ON ST. VENANTIUS THE HERMIT, VENERATED AS A MARTYR, IN ARTOIS, A PROVINCE OF BELGIUM,
WELL ON IN THE EIGHTH CENTURY.
HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.
Venantius, hermit, venerated as a martyr, in Artois, a province of Belgium. (S.)
BY C. B.
§ I. His ancient cult, his memory in the more recent sacred Fasti, his Life not to be published, his birth from St. Amelberga wrongly asserted, and his near kinship with some other Saints either doubtful or certainly false.
In Artois, a province of Belgium, between Aire and Merville, on the stream of the Legia or Lys towards Armentières, lies the shrine of St. Venantius, or, if you prefer, Venantiopolis, in French Saint-Venant. The Saint, whose ancient here In this town St. Venantius the hermit, who gave the place its name, and who, although born in Hainaut, as will appear from what is to be said below, also gave it, as they will have it, its first origin by the hermit's hut built for himself there and by the sacred chapel substituted for it afterwards by St. Itisberga in honour of him when he had been slain, is venerated from time immemorial every year, as a Martyr, on the present day, which is sacred to his name; and the same is also done in the parish of Yberghe or Ysberghe and in the church of Aire, not far removed from there. In all past memory, says Malbrancq, volume 2 De Morinis, page 904, the church of St. Venantius, that of Ysberghe and that of Aire have kept the feast-day of St. Venantius of Hainaut. And indeed the Saint seems to have been honoured today in almost the same manner in the church of Aire as in the town of his name and in the parish of Ysberghe or Iberghe, always until the year 1622. So I judge, because Gazet and Molanus — the former in the ecclesiastical History of Belgium which appeared in the year 1614, the latter in the Index and Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium, printed before the year 1596 — affirm that he is venerated today with a solemn feast both at Aire and at Venantiopolis, and Miræus moreover supports them in the Belgian and Burgundian Fasti, published about the year 1622, inasmuch as he writes thus there today of our Saint: He has a feast-day sacred to him in the little town of his name and in the neighbouring basilica of the canons of Aire.
[2] But after the year 1622 some change seems to have been introduced into the cult which he had until then enjoyed at Aire. together with the change, in the last century, introduced at Aire into his cult, For the cited Malbrancq — who, since he lived for a long time at Aire, as Henschenius witnesses among us at the 21st day of May, in St. Itisberga, num. 1, undoubtedly had thoroughly ascertained how this matter stood — in the second volume of his Work De Morinis, which saw the light in the year 1647, chapter 15, having said some things at the beginning about the cult usually paid on the 11th day of October, by certain people among whom St. Venantius of Aire or of Hainaut lived as a solitary, to another Venantius, born among the Bituriges and abbot of St. Martin at Tours, then proceeds thus, giving also a probable reason for the said change: I think, therefore, that the canons of Aire formerly venerated two Venantiuses on two consecutive days, and indeed the one of Bourges by reason of the relics; but that, since the Office of St. Venantius was mingled with and almost included in the Office of St. Ysberga on the 21st of May, only the cult of the one of Bourges remained in October; otherwise the people of Aire themselves honour the one of Aire with especial veneration. But in truth, that our Venantius, who in the past century, when it was already well advanced, was venerated today in the town of his name and in the parish of Iberghe with an ecclesiastical Office of nine lessons, as I understand from notices written at that time and extant among us, was then still honoured with a collect in the church of Aire also, although it celebrated Venantius the abbot with an Office of nine lessons on the following day, is expressly asserted in another Notice, written in the year 1647, about the same year in which the second volume De Morinis of the above-cited Malbrancq appeared.
[3] his cult at Aire, This I observed, not without some astonishment, having inspected that very Notice, which I have at hand. For that assertion seems altogether to conflict with Malbrancq, inasmuch as he not obscurely insinuates by these words, as it appears, that the cult of Venantius of Bourges alone still remained there in October when he wrote the words just recited, the cult which our Venantius had once enjoyed in the church of Aire in the season of October having meanwhile been suppressed. But what are we to do here? In order that Malbrancq may be brought into concord with the said Notice, it appears that it must be said that he spoke thus, not because the canons of Aire did not even make a collect or prayer in honour of our Saint today
then recited, but because they no longer then celebrated this day as especially sacred to Venantius, nor our Saint himself with an Office of nine lessons in October, as they had done before. However that may be, it appears certain from all that has been said that some change was introduced into the cult which Venantius had enjoyed in the church of Aire in the century just past, or after the year, as I said, 1622, and that the Saint was nevertheless still at that time venerated every year today with an Office of nine lessons both in the parish of Isberghe and in the town of his name. Nor do I think it is to be doubted that he is honoured with the same honour every year at this day in those two latter places today also.
[4] Further, although Venantius, who is absent from the present Roman Martyrology, his memory in the more recent sacred Fasti is not found in Usuard either or in other more ancient sacred Fasti, Molanus nevertheless, most probably impelled by the ecclesiastical cult which he enjoyed and, from what has been said, had enjoyed for a very long time, inserted him today both in his Additions to Usuard and in the Index and Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium; and Molanus was afterwards followed by Ferrarius in his General Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, Miræus in the Belgian and Burgundian Fasti, du Saussay in the Gallican, Willot in the Belgian, Chastelain in the Universal, and finally Wallasser in the German Martyrology, in which, however, Venantius is erroneously asserted to be venerated in Gaul beside the river Aire (for Aire is not a river of Gallia Belgica, but a town). And all these indeed rightly gave St. Venantius a place in the sacred Fasti prepared by them, according to their purpose; but since the monastic martyrologists Wion, Dorganius and Ménard had as their purpose only to record the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict, for what reason these nevertheless likewise introduced St. Venantius, whom nothing suggests ought to be ascribed to the Benedictine Order, into the sacred Fasti which they composed, I do not perceive. Bucelinus does not mark our Saint in his Menology, which he nevertheless prepared for celebrating the Saints of the Benedictine Order, and Mabillon makes no mention of him either in the Acts of the Benedictine Saints or in the Benedictine Annals. Among those Passed Over, indeed, whom he presents in the 3rd Benedictine Century, part 2, he records St. Venantius the hermit from Molanus at the 10th of October, but he does so without adding any note whatever by which to indicate that he was a Benedictine. And this now suffices concerning the Saint's cult and the memory of him recorded in the more recent sacred Fasti.
[5] Let us proceed to the Acts. There is extant among us a certain Life of St. Venantius, and a summary of his deeds, drawn partly from a Life not to be published, taken, as is noted at its head, from the manuscript Lectionary of the village of St. Itisberga and distributed into several lessons. But since St. Venantius is believed to have lived in the 8th century, as will become plain from what is to be said below, and in the two centuries immediately following not a few ancient monuments of affairs perished, the Normans bursting into Belgium and laying everything waste, it is indeed greatly to be feared that that Life of our Saint, which no one will say was written before the 9th and 10th centuries and the most ferocious ravagings of that nation, was first cast into writing, like many other Legends of the Saints of Belgium and of Gaul, not from old and trustworthy documents but only from the tradition of the unlearned common people that survived after them. Wherefore what our Henschenius pronounced at the 21st day of May concerning the Life of St. Itisberga, likewise taken from the cited Lectionary, I do not fear to pronounce here also concerning the said Life of our Saint, as other things to be said below also suggest, namely that its writer, whoever he was, being insufficiently skilled in antiquities, seems to have collected what he wrote from the rumour of the common people, and that what he has thrust upon us does not appear sufficiently worthy to be inserted in this Work. But although this is so, and I am therefore not going to publish that Life, yet, so that the reader may see as at a single glance what is chiefly found committed to writing about the Saint, and may thus be the better able to pass his own judgement on what is to be said below, it will be helpful to have presented here in summary, if not each and every thing which that Legend of St. Venantius, such as it is, comprises, at least the principal things which are recorded of the Saint partly in it, partly elsewhere. I approach the matter itself. Venantius, born in Hainaut of noble parents who were related by kinship to the count of that region, followed the military life while still a youth; but, wounded by a lance in a mock combat, he conceived the purpose of forsaking the world, and, the wound which he had received in his shin being scarcely healed, he migrated from his fatherland into Artois, clad only in a cheap cloth, secretly from all his kinsfolk and friends.
[6] is set forth, Having arrived there, he withdrew into a grove which was called in Latin the Waste Forest, in the vernacular Waslau or Wastelau, and stretched from Aire to Broyle, intending to lead the eremitical life there; he built himself a little house or hut of felled timber, gave himself wholly to penance and pious exercises, came upon a blind old woman, whom he consoled for the loss of her sight and who afterwards from time to time treated the wound of his shin when it broke out afresh; he became known to King Pepin, who often stayed in the neighbouring palace of Aire, and who then wished his children, and by name his daughter Itisberga, to be instructed by him in sacred precepts; by his exhortation he induced her, who was making especial progress under the discipline of the holy Man, to vow perpetual chastity, and therefore, when she altogether refused to marry, as her parents wished, the king of Portugal, or, as Malbrancq interprets it, De Morinis, book 5, chapter 21, the prince of English Wales, by whom, having come to Artois, she was sought in marriage, he obtained from God by his prayers a fever and scrofula, a sure defence for declining the nuptials; and when thus this prince or king had been disappointed of the hoped-for nuptials, Venantius is killed either by his companions, angry at this, who alleged that it had been done chiefly through the Saint's agency, or by a robber, who hoped that he would find money with him; he is thrown into the Lys flowing past, and is found with an eel clinging to him by fishermen who had long laboured in vain to catch a fish for Itisberga, who had learned by divine revelation that the Saint had been killed and that she was to be healed by eating the first fish to be caught in that river; and when he was not recognized by them, yet presently, after Itisberga, having eaten the eel and implored the Saint's intercession, had recovered her former health, he is recognized from the scar of the wound once received in his shin by the blind old woman mentioned above, who came up; and when he had restored sight to her also as soon as she had touched his body, he is laid in a stone sarcophagus, his head, which had been cut off from the rest of the body, being placed at his breast between his hands, and is buried most honourably by the care of Itisberga.
[7] son of St. Amelberga, and brother of SS. Ablebert, Reynildis and Gudila, Such is the summary of the principal things recorded of St. Venantius which I thought should be placed here before the reader's eyes. Now also I add what I think of most of them and of other things connected with them which are narrated of the Saint. I begin from the noble parents, and the sisters and brothers, who are attributed to him. There is also extant among us a certain relation of the Life of St. Itisberga, published in French by Jean Offanius, pastor of the church of St. Itisberga, in the year 1629 from the presses of Saint-Omer, and already mentioned by Henschenius in his historical Commentary on that Saint at the 21st day of May; and in this, or rather in the Life of our Saint, such as it is, which is woven into it from page 30 to page 55, the parents of St. Venantius are expressed by name, which is not done in the summary just given, or, if you prefer, in the above-cited lectionary of the church of St. Itisberga, from which whatever is said in that summary about the Saint's birth is drawn. And indeed the father, with the title of duke of Lorraine also ascribed to him, is named Theodoric, and the mother St. Amelberga, and the Saint is asserted moreover to have been the brother of St. Ablebert or Emebert, bishop of Cambrai, and likewise of SS. Pharaïldis, Ermelendis, Reynildis and Gudila. But besides the fact that the name of Lorraine was not known before the year 869, as Bollandus proves in his Commentary on Blessed Pepin at the 21st day of February, and hence Theodoric, who, if he was the father of St. Venantius, who most probably died, from what is to be said, before the year 768, must have flourished long before the said year 869, is not rightly enough called duke of Lorraine, he was not the father of Venantius, nor was St. Amelberga his mother, which nevertheless Molanus affirms in the Index of the Saints of Belgium, and at the 10th day of October Wion in the Lignum Vitae, Ferrarius in the General Catalogue of the Saints who are not in the Roman Martyrology, and finally Gazet in the Ecclesiastical History of Belgium, page 283, also affirm. For Theodoric either was or was not two-named. If he was not two-named, who, I ask, will persuade himself that he begot St. Venantius and the other children mentioned by Offanius of St. Amelberga, who, as Gilles Waulde shows in St. Ursmar and seven other Saints of Lobbes, page 291, was joined in matrimony only once and with no other than Witger?
[8] But if he was two-named and called by his other name Witger, and likewise of St. Ermelendis, is wrongly asserted, how can it be that St. Amelberga, who, as is proved among us at the 10th day of July in the preliminary Commentary on that holy widow, §2, bore to Witger only three children, Ermelendis and Pharaïldis being excluded, namely St. Ablebert, bishop of Cambrai, and his two sisters St. Reynildis and St. Gudila, was also the mother of St. Venantius? Moreover (see our Work, in the Commentary just cited, num. 13), St. Gudila, who was the youngest and last offspring of St. Amelberga, was born about the year 650. Wherefore it will be necessary that St. Venantius, if he was the son of St. Amelberga, was born before this year, and that hence, at the time when Pepin, elected king by the Franks, was anointed by St. Boniface, archbishop of Mainz, which, as Pagi shows in the Critica, was done in the year 752, he was more than a hundred years old: but since, as constant tradition has it and as is believed everywhere by all, Venantius embraced the eremitical life when Pepin was already reigning, and it appears indubitable that he did this when he was still a youth, or certainly when he had not yet reached a very advanced age, it follows as a consequence that most probably, not to say undoubtedly, he was born no earlier than when not a few years had elapsed even after the year 650, and that hence he is wrongly asserted to be the son of St. Amelberga by Molanus, Wion, Offanius, Ferrarius and Gazet, the first of whom Peter Louwius, their editor, therefore excellently corrected in this point in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium. But indeed, you will say, although St. Venantius, as appears from what has been said, was with sufficient certainty neither the son of St. Amelberga nor the brother of SS. Ablebert, Reynildis and Gudila, did he at least have SS. Ermelendis and Pharaïldis as sisters
or not? Since St. Ermelendis, as may be seen in our Work, in the Commentary just cited, num. 16, certainly departed this life no later than the year 598, who, I beseech you, would affirm as even in any way probable that Venantius, who only in the reign of Pepin, or more than a century and a half after Ermelendis's death, began to live as a hermit while still a youth, or certainly not a very old man, had her as a sister?
[9] and it is also whether he had St. Pharaïldis as a sister But as regards St. Pharaïldis, that St. Venantius is reported to be the brother of this holy virgin, without the names of the parents whom both had being expressed, is affirmed also by the first of the lessons into which, as I said above, the Life of our Saint is divided in the manuscript Lectionary of the village of St. Itisberga, which moreover thrusts upon us as the brother of St. Venantius St. [ ], martyr. But those who call St. Venantius the brother of SS. Pharaïldis and Gangulphus most probably do so only because they think that St. Amelberga was married not only to Witger but also to Theodoric, duke, as they say, of Lorraine, who was distinct from Witger, and that from this marriage came forth Gangulphus the martyr, Venantius the martyr and St. Pharaïldis. Molanus makes me think so, who at the 10th day of July in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium writes thus: There are those who assert that she (St. Amelberga) was twice married, that from her later husband Witger she received the three holy offspring already mentioned, namely Emebert or Ablebert, Reynildis and Gudila: but from her later husband (namely Theodoric, as he is called by some) likewise three, Gengulphus the martyr, Venantius the martyr and St. Pharaïldis. But besides the fact that no trace of this marriage, as Molanus presently subjoins, appears in the Histories of Gengulphus, Venantius and Amelberga, I have already shown above from Gilles Waulde that St. Amelberga was married only once and to no other than Witger. But, you will perhaps say, Theodoric, if not of St. Amelberga, at any rate of another wife begot SS. Gengulphus, Venantius and Pharaïldis.
[10] and had St. Gangulphus as a brother, is uncertain and doubtful. Certainly among us, at the 4th day of January, in the Acts of St. Pharaïldis, it is expressly related that her father was Theodoric, ruling within the borders of Lorraine and Gaul, who had also a twin offspring of sons; but there the names of those two sons are not expressed; and since this is so, and no one hitherto, not even Bollandus himself, the founder of our Work, at the 4th day of January, where he treated of St. Pharaïldis of set purpose, has been able to determine the certain age of this holy virgin, it is indeed doubtful whether Pharaïldis was not distant from the age of St. Venantius by a century and a half or even more, and hence whether he could have had her as a sister, still less whether he in fact had her. Nor is it more certain that St. Gengulphus, of whom we have already treated in our Work at the 11th day of May, was our Saint's brother. Gengulphus indeed flourished in the same 8th century as Venantius, as may be seen in that place; but he, as you will also find there, was born of Burgundian parents, and the other of parents of Hainaut; so that surely our Bollandus at the 15th day of January, in St. Emebert, num. XI, deservedly said: Whether Venantius and Gengulphus were brothers is not clear.
§ II. Whether the Saint was sprung from the counts of Hainaut, what things about him seem safely credible, about what time he died, and in what place he was buried.
[Whether Hugh, brother of the count of Hainaut, was, as Malbrancq will have it, of St. Venantius] Malbrancq, who records not a few things about St. Venantius in book 5 De Morinis — but most of which I could wish were supported by the authority of sufficiently old authors — in that place, chapter 15, likewise rejects the opinion of Offanius, already rejected by us in the preceding §, which numbers SS. Venantius and Gengulphus among the offspring of St. Amelberga; but at the same time, not content with having asserted in general with the same Offanius that the Saint's ancestors were counts of Hainaut and that his father was joined in blood with Pepin himself, the parent of St. Itisberga, he also sets out by name from which of the counts of Hainaut the Saint was sprung; and in doing this he affirms that the brothers Walter and Hugh, of whom the former possessed the county of Hainaut, transferred to him from his father Alberic, who died in the year 694, and the latter was count of the Cambrésis, joined to themselves in marriage the sisters of Hervæus, count of Metz. And this indeed (whether rightly or otherwise I do not examine here) Vinchant also relates in the Annals of Hainaut composed by him, page 119 and following, citing Wassebourg, Rosières and Guise in the margin; but he does not add that St. Venantius was begotten of the other sister of Count Hervæus by Hugh, count of the Cambrésis, after marriage had been contracted with her, as Malbrancq nevertheless moreover most clearly does in the place just cited, without alleging any ancient witness at all on his own behalf. He cites indeed in general certain Monuments, but, besides not declaring what or of what kind these are, he himself reveals that in them it is only asserted that Venantius was begotten of people of Hainaut, which by no means settles the matter. Nor, even if you add to those monuments the Life of our Saint, such as it is, already mentioned more than once above, which, as I showed above, the manuscript Lectionary of the village of St. Itisberga comprises, would you elicit anything from it on behalf of Malbrancq. For although that Life, or, if you prefer, the said Lectionary of Isberghe, expressly relates that St. Venantius was related by lineage of blood to the count of the Henonenses, yet it does not declare in what degree of kinship Venantius was related to the count of Hainaut, still less whether in so near a degree as to have had the above-mentioned Alberic as his grandfather.
[12] Moreover, even if it were otherwise and it most clearly asserted that the Saint was the nephew of Walter, count of the Henonenses or Hainonenses, was the father, as also yet it would not thereby be made certain that this was so, and hence not that our Saint was begotten by his brother Hugh, count of the Cambrésis. For besides the fact that that Life, being to be held, as the things alleged above, num. 5, suggest, in only slight esteem, is altogether unfit for establishing that matter, counts of Hainaut, of whom one could receive this province by hereditary right from another, and by name Walter, the paternal uncle of Venantius, from Alberic, did not exist from as early as the 7th and 8th centuries, as he intimates. Malbrancq indeed adduces some things, De Morinis, book 5, page 901, which are of a nature to suggest the contrary in some way; but the most noble baron Le Roy, in his Notes on the Genealogical History of the counts of Hainaut by Baldwin of Avesnes, page 7, observes thus against Molanus, because he calls St. Vincent Madelgarius, who flourished as the 7th century was growing old and is already inserted in our Work at the 14th day of July, on which he is venerated, count of Hainaut: Both he himself and many others more recent than he are mistaken in calling St. Vincent count of Hainaut. He was indeed a count, and lived in that region which is called Hainaut; but it was subject to the kings of France; and those titles and prefectures of counts and dukes were not then patrimonial and hereditary. Thus he, and rightly indeed; and if anyone still doubts of the matter, let him go to the Commentary of our Sollerius on St. Vincent Madelgarius at the said 14th day of July, num. 6, let him go also, if he pleases, to Du Cange at the words Comes and Comites in the Glossary of Middle and Low Latinity, and he will see from what he adduces there that it was only in the 9th century that it came about that, the power of the kings having been diminished and the authority of the counts having grown, the latter transferred to their sons or other heirs their dignities and prefectures, from which they could formerly be removed at the prince's pleasure.
[13] [whether he was a kinsman of Pepin, father of St. Itisberga, is altogether doubtful;] But even if we were to grant for the moment that counts existed from as early as the 7th and 8th centuries who possessed Hainaut by hereditary right, what, I ask, would Malbrancq achieve from this? Thus indeed he will obtain that Venantius could have been joined by kinship with a hereditary count of Hainaut; but that he was in fact joined, and was the offspring of Hugh, count of the Cambrésis, who was the son of Alberic, hereditary count of Hainaut, he will certainly not yet have proved, ancient monuments that testify to either being altogether lacking. Further, the other argument which Malbrancq still brings forward to prove that Venantius was at least sprung from the count of the Cambrésis, and which he draws from the arms usually painted on our Saint's image and containing an eagle, does not deserve to be laboriously refuted here. For such arms, as he himself confesses, were not attributed to the Cambrésis before Cambrai passed from the Franks to the empire, which happened long after our Saint's age, and they began to be painted on Venantius's image much later still; and since this is so, those arms are an argument that Venantius perhaps was believed by those by whom they were painted on his image to have been sprung from the count of the Cambrésis, but not that he was in fact so sprung. And so, although there seems no doubt that Venantius was truly noble of race, yet whether he was sprung from the counts of Hainaut, and above all whether he was begotten by Hugh, count of the Cambrésis and son of Alberic, count of Hainaut, remains, all things now having been weighed, altogether uncertain and doubtful, as does also whether the father of St. Venantius was joined by kinship with Pepin, the father of St. Itisberga (for likewise no sufficiently ancient monument is found upon which this might be built), although meanwhile Malbrancq will have this too, from what has been said.
[14] No less uncertain, if not rather undoubtedly false and fictitious, and although even with fables, which about the death inflicted on the Saint are the things which Malbrancq narrates, De Morinis, book 5, chapter 22, about the cause and authors of the death inflicted on St. Venantius. In the summary of the principal things narrated of our Saint, placed before the eyes above, num. 5 and 6, it is asserted that Venantius was killed either by a robber, who hoped that he would find money with him, or by the companions of the prince or king who had been disappointed of the hoped-for nuptials with St. Itisberga, who thought that this had been done chiefly through the Saint's agency and hence were angry with him. And this assertion indeed, which is disjunctive and in one of its parts, as we shall see below, seems consonant with the truth, did not altogether displease, as it appears, the above-cited Offanius. But Malbrancq, while he relates in book 5 De Morinis that the Saint, after he had by his exhortation induced Itisberga to vow perpetual chastity, was killed and thrown into the Lys, and, drawn out from there not long after, prodigiously restored her former health to the sick Itisberga and sight to the blind old woman, has disfigured this part of our Saint's Life with so many circumstances, so many by-works, so many episodes, studiously invented almost, as it appears, only for this end, that each and every thing he writes might be connected with one another and further composed as aptly as possible, and not supported by the authority of any sufficiently ancient writer or document
that indeed what he committed to writing there seems to bear the appearance rather of a poem written in prose than of an unfeigned narrative; and thus, using a more liberal pen than was sparing, he joins the two parts of the disjunctive assertion adduced just now, of which one has it that Venantius was killed by the companions of the prince who had been disappointed of the hoped-for nuptials with Itisberga, the other by a robber who thought he would find money with the Saint, and thus, as will perhaps seem to some, brings them into concord.
[15] And so he affirms, in the cited book De Morinis, chapter 22, without using any little word at all by which he might insinuate that he doubts in any way of the truth of the matter, that two of the companions of the prince of Wales, and by Malbrancq are asserted, are to be counted who was the son of Aldric, king of the English, and had been disappointed of the hoped-for nuptials with Itisberga, ascribing this to Venantius and therefore incensed against him, joined themselves to a brigand who asserted that treasures lay hidden with Venantius, and, having taken counsel with him, proceeded to the Saint's hermit's hut in order to kill him, and that when they had come to it, either the brigand or a British henchman inflicted death on him by driving a sword into the Saint's neck. But although I do not deny with Le Cointe, in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks at the year 766, num. 22, that St. Itisberga was the daughter of King Pepin, and adhere to Henschenius, who did not think this was to be denied in his Historical Commentary on that Saint at the 21st day of May, num. 3, yet that she, whom with Henschenius in the place just cited I think distinct from Gisela or Gisla, likewise a daughter of King Pepin, who was asked in marriage by Leo, son of Constantine Copronymus, and also by Adalgisus, son of Desiderius, king of the Lombards, was sought as a wife about the year 766 either by the king of Portugal or, as Malbrancq says, by the prince of English Wales, having come from England into Artois, I judge to be fictitious. This opinion is settled with me, both because, as Henschenius says in the Historical Commentary on St. Itisberga, num. 6, there was then no king of Portugal, Lusitania groaning under the most cruel servitude of the Moors, nor is mention of those nuptials sought found elsewhere; and because, as Le Cointe writes in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks at the year 766, num. 23, Aldric, who reigned among the English in Kent from the year of Christ 760 to the year 794, had no male offspring or son who could have sought Itisberga as his wife, nor did the first-born son of the king of the English begin to be called prince of Wales until much later.
[16] seem, nor does the argument which is set forth here from Malbrancq Now since it is surely fictitious and false, as is clear from what has been said, that St. Itisberga was sought in marriage by the prince of Wales, it is necessary that it be likewise fictitious that a fever and scrofula were summoned for her from God by the prayers of St. Venantius to decline the nuptials of this prince, as also that the Saint was killed by two companions of the same prince, who had conspired with a robber, because, at the malicious suggestion of a certain one of Pepin's courtiers, as Malbrancq adds, they believed that he had persuaded Itisberga to chastity and had brought it about by his arts that the prince had been disappointed of the hoped-for nuptials. But Malbrancq, to the words by which he would have it, in book 5 De Morinis, the chapter just cited, that St. Venantius was killed for this cause by two companions of the prince of Wales, a robber having been joined to them, presently subjoins: I am not unaware that others simply attribute this death to three brigands (Molanus and others commonly make mention of only one) seized with greed for treasures; but since the cult of martyrdom has been attributed to Venantius in every age now, and the slaughter itself was perpetrated shortly after that breaking of the nuptial compact, we deservedly embrace the former opinion of this kind as well (namely that just now related). For a twofold cause of his death is to be ascertained by us; but as to that which made him a martyr, I think none more ready to hand or more true can be brought forward, since it was known to the courtiers that Ghysla (nay, Itisberga) depended wholly on Venantius. Thus he, contending, namely, that Venantius was killed not only on account of the treasures which were thought to be found with him, but also on account of Itisberga, induced to the vow of chastity and helped by counsel and aid to avoid the nuptials of the prince of Wales, for this reason, that Venantius has been venerated as a Martyr in every age now, and this would not have come about if he had been killed by one or by several brigands only out of the greed with which they gaped after the money which, as they thought, lay hidden with him.
[17] prove the contrary, But whatever this argument may be, by it Malbrancq surely by no means proves that the cause had place on account of which he affirms that St. Venantius was killed by two companions of the prince of Wales, a robber having been joined to them, since the things which I have just now brought forward clearly show that it is undoubtedly false and fictitious. Moreover, although indeed, for martyrdom in the strict sense, it is altogether required that death be inflicted out of hatred of the divine faith or of an act commanded or counselled by the divine law, as the supreme Pontiff Benedict XIV proves at length in De Servorum Dei Beatificatione etc., why nevertheless could not St. Venantius, although killed only from the common and well-known eagerness of robbers who slaughter in order to plunder, have been held and venerated as a Martyr for a very long time now in the way in which St. Gerold, already inserted in our Work at the 7th day of October, and some other Saints, wickedly butchered and illustrious for miracles after their death, were once held and venerated as Martyrs? This I surely do not perceive. Nevertheless, since our Saint at any rate cannot thus be called a Martyr in the strict sense, I have therefore indicated at the head of this Commentary that he is inserted in our Work not simply as a Martyr but only as venerated as a Martyr. Chastelain seems to have doubted whether St. Venantius was killed or not for a cause required for martyrdom of the true name, and hence, as it appears, since he announces him today only in the following words, Near Aire in Artois, St. Venantius, hermit, killed by evil-minded men, he neither honours him with the title of Martyr, nor affirms that he was killed by robbers, either several or one, but, using a more general word, by evil-minded men. He had, namely, examined both Malbrancq, who notes that the Saint was slain for a cause required for martyrdom of the true name, and Molanus, who notes that he was slain only from hope of plunder, and since he was not in a position to decide which of these writers was to be adhered to, he left the matter undecided, using the announcement which I have just now set before the eyes.
[18] But here, unless perhaps what seems to be indicated in a certain excerpt of the Antiphonary of the church of St. Venantius extant among us, [yet the things which are set forth here about the Saint can, as it appears, safely be believed,] about the Saint having been killed by a robber because he had reproved him for his crimes, be preferred, the things which I have already brought forward above suggest that Molanus is to be adhered to, and not Malbrancq; and since this is so, and I have now brought forward, as I had determined, some things pertaining to the Saint which by no means merit credence, I now turn my discourse to other things which, as it appears, can be believed with sufficient safety, or without certain danger of erring. Although the Saint, as I showed above, was neither born of St. Amelberga nor most probably had as his parent Hugh, brother of the count of Hainaut, yet I persuade myself that he can safely be believed to have been sprung of noble race in Hainaut, for this reason, that almost with unanimous consent all who treat of Venantius attach to him either parents very noble of race, or at least in general the appellation of noble, the constant tradition both of the people of Aire and of the people of Saint-Venant, whose beginning is unknown, also supporting it. Further, that the Saint, having been wounded in a mock combat, bade farewell to the world and withdrew into Artois into the waste forest, of which more can be seen in Malbrancq, De Morinis, book 5, chapter 14, towards the end; that he led the eremitical life there; that he imbued St. Itisberga with sacred precepts; and that he was honourably buried by her care, after, having been drawn out by fishermen from the river Lys, into which he had been thrown after the death inflicted on him, he had restored health to her when she was sick and sight to the blind old woman who had formerly from time to time done him kindnesses — these things too I am without difficulty persuaded can be believed with sufficient safety, as also that all these things happened when Pepin was already reigning. I am so minded both on account of the almost unanimous consent in this matter of the writers who treat of the Saint, and on account of the constant tradition which is added to it and flourishes both among the people of Saint-Venant and among those of Isberghe and of Aire.
[19] But since this is so, when then is the Saint's withdrawal into the desert, and hence he is determined to have died well on in the 8th century, when his death, to be determined? Malbrancq, in the Chronology prefixed by him to volume 2 De Morinis, attaches the latter to the year 766 and the former to the year 762; so that, if he is to be assented to here, our Saint stayed in the desert only four years. But since Pepin reigned from the year 752 to the year 768, and neither the tradition just cited nor writers older than Malbrancq determine the years in which Venantius, that prince reigning, withdrew into the desert and afterwards died, it seems that it may not undeservedly be doubted whether this writer did this rightly here. For the year to which he binds the Saint's departure into the desert he cites indeed the monuments of Aire; but of what age these are he does not declare, and it may be questioned whether they were not written some centuries after the Saint's age and the irruptions of the Normans into Belgium, only from the rumour of the unlearned common people, or from the popular tradition that flourished among the people of Aire; and since this is so, and the things which Henschenius alleges in St. Itisberga, num. 4, show that the traditions of the people of Aire are to be admitted only with the greatest caution, it appears indeed that it must be held uncertain whether the departure of Venantius into the desert did not happen somewhat either before or after the year 762, to which Malbrancq attaches it. And not only no less, but on the contrary even more, does it seem uncertain whether Malbrancq rightly connects the Saint's death with the year 766. For this he does not allege even any monument or any author; and since this is so, and he seems to have joined the Saint's death with that year of Christ at his mere pleasure, hence I, persuading myself on account of what has been said that Venantius died while Pepin reigned, or between the year 752 and the year 768, but at the same time doubting not a little whether this did not happen somewhat either before or after the year 766, have indicated above in the margin that he passed to those above not in this determined year but well on in the 8th century, so that I might thus more surely keep away from the danger of erring.
[20] to his body, not at Saint-Venant, as Molanus seems to have thought, Further, to follow the order of events, it is next now that, having spoken of the Saint's death and the time at which it happened, we should now begin our discourse on his burial.
And that the Saint was buried with St. Itisberga taking charge of the funeral can safely be believed, as I have already shown above, and in fact is believed everywhere by all; but concerning the place where he was laid and now still rests there is dispute, some contending that the Saint was buried, and further still rests, in the town which is named after St. Venantius, others on the hill or in the village which received the name first of Petro-Berga from the church sacred to St. Peter there, and then of Itisberga from St. Itisberga, buried there. The holy body, says Molanus today of the body of St. Venantius in the Birthdays of the Saints of Belgium, was placed within an oratory in a stone sarcophagus, and to this very day rests honourably in the little town which from his name is called Saint-Venant. But Locrius in his Annals of Belgium at the year 768 opposes Molanus here in these words: As to what Molanus says, that the body of blessed Venantius rests in the little town of his name, although it has until now been piously believed, yet in that very year in which we write these things, namely 1608, its finding took place, to the great astonishment of all, in the very church and village of St. Itisberga, which is separated from the city of Aire by about five hundred paces, and the most reverend lord Jacques Blasæus, bishop of Saint-Omer, inquired diligently into it, as was fitting. Thus this writer in few words; but Malbrancq, in volume 2 De Morinis, issued in the year 1647 and hence long after the year in which Locrius was writing these things, book 5, chapter 24, makes discourse on that matter much more copiously.
[21] And first indeed he describes in the following manner the stone sarcophagus in which a body, but at Petro-Berga, as from the things which was believed by many to be that of St. Venantius, was found in the year 1608 in the church of St. Itisberga, as he afterwards relates: The sarcophagus … made of a double stone of the kind which is held the most excellent in these parts, marquisio: namely fitted and levelled after the manner of a tomb gradually tapering; but so that each stone might receive and enclose the body, it is hollowed out within to a proper depth, just like a moulding instrument shaping molten bronze or silver into the figure of a statue; and the hollowing itself ended at the neck, and nothing was cut out for receiving the head, which namely was left at the breast between the hands, as the fishermen are believed to have drawn it out of their nets; and then, having described the funeral pomp with which the Saint was carried to the tomb, not from the testimony of old writers but from mere conjectures, and therefore not to be recorded here, and having interposed a few words more by which he intimates that the Saint is thought by him to have been buried not at Saint-Venant but at Petro-Berga or Isberghe, he sets out thus the finding, made at Isberghe, of the above-mentioned sarcophagus, with which to confirm this opinion of his, and some circumstances which accompanied and followed it: In the year 1608, on the 13th of August, when the mausoleum and altar of St. Ysberga, as it is now seen, were being transferred from between the columns into the rear sanctuary through the intervention of Jacques Blasæus, then bishop of Saint-Omer, a stone sarcophagus of the shape which we have described above appeared to those digging; and, being opened, it gave the entirely intact bones of a whole body, which, some years afterwards, by the bishop's mandate, examining them more attentively with the lord Paul Pruvost, pastor and dean of Our Lady of Aire, in order to transfer them into a more becoming casket, I marvelled at the immense bulk of the Man: for, comparing the shin-bone with the leg of the same dean, who has a tall and huge body, it seemed to exceed it by the knee.
[22] The natives, when that finding took place, put forward their arguments from the character of the place itself and of the body found, confirmed moreover by tradition. which are adduced here, it appears, For behind, between the altar and a column, above, the stone coffin of St. Ysberga was supported; below, under the pavement, another, of St. Venantius, as they said, was covered over: and since in all past memory strangers and pilgrims had been accustomed by custom to go round the altar itself three times, they commonly asserted that they had passed between the bodies of SS. Ysberga and Venantius: they suggested another thing somewhat more strongly; since the coffin found gave no hollowing beyond the neck, this sufficiently intimated that it was the body of one who, it is plain, had been shortened by the head: nothing, however, was determined by him, namely Blasæus, bishop of Saint-Omer, nor by the three bishops who followed, namely Paul Boudot, Pierre Paunet and Christophe Morlet, because at the time of that finding the people of Saint-Venant rose up vigorously, fighting for their altars and hearths, saying that Venantius lay in their sanctuary, beside the enclosure of their cemetery, that he had there been especially venerated of old by strangers, to whom some relics were given to be kissed: that there was a very small crypt underneath, where he had been buried: which however, not yet opened, has produced no credence. Meanwhile a wooden coffin among the people of Ysberghe preserves those bones in an underground vault built for this purpose, where they had previously lain hidden, together with the stone coffin which I have described: nor is it so closed but that, through an opening fitted to it, everything lies open to those who bend down a venerating eye.
[23] having obtained burial. Thus far Malbrancq; and although he does not openly declare whose Saint's bones those were that were enclosed in the sarcophagus found in the year 1608 in the church of St. Itisberga, as he relates in the words already given, yet he not obscurely reveals that they were judged by him to be those of St. Venantius, inasmuch as he observes, in express words which he places in the margin, that from the size of the bones found, which he records, Venantius was huge in body. Nor indeed is he to be thought to have gone undeservedly into that opinion, which Le Cointe also embraces in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks at the year 766, num. 24, as everyone will easily acknowledge who has attentively weighed the things which are asserted in the words recited at the beginning of the number immediately preceding. Now since, from what has been said, the Saint's bones were preserved in the church of St. Itisberga in the year 1608, and it does not appear probable that they were translated there from Saint-Venant, if St. Venantius had first been buried in this town of his name, it follows as a consequence that he obtained burial not there but in the parish of Isberghe, or in the church of St. Itisberga. And indeed that the Saint was in fact buried in this latter place appears also from what I now subjoin. For the hermit's hut of St. Venantius St. Itisberga, as the tradition admitted everywhere by all has it, substituted a sacred chapel in honour of him when he had been slain, and hence it came about that the place gradually grew into a town; and since this is so, and no sacred place seems yet to have existed at Saint-Venant, when Venantius was killed, in which he could be buried, who would easily persuade himself that he was buried there at that time? Molanus indeed makes mention of an oratory which already existed at Saint-Venant when the Saint was killed, and at the same time affirms that the Saint was buried there. But of an oratory or sacred chapel which already existed at that time at Saint-Venant I find neither mention nor trace anywhere else.