 7, in my copy at the preceding number; but of the other, which I said was performed in the year 1653, there is deep silence in the same Lessons; so that accordingly it may be determined that this Office is at least not older than the year 1462, nor more recent than the year 1653, and therefore could have been first composed, as the Preface has it, in the year 1544. According to these things the author of this Office flourished in the thirteenth century after St. Pipio, if the latter, as he relates at number 16, about the year of the Lord three hundred… rested in peace. But writing after the lapse of so many centuries he cannot be a fit author concerning the deeds of the same Saint, unless instruments far older than his age lighted his way. And here indeed in one place, in my copy number 13, concerning his stay in the City of Rome, he says of Pipio: He IS READ to have been renowned for many miracles; but we neither know from how ancient a writer he took these things, nor do the things which he narrates there agree with the end of the 3rd or the beginning of the 4th century, so as to be easily believed.

[18] that the Saint flourished in the third and fourth centuries, Wherefore I shall not examine all the things which a writer so many centuries later than the Saint himself certainly could not have been the first to hand down singly, if indeed he is so many centuries later. I believe indeed that he received the most considerable part of them from popular tradition, and adorned them with his own conjectures; but how often both these and those deceive there is no need to say. But come, let us inquire into the age in which St. Pipio flourished. If we believe the author of the Lessons, Pipio was ordained deacon by Polycarp, archbishop of Sens, at the same time at which St. Maturinus was created priest by the same prelate, and these two were together at Rome; where also Pipio was renowned for so many miracles that the Romans, moved by the very multitude of the miracles, strove to retain him with most ample gifts and promises; which he disregarding, carried back into Gaul the body of St. Maturinus, who had meanwhile died there, and he himself rested in peace among his people of Beaune about the year of the Lord three hundred, on the 6th day before the Nones of October. Pipio, then, would have flourished as the 3rd century was verging to its end and the 4th beginning.

[19] And indeed he would have to be referred to that time, if it were established concerning his friendship with St. Maturinus and Polycarp, bishop of Sens, from the Acts of St. Maturinus and concerning their age. Of St. Maturinus it will have to be treated in our Work on the Kalends of November, on which day he is read in the genuine Usuardine and the Roman Martyrologies. Meanwhile it may be said that his Acts, such as Peter de Natalibus and Bonino Mombrizio edited, are sprinkled with fables, nor are two other ones better, which we have copied from the codices of Dom De la Mare and of Clairmarais. In the first of these St. Maturinus is said to have been baptized together with his heathen parents by St. Polycarp the bishop; in the other also to have been ordained priest by a certain holy bishop Polycarp. Very similar things are read in two Manuscripts of ours; but neither these nor those make mention of St. Pipio, or assign the see of that Polycarp; but concerning Maturinus they narrate certain things by no means probable nor agreeing with the time.

[20] For they say that Maturinus the priest, invited to Rome by the emperor Maximian cannot be confirmed, to expel a demon from his daughter, consented to the emperor, having first, however, bound by oath those sent by him, that if he should die either on the journey or at Rome, his body should be carried back into the territory of the Gâtinais. Having set out thus to Rome, then, he is said there not only to have happily succoured the said daughter of the prince, but also to have freed innumerable Romans from a raging disease, and therefore, being affected with great gifts and honours both by Maximian and by the people, when he had met his day there, to have been magnificently buried; and when on the next day he had been found outside the tomb, the same emperor, admonished of the above-said agreement, commanding it, to have been honourably carried back to his fatherland. How fabulous these things are there is no need to set out; nor have I related them here for any other cause than that no one should think that the deeds or age of St. Pipio can be solidly confirmed from the Life of St. Maturinus, which, moreover, makes not a word of him.

[21] How obscure is the memory of Polycarp, who in St. Pipio's Office is called archbishop of Sens, nor can it from the age of Polycarp, who, whether he was bishop of Sens, gather from Saussay, who, while he judges that he should be numbered among the holy bishops of that see, Yet not without grief (he says on the 1st day of November under St. Maturinus) do we bear that St. Polycarp, who begot him (Maturinus) in Christ and advanced him to such sublime things, does not obtain even a slender share of the due honour. For not even in the church of Sens itself … does there scarcely exist any spark of his venerable memory: since his most sacred name long ago fell out of the series of the pontiffs of that church; and further, among the Saints whom it honours he has hitherto obtained no place. etc. Among others too who record him among the prelates of the same see, Hugues Mathoud put him in the ninth place, and says: It is likewise certain that he promoted to the priesthood St. Mathurin, a native of his diocese at Lorris in the Gâtinais, as is read in his Acts praised by Baronius.

[22] is disputed: Since Mathoud determined no place of Baronius, and I know no other in which Baronius speaks of St. Maturinus than in the Roman Martyrology on the 1st day of November, I transfer his words here: In the territory of the Gâtinais, of St. Maturinus, confessor; then in the Annotations in the same place: Usuard of the same on this day. Mombrizio has the Acts of his life, volume 2, and Peter in the Catalogue, book 10, chapter 6. He is said to have lived in the times of the emperor Maximian. Baronius, therefore, praised indeed these Acts of St. Maturinus, yet does not say that he was ordained priest by Polycarp of Sens; nay, adhering to Usuard's text, he did not even call him a priest, and the time in which St. Maturinus is read in them to have flourished he added in the Annotations only doubtfully, saying: He is said to have lived in the times of the emperor Maximian. Further, the same Acts of St. Maturinus will come to be examined more fully, as I have already said, on the 1st day of November: to me meanwhile, with Tillemont, volume 4 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 484, they appear not fit enough for confirming the episcopate of St. Polycarp at Sens.

[23] nor do his deeds agree with those centuries of Pipio's. If, however, Polycarp held the chair of Sens (as they will have it) as the 3rd century was verging to its end, and Maturinus flourished at the same time, it seems to me far more probable either that St. Pipio was far later than the age of both, or that the things said of him while staying at Rome in Lesson 4, in my copy at number 16, are no less to be held for fables than those which we related at number 23 from his Life of the gifts and honours offered to Maturinus. For the reason stands equal on both sides; namely, that these things fit the times of Christian, not heathen, princes. The things too which are said of the same St. Pipio in lesson 2, in my copy number 13, as if public studies of letters had already then flourished at Orléans, will have a greater appearance of truth if they are referred to times later than Maximian: Then, having set out to Orléans, he applied himself with admirable prudence to the studies of the liberal arts, that he might enjoy the pastures of the Scriptures more fully.

[24] Elsewhere he is read to have died in the year 1306; but neither does this year And indeed the already more than once praised Morin (unless there is a typographical error) makes him many centuries younger, at page 284, where he fixed his death to the year 1306 on the Nones of October. He professes, however, that he received the things which he recorded of his deeds from the Lessons of the church of Beaune, submitted to him by Jacques Boucher, Master of Arts and parish priest of the same church, as I have already observed above. If Morin followed these rightly, they were in other respects nearly in conformity with Labbe's, and equally with these made mention of St. Maturinus and Polycarp; and since Morin himself, at page 361, asserts that the latter of these flourished under Maximian Galerius; and it is established that Maturinus, as already mentioned by Usuard in the 9th century, is far older than the 14th century, it is necessary either that the year of St. Pipio's death in him is faulty, or that the things which he too brings forward of both Saints being initiated together into sacred Orders by Polycarp, archbishop of Sens, are fictitious.

[25] But by another argument too it can be proved agree with his deeds: that the same year 1306 strays far from the truth, or that it is falsely asserted that the body of St. Maturinus was ever brought back by our Pipio from Rome into the Gauls. For it cannot deservedly be doubted that the body of St. Maturinus already rested in the territory of the Gâtinais in Gaul when Usuard in the 9th century announced him thus on the Kalends of November: In the territory of the Gâtinais, of St. Maturinus, confessor; for otherwise Maturinus would have had to be announced not here but at Rome, if, having died at Rome, he had then also lain at Rome. If, therefore, St. Maturinus, as his Acts also relate, died at Rome, and Pipio had some part in the translation of his body into Gaul, he could not have performed this office later than the 9th century, and therefore

is by no means to be believed to have reached by living to the year 1306. But who would safely ascribe that translation to him from these so recent Acts of slight credibility?

[26] Wherefore, lest I grope any longer in darkness, I observe these few things concerning his age. First: his deeds, narrated in the Lessons, by no means fit the times of Maximian Galerius or of other heathen emperors, and so he flourished in an uncertain century, and are less far from the truth if they are referred to the centuries of Christian princes. Secondly, if the same Saint were said to have lived either a little before or even after Usuard, it would be less to be wondered at that this martyrologist, who did not pass over Maturinus, born, as they will have it, and certainly venerated, in the same territory, was silent concerning Pipio; namely either because the latter at that time was either not yet born, or had not yet become known by his cult. Thirdly, since the body of the same Saint is read in the Lessons of the Office to have been first raised in the year of the Lord MCCCCLXII, we shall wonder much less at so late an elevation of the sacred pledge if he were said to have died in the year 1306, as Morin has it, than if about the year of the Lord three hundred, as is narrated in the same Lessons. Led by these reasons, I have been able to ascribe Pipio to no certain century.

* Perhaps rightly?