ON ST. CONOGAN, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, AT QUIMPER IN BRITTANY,
More probably the sixth century.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Conoganus, bishop and confessor, at Quimper in Lesser Britain. (S.)
BY J. B.
§ I. The Acts written by Albert Le Grand are discussed.
The Acts of the Saint of little antiquity; Corisopitum, the capital of Cornubia, in French Cornouaille, which is a province of Lower Armorican Britain, on the river Odera (Odet), about three leagues distant from the Ocean, is an episcopal city, suffragan to the archbishopric of Tours; formerly indeed called Quimper-Odet, but thereafter Quimper-Corentin in French, from St. Corentin. Whether he was in fact the first bishop of that place, and in what age a prelate was first given to the people of Quimper, is to be discussed at the 12th day of December, on which he is venerated: to him the Catalogues of the bishops of Quimper, but whose credit is not great, subjoin, and indeed immediately, the one of whom we speak here, St. Conoganus, Guenegandus or Guennucus, called by the French St. Conocain, Guenegand, or Guennekut. His Life was collected and committed to print by Fr. Albert Le Grand, the Lives of the Saints of Brittany Vies des SS. de la Bretagne-Armorique, p. 623. Brest, 1837., and by Jacques Malbrancq, chapter XXIV: Albert indeed from an old Legendary of the church of St. Conoganus near Landerneau in Lower Brittany, supplied to him by the vicar of the place in the year 1624; Malbrancq from an apograph which Fr. Jacques Bernard, a Breton, of the Society of Jesus, had transmitted to him, copied from the Annals of Quimper. Neither explains of what antiquity is the Legendary of the church of St. Conoganus, or the Annals, as they call it, of Quimper: but they do not seem so ancient that they could not have been written long after the age of St. Conoganus, and so they are not such as to win great authority and credit for themselves.
[2] native soil and family; Albert begins the Life of St. Conoganus with these words, but in French, which I render into Latin: The blessed prelate St. Conoganus was born in Lower Brittany of the family de la Pallue near Landerneau in the Léonais, of parents wealthy and powerful among their own, kin to Guyomarch, viscount of Léon. The same native soil and noble parents indeed are ascribed to St. Conoganus by the Annals of Quimper in Malbrancq; but about the family de la Pallue, from which St. Conoganus was sprung, and about the kinship of his parents with Guyomarch, viscount of Léon, it is deeply silent: I suspect, therefore, that Albert added this to the Acts of St. Conoganus of his own: nor do I believe he had anything at hand from which he could give proof that the family de la Pallue flourished from the fourth century, in which he judges St. Conoganus was born; which, even if the Legendary of the church dedicated to the holy Prelate affirmed it in express words, would nevertheless be difficult to believe. To Albert's additions I likewise ascribe the coat of arms of St. Conoganus, which he describes in the series of the bishops of Quimper; as if it were not known to anyone that the use of these first emerged in far later centuries. Whether, while St. Conoganus was living, there existed a Guyomarch, viscount of Léon, I am not going to say: a viscount of Léon of this name indeed, elected king of Brittany, d'Argentré records in book 2, chapter X of the History of Brittany; but he lived in the ninth century, when Louis the Pious was reigning in the Gauls: he could, however, have given Albert the occasion of inventing another, kin to St. Conoganus. Let us hear Albert again.
[3] his youth piously spent; He proceeds thus: He (St. Conoganus) was given to them (his parents) from heaven that he might one day be the glory of his family, and the father and master of many holy religious, who, going forth from his school, should sprinkle the souls of the faithful with the dew of heavenly grace. Carefully brought up in his father's house, at seven years old he was sent to Quimper to the school of letters which Gradlon, the king, had once instituted for the instruction of the noble youths of his kingdom. He spent six years in that college on the humaner letters in such a way that he did not depart from the path of the virtues: and two years in the same city on Philosophy; which finished, for four whole years he gave his attention to sacred Theology with such modesty of character that he was very highly approved both by the abbot and by the monks. When you hear that no small number of religious would go forth from his school, would you not bring yourself to think that St. Conoganus was at some time abbot over many religious? But below he will be said to have been made bishop from a monk, without even any mention being thrown in of the abbatial office being held by him. The definite number of years spent by St. Conoganus on each science we think is an addition of Albert's, who thought the ancient system of studies was similar to the present one. Then, how could it have happened that St. Conoganus at seven years old frequented the school instituted at Quimper by Gradlon, already king of Brittany, as the words just cited hint, spent 12 years on profane and sacred letters, 5 years at the court of the viscount, as will be said a little later, and was made bishop of Quimper, as Albert writes in the series of the bishops of Quimper, in the year 403, when in the year 388, in Albert's opinion, Gradlon took up the reins of the Armorican kingdom? For if to the year 388 you add 19 years, you will come up to the year 407. But let us grant that the school was founded by Gradlon when not yet king; let us grant likewise that this happened in the year 383, to which the landing of the Britons in Armorica is usually tied. In this way St. Conoganus would have been born in the year 376; from which to the year 403 there are counted only 27 years: and further, to the 19 years there must be added, that you may arrive at the year of Conoganus's age in which he came to the see of Quimper, besides the 5 years spent at the court of Léon, very probably not a few years, which, as the Albertine Acts will relate a little below, he spent near Landerneau as a presbyter, then as a solitary, finally as a monk of Landévennec, before he became bishop: and it is not made likely that St. Conoganus was raised to that dignity at so little advanced an age. I follow the text of the Acts published by Albert.
[4] his integrity among courtiers; the priesthood; Recalled hence (from the monastery of Landévennec), his parents, by whom he was destined for the world, sent him away to the court of the viscount of Léon, to be at his side. The holy youth went thither, although a stranger to the din of the court, lest he should cause his parents distress; and he was received in friendly fashion by the viscount of Léon. This seems to have been done not without a singular nod of God; for this court was in a short time so far amended by his work that it seemed more a monastery than a prince's court. He spent five years here unstained by the vices of the courtiers: but aspiring to a more perfect manner of life he asked for his dismissal, and having returned home openly declared to his parents that it was among his vows to say farewell to the world altogether and devote himself to God. They refused at first: but at length, having perceived his mind firmly resolved, they assented. Having received the minor and major Orders and the priesthood, he was enriched with a benefice, his parents busying themselves about it; but he enjoyed it only briefly. For on his father's death, leaving the city, he returned to his native place (la Pallue), where in the neighbourhood of his house he founded a splendid chapel, in which he offered sacrifice daily with the highest piety. Nothing indeed occurs here which I would convict of falsehood: this one thing I observe, that in the Acts published by Malbrancq nothing at all is read from which you might conjecture that St. Conoganus was ever even at the court of the viscount of Léon: but what escaped their writer could have been well perceived by him who composed the Acts published by Albert.
[5] an austere manner of life in the desert; his monkhood, Conoganus had already lost his father; on whose death, as we have seen, he fled the din of the city: bereft of his mother, he went to a solitude: His paternal soil, say the Albertine Acts, and his house he exchanged for a desert, in which he instituted a kind of life of such austerity and example that in a short time the fame of his holiness pervaded all Brittany, so that his solitude began to be frequented by the people, and for that reason he decided to desert it entirely, and to hide himself in the monastery of Landévennec, in which he had once been imbued with the Theological disciplines. The abbot, as one who had well perceived the merits of the man and the specimens of holiness he had displayed when as a youth he was giving his attention to Theology, received him with open arms, and, the whole company of monks voting for it, clothed him with the habit of the Order, and enrolled him among the novices. The new Soldier of Christ put on new habits, as if he had not greeted the path of virtue even from the threshold. In humility of spirit, charity, patience, gentleness he surpassed all his fellows: from the recess of the temple, in which he fed his mind on the contemplation of heavenly things, he did not depart. He lived on bran-filled bread, herbs and roots, abstaining entirely from wine, except when he had to offer sacrifice. His bed was either the altar step or the cold pavement. For the increase of his merits God permitted that he be harassed by the demon not only with temptations, but also with spectres and illusions: but the victory always fell to the Saint, the enemy being sent away with confusion and beaten back.
[6] but uncertain; The monkhood of St. Conoganus in the monastery of Landévennec is handed down most plainly in these words: but why is the name of the abbot, under whose government of this monastery he embraced the monastic kind of life, kept silent? For that could by no means be in doubt, if truly Albert Ibid. p. 57. writes that at the obsequies of Gradlon, celebrated in the year 405, St. Conoganus, bishop, was present together with St. Winwaloe, first abbot of Landévennec. The old Legendary of the church of St. Conoganus which Albert used may not have expressed Winwaloe's name:
so I think: for otherwise why would Albert have passed it over unsaid? But at the same time I fear whether Albert found there the things which have already been recited about St. Conoganus's monkhood; for the Annals of Quimper not only say not a word about it, but also, when they record the principal struggle of St. Conoganus with the demon, testify that this befell him not, as is read above, while dwelling in the monastery of Landévennec, but in the desert: whence it comes about that the monkhood of the holy Prelate, until more certain things are brought forward about it from elsewhere, can at least be called into doubt. But if he was in fact a monk in the monastery of Landévennec, he will have followed the Scottish discipline, or that which monks emigrating from Greater Britain into Lesser had brought there, and which the monks of Landévennec held up to the year 818, the fifth of the emperor Louis, in which they embraced the Benedictine. Consult, if you wish, on that matter the very diploma of the emperor in Lobineau [Hist. de Bret., vol. II, col. 26 and D. Morice, Mém. pour serv. à l'hist. de Bret., vol. I, col. 228.] or in volume I of March of our Work At the 3rd day of Mar., p. 260, note c., in which open mention is made of the Scottish conversatio, or manner of living, and tonsure, hitherto used by the monks of Landévennec. I return to Albert.
[7] his episcopate, St. Corentin, he says, the bishop of Cornouaille, having been taken from among the living, the canons and people treated in the cathedral temple about electing a successor; but agreement could not be reached: the vicar therefore proclaimed a fast and prayers for three days, and on the third day St. Conoganus was elected by the votes of all. The fame of the election soon spread through the whole city and was received with the highest joy. Two canons and some citizens were sent to carry to Landévennec the news of the election, which at first he refused to ratify: but yielding to the importunate prayers of the envoys and of the people of Quimper and to the urgent command of the abbot, he came to the cathedral church to be consecrated bishop. He was received at Quimper with the applause and joy of all. As soon as he was consecrated, he began a more corrected kind of life; and although he had hitherto been a prodigy of virtue and perfection, he was persuaded that the new dignity demanded of him a perfection greater than usual. He had neither retinue, nor horse, nor carriage. For his household a decent table: but for himself bread and water with a few vegetables. His diocesans looked up to him as a saint, and God proved him such in fact by remarkable miracles. [The manner of election by which St. Conoganus is said to have come to the episcopate of Cornouaille in no way savours of the customs of either the fourth or the sixth century. For then an election of this kind belonged chiefly to the metropolitan and to the other bishops of the province. Nor is it of that century to call the principal Church of the Diocese the Cathedral Church, and its Clergy Canons. Indeed up to these times the name and office of vicar during a vacancy of the see was wholly unknown; which the experts in canon law commonly teach scarcely prevailed before the Council of Trent, session XXIV, chapter 16, de reformatione.]
[8] taken up after the death, as it is said, of St. Corentin; St. Corentin, mentioned at this place, is venerated on the 12th day of December, and is believed to have been the first bishop of Quimper: this is certain, that Corisopitum, which was formerly called in French Quimper-Odet from the river flowing past it, so that it might be distinguished from another town of Armorica, Quimperlé, similarly named from the river Ellé, was besides called Quimper-Corentin. That St. Conoganus succeeded him immediately is less certain. Albert indeed, in the series of the bishops of Quimper, gives him the place next to St. Corentin, as do also the Sainte-Marthe brothers. Lobineau, in the Lives of the Saints of Brittany, names him the first successor of St. Corentin in the see of Quimper, but adds: as it is said, and so hints that he doubts about that matter: and not undeservedly; for of the first twelve bishops of Quimper whom Albert brings forward, to none does he assign certain and undoubted testimony of the time at which he sat, and so of the order in which: when he comes to Hugh, the thirteenth in order, he says at last that he was present at the assembly of Alan the Great, celebrated in the year 689 in the city of Occismor or of Léon: there exist letters of Alan, king of Brittany, then drawn up, printed in d'Argentré, book 1, chapter XXVIII, which Hugh subscribed in the fifth place among the prelates thus: St. Hugh of Cornugallia, or Cornubia. These things have been said for this reason, that St. Conoganus was the immediate predecessor of this Hugh, if the Annals of Quimper, or the MS. Records of the same church cited by Malbrancq in the margin of the page, have rightly marked the death of the holy Prelate; on which matter the discussion will recur below. Nor will you elicit anything certain from the said Annals about the bishop whom St. Conoganus immediately succeeded, since they keep his name entirely silent. Finally, whether Conoganus yielded to the command of his abbot, which is read in the preceding number, is just as uncertain as his monkhood is uncertain, of which at no. 6.
[9] his miracles, We have read above that the holiness of St. Conoganus was proved by God with remarkable miracles; but of the many in the Albertine Legendary, or the one seen by him, only one is reported, and it runs thus: At Quimper a certain poor man, long blind, when he was present at the holy Prelate's Mass, asked his almoner and at the same time minister at the altar for the water with which, about to offer the host, he would wash his hands: the minister gave the vessel which contained it: and the blind man, full of faith, having prayed God that through the merits of His servant St. Conoganus He would deign to restore his sight to him, washed his eyes with it, and recovered his sight, not without the amazement of all who were present. The Annals of Quimper record the same miracle at no. 3: but they sufficiently reveal that the miracles of St. Conoganus were frequent, since they relate in the same place that on one day, after a sermon had been held to the people and the sacred rites performed, various sick were cured by him. There is added in the same place a thing plainly worthy of observation; yet wholly unmentioned in the Albertine Legendary: namely the Annals of Quimper relate that St. Conoganus, by whose merits and prayers the blind recovered their sight, when he had begun to decline towards the end of life, lacked the use of both eyes for the space of not a few years; which Malbrancq observes befell St. Omer also. The author of the Life of St. Conoganus printed by Malbrancq may have seen records which could have been hidden from Albert's anonymous author.
[10] and holy The last illness and death of St. Conoganus Albert describes from the often-cited Legendary in this way: Having thus far holily discharged the episcopal office, a fever attacked him and fastened him to his bed; yet in such a way that he omitted nothing of his accustomed exercises. It was revealed to him one day as he lay and contemplated heavenly things that on the following day God would call him from this world to the reception of eternal blessedness. That news was joyful to him, and he gave thanks to the Godhead. Then, having called the canons together, he bade them farewell, and, fortified before them with the Sacrament of extreme Unction, spent the rest of the night in contemplation. The next day, to the great amazement of the whole household, he hurried from his bed, went to the church, ordered the sacred vestments to be prepared, being about to perform the divine service: but, the weakness of his health preventing this, he ordered his vicar to do it at the altar, and having received the sacred Viaticum from his hands, returning home and lying down on his bed, clad in alb and amice, in the presence of the canons and a numerous multitude of people he rendered up his spirit to the Creator on the 15th of October, in the year 456. St. Conoganus is here said to have had it in mind, already very near death, to celebrate Mass; but, hindered by the infirmity of his body, to have been fortified with the sacred Viaticum from the hands of his vicar: but the Annals of Quimper, as exhibited to us by Malbrancq, relate that he refreshed himself with the Body and Blood of Christ. So the matter stands; but those words can be so taken that that refreshment consisted solely in the reception of the sacred Viaticum administered to him by another's hands.
[11] his departure from this life. Someone may also ask here whether it is really likely that St. Conoganus, if, as is read in the Annals of Quimper, he was blind, wished to celebrate Mass, or in fact, as the cited words of the Annals of Quimper in some way insinuate, did celebrate? I answer that this seems to have been done also by St. Omer of Thérouanne, whose not dissimilar last illness and death the anonymous writer of his Life describes thus, volume III of September At the 9th day of Sept., p. 399.: After these things (after the loss of the use of his eyes), a few years intervening, when the aforesaid old man of venerable life, Omer, had been wearied by an excessive heat of fever, and when he knew that the day of his death had come, on the same day he rose from the little bed in which he lay, and having entered the church, prostrate before the altar, he besought the Lord with tears for himself and for the people standing around him. And communicating the Body of Christ and the Blood, and preaching to the crowds surrounding him … returning again to his little bed … he departed from this life: indeed the author of the second Life added Ibid., p. 404. that St. Omer, deprived of sight, offered sacrifice to the Most High every day; I do not know, however, whether truly, the earlier anonymous affirming nothing of this kind. The narration of the Albertine Legendary, however, is preferred.
§ II. The century in which he more probably flourished, and his sacred cult.
Albert believes the Saint lived in the fifth century. The disagreement is far greater between Albert's Legendary and the Annals, or perhaps some other MS. record of Quimper, cited by Malbrancq in the margin, if the question is of the time of St. Conoganus's death: for the former fixes his death, as may be seen above, in the year 456; unless perhaps that year came out of Albert's own store: the latter, however, in the year 686: others will have it in a vague way that St. Conoganus belongs to the sixth century. The opinion of Albert Le Grand is that he sat at Quimper from the year 403 to 456, relying chiefly on this foundation, that he was present, already bishop, at the obsequies of Gradlon, king, as he calls him, of Brittany, who died in the year 405. For he thinks that Gradlon's having died in that year is gathered first of all from his Epitaph, which is read thus in the chapel of the church of Landévennec in which he was buried: In this sarcophagus lies the renowned great scion, Gradlon the great, king of the Britons, gentle as a lamb: Our founder, lover of the heavenly life, May the Virgin Mary be ever propitious to him. He died in the year of the Lord 405.
[13] from the records That St. Conoganus, already bishop, was present at his obsequies he likewise believes is proved from a fragment of Landévennec entitled: On the obsequies of king Gradlon, framed in part in these words: There were, with Guennucus (or Conoganus) as bishop pontificating, Winwaloe, abbot of Landtteguennok … Gildas, abbot of Rhuys, etc. To which are added these words of the Necrology of Landévennec: On the Nones of January in the year 405 died Grallon, the great king, founder of this monastery. A fourth instrument not unlike these is cited by Henschen, volume I of March At the 3rd day of March, p. 246., in the Commentary on St. Winwaloe, no. 6, whose beginning is: I, king Gradlon, came as far as Landévennec to St. Guingualoeus in the year of the Lord 400, Indiction X, concurrent VII, and the Paschal feast on the 8th day before the Kalends of April … And these were excerpted (not before 900, as may be seen in the cited Henschen) from the gifts conferred on St. Guingaloeus. The title of the instrument was: Of those who merited to enjoy converse with the Saint. Whence it results, if genuine
these instruments were, that Gradlon, called in some places king of Brittany, in others of Cornouaille, and SS. Conoganus, Winwaloe and Gildas lived in the same age, about the borders of the fourth and fifth centuries.
[14] not genuine: But those things are held worthless by Robert Denyold in Rollo Normanno-Britannus, chapter V; by Henschen, already cited; by Lobineau in the Lives of the Saints of Brittany [Vies des SS. de Bret., p. 52, and the same Book published with new care by the Paris Canon Tresvaux, in the year 1836, vol. I, p. 32.] under St. Corentin. The Epitaph, put together from Leonine verses, reveals itself as born after the fifth century. The rest are confuted from the age in which Gradlon, St. Winwaloe and St. Gildas lived. That St. Winwaloe lived in the sixth century Henschen, already cited, shows from a threefold mark of the times. The Life of St. Gildas, abbot of Rhuys, to whom the surname of the Wise has clung, the same Henschen illustrated at the 29th day of January, and showed from the very writings of Gildas that he began to be numbered among the living about the end of the fifth century, namely in the year 493. Albert indeed, in the Life of St. Gildas p. 18., distinguishes two Gildases, both Saints, both abbots of the monastery of Rhuys among the Armorican Veneti; of whom the former was the first abbot of the monastery of Rhuys, founded by Gradlon in the year 399, and chancellor of the said king, the other, surnamed the Wise, the restorer of the same monastery: but that distinction is overthrown by Henschen, cited just above, showing in §3 of his Commentary that only one St. Gildas existed in the Gauls. But Albert is not consistent with himself either, since in volume II, or the second part of his Work, page 361, as if forgetting his first Gildas, he makes Gildas the Wise chancellor of king Gradlon. SS. Winwaloe and Gildas, therefore, belong to the sixth century, and what is related about them in the fragment of Landévennec, as performing funeral rites for king Gradlon in the year 405, collapses.
[15] but that he flourished in the sixth century. To the same century Gradlon more probably belongs too, or certainly to the end of the fifth. The instrument of Gradlon which is exhibited above at no. 13 in the fourth place, Henschen rightly criticizes, both because years of the Incarnation of the Lord, not yet in use in the fifth century, are employed there, and because in the year 405 Easter fell not on the 8th day before the Kalends of April, as is read there, but on the Kalends themselves. He likewise rightly judges that he who excerpted the donations made to St. Winwaloe would have written better if, changing Indiction X into XIII, he had marked the year 490, in which, with concurrent VII, Easter was celebrated on the 8th day before the Kalends of April. Yet from this it is not sufficiently certainly proved that Gradlon lived in that year: for in the same way Albert, who determines that Gradlon died in the year 405, or his followers, if there are any, could say that, changing Indiction X into VIII, the year 395 should have been marked, in which, with concurrent VII, solar cycle XII, lunar XVI, dominical letter G, the Paschal feast was celebrated on the 8th day before the Kalends of April. But other indications are not lacking from which it can be gathered that Gradlon lived about the end of the fifth century, as Henschen plainly supposes. These indications are drawn partly from Gregory of Tours, partly from certain Instruments pertaining to Gradlon, which Lobineau Hist. de Bret., vol. II, col. 17. included among the Records of the History of Brittany.
[16] on account of the indications There was no one who extended the empire of the Franks as far as Armorican Brittany before Clovis, who died in the year 511: and he not only had the Armoricans, at least partly, subject to himself, but also took away the royal title from their princes. You are not unaware, write the Fathers of the Fourth Council of Tours Or rather of Paris. Labbe, vol. VIII, col. 60., celebrated in the year 849, to Nominoë, whom they call the first of the British nation, that from the beginning of the dominion of the Franks there were certain borders which they claimed for themselves, and certain ones which they granted to the Britons at their request. Clovis seems to have claimed for himself the cities of Nantes, Rennes and Vannes, since of all Brittany their bishops alone were present at the First Council of Orléans, to which Clovis had summoned all the bishops of his kingdom. But the Britons he allowed to have the other borders which they had possessed before, but on certain conditions, as appears, among which one was probably that the princes of the Britons should not thereafter call themselves kings: whence Gregory of Tours, a writer of the sixth century, says: For the Britons were always under the power of the Franks after the death of king Clovis, and were called counts, not kings. Among the Britons who were in some way left to their old right are most probably to be numbered the people of Cornouaille, whose capital was Quimper. The British war Pagi referred to about the year 503, Fr. Daniel to after the year 507: but since, as Lobineau observes under St. Corentin, Gradlon is in no Acts or Notices called count or duke, he probably died before Clovis, after whose death the princes of Brittany ceased to be called kings (at least for some time).
[17] adduced here There are moreover also certain indications which insinuate that Gradlon was contemporary with Clovis, king of France. Lobineau Hist. de Bret., vol. II, col. 17. brings forward a twofold Instrument from the Chartulary of Landévennec, of which the first (perhaps the same as the one we mentioned at no. 13 from Henschen, but here expressed without the marks of the times) has thus: I, Gradlon, by the grace of God king of the Britons, and also on the part of the Franks, desired to see the Saint of God Guengualoeus for a long time. Therefore I went to meet him on the way at the place which is called Pulcarvan. And therefore I give and grant from my own inheritance to St. Guengualoeus, etc. I easily acknowledge indeed that it is interpolated; since neither was the formula By the grace of God used before Pippin, son of Charles Martel, nor were monasteries accustomed to be named after their first prelates, with the title of Saint added to them, as long as they were living: plainly fictitious I would not dare to call it: for what if to the collector of the Donations made to St. Guengualoeus, or to the monastery of Landévennec, it was established, either from the ancient records of that monastery or from elsewhere, that Gradlon for some time possessed his old dominion by the favour of the Franks, and that therefore he thought he could without sacrilege name Gradlon king of Brittany also on the part of the Franks? But if it is so, I do not know to what these could be more fitly referred than to the times of Clovis.
[18] is more approved by us. The other instrument, drawn from the Cartulary of the same monastery, is framed in these words: Memory retains this, that Gradlon bought Enes-hir and Racheves Kerbalavan and also Serechan with gold and silver which he received from the sons of the king of the Franks, and afterwards handed over to St. Guengalocus in eternal lying-down Tresper … Trefles, Morcat, Sent-urgestle, etc. For the sake of what thing, tell me pray, or with what aim or advantage set before him, would the collector of the said donations have invented that Gradlon received gold and silver from the sons of the king of the Franks, unless he had found these things already long ago consigned to writing? But who further are the sons of the king of the Franks mentioned here? Since these too seem to savour of that epoch of time in which the Britons began to be in some way under the power of the Franks, I think it very likely that by the name of the sons of the king of the Franks are here understood Theodoric, Childebert, Chlodomer and Chlothar, who divided their father's kingdom in the year 511. He will therefore more probably have lived partly in the fifth century, partly in the sixth, not in the fourth and fifth, in which the kings of the Franks had nothing to do with the Armorican Britons: and so, considering the age of Gradlon, St. Conoganus, if he was contemporary with Gradlon, is to be referred to the sixth century. I said, if he was contemporary with Gradlon; for that he was contemporary with neither him nor St. Winwaloe, whatever Albert and the records cited by him say, is certain. For Malbrancq, De Morinis book IV, chapter XXIV, from a MS. Record of Quimper which he cites in the margin, writes that St. Conoganus, bishop of the city and province of Quimper, passed to the fellowship of the Blessed in the year 686: but since I am wholly ignorant of what kind that MS. is, it has seemed good meanwhile to adhere, as to the more probable, to the opinion which determines that Saint flourished in the sixth century, until something more plausible is brought forward to the contrary: but from what source I might determine the year in which he died, nothing at all is available.
[19] St. Conoganus His body was laid in the cathedral temple of Quimper, says Albert, and made illustrious by God with many miracles: but a conflict arises here between Albert's Legendary and the Annals of Quimper cited by Malbrancq: for if credit is to be given to the latter, a dispute arose between the clergy and the kinsmen of St. Conoganus about his body; but the latter, prevailing not by right but by power, obtained it and laid it in their own chapel. That the people of Quimper suffered the body of their bishop, famous for miracles even while he lived among them, to be shut up in private houses, I shall be induced with difficulty to believe: it will have been buried in the accustomed manner in the cathedral temple, and remained there intact; yet in such a way that his kinsmen perhaps afterwards obtained something from it, although with difficulty, and preserved it among their treasures. The body of St. Conoganus further remained among the people of Quimper, as Albert writes with no one contradicting, up to the year 878, when for fear of the Normans it was carried to Monstrolium (which is a town of Picardy on the river Canche, called in French Montreuil), and deposited in the abbey of St. Salvius of the Order of St. Benedict, as will become plain from what is to be said below. This was the occasion of the translation: Solomon, king of Brittany, having been killed in the year 874, and the nobles fighting among themselves for the rule of the region, the Danes, provoked to plunder, attacked Brittany with hostile ships and laid it waste, until they were driven out thence by Alan, duke of Brittany, in the year 879; on which matter the British Chronicle in Lobineau has thus Ibid., vol. II, col. 32.: 879. Alan, surnamed the great, having driven the pagan Danes and Northmen out of Brittany, all the nobles of the Britons having been placed in subjection after many miserable intestine wars, by one voice of the whole army was made duke of Brittany.
[20] as the Britons always, Hear finally likewise the words of Albert completing the Life of St. Conoganus, in which, after the translation just mentioned has been related, he records also buildings sacred to the same Saint, in this matter a witness worthy of credit, inasmuch as he speaks of matters of his homeland and, as it is right to believe, well known to him. Not far, he says, from Landerneau a parish temple is seen, contiguous to the houses of La Pallue, sacred to his memory: there is also a small chapel, half a league distant from Quimper, much frequented by the feverish, to very many of whom their former health is restored. His body was raised from the earth, and the bones reverently kept in the cathedral church up to 878, when, that they might be snatched from the fury of the Normans, they were translated to Montreuil, where they are kept with great veneration. Hence is evident the sacred cult paid to St. Conoganus among the Bretons, and it is confirmed from an old printed Breviary of Quimper, but mutilated at the beginning and end, in which his Office is indeed prescribed to be recited after the feast of St. Callistus, Pontiff, but wholly from the common. [I find a similar order in the Proper of Quimper, published by the authority of the venerable Chapter, the see being vacant,
in the year 1642 by Charles Guyet, a presbyter of our society, as a handwritten addition in my exemplar says. Whence what is said to be read in the Breviary of Cornouaille of the year 1789 savours of an irony unworthy of the sacred liturgy. For this reason, namely, it does not give the legend of St. Conoganus, because, having entered this spiritual meadow of Conoganus, the same thing happens to us as if someone, having entered a meadow, and having beheld many roses, many violets, and lilies and other spring flowers, various and diverse, should be in doubt which he looked at in the first place, which in the second, while the single flowers snatch his eyes to themselves. Since I lack the Breviary, I have copied these things from the more recent edition of Albert Le Grand p. 626, note 3..] A MS. Calendar written in the fifteenth century, of the abbey of St. Méen, in Lobineau at the end of the Lives of the Saints of Brittany, likewise has thus: On the Ides (of October), of Conoganus, bishop, VIII Lessons; likewise of Areletus, Martyr, IV Lessons; for both all from the common. The Calendar of the old Breviary of Léon at the same day: Of Conognanus, bishop and confessor, IX Lessons, from the common. The name of Conoganus does not appear in the other Calendars printed in the same place. Whence I think either that the Legendary from which Albert drew the Life of St. Conoganus was once generally unknown, or that at that time it did not seem of so firm credit that proper Lessons for St. Conoganus should be made from it.
[21] so also the people of Montreuil, having received his relics, From the time when, further, his remains were translated from Brittany to Montreuil, that they were kept there too in great veneration, as Albert says, there is a striking testimony in the care and solicitude of the religious men of St. Salvius in the said town for preserving them perpetually and with due honour: for when the wooden casket, in which they were enclosed, was already almost worn away and eaten by age, they arranged that the relics of St. Conoganus be transferred into a new one, through the work of John de Harcourt, bishop of Amiens, with solemn rite, and with a great concourse both of citizens and of the neighbouring villages, in the year 1424, on the 13th day of June, as is made manifest from the following Instrument, transmitted to our Elders in the year 1664 by the Very Distinguished Jacques de Boves, parish priest of the church of St. Winwaloe at Montreuil and canon of the collegiate church of St. Firmin the Martyr there: it runs thus: To all who shall inspect the present letters or this present instrument, John de Harcourt, by divine mercy bishop of Amiens, everlasting salvation in the Lord, and to give credence to the present: we make known that we, exercising the office of visitation in the church of the monastery of St. Salvius of Montreuil, of the Order of St. Benedict, of our diocese, among other things saw and handled the bodies of Saints Corentin and Conocanus, laid up from the most ancient times in a certain case or bier of wood (or timber), which case indeed, on account of its antiquity, was much falling apart.
[22] held in great veneration Whence also, at the supplication and request, and in the presence, of the religious of the said monastery, their abbot (Andrew de Milly) being absent, and also of others, both of the clergy and of the people, appearing before us in a multitude for this purpose, and all the common people of the said town and of many other adjacent towns and places assisting, solemnly, honourably and devoutly, after the celebration of Mass in the said church celebrated by us, we placed the same bodies of Saints Corentin and Conocanus from the said old case into a new case, seemly and honestabilem (read notabilem, as is had in the Instrument of Peter, bishop of Amiens, on the relics of St. Winwaloe similarly transferred from an old into a new case, volume I of March At the 3rd day of Mar., p. 249, no. 16., where the same words as here are read), and caused them really to be enclosed. In which old case, indeed, together with the said holy bodies, there was a certain slip, made in ancient script, containing the following words: “Here rest the bodies of Saints Corentin and Conocanus,” and these things having been done, the venerable and religious man, Brother John Valeri, lector of the Carmelites of the said place of Montreuil, set forth the word of the Lord, narrating and declaring the life, virtue and merits of the holy bodies, to the praise of God and the commendation of the same Saints and of the whole heavenly court. Which we certify to all whom it concerns by the tenor of these presents, and in testimony of this matter we have caused the present letters, or this public instrument, to be made and to be strengthened with our seal, with the sign and subscription of the notary undersigned (both the seal and the subscription of the notary are absent from our apograph).
[23] had. Given and done in the aforesaid place in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord one thousand four hundred and twenty-fourth, in the second Indiction; and on the thirteenth day of the month of June, in the seventh year of the Pontificate of our most holy father in Christ and lord, the lord Martin the fifth, by divine providence (he was created on the 11th, consecrated on the 21st of November of the year 1417), there being present the venerable Fathers in Christ (Arnulf III or Guy II) of St. Josse-sur-Mer, and (John III de Conteville) of Forest-Moutier, abbots of the monasteries, the venerable lady (Margaret V d'Escoffen), abbess of St. Austreberta of the said place of Montreuil, of the aforesaid Order and of our diocese; the venerable Fathers (perhaps Giles) of Longvillers, of the Cistercian Order, of the diocese of the Morini (now of Boulogne), and (Nicholas of Abbeville) of St. Andrew in the Wood, of the Premonstratensian Order and of our diocese, abbots of the monasteries, with many others, etc. In one and the same coffin, covered with silver, the relics of SS. Corentin and Conoganus were enclosed. Malbrancq says, book 11, chapter XXII, that the whole body of St. Corentin has hitherto been kept among the Morini; how this can be reconciled with the translation of Relics made to Paris, of which Henschen speaks, volume I of March Ibid., p. 218, no. 12., will have to be examined at the 12th day of December, sacred to that Saint. Of St. Conoganus, to whom that difficulty does not pertain, I read also in the aforesaid Notices sent from Montreuil to our Elders that the feast is celebrated there on the 15th day of October, at which day likewise he is commemorated in two following martyrologists, as follows: in Castellanus in the Universal Martyrology: In Lower Brittany, of St. Guenegan, bishop of Quimper, whose body is at Montreuil in Picardy in the abbey of St. Salvius. In the author of the Paris Martyrology published by order of Cardinal de Noailles, who fixes his death about the year 598: Among the Armoricans, of St. Cognoganus, bishop of Quimper. The Acts of St. Conoganus, as Albert Le Grand gave them in French, I have inserted here and there in this commentary: those follow which Malbrancq published.
ACTS
From Jacques Malbrancq, De Morinis, book IV, chapter XXIV.
SOLE CHAPTER.
The Life of the Saint and his translation to Montreuil.
Conoganus, bishop and confessor, at Quimper in Lesser Britain. (S.)
aThe Saint, devoted to virtue from his tender years, Near Landerneau b, towards the West, there is a marsh, at which Conoganus c began to draw his native air, of parents exceedingly noble [d]. It is likely that he came from the kindred company of the Germani, who, as we said, having spurned the delights and crowns of the world, embraced the holier discipline of Christ: since both the time and the place of birth and the splendour of family agree: whence he expressed most perfectly in himself the image of our Judoc and Winnoc in solid virtues [e]. At once from his tender years God revealed how great a tree this shoot would grow into, since, imbued shortly with the rudiments of letters [f], he went far ahead of all his contemporaries. In the boy there was nothing boyish, nothing playful, nothing soft: his deeds or words invited all the wisest to converse with him: and if they praised a disposition unusual at that age, he was not puffed up, as is the custom of the noble, but turned aside, and held flatterers of no account.
[2] spurning a most splendid fortune, He becomes bereft of his parent when his age was already in its spring. There were present a most splendid fortune, beauty and comeliness of body and outstanding family: nor was a noble girl lacking who would correspond to such resources: nevertheless he, thinking that snares were being prepared for him, at once inserted himself into a sacred Order [g], by which all material for pursuing earthly things would be cut off. Hence he redoubled his prayers, fortified himself with the Eucharistic food, succoured the needy most generously, discharged the debts of those labouring under them, covered the naked with whole clothing: and so he willingly stripped himself of his fortunes, that he might put on Christ h. Having become somewhat more mature in age, when he was destined abundantly for the good of others, he thought of attending more to his own. He chose a place removed from the din of men, in which to lead the eremitical life, and to avoid popular favour, which he foresaw blowing too much all around i.
[3] solitary for his own good, then as bishop intent also on the good of others, But here he began to be tempted by a more troublesome breath of satan, k and to suffer such assaults that recourse had to be had to divine help. And he knew that that enemy is overcome by harder exercises of life. With bare bread, water, roots of herbs, fruits of trees, vigils: all of which he enjoined on himself on his spare days, remitting nothing, however, of his nocturnal or diurnal prayers. The desert does not hide Conoganus; the more he strives to lie hidden, the more he becomes famous through the multitude of peoples flowing together, who bring back a most present remedy for the ills of body and soul. He must ascend the see of Quimper, which the bishop had left vacant in those days: that is the unanimous voice of the people, those are the wishes of the leading men: to which, although he acquiesces unwillingly, he so diligently discharges the charge imposed that he seems born for the active life and the salvation of all l.
[4] he becomes blind, A certain blind man had heard that the bishop, about to perform the sacred rites, had washed his hands. He asks earnestly that what had dripped from his hands into the basin be given him [m], and obtains it: as soon as he applied it to his eyes, he received a most pleasant light. But I see in Conoganus something very like our Omer n. At very dawn he went into his temple, an assembly of the people having been called, to whom he spoke for a long space of the day, striking each one's breast in a wonderful manner: then, with a swan song, the good old man performed the sacred rites, which were followed by a frequent cure of various sick. At length, as the midday hours approached, succumbing to heavy weariness, he was compelled to commit himself to his couch. When this became known to the roused people, a sudden grief came upon them, which was increased still further by worse news. For he is said to have lost altogether the use of bodily light, which he so powerfully imparted to others: and in fact for many intervening years he remained blinded in both eyes o. Nor did even a breath of slight murmuring affect the man on that account: but rather, like our Omer [p], he congratulates himself on the loss of the perishable light, that he might enjoy the heavenly one more conveniently within.
[5] and at length dies seized by fever: Montreuil has his Relics. The blindness was followed by the heat of a violent fever: and as the day approached on which he knew that, released by that illness, he must pack up, he hurried his body from the bed, and dragged it to the church, where, prostrate before the principal altar, he commends the people standing round, not without abundant tears, to Christ the Lord. Then, refreshing himself with the Body and Blood of Christ, he returns to his couch [q]. Tears arose in all, to whom he had bidden farewell, and to whom he had promised his protection with the Almighty. It can scarcely be said with how serene a countenance, with how much jubilation, he awaited the end of life. His soul went forth [r] as if exulting, because it saw a seat prepared for it among the choirs of angels. About the body, however, there was a contest: for when, and deservedly, the clergy of Quimper
claimed it for itself, his parents nevertheless and kinsmen, as they were very strong in power and nobility, obtained it for their own chapel [s]: and at length, as has been said, taken away both from the people of Quimper and from his fellow countrymen, it migrated to the people of Montreuil [t].
NOTES.
a. Malbrancq received an apograph of these Acts through the work of Fr. Jacques Bernard, an Armorican Breton, of the Society of Jesus, drawn from the MS. records of the church of Quimper, or the book which they call the Annals: but whether Malbrancq brought that apograph entire into his Work, these words which he prefixes to the Acts make me doubt: I shall subjoin a few things, namely from the said apograph: further, he does not seem to have followed it so closely that he did not accommodate it to his own style, and enlarge it with some additions of his own, as will be clear from what is to be noted below: but what the age of the writer was, he neither declared, nor is there anything from which I might conjecture it. It is perhaps more recent than the author whom Albert Le Grand saw; but, since it records certain things omitted in Albert, it seems to have had before its eyes certain aids which he lacked.
indeed the same think that Venerandus too, in whose name, because he himself could not see, Jocundinus the presbyter subscribed the Council of Tours of the year 461 Labbe, vol. IV, Conc., col. 1053., should be read Venecandus, which comes very close to Guenegandus. (Cf. the recent Edition of Albert Le Grand p. 623, note 1.) For the rest, the presence of the Saint at those Councils can be reconciled neither with the Albertine nor with the Malbrancqian chronology. See below, note r.]
d. Such Le Grand likewise relates they were, and kinsmen or relatives of Guyomarch, viscount of Léon (I know not which); from which stock he writes that the noble family de la Pallue near Landternok sprang; but I judge that Albert added these things to the Acts which he had before his eyes of his own, and not with sufficient foundation.
e. This is Malbrancq's conjecture as well as his interpolation: the same age, homeland, splendour of family, and likeness of virtue do not suffice for us to believe that St. Conoganus was sprung from the same family as SS. Judoc, Winnoc and their other brothers and sisters, although they are said to have been a great many in number. St. Judoc is venerated on the 13th of December, St. Winnoc on the 6th of November.
f. If we believe Albert, he went at seven years old to the school of Quimper erected by king Grallon; he spent 6 years on the humaner letters, 2 on Philosophy, 4 on Theology in the monastery of Landévennec: but that division of years seems to be attributed to Albert alone.
g. According to Albert he had dwelt for five years at the court of Guyomarch, viscount of Léon, and had amended it by the example of his virtues, when he turned his mind to sacred orders.
monastery of Landévennec, in the diocese of Quimper, almost opposite the port of Brivates or Brest; about which the Life of the same Saint which you have here from Malbrancq is deeply silent: whence I fear lest that monkhood too should be numbered among the other inventions of Albert. I wonder what the cause is why he did not express, either here or elsewhere, as far as I know, the name of the abbot who clothed St. Conoganus with the sacred habit; especially since in the series of the bishops of Quimper he writes that St. Conoganus, already bishop, together with Winwaloe, first abbot of Landévennec (on whom see volume I of March At the 3rd day of Mar., p. 255.), was present at the obsequies of king Gradlon in the year 405, from a fragment of Quimper on that matter, unless perhaps he held it suspect: for the rest, the monks of Landévennec exchanged the Scottish institute for the Benedictine in the year 818, on which matter see the mandate of the emperor Louis cited above at no. 6.
m. A difference occurs here, but a slight one, between the two biographers. The biographer Albert ascribes the healing of the blind man to the water which St. Conoganus had used in the very sacrifice when about to offer the immaculate host to God.
p. See letter n.
q. In Albert it is read that he wished indeed to perform the sacred rites, but was prevented from doing it by weakness of strength. And that he received the most holy Viaticum from the hands of his vicar. On the similar death of St. Omer, likewise blind, consult the volume of our Work cited at letter o.
r. If you hear Albert, in the year 456, on the 15th day of October: as regards the day of St. Conoganus's death, no dispute is raised with Albert: but since he makes Gradlon, St. Gildas and St. Winwaloe, whom Henschen at the 3rd day of March, §1 of the Preliminary Commentary on the Acts of St. Winwaloe, shows to have lived when the sixth century was already far advanced, contemporaries, I think one should rather subscribe to the Henschenian opinion, which fights for the sixth century, than to the Albertine: but Malbrancq defers the age of St. Conoganus to the seventh century. In the six hundred and sixth year, he says, in Lesser Britain at Quimper, St. Conoganus, bishop of that city and province, passes into the fellowship of the Blessed. These seem indeed to have been drawn from the Annals of the church of Quimper (see letter a); but since I do not know of what age that book is, or from what sources it grew together, until the matter is made clearer from somewhere, I have thought it advisable to tie the death of St. Conoganus to the sixth or seventh century.
s. The two biographers conflict here: Albert says that the remains of St. Conoganus were both buried in the cathedral temple, raised from the earth, and kept with honour until, namely, they were translated from Quimper to Montreuil in the year 878. For the cathedral both right and greater likelihood seem to stand, as also the more received custom.
t. It is clear hence that neither Albert's Legendary nor Malbrancq's MS. of Quimper exceeds in antiquity the ninth century, in whose year 78 that Translation took place, unless those writers added these things to the Acts seen by them of their own. For the rest, the relics of St. Conoganus were brought to Montreuil about the same time as those of St. Winwaloe; which is abundantly clear to have been between the years 877 and 879 from the letters of Henry I, king of the Franks, given at Montreuil in the year 1092 and partly cited by Henschen. I said about the same time, because Lobineau exhibits an instrument Hist. de Bret., vol. II, col. 97. in which I read that the relics of St. Corentin were translated to another place before those of St. Winwaloe; yet after the slaying of king Solomon, foully put to death in the year 874.