Lambert and Bellerius

ON SS. LAMBERT AND BELLERIUS, CONFESSORS, DISCIPLES OF ST. GISLENUS, AT URSIDONGUS, NOW SAINT-GHISLAIN, IN HAINAUT,

About the year DCC.

Lambert, conf., disciple of St. Gislenus, venerated at Ursidongus, now Saint-Ghislain, in Hainaut. (S.)

Bellerius, conf., disciple of St. Gislenus, venerated at Ursidongus, now Saint-Ghislain, in Hainaut. (S.)

BY J. B.

The scarcity of ancient monuments from which the older biographers of St. Gislenus suffered brought it about Few deeds of the Saints that they could not transcribe for posterity all the things about him which it was fitting to hand down in writing, as was said above: it ought not therefore to seem wonderful if the things done by the Disciples are much fewer and less explored than those done by their Master. Born in Attica, they will perhaps have been Franks or Belgians by origin, and have exchanged their Greek name for a Frankish or Belgian name when they came into Belgium together with St. Gislenus: they seem indeed to have been companions of St. Gislenus when he set out from Greece to Rome, from what was said in the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Gislenus, §4, number 37. Further, that both, without doubt on account of the excellence of their virtues, were held in esteem and love by their Master before the rest, and constantly clung to him, is clear enough from his Acts. There is no one who relates any singular deed of theirs, if you except Rainer (concerning whom more was disputed at page 1011 and following): he in chapter 3 records in these words a certain apparition of St. Lambert, made to a certain Egrard when the relics of St. Gislenus had been stealthily carried to Maubeuge: After this, on the following night, a certain Egrard saw in a vision as it were that he was in the oratory of the same Cella (that is, of the monastery of Cella), standing before the altar of Mary the Mother of God, and behold, a certain man appearing said to him: Do you know who I am? And when he had answered, I do not know: I am, he said, Lambert, the godson of my lord Gislenus. Put away the sadness which you have about him, for my godfather will quickly return to you. Rise, then, go, tell count Herbert (probably of Vermandois, concerning whom see page 1025, number 62), who has continually been an excellent neighbour to my lord, that he should go * to Maubeuge, telling the brothers and sisters of the place that they give back to him St. Gislenus, whom they carried off hence, and whom they still keep with them: for not even God himself desires that (he) remain there, but in the place which the almighty deigned to provide for him. But neither does this fact appear altogether certain. For what Rainer ascribes to St. Lambert, I do not know whether the contemporary author of the Finding of the body of the same Saint does not attribute to St. Gislenus himself in the following words: Thereupon, when the priest, sacristan of the Cella of the blessed Man, and the neighbours round about, in suspense, are affected with excessive grief over the body carried off, the same (St. Gislenus) appeared to some of them in a vision, consoling them and promising that he would quickly return, and at the same time warning that the people of Maubeuge should be called to account over this. As I do not have their deeds, so neither do I have explored the years in which they migrated from this life: it becomes probable, however, that they survived their master by some years: since therefore he seems to have died about the year 681, it seemed good to me by conjecture to defer their death to about the year 700.

[2] and cult They are inscribed indeed in various, but not very ancient, sacred Fasti: they are mentioned at the 30th day of May by Wion, Dorgan, Bucelin and others: Which festivity (of SS. Lambert and Bellerius, says Wion) is celebrated every year on Cantate Sunday, that is the IVth after Easter. Why then does he bind this feast to the 30th day of May? More rightly Molanus, in the Natal days of the Saints of Belgium, says that their feast was celebrated on the day after that Sunday, writing thus of them at the 9th day of October: Further, the Saints Berlerius (whom he asserts is also called Valerius) and Lambert, priests and confessors, disciples and

fellow-workers of St. Gislenus — that I may subjoin them to their master — rest together in a portable coffer in the parish church of the town of Saint-Ghislain, where they have the Office from the common of Confessors; and their feast is celebrated among the citizens on the Monday after the day of the Dedication of the church, which falls on Cantate Sunday, the fourth after Easter. Philippe Brasseur, in his metrical Panegyric of the Saints of Hainaut, chimes in with Molanus thus:

The relics of both, now shut in an equal casket, The one parish consecrated to Martin keeps: Moreover it pays the Office to both every year On the day after the fourth of the Lord's, Easter being past, When the Monday returns to the blessed church.

[3] sacred. The feast of SS. Lambert and Bellerius, which had hitherto been movable, was, at the prayers of the lord Gislenus Molle, abbot of Saint-Ghislain, with the assent of Jacques-Théodore de Bryas, archbishop of Cambrai, fixed to the 30th day of May, and reckoned among the feasts of the second class, as I learned from the Notices of Saint-Ghislain, in the year 1688; namely in the same year in which there came to light the seventh volume of May, in which our Predecessors, at the 30th day of that month, judged that SS. Lambert and Bellerius were to be put off to the 9th day of October, as being sacred to their master. The Notices just praised add moreover that a certain reckoning was entered into in the monastery, as I think, of Saint-Ghislain, in the year 1054, in the month of May, and so more than a whole century before the decree on the cult of Saints given by Urban VIII in the year 1625, in which mention is made of a certain sum of money paid out on the day sacred to SS. Lambert and Bellirius: from which finally we likewise ascertain that a confraternity was instituted there in their honour, and that some relics of the same were once kept in the seminary of Mons.

* read eat