Badilo

ON ST. BADILO, ABBOT OF LEUZE IN HAINAUT,

At the end of the 9th century, or the beginning of the 10th.

HISTORICO-CRITICAL COMMENTARY.

Badilo, abbot of Leuze in Hainaut. (S.)

BY J. G.

§ I. Account of the place: the beginnings of the monastery of Leuze, over which the Saint presided: the Saint's age discussed: his distinction from namesakes, and his religious life.

In that tract of the old Brabant which is part of the present county of Hainaut and is enclosed by the rivers Scheldt, Haine and Dender, there is to be seen, at about an equal interval between Tournai and Ath, a town now stripped of its fortification, Leuze was built, on the testimony of Balderic, canon of Cambrai, enjoying the same privilege and prerogative of a city as the other towns of the same county of Hainaut, to which the name Lutosa and Lotusa has been given in Latin, but in Belgic Leuze and Leuse. That this very ancient place was watered by the apostolic sweat of St. Amand, first a regionary bishop, then bishop of Maastricht, and adorned by his sacred labours, a most ancient tradition holds, which is wholly supported by Balderic, the author of the Chronicle of Cambrai and Arras; not that Balderic, contrary to what the Benedictines in volume 9 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 998 and following, and the people of Leuze, relate, who died bishop of the church of Noyon and Tournai in the year 1113, and who had earlier been canon and cantor of the church of Thérouanne and archdeacon of Noyon; but the one who, having lived at Cambrai from his youth, was afterwards canon of Cambrai and very intimate with Gerard I, bishop of Cambrai, who died before the year 1052, and was his secretary, and who compiled at least the first book of his Chronicle before the death of that same prelate just now praised, with the greatest diligence, from the annals and histories of the fathers, the Deeds of the kings, and also from charters found in the archive of that church. Whoever wishes more concerning him, let him consult our Bosch, volume 2 of August, page 670, and volume 8 of the Literary History of France, page 402, and those things which in the Commentary

on St. Ragenfredis, page 301, were discussed.

[2] Let us hear, then, from book 2 of his Chronicle, chapter 43, page 263, what that learned author, most worthy of credence, committed to writing bearing on our subject. a monastery, by St. Amand, then a regionary bishop, "There is also," he says, "a monastery of canons in honour of the Apostles Peter and Paul in the village which is called Lutosa, which Blessed Amand built: and it is a rich abbey, where the venerable man of God Baidilo (so Colvenerius expressed his name) rests, who is said to have brought the body of St. Mary Magdalene from Jerusalem into Burgundy, to the place Vézelay." It has seemed good to discuss carefully here each of these points and a few others drawn from elsewhere, since a Life of the Saint was not written ex professo, as they say, or at any rate perished through the injury of the times. And first, as regards the monastery of Leuze, over which St. Badilo or Baidilo at one time presided, Henschenius, in volume 1 of February, page 831, suspects that it began to be built by St. Amand, then a regionary bishop, in the year of Christ 632, namely after this holy Man had caused a dead man at Tournai, taken down from the gibbet, to be carried to his cell, and by pouring out prayers to God had called him back to life; this opinion is very greatly favoured by Baudemund, the disciple of St. Amand, who asserts, in the cited volume of February, page 851, number 14, that as soon as this miracle was spread far and wide, the inhabitants of that region, and therefore also the people of Leuze, neighbours of Tournai, came together to him at a swift pace and humbly asked that he would make them Christians, and that then, the shrines of the idols having been destroyed, monasteries or churches were at once built by him; that the monastery of Leuze was among their number is therefore easy to believe, because no more fitting time and occasion for its building than this can be assigned.

[3] in which by the same man not monks of Elnone, And hence I am not a little displeased by a tradition, of I know not what antiquity, of the monks of Saint-Amand, or Elnone, which the Reverend and Most Honourable Lord Hubert, deputy of the chapter of Leuze to the States, as they call them, of Hainaut, mentioned in the notices concerning St. Badilo sent to me, and which maintains that a colony of monks of Elnone was summoned by St. Amand to inhabit the monastery of Leuze in the first place. For since the beginnings of the convent of Elnone cannot be fixed earlier than the year of Christ 638, as our Henschenius in the cited volume of February, page 831, number 81, and Le Cointe in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, volume 3, page 89, show; how, I ask, could it have come about that monks of Elnone were summoned by St. Amand as early as the year 631, at the founding of the monastery at Leuze, to inhabit it? But let us grant for a moment that the monastery of canons of Leuze was founded by the Apostolic Man some years later than the monastery of cenobites of Elnone; not even so may it be believed that a colony of monks of Elnone was sent by St. Amand to Leuze, unless these are said to have soon flown over from the monastic institute to the canonical (which, however, no one will easily persuade himself of), or unless Balderic, asserting that a monastery of canons was built by St. Amand, is held to have been shamefully deceived, which ought in no way to be admitted without documents of good mark that would lessen Balderic's credit.

[4] but canons, however much some may maintain the contrary from Balderic's words, Nor is there reason why anyone should contend that the words of the praised chronicler cited at number 2 are to be explained as if the monastery of Leuze had been one of canons only in Balderic's own age, whereas originally it had been one of monks. For since that author, immediately after the words recited above, subjoins these concerning the neighbouring college of canons of Renaix: "In the village of Rotnasce THERE IS A MONASTERY OF CANONS, built ALSO by saint Amand in honour of THE SAME Apostles"; by this manner of speaking he indicates clearly enough that the monastery of canons of Leuze was originally of the same condition as that of Renaix, and therefore that the monastery of Leuze was built by St. Amand the bishop for Benedictine monks no more than that of Renaix, which the Benedictine writers of the enlarged Gallia Christiana did not even number among the convents joined to the Benedictines by affinity. But, you will say, since St. Amand at one time led the monastic life, it seems not to be doubted that he, himself a monk, established monks, and he, a Benedictine, Benedictines, in the places erected by him at any time. Indeed, it is also beyond controversy that the monastery of Leuze was administered by St. Ludger as abbot; and therefore, since he too was at one time a monk, without doubt those very men also over whom he presided as abbot, the men of Leuze, were monks.

[5] As regards St. Amand, I answer that, from the deeds of St. Amand although he had earlier led the monastic life, he was certainly at that time, when he was devoting himself to erecting sacred buildings in Belgium, a regionary bishop, and so could hand them over to be inhabited as well by clerics or canons as by Benedictine monks. Besides this, since for the Apostolic Man, as Le Cointe notes in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks, volume 2, page 834, number 5, as he disseminated the word of God throughout Belgium, the work of clerics or canons would be far more useful than that of monks dwelling in their cells, it becomes more probable even from this that canons or clerics, adopted by him to a share of the apostolic labour, both to confirm the recently converted in the faith and to bring to the faith other heathens sought out from the neighbouring region, were then established at Leuze, rather than monks, who by their Institute are most devoted to the solitary life. Finally, since no author older than Balderic or comparable to him in learning and diligence affirms that Benedictine monks were placed at Leuze by St. Amand, let the reader judge whether we ought not with better right to hold to Balderic and to the reasons adduced by me than to the conjectures of certain persons.

[6] For the rest, I will also gladly grant to my adversaries that St. Ludger or Luidger was excellently imbued with the disciplines of the monastic life, and of St. Ludger and that at that time too, when he stayed in the convent of Monte Cassino, he wore the monastic dress; but it by no means follows from this that, when Charles the Great, emperor and king of the Franks, gave him the monastery of St. Peter at Leuze to govern with all the adjacent churches and little estates, the inhabitants of that monastery were Benedictine monks, still less that he himself was, since he never made a solemn profession of the monastic life, as Mabillon himself admits in the Fourth Benedictine Century, part 1, page 16. Truly, he who, being set as pastor in the western part of the Saxons, is read to have built there an honourable monastery under the canonical Rule (go to his Life, volume 3 of March, page 647, number 20), and who, as even the sixth Lesson of the Office of Leuze itself holds, "did not wear the cowl, but under the canonical habit perfectly fulfilled the life of monks," can for no sufficiently probable reason either be reckoned among the monks, or be maintained to have presided at Leuze over none but Benedictine monks. I forbear to relate more things which could be gathered here from the Commentary of John Bolland on the Life of St. Ludger, in the cited volume 3 of March, page 641, since what has now been said by me suffices, so that the monastery of canons built by St. Amand at Leuze may not be assigned from its beginnings to the Benedictine Order.

[7] As to the fact, moreover, that the people of Leuze have for a long time now, and with an Office of greater double rite especially from the year 1765, in which the Reverend and Most Honourable Lords Canons Hubert and Flament obtained a bone of a finger of St. Amand from Dom Stephen Bargibant, [or as certain persons maintain from elsewhere, were established; St. Badilo afterwards ruled it,] a monk of Elnone, celebrated him yearly as their founder, and that the dean of the Chapter carries his sacred Relics in the more solemn processions; these things indeed sufficiently prove their remarkable devotion toward St. Amand and their most grateful mind; but from this it by no means follows as a consequence that, just as Leuze received his sacred remains from the monastery of St. Amand at Elnone, so too it can or should be said to have received the first inmates or settlers of its monastery from the same place. But indeed, since St. Badilo was a monk of the church of Vézelay in Burgundy, and that a Benedictine, and discharged the office of abbot at Leuze, I would not unreasonably believe that he presided at Leuze over monks too, to whom the canons had given place. When, however, this conversion of the monastery of canons of Leuze into an abbey of monks can be fixed, the learned reader will gather from those things which I shall now discuss concerning the age of our Saint, and in § III.

[8] and with Count Gerard, not in the 8th century, as various writers would have it, All who have made mention of our holy Abbot, whether ancients or moderns, have affirmed with unanimous consent that he was contemporary with and very well known to Gerard, or Girard, called of Roussillon, count of Provence and Burgundy and founder of the convent of Vézelay in Burgundy. But among those same authors there is no agreement at all concerning the century in which this Count Gerard lived. Sigebert, or whoever is the author of the summary extant in the Vallicellian manuscript codex, mentions that Gerard at the year of Christ 745, and writes that the body of St. Mary Magdalene was carried by him from the city of Aix to the convent of Vézelay, built by himself. John of Ypres, in the Chronicle of Saint-Bertin, volume 3 of the Anecdota of Martène and Durand, column 483 and column 485, likewise makes that Gerard contemporary with Charles Martel and with Zacharias the Roman Pontiff, and these have been followed by Guise, a writer of the end of the fourteenth century, Meyer in the Annals of Flemish Affairs at the year of Christ 765, Molanus or the editor of the Natales Sanctorum Belgii, Louwius, at the 8th day of October, Buzelin in the Annals of Gallo-Flanders, book 3, page 94, Ghinius in the Natales of the Holy Canons, folio 73, Du Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology, page 703, Denis de Sainte-Marthe in volume 3 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 75, and finally, to pass over many others, John Baptist de Castillion, afterwards bishop of Bruges, in his Sacred Chronology of Belgium, page 111.

[9] but on the contrary he flourished in the 9th century, On the contrary, however, Miraeus in the Belgic Chronicle at the year 871, Ménard in his Benedictine Martyrology, book 2 of the Observations, page 716, and the writers of the fourth volume of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 466, hold that Count Gerard, and together with him our Badilo, flourished only in the ninth century, and that not a little advanced. If this controversy were to be settled by the sole authority of the authors who for some six centuries have made mention of that Count Gerard and our holy Abbot, and by the great number of the moderns who have followed them, without doubt both those distinguished men would have to be drawn back to the eighth century; but since Sigebert, even granting that his Chronicle was not interpolated at the place cited, and also John of Ypres, Guise and the other authors cited in the former place, lived much too far removed from the age of Gerard and Badilo to win credence by their sole assertion for the thing which they relate; we must altogether stand by the opposite opinion of Miraeus, Ménard and the writers of the fourth volume of Gallia Christiana, not indeed because their authority is greater than that of the others, but because this opinion can be confirmed by undoubted and authentic documents, as I now go on to show.

[10] There is extant in volume 3 of the Spicilegium of Luc d'Achery

of the first edition, page 446, the History of the monastery of Vézelay, as is clear from a charter of that same Count Gerard by Hugh of Poitiers, comprised in four books, the first of which sets out in long order, from page 446 to page 505, the authentic records which bear on the history of the monastery. And in the very first place there is reported the Instrument or Testament of Count Gerald [*], founder of the monasteries … of Pothières and Vézelay, in which Gerard, "by the gift of divine goodness" (these are the words of that charter) "raised to the honour of count at the hands of the glorious royal clemency, by the common vow and desire of my most beloved wife … Bertha," puts forward among other things these, bearing on our subject: "Since by the pious largesses of our lords and seniors, who have most liberally enlarged us with honours and dignities, that is, the emperor and our most clement senior Louis and the glorious lady and queen Judith, and their son, equally our senior and Lord, king Charles, very many things have accrued to us to possess, it has seemed most just to us that, moved by love of them, we should also found that very place, where for their free gifts there might be in prayers a solemn and constant supplication, and before God a continual entreaty for their salvation. For we are not unmindful of their benevolence toward us, that is, of the lord senior Louis Augustus, of the lady and queen Judith, of Charles their son, likewise our lord and senior, who now survives and reigns."

[11] Count Gerard, then, the founder of the convents of Pothières and Vézelay, lived the founder of the convent of Vézelay, it is clear, under Louis the Pious, who died at length in the year 840, and under queen Judith, taken from among the living in the year 843, and he issued that testament at length at a time when the son of Louis the Pious and Judith, by name Charles, who can be none other than Charles the Bald, was also among the living and was governing the kingdom, and therefore most certainly between the year 843 and the year 877, the year of death of that same Charles the Bald. Far from the truth, therefore, have those strayed who wrote that Count Gerard, the founder of the convent of Vézelay, flourished before the year of Christ 740. From which it also plainly follows as a consequence that St. Badilo too, whom all make contemporary with him and very well known to him, must be said to have flourished likewise not about the year 740, but at least a whole century afterwards. Now it will be well to inquire, as nearly as can be done, into the very year of the ninth century in which our Saint, everywhere called a brother of the place of Vézelay, led the monastic life there.

[12] That this did not happen before the year 43 of that same century [indeed, not before the year 878 can he be said to have passed over to the monks of Vézelay;] is altogether evident from the words of Count Gerard's Testament just recited, nor is there need to refute at greater length the writers already cited by me at number 8 and in volume 4 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 466, who maintain the contrary. Indeed I consider it all but undoubted that our Badilo was not a monk of Vézelay before the year of Christ 878. I demonstrate the matter thus. Whether that monastery had already been founded in the year of Christ 862, or, to use the words of Gerard, founder of the convent of Vézelay, to Pope Nicholas, "in the 23rd year of the reign of Charles," namely the Bald; or whether you hold, with the writers of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, volume 4, column 466 (less probably, however, as it appears to me), that this was done about the year 867, it is at any rate plain from Gerard's own Charter, in volume 3 of the praised Spicilegium, page 448, that that convent was originally "a dwelling of handmaids of God," or of nuns living under the institution of Blessed Benedict; and that these consecrated women still held the convent of Vézelay in the year of Christ 868 is put beyond controversy also by a diploma of Charles the Bald, which you have in volume 8 of the Writers on Gallic Affairs, page 608.

[13] it can be said; Moreover, that monks were not substituted for the nuns of Vézelay before the year 878, Pope John VIII, ordained in the year 872 on the 14th day of December, makes manifest in his diploma, which he issued in the 6th year of his Pontificate, when in the cited volume of the Spicilegium, page 462, he speaks thus: "The privilege also conferred upon the same monastery by our predecessor of pious memory, Pope Nicholas" (namely the first of this name), "we confirm by our authority, excepting only that he assigned it under the name of handmaids of God, who on account of the frequent assaults of the world cannot now remain there in due order: but we, for the sake of a more fitting utility, decree fittingly that it be under the habit of monks." Since these things are so, they make it altogether manifest that Badilo's monastic life in the convent of Vézelay cannot be placed with any plausible reason before the year of Christ 878, in which the nuns ceased to dwell there.

[14] [he was therefore different from the abbots of Sessieu and of Autun and from Count Badilo,] And these things have been discussed somewhat more fully, not only that the century in which St. Badilo lived may come out undoubted, but also that our Saint may be clearly distinguished from monks of the same name of about the same time. For it follows from what has been said that the Venerable man of God Badilo, who is everywhere read to have been a brother of the place of Vézelay under Eudo, abbot of Vézelay, and certainly not earlier than the year 878, is therefore different from that Badilo who (see Guichenon, pages 226 and 227, in the Proofs of the History of the Sebusiani) presided in the place of abbot over the monastery of St. Benedict of Sessieu in the year 859; and that he is also other than the Badilo, abbot of the convent of St. Martin at Autun, mentioned in a diploma of Charles the Bald in volume 8 of the Writers on Gallic Affairs, page 668, and in volume 4 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 450, at the year 877, and who was perhaps that same count by whom the convent of Autun was restored. But must our Saint also be said to be different from that Badilo who in the Life of St. Hugh, monk of Autun, written by an anonymous author in the eleventh century, is written to have been the nephew of Count Badilo, the restorer of the aforesaid convent? I answer that no sufficiently effective argument is available to me by which I would dare to make him different from St. Badilo; so that on the contrary my mind, no less than Mabillon's in the Fifth Benedictine Century, part I, page 96, inclines to believe that Badilo, the nephew of the count of the same name, is the same as our Saint.

[15] he was not, however, as it seems, other than the nephew of this count, For the name and the age and the monastic life taken up in Burgundy and the religious perfection in divine worship agree; nor does anything stand in the way, in appearance, of our Saint's being affirmed to be the same as he, except that Badilo, the nephew of the aforesaid count, is written to have put on the monk in the convent of St. Martin at Autun; whereas ours is called only a brother of the place of Vézelay. Nevertheless, since Badilo's monastic life in the convent of Autun is denied by no ancient document; and since besides it is quite probable that those monks who were substituted for the nuns in the monastery of Vézelay were summoned from nowhere else than from that rather near convent of Autun, as the biographer of St. Hugh insinuates, why should not one of these have been Badilo, the nephew of the aforesaid count, who, having changed his seat, then began to be named a brother of the place of Vézelay, where he became most renowned, and so be the same as St. Badilo? If these things in fact stand, as they seem to, our Saint was by origin an Aquitanian, and born of a family illustrious no less for virtues than for nobility and wealth, if indeed judgment ought to be passed on it from the riches and the morals of Count Badilo. What sort of man, moreover, and how great that count was, and what sort also his nephew of the same name, it will be well to have understood from the praised Life of St. Hugh.

[16] Of the former the biographer of St. Hugh speaks thus in volume 2 of April, page 764, number 7: who, his paternal uncle, a most pious man, "There was indeed at that time" (namely about the year 870) "in the palace of the king himself" (Charles the Bald) "a certain count, Badillo by name" (in the manuscript codices which guided Mabillon he is everywhere called Badillo), "who came from the parts of Aquitaine, a man who, though placed in secular life, was yet of corrected and religious morals and in his manner of life like holy men in all things. For he was most opulent in the matter of wealth and very rich in gold and silver. He, seeing the king" (Charles the Bald) "and also the queen" (he calls her Chrodechildis, elsewhere everywhere called Richildis) "giving themselves with all their effort to restoring the churches of God, led himself also by divine zeal, began to be their devout and pious emulator in this respect; and, seeing among the other ravages of the pagans at the city of Autun the monastery of the eminent confessor of Christ Martin, once built most excellently and honourably by queen Brunhild, but then most miserably ruined and stripped and dishonoured of all its furnishings, the same count went without hesitation to the king and humbly asked that the aforesaid monastery be given him to restore. For he said, promising, that he had it in his vow that after the restoration of the monastery he would, leaving the cares of the world and the anxieties of honours, give himself over to the Lord there: which at length afterwards, Christ assenting, the outcome of the matter proved."

[17] And after much more the praised biographer goes on to speak of him thus at page 765, number 9: [and, having spurned the allurements of the world, the holy morals of the renowned man] "When at length the illustrious man Badillo" (elsewhere Badilo) "had carried out the restoration of the place as far as he was able, he began anxiously to seek out men imbued with holy religion, who in that same house of God might worthily render to Him the offices of service." Then, having related that eighteen most religious monks were summoned from elsewhere to the monastery restored by him, and that an abbot most approved in life and morals was elected with his consent, he subjoins at number x: "These things having been so done, the man of God Badillo" (Count Badilo) "afterwards began to be more keenly anxious for his own salvation, how he might put aside the ambitions and allurements of this world, and he arranged to be tonsured in the monastery and to become a monk… And when he had indeed accomplished this, of how great humility, of how great patience and obedience he was, no one can recount." Thus far the biographer of St. Hugh, whose words I have adduced in order that from them it may more manifestly appear what sort of man his nephew Badilo, whom he testifies to have been not unequal to him in divine worship, was, both before his monastic life and in the Religious life itself.

[18] But let us go on to hear from him also those things which he relates concerning the nephew of that Badilo, he followed in the world and in monastic life. and, as it seems, our Saint. "The same Badillo" (Count Badilo, of whom he had already treated) "had, then, a nephew of the same name as himself, of a quite kindly disposition; whom also, drawing him away from secular business, he gave over with himself to divine service in the same monastery. And he too, namely the second Badillo, was no less devout and perfect in divine worship." Without doubt the known virtue of the younger Badilo and his perfection in divine service, already praised, brought it about that, when monasteries both near and remote, on the testimony of the same biographer at number 12, "for sacred government … from among the persons of the monks of the same monastery

of Autun requested to be granted to them, that Badilo, in the year of Christ 878 or the following, was sent perhaps together with Eudo to the convent of Vézelay, so that under this abbot, with some most pious nurslings of the same monastery of Autun taken along, he might devote himself at Vézelay to divine worship and the offices of the monastic life more usefully than could be done by nuns because of the assaults of the world.

[19] [In what sense is the translation of St. Mary Magdalene ascribed to him to be discussed below?] And let these things discussed concerning St. Badilo's age and his distinction from his namesakes suffice, so that we may now proceed to discuss in some fashion the very celebrated deed which is ascribed to him by not a few writers both ancient and modern. I have said "to discuss in some fashion," because I do not undertake to unfold and settle afresh that intricate and much-agitated question between the people of Provence and those of Vézelay, which consists in this: whether the true and entire body of St. Mary Magdalene was carried from Provence in Gaul to the convent of Vézelay in Burgundy; or whether on the contrary the people of Provence justly glory even today in its possession; for our Sollerius has treated this question concerning the very body of St. Mary Magdalene laboriously and at the same time learnedly in volume 5 of July, from page 207 to page 216, and nothing urges me to do here what has been done, especially since it suffices for my purpose to discuss those things which concern St. Badilo both properly and most nearly, namely whether it can be believed safely enough that some sacred pledge, which it has pleased the people of Vézelay and many supreme Pontiffs to call the body of St. Mary Magdalene, was at some time carried by him from Provence in Gaul to the aforesaid convent of Vézelay.

* Gerardi

§ II. Whether St. Badilo can be said to have carried the supposed body of St. Mary Magdalene from Provence in Gaul to the church of Vézelay in Burgundy, and about what year he did this.

[From Balderic it cannot be asserted safely enough that St. Badilo brought from Jerusalem] Balderic, the author of the Chronicle of Cambrai praised above, since he had before him no guiding documents of the kind fitted to win undoubted credence for the report of that celebrated translation spread throughout Belgium, thought it better to declare nothing assertively about it; and with his usual prudence he committed to writing only those things which in his time were commonly said in Belgium, speaking thus of St. Badilo in book 2, chapter 43: "Who is said to have brought the body of St. Mary Magdalene from Jerusalem into Burgundy, to the place Vézelay." But whether by the former words he wished to call Mary, the sister of Lazarus, a Jerusalemite, from the village near Jerusalem by the name of Bethany, and in passing also to distinguish her from the sinful woman of the Gospel according to the opinion of the Greek Fathers; or whether rather, taking no account of that question agitated between Greeks and Latins, he intended to indicate from the rumour spread among the Belgians that the sacred body of St. Mary Magdalene was translated by St. Badilo from the very city of Jerusalem to the church of Vézelay, is not so safe to maintain for certain; indeed, it is not even seen clearly enough whether his doubtful and timid manner of speaking falls on the very substance of this deed, or on the other hand only on one of its circumstances, say on the very place from which that sacred pledge had been carried to the convent of Vézelay, some perhaps, and these many in Belgium, contending that it was carried there from the city of Jerusalem, others on the contrary, and above all the Burgundians, from Provence in Gaul; so that for this reason he himself left this dispute undecided for want of documents.

[21] But whatever Balderic's judgment on that matter may have been, [the supposed body of St. Mary Magdalene, but rightly from Provence, as a certain very ancient manuscript] his so vague and ambiguous expression does not seem to me at least able to be of such weight that because of it it could be believed with sufficient certainty that Badilo at some time set out for Jerusalem and brought down from there that sacred pledge in which, as in the body of St. Mary Magdalene, the people of Vézelay have gloried for many centuries. But can it not at least be said with sufficient probability that Badilo at some time went over from the convent of Vézelay into Provence in Gaul, and from there translated that sacred body to his own people? I answer that the records which favour the affirmative opinion are not so much to be despised as certain persons would persuade themselves, who are so devoted to the negative opinion of the people of Provence that they seem to wish to dismiss Badilo's journey into Provence and his return to the people of Vézelay with the sacred Relics to the realm of fables. And first, a very ancient manuscript of the church of Narbonne, which Noël Alexandre, himself favouring the people of Provence, mentions in Dissertation 17 in the Ecclesiastical History of the first century, page 184, column 2, expressly relates, as he himself admits, that Baidilo the monk secretly took the body of St. Mary Magdalene from a marble tomb at Aix-en-Provence and, having carried it off by night, translated it to Vézelay. But, to say how the matter stands, since neither the praised author nor anyone else whom I at least have read proves that the age of that very ancient manuscript is to be assigned either to the end of the ninth century or at least to the course of the tenth, I judge that by this one testimony, though perhaps much older than Sigebert of Gembloux, as the praised Alexandre insinuates, the opinion opposed to the people of Provence is not confirmed firmly enough, so long, that is, as it is not established for me that its author flourished either toward the end of the ninth century or at least toward the middle of the tenth.

[22] I proceed, therefore, to other things. There is extant in a notable codex of ours, [and a manuscript History of the Translation, certainly written before the year 1037,] formerly of Vaucelles, marked P. Ms. 157, a History of the body of St. Magdalene translated to the monastery of Vézelay, composed certainly before the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1037, as is gathered from the miracles appended to it, indeed even a whole century, or at least half a century, before this year, as may be conjectured from the author's words, in which he writes that he had seen the Saracens in Gaul. These run thus: "Meanwhile" (the race of the Saracens) "attacking the metropolitan city of Aix and capturing it, plundered all its goods, leading out from it a multitude of captives; and the rest were consumed by sword and fire. For they flayed alive a great many men and women, as it is the custom of the Saracens to do to men of our race, AS WE OURSELVES AFTERWARDS SAW. When the slaughter of this disaster had been accomplished, which, as [*] we believe, happened because of the sins of the inhabitants of that land, they withdrew to their own country." Since, then, Hugh, king of Italy and count of Provence, stormed in the year of Christ 942 the Castle of Fraxinetum, situated in Provence on the testimony of the Chronicle of Novalesa, cited in volume 8 of the Writers on Gallic Affairs, page 130, in the Annotation, the strongest stronghold of the Saracens, from which they often ran out plundering through Provence, as Sigebert in his Chronicle and others note at the same place at the same year; and again, since Conrad, king of Transjurane Burgundy and of Provence, as Ekkehard the Younger relates in volume 9 of the Writers on Gallic Affairs, page 6, surrounded in the year 950 both the Saracens and the Hungarians by troops, and those having no place of flight whom he did not kill he captured and sold at Arles, and so freed Provence from the tyranny of the Saracens; it follows that the author of the praised Translation, who testifies that he saw men of his race flayed by the Saracens, must be said to have flourished at least before the year of Christ 950, and even before the end of the ninth century, if with Honoré Bouche, volume 1 of the History of Provence, page 736, we admit that he was an eyewitness of the disaster then inflicted on Provence by the Saracens.

[23] and a certain Sermon, delivered about the middle of the 10th century, hold; To this writer, moreover, who asserts that some sacred pledge was translated by Badilo from Provence, as will be related more fully below, there is in part support from a certain Sermon, which is also extant in the cited manuscript codex, delivered on the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, at Vézelay as it seems, at a time when Provence in Gaul was to the greatest degree deserted through the violence of the Saracens. Hear its words: "There is still shown … a church … adorned with many miracles …, although through the violence of the Saracens that kingdom in which it is" (that of Arles, or of Provence) "remains to the greatest degree deserted." From which it is easy to elicit that the author of this Sermon flourished about the middle of the tenth century, and so was not far removed, either in time or in place, from that translation which he asserts was begun at the exhortation of Eudo, abbot of Vézelay from the year of Christ 878 to 897, and happily accomplished by his prayers. But, you will say, although from the words just recited it becomes probable that both the author of the History of the Translation and the author of the praised Sermon were near enough to the times in which that sacred body was carried by Badilo to the people of Vézelay, yet the authority of both must collapse utterly from the fact that they did not distribute the deeds which they relate conveniently enough to their times; the former, namely, when in the opening or Prologue of his History he tied the reign of Louis, most pious of kings, and of his son Charles to the year of the Lord's Passion or Resurrection seven hundred and forty-nine, more or less; the latter, when he made Carloman, king of the Franks, contemporary with the aforesaid abbot Eudo and with Algarius, or Adalgarius, bishop of Autun from the year 875 to the year 893.

[24] inasmuch as their credit, the digressions cut away, As regards the former part of this argument raised against us, I will not conceal that I have found no way by which those chronological notes, indeed most of the things also which are found recorded concerning the beginnings of the convent of Vézelay in the cited codex of Vaucelles, can be reconciled with historical truth; so that I therefore strongly suspect that at least those two articles which are found prefixed by way of prologue to the History of the convent of Vézelay restored by Count Gerard and of the sacred body translated there were stitched on afterwards by some unskilled person, or, if those two articles proceeded from the author of the praised History of the Translation in the manner in which they are found copied in most handwritten codices, I do not fear to confess that he was very little versed in the deeds of times a little older than himself. That I should prefer, however, to believe those articles stitched on afterwards by some unskilled man rather than proceeding from the author of the History of the Translation himself, I am moved by the very title of the Work and by the writer's aim, of which the former is expressed in these words: "How the body of this saint" (Mary Magdalene) "was translated to the convent of Vézelay"; the latter is indicated thus: "Now therefore, the Lord granting, we shall undertake to set forth how the clay of the body of the same most sacred Mary Magdalene was translated to the place in which it is venerated even today"; by which words those digressions are surely excluded plainly enough, which are thrust upon the reader concerning the beginnings of the convent of Vézelay and the epoch of the two kings of France, and indeed so unskilfully and unseasonably that not only do they have no connection with the author's aim, but on the contrary they plainly disturb his narrative, so that, with them cut away, indeed, with the third and in part the fourth article likewise cut off, his narrative flows much more freely and smoothly than if even one of those digressions is woven into it, as will be evident from what is to be recited below.

[25] As regards, however, the other part of the argument raised against us

against the one I do not see by what reason the author of the praised Sermon can be carped at, still less be said on this head to have erred as if deliberately or shamefully confused the times, because he writes that in the age of Carloman, king of the Franks, monks of Vézelay set out into Provence with a certain Adelelmus, a knight or nobleman, namely that they might take care to translate that sacred body from there to the aforesaid Eudo, archimandrite of Vézelay, as he calls him. For although in the middle of the eighth century Carloman, the son of Pippin, flourished, and he, anointed king together with his brother Charles while his father was still living, held Burgundy, Provence and other regions, as is shown in various places in volume 5 of the Writers on Gallic Affairs, yet the author of the praised Sermon indicates sufficiently that he is not speaking of this Carloman, but on the contrary only of that Carloman, king of the Franks, who was the son of Louis the Stammerer and had from his father's kingdom in the year 880 Burgundy and Aquitaine with their marches, as the Annals of Saint-Bertin testify in volume 8 of the Writers on Gallic Affairs, page 35, at the same year, and who was therefore without doubt contemporary with Eudo, abbot of Vézelay, and with Adalgarius, bishop of Autun, as is clear from volume 4 of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, column 367 and following, and also with our Badilo.

[26] It presses more heavily against the credit of both writers and the other objection that the former relates that Badilo spent a lustrum of five years, or the space of five years, at Aix-en-Provence before he carried off that sacred body from Provence; whereas the latter, making no mention of Badilo, relates that it was swiftly gathered up by the monks of Vézelay and the aforesaid Adelelmus. But I answer that because of a differing account of one circumstance the very substance of the deed is not to be banished to fables, especially if the narrative of both writers can be reconciled at least in some fashion. And indeed, since the author of the Sermon relates that that sacred pledge was carried from Provence into Burgundy by the work of the monks of Vézelay too, he is by no means to be judged to have contradicted the author of the Translation, who ascribed the execution of the matter by name to Badilo, a monk of Vézelay. Besides this, since the author of the Sermon expressly professes that he will comprise that translation in a brief style, or in few words, it ought to be no wonder if he did not mention Badilo expressly, but only those who suggested the plan of obtaining that sacred pledge and used the work of the monks of Vézelay for it. For the rest, although the author of the Sermon relates that that sacred body was swiftly gathered up, yet he also insinuates that the monks and other men sent by Abbot Eudo, having heard of the devastation of Provence, halted for some while at a certain place, and at length, mindful of a certain saying of Blessed Gregory and trusting in the prayers of Adalgarius and Eudo, carried out the work entrusted to them.

[27] can be vindicated so far as the substance of the deed is concerned. But whether in the meantime St. Badilo is held to have stayed at Aix-en-Provence for a space of five years; or on the other hand (which I too prefer) to have brought the work entrusted to himself and his companions to effect much more swiftly (of which matter more will be treated below), we learn abundantly at any rate from the words of the History of the Translation, in which the author testifies most confidently that the place from which Badilo was for a while unable to move that sacred body was thereafter called, as in memory of this deed, the Hazel-grove of Badilo, that he played the principal part in translating some sacred body from Provence, or at least that he was commonly believed in Burgundy, at least not many years after the event, to have been the chief agent of that translated pledge. I now undertake to recite that History of the Translation itself, but purged of the foreign and incongruous digressions, according to what was said at number 24, in so far as it comprises the things then done by St. Badilo, or has connection with them. It begins thus immediately after the Life of St. Magdalene: "Now therefore, the Lord granting, we shall undertake to set forth how the clay of the body of the same most sacred Mary Magdalene was translated to the place in which it is venerated even today…

[28] From the cited History of the Translation it is related "It happened that the race of the Saracens, going forth from the parts of Spain, ravaging laid waste almost the whole of Aquitaine and the greatest part of that [] Provence. The churches also and monasteries, burned with fire, together with other human things, it brought down even to the ground. Meanwhile, attacking [] the metropolitan city of Aix and capturing it, it plundered all its goods, leading out from it a multitude of captives; and the rest [] were consumed [] by sword and fire. For they flayed alive a great many men and women, as it is the custom of the Saracens to do to men of our race, AS WE OURSELVES AFTERWARDS SAW. When the slaughter of this disaster had been accomplished, which, as [*] we believe, happened because of the sins of the inhabitants of that land, they withdrew to their own country." Thus far the writer of the praised Translation, indicating, as it seems, that destructive irruption of the Saracens into Gaul made in the year 731, by which Provence, Burgundy, Aquitaine and other provinces far and wide were laid waste by fire and sword, and which Boniface, bishop of Mainz, in Epistle 19 to Ethelbald, king of the Mercians, writes befell the peoples of Provence and of the Burgundians "because of adulteries and the debauching of consecrated virgins and Sodomitic outrages: angered at which, the almighty Judge permitted the avenging punishments of such crimes to come and rage through ignorance of the law of God and through the Saracens," as Mabillon relates more fully in the Third Benedictine Century, part 1, page 525 and page 526; consult him, if you please. Now let us hear our author relating the occasion and the manner of the translation from Provence of the body believed to be St. Magdalene's.

[29] "For it had long since been learned and was held far and wide by many how Badilo, a monk of Vézelay, sent into Provence, that blessed Mary Magdalene, as has been set out above" (namely in the Life of the same Saint), "had been given burial in the aforesaid city of Aix by the holy bishop Maximinus, and that her most sacred bones were preserved there." (Go to what was discussed on that matter by Sollerius, volume 5 of July, page 205 and following.) "Spurred on at length by this report, both Gerard, count of Burgundy, and Heudo, abbot of the aforesaid monastery of Vézelay, sent with sufficient care to the city of Aix a certain brother, whose name was Badilo, with this devotion, namely that if, the Lord assenting, he were able to find in those parts some pledge from the body of the most sacred Mary Magdalene, he should, returning, carry it to them. He, having taken the road, supported by an honourable company of servants, came as prosperously as devoutly to the city of Aix. When he had entered it, nothing at all seemed to him to appear in it but the image of utter pestilence and death. And the aforesaid Badilo, seeing so monstrous a desolation of the Christian people, began out of piety to utter the heaviest sobs of tears; and at length, mindful of the devotion of his journey, he walked about carefully in every direction, seeking whether he might find anyone who would lead him to the tracking down of the desired thing.

[30] "While he was doing this, it chanced that he saw, near the greater church which there had been in the city, he found the church, in which the body of St. Mary Magdalene in the huts of the men's quarters, conquered [*] old men of decrepit age, waiting for the coming of some passer-by for the sake of receiving food. When he had seen them, he turned aside to them, cautiously inquiring where in the world the church had been in which the body of blessed Mary Magdalene, once buried by St. Maximinus, was venerated by the faithful; and promising that he had come there for this purpose, not only to adore in passing for the present, but also, as far as he was able, to serve in rebuilding the sacred buildings. They, hearing this, were very glad, and promised that they would obey him faithfully in all things and show him what he wished. Then, a prayer having been completed briefly, he invites them to a meal, since he saw that they were failing from long want of food. And so both being refreshed, rising from the meal they went on, so that the aforesaid Badilo might visit more surely the desired place at the direction of those same old men, who, going out together, showed him, as now to a domestic fellow-citizen, a mausoleum raised most honourably within the sanctuary of the principal church, concerning which there could be no doubt but that it kept a heavenly reward.

[31] "An inscription [], moreover, on the same mausoleum related whose body's clay was kept within. was believed to have been laid up, For there was over its whole surface, in the manner of a work in relief [], how that Mary most dear to Jesus Christ the Lord, once in the house of Simon, washing [] His feet with her tears, also wiped them with her hair, and how, anointing with her hands His head, the most sacred of all, she sweetly smeared it. Likewise also images of the same Mary, where, questioning the Lord, she thought Him the gardener [], and how, holding His feet, she adored Him. On the right side, indeed, as when, coming to the Lord's tomb, she brought spices, she was found worthy to enjoy the angelic converse, and then, coming to the Apostles, announced what she had seen. Badilo, seeing all these things, a diligent searcher out of such matters, rejoiced beyond what he could express; and taking up mattocks and brooms, both he himself and his followers cleared the fragments of charcoal and the ashes from the place, and as far as they were able made it most clean of all filth. Then, the altars having been restored and cloths placed around them according to custom, they from time to time celebrated Masses.

[32] and in what manner thence it, "After some days [], however, a number of the natives, returning to their homeland from captivity among the Saracens" (perhaps that same captivity which the praised Bouche, volume 1, page 736, writes took place about the year 870), "appointed that same Badilo, with fatherly affection, as their provost and advocate in all things. He too dealt harmoniously toward all in what he saw would profit them [], both of souls and of bodies. Being also an assiduous labourer in rebuilding every kind of utensil, he pleased everyone; and so, dwelling there for a lustrum of five years [], he acquired an abundance of very many resources. When that time had run its course, the Man devoted to God began, greatly fearing, to think within himself that perhaps, envy of the natives raging as is its wont and biting him, or the hostility of the Saracens pressing, a longer dwelling in that country would not be advantageous to him; indeed he was more keenly anguished about returning to his own, who had sent him, which was more expedient for him; and again he by no means found the opportunity of taking the most sacred pledges, which he desired with all his effort. Set, then, in such a struggle of mind, he betook himself more earnestly to the refuge of prayer, calling upon the help of almighty God and upon Mary herself, the lover of Jesus Christ and mercifully beloved by Him, that what seemed more fitting for them and more salutary for himself might be done [] as quickly as possible. Then, more assiduous than frequent in fasts and prayers, he awaited heavenly help.

[33] the mausoleum in which it lay having first been opened, "At length, divinely inspired, an opportunity having been found, going one night to the mausoleum very well known to him, a pious violator, he broke it open at the side of the feet and looked at what was held within; and seeing the body, covered over with perfectly entire skin, lying stretched out according to custom with the hands placed upon the breast, he was filled with joy. For an odour of such sweetness boiled forth from it that no mortal could utter it. Which surely happened justly enough. For the body of her who was found worthy to anoint the incarnate Lord with spices ought to be the most fragrant of all. This at length the blessed archbishop Maximinus also understood when burying her, while with very many spices

he imbued her body. Meanwhile, on the following night, he seemed to himself to behold a certain most religious woman, clothed in the whitest garments, and wrapped round with sufficient care from the head; whose voice also intimated such things to that same Badilo: 'Do not be afraid,' she said, 'since we must go together with you to the place predestined by God.' When morning came, strengthened by this vision [*], calling his men together in secret, he enjoined them to be ready the following night, so that they might take the road for returning home. They too, hearing this, rejoiced exceedingly. When the stillness of the oncoming night had come, and the utensils had been prepared, he went to the tomb, drawing out from it the body, as it was, as we have said, entirely whole in every part, and wrapping it in the cleanest cloths together with the rest of the goods which he was striving to carry away, they placed it on a vehicle.

[34] "Then, taking the road with his men, he strove most eagerly to return to his own; secretly by night first to Nîmes, then quite near Vézelay he brought it, and so, hastening at a swift pace, they came to the city of Nîmes. For they had a very great cause of fear, since the length of the outstretched body, which, as we have said, by the preparation of spices, as is the custom, endured solid; for that reason it could not be hidden in a small or narrow box. By common counsel, then, deciding, they turned aside by night into a certain church, staying there for the sake of praying; and there, separating the longer bones of the body, they fitted them to the rest of the body; and so, a smaller box having been arranged, they accomplished more readily the journey which they had begun. Coming all safe and with their number entire, to within a mile of the monastery of Vézelay, from which they had set out, they arrive at the place which to this day is called the Hazel-grove of Badilo. In this place the most holy body began to be weighed down with such great weight that, however many came to it, they could in no way carry it from there. For their arms were benumbed, and their steps failing, they did not know what to do. Having conceived wonder at this thing, they sent to the monastery one who should announce to the abbot and the rest of the brethren their arrival, and also the hindrance to their journey which had suddenly befallen them.

[35] "They at once, rejoicing, with censers smoking with incense, and at length to the church of Vézelay itself, he carried it. and with lighted candles, crosses going before, clothed in snow-white garments, came to meet them, who were still remaining against their will in the aforesaid place. Coming there, all prostrated themselves on the ground, praying to the omnipotence of the divine Majesty, and beseeching more earnestly Mary Magdalene herself, the dearest friend of Jesus Christ the Lord, that she would permit the clay of her body to be carried from that place to the monastery. They, rising forthwith from prayer, when they tried to go forth, went on with such agility, feeling almost no weight, that they thought rather that they themselves were being carried than that they were bearing anything; and with the highest exultation, the tinkling bells resounding and the melodies of the monks re-echoing, many lights having been kindled, bringing it into the church consecrated from the beginning in honour of Mary, the Mother of God, and of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, they laid it there honourably, as was fitting, on the 14th day before the Kalends of April." Thus far the praised author of the History of the Translation, and indeed appositely to his purpose and to the title prefixed at the beginning of his Work, of which see what was said at number 24. Wherefore that long medley of digressions and miracles which follows that Translation in the aforesaid manuscript codex, as being foreign to the author's appointed aim, and as having proceeded from someone else, much younger, as it seems, than he, I here dismiss altogether, being about to make some observations on the recited narrative of the author.

[36] And above all, indeed, although, as I showed above, the author of the Translation seems to have written not later On the recited narrative of the author of the Translation than the middle of the tenth century, and so lived near enough to the translation which he undertook to narrate to render the substance of the deed done by St. Badilo credible enough; yet his authority does not seem to be held of such weight that on it alone it should be determined that the true body of St. Mary Magdalene is with certainty to be snatched away from the people of Provence, who not undeservedly protest. For this it would be necessary that he should have demonstrated with surer arguments that in that tomb from which St. Badilo drew out some sacred and entire body, the body of Blessed Mary Magdalene in fact lay at that time, and had not been translated elsewhere from there before, as the people of Provence nevertheless contend. Since he has not done this, I contended at number 21 for this one thing only, that it can be said with sufficient probability that St. Badilo carried the supposed body of St. Mary Magdalene from Provence to Vézelay, whether in the meantime that sacred pledge in which the people of Vézelay glory is in fact the true and genuine body of the same Saint, or whether it still rests with the Dominican Fathers of Saint-Maximin in Provence; on which matter I do not wish to pull the contentious rope, and that chiefly because this question and others of the kind do not pertain closely to my purpose.

[37] some observations are made, However that may be, at any rate from the Testimony of King Charles, to be ascribed to no other, as is plain from the series of the kings of the Franks and from what has already been said, than to Charles the Fat or Charles the Simple, namely that which in the year of the Lord MCCLXV was found by two bishops with the supposed Relics of St. Mary Magdalene beneath the great altar of the church of Vézelay, it becomes undoubted that, as the ninth century was growing old, some sacred body which was believed to be blessed Mary Magdalene's had been laid up at Vézelay; and this agrees exactly with the words of the recited Translation, in which it is asserted that that sacred pledge was carried there from Provence by Badilo, contemporary with those two kings, and honourably laid up on the 14th day before the Kalends of April. That Testimony, and the letters of Guy de Mello, bishop of Auxerre, and of Peter, bishop of Paneas, bearing on the same matter, you have in volume 5 of July, page 209, column 2, numbers 124, 125 and 126; consult them, if you please. For the rest, if the author of the aforesaid Translation, especially in the circumstances of this deed related at numbers 32 and 33, did not follow the rumour of the common people, or if he himself did not sprinkle a true event with marvels according to his own bent, it must be that that opinion had also taken hold of our Badilo and of the monks of Vézelay, by which at that time it was commonly believed lawful and pious to carry off secretly by any contrivance the pledges of the Saints which were laid up in any place but were not held in sufficiently great veneration, and to carry them to those churches in which there was hope that they would be honoured with a more celebrated cult. In which matter I would rather excuse the holy Man than rashly blame him.

[38] and the year in which that translation took place is defined closely enough. Now it will be well to inquire into the very year in which St. Badilo carried that sacred pledge to Vézelay. Since, from what was said at number 12, St. Badilo did not live as a monk at Vézelay before the year 878, it follows that, if the author of the Translation wrote rightly that he stayed in Provence for a lustrum of five years, or five years, he could have returned to Vézelay with those sacred Relics not earlier at least than the year 883; but on the contrary, if we listen to the words of book 4 of the History of Vézelay, in volume 3 of d'Achery's Spicilegium of the first edition, page 640, in which, namely, it is asserted that "the year of the incarnate Word of the Lord one thousand one hundred and sixty-six" was "the two hundred and eighty-sixth of the reception of the sacred body of Blessed Mary Magdalene, the Lover of God," it follows as a consequence that St. Badilo carried that sacred pledge to his people of Vézelay not later at least than the year 881, and that he could therefore have stayed in Provence three years at most. But to which opinion should we rather adhere? I answer that it seems safer to me if in this we give credence to the author of the History of Vézelay, who at that place reports the epochs accurately and scrupulously, rather than to the writer of the Translation, who neglected to express the year in which the translation took place, and who does not seem to have had the several circumstances of it so thoroughly known that equal credence should be given him in all things. Add to this that the author of the Sermon praised at number 23 writes that the journey of the monks of Vézelay into Provence and their return thence to their own was accomplished in not many months; so that from this head too it becomes more probable that that translation, of which St. Badilo was the principal agent, is not to be put off as late as the year 883. Whether, however, St. Badilo was sent by Abbot Eudo into Provence in the first year in which he began to live at Vézelay, or on the contrary only toward the end of the second or the beginning of the third, in order to carry those sacred Relics from there and to enrich with them the church of Vézelay, already granted to monks, and whether he prosperously executed the matter entrusted to him, I leave open, content to have defined closely enough the time in which these deeds of St. Badilo can be placed.

* ut is redundant

* illus is redundant

* read aggressa

* others reliqui

* others consumpti

* ut is redundant

* perhaps binos?

* others Sculptura

* others anagliphi

* read lavit

* read hortulanum

* supply decursum

* supply bona subministrans or something similar.

* that is, in a space of five years

* others faceret

* that is, visu

§ III. The Saint's deeds in Belgium and the time of his death are discussed: his commemoration in the sacred Calendars: the translations of his Relics: his ecclesiastical cult at Leuze.

The holy Abbot, of whose deeds no old records are extant, In what year St. Badilo, made abbot from a monk of Vézelay, undoubtedly began to preside over the monastery of Leuze, what he certainly did gloriously among the Belgians, and finally when he sent his most pious soul to the Heavenly ones, I have searched in vain among the published contemporary and nearly contemporary authors.

To the profound silence of these on these matters another evil was added in the year 1741, on the 2nd day of July, namely a most calamitous fire of the church of Leuze, by which those two volumes, in which, about the year 1300, John Dulebiecq, dean of the chapter of Leuze, had collected the records and old charters of his church, and from which at least some light could have been shed on the deeds of St. Badilo and the time of his death, were consumed by the devouring flame. This very lamentable loss, indeed, the Reverend and Most Honourable Lord Hubert, for a long time now deputy of the college of Canons of Leuze to the States of Hainaut, endeavoured to repair at least in some fashion, as far as concerns St. Badilo, when, at the request of the learned and very Reverend Lord Denis Cambier, provost of the abbey of St. Martin at Tournai, he collected whatever notices he had found and observations he had made which he judged would be useful to me for illustrating the memory of the Patron of his church, and most courteously transmitted them to me; but although I cannot but extol with a grateful mind the man's excellent good will and the greatest diligence, yet, which I greatly regret, apart from a few documents concerning the ecclesiastical veneration of the Saint, to be reviewed lower down in their place, no instrument at all of sufficiently good mark could be supplied to me by him from which the time of St. Badilo's death might be exactly defined, or his deeds in Belgium become known to me.

[40] Lest, however, the last part of his life and the time of his death be passed over entirely untouched, he is rightly reported to have come to Leuze with companions about the year 884, it has seemed good at least to call to examination those things which are commonly held from ancient report and from the Hymn of St. Badilo to be published below, and to declare candidly what seems to me more probably to be thought of each, leaving otherwise to the learned reader the freedom of judging differently of them. If by the common opinion of the people of Leuze and the words of the praised

Hymn we are to stand, the holy Abbot, with some companions, without doubt Benedictines such as he himself was, came to Leuze from the convent of Vézelay in Burgundy, to which he had earlier carried the sacred body mentioned above, and brought to the same place a notable part of that same body, which was honourably preserved there for many centuries. As regards the substance of this assertion, I do not see by what reason it cannot be admitted, since it contains nothing that is foreign to the truth, and nothing that on the other hand does not agree exactly with what has already been said before and will further be said of St. Badilo. As regards, however, the epoch of the deed, surely, from those things which have already been discussed above concerning our Saint's age and the translation made of the sacred body mentioned, it is not to be doubted that he was sent as abbot to Leuze not earlier at least than the year of Christ 881; indeed I judge that he did not come into Belgium and govern the monastery of Leuze much before a somewhat more peaceful time, namely the year 884, in which also the monastery of Blessed Mary of Tronchiennes near Ghent began to be rebuilt by the care of Baldwin the Bald, count of the Flemings, and regular monks with the prelate John began to be brought back into it, as Meyer writes at the same year 884 in the Annals of Flanders, folio 14 verso.

[41] [it is however less accurately asserted that he returned thence to his own country,] Indeed our Belgium was too much disturbed and shaken by the incursions of the Northmen from the year 880 to 883 for it to be affirmed, without a contemporary or nearly contemporary witness, that St. Badilo came there from Burgundy in that interval and enriched the monastery of Leuze with the sacred Relics of which treatment was made above. And for that reason I do not sufficiently understand by what reasoning it is asserted in the praised Hymn that our Saint, at that time when he brought to Leuze with his companions a part of the Relics, soon returned to his own country. For since, from what has been said, he was more probably an Aquitanian by nation, and also in the year 881 was living in the convent of Vézelay, how, I ask, can he be said then to have returned to his own country, who is read in the ancients not even to have set foot in Belgium before? In the ancients, I say, for I pay very little heed to Du Saussay, who without any witness relates that St. Badilo held the regular government of the place of Leuze before he was asked by Gerard of Roussillon, count of Burgundy (whom he also wrongly makes contemporary with Charles Martel), to bring the Relics of St. Mary Magdalene from the district of Aix into Burgundy, as may be read on page 703 of his Gallican Martyrology.

[42] in whatever way these words be explained, Nor do I see either by what reasoning these words, "Returned to his own country," may be explained in an altogether different sense, as if the Saint, the mentioned Relics having now been carried to Leuze, had returned into Burgundy or into Aquitaine, as to his own country. For since he was then abbot of the church of Leuze, and, the same Hymn likewise testifying, "led a life of justice," who would persuade himself that he soon entrusted the care of the monastery committed to him to another, and, no sufficiently probable reason compelling, returned to the place from which he had come a little before, and from there went back again to Leuze, where at length he would render his soul to the Creator and his body to the earth? If it be permitted to divine in a very obscure matter, I would believe that St. Badilo, set over the monastery of Leuze, soon, as soon as it was allowed, fulfilled in person all the parts of a true abbot, and therefore that this reading of that hymn, if not the native and original one, is at any rate sound and consonant with the truth: "He brought to Leuze with his companions a part of the Relics, TURNING to his own"; so that the sense is that the holy Abbot, when from the convent of Vézelay in Burgundy he turned to his own monastery, that is, the one entrusted to his care, also brought there certain Benedictine companions who would inhabit it with him, and at the same time carried there the sacred Relics, by which he might restore to its former splendour the church of Leuze, which had perhaps suffered not a few damages from the Northmen.

[43] From the same epoch of St. Badilo's arrival in Belgium now fixed by me, and at the same time from the Testament of Count Gerard reviewed at number nor can it be said that in his honour, as though he had died earlier, X, it also follows as a consequence that the Hymn of the church of Leuze is, at least more probably, also to be emended at that place where, among the churches founded by the praised count, it sings that the church of Leuze was endowed by him with means and abundance of goods in honour of Badilo. For, as is manifest from the cited number X, that count had already been most liberally adorned with honours and dignities at a time when Louis the Pious was still among the living; and therefore, if even only thirty years are attributed to Count Gerard in the year 840, which was the year of the death of Louis the Pious, it becomes necessary that the church of Leuze could not have been endowed by that count in honour of Badilo, who, as will be said below at number 46, probably died not much before the end of the ninth century and perhaps only at the beginning of the tenth, unless the count is held to have been ninety years old or more; whether this last will find credence without some ancient surety I very strongly doubt. Nay rather, even if Count Gerard had in fact departed this life only in the year 890, as a certain epitaph placed to him not so long ago in the church of Pothières holds; not even so could the church of Leuze be said to have been endowed by Count Gerard in honour of St. Badilo, unless it were proved by some undoubted testimony, or at least shown by some plausible reason, that our abbot had already died before the year 890 and had been honoured with the honours of the Heavenly ones soon after his death.

[44] But perhaps the author of the Hymn meant to assert that the church of Leuze was endowed, not in honour of Badilo, but on the contrary in favour of him while still living already before then most holily dead, as the words of themselves sound, but, as people not rarely spoke in the middle age, "in love of Badilo," that is, out of Count Gerard's benevolent affection toward him even while living? If so, I by no means oppose him, since it could easily have come about that Count Gerard, already seventy years old, or in the eighth year since he had withdrawn from Vienne of the Allobroges, as the Annals of Saint-Bertin relate at the year 871, destined the monastery of Leuze, probably possessed by him in fiduciary manner according to the custom of that age, to be governed by St. Badilo, as far as in him lay, with the title of lawful abbot, on account of his known virtues, his most noble birth, or the untiring work devoted to him in acquiring the body of St. Mary Magdalene, and with that in view enriched it with no small part of his goods situated in the present county of Hainaut.

[45] So certainly the author of a certain ancient Life of Count Gerard, the church of Leuze was endowed by Count Gerard. of which I have only a fragment, at one time judged, and he, if it could be proved from anywhere that he lived near enough to Gerard's times, would make this opinion of mine all but undoubted. Hear his words: "This count, called Gerard, in his said county of the Nervii" (so called from the Nervii, who in the age of Julius Caesar had their seats on the right bank of the Scheldt and so also in the present county of Hainaut) "built several churches, as for example the abbey of Leuze, in which he instituted as abbot St. Badilo the confessor, etc." But in truth, however it may be with this writer's age and even with the very year in which Count Gerard showed himself munificent to the church of Leuze, at any rate the quite ancient tradition, and the grateful mind of the people of Leuze toward our Saint and toward Count Gerard, constant from all past time, and finally the common consent of the authors who have mentioned St. Badilo and the church of Leuze, afford no light indication that that church was in fact at some time most generously endowed by the same count in favour of St. Badilo, the church in which, on the testimony of Balderic in the cited book 2, chapter 43, "the venerable man of God Baidilo" rested even in the eleventh century, and in which even today his sacred Relics are honoured every year with notable ecclesiastical veneration, especially on this day.

[46] The Saint, whose death seems possible to be placed about the year 900, For the rest, although, as I have already noted above, the ancient records do not express the year and day of the Saint's death, nor furnish us with anything further from which at least one or the other could be elicited with certainty; nevertheless I judge that he will not be much astray from the truth who says that he passed to the Heavenly ones on the very day on which the chief solemnity of the Saint is celebrated at Leuze; since, although certain Saints departed this life on a day other than that on which they are chiefly venerated in the church, yet it is much more frequent and all but everyday that the day dedicated to the ecclesiastical veneration of the Saints is altogether the same as that on which they placed their happy soul in heaven; which, since nothing militates to the contrary, it seems can not rashly be believed of the feast day of St. Badilo. As regards, however, the year of his death; since without an old document the holy Abbot's government cannot be maintained to have been either too brief or too long, I have judged that it is in the meantime to be attached either to the end of the ninth century or to the beginning of the tenth, until (may the Heavenly ones grant it!) some records come forth which may teach us more certain things about the time of his death. Of the virtues and deeds by which our Abbot shone forth in Belgium, since the ancient writers who have hitherto come to hand are silent, I cannot assert more than what the Hymn to be recited below reports; although I do not doubt at all that they were both many and very remarkable, and such that he has not undeservedly been held for several centuries past for a truly holy and venerable Man of God and honoured with lawful cult, of which the place requires that I treat at more length.

[47] by various more recent martyrologists in a few words, I begin with the ecclesiastical Calendars in which the Saint's memory is celebrated. Molanus mentions St. Badilo on this 8th day of October in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium, or rather Peter Louwius from the papers of Molanus, in the Louvain edition of the year 1595, folio 218 verso, writing thus: "On the same day" (the 8th of October) "the feast of saint Badilo, of whom it is sung at Leuze: 'Abbot of this church, leading a life of justice, was once Badilo.'" Gazet too, in his Catalogue of the Saints who are venerated in the diocese of Cambrai (go to his Ecclesiastical History of Belgium, page 60), celebrated him as truly a Saint, and had as imitators Constantine Ghinius in the Natales of the Holy Canons, folio 73, and Du Saussay in the Gallican Martyrology, page 703, both of whom moreover wove a rather long eulogy for St. Badilo. Miraeus likewise in his Belgic and Burgundian Calendars, Willot in the Belgic Martyrology or Hagiology, page 99, Simon de Peyronnet in the Catalogue of the Saints, page 29, and Ménard in his Benedictine Martyrology have mentioned our holy Abbot on this day, the last of whom, to this his announcement: "At Leuze in Belgium, of St. Badilo, abbot," subjoined a fuller notice of the Saint, by way of eulogy, in book 2 of his Observations, page 716, which I, as being much more consonant with the truth than the two eulogies indicated above,

in preference to these, transfer here entire, as it were a compendium of the Saint's life.

[48] It runs thus: "St. Badilo was a monk of Vézelay in Burgundy; by Ménard in the Observations more fully, then abbot of Leuze in the territory" (that is, the diocese) "of Cambrai, 'in which abbey, which is now one of canons, the venerable man of God Badilo rests,' says Molanus in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium" (rather, more correctly, partly from Balderic's Chronicle, partly from the papers of Molanus, Peter Louwius), "where he adds" (namely the editor of the Natales of the Saints) "that this Badilo was sent by Abbot Eudo and Count Gerard of Roussillon to the city of Aix, to take up the body of St. Mary Magdalene" (concerning which see what was said in §2) "and translate it to Vézelay. St. Badilo seems to have flourished about the year of the Lord eight hundred and seventy-nine, in which John VIII, Supreme Pontiff, came into France, who because of the incursions of the Saracens gave the monastery of Vézelay to the monks of saint Benedict, the nuns having been translated elsewhere, for whose sake this monastery had been built under the Rule of St. Benedict by Gerard of Roussillon, count of Nevers and of Burgundy; as is found in the old Fragment on the foundation of the convent of Vézelay, which is reported by that most learned man André Du Chesne in the Notes to the second Book of the Collations of St. Odo, abbot of Cluny." Thus far Ménard, departing most rightly from Molanus, whom he praises, or Peter Louwius, and many others who draw St. Badilo back to the times of Charles Martel, or to about the year 739, as is manifestly plain from those things which were discussed in the preceding § concerning Count Gerard's age and the epoch of the convent of Vézelay built by him.

[49] To these hagiologists two others deserve to be joined, but in a singular manner by Chastelain, namely Chastelain and Philippe Brasseur; the former because he puts forward an altogether singular announcement of our Saint, on which some observations are to be made; the latter because in a few verses he both celebrates the Saint and at the same time touches upon the history of his convent and of his ecclesiastical cult. I present Chastelain speaking in these words, but French ones, in his Martyrology at this day. "At Leuze near Ath in Hainaut," he says, "of St. Badilo, abbot of the same place, who brought the body of St. Mary of Bethany from Jerusalem to Vézelay in the territory of Nevers," namely in the eleventh century, as is noted in the margin. Let us now weigh these things in passing. The epoch now assigned to the deed just mentioned, or rather to the Saint's death, was without doubt wrongly expressed solely by the error of the typesetter, and the eleventh century was put where the author wanted the ninth century expressed. This is surely easy to elicit from those things which Chastelain writes concerning Mary of Bethany in volume 1 of the Roman Martyrology illustrated with Notes, page 343. That, however, it is written there that not the body of Mary Magdalene but that of Mary of Bethany was brought to Vézelay by Badilo, is not likewise to be ascribed to the carelessness of the typesetter, but to Chastelain himself, who wrote this deliberately and on reflection, namely from that opinion which he embraced, which maintains that Mary Magdalene was altogether different from Mary of Bethany, and that the latter died in Judaea, the former at Ephesus; concerning which opinion see what was discussed by our Sollerius in the cited volume 5 of July from page 188 to 203. But whether the woman who is called Mary Magdalene and the one who is called Mary of Bethany were one and the same, or on the other hand different; the authority of Chastelain, or of whatever rumour was spread in Belgium in the eleventh century, is not of such weight to me here that it can be affirmed, as I also noted above, that St. Badilo set out for Jerusalem and from there brought the sacred body of Mary of Bethany, as Chastelain contends, to the convent of Vézelay.

[50] [and by Philippe Brasseur, who at the same time illustrates his cult, he is also mentioned more fully.] Now let us go on to Philippe Brasseur, who speaks more appositely to our purpose of the Saint's deeds and cult. Thus, then, he speaks in his Panegyric of the Saints of Hainaut, pages 58 and 59:

After Tournai let venerable Leuze come forth, renowned For the divine favour of blessed Peter, splendid too with the Relics Of holy Magdalene, found by the godlike Badilo: For when the Saracens rushed upon the field of Aix, Among the heaped-up stones and the ruins of stones, He strove to find the unknown tomb of Magdala's woman: And lest the body be snatched away through treachery, that same body, God working wonders, he brought to the Burgundian shores; Nay, he sent a cubit of it into the church of Leuze: This now with the body of holy Badilo, in the same Shrine is laid up, which stands upon the principal altar. But perhaps you may ask the beginnings of this sanctuary; To say it in a few words, Amand laid its foundations; Badilo brought in monks, over whom he himself as abbot Presided, and there, his flesh dissolved, he rested. But in the lapse of time, the monks having been put to flight by wars, A splendid assembly of canonical clergy succeeded, Which now keeps the appointed feasts of the aforesaid Patron, And carries the body according to sacred custom through the crossroads, And joyfully commemorates the dedication of the aforesaid sanctuary, When the first weekday after the feast of Magdala's woman comes round.

[51] His Relics, a part of which to Vézelay Thus far the praised Brasseur, without doubt following Molanus, or Peter Louwius, the editor of the Natales of the Saints of Belgium from the papers of Molanus, as I also noted above, who relates similar things of our Saint at the cited folios 218 and 219, with this exception, however, that Molanus does not say that the Relics of St. Mary Magdalene were laid up in the same shrine as those of St. Badilo, whereas Brasseur himself asserts it quite confidently, although those sacred Relics had already been translated to Brussels in the year 1644, in which his work was printed. But let it suffice to have touched on these things in passing. Let us return to the cult of St. Badilo. Since in the thirteenth century there also flourished a constant report that the holy Abbot, sent from the convent of Vézelay to Leuze, had carried there an arm of St. Mary Magdalene; it seemed good to the people of Vézelay to ask in return of the canons of Leuze (for these had already been substituted for the monks by the year 1071, as is gathered from the Deeds of the Bishops of Liège, volume 2, page 12) a part also of the Relics of St. Badilo, and, so that this favour might not be denied them, to employ as intercessor Godfrey, bishop of Cambrai, in which diocese Leuze is situated. The just request of the people of Vézelay pleased the people of Leuze, and therefore they transmitted to the people of Vézelay one bone of our Saint, which Miraeus, Molanus and others called the Arm of St. Badilo, as is abundantly established from the letters of Ingo, dean of the church of Leuze, drawn out of the archive of Vézelay.

[52] Here they are: "To all the faithful of Christ to whom it may befall to see the present letters, was carried in the year 1221, and which is held in veneration there, Ingo the dean, and the whole chapter of the church of Leuze and the entire community of the same place, perpetual salvation in the Lord. By the testimony of these presents we make known to all that that bone which, through the venerable father, our lord Godfrey, by the grace of God bishop of Cambrai, we transmitted to the abbot and community of the church of Vézelay, at his instance and prayers, is without doubt of the Relics of blessed Baidilo, formerly abbot of our church, who is also said to have once brought the venerable body of blessed Mary Magdalene into the church of Vézelay. For the greater certainty of the matter we have had the aforesaid bone of the mentioned confessor firmly enclosed in a certain clean place under our seal, and the present letters fortified with the impression of the same seal. Done in the church of Leuze in the year of the Lord's Incarnation MCCXXI, on the Kalends of June." To these letters of the chapter of Leuze one thing may not unreasonably be added from the praised Natales of the Saints of Belgium, namely: that those especially who were seized by a demon were formerly accustomed to flock to the same Relics of St. Badilo, and to return from there, the Saint acting as patron, divinely cured of their ill.

[53] For the rest, while I compare more attentively the letters of the chapter of Leuze just recited with the document of the visitation of the shrine of St. Badilo were visited in the year 1602 made in the year 1602, I cannot wonder enough how it came about that the authentic testimonies from which Ingo the dean asserted that the Relics transmitted to the monks of Vézelay were from the body of St. Badilo were nowhere found at Leuze in the year 1602, and that not even any attesting letters (the words are those of that instrument) were found in the shrine itself, so that it seems possible to assert only by the tradition of the church of Leuze that they are in fact the head and bones of St. Badilo which William de Berghes, archbishop of Cambrai, visited in the year 1602, and which in the year 1704 were placed from the old shrine into a more magnificent one. But indeed, since this tradition can on no head be convicted of falsehood, so that on the contrary it is not to be doubted that the archbishop of Cambrai and the canons of the church of Leuze, in the visitation of the sacred body, perceived sufficient indications of truth and all the marks of lawful tradition, in which therefore it was safe to trust according to the rules of prudence; surely he would be not a little unjust to that most learned Prelate, most highly commended for vigilance, piety and holiness of life, and also to the whole chapter of the canons of Leuze, who should dare to call into doubt whether the remains of St. Badilo rest at Leuze even today. Receive now entire the letters of the mentioned visitation themselves, as they were communicated to me by the praised Reverend and Most Honourable Lord Hubert.

[54] They run thus: "Copy of the letters of the visitation of the shrine of St. Badilo made by the Reverend Lord and most illustrious archbishop of Cambrai in the year MDCII, by the archbishop of Cambrai on the 10th day of the month of July.

"On the tenth of the month of July of the year MDCII the illustrious and Most Reverend lord William de Berghes, archbishop and duke of Cambrai, in the visitation which he made in this collegiate church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul of Leuze, of his diocese of Cambrai, ordered this shrine to be opened, in which he found a leather sack containing, as is piously believed by tradition, the bones of the body of St. Badilo, formerly abbot of this church, which was once of the Order of St. Benedict" (go to what was said in § I, and what Philippe Brasseur at number 50 relates of the Benedictine monks brought into Leuze under St. Badilo), "with the head and very many bones wrapped in white linen, without, however, any attesting letters, in the presence of the venerable men the vicar general Valerian du Flos, the archdeacon of Brabant Peter Manar, canons of Cambrai, Peter Denys, dean of the same church, and many other priests assisting; which bones indeed he reverently laid back in the same sack, on the same day, month and year as above. Done in the said church under the signature and counter-seal of the same archbishop."

[55] and in the year 1704 translated into a more magnificent reliquary, This visitation of the relics of St. Badilo was followed, after one century and two years had elapsed, by their translation from the old shrine, in which they had long rested, into a more magnificent and more seemly reliquary, concerning which the capitular Acts, as they call them, of the church of Leuze speak in this manner: "Tuesday, the 7th of October, MDCCIV. The sacred body of Saint Badilo, first abbot" (understand Benedictine) "of this church of saint Peter of Leuze, was raised from the old shrine and placed in this more magnificent and more seemly one by Lord John Valentine Plumling, senior canon, on this day, in the presence of the Reverend Lords canons undersigned. It was signed J. V. Plumling, P. Delniste, Michel

François Del'estrée, Anselm Quanone, Dominican of Valenciennes, fa." Thus the copy of this document transmitted to me, to which, if, as I had earnestly requested, a picture of the reliquary itself had been joined, I would most gladly have given it to our engraver to be expressed in copper, as being by no means unworthy to be displayed here before the eyes of readers to the glory of the Saint. What sort of reliquary of St. Badilo this is, moreover, you will understand in some fashion from what follows, though it be brief.

[56] which in the year 1741 was miraculously withdrawn from the fire of the church. To the gilded plates of bronze, arranged in the manner of a chest, by which the sacred Relics are enclosed, various ornaments are attached, skilfully worked in silver; at the four lower corners of the reliquary are to be seen as many silver images of angels, representing the glory of the Saint, about one foot high; while the upper panel of the reliquary is covered by little silver fields, upon which is built with no common skill a square work of the same metal, and on this at last is laid the herm, or statue, of St. Badilo, adorned with the mitre and the other insignia of an abbot, truncated below at half its length, commendable not more for its silver material and precious stones than for its form and art. And this is the same reliquary which in the year 1741 was withdrawn from the devouring flames by which the church of Leuze was consumed, not without a singular benefit of God, as it appears, and the notable patronage of St. Badilo, by the work of a little maidservant of one Lord canon Hubert, to whom such firmness of mind and strength was granted that she alone let down that reliquary with her own hands from the lofty niche where it was laid up, above the sacred tabernacle of the divine host, and from there, with the help of another, carried it out of the burning church to a safer place, namely to the garden of the dean of the church, the Reverend and Most Honourable Lord d'Aubrenne, as the Reverend and Most Honourable Lord Hubert, praised above, affirms in express words in his notices sent to me.

[57] I go on now to recite from the praised Notices the remaining things which are fitted to illustrate the ecclesiastical veneration of St. Badilo in the church of Leuze. In what manner at Leuze the Saint's solemnity On the 8th day of October the Saint's solemnity is celebrated every year with an Office of double of the first class with an octave, which is also sometimes prolonged to fifteen days, so that thus the patronage of St. Badilo may be obtained against public calamities, pestilence, fevers raging by contagion, and the destruction of animals. After the first Vespers of the feast day, which are customarily sung in a more solemn mode, his reliquary, let down from its upper place, is carried in solemn order of procession by the canons of the church to the middle part of the church, and is exposed to the veneration of the faithful flocking together from every side, while the cantors sing these forms of prayer, or Responsory, as they call it: "Arise, Badilo, and lay open our prayers to Christ, thou who didst lead a pure life; here on earth thou didst sow what in heaven thou hast earned [*]; transfer us to the delights of paradise. ℣. Thou hast been found worthy to attain rest without end. Transfer us, etc. Glory be to the Father, etc." The Saint's Relics having now been placed on the stand, the cantors sing together this Antiphon: "O Badilo, kindly abbot, our mirror, light of the church, attend to the prayers of the suppliants who cry devoutly to thee, that thou mayest join us thy servants to the Heavenly ones by thy constant prayers"; and then, after the singing of these words: "Pray for us, holy Badilo, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ," the dean of the chapter sings this Prayer: "Be propitious, we beseech Thee, O Lord, to Thy servants through the glorious merits of the holy abbot Badilo, who rests in the present church, that by his loving intercession we may always be protected from all adversities. Through Christ, etc."

[58] Formerly, as the canon now praised more than once testifies, and with what prayers used on the day sacred to St. Badilo a solemn column of canons and other clerics in procession used to go through the whole town, with a great concourse of the people, with notable joy and devotion, and two canons carried the Saint's shrine on their shoulders; but because of a controversy that arose between the lord of Leuze and the chapter of the church, which it is not the business of this place to touch upon, that solemn procession is at the present time held only round the church itself, and St. Badilo's reliquary is carried by four canons; and at length the octave day of the festival, a solemn procession having been held within the cloisters of the old monastery of the canons, is concluded with the hymn Te Deum laudamus. Now receive the Hymn on St. Badilo which I mentioned above at number 40, from which you will understand not obscurely what tradition concerning the Saint's deeds has flourished at Leuze for some centuries now. It sounds thus.

I pray thee, Holy Spirit, Send down from heaven Into me the gift of thy grace, That I may extol worthily the Saint, Whose so notable work Shines here daily. The mind is not able to meditate, Nor is the tongue worthy to utter His praises.

[59] is customarily celebrated every year, is set forth, On this feast, O clergy, rejoice, Praise the man worthy of praise, To be praised in all things. Abbot of this church, Leading a life of justice, Was once Badilo. Concerning Mary Magdalene, Who began, full of tears, To wipe the feet of Christ, He went to the city of Aix, And found what he sought; Returning to Vézelay, He carried the holy body with him; There God revealed to the sacred Body its merit. To Leuze of the Relics He brought a part with his companions, Returned to his own country. The duke founded churches, Among which he also endowed this one With means and abundance of goods

[60] and the other things concerning his cult are related. In honour of Badilo, Who has enjoyed the gifts of death, Lying in this church. And let us too entreat Christ That we may be gathered to him In the heavenly court. Amen.

Further things that I might assert concerning the cult of St. Badilo I have found nowhere, nor, beyond what has already been said, was anything else indicated to me in the praised Notices, except that even today in the church of Leuze behind the choir there stands a chapel sacred to God under the name of St. Badilo, to which also is annexed an ecclesiastical benefice, founded formerly by the chapter of the canons in honour of the same Saint. If, beyond hope, further things come to my knowledge, they will find their place, according to our custom, among the Addenda at the end of this volume.

* read messuisti