Mummolinus

ON ST. MUMMOLINUS, OR MOMMOLENUS, BISHOP OF NOYON AND TOURNAI,

MORE PROBABLY IN THE YEAR 683.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Mommolinus, bishop and confessor, at Tournai and Noyon. (S.)

§ I. The sacred memory of St. Mummolinus, his biographers, and a synopsis of his deeds.

St. Mummolinus, whose deeds Ghesquière has already illustrated, To the learned and to bibliophiles the work is known which is entitled Acta Sanctorum Belgii selecta. Joseph Ghesquière, namely, who had for many years been engaged in illustrating the Bollandian Acta Sanctorum, having taken upon himself the task of this new work, published the first volume in the year 1783, which five others followed in the following years. And since in composing this work, collecting, so the title runs, both from genuine records not yet published in the Bollandian work and from that most vast work, the original wording of the writers being preserved, he observed the order of times and not that of the calendar, he had in his way many Saints of whom the Bollandian associates had not yet spoken. Such is St. Mummolinus, whose feast is kept on the 16th day of October, and whose Life accordingly must be published by us too in this place. Although Ghesquière, and those who were afterwards given him as associates, Smet and Thys, so illustrated the Acts of the Saints of Belgium as to follow more closely the footsteps of the Bollandian work, and even took care to reprint the former commentaries, and, when wholly new compositions had to be made, used almost the Bollandian method, there is nevertheless no reason for us to put Ghesquière's work on St. Mummolinus to the press again unaltered. For, if we were to imitate him who subjoined his annotations to the Bollandian commentaries, a writing would be presented to the reader entirely different from the rest of the work; then, since Ghesquière not only valued less than was just the Life of St. Mummolinus which he had at hand, and therefore did not publish it entire at the end of his Commentary, as is our custom, but, cut into pieces, inserted it only in part into his disquisitions; but also, since he lacked a Life which seemed to us older than the rest; it follows that an entirely different way from that of the praised hagiographer must be entered upon by us; thirdly (which the lesser esteem of that Life and the absence of this one produced), he inverted or even overturned, relying on uncertain reasons, no small deeds of St. Mummolinus, which are nevertheless maintained in all the ancient records which survive concerning this Saint; fourthly, finally, since in the Acta Sanctorum Belgii the deeds of St. Eligius had already been illustrated, Ghesquière could dismiss many questions of chronology which, pertaining to St. Mummolinus, seemed already solved in the Life of his predecessor Eligius; but since the deeds of St. Eligius will have to be examined in our work at the first day of December, a wholly inverted method must be used by us here. And these are the weighty reasons by which we were led to compose a new Commentary on St. Mummolinus. For the rest, lest what has been done

we should do again, we shall draw many things from his writing; observing, however, sincerely, that we transcribe nothing from it which we have not accurately referred to the sources. According to custom, we take our beginning from the announcements in the sacred calendars.

[2] he is announced in the sacred calendars under various names; Although St. Mummolinus, whom approved writers and the more recent ecclesiastical Offices also call Mommolenus or Mommolinus, was piously venerated in the most ancient times, all the classical martyrologists have nevertheless omitted his name. On the other hand, at the present day the Usuardine manuscript codex of Brussels records him under the name Nommolinus; that of Anchin and another published by Molanus under the name Nummolinus; the Usuard of Greven, giving Mammolinus; and the manuscript Hagiology which is kept in the library of Amiens, Mummolanus. But the so-called Martyrology of Bede, found in the monastery of Liessies, and of which Bolland speaks in the General Preface of the Acta Sanctorum p. 49, announces in the city of Noyon the birthday of Saint Mummolinus, confessor, and our Usuardine manuscript codex of Bigard has a similar memorial. The Martyrology which is commonly ascribed to Canisius agrees with the Usuard of Molanus in saying Nummolinus; and du Saussay, Galesini, Chastelain, the Martyrology of Évreux, Ferrari, the authors of the Paris Martyrology, Miraeus in the Belgian and Burgundian calendars, Molanus in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium indeed exclude Nummolinus and Nommolinus, but otherwise vary in writing the name; finally, of the Monastic writers, Wion in the Lignum Vitae and Hugues Ménard in the Benedictine Martyrology also number St. Mummolinus among their Saints: in almost all of which the foregoing announcement of Liessies occurs, increased with the title of bishop. To a similar memorial the praised Molanus subjoins a compendium of his deeds; "or, if you prefer," says Ghesquière, "Peter Lauwius, who supplemented and arranged the miscellaneous papers of Molanus": and Miraeus wove into the memory of St. Mummolinus another and somewhat longer encomium from Iperius, the annalist of St. Bertin, and Jean Cousin, historian of Tournai. I forbear to recite either. As regards the various formulas of writing the name of our Saint, Mummolinus has seemed preferable, the norm more usual in the most ancient records; although Mummolenus, Mommolinus and similar forms cannot be condemned. In ancient histories it is not rare for the same man to be called now Mummolinus, now Mummolus; whence it is clear that these appellations are the same name. The remaining matters, which pertain to the places and days on which our Mummolinus was formerly venerated or is still venerated, will be explained elsewhere.

[3] his deeds are related in several manuscript Lives and Breviaries: What Acts of St. Mummolinus Ghesquière had at hand he himself has handed down, since he testifies that there agree with the epitome of Molanus the Acts of St. Mummolenus which exist in a notable manuscript codex which passed from the abbey of Vaucelles to Balthasar Moretus, afterwards to the hagiographical museum of Antwerp, and thence to the abbeys of Caudenberg and Tongerlo, and is now finally kept, like almost all the rest of the hagiological equipment, in the royal Burgundian library at Brussels. He had besides "two copies of the Acts," as he puts it, "which had formerly been sent to the Bollandists, one taken in the year 1670 by the Reverend and Very Learned Master Nicolas de la Haye, Dean of Noyon, from the manuscripts of the library of the chapter of Noyon; the other by our Chifflet, from a manuscript of Saint-Omer, not so old, as he himself noted." But such was then the confusion of documents in the library of Caudenberg that four other copies, somewhat different from the rest and from one another, were afterwards found by us: of which the first, taken from a codex of Noyon by the aforepraised Reverend Dean, is different from the former and presents a Life older, as it seems to us, than the rest; the second was transcribed in the year 1666 by Master Louis Nicquet, librarian of the Celestines of Soissons, from a manuscript book of the cathedral church, and is almost a compendium of this one of Noyon, distributed into nine lessons; the third, supplied by the same librarian of Soissons, scarcely differs from that of Vaucelles which Ghesquière used; and the fourth, finally, which likewise did not light his way, was transcribed from a less old lectionary of Saint-Omer, and (as from the folds and the seal impressed on the paper, compared with another signed leaf, seems manifest to me) was submitted by our Boucher. And here in passing let me be permitted to note that from a note inscribed by Bolland on the mentioned leaf it is established that Boucher's first intention was not to stop at the rise of Clovis and compose the Belgium Romanum, as his book is called; but since Bolland signifies that Boucher wished to insert these Lives (among which that of St. Mummolinus) in his Belgium, it is clear that he had it in mind to extend his work at least to the eighth century, unless rather to compose complete annals of Belgium. So far of the unpublished Lives of St. Mummolinus. To say nothing of the common Lives of the Saints and of the histories in which the sacred matters of the dioceses of Tournai, Noyon, Thérouanne, etc., are treated, there were besides at hand to me the Breviaries or Propers of Saint-Omer of the years 1518, 1708 and 1785; of Arras of the year 1817; of Noyon of the year 1630; of Ypres of the years 1629, 1715, 1746 and 1776; of Tournai of the years 1787 and 1805; of Boulogne of the Morini of the year 1756; and in all these the Life of St. Mummolinus exists divided into several lessons. As I gather from the calendar prefixed to the winter part of the Breviary of Saint-Quentin of the Vermandois of about the year 1520, the Life of St. Mummolinus must also have been inserted in the summer part; but this we still lack. And before I pass over to other sources, a few things are to be noted on the foregoing.

[4] [whose credibility seems wrongly faulted by Ghesquière on account of the prologue,] Whatever Lives of St. Mummolinus Ghesquière found either in Breviaries or in Lectionaries, he marked with a black pebble, "because," he says, "they all labour under one and the same fault, namely the wrongly asserted coming of St. Mummolinus into Gaul under Clothar III, son of Clovis II, and his stay at the royal court, before, namely, as they will have it, our Saint went to the Morini; whereas Mummolinus had already stayed almost fifteen years among the Morini before Clothar III was raised to the kingdom of the Franks." But in my copies the Offices of Tournai, Arras, Boulogne, and Saint-Omer of the year 1785 lack this blemish; indeed the shorter manuscript Life of Soissons is also free of this anachronism. Yet it is to be noted that such a beginning is present in this Life that, although the first lesson is not lacking to it, it nevertheless seems either headless or torn away from elsewhere, since it begins thus: At that time a man of most holy religion, Mummolinus by name, having gone out from his own region, came into the Gauls with two companions. But the most ample Life, sent from Noyon, which either owes its origin to this shorter one or gave it origin, has a prologue similar to the prologue prefixed to the common Life of St. Mummolinus, which Ghesquière condemned for anachronism; for these things are in it: In the time in which the most excellent king Lothar, son of Louis, governed the kingdom of Francia by hereditary right… it befell the Church to be propagated * with the manifold offspring of spiritual sons. For, the persecution … having been calmed, Christ gathered together very many Confessors to the Church… At that time a man of most holy religion, Mommolenus by name, having gone out from his own region, came into the Gauls with two companions.

[5] which admits of explanation, But several things are to be noticed concerning this prologue. First of all, even if it were to be conceded that it is signified here that St. Mummolinus first came into the Gauls with his companions in the reign of Lothar or Clothar III (to which, however, we do not seem constrained), it would nevertheless be much too severe to reject this Life for that single reason: for if such criticism held good, very many Passions of Martyrs would have to be set aside which are held as genuine by the hypercritics themselves, although a confusion of the names of emperors appears in them; on which matter Fr. Honoratus of St. Mary is to be read in his work on the use and laws of criticism [Réflexions sur les règles et l'usage de la critique, vol. II, p. 16, dissertation IV, article 5]; moreover, in this very present volume page 931, no. 13 we have an example of a similar error in the contemporary Life of St. Magnobod, in which this Saint is said to have been elected by the common votes of all with the assent of King Dagobert, to whom the succession of the kingdom had already descended; whereas it is established that St. Magnobod obtained the cathedra of Angers in the year 609, and that Dagobert, son of Lothar, began to rule Austrasia only in the year 622 and Neustria six years later. But since no one will on that account deny credence to the Acts of the holy prelate of Angers, by what right should the Life of the bishop of Noyon be made almost nothing of? especially since all difficulty vanishes if, one name of the father being changed, in place of: In the time in which the most excellent king Lothar, son of Louis, etc., there is written: In the time in which… Lothar, son of Chilperic, etc.: how easily this change could have been admitted by amanuenses, or even the error by a writer not contemporary, no one will fail to see. Moreover it is not at all established that a true slip obtains here, since that prologue, In the time in which Lothar, seems to indicate only a broad space in which St. Mummolinus flourished, as in fact he did flourish, no less than many other Confessors; whereas formerly, namely three centuries before, the Saints whom we venerate merited the heavenly crown amid the persecutions of the Christian faith. Which conjecture is greatly propped up both by the fact that in the more recent Lives two Lothars are distinguished, the former with whom St. Mummolinus had much to do at the beginning of his apostolic life, the latter to whose ears his fame reached when he was to be elected bishop; and by the very manner of writing which the Anonymous used: for from the prologue, which is read in both kinds of Lives, you would believe that St. Mummolinus with his companions made straight from Alemannia for the Gauls to preach; but this is not so: for St. Mummolinus himself, addressing the king, will at once teach that before he undertook the office of preaching he had spent several years as a monk at Luxeuil.

[6] and was taken from the Life of St. Eligius. And if we look at the origin of that prologue, which is excerpted from the Life of St. Eligius Book II, part I, chapter 3. Acta SS. Belgii selecta, vol. III, p. 231, we easily find that these things were so understood by the biographer. In this Life, namely, these words are read, altogether similar to that prologue: Although the condition of the time could not furnish him (St. Eligius) martyrdom, yet he did not lose the glory of a Martyr, because he laboured continually for the hope of eternity; but if it had been permitted him in the Neronian and Decian times to fight in that encounter which then existed, I would say with confidence that he would have mounted the rack of his own accord, and offered himself to the fires for Christ, and gladly seized the palm of blood: but although he did not bear these things, yet he fulfilled martyrdom even without blood, while, strengthened with fortitude, assiduous in vigils, constant in fasts, keeping the faith, finishing his course, he awaited daily that the crown of justice laid up for him by Christ should be bestowed: for as a watchman appointed by the Lord he preached the word with all authority. Since the biographer undoubtedly had these words before his eyes

in writing the prologue, it cannot be that he attached St. Mummolinus's coming into the Gauls to the reign of Clothar the Third; for, since he had found the cited words in part I of book II, he had read a little above, at the beginning of the same part I, concerning St. Eligius: He had also been from the times of Lothar the middle (II), the gentle king of the Franks, and throughout the whole time of Dagobert, the renowned prince, and also of Clovis his son, and remained in the body until the beginning of the reign of the younger Lothar. And on other grounds he knew that St. Mummolinus succeeded St. Eligius only after he had spent very many years, first at Luxeuil, then at the king's court, afterwards in the sacred ministry with St. Audomar, and finally in the Old monastery and that of Sithiu; and Eligius himself had departed this life at the beginning of the reign of Lothar, son of Clovis or Louis: how then could anyone wish that the biographer referred in that prologue St. Mummolinus's arrival in the Gauls to the times of this Lothar?

[7] [Not only the older Lives, but even those which seem more recent, are to be referred not only to the tenth century,] However that may be, it is certain, what Ghesquière omitted to note, that the very Lives which we hold as more recent, as being less rough in style, augmented with certain incorrect circumstances and other things of that kind, are certainly, I say, not only older than the end of the tenth century, but also seem perhaps to be referred to the eighth century, namely to a hundred years after the death of St. Mummolinus. For, treating of the monastery of the twelve Apostles, also named after St. Godeberta, beside which our prelate was buried, they have: In which place a congregation of nuns was established to serve as soldiers for God and his Saints. But that monastery did not take nuns before the year 989, in which Liudulf, occupying the cathedra of Noyon from the year 977, met his last day, as is established from Guy the treasurer in Le Vasseur p. 732, cited in Gallia Christiana, vol. IX, col. 993: Liudulf obtained the see of pontifical honour, over which he presided for twelve years: he also increased the goods of the canons with Betonis Curtis in the district of Noyon, with Atramentaria, and in all integrity, and also with judicial power. He gave also to the abbey of St. Godeberta part of the toll which he held by episcopal right, and other necessary things of the toll, from which ten solidi are paid on the festival of Saint Godeberta; and afterwards, by apostolic privilege, he GRANTED THE ABBEY itself TO THE USES OF THE CANONS, IN ALL INTEGRITY. The day of his death is held as the Nones of November, and he is buried before the altar of the Saviour in the church of St. Mary. Nor did that same monastery afterwards return into the power of nuns; but it was in the hands of sixty canons of Noyon, until it was changed into a parish church: on which matter the Gallia Christiana Vol. IX, col. 1094 and Colliette's work on the history of the Vermandois Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du Vermandois, vol. I, p. 520 are to be consulted.

[8] but seem to be referred to the eighth century. But one may also ascend higher: for all the Lives, giving the reason why St. Mummolinus was buried outside the walls of Noyon, use this or a similar expression: But because it is called the city of the living, not of the dead, after much shedding of tears he was buried by his disciples outside the walls, before the water-gate, in the church of the Holy Apostles; whence it is manifest that all these Lives were written before the custom obtained of burying the bishops themselves within the very walls of cities. It is indeed unknown at what time this custom was introduced at Noyon; for although it is established that Gislebert, bishop of Noyon, was still laid outside the walls in the church of the Holy Apostles in the year 782 Gallia Christiana, vol. IX, col. 978, but that in the year 936 Walbert was given burial in the right part of the choir of the church of Noyon within the walls of the city Ibid., col. 991, and although it may be gathered thence that this custom at Noyon was more recent than the year 782 and older than the year 936, nevertheless a century and a half slips by in which what was done in this matter here is not manifest from sure records. Nevertheless it seems most highly probable that the people of Noyon imitated the rest, and accordingly that perhaps at the end of the eighth century the city was called one not of the living only, but also of the dead, at least of bishops. And certainly who would believe that any author in the ninth century would have written what is said in this Life of St. Mummolinus about the custom of burying, when by very many councils it was already expressly permitted to bury kings, bishops, abbots and other men of higher rank in those places in which it had before been forbidden? Above others on this usage Selvaggio is to be consulted in the Antiquitatum Christianarum Institutiones [Book II, part I, appendix §3, vol. III, p. 259, Mainz edition]. And in confirmation of this our opinion concerning the antiquity of the Life of St. Mummolinus come also other sayings, which in the more recent Acts run thus: The soldier of Christ was laid … namely beside the monastery (of which we have spoken above) which already long since IS BEING FOUNDED in honour of the twelve Apostles by most holy men; which last word seems to signify that in the time of St. Mummolinus's biographer that monastery, which had originally been founded by St. Eligius, had not yet been brought to completion; and accordingly, as far as may be, the biographer's age is to be brought near to the time of St. Eligius's successor. From these things, therefore, it follows that the writer of the Life of St. Mummolinus is to be called almost contemporary, and that his narrative is not to be deserted unless a manifest error compels it.

[9] [The deeds of St. Mummolinus are set forth in a few words from the Breviary of Boulogne] But that the reader may know in a few words what deeds of St. Mummolinus seem to be admitted, I shall bring forward the lessons concerning this Saint which were formerly recited in the cathedral church of Boulogne of the Morini on the 17th day of October (for the 16th was impeded by the feast of St. Wulfram, and the 15th by the feast of the dedication of churches): for although the lessons of Tournai come closer to them, those of Boulogne seemed preferable, since on account of the suppression of the episcopal see they are more liable to perishing. Lesson IV: Blessed Mummolinus of Constance, having departed from Luxeuil, where he had long (some years) led the life of a monk, came into Gaul together with Bertin and Bertrand. Who by assiduous preaching of the word of God, by purity of life and conversation, stirred up such fame of themselves that they easily became known to Clothar, who then held power among the Franks. Invited by him to the court, they produced great fruit in the palace people and the rest of the people, whom they long cultivated by word and example. Of whom they called many away from the cares of earthly things and the love of the world, and stirred them to the meditation of eternal life. Whence they were loved with wonderful affection by the people and honoured by the clergy.

[10] which before the rest Lesson V. But when Saint Audomar, formerly their companion, had been given as bishop to the Morini, thinking, as was the case, that the workers there were few for the abundance of the harvest, they resolved to go to him. Received by him most kindly, as fellow-workers destined from heaven they gave strenuous labour in cultivating the vineyard of the Lord. And when religious men flocked together from every side, and they had built dwellings for monks, Mommolinus, set over them by Blessed Audomar, wished to go before his own to the pursuit of perfection by example rather than by word. For after long fasts he scarcely refreshed his body with barley bread, and that sprinkled with ashes, and a drink of water tempered with tears. Never anxious about the morrow, whatever was offered in payment for preaching he presently gave away to the poor. To the sick coming to him from all sides he applied healing: not shrinking from lepers, whose ulcerous limbs he refreshed with baths.

[11] sets them forth accurately, Lesson VI. Meanwhile, Eligius, bishop of Noyon, having departed this life, Mommolinus, on account of the remarkable holiness of his life and his skill in the Roman and Teutonic tongues, is put in his place, although unwilling and only by command. With great solicitude he administered the church of Noyon, and also the other which was then joined to it, that of Tournai, for twenty-six years, sparing no labours, a physician of souls and bodies alike; a perpetual patron of widows and the needy. At length, foreseeing that the death long desired was near, he commands that his little body be laid in a small sarcophagus in the common cemetery (?). And as the sickness grew heavier, not even then did he cease from prayer and the office of divine praise, until, having received the Eucharist, amid thanksgivings and the words of prayers, on the seventeenth before the Kalends of November of the year six hundred and eighty-five (?), he breathed out his spirit. Whom God made illustrious after death by many miracles.

[12] and also from a manuscript synopsis drawn from the Life of St. Audomar; Another synopsis of the Life of St. Mummolinus, transcribed from a manuscript codex, Ghesquière published. We have at hand a copy of this synopsis more correct than that which lit the way for the praised hagiographer. No mention is made in it of St. Mummolinus's stay at the court of Clothar, and on that account my predecessor praised it at length; but since there is omitted in it also the monastic life of St. Mummolinus, spent at Luxeuil, and since concerning this twofold fact all notice is lacking too in the first and third Lives of St. Audomar, which our Stilting made public at the 9th of September, and since the other things which are in the synopsis, except these words: King Lothar acting, are explained much more broadly in the Lives of St. Audomar, it is clear and manifest that this abridger used the deeds of St. Audomar alone for praising St. Mummolinus. Now here is that synopsis according to the better copy; it is entitled Life of St. Mommolinus, bishop, and runs thus: Blessed Mommolinus drew his origin from the city of Constance near the Rhine. He, undertaking a pilgrimage with two others, namely Bertin and Bertrand, at length went to Saint Audomar, bishop among the Morini. Who , when he had honourably received him together with his companions, and had built a monastery for them to serve God more quietly, and had enjoined on Mommolinus the government of the said place, and the man of God had governed it laudably for many years, and meanwhile Saint Eligius had departed from this world, Mommolinus, substituted as bishop of the city of Noyon, King Lothar acting, excellently exercised the things which befit such an office and duly ruled the people committed to him by the Lord. And when he had presided over the said city in the episcopate for 27 * years, and had foreseen his death in spirit, and had also admonished his own to the observance of the heavenly precepts, and had received the saving viaticum of the body and blood of Christ, amid thanksgivings and prayers he breathed out his spirit, and on the 17th before the Kalends of November flew up to those above. Blessed be his name unto the ages, who made his Saint wonderful on earth, and glorified him more wonderfully in heaven without end. Amen. Ghesquière has already inquired who the compiler of this epitome was; and we ourselves have done the same; but we are compelled to confess with the praised hagiographer that our labour was spent in vain. He suspected that it lit the way for Iperius, who wrote the Chronicle of St. Bertin before the year 1383.

[13] [which Ghesquière believed lit the way for Iperius, on whom a few things are noted.] But since we shall often employ the Chronicle of Iperius in testimony, let us hear Ghesquière concerning him,

discoursing in these words: "John Iperius saw a certain Life of St. Mummolinus … and numbered it among the authentic writings, as may be seen in his prologue, volume III of Martène's Thesaurus Anecdotorum, col. 448, where he speaks of the praised Chronicle in this manner: The present little work we have collected with welcome labour from many volumes and authentic writings, taking from each what seemed to regard our purpose, inserting nothing which is not approved by authentic writings. For we have collected from the legends of Saints Bertin, Audomar … Mommolinus, and many others. But whether the Life of our Saint which he himself calls authentic is that same older one (namely the synopsis) from which the aforesaid fragment is absent, or on the contrary an interpolated one, one might doubt from the fact that Iperius, part V, col. 458, narrates that Bertin, Mummolinus and Bertrand came into Francia sowing the word of life, were honourably received by King Clothar, and after a long interval of time went to St. Audomar, then bishop of the Morini. Yet since Iperius could have drawn these things from elsewhere, namely from that Life of St. Bertin which, after Mabillon, Le Cointe and Pagi attributed to Folcard, but Stilting to a certain anonymous compiler, nothing forbids believing that the Life of St. Mummolinus which Iperius called authentic is that older one and by no means interpolated of which we treated above" (namely when Ghesquière wished to investigate the origin of the cited synopsis). On which words it must first be noted that this synopsis is to be referred among the authentic writings after all the other Lives, since it was clearly taken, as we have said, from the Acts of St. Audomar; then, as to Iperius being blamed, no differently than if he had said that St. Mummolinus came to St. Audomar after he had long before had dealings with Clothar III (for the Clothar whom Iperius mentions Ghesquière rather boldly interprets as Clothar III), I shall try to free him from the charge in the following §. Nevertheless we are not such as to defend the part of Iperius everywhere: for, as our predecessors have often observed in the Commentaries on St. Audomar and on St. Bertin, he frequently hesitates and errs in the years, because he did not know how to reconcile rightly the years of the supreme Pontiffs and of the kings of the Franks with the years of the Christian era.

* propagari

* read Qui

* so in both copies; read decent

* better in the other copy XXVI, where on the other hand annis is lacking

§ II. The birth of St. Mummolinus; his monastic life spent at Luxeuil; his preaching in Gaul and at the court of Clothar II; he founds the Old monastery and that of Sithiu, over which he is set.

[The native country of St. Mummolinus, the time of his birth, his monastic life spent at Luxeuil.] Being now about to illustrate the several deeds of St. Mummolinus, we begin with the circumstances of his birth. Now that he was brought into the world in the very city of Constance, situated in Germany near Lake Bodamicus or Lake Constance, his manuscript Acts relate, and the Lives of SS. Audomar and Bertin sufficiently hint the same. Stilting Acta SS., Commentary on St. Bertin, no. 31, vol. II of September, p. 556 determines that St. Bertin, his companion, was born between the year 600 and 610; with whom I gladly agree, inclining, however, more to the year 600 than to the year 610. Moreover Ibid., nos. 35 and 67, with Le Cointe [Annales Ecclesiastici Francorum at the year 633, §13], he makes the same Saint younger than St. Mummolinus; which, since it is without doubt right from the whole series of the life of these Saints, the time of St. Mummolinus's birth must be put off to about the end of the sixth century. And that this Saint was born of so noble a stock that before Clothar II he kept silent about the original line of his birth, lest in recounting his lineage he should be moved by any haughtiness of pride, may be gathered from his manuscript Lives. From the same sources and from Iperius we know that he led the monastic life under St. Eustasius, abbot of the monastery of Luxeuil and disciple of Saint Columbanus, and accordingly that the beginning of his religious life must be set some time before the year 625, in which St. Eustasius, as may be seen in his Life Vol. III of March, p. 784, departed from the living. Stilting, in the Commentary on St. Bertin Acta SS., vol. II of September, nos. 34 and following, partly from conjecture, partly relying on the Lives of SS. Mummolinus, Audomar and Bertin, fixed this beginning at the end of St. Eustasius's life; for my part, noticing that St. Bertin came to Luxeuil when he was a boy, I see nothing that prevents about the year 614 from being assigned to the training of SS. Mummolinus, Bertin and Ebertramnus: and these things being admitted, nothing will occur which not only does not conflict with the Lives of St. Bertin and the Chronicle of Iperius, but which is not also in agreement with the Life of St. Mummolinus, where St. Mummolinus himself thus speaks to Clothar II: From a boy … I ran through the regular life under Saint Eustasius the abbot. But how long our Saint remained there with his companions is uncertain; that we may not depart from what is hinted in the Life of St. Mummolinus, it suffices that we lead them out of Luxeuil some time before the year 628. And at this point two things are to be noted; the former, namely, that by the two-horned or Irish tonsure with which St. Mummolinus is painted in the image to be published at the end of the Commentary, his stay at Luxeuil, and the discipline and ecclesiastical customs heard and taken up there, are greatly confirmed; the other, which is also worth noting, that St. Audomar, whom I have already named and shall name more often, was at Luxeuil at the same time as St. Mummolinus, as is clear from his Life published at the 9th of September and from the preliminary commentary of Stilting Ibid., vol. III of September, p. 386, no. 14 and following; and accordingly that in certain Offices concerning St. Mummolinus it is rightly said that SS. Mummolinus, Bertin and Bertrand or Ebertramnus were fellow-inmates of St. Audomar while he was living at Luxeuil.

[15] [St. Mummolinus came with SS. Ebertramnus and Bertin to Clothar II before the year 628, and to St. Audomar about the year 640,] But now here is one of the principal knots by which the deeds of St. Mummolinus are entangled: it is asked, namely, at what time St. Mummolinus with his companions Bertin and Ebertramnus left Luxeuil; whether, having left Luxeuil, he made straight for St. Audomar, or whether he preached for some time before in the Gauls and stayed at the court of Clothar II; and thirdly, finally, whether, after giving his labour to St. Audomar and founding the Old monastery and that of Sithiu in the district of the Morini, he lived at the court of Clothar III. Stilting, in the commentary on St. Bertin Ibid., vol. II of September, p. 557 and following, gave an answer to this threefold question, and determined, to explain his opinion briefly from the marginal notes, that Bertin, with Mummolinus and Ebertramnus, went out of Luxeuil not to preach through the whole of Gaul, as some wrongly write, … nor in the time of Clothar III, nor even of Clothar II, but called probably by St. Audomar, to whom he came with his companions about the year 638 or 640: whence we have, on Stilting's authority, with whom Ghesquière agreed, that St. Mummolinus left Luxeuil about the year 640 and went straight to St. Audomar; and as regards the third question, the same hagiographer judges in the same place that our Saint stayed at the court of Clothar III after founding the twofold monastery. For my part, when I inquire into the proofs of these assertions, I find it rightly demonstrated against the anonymous compiler of the Life of St. Bertin Acta SS. Ord. S. Benedicti, third century, part I, p. 109, belonging to the thirteenth century Vol. II of September, p. 554, that, if St. Mummolinus stayed at the court of Clothar III, he did not make for this court immediately after he had gone out of Luxeuil, since that Clothar obtained the kingdom only in the year 655 or the following, namely when our Blessed Confessor had already lived some years in the Old monastery and that of Sithiu; but in vain do I search there for further things proven concerning the remaining questions.

[16] as his manuscript Lives and Iperius openly have, But the error of that anonymous compiler is no hindrance to our being able to adhere to the most ancient records concerning St. Mummolinus, or also to the Chronicle of Iperius, which is consonant with them. And he says Martène, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, vol. III, col. 458: Specially the Saints Bertin, Mommolinus and Bertrand, three men worshippers of the Holy Trinity, not wishing to hide the Lord's talent or to bring it back without gain, came from Luxeuil, a monastery of Burgundy, into Francia, sowing the word of life, and were honourably received by King Clothar, and installed within the king's palace with the greatest diligence. How erroneously Ghesquière Acta SS. Belgii selecta, vol. IV, p. 395 believed these words to have been referred by Iperius to the reign of Clothar III becomes manifest from what Stilting had long before noted on the same Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 588: What the anonymous compiler of the Life of St. Bertin says was done under Clothar III, he says, that is, much too late to be likely, this man (Iperius) places under Clothar II; and indeed the chronologist of St. Bertin so inclines to the times of Clothar II that he refers to the rule of that same king even, as Stilting says Ibid., the handing over of Adroald, which was made in the year 648, and which he presently places as made in the year 626. Of this donation, which gave the beginning to the monastery of Sithiu, it will be spoken below. Iperius proceeds, drawing his sayings chiefly from the Lives of St. Mummolinus: After a long interval of time they went to Saint Audomar, then bishop of the Morini, whose compatriot and kinsman Blessed Bertin was, both for love of that Saint and because they knew well the language of the country, being Teutons: and Saint Audomar, receiving them, determined that they should be his partners in preaching. They undertook, therefore, the office of their embassy with the labour of continual preaching. Thus far Iperius; whose mind therefore was: that St. Mummolinus, having gone out of Luxeuil with his companions, preached the divine word and came to the court of Clothar II before the year of the latter's death, 628; that they then, after a long interval of time, passed over to Audomar, bishop of the Morini; and there again gave their labour to holding sermons: whence I do not understand how this accusation of Stilting against the cited words of Iperius can stand: These things, he says, can be refuted without difficulty, since they certainly did not come before the episcopate of St. Audomar, which was begun under Dagobert, and indeed about the end of Dagobert's life, as most think… Wherefore that comes nearer to the truth which Iperius had said before, part II, that Bertin came into these western parts of Flanders (to St. Audomar) in the time of Severinus, supreme Pontiff, whose pontificate is wholly tied by Pagi to the year 640. Le Cointe places their coming at about the year 639, which likewise

I judge is not far from the truth. But I see nothing in which Iperius conflicts with himself, when he brings St. Mummolinus to Clothar II before the year 628, and then, after a long interval of time, that is, in the year 640 under the pontificate of Severinus, to St. Audomar.

[17] others in vain weaving another chronology; Wherefore I think there is no reason why the preaching of St. Mummolinus in the Gauls and before Clothar II, maintained by Iperius and in all the Lives of St. Mummolinus, should be repudiated; nor accordingly that it should be erased, as those in fact erased it from the Office of this Saint who composed the Breviary of Saint-Omer of the year 1785, and that of Arras of the year 1817, similar in this matter to that of Saint-Omer, praising St. Mummolinus thus: (At Luxeuil) he presently shone so much with his virtues that he was raised to the priesthood, and destined by the wishes of all to the ministry of the Gospel. He was already about to set out with his companions to the Rhine for the sake of preaching the Gospel, when at once, his plan being changed, he determined to go, the same accompanying him, to Saint Audomar, bishop of the Tervanni. Kindly received by him… Although the authority of Stilting perhaps had some weight in the writing of these things, they are nevertheless far from agreeing with him in all things: for what he thought of the preaching of St. Mummolinus and his companions he explains in the following words in the praised Commentary on St. Bertin: We believe nothing, he says, of the coming of those Saints to Clothar or to his court, nothing of disciples who joined themselves to them before they had come to St. Audomar. Nevertheless, since writers often disturb the order of things, perhaps St. Mummolinus was called to the court of Clothar III before he was created bishop of Noyon: and what is said of the preaching, and of disciples flocking to these Saints, is most true if we believe it done at the time when they were cultivating the people of the district of the Morini with St. Audomar: and at that time also some of the palace nobles could come to them from time to time. Ghesquière Acta SS. Belgii selecta, vol. IV, p. 396, no. 5 supports these suspicions in such a way, however, that he would wish them confirmed from elsewhere. But besides that historical records which do not labour under manifest fraud (such as are the Lives of St. Mummolinus) ought to prevail over uncertain conjectures, I for my part do not find a suitable interval of time in which St. Mummolinus could have stayed for some time at the court of Clothar III after he had come to St. Audomar about the year 640: as the reader himself will easily understand when we have transferred our pen to his other deeds. And from these things it is sufficiently manifest what I think must be answered to the three questions proposed at no. 15: namely, St. Mummolinus will have gone out of Luxeuil some time before the year 628, in which Clothar is commonly determined to have died; and since he discharged the office of evangelising very well and excelled in other endowments, Clothar II will have called him into his court and familiarity, and indeed into the custody of his seal; and, he having died, he will have preached the word of God to the people for about ten or twelve more years, until about the year 638 or 640 he went into the diocese of the Morini to St. Audomar; by whom, when he and his companions had been kindly received, they will have undertaken, as the second Life of St. Bertin published by Stilting puts it, the office of their embassy with the labour of continual preaching.

[18] [since neither the grave old age of St. Bertin nor the brevity of the stay at Luxeuil can prove anything here.] Against this chronology only two arguments seem able to be opposed: the former is that the biographers of St. Bertin who tried to assign the year of his death determined that he departed this life in the 15th year of the reign of Childebert, which is the year of Christ 709; that Stilting Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 580, relying on the authority of Folquin, who surveyed the charters of St. Bertin, approved the same opinion (to which we ourselves gladly subscribe); and that thence it follows that St. Bertin lived about 109 years, since we say that he stayed with St. Mummolinus at the court of Clothar II before the year 628, and 25 or more years of age must then be assigned to him: and further that, if the consequent is displeasing, the premised propositions must also be displeasing, of which one is this very stay at the court of Clothar II. But all the older historians agree in maintaining the longevity of St. Bertin, who they will have it lived 112 years, as may be seen at length in Stilting's often-praised commentary Ibid., p. 579; and he himself concludes thus at the end of §12: It will suffice me to have said only this of his age, that the Saint lived to an altogether decrepit age, which cannot be far from a hundred years, and may even surpass them: and that he died about seventy years after his first coming to Saint Audomar and the construction of the first monastery. If you add to these that St. Bertin was so wrapped in old age that he used Rigobert and then Erlefrid as vicars in government, there will no longer be any reason why an age of about 109 years should displease. The other argument which could be opposed to the foregoing chronology is sought from the fact that the time which St. Mummolinus with his companions spent at Luxeuil, where they seem to have been free for holy disciplines, would then be shorter. Stilting hints something similar Ibid., p. 557, blaming Le Cointe for confining their stay at Luxeuil within six years, and proposes this argument: Surely the time of six years in which they should prepare themselves in the monastery appears too short, since it is likely that Bertin and the others were young men when they came to Luxeuil. But it must be noticed that at that time monks, at least the English and Irish, were initiated into the sacred diaconate at the beginning of youth; of which assertion the Venerable Bede himself is witness, made deacon in the 19th year of his age and priest in the 30th. When, therefore, they went out of Luxeuil, St. Mummolinus alone, the eldest, may have been a priest, and Saints Bertin and Ebertramnus only deacons. Besides, to help apostolic men, is that not a praiseworthy preparation for the priesthood? Moreover, mention is made of St. Bertin's priesthood only when he had already presided for some time over the monastery of Sithiu. For the rest, those six years devised by Le Cointe can easily be made two or three times greater without any disturbance being brought into our chronology, since St. Mummolinus, as he himself narrates to Clothar in his Life, and St. Bertin, as also shines out sufficiently from his deeds, inhabited Luxeuil from earliest boyhood or certainly from adolescence; and if they came there in the year 614, a sufficient interval remains before Clothar II met his death. But enough of these things: we now proceed to the remaining deeds of St. Mummolinus.

[19] [After St. Mummolinus had preached for some time in the district of the Morini, about the year 640 he founds the Old monastery,] The preaching which was recorded at the end of no. 17 must have lasted only a short space of time. For the most ancient Life of St. Bertin Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 587 testifies this: Saint Audomar received the aforesaid servants of God gratefully, giving immense thanks to the almighty Lord, who had brought him such helpers for preaching the gospel. For the aforesaid men were perfect in the catholic faith, and learned in ecclesiastical disciplines and in the divine Scripture, which, namely, as Ghesquière noted Acta SS. Belgii selecta, vol. IV, p. 395, they had been able to learn first under St. Eustasius, abbot of Luxeuil, and then perhaps for one or two years under Walbert, St. Eustasius's successor. Further, the biographer of St. Bertin proceeds thus: A short space of time having passed after these things, St. Audomar, with the aforesaid men, divine grace spurring him, thought to found a monastery in the name of God. For he had, the divine mercy bestowing it on him, a place suitable for monks to dwell in… After, therefore, the aforesaid servants of God came to him, he granted them that they should build a dwelling of monks wherever it pleased them in the aforesaid estate. The holy men, therefore, Mummolinus and Bertin, with the rest of their companions in Christ, began to build a monastery, which to this day is called the Old monastery. From Iperius, however, that short space of time is to be enclosed within the limits of one year, since Martène, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, vol. III, col. 451, chapter 1, part II he assigns St. Bertin's coming into the western parts of Flanders, and Ibid., col. 458 and following, chapter 1, part VI the construction of the Old monastery, to the pontificate of Severinus, who sat at Rome only in the six hundred and fortieth year: which Stilting in the commentary Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 559, no. 48 on St. Bertin gladly admits. But since the same hagiographer fixed St. Mummolinus's coming at about the year 638 or 640, he left more vague the time which St. Mummolinus spent outside the Old monastery in teaching the people. And indeed, since Iperius frequently hesitates in the years and even errs, and besides his testimony no reason impels me to dissent from Stilting, I gladly subscribe to his reckoning, supported by good reasons.

[20] in which he does not seem to have borne the title of abbot, Now the Old monastery, built about the year 640, stood about a mile from Saint-Omer until the year 1497, in which, together with its workshops, it was burned amid the wars of the French and the English. That ascetery consisted of a little building and a cell, as Iperius has it; and in the thirteenth century, in the Life of St. Thomas of Canterbury, who fled thither, which Pope Gregory XI ordered to be written and Christianus Lupus published, it was called Christianus Lupus, Complete Works, vol. X, p. 24, book II, chapter 5 a hidden place, hedged in by waters, which is called by the inhabitants Aldemunster, namely formerly the hermitage of the Confessor Bertin; and similarly it was called by Iperius in the Chronicle in the fourteenth century as it were a hermitage. And over this St. Mummolinus was set as provost by St. Audomar, and probably for this reason, says Ghesquière, that he had presided over his two companions from the time when they had departed together from the monastery of Luxeuil, and was their senior both in age and in monastic life. Stilting, however, judges that to Mummolinus, although he was superior and as it were father of the others, the title of abbot was nevertheless not granted. Yet the praised hagiographer denied this title of abbot to St. Mummolinus, living in the Old monastery, only hastily, without arguments, at no. 67 of the often-cited commentary; wherefore, stretching out an auxiliary hand, Ghesquière confirmed this, writing: Which I should easily believe, since I nowhere find this title granted to our Saint while living in the Old monastery.

[21] as is explained by a threefold argument; For my part, led by other arguments, I judge that the title of abbot is to be denied to St. Mummolinus while living in the Old monastery. For first, not without reason did Iperius call the Old monastery a hermitage; for in the Life of St. Mummolinus which we have as the most ancient these things occur: But after (St. Audomar) had been comforted for some little space of time by the most pleasant companionship of the holy athlete Mommolinus and his holy companions, namely Bertin and Bertrand, WISHING THEM NO LONGER FROM ONE ANOTHER

TO BE SEPARATED, he granted them to build at their pleasure a cenobitic monastery of brethren in the same inheritance which Adrawald had given him. Now for men leading the eremitic life, or separated from one another, not an abbot but scarcely a superior was necessary. Secondly, all the Lives of St. Mummolinus which clearly and manifestly record the twofold monastery, and likewise the most ancient Life of St. Bertin, openly hint that a new headship was conferred on St. Mummolinus in the monastery of Sithiu; since they assert these or similar things: Religious men flocking together from all sides to the aforesaid servants of God, Blessed Audomar set Mummolinus over the multitude of monks. Whence it follows that St. Mummolinus did not before have abbatial power, which then was wont to be perpetual. Thirdly, in the charter of the handing over of Adroald, which may be read entire in Stilting Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 560, in Miraeus Book I of the Donationes piae, chapter 3, in the Gallia Christiana Vol. III, col. 109, among the instruments, in Le Cointe [Annales Ecclesiastici Francorum at the year 648, §30], in Bréquigny Diplomata, etc., ad res Francicas spectantia, vol. I, no. 112, p. 203, who published it partly from the autograph, partly from a cartulary of the tenth century Ibid., prolegomena, p. 72 and following, in the distinguished Guérard from the same cartulary Cartulaire de l'abbaye de S. Bertin, p. 18, and part of which is published in the Dissertation on the origin of the monastery of St. Bertin [Dissertation historique et critique sur l'origine de l'abbaye de S. Bertin, p. 3 and following] and in the confutation of the same work Vérité de l'histoire de l'Église de S. Omer, p. 77, this beginning stands: To the lords, holy fathers * Bertin, Mommolenus, Ebertrand, I in the name of God Adroald, etc. I know indeed that critics commonly agree in calling this beginning corrupted by Folquin (for the beginning is lacking in the autograph Bréquigny and du Theil, Prolegomena, p. 73), and determine that Mommolinus is to be read before Bertin; but one must also be persuaded of this, that the monks of St. Bertin would never have changed the beginning of this charter in this way if St. Mummolinus had been distinguished from his companions by any title. And who would believe that every title would have been absent if St. Mummolinus had borne the abbatial staff when this diploma was drawn up, namely before he had migrated to the monastery of Sithiu? From these, moreover, it is understood that the Old monastery was in these times a dwelling of the slightest importance.

[22] eight or ten years after, God guiding, as some would have it, With Stilting, no. 53, I return to the order of the deeds:… Staying in that place a few years, eight perhaps or ten, but not fourteen years, as it appears, divine grace urging them, they wished to choose another place. The reason for changing the place was that, as the number of monks grew, the former place was too narrow; and that Adroald had now been moved by St. Audomar to allow his goods to be spent, and to hand them over by a new donation for building that monastery (of Sithiu) and establishing it with a suitable income. And when the choosing of a suitable place was being dealt with, three Lives of St. Mummolinus which are not distributed into lessons narrate that the business was entrusted to the divine will; but three others, which were part of the divine Office, omit this narrative; whether this omission obtains simply for the sake of brevity I do not dare to define. Yet this same narrative occurs in the most ancient Life of St. Bertin, or (which is the same, since the Life of St. Bertin was bound up with the Life of St. Audomar) in the Life of St. Audomar, and the words of the Life of St. Mummolinus are here almost the same as in the Life of SS. Audomar and Bertin; whence it is clear that this fragment was carried from the one into the other. Moreover, in the Preludes which the distinguished Guérard prefixed from a codex of Saint-Omer to the cartulary of Sithiu, and in which SS. Bertin and Ebertramnus are represented as yoke-fellows of St. Mummolinus, these things are sung together:

With angelic rowing He was led hither by ship; He overcomes the opposing waves, When he hastens to the place, Bertin, whom the Providence Of God had chosen.

But at what time the monastery of Sithiu is to be reckoned to have been built is clear from what has been set forth: for we have referred the construction of the Old monastery with Stilting to the year 640; to which time, if eight or ten years are added, during which St. Mummolinus and his companions stayed in the Old monastery, the year 648 or 650 will have to be assigned as the time at which the monastery of Sithiu, afterwards called the monastery of St. Bertin, will have been begun. This chronology departs from the reckoning which Mabillon and Le Cointe followed; and also from the calculation of the Auctarium of Sithiu to the Chronicle of Sigebert of Gembloux, where the foundation of this monastery is referred to the year 640 Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae, vol. VI, p. 442, and from the order of times assigned by Iperius (if you regard the years), who determines that the Old monastery was built in the year 626, that of Sithiu in the year 640; to whom must be added the distinguished Mr. Emmanuel Wallet and his associates, who, making public in the year 1834 a description of the former Abbey of St. Bertin, adhered to Iperius. But these various chronologies were so demolished by Stilting in his commentary on St. Bertin that someone perhaps will wonder that they were revived by most learned men who testify that they used this work of Stilting Description de l'abbaye S. Omer, p. 6. Yet they may draw an excuse from the praises which Martène, the editor of Iperius, prefixed to this annalist's Chronicle; but that those praises are exaggerated, and that Iperius continually errs in the years because he wrongly reconciled the years of Christ with the years of the kings, the praised hagiographer made plain in §3 of the cited commentary. Nevertheless, what greatly lessens the errors of Iperius is that he mostly places other chronological notes beside the years. Of which we have already given a specimen above; here is another similar one, by which the chronology proposed by us is somewhat strengthened; namely in part VI, chapter 1, §3 Martène, Thesaurus Monumentorum, vol. III, col. 460, Iperius attaches St. Mummolinus's coming to the monastery of Sithiu to the time at which Martin, Pope, the first, then presided over the Church of God. But he did not sit from the year 640, but, as may be seen in the Propylaeum of May p. 100, was ordained only in the year 649. What is wonderful, Martène in the notes changes the names of the pontiffs and kings in order to keep intact the numbers of the years, which are without doubt perverse.

[23] [he founds the monastery of Sithiu in a place which, as it then was, is here described from a recent work on the abbey of St. Bertin,] The reason for changing the place Stilting assigned above from Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 561, no. 53 Iperius and the often-cited biographers of SS. Audomar, Bertin and Mummolinus, saying that it was the narrowness of the Old monastery for the number of monks flocking together. Another besides, among many things worth knowing, is assigned by the aforepraised describers of the abbey of St. Bertin: whose sayings are to be held in esteem, since most of them are natives and strong in the study of antiquity; which I thus render into Latin See p. 6 and following, and 14: Mummolinus, Bertin and Bertrand first fixed their seat on a hill which rises between the hills of Sithiu and Watten beside the river Agnio (in French Aa), and is still called the mound or slope of St. Mummolinus (Motte de St. Mommelin). The hermitage which they founded there soon grew into a monastery. The multitude of monks and the unhealthiness of the place compelled St. Bertin and his companions to seek a more suitable seat for themselves; the choice of which they entrusted to the providence of God. Their little boat ploughed at random a lagoon filled with the waters of the Agnio, which the waves of the sea poured back and drove on. This lagoon was the remnant and image of the former bay of Sithiu. For when the alluvium of the Agnio and the putrid agglomeration of marshy and woodland growths (peats) had raised the bottom of this bay higher, the course of the river continued to be beaten by the tide of the sea, running in over the lands through the strait of Watten beyond the hill of Sithiu. Which state of things lasted until sluices were built towards the sea and the river Agnio and its branches were turned into a canal. But before the channel of the Agnio had been changed by hydraulic work, that river or stream crept in the valley of Arques and was divided into several branches, whose name was Meldick. At the jaws of the valley these streams flowed together and glided down to the hill of Sithiu, between the marshes whose present name is of the Lizel and of the Magdalene. At this extreme hill or tongue the Agnio broke its straight course, and was again split into several streams which, cutting through the marshes of the Lizel and of Haut-Pont, mingled their waters again near the present church of St. Mummolinus. About the same place (at the Hill of Sithiu) there flowed into the Agnio a stream, today called St. Clare, carrying down the waters of the small valleys which lie between the hills named after St. Michael and des Cravates. It is likely that St. Bertin's little boat stuck, and that in the seventh century the former church of Sithiu was built in the inner angle of these confluences, in an estuary or bank of mud, occupying the place of the ebbing water, and that the little boat stood still by the force of the tide.

[24] which, however excellent, has admitted some blemishes. It would be wrong of me not to correct one or another error sprinkled over these excellent topographical disquisitions. It cannot be that the hermitage built by St. Mummolinus grew into a monastery in his own times and quickly; but this must have happened later. For besides what we have already said on this matter at no. 20, five Lives of St. Mummolinus subjoin these or similar words to the foundation of the monastery of Sithiu, not the Old one: Blessed Audomar set Mummolinus over the multitude of monks; FOR FROM THAT TIME IT TOOK THE BEGINNING OF A SMALL RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY. Whence it is gathered that the Old monastery did not obtain this name because in the time of St. Mummolinus it was already a monastery properly so called, and not as it were a hermitage; but because it was the old dwelling of the founders of the monastery of Sithiu. Which can be somewhat confirmed if the letters of donation of Adroald, of which it has already been spoken, are weighed. Another error lies in this, that the care of building the monastery of Sithiu seems to be assigned to Bertin, not to Mummolinus, as the superior of the rest. This error is sought from Iperius, who followed the more recent biographers of St. Bertin, all of whom Stilting has already corrected at length. But whether what is asserted about the unhealthiness of the Old monastery, assigned as a reason for changing the seat, can bear a strict examination, I do not know. For from the very description of the place set forth above, where the monastery of Sithiu was founded, it is clear that this place was as liable to malignant vapours as the Old monastery, placed on a slope. It is established, moreover, that monks of old were not always anxious about healthy places: for what St. Bernard thought on this matter, rejoicing that his monks were sick, becomes known from the readily available Lives of this Saint. But these little faults easily

are redeemed by truly learned topographical annotations, by which above all it is understood how the little boat could go up against the river (for the Old monastery is lower down) without there being need of rowing or sails: it is clear, namely, that this was done by the force of the sea's tide.

[25] [In the monastery of Sithiu, of St. Peter, afterwards of St. Bertin, Mummolinus lives holily with his companions;] When, therefore, St. Mummolinus had come to the place where shortly the monastery of Sithiu and afterwards, beside it, Saint-Omer arose, he perceived that it was necessary to raise this place higher and to increase the bank of sand and mud by laborious toil. This at least, among other suspicions sufficiently well founded, the describers of St. Bertin conjecture. As Adroald had ordered in the charter of his most ample donation, the name of St. Peter, prince of the Apostles, was given to the monastery when built; which thereafter, after the death of St. Bertin, was changed into the name of this Saint, at whose command the church had been built and whose chief Relics were kept there. Further, so speaks Ghesquière, "in this monastery of St. Peter of Sithiu there glowed, as Le Cointe [Annales Ecclesiastici Francorum at the year 652, §6] relates, the cult of sacred religion under Abbot Mummolinus, to whose discipline a not small number of monks had already given themselves." The day here, as Malbrancq gathered from a manuscript Life of St. Mummolinus De Morinis, vol. I, p. 327, was spent partly in psalmody or pious meditations, partly in turning over books. The nourishment or time which was spent in refreshing the body was very slight: the table was more often seasoned with almost no relish, sometimes it saw nothing but the extreme supports of life, bread and water. Not that the means or the opportunity of living more richly were lacking (for we have already seen the munificence of Adroald pouring itself out abundantly); but since they were about to lay the principles of a rigid discipline, they commanded such abstinence on themselves: and also, being wholly zealous for the feeding of the poor and pilgrims, they withdrew their own things from themselves. To these Malbrancq subjoins, rendering the same Life in his own style: After long fasts (Mummolinus) found a new way of satisfying his stomach, namely with barley bread, and that mixed with ash, and water tempered with tears. He helped the needy wonderfully not only with a rich hand but also with a healing one; for whether those full of pus or held by other graver sicknesses came, he would first fall on his knees, implore with most ardent prayers both kinds of health for the man, then tend the ulcers and forthwith heal them thoroughly; so that each was more sure of known and unbought remedies than in the trust of physicians who catch a most unjust fee from a superfluous delay of the cure. Nor did they cast aside the evangelical work; and especially Mommolinus: for such was the mind of Audomar (who in a manner foresaw that the man was to be raised to a higher grade of the church) that he should run out above all to strengthen the neighbouring flock which he had taken up as it were from the cradle. Thus far Ghesquière from Malbrancq; whether a Life of St. Mummolinus similar to those which exist either with us or in the royal Burgundian library at Brussels, or another, lit his way, I have nothing to declare. However that may be, the skilful reading of books recorded by him above is probable to me; for although the Lives known to me are entirely silent about this reading, the rule of living which St. Mummolinus had followed at Luxeuil did very much for promoting studies.

[26] joining the apostolic life with the cenobitic under the rule of St. Columbanus. For the rest, the sayings of Malbrancq regard that time at which Mummolinus with his companions was chiefly engaged in the evangelical work and frequently ran out to teach and strengthen the flock of Audomar; for, as Le Cointe [Annales Ecclesiastici Francorum at the year 652, §6] rightly observes: The monastery … having been founded, these inhabited chiefly the village of Sithiu with their companions, but did not cease to announce the gospel through the whole diocese of the Morini. These things, namely, can easily be drawn from the Lives of St. Mummolinus, since this was the chief mind of St. Audomar in calling or admitting them, nor was the institute of the rule of Luxeuil, which without doubt they followed, opposed to the sacred ministry, but rather altogether favoured it, as the learned know well, especially from the Life of St. Eustasius. And since I have mentioned the rule of Luxeuil or of St. Columbanus, there is no reason for me to dispute how long it was in use in the monastery of Sithiu; Iperius, or any other known to me, hands down nothing on this matter. The controversy concerning the time at which the rule of St. Columbanus was entirely merged with the rule of St. Benedict, and other things of this kind, are too well known for us to record them at greater length. It is notable, however, that the tonsure of St. Bertin, whose very old, though not contemporary, image was published by Mabillon in the annals at the year 675, §56, is Benedictine or Roman, not of Luxeuil or Scottish, such as St. Mummolinus bears in the same place.

[27] St. Mummolinus was abbot of Sithiu, Nor have we hesitated everywhere to set St. Mummolinus over these undertakings, since all his Lives, no less than the older Life of St. Bertin, suspect to no one, as Ghesquière says Acta SS. Belgii selecta, vol. IV, p. 399, likewise the other of St. Bertin, and several Lives of St. Audomar, cited in the commentary of the canons of Saint-Omer Vérité de l'histoire de l'église de S. Omer, pp. 4 and 15 and by Stilting Acta SS., vol. III of September, pp. 399 and 409, and even the Office of St. Mummolinus Vérité de l'histoire de l'Église de S. Omer, p. 16, printed in the year 1723 for the use of the monks of St. Bertin, agree in maintaining this; moreover in the privilege of Clovis granted in the year 691 (we shall publish it below) St. Mummolinus is called the predecessor of St. Bertin. Wherefore Ghesquière, who however thought it enough to cite only the Life of St. Mummolinus and the older Life of St. Bertin, confesses Acta SS. Belgii selecta, vol. IV, p. 399 that he cannot sufficiently wonder that Mabillon and Denis de Sainte-Marthe (to whom the author of the dissertation on the origin of the abbey of St. Bertin [Dissertation historique sur l'origine de l'abbaye de S. Bertin, p. 45 and following], and lately the distinguished Guérard in the Cartulary of Saint Bertin Prolegomena, p. 34 have adhered) denied to St. Mummolinus the headship of the monastery of Sithiu, and attributed to him, perhaps more liberally than is fitting, the abbatial dignity while he presided over the Old monastery or hermitage. "One thing here," as Ghesquière goes on to discourse, "will suffice, to hear Mabillon speaking of the abbatial dignity of St. Mummolinus: Over the Old monastery, he says Annales Benedictini at the year 648, vol. I, p. 401, Mummolenus or Mummolinus was set as abbot, over the new monastery of Sithiu Bertin: which matter, not sufficiently noticed, has drawn authors into various opinions, some preferring Abbot Mummolinus to Bertin, others putting him after, others finally striking him altogether from the roll of the abbots of Sithiu, so as to give the first place to Bertin. Mummolinus, therefore, was the first and indeed the only abbot of the Old monastery, which retains to this day the name of St. Mummolinus; Bertin of the new one, fourteen years after the construction of the Old monastery; namely when Mummolinus, St. Eligius having died, was substituted in the see of Noyon. Stilting observes Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 563 that the opinion of Denis de Sainte-Marthe is the same, and does not deny that that reconciliation, such as it is, of the various opinions seems specious; but that it seems to him to agree with no ancient records, indeed to be opposed to almost all, and therefore to stray from the truth; which he proves at the cited page Ibid., place cited, whose words I subjoin here:

[28] as against older and more recent writers First, he says, the Lives of St. Audomar and St. Mummolinus already praised are opposed to this opinion. The author of the first Life cannot rightly be suspect, because he is older than the rest and wrote more about St. Bertin than about Mummolinus; the author of the second faithfully followed the first and set forth some things more fully. Other Lives of St. Audomar also agree with the aforesaid, but it is not necessary to adduce them. Now from these words we have that Mummolinus was the first abbot of the second or Sithiu monastery; and therefore that it was built long before the year 662, since Mummolinus was bishop from the year 659. Secondly, the letters of Adroald themselves sufficiently hint that the donation was made in order that the new monastery of Sithiu might be built; for they have thus: that where you ought to build a monastery in honour of Peter, prince of the Apostles, for monks to live in. None of the writers of the Life said that the Old monastery was built in honour of St. Peter. Adroald therefore speaks of the new one, which it is established was built in honour of St. Peter. Then the word "where" there somehow hints that that monastery was to be built in the very estate of Sithiu which Adroald was giving. Moreover the Old monastery was narrow and the number of monks there small, as is gathered from all the writers of the Life, so that Iperius says the Saints were there as it were in a hermitage … with a small community. But the words of Adroald signify that the donation was made so that an ample monastery might be built, in which there should be a great number of monks. For this reason all the writers of the Life assert that many ran together from all sides after the monastery of Sithiu was built, to serve God there; but not before that foundation.

[29] it is determined with Stilting, And that it may be established more and more that the monastery of St. Peter of Sithiu was built before the year 662, and that St. Mummolinus could therefore have presided over it, contrary to what Mabillon and Sainte-Marthe will have, who contend that he was set over the Old one only, it has seemed good to transfer hither the documents which Stilting adduced in confirmation of his opinion at no. 65, and to hear him again discoursing. Thirdly, he says, that the monastery of St. Peter of Sithiu was built before the year 662 becomes most certain from the privileges given to it before that year. Let us hear something from the letters of Clothar III, by which in the 6th year of his reign, that is, in the year of Christ 661 or 662 (rather 662), in the month of February, he confirms an exchange of various possessions made between Mummolinus, then bishop, and Bertin, abbot: Therefore the apostolic man Mummolinus, bishop of the city of Noyon, and also the venerable man Bertin, abbot of the monastery of Sitdiu, which * is placed in the district of Thérouanne, which they were seen to build by the work of both of them, and which is built in honour of Holy Mary, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also of Saints Peter and Paul the Apostles, or of the other lord Saints, coming to our presence, etc. It is certain that Bertin is here called abbot not of the Old monastery but of Sithiu, now called St. Bertin: for the Old monastery was never called Sitdiu or Sithiu, but all the biographers attribute that name to the new monastery. The new monastery, therefore, stood at the beginning of the year 662, nor was it begun in that year. Moreover it was built not by Bertin alone, but by the work of both, namely of Mummolinus and Bertin, as the given words have it. In the same sixth year of Clothar is dated the charter of St. Audomar by which he hands over the cemetery and basilica of St. Mary to the monastery of Sithiu. And in this charter it is said: Where before the monastery

seems to have been built in the name of God, where monks living regularly were present, etc. The monastery of Sithiu, of which there is question, was not therefore begun in the year 662. Moreover, in the privilege of Clovis III, which Mabillon published from Folquin the deacon De Re Diplomatica, book VI, p. 607, Mummolinus is called the predecessor of St. Bertin, and it treats there of the monastery of Sithiu. Mummolinus was not, therefore, set over monks in the Old monastery alone, either as abbot, as Mabillon and Sainte-Marthe will have it, or, as we prefer, as superior and as it were father of the others; but in that of Sithiu he was in very fact abbot and predecessor of Bertin. Which things, since they appear too certain for room to be left for further doubt, let that remain unshaken which we said before: that Mummolinus was set by Blessed Audomar over the multitude of the monks of Sithiu, and was true abbot of the monastery of Sithiu, namely from the year 648, in which it was begun, or at least from one of the two following, until the year 659 or 660 (rather, as we shall see, until the year 657 or 658), in which he was raised to the episcopate of Noyon and Tournai." Thus Ghesquière, following Stilting.

[30] He also cared for temporal matters at Sithiu. But before we lead St. Mummolinus out of the monastery of Sithiu, in which we have seen him continually stretching forward with the Apostle to the things before, confirming his brethren in virtue and divine service, and laying the foundation of a spiritual building to last more than eleven centuries, a word must also be added concerning his care and solicitude that his monks should have garments with which to be covered and food on which to feed. For which reason part of the privilege of King Clovis, son of Theoderic, seems worth reciting here; which Mabillon recited from Folquin Ibid., Foppens Supplement to the Opera Diplomatica of Miraeus, vol. II, p. 928, D. Bouquet Collection des Historiens de France, vol. VI, p. 667, Bréquigny Diplomata, vol. I, p. 321, and lately the distinguished Guérard Cartulaire de S. Bertin, p. 34; and which, granted indeed long after the death of St. Mummolinus, on the 1st before the Kalends of June in the first year of the reign of Clovis III, who obtained the sceptre in the month of March of the year 691, illustrates splendidly our Saint's care of temporal matters. And it has in Bréquigny this tenor: Chlodoveus, king of the Franks. If we confirm by our oracles those benefits which our parents bestowed or granted to the places of the Saints, we both exercise the royal custom, and trust that it pertains, in the name of God, to our praise and to the stability of our kingdom. Therefore the venerable man Bertin, abbot of the monastery of Sithiu, which is built in the district of Thérouanne in honour of Holy Mary, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also of Saints Peter and Paul the Apostles, or of the other lord Saints, coming to our presence, suggested to the clemency of our kingdom that our grandfather Chlotarius * formerly king, concerning all the little courts or estates of that monastery, whatever they possessed at the present time, or what thereafter had been added or conferred there from the gift of kings, or the contribution of the people, or from purchase or from any right acquisition in any districts and territories whatever, granted entire immunity to his predecessor Mummolinus, when or at the aforesaid monastery, that no public judge should at any time enter there to hear causes, to exact fines, to take sureties, nor in making lodgings or provisions, nor to constrain the men of that monastery, both freeborn and serving, dwelling on its lands, nor to require or exact any payments, nor should judicial power enter there at any time, but that the part of that monastery should possess at all times under the name of immunity, with all fines granted… The rest of the diploma treats of confirming these and other things. The reader will notice that a fairly magnificent mention is made here of the possessions assigned to the monastery of Sithiu, while it was ruled by St. Mummolinus. But the diploma of Clovis the Second, with whom St. Mummolinus had dealt, no longer seems to survive: at least neither Mabillon, nor Bréquigny, nor the distinguished Guérard in his Cartulary of St. Bertin published it. More things do not seem worth noting concerning these diplomas, since there is no reason for me in this place to defend the charters of St. Bertin from the charges with which a certain champion of the rights of the Church of Saint-Omer accused them In the work: Vérité de l'église de S. Omer.

* others read presbyteris: but wrongly

* quod

* read Chlodoveus

§ III. In what year St. Eligius, bishop of Noyon and Tournai, died, and St. Mummolinus succeeded him; of the skill in the Latin and Teutonic tongues with which this Saint was adorned.

St. Mummolinus succeeds St. Eligius; Of the episcopate of Noyon and Tournai entrusted to the care of St. Mummolinus a more recent biographer, cited by Ghesquière Acta SS. Belgii selecta, vol. IV, p. 403, discourses thus: Meanwhile the man of God Eligius, bishop of the city of Noyon, after working many miracles, passed in peace, full of days, to the Lord. In whose place, the fame of his good works coming even to the ears of King Lothar (the third of this name), because he excelled not only in the Teutonic but also in the Roman tongue, the aforesaid Mummolinus was substituted as bishop for the care of pastoral government. To which Ghesquière adds Ibid., p. 404: "And thus was fulfilled what St. Eligius, near to death, had asked, namely that after his death God in his most kindly piety would provide a shepherd who would rule his people modestly, as is read in his Life Ibid., vol. III, p. 285. But there will perhaps be those, the same hagiographer proceeds, who will oppose to the biographer of St. Mummolinus, who substitutes our Saint for Eligius in the cathedra of Noyon, the Life of St. Audomar embellished by an Anonymous, and also the other written by Folchard or rather by an anonymous compiler, as well as Iperius; who all put Mummolinus before Eligius (or rather put Acharius after Eligius); hear the words of the former anonymous: Meanwhile, Acharius, bishop of the city of Noyon, dying, the venerable man Mummolinus is promoted to the episcopate of that same city; and these of the other: Meanwhile, the venerable man Acharius, bishop, departing from the midst at Noyon, Mummolinus is promoted to his episcopate, Blessed Audomar assisting; finally the following of Iperius, part VI, col. 460: Meanwhile, Blessed Acharius, bishop of the city of Noyon, dying, Mummolinus is promoted to the episcopate of that same city, and Bertrand is set over the monastery of St. Quentin by Mummolinus. But indeed, since St. Audoen, the friend of St. Eligius, consecrated bishop on the same day and in the same place as he, and, to finish everything in one word, his faithful biographer and above all exception, expressly affirms that Eligius immediately succeeded St. Acharius, in which matter the biographer of St. Mummolinus agrees with him; with much stronger right, indeed undoubtedly, it is to be held that our Saint immediately succeeded in the cathedra of Noyon and Tournai not St. Acharius, who died in the year 639, as has been said Ibid., vol. II, p. 331, but St. Eligius, who died twenty years after. Here are the words of St. Audoen Ibid., vol. III, p. 229, chapter 1: They chose, for the merit of his sanctity, Saint Eligius, endowed with all good works, for the priestly (or episcopal) office … to preside over the church of Noyon: for Acharius, bishop of the aforesaid city, had died in that very circle of the year. The words of the biographer of St. Mummolinus we have already produced above."

[32] but by no means after the death of St. Acharius, "William de Whitte, whom Malbrancq calls especially versed in the affairs of the monks of St. Bertin or Sithiu, had weighed these things doubtfully, and tried to reconcile Iperius and his guides with Audoen by a certain subtle interpretation; for he will have it, as Le Cointe notes at the year 639, §5, that after the death of St. Acharius Mommolinus, the ascetic of Sithiu, was proposed by Audomar, bishop of the Morini, to be consecrated bishop and to act as bishop in the diocese of Noyon and Tournai, until Eligius should have spent some time under the little rule of the clerical state and should at length have suffered himself to be ordained bishop; and he adds that this counsel was acceptable to all, and that Mommolinus, like an administrator or suffragan, as they now call it, performed the episcopal functions before and after the ordination of Eligius, and was not truly bishop of Noyon and Tournai before the latter's death, so that both according to Iperius he was elected and ordained bishop after the death of St. Acharius, and according to Audoen he succeeded Eligius in the episcopate. Malbrancq commends this interpretation, and for stronger confirmation adds that he saw among the monks of Corbie a diploma which Bishop Mummolinus subscribed with Eligius himself. He would have done us a most welcome thing if he had transcribed that diploma and noted the chronological characters with which it is found sealed. In the first volume of the Gallican Councils there is published a privilege of liberty which is said to have been granted to the monastery of Corbie by Bertefrid, bishop of Amiens, on the 8th before the Ides of September, in the seventh year of King Clothar; among the subscriptions of the bishops Mummolenus occurs, Eligius by no means: for in that year Mummolenus was bishop of Noyon, and Eligius his predecessor had died long before. Thus far Le Cointe, who after a few things which do not regard this place subjoins to our matter: But the diploma which Malbrancq testifies he inspected, whatever it be, must be relegated among fables if it is fortified with the subscriptions of the bishops Mummolenus and Eligius, because while Eligius was living Mummolenus did not bear the episcopal dignity." These things from Ghesquière.

[33] he was administrator of the dioceses of Noyon and Tournai. But since the present controversy wholly consists in this, whether Mummolinus, while St. Eligius spent some courses of time under the little rule of the clerical state, as St. Audoen speaks in book II, chapter 2, of the Life of St. Eligius, administered the see of Noyon and Tournai, distinguished with the title and character of bishop, and whether in this way the mentioned see had at one time a bishop-elect and an administrator-bishop, I confirm the opinion of those who deny it with the following: first, who would believe that St. Audoen, who records even the least deeds of St. Eligius, would have passed over such an unwonted thing, which he must in fact have known well, since he was consecrated on the same day as St. Eligius by Deodatus, bishop of Mâcon? Secondly, St. Eligius only put off his consecration because he strove to observe the sacred canons most exactly: for St. Audoen speaks thus of this delay: But the Blessed man, since he could in no way shake himself free from the office arranged *, YET LEST HE SHOULD SEEM TO DEVIATE IN ANYTHING FROM THE CATHOLIC RULE, did not permit himself to be consecrated priest (which here means the same as bishop, as is clear from the fact that St. Audoen calls himself presbyter) before he should spend some courses of time under the little rule of the clerical state. Now whether St. Eligius would have been so strict in observing this canon and yet have introduced into the Church a vicar-bishop, a thing unheard of in a similar case, especially when it was well known what St. Ambrose, the fame of whose sanctity resounded everywhere,

had done, being elected bishop from a catechumen? Thirdly, the space or courses of time which St. Eligius passed under the little rule of the clerical state are not so long that grave inconvenience could have flowed into the church of Noyon from its lacking a bishop meanwhile; moreover, by canon 9 of the Fifth Council of Orléans, celebrated in the year 549, the dispensation already granted by canon 2 of the Fourth Council of Arles, assembled in the year 524, had been extended even more; for according to that canon it was only provided that none of the laity should be ordained bishop without a year's conversion first undergone: so that within the space of that year he should be more fully instructed by learned and approved men in the spiritual disciplines and rules: and it is not credible that St. Eligius put off his consecration beyond a year. Fourthly, since according to the approved opinion St. Eligius was consecrated bishop in the year 640, and St. Mummolinus probably came to St. Audomar in the year 638 or 640, and a little after was sent to found the little church and cell called the Old monastery, let it be seen how these things are to be reconciled with the supposed and unheard-of vicarial episcopate of St. Mummolinus, undertaken between the year 639 and 640. Fifthly, finally, the most ancient Life of St. Audomar is silent about the name of St. Mummolinus's predecessor: and the more recent Lives, where they depart from it, seemed of so little account to Stilting that he judged their writers almost openly to be charged with premeditated error: wherefore, when they say that St. Acharius preceded St. Mummolinus, whom we assert St. Eligius succeeded, they prove nothing.

[34] That succession took place shortly after the death of St. Eligius, This vicarial ministry of St. Mummolinus being thus denied and rejected, it remains to examine in what year he was in fact consecrated bishop of Noyon and Tournai. First of all this depends altogether on the year of the death of St. Eligius, whom he succeeded within the first year from his death. For since St. Audoen, the biographer and companion of St. Eligius, in book VIII, chapter 46, of the Life of this Saint Acta SS. Belgii selecta, vol. III, p. 293, which is entitled Of the Saint's horse, had several times mentioned Bishop Mummolinus, he at once proceeds: These things being thus done, since the body of Blessed Eligius had been buried at the side of the altar, it seemed to the BISHOP and the queen (St. Bathild) the best counsel that, a vault (that is, an arch) being built beyond the altar, they should there at length make a fitting translation for him: from which manner of narrating and joining the matters it is manifest that the same bishop, namely St. Mummolinus, was involved both in the dispute about the horse and in the translation of St. Eligius. But this translation was made on the anniversary day of the death of St. Eligius, namely one year after his departure from this life, since St. Audoen maintains that it took place when the year was already turning, the yearly day of his deposition approaching or arriving.

[35] which Ghesquière referred to the year 659, The whole knot, therefore, lies in inquiring into the year of St. Eligius's death. To omit many others who have assigned that time, I adduce here the words of Ghesquière from the preliminary commentary to the Life of St. Eligius: Concerning the space of the episcopate held by Eligius, he says Ibid., p. 197 and following, all the learned agree, if we except Pagi alone. For he, after he had observed in volume III of the Critica, p. 48, no. 4, and indeed rightly, that Eligius lived until the year six hundred and fifty-eight, presently adds that he died in that very same year; and so leaves to his episcopate only eighteen years and some months. On the other hand Le Cointe, Longueval, Bouquet and others, who tie the episcopal consecration of Eligius to the year 640, attach his death to the year 659, and attribute to his episcopate nineteen years, six months and some days. Pagi strove to establish his opinion by adducing a certain privilege granted by Emmo, bishop of Sens, to the monastery of St. Peter at Sens, which in the third Benedictine century Part II, p. 613 is read to have been directed to Audoen, Eligius and other bishops, and to which, however, not the name of Eligius but that of Momolenus, his successor, is read subscribed. But Longueval rightly observes, volume IV of the History of the Gallican Church, p. 48, in an annotation, that the subscriptions of that privilege are very defective; and that it is not therefore proven that St. Eligius ceased to be among the living in the year 658. And that the name of Momolenus is read subscribed to that privilege proves, in Longueval's judgment, nothing more, since it is established on no ground that St. Momolenus subscribed his name to this privilege in the third year of Clothar III. So indeed the praised Longueval, to extricate himself from the difficulty raised by Pagi. But I see nothing that stands in the way of the death of St. Eligius being set in the year of Christ 659, even admitting the highest credibility and uncorrupted integrity of those subscriptions. For since the third year of the reign of Clothar III ran from the month of November of the year 658 to the month of November of the year 659, that privilege could have been directed to St. Eligius and other bishops in the course of the third year of the reign of Clothar III, and yet not confirmed by his hand, because on the very Kalends (of December) of that same year 659 he departed to those above.

[36] not rightly relying on the consensus of the learned; On which I judge it must be noticed that nowhere has the space of St. Eligius's episcopate been found by me defined from ancient documents, except from the privilege of Sens and the year of consecration; the Gallia Christiana indeed holds these approximately twenty years of St. Eligius's episcopate as so stable that it says Vol. IX, col. 984: Eligius died on the day before the Kalends of December, either in the year 659, if he was consecrated in the year 640, or in the year 665 if he was consecrated in the year 646; but these words are to be held vain until a writer is cited, venerable for his antiquity and sincerity, who assigns about twenty years to St. Eligius occupying the cathedrae of Noyon and Tournai; otherwise the question of the end of the same Saint's episcopate remains entire. Secondly, I by no means see that all the learned agree in affirming that St. Eligius died in the year 659; Mabillon indeed, on account of the privilege of Sens, admitted this opinion in the Annals Vol. I, p. 415, Lucca edition, book XIV, no. 67, at the year 659, and Longueval in the History of the Gallican Church Book X, at the year 659, vol. V, p. 281, edition of 1826, Colliette in the Commentaries on the Vermandois Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du Vermandois, vol. I, p. 249, Butler in the Life of St. Eligius Vies des Saints at 1 Dec., vol. XVIII, p. 190, Louvain edition, D. Bouquet in the Collection of the Historians of France Vol. III, chronological index, p. 72, Le Cointe in the Ecclesiastical History of the Franks At the year 659, §13, vol. III, p. 479 and others embraced it in flocks; but there are also others who have entered upon a different way of opining. Hadrien de Valois, who was wont to write from the sources, thought it enough, with St. Audoen, the praised biographer of Eligius, to refer his death to the beginnings of the reign of Clothar III; Denis de Sainte-Marthe assigns the year 665 Gallia Christiana, vol. III, col. 273; whom, with many others, Sigebert of Gembloux had preceded in the Chronicle Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae, vol. VI, p. 326; the distinguished Mr. Moeller, professor of history in the Catholic university of Louvain, referring the death of Erchinoald to the year 660 Manuel de l'histoire du moyen âge, vol. I, p. 291, edition of 1837, necessarily extends to this year the death of St. Eligius, who buried Erchinoald. The authority of Mabillon and of other more recent writers, therefore, seems to be disregarded here; which we make the very most of when they rely on solid testimonies, but call to the balance when those testimonies meet with difficulty; which we shall do below.

[37] but Pagi, assigning the year 658, Thirdly, that Ghesquière's observations against Pagi may be understood, the words of Pagi himself seem worth reciting: That Eligius lived until the year six hundred and fifty-eight, he says, and died in that same year, is shown by the privilege granted by Emmo, bishop of Sens, which Mabillon recites in the third Benedictine century, p. 613, directed to the comprovincials of the city of Sens, Chrodobert, Faro, Bertoald, Audoen, Gauzbert, Eligius. And it was given, as is read at its end, in the third year of the reign of our Lord King Clothar (which began after the second week of the month of November of the year of Christ 658), and indeed in a synod of bishops, of whom very many subscribed the privilege, and of the aforesaid six bishops Eligius alone did not subscribe, but Momolenus, who is also called Mummolenus, who it is certain was the successor of Eligius. Wherefore, as Mabillon rightly gathers from this, Eligius died a little after the privilege was granted, and indeed on the Kalends of December, on which his name is inscribed in an old calendar. For although neither Audoen nor any of the ancients has expressed the day of his death, and Saints are often venerated on other days than those on which they died (which, however, is not to be feared here, since St. Audoen openly notes that the yearly day of the deposition was awaited for translating the body), yet because Audoen, book 2, chapter 35, relates that after the death of Eligius blood flowed from his nostrils, although it was winter time, and it is certain that that council of Sens was held at the end of the year 658, in which the third of King Clothar was beginning, it is likely that St. Eligius fell asleep in the Lord on the aforesaid day and year, and that his death has been recorded hitherto later than was fitting, especially by those who put off the death of King Dagobert seven years or even later.

[38] To these, indeed, as we have seen above, Ghesquière remarks he judges well that it is destitute of sure reasons. that the year of Clothar III ran from the month of November 658 to the same month of the year 659; and that this privilege could have been drawn up in this year 659, without, however, having reached at a suitable time St. Eligius, who died on the 1st day of December of this year. Which explanation is to be held not only probable but certain, so long as it is admitted with Pagi that a synod was held at Sens in the year 658 for granting and confirming this privilege, which Mabillon also records in the Annals at the year 658 Vol. I, p. 413 and following, Venice edition, Le Cointe at the year 657 [Annales Ecclesiastici Francorum at the year 657, §15, vol. III, p. 449], and Mansi in the notes to the Annals of Baronius and the Critica of Pagi at the year 658 Annals of Baronius, vol. XI, p. 512, Lucca edition. For since, from the testimony of Clarius, monk of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif, who says that this synod was convened, St. Eligius was present at this assembly of bishops, it must be determined according to the mind of Pagi that it was held after the second week of the month of November of the year 658 (for Pagi himself shows [Critica Baronii at the year 656, §17, vol. XI, p. 493] that in the second week of November of the year 659 the third year of Clothar's reign was still running), and before the 1st day of December of the year

658 (for St. Eligius died on the Kalends of December). But of these fifteen days at most, he passed five or six seized with fever, dissembling the infirmity by walking about and supporting his weak limbs with a staff to guide them, and not even so ceasing from the work of God St. Audoen, Life of St. Eligius, Acta SS. Belgii selecta, vol. III, p. 283, until on the day before the Kalends of December Ibid., place cited he bade farewell to his clergy; moreover, a little before the sickness he already felt that the dissolution of his body was imminent Ibid., p. 282, and foretold it; there scarcely remain, therefore, eight days for Pagi within which to send St. Eligius to Sens to the Synod. And who would admit that this would have been passed over by St. Audoen, when he narrates the last deeds and words of St. Eligius to the smallest detail? For my part I judge that Pagi's computation must be corrected. And these things hold against those who rely on the authority of Pagi.

[39] [The death of St. Eligius does not seem to be ascribed to the year 659 on account of the privilege of Emmo of Sens,] Nevertheless, although it is established from these things that Pagi uses calculations here that are not to be approved, I confess that the opinion of Ghesquière and others is held by me as very uncertain; since, as the privilege of Sens is its only foundation for placing the death of St. Eligius in the year 659, it seems to me to settle the matter with a very frail argument. He indeed notices with Longueval that the subscriptions, among which, as we have said, the name of St. Mummolinus, the successor of St. Eligius, appears, are very defective; but the superscriptions, where the name of Eligius stands, and from which they conclude that St. Eligius was still living when that privilege was written in the third year of Clothar III, are to be called no less defective; and, what pertains most to the present matter, the name of St. Eligius is certainly to be struck out of them. Its superscriptions, as Mabillon Acta SS. Ord. S. Bened., third century, part II, p. 613, Le Cointe Annales Ecclesiastici Francorum, vol. V, p. 285 and Bréquigny with du Theil Diplomata ad res Francicas pertinentia, p. 227 and following published them, run thus: To the holy lords, presiding over the summit of the highest height of the pontificate from the watch-tower of the cathedra, brethren in Christ, comprovincials of the city of Sens, Chrodobert, Faro, Bertoald, Audoen, Gauzbert, Eligius: Emmo, a sinner, your suppliant, presumes to send greeting in the Lord. Now, as Bréquigny and du Theil note Ibid., p. 228, Chrodobert, bishop of Paris, Faro of Meaux, Bertoald of Troyes, were at that time bishops of the province of Sens, rightly called comprovincials by Emmo; so also Gauzbert, bishop of Chartres, whose see Le Cointe did not recognise. But what is to be said of Audoen and Eligius, who, if the former was bishop of Rouen and the latter of Noyon, could by no means be called by Emmo by the name of comprovincials? For the word Audoeno Mabillon suspects Annales Ord. S. Bened., vol. I, p. 450 Audoni is to be read, who at this time presided over the Church of Orléans. Eligius twists one more, if by this name the bishop of Noyon is understood. We, for our part, conjecture that Vigilius is to be restored, then bishop of Auxerre, a comprovincial of the prelate of Sens: nor does it seem that Eligius, bishop of Noyon, is in question here, since the name of Mummolenus, who succeeded him in the see of Noyon, appears among the names of the subscribers. But Clarius, deceived by a false reading, attributed to the bishop of Rouen and to the bishop of Noyon what was to be attributed to those of Orléans and of Auxerre. The error was favoured by the names of Eligius and Audoen being better known than those of Audo and Vigilius. But whatever may be the case with these conjectures, which are perhaps to be held as historical notices (for Audo and Audoenus are identical names, nor are Vigilius and Eligius much apart in writing), it is manifest that SS. Audoen and Eligius cannot come among the comprovincials of the see of Sens; since the one, as bishop of the see of Rouen, was metropolitan of another ecclesiastical province, and the other, as bishop of Noyon and Tournai, belonged to the province of Reims. Wherefore, in my opinion, it can by no means be concluded from this privilege that St. Eligius was still among the living in the third year of Clothar III.

[40] [nor on account of the testimony of Clarius concerning the pretended synod of Sens;] Nor does it seem that the testimony of Clarius can make difficulty, who says d'Achery, Spicilegium, vol. II, p. 464, second edition: In the year 675 Saint Emmo passed to Christ… He, together with the comprovincial bishops, synodally made a privilege of liberty for the monks of Saint Peter, in the times of King Clothar and Baltechild his mother: at which assembly there were the glorious prelates Saint Audoen, archbishop of Rouen, and Saint Faro, bishop of Meaux, and Saint Eligius, bishop of Noyon, and Saint Amandus, bishop of the people of Maastricht, with thirty other Bishops. For since the monk Clarius wrote his Chronicle of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif towards the end of the twelfth century, it is established from this only that the names of Audoen and Eligius had been thrust into the copies of his privilege before the chronographer began his book; moreover Clarius perhaps used a copy even worse than that which now circulates, as may plainly be conjectured from the added name of St. Amandus, bishop of the Tregetenses or of Maastricht; thirdly (since mention of this synod has come up, and the authority of Clarius, who first maintained it, should perhaps be said to waver somewhat from this also), that synod, which most ecclesiastical historians (I have named several above) have admitted from the narrative of Clarius, seems a mere conjecture of Clarius: since, first, in the often-mentioned privilege no trace of a synod occurs; secondly, the contrary appears from the diploma itself: for since it has at the beginning: To the holy lords … Emmo, a sinner … presumes to send greeting in the Lord, the annotation of Dom Michel Germain on a similar charter to be cited below has place: For why could an immunity be less addressed to the absent than to those present, to whom Bishop Drauscius, a suppliant, sends greeting in the Lord? which manner of writing surely insinuates their absence Histoire de l'abbaye royale de N. D. de Soissons, p. 425; moreover, Emmo's diploma ends in these words: Which definition also of our constitution, strengthened by the subscriptions of our hand, to be valid for perpetual times, that it may remain the more robust, WE HAVE MOREOVER SENT TO YOU OR TO OTHERS BY OUR BRETHREN AND FELLOW-SERVANTS THE ABBOTS TO BE CONFIRMED, THE STIPULATION BEING SUBJOINED. Done at Mauriacum, the lord's court, in the third year of the reign of our lord King Clothar; and at once follow the subscriptions of certain comprovincial bishops of the cathedra of Sens, to whom that privilege was inscribed for confirmation, and of certain of the other prelates of Gaul, to whom the brethren and fellow-servants of Emmo, the abbots, carried it. That these things may be understood, the reader must recall to memory that in these times it was established in custom that diplomas were carried to several bishops and other leading men, who should confirm them with their subscription; for an example of which, to select two out of many, there is at hand both the most celebrated privilege of Berthefrid, bishop of Amiens, granted to the monks of Corbie in the year 662 and published by Sirmond, Labbe, Hardouin, Le Cointe and Bréquigny Diplomata ad res Francicas spectantia, vol. I, p. 241, and the privilege of St. Drausius, extended in the 10th year of the reign of Clothar to the monastery of St. Mary of Soissons and published by Dom Germain in the History of this monastery Histoire de l'abbaye royale de N. D. de Soissons, p. 421, where other similar ones are cited, which may be found in the Diplomata of Bréquigny with many of the same kind. Wherefore I judge that the privilege of St. Peter of Sens was wrongly read or understood by Clarius; which, since it had at the beginning the names of seven bishops and at the end twenty-six or seven subscriptions, seemed to him a council consisting of thirty-four prelates. To close at length this little dissertation on the privilege of Sens, I think nothing can be deduced from it for our matter, except that St. Mummolinus (so far as there is credence in the subscriptions) had already ascended the cathedra of Noyon in the third year of King Clothar III.

[41] this death is rather to be referred to the year 657 Since, from what has been said, the charter of Sens seems little suited to defining the time of St. Eligius's death, there remain only two circumstances which we know from St. Audoen's writing about his friend. Eligius also, he says [Life of St. Eligius, book II, part I, chapter 1, Acta SS. Belgii selecta, vol. III, p. 229], had been from the times of Lothar the middle, the gentle king of the Franks, and throughout the whole time of Dagobert, the renowned prince, and also of Clovis his son, and remained in the body until the beginning of the reign of the younger Lothar. Whence, since the younger Lothar or Clothar III received the reins of the kingdom into his boyish hands in the middle of the month of November of the year 656, and the beginning of the reign, which lasted only fourteen years, signifies rather the first or second year than the third or fourth, I should gladly refer the death of St. Eligius to the Kalends of December of the year 657. For the reason why the earlier year 656 seems to be excluded is that he died after Erchinoald, the mayor of the palace; whose body, namely, Eligius (they are the words of St. Audoen Ibid., book II, part VI, chapter 26, p. 277), bringing it back with him out of mercy, committed to burial. Now the dismal death of Erchinoald, which St. Eligius had foretold, and which Moeller places in the year 660, Le Cointe in the year 659, Pagi in the year 656, probably happened at the end of this year, or at the beginning of the following year 657: which I judge will be altogether probable if Erchinoald departed this life after the death of Clovis II, yet not long after; which I hope will be established from what follows. The first continuator of the Chronicle of Fredegar, namely, has these things Recueil des Historiens de France, D. Bouquet, vol. II, p. 449: The Franks also establish Clothar, his (Clovis II's) elder son, in the kingdom, with the aforesaid queen his mother (St. Bathild). At that same time also Erchanwald, mayor of the palace, died. And the Franks, wavering in uncertainty, having taken counsel, establish Ebroin in the charge and dignity of this honour. From which last words, that it may be noted in passing, it is clear that, even if it were certainly known in what year Ebroin was made mayor of the palace, it could not at once be concluded from it at what time Erchinoald died. The uncertain author of the Deeds of the kings of the Franks repeats the same in almost the same words Recueil des Historiens de France, D. Bouquet, vol. II, p. 569; and the Chronicle of Moissac in not very dissimilar ones Ibid., p. 652; nor are the Historical Fragment of an Anonymous embracing the deeds of the kings of the Franks from Dagobert I to King Pippin Ibid., p. 692 and the Chronicles of St. Denis Ibid., vol. III, p. 304 discordant. Ekkehard in the Universal Chronicle Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae, Scriptores, vol. VI, p. 118, similarly, after narrating the death of Clovis II and the beginning of the reign of Clothar III, adds: At that time also, Erchinoald, mayor of the palace, having died, Ebroin succeeded in his place; and Sigebert of Gembloux in the Chronicle, according to the autograph

edition Ibid., p. 325: Chlodoveus, he says, king of the Franks, died, and Lothar his son succeeds and reigns IV (rather XIV) years. His mayor of the palace after Erchanoald was Ebroin. From which manners of speaking it seems manifest to me that Erchanoald died after the funeral of Clovis II, and that this did not happen much after, since the ancient writers agree in saying that he departed this life at the same time. Nevertheless, since nothing presses us to say that Erchinoald and St. Eligius died within those approximately fifteen days which elapsed in the year 656 from the beginning of the reign of Clothar to the beginning of the month of December; indeed rather, according to St. Audoen's narrative, more than two or three weeks seem to be placed between the funerals of the two, it is helpful to defer the death of St. Eligius to the first day of December of the year 657; when only the second year, and therefore still the beginning of the reign of Clothar III, was running.

[42] and therefore the beginning of St. Mummolinus's episcopate belongs. Further, according to this opinion, which is entirely consonant with the words of Audoen, St. Mummolinus will have obtained the episcopate at the end of the year 657, or rather at the beginning of the year 658. On the other hand, if anyone wishes to adhere to the common opinion, which I strengthened above (so far as was permitted by the instruments, which to others seemed firm arguments, but to us, no less than to Bréquigny and du Theil, very uncertain), he must determine that St. Mummolinus was adorned with the episcopal infulae two years later. That they were conferred on our Saint with the intervention of Clothar III Ghesquière maintains, with the more recent biographer or interpolator of the older Life: "Meanwhile the man of God Eligius, bishop of the city of Noyon, after working many miracles, passed in peace, full of days, to the Lord. In whose place, the fame of his good works coming even to the ears of King Lothar (the third of this name), because he excelled not only in the Teutonic but also in the Roman tongue, the aforesaid Mummolinus was substituted as bishop for the care of pastoral government." But this intervention of Clothar the Third, which was altogether lawful (as is manifest from canon 10 of the council of Orléans of the year 549, where it is commanded according to the ancient canons that the election must be made by the clergy and people with the will of the king), is to be so explained that in his name, since he was still under age, St. Bathild his mother consented to that election and held it ratified.

[43] [St. Mummolinus was elected bishop on account of several excellent endowments, and on account of his skill in the Latin] As is clear from what has been set forth, a fourfold merit made St. Mummolinus altogether fit for administering that twofold diocese, of Tournai and of Noyon: first, his sanctity; second, his happy and proven government in the monastery of Sithiu; third, his practice in preaching; fourth, his skill in a twofold vernacular tongue; on which last some things seem worth commenting. The Life which I have called the most ancient attributes to St. Mummolinus Latin and Teutonic eloquence; but the remaining Lives Roman and Teutonic. That the Latin and Roman tongues were nevertheless distinct, and were held as such in the middle age, is clear from several places adduced by Du Cange at the word romanus: but this distinction seems later than the seventh century, in which St. Mummolinus lived: and indeed it is all but entirely certain to me that here not Latin but a simple idiom is to be understood: hear, namely, in what manner St. Eligius spoke to the people; the words to be cited are the beginning of Homily 11, which exists entire in volume XII of the Bibliotheca Patrum of Lyons: Good men, because it is necessary to address your fraternity otherwise than our fellow-priests and fellow-workers, to whom it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven: therefore let us turn TO YOU, using SIMPLE AND RUSTIC SPEECH, that we may set forth to you, according to the littleness of our understanding, the sacrament of so great a solemnity IN RUSTICITY OF WORDS. This festivity is called the Supper of the Lord, because on this day the Lord supped with his disciples and delivered to them the sacrament of his body and blood … The rest are of almost the same simplicity. Baron von Reiffenberg indeed objected, in his most learned introduction p. 98 to the Poems of Philippe Mouskes of Tournai, that this homily was perhaps not spoken as it lies here, but was turned from a more barbarous speech into the Latin idiom. But the distinguished man himself shows by other records that a similar speech was understood by the people at that time, and Raoux p. 35 and following, in the commentary on the Theotisc and Gallic tongues, made the same certain by very many documents, above all by the rustic song, as it is called, inserted in the Life of St. Faro. Wherefore, since these words of St. Eligius can be judged to have been understood by the people of Noyon, we judge that the Latin eloquence which St. Mummolinus used was not dissimilar. But what is subjoined in the often-mentioned Life: For the Church of Noyon uses commonly the Roman tongue, that of Tournai for the greater part the Teutonic; and both are known to correspond fully to the more learned speech of the Latins, as this grace may have been granted, seems to me to be an interpolation, or at least a by-work which the author inserted concerning his own times, not the times of St. Mummolinus. Yet this sense is not to be neglected, which greatly favours those who exclude the Teutonic or Theotisc tongue from the districts of the Walloons, as we say, in the seventh century; so that from this time the boundary dividing the Walloons from the Teutons has scarcely moved. More is not to be brought forward on this matter, since questions of this kind have already been agitated by some; whose principal names are recited in the praised introduction of the distinguished Reiffenberg; where an excellent commentary on the same matter is read.

[44] and Theotisc tongues. But the biographer's assertions concerning the Teutonic or Theotisc tongue produce greater difficulty, not indeed on account of the Franks who lived in the dioceses of St. Mummolinus, but because there is not one and the same opinion concerning the Menapii, of whom the diocese of Tournai chiefly consisted. For some make them Gallo-Belgae, others Germano-Belgae. These indeed suffer no difficulty in assigning the Theotisc tongue to them, which is manifest; but those who follow the former opinion do not so easily extricate themselves. Lest, however, this writing on St. Mummolinus become longer than is just, it will be enough for me to have indicated this question, on which very many have written again for one or the other opinion; whose principal ones the praised Reiffenberg has also reviewed in the alleged introduction, and another writer in the Bibliotheca Celtica Germanica Belgica appended to the work on ancient Belgium, in which he himself tried to prove Les Pays-Bas avant et durant la domination Romaine, vol. I, p. 38 that the Menapii are Germans by origin. Further, since St. Mummolinus excelled in Latin, or corrupt Latin, and Theotisc eloquence, he could with easy effort address his homilies to the sheep of his whole flock; and, a similar opinion having been put forth, Ghesquière notes that it was afterwards enjoined on bishops to hold their homilies in a twofold tongue: thus the council of Reims of the year 813, canon 15, commands that bishops be zealous to preach sermons and homilies of the holy fathers, so that all can understand, ACCORDING TO THE PROPERTY OF THE LANGUAGE Collection of the Councils of Labbe, vol. VII, col. 1256; and the third council of Tours of the same year 813, canon 17, after enumerating the matters of the homilies, admonishes that each be zealous to translate those same homilies openly into the rustic Roman tongue or the Theotisc, so that all may more easily understand what is said Ibid., col. 1263. And this canon so pleased other Churches that thirty-four years after, the council of Mainz, which Labbe also published Ibid., vol. VIII, col. 42, adopted that canon in almost the same words. In the time of St. Bernard, when in the Gauls almost only the rustic Roman tongue obtained among the people, it was spoken in the monasteries also in a twofold idiom, Latin to the religious assigned to the choir, rustic Roman to the lay brothers: of which kind of homilies, turned into this idiom, fragments still survive among the works of St. Bernard. But enough of these things. And it was our mind to insert in this place a dissertation on the extent and changes of the dioceses of Noyon and Tournai, which were already united under the episcopate of St. Medard until the year 1146 (as Ghesquière shows in the commentary on St. Medard Acta SS. Belgii selecta, vol. II, p. 117 and following); but since the present volume of the Acts is growing immensely, it has seemed good to set it aside for the Life of another prelate of Noyon and Tournai.

* others imposito,

§ IV. A twofold accusation against St. Mummolinus is weighed; the translation of the body of St. Eligius, the promotion of St. Ebertramnus, the compact with St. Bertin and several subscriptions are set forth.

St. Mummolinus is freed from the charge of doubtful guilt, Ghesquière, illustrating the remaining deeds of St. Mummolinus, begins §3 of his Commentary on St. Mummolinus thus: "There are some deeds of St. Mummolinus, and those altogether certain, which his biographer did not touch even in another way, either because they were not well known to him (we saw above at no. 6 that the Life of St. Eligius, from which these are drawn out, was altogether known to the biographer) or rather because he judged that they conduced nothing or little to proving the sanctity of his life. And indeed of these there is one or another which, so far from showing that he was always free from every stain of sin, on the contrary proves altogether that he suffered something human from time to time, and offended either from disturbance of mind or from human frailty, namely a little after he had been raised to the cathedra of Noyon." Thus Ghesquière, censuring the deeds of St. Mummolinus perhaps with too harsh a censure. For my part, although I am not one to determine that all the acts of the Saints, setting aside the doctrine of the catholic Church itself, are holy, innocent and meritorious, yet in the twofold fact presently to be related I see not a true offence but at most a mere error. It must indeed be confessed that these things greatly displeased St. Audoen, from whose writings they become known, and were held by him as genuine faults; but the manner in which St. Audoen speaks of St. Mummolinus argues I know not what grim eye and unfavourable mind: so that, while the facts are admitted, one seems to abstain from the judgment which he passes or suggests concerning them. To which perhaps the Irish or Scottish customs gave occasion, which, drawn from Luxeuil, St. Mummolinus without doubt kept, to the annoyance of the other bishops. Further, the former fact he committed to letters in these words Life of St. Eligius, book II, chapter 45, Acta SS. Belgii, vol. III, p. 293: A certain man, whether with cause or without cause, once bound with iron bonds, when he was being led to punishment, slipping away secretly … fled to the church of Saint Eligius, where … the chain by which he was pressed suddenly broke … and fell… Presently the traitors … taking the chain again, cast it on his neck and hands… The wretch prays; and the chain, broken, leapt far from him. Then, all now withdrawing, and the shattered chain alone remaining in testimony,

when the space of some hours had flowed by, the bishop of that same place came up, and, hearing of the miracle which had then happened there, seemed for the moment to have doubted; and he, going thence at once, when he had mounted the horse, most gentle, on which he had been carried thither, was presently thrown by it to the ground and worn out with most grievous pains. And at once the bishop, remembering the fault of doubt, was compelled to confess it openly before all: and so, raised up thence, and having obtained health after very many days, he was rendered cautious thereafter in such matters. What fault is there, I ask, in not acquiescing forthwith in the testimony of one man, a scoundrel, so far as the Saint knew (for all had withdrawn), narrating such a miracle? I wonder at the prudence of St. Mummolinus, I do not blame his doubt. And that he was thrown from the horse, and judged this a penalty divinely inflicted on himself, by no means proves a fault.

[46] and from the accusation of the unjustly seized horse, The other fact is set forth thus in the following chapter Ibid., chapter 46, p. 293 and following: And since the occasion has offered itself that I should speak of a matter of this kind, I will tell another very like this thing. While, then, the blessed man was living, he had had one horse, most gentle among the others, on which, when necessity demanded, he had been wont mostly to sit; after whose departure that same horse had come into the possession of the abbot who presided over the same basilica; for which the apostolic man Mummolenus, bishop of the same place, thirsting greedily, violently snatched it from the aforesaid abbot and claimed it as his own right. And the abbot, daring to oppose nothing to him, at once went to Saint Eligius, and, much lamenting, commended this cause to him. When, therefore, the aforesaid horse had been brought into the possession of the bishop, it at once began to suffer in its feet, and, its whole body wasting, to waste away and fall down: then the bishop, a horse-doctor being called in, ordered him to apply his skill to it, by which it might be healed: but although care was assiduously applied to it, it could profit nothing at all: moreover, when anyone came near it, like a wild beast of the field, leaping forth into roarings and kicks, it strove to tear its curer. And when it did this for very many days and was in no way bettered, at length the bishop, fearing that, if it remained in this danger, he would lose it altogether, offered it by way of gift to a certain matron dear to him, who, having received it, caused it to be tended with diligent care: and when one day, setting out on a journey, she had mounted its back, at once, driven with kicks and immense snortings, it dashed her heavily to the ground, so heavily that for almost a whole year, labouring with that same shaking, she lay sick: and that woman indeed, when she felt herself vehemently weighed down, sent back to the bishop the horse which he had given, and with it sent likewise vexation for a gift and reproaches for thanksgiving; and the bishop, receiving it, ordered it again to be cared for *, but all his diligence was spent in vain, and the more care was applied, so much always did it slide into worse. After these things, however, there was a certain religious priest who gave the bishop counsel that he should see, since the horse could profit nothing with him, to return it to that same abbot from whom it had formerly been unjustly taken away; and when it had been done according to his counsel, after a few days the horse, made whole and rendered most gentle, remained under the right of that same abbot, comely in every form. Thus far St. Audoen.

[47] which very many circumstances weaken. A grave accusation indeed; but so grave that, if one attends to the fact that St. Mummolinus had lately been raised to the episcopal dignity, that he had before formed SS. Bertin and Ebertramnus in the laws of sanctity in the monastery of Sithiu, and that he was made much of by St. Audomar, one ought readily to admit an explanation, if any solid one can be found. Now, as we have said, it appears on every side that St. Audoen, narrating these things, was of a mind estranged from St. Mummolinus, perhaps on account of the Scottish customs: for, to be silent on many other things, who would believe that such things would be entrusted to letters by a bishop concerning a colleague unless some enmity had existed? Secondly, St. Audoen seems to have heard only one party, namely the abbot Sparvus; which other reason greatly lessens his authority: for what, to argue from similar cases, should we think of St. John Chrysostom if we knew only the sayings of St. Jerome St. Jerome, epistle 88, vol. IV of the Works, col. 727, Paris edition of 1706? what of St. Lull, if Eigil, the biographer of St. Sturm, alone were heard [Compare below, the Commentary on St. Lull, §6]? Thirdly, the other bishops and Queen St. Bathild must have judged of this business in an altogether different way: for if it had been a true theft, according to canon 10 of the council of Paris celebrated in the year 615, Saint Mummolinus would have been held estranged from ecclesiastical fellowship or from the table of Christians until the time of his amendment or the restitution of the thing taken away; and yet meanwhile, as we clearly gather from St. Audoen himself Acta SS. Belgii, vol. III, p. 294 and following, St. Mummolinus translated the body of his holy predecessor Eligius, the other bishops, the clergy and St. Bathild contributing their labour; whence it is surely clear that the opinion of Sparvus was one thing, that of St. Mummolinus's colleagues another. Fourthly, one must be persuaded (since litigation is not wont to be made about certain things) that St. Eligius's donation was not established for St. Mummolinus either by testament or by any other authentic instrument: wherefore, since at that time the usage already obtained of plundering the domestic goods of deceased bishops, and this had had place to some extent at the very funeral of St. Eligius (St. Audoen himself relates Ibid., p. 290 that a deacon, a Swabian by nation, stole the rachina or bed-covering), it ought not to be wonderful that St. Mummolinus claimed for the bishopric, of which he was the natural defender, a horse which he did not certainly know had been given away by his predecessor. Wherefore, since St. Mummolinus could in good faith believe that this horse belonged to the episcopal goods, it is easy to see that his manner of acting was that which anyone injured by his inferior would commonly use: namely, he reclaims from the abbot of the monastery of Noyon the horse which he believes in good faith belongs to him; and since he cannot use it, he gives it up not to the abbot, lest thence the latter be raised up against him, but to another; and finally, having received it back, since the horse could profit nothing with him, for love of preserving peace and for the sake of avoiding scandal, perhaps about to arise from the anger of the monks, he sends the poor little animal back to them: but as regards the miracles and prodigies by which St. Audoen will have it that the divine will was indicated, St. Mummolinus did not reckon them above the common order, since he called in a horse-doctor; and indeed I do not know whether there are many among the pious cultivators of virtue who would yield anything of their right on account of portents of that kind. And these things are enough either to turn away all fault from St. Mummolinus, or at least to make it as doubtful as possible.

[48] He translates the body of St. Eligius, These things, moreover, whatever judgment may at length be passed on them, happened before the first year of St. Mummolinus's episcopate had been completed, as is drawn out from the very narrative of St. Audoen, who subjoins to these facts another very honourable to our Saint, likewise begun before the end of the first year from the death of St. Eligius: These things being thus done, he says Ibid., p. 294, since the body of Blessed Eligius had been buried at the side of the altar, it seemed to the bishop (namely Mummolinus) and the queen (Bathild) the best counsel that, a vault being built beyond the altar (understand a vault or arch, in French une voute), they should there at length make a fitting translation for him. Then, after some things pertaining more to St. Eligius than to St. Mummolinus, Audoen proceeds in these words: So therefore, undertaking the desired work with the support of the prelate (Mummolinus), they built a mausoleum worthy and honourable for the Blessed Confessor (Eligius). Meanwhile, the yearly day of his deposition approaching (therefore the said things happened before the end of the first year from his death), the citizens were preparing how they might make an honourable translation for him. The queen (Bathild) also was preparing garments all of silk, exceedingly precious, that on the day of the transmigration she might take off from him those garments which she had formerly sent with him, and put on him those new ones which she was then preparing. When, therefore, the year now turning, the day of his deposition had arrived, a copious multitude of people came together into the town: then, the whole clergy celebrating melody with tuneful voice, and all the Christians persisting in watches, the tomb was diligently taken away from above the limbs of the Confessor: then, when the covering of the tomb had been lifted, a great miracle was seen by those standing round… Then the bishops (namely Mummolinus and those whom he had as helpers in performing the translation of the body of St. Eligius), lifting him with great trembling from the tomb, changed all the garments on him for the most precious ones which the queen had prepared; taking off from him also those with which he had formerly been covered, they laid them away with great diligence under seals: and so at length … removed then before all from the place where the holy man had lain, he is laid down with the highest and most honourable zeal, and is composed elegantly, as was fitting, in the sepulchre prepared for him, to be preserved in eternal memory and to be honoured more and more daily. So Ghesquière abridged these things from book II, chapter 47, of the Life of St. Eligius.

[49] [he appoints St. Ebertramnus abbot of Saint-Quentin; and makes a compact with St. Bertin:] To the first year also of St. Mummolinus's episcopate Ghesquière judges is to be referred, and perhaps to its very beginning, the promotion, performed by St. Mummolinus, of Ebertramnus, his former companion in the monastery of Luxeuil, then in the apostolic life and in the monastery of Sithiu, to the abbey of St. Quentin of the Vermandois, as is gathered openly enough from the words of the second Life of St. Bertin, written by an anonymous author about the beginning of the tenth century. "For so he," says Ghesquière, chapter 1, no. 6: "Meanwhile, Acharius (rather St. Eligius), bishop of the city of Noyon, dying, the venerable man Mummolinus is promoted to the episcopate of that same city, and Ebertramnus is set over the monastery of Saint Quentin by Mummolinus. By which words the anonymous sufficiently indicates that Ebertramnus was set as abbot over the aforesaid church of St. Quentin by our Saint either at the very time at which he was raised to the episcopate of Noyon or certainly a little after. However that may be, Ebertramnus was at least already presiding over it when Bishop Mummolinus agreed with Bertin, abbot of Sithiu, on an exchange of certain goods, of which Folquin the deacon makes mention, and which Le Cointe writes was carried out in the year of Christ 661, but Stilting in the year 662." Which opinion of Stilting is surely more likely, since we know that this donation was held ratified in the month of February, in the 6th year of the reign of Clothar III, running from the middle of the month of November of the year 661 to the middle of the same month of the year 662. "But so small a difference," Ghesquière proceeds, "ought not to delay us from subjoining the very words of Folquin, as they exist in Mabillon [De re diplomatica, p. 605. Compare the Cartulary of Sithiu, edited by the distinguished Guérard, from which I have corrected it]. Here

they are: Under the prince of the Franks also (Clothar III), son of the aforesaid King Louis, in his 6th year , and of the incarnate Word 660, it pleased the venerable man Mummolenus, bishop of Noyon, and the lord Bertin, abbot of the monastery of Sitdiu, to exchange certain small places between them: and the venerable Bishop Mummolenus gave to the lord abbot Bertin the estate called Vallis, which in part he had given to the most reverend man Ebertramnus, abbot of the monastery of Saint Quentin, in exchange for another estate called Tunninium, and also in Bragum and in Glindonum, or in Selertiagum. These five small places he granted to the lord Bertin. And on the other hand the venerable man Bertin gave to Bishop Mummolinus his portion of the estate called Vausune, in the district of the Constantinus, and another place, Launardiaca villa, entire; which exchange they asked to be confirmed by royal authority: which was also done."

[50] [that institution of St. Ebertramnus was afterwards employed for fostering a dispute;] This promotion of Ebertramnus and other similar causes formerly raised a great dispute, about which very many historians or apologists have already written. The question was whether the church of St. Quentin had formerly been occupied by monks or by clerics or canons; and if never by monks, the people of Saint-Quentin deduced from this that it was the most ancient of the whole diocese of Noyon and the mother of the rest; which antiquity could not exist without certain rights. Three works are in my hands in which dissertations on this matter are intermingled: the most recent is the History of the ancient rights of Saint-Quentin by Louis Hordret To be read especially p. 92 and following; another is the Memoirs on the history of the Vermandois Mémoire pour servir à l'histoire du Vermandois, vol. I, p. 252 and following, by the often-cited Louis-Paul Colliette, who, since he was not only dean of the district of Saint-Quentin but also chaplain of the royal church of Saint-Quentin, tried to sustain the rights of this church with all his shoulders, composing a most ample dissertation, which is inserted in volume I of the said work; and the third is Hemeraeus, who here and there in his work Augusta Viromanduorum illustrata treats of this matter See especially p. 114. But since the disturbances of the State and the Church in the Gauls have taken away all the rights of the church of Saint-Quentin arising from antiquity, and accordingly it is now permitted to everyone more freely to put forth his opinion on matters of this kind, I do not hesitate to assert that it is so evident that the church of St. Quentin was possessed by monks in the time of St. Eligius and St. Mummolinus and for two centuries after, that whoever refuses to admit it is to be called, in my view, more a lover of controversies than of truth. There is no reason for us to bring out arguments on this matter more broadly here, since in Colliette himself, contrary to the man's will, the sincere reader will find quite enough by which his defective pretension is overthrown, provided he is willing to refer what he finds to its sources.

[51] but the compact with St. Bertin gave place to some errors. From the words of Folquin which we recited a little above, to indicate at about what time St. Mummolinus set Ebertramnus over the monastery of Saint-Quentin, it could at the same time be gathered that in the 6th year of King Clothar an exchange was entered into by him with St. Bertin. As Folquin noted, Clothar, or, if you prefer, Bathild his mother, confirmed this exchange. The letters of which confirmation exist in Mabillon's treatise De re diplomatica P. 605 and following, in the supplement to the diplomatic works of Miraeus Vol. II, p. 925, in D. Bouquet's Collection of the writers of French affairs Vol. IV, p. 643, among the Diplomata of Bréquigny Vol. I, p. 237, and in the distinguished Guérard's Cartulary of Sithiu p. 20 and following: in which diploma Ebertramnus is called not, as in Folquin, abbot of the monastery of Saint Quentin, but abbot of the basilica of Saint Quentin. But since Valois, in a separate little work, namely the Disquisition on the basilicas which the first kings of the Franks founded, whether they had monks from the origin, afterwards added to his greater work on the Affairs of the Franks, happily defended the affirmative opinion against the sayings of Launoy, the distinction between abbot of a monastery and abbot of a basilica sticks in words only. What is to be noted in the second place concerning this diploma: St. Mummolinus is once called in it bishop or abbot; whether this is a fault admitted by Folquin in transcribing, or whether allusion is made to his former office in the monastery of Sithiu, or whether, as was then sometimes done, he joined the episcopal staff with I know not what abbatial staff, I leave to others to define. Thirdly, let it be noted that in this contract no mention is made of the metropolitan, since it was a mere exchange, and only according to canon 12 of the council of Epaone of the year 517 no bishop had power to sell anything of the goods of his church without the knowledge of his metropolitan, an exchange useful to all, however, being permitted; fourthly, Ghesquière rightly observes that Iperius, chapter 1, part 10, mentioned this exchange and the diploma of Clothar; and that the other things are narrated by Iperius as they are related here; but that it is wrongly asserted that the estate of Vausune, or Vasime as he himself calls it, came to St. Bertin from his paternal inheritance; which error (I wonder that it recurs in the work of Trudpert Neugart, Germania sacra Vol. I, part I, p. 38) Stilting has already learnedly refuted in the Commentary on St. Bertin Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 556, distinguishing the district of Constance in Germany from the district of the Constantinus, and judging that by the district of the Constantinus, in which that estate is affirmed to be situated, is designated the Constantinus situated in present, or if you prefer former, Normandy by the Ocean; which district is commonly called le Cotantin or le Coutantin; having obtained that name from the Gallic Constantia (Coutances), as Valois shows in the Notitia Galliarum p. 156. On which matter see more in the mentioned Commentary of Stilting; and fifthly, finally, let the reader know that Ebertramnus was enrolled in the year 1785 in the Calendar of Saint-Omer and in the year 1817 in the Calendar of Arras, and thenceforth obtained in both places a feast on the 24th of January.

[52] [St. Mummolinus subscribed the testament of St. Amandus and is said to have consecrated the church of Saint-Amand;] "We have seen above," we proceed again with Ghesquière, "St. Mummolinus, together with some bishops, giving pious and diligent labour to the translation of St. Eligius; let us now see him working at the consecration of the church of Elnone, together with St. Reolus, bishop of Reims, Saint Amandus, formerly prelate of Maastricht, St. Vindicianus, bishop of Cambrai and Arras, St. Bertin, abbot of Sithiu, and two other abbots, namely Aldebert of St. Bavo and John of Blandin. The chronographer of Elnone in Buzelin, book II of the Annals of Gallo-Flanders, relates the deed in roughly this manner: St. Amandus dedicated with remarkable pomp the church which he had erected at Elnone (afterwards called of Saint Amandus, or Saint-Amand) in honour of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, the bishops being called together in the monastery of Elnone, Reolus, archbishop of Reims, Mommolenus of Tournai and Noyon, Vindicianus of Cambrai and Arras, Abbot Bertin, Aldebert, John, with whose subscriptions he confirmed his testament, and that, as is written on the testament itself, in the second year of the reign of our Lord King Theoderic, on the 15th day before the Kalends of May, or the 17th of April." Of the year in which these things were done Ghesquière disputed more broadly Acta SS. Belgii, vol. IV, p. 181, and showed that those bishops and abbots probably subscribed this testament on the same day on which the church of Elnone was consecrated, namely the 17th of April, which day in the year 679 fell on a Sunday, the second year of King Theoderic's monarchy being then begun. "For the rest," so Ghesquière proceeds, "although St. Amandus had long since obtained the episcopal dignity and had himself erected the church of Elnone, there is no doubt that he deferred the principal parts in its consecration to St. Mummolinus, as one in whose diocese of Tournai that church was situated; so that it is not without reason asserted that Mummolinus consecrated the basilica of Elnone at the request of Amandus, whose testament he subscribed, as is read in the proper Offices of the diocese of Tournai published in the year 1731 p. 214, lesson 6." This, however, is doubtful to us on account of the presence of the metropolitan Reolus.

[53] he subscribed very many other solemn instruments. To other no less solemn instruments also Mummolinus added his vote, namely to the privilege of Emmo of Sens granted to the monastery of Saint-Pierre-le-Vif of Sens in the 3rd year of King Clothar; of which it was treated at length in §3. Three years after, namely on the 18th day of May in the 6th year of the reign of the lord… King Clothar, St. Mummolinus is found to have put his sign to the charter by which St. Audomar, bishop of Thérouanne, exempted from all episcopal subjection the basilica of St. Mary established by him in the town afterwards called of Saint Audomar, and to be governed under the patronage of St. Bertin. This charter, which Mabillon published in part Annales Ord. S. Bened., vol. I, p. 419, Lucca edition, but Malbrancq entire De Morinis, vol. I, p. 669, Stilting in the Commentary on St. Bertin Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 566, Bréquigny Diplomata, vol. I, p. 238 and following according to a copy collated with the cartulary of Folquin, the distinguished Guérard Cartulaire de l'abbaye de St. Bertin, p. 23 and following according to the same cartulary, and others, very many have attacked: of whom it will be enough to have named Le Cointe in the Ecclesiastical Annals of the Franks Vol. III, p. 516 and the defenders of the church of Saint-Omer Vérité de l'église de S. Omer, p. 100 and following; but others have strenuously defended it: among whom the Benedictines, authors of the New treatise on diplomatics Nouveau Traité de diplomatique, vol. V, p. 4 and following, the asserters of the rights of the monastery of Sithiu Origine de l'abbaye de S. Bertin, p. 71 and following, and Bréquigny Diplomata, vol. I, p. 238 and following: but on which side I should place our Stilting Acta SS., vol. II, p. 567 and following, who, on account of subscriptions encountering some difficulty, does not dare to assert it entire, nor yet supposititious, I do not altogether see. Whatever may be the credibility of these subscriptions, since it is established on other grounds, as Stilting shows Ibid., p. 565 and 570 and following, that that church was given by St. Audomar to the abbot of Sithiu, St. Bertin; and moreover since the monks of St. Bertin proved that the privilege of absolute liberty contained in the aforesaid charter was rightly claimed by them, so that the court of Paris confirmed it to them by solemn judgment on the 3rd day of February of the year 1778 Bréquigny, Diplomata, vol. I, p. 238; the charter itself, which can be attacked by no probable arguments, as Stilting drew out at length, seems altogether to be admitted; and as regards the subscriptions, if any were changed or afterwards added, the sign of St. Mummolinus is not to be referred among these; whom doubtful

it is not that he put his name to it, since so many bonds joined him to SS. Audomar and Bertin, and he lived not so far from Thérouanne. His subscription, which comes first after that of St. Audomar, runs thus: In the name of Christ, I Mummolenus, though a sinner, bishop, being asked on behalf of the indiculus of the lord Audomar, have subscribed. In the following year the same Saint subscribed another diploma, namely that of Bertefrid, bishop of Amiens, for the liberty of the monks of Corbie. Mabillon published part of this diploma in the Benedictine Annals [At the year 663, §1, vol. I, p. 432, Lucca edition], but many others published it entire, as we noted at no. 40. Launoy and Le Cointe attacked it with all their strength; losing, however, their oil and labour, as is gathered from Bréquigny Diplomata, vol. I, p. 241. It was given on the eighth day before the Ides of September in the seventh year of the reign of King Clothar, at Captuniacum in the palace, publicly. Whence Ghesquière is to be corrected Acta SS. Belgii, vol. IV, p. 409, who, contrary to his custom not referring the sayings of the Gallia Christiana to the sources, noted the sixth year of the reign of Clothar. This charter is referred by Bréquigny to the year 662, since he computed the beginning of the reign of Clothar III from the 6th day of the month of September of the year 656; but since in the second week of the month of November of the year 659 the third year was still running, as we noted above with Pagi, it is clear that the eighth day before the Ides of September in the seventh year of the reign of Clothar coincides with the 6th day of September of the year 663. Under the same Clothar he also added his vote to the diploma of St. Drausius, bishop of Soissons; which we have already cited above at no. 40. But since that diploma is inscribed to St. Mummolinus and seven other bishops of the province of Reims, who nearly all subscribed at the end with others from the neighbouring ecclesiastical provinces, it becomes manifest that that diploma was carried round, no less than that of Sens, of which we spoke again a little above, and that St. Mummolinus did not therefore necessarily make for Soissons, where on the 6th day before the Kalends of July, in the tenth year of Clothar, the glorious king, that constitution was enacted or granted. Nor was the only reason for carrying round this diploma that it was almost customary for comprovincial bishops to confirm constitutions of this kind with their handwriting: for, as Dom Michel Germain says Histoire de l'abbaye royale de N. D. de Soissons, p. 425, it is worth noting that this privilege was directed only to the comprovincial bishops of the metropolis of Reims, because in certain cases they took part in the elections of abbesses, as Charles the Bald professes in a diploma See ibid. the diploma, p. 427 and following … of the year 846. Finally, under Childeric II the Saint subscribed the letters of St. Bercharius for the monastery of Montier-en-Der; which my respected colleague, in the Commentary on this Saint which immediately follows here, determines were granted in the year 672: let the reader see more concerning the same diploma in that place. And these are the deeds of St. Mummolinus passed over by the biographers, yet confirmed by ancient testimonies from elsewhere.

* to care for diligently

* Guérard adds Lothario.

* Guérard wrongly writes V.

§ V. Of the death, burial, elevation and translation of the Relics of St. Mummolinus; of the Relics granted to the monastery of St. Bertin.

[Having died in the year 683, or according to others in the year 685, he is buried in the chapel of St. George, afterwards called of the Holy Apostles, and finally of St. Godeberta,] What circumstances accompanied St. Mummolinus's death the biographers explain sufficiently; but as regards the time, that seems to be inquired into from elsewhere. Now all the biographers of St. Mummolinus agree with the biographer of St. Audomar Acta SS., vol. III of September, p. 399 in assigning twenty-six years to his episcopate: whence, since we have said that he was raised to the infulae of Noyon and Tournai either at the end of the year 657 or at the beginning of 658, we must tie his death to the year 683, which was the twenty-sixth of his episcopate. But others, who determine that he was promoted to the episcopal see two years later, must also refer his death two years later. And so, when he was now about to die, he admonished his clerics with fatherly words, and ordered his body to be laid outside the city; obeying which command his clergy buried him outside the walls before the gate of the castle, beside the monastery which, in the time of the other biographer, was already long since being founded in honour of the twelve Apostles, in which place a congregation of nuns had been established. But the older biographers express the place somewhat differently, when they say: he was buried outside the walls before the water-gate in the church of the Holy Apostles. But a twofold question arises here: the former, namely, how these two assertions are consistent with each other: that St. Mummolinus was buried, according to his command, outside the walls before the gate of the castle or the water-gate, and at the same time laid beside the monastery built in honour of the twelve Apostles, since, as Papebroch has it Acta SS., vol. II of April, p. 33, on the witness of Louis de Montigny, archdeacon of the Church of Noyon, in his annotations to the Life of the Holy Virgin Godeberta p. 63, published at Paris in the year 1630, and of another no less safe witness, Colliette, here and there in his commentaries on the district of the Vermandois, the monastery of the twelve Apostles had long since been one of the ten parishes of the city of Noyon; the other question turns on this, that St. Mummolinus is said by several biographers to have been buried in the church of the Holy Apostles, and yet in certain more recent sacred lessons concerning him, which the champion of the rights of the church of Saint-Omer alleges Vérité de l'église de S. Omer, pp. 222 and 234, and in the Benedictine Annals Vol. I, p. 528, it is determined that St. Mummolinus was buried in the common cemetery of the Christians; which common cemetery certainly was not this church, both because it was very small and because the sacred canons forbade a church to be a common cemetery, as may be seen at length above all in Louis Thomassin on the discipline of the Church Book I, part III, chapter 65, French edition.

[55] which was then in the suburb of Noyon, To the former question Ghesquière has already answered in the Commentary on St. Mummolinus, no. 30, that that monastery, or, if you prefer, the oratory of St. George, afterwards included in the monastery of the Holy Apostles, was in the seventh century of Christ truly situated outside the walls of the city of Noyon; although now, and indeed long since, the city's pomerium having been enlarged, it is included in the circuit of the town, so that the place which the gate of the Castrum or Castle, or the water-gate, formerly occupied is now near that where the wells now are in the corn-market of the city. Which explanation is to be supported without hesitation, since in the Life of St. Godeberta, Virgin Acta SS., vol. II of April, p. 33, no. 5, who died about the year 700, these things are read: Coming together, then (St. Godeberta and her companions), into the suburb of the city of Noyon, namely into the oratory (of St. George) which they had received from the king, they laboured untiringly to serve God day and night. The biographers, therefore, are not contrary to one another when in one place they say that Mummolinus wished to be buried outside the walls of the city of Noyon before the gate of the castle (or the water-gate); and in another place that he was laid beside the monastery founded in honour of the twelve Apostles.

[56] but he is not buried in the common cemetery. To the other question it is not so easy to answer, since there exists no record altogether contemporary, and therefore it can be objected against the places to be asserted that the writers testify to what they saw with their own eyes, not to what had been done a century before. Nevertheless, since a testimony not indeed contemporary but nearly contemporary is better than no testimony, and a record of this kind cannot be rejected without a proven reason, I do not hesitate to affirm that St. Mummolinus was buried not in the common cemetery but in the church of St. George, or of the twelve Apostles, immediately after his death, and was not translated thither afterwards. For the older Lives expressly have this, and the praised Life of St. Godeberta, which is judged to have been written in the tenth century, supports them. For in this the following words occur Ibid., p. 34, no. 12: The excellent handmaid of God (St. Godeberta), then, was buried on the third day before the Ides of April, in the oratory of Blessed George, in the church which is now called of the Holy Apostles, where they also honourably buried the body of St. Mummolenus, bishop of the same city.

[57] In the church of St. Godeberta, with other Saints, The place where St. Mummolinus was laid down is perhaps the chapel which before the French troubles had the name of St. Godeberta in this church. And if one may trust the words of Papebroch, who used the learned annotations of Louis de Montigny to the Life of St. Godeberta, this chapel was either a crypt, or at least a kind of crypt; for he relates that that sanctuary was at the right part of the choir, BELOW the chapel of the Holy Cross. And when he teaches in the same place that there still survives a great part of an old tomb, having carved on it the images of two bishops, and between them a third in the midst in the habit of a nun, and that a similar representation is seen in the porch of the church on the side of the cemetery, anyone will easily suspect that one or the other is St. Mummolinus; nevertheless the matter is not so clear, since two other holy bishops besides Mummolinus are said to have obtained burial there. For Papebroch, in the cited Commentary on St. Godeberta Acta SS., vol. II of April, p. 32, relates not only that notable particles of the body of St. Eunucius are shown and venerated in the church of St. Godeberta or of the twelve Apostles, but also that his sacred body was formerly elevated from there: which were probably drawn from the annotations of de Montigny. And indeed, although Stilting, who illustrated the deeds of St. Eunucius at the 10th of September, was entirely silent about the original burial of St. Eunucius, though he was much occupied in reviewing his translations Acta SS., vol. III of September, p. 617; it seems altogether to be admitted that the body of St. Eunucius was committed to the earth there, on account of the feast of the elevation, of which it will be spoken immediately below. But Cousin, the historiographer of Tournai Histoire de Tournay, book II, p. 39, from chapter 15 of the work of Demochares on the Sacrifice of the Mass, from volume I of the Cosmography of Belleforest, and from the ecclesiastical Offices of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of the Churches of Noyon and Tournai, represents that St. Acharius, the predecessor of St. Eligius, was laid in the earth in the oratory of St. George. But since St. Eunucius is more recent than St. Godeberta, and that stone seems to indicate that this holy handmaid of Christ was placed in a sepulchre between two bishops, it is more likely that the one is our Saint Mummolinus and the other Acharius.

[58] [he is raised from the earth, and afterwards translated to the cathedral church of Noyon.] Nor is the space of time less obscure during which St. Mummolinus lay there before he was raised from the earth and then carried to the cathedral of Noyon

church was translated. We hold indeed as supremely likely that the bodies of SS. Mummolinus, Godeberta and Eunucius were elevated at one time; since this threefold elevation was formerly celebrated with one festivity, as is clear from these words of Papebroch Vol. II of April, p. 32: The same church (of the Holy Apostles) today possesses and shows among its sacred Relics notable particles from the bodies of SS. Eunucius and Godeberta, whose elevation, and that of St. Mummolinus, also buried in the same church, is noted in the Martyrology of the cathedral church at the 27th of April; but it is by no means established at what time this elevation was made. Since, however, St. Eunucius is related to have died about the middle of the eighth century [Compare Acta SS., vol. III of September, p. 617, and Gallia Christiana, vol. IX, col. 986], it must be determined that it took place later than this time. But if the bodies of these three Saints seem to have been elevated with one celebration, it is certain that they were not translated in one year. For the sacred remains of St. Eunucius were translated about the middle of the tenth century by Radulph or Hadulph, bishop of Noyon, into the church of St. Lupus, afterwards of St. Eligius, as very many testify in the praised Stilting Acta SS., vol. III of September, p. 617, no. 3; nor was the body of St. Godeberta moved from the church of the Holy Apostles at that time, as may plainly be understood from the bull of Pope John XV, which, after Le Vasseur in the Annals of Noyon p. 734, Colliette published in the Commentaries on the district of the Vermandois Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du Vermandois, vol. I, p. 577; and on other grounds, namely from an unpublished Catalogue of the bishops of Tournai and Noyon, it becomes known to us (which was hidden from the people of Noyon when Papebroch was writing his Commentary on St. Godeberta, as we learned from the letters of Nicolas de la Haye, dean of Noyon) that the body of St. Godeberta was translated by Baldwin, bishop of Noyon, from the oratory of St. George (or of the Holy Apostles) to the basilica of the Virgin Mary of Noyon in the year 1167 on the 27th day of the month of April; which day was the anniversary of the elevation of SS. Mummolinus, Eunucius and the same St. Godeberta. And from these things I think it is sufficiently clear that that threefold treasure was not translated at the same time. Nevertheless, as regards St. Mummolinus, I should believe that his body was carried to the cathedral church long before the sixteenth century, both because the church of the Holy Apostles, placed as it was outside the walls, was liable to the plunderings of soldiers [Compare Colliette, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du Vermandois, vol. III, p. 344], and because it is not credible that the canons of the cathedral church suffered these sacred pledges to be absent so long from their principal church, when it rested with them to translate them thither. Papebroch uses a similar argument where he treats of the translation of St. Godeberta.

[59] [The church of St. Mummolinus, of which the more recent biographers speak, does not seem to be the same as the church of St. Godeberta,] But let us bring back our pen to Ghesquière, who at no. 32 proceeds thus: "It is not so clear what the biographer of Mummolinus means when, speaking of the aforesaid monastery, he subjoins these words: Which already long since is being founded in honour of the twelve Apostles by most holy men. Did he perhaps wish to indicate by this last word that that monastery, at the time at which he was writing, had indeed been begun long since, but had not yet been finished? I suspect so indeed, but I should not dare to affirm it, since I have nowhere found expressed the time, nor yet the names of the most holy men by whom the oratory of St. George, its former name being changed, was raised into a monastery called of the Holy Apostles. This one thing is clear to me, that that monastery before the end of the tenth century was called the abbey of St. Godeberta, Virgin, as is evident in Le Vasseur in the Annals of the Church of Noyon p. 734 from the diploma of Pope John XV granted to Liudulf or Liudulph, bishop of Noyon, in the year 988, by which it is at the same time asserted that that monastery was built in honour of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, no mention being made of the other Apostles. It is established also from the letter of Guy, treasurer of Noyon, written about the year 1050, which see in volume X of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, among the instruments Col. 365, that already then" (indeed in the time of the bishops Walbert and Transmar, that is, before the year 950, as is clear from Guy's writing itself) "the virgins who lived in that monastery were called nuns of Saint Godeberta, and the monastery itself the abbey of St. Godeberta (Guy speaks of the times of Liudulf, before the year 988). And since this last name thereafter clung to it, it must be that certainly before the year 988 that monastery, or at least the basilica of the monastery, as our Saint's biographer speaks, took the designation of Saint Mummolenus, and indeed long before, and perhaps in the course of the eighth century itself." Let me be permitted here to halt the excellent Ghesquière for a little: for I do not agree with him when he interprets these sayings of the more recent biographer: to whose (God's) praise the basilica constructed at present has taken, down to this very day, the designation of Saint Mummolinus, as if it treated of the church of the twelve Apostles. For this church is nowhere called by the name of St. Mummolinus; moreover Ghesquière would surely have conceded that this church is not in question here if it did not obtain the name of St. Mummolinus before it was distinguished with the name of the Holy Apostles, which it still bore in the tenth century; and yet the more recent biographer (on the supposition that this church was indicated by him) would have affirmed that down to this day (in which he was writing) it had taken the designation of Saint Mummolinus, and the older biographer would have already called the same church by the name of the Holy Apostles!

[60] but rather the same as the church of the Old monastery. Further, since these things do not agree, and in the former diocese of Noyon (I make no mention of that of Tournai, where the cult seems more recent) there never, so far as I know, existed any church of his (indeed that none existed in the last century is clear from the index of benefices published by Colliette Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du Vermandois, vol. III, at the end), I should gladly believe that the basilica which took the designation of St. Mummolinus was the church of the Old monastery, where we have seen St. Mummolinus stay long. Clety indeed, the not unlearned librarian of St. Bertin, wrote to our Stilting Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 561: That Old monastery, with its workshops, was burned through the wars of the French and English in the year 1497. In happier times there was erected in the same place a parish under the name of St. Mummolinus, entirely dependent in spirituals and temporals on the abbey of St. Bertin; but it is not proven from this that the church of the Old monastery was not distinguished with the designation of St. Mummolinus before its destruction; and indeed, since these happier times which Clety praises seem more recent (for at the end of the fifteenth century so great a scarcity of money had arisen among the monks of St. Bertin that, far from building a church being to be thought of, the successor of John IX found the monastery so emptied of goods that, for prosecuting the confirmation of his election, the cases of the Relics, the vessels set apart for divine service, the silver images of Blessed Mary, Audomar and Bertin, covered with gold, and the chalices of the church, especially a golden chalice adorned with divers gems, were sold; although before that Abbot John IX had reduced by half the lighting of the church and the prebends of the religious, and had done other things of this kind most sparingly; concerning which the Continuation of the Chronicle of St. Bertin is to be read D. Martène, Amplissima Collectio, vol. VI, col. 630 and following), since, I say, these more prosperous times did not follow so immediately after this calamity, we come to too late an age for the church of St. Mummolinus of the Old monastery to have been known through a great part of Gaul at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and for pious pilgrimages to have been made to it from afar, such as Malbrancq describes, as will be seen at the end of this Commentary; unless the cult of St. Mummolinus already flourished there before the mentioned destruction.

[61] Miracles and the translation of part of the head to the monastery of Sithiu, I return to Ghesquière discoursing thus at no. 33: "As regards the miracles which the biographer asserts were wrought by the patronage of St. Mummolinus, I have nowhere been able to find a special narrative of them, nor yet authentic documents; I do not, however, on that account deny credence to the biographer who affirms them, since they, like many other old instruments, could afterwards have perished through the iniquity of the times. Take the same to be said of the notable miracle wrought by St. Mummolinus, namely the recalling of a dead man to life, which Cousin asserts he read in ancient manuscripts, volume II of the History of Tournai p. 123." Of the very many catalogues of the bishops of Tournai which are at hand to me, two have this: To whom (St. Eligius) succeeded Blessed Momolenus, who raised a dead man, and the Lord worked very many other miracles through him. Almost the same may be found in the Chronicle of Tournai which Baron von Reiffenberg subjoined to the poems of Philippe Mouskes published by him Vol. I, p. 535, and in the work of Malbrancq on the Morini Ibid., p. 502. And Ghesquière proceeds thus: "In vain also have I inquired into the acts of the translation of St. Mummolinus (compare no. 58); whose body is now kept in the cathedral of Noyon, as the writers of volume IX of the enlarged Gallia Christiana relate Col. 985, but part of the head in the church of Sithiu or of St. Bertin." Malbrancq recorded the same before them De Morinis, vol. I, p. 502 a little more broadly, illustrating these things in these words: Now in the cathedral basilica of the people of Noyon he stands out at the principal altar in a rich shrine, on the right side of St. Eligius, Godeberta holding the left. At Saint-Omer the monks of St. Bertin show part of his head and other particles.

[62] which the records of Noyon Of the carrying of these Relics to Saint-Bertin the historians have preserved for us very many circumstances. Le Vasseur first of all, in the Annals of Noyon, published the Latin capitular conclusion by which the donation of these pledges was made; here it is as the very Reverend M. Delettre, at that time Vicar Capitular of Beauvais, transcribed it for us in the year 1841: A Chapter being held on Wednesday, 15 June 1463, the Lords being assembled concerning the dispatch of a particle of the glorious head of Blessed Mommolenus, long since promised to the Reverend Father in Christ the Lord William, by the grace of God bishop of Tournai and abbot of the monastery of Saint Bertin at Saint-Omer, and to be laid up in that monastery with the body or Relics of Blessed Bertin, that as they were companions in life, so they may also have the Relics of their bodies together; for receiving which Relics reverently, as is fitting, there were deputed by the said reverend Father the religious and provident men the Lords Andrew de Crehen, John de Pratis, monks of the aforesaid monastery, and Nicolas Erembaud, lay bailiff of the same monastery; the aforenamed Lords advised to proceed in this manner, namely that, the Mass of Requiem being ended, the aforesaid head of Blessed Mommolenus be carried with all reverence to the high altar, and

that thence be reverently taken that particle which the Lords decided to communicate to those religious, which was also done. For, the choir being assembled and singing, the aforesaid head was brought to the high altar, from which there were extracted one great particle, with four others, one larger and the others small, to be venerated henceforth in that same monastery, which the said religious and the bailiff promised to do, asking that letters of the chapter be made and delivered to them concerning this, which were granted. Thus far the instrument of Noyon.

[63] and those of St. Bertin make certain. With these the Continuation of the Chronicle of Iperius, or of St. Bertin, is consonant, where I find the following: William, surnamed Filastre, the 64th abbot … renewed the silver and gilded panel of the high altar, and gave from his own all the gems spread over it; he adorned with the gems which he gave a new case of Blessed Bertin, ornamented with precious stones, and a silver reliquary containing part of the head of St. Mommolinus, translated hither from Noyon at his petition. He gave one white cloth set with gems (repa or reba was formerly the name of such cloths covering the Relics of the Saints) to be hung over his (Mummolinus's) altar. But that Abbot William, who successively occupied the episcopal cathedrae of Verdun, Toul and Tournai, and held the abbey of St. Bertin from the year 1459 to 1473, nevertheless acted here only the part of petitioner, as is clear from the addition which one of our predecessors found and copied in the St. Bertin codex, set at this place to the Continuation of Iperius's Chronicle; it runs thus: This part of the head of Lord Mummolinus Lord Andrew de Crehen, prior of the Old monastery, solemnly received on Sunday, 22 June of the year 1463, brought hither by two canons of the cathedral church of Noyon. But that altar of which mention is made in the Continuation of the St. Bertin Chronicle does not seem to have existed until the disturbances of the French republic; since in the above-praised description of the abbey of Saint Bertin Description de l'abbaye de St. Bertin, p. 23 and following, in which all the altars are reviewed, the altar of St. Mummolinus does not appear. And the Relics of our Saint, which suffered nothing in the time of the wars between the French and the Germans, which brought very much damage to the monastery of Saint Bertin (the Continuator of the Chronicle is much occupied with these), seem to have been lost amid the disturbances of the last century. Which I judge can be concluded from the words with which the describers of the abbey of Saint Bertin close their book: This reliquary case (he means the shrine of St. Bertin, whose image engraved on copper Stilting published in the commentary on St. Bertin Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 585) was broken in the year 1793 to be sent to the mint, with the rest of the silver furniture which was kept in the treasury of the abbey: and there is no reason for us to exempt from this lot the box of the Relics of St. Mummolinus. So much of the Relics formerly kept at Saint-Bertin: it remains for us to explain the more recent fortunes of those of Noyon, the source of the rest. For the reason why we say nothing of those which are said by the Louvain editors of Butler's Lives of the Saints to have been formerly kept in the abbey of St. Eligius is that nothing has anywhere been found by us concerning them; and indeed we have a suspicion that the abbey of St. Bertin has been erroneously called that of St. Eligius: since those hagiographers lay down nothing concerning the relics kept at Saint-Bertin, which the remaining biographers mention; while they speak of others which are unknown to all.

§ VI. What fortunes the Relics of St. Mummolinus experienced at Noyon in the years 1793 and 1795; his public and private invocation.

The instrument of recognition of the Relics of Noyon, The Relics of St. Mummolinus, which were formerly kept at Noyon with much reverence, did indeed experience profane hands in the times of the disturbed French republic, yet did not perish as those of St. Bertin did. Which is established from an authentic instrument which, through the praised very Reverend M. Delettre, the Reverend M. Thieble, parish priest of Noyon, sent to us, affirming that the copy submitted is conformable to the exemplar kept in the archive of Noyon, and testifying that this exemplar is the only record which the people of Noyon have concerning the preservation of their Relics. In it mention is made not only of the remains of St. Mummolinus; but also of the remains of St. Godeberta, honoured on the 11th day of April, of St. Medard, celebrated on the 8th day of June, of St. Acharius, venerated on the 27th day of November, of St. Eligius, whom they venerate on the 1st day of December, and of St. Albinus, whom I judge the same as St. Albinus, bishop of Angers, of whom our predecessors treated long ago Acta SS., vol. I of March, p. 54; since I find only this Albinus venerated by the people of Noyon on the 1st day of March in the Breviary of the year 1630. It has seemed good, however, to render that instrument, written in French, entire into Latin after a fashion; both because SS. Eligius, Medard and others are most illustrious heavenly ones in the Church of God, and it is therefore of great consequence to know the lot of their remains, and because by that instrument it becomes plain how matters were conducted at that time by the schismatics. And as regards the Latin version, it seemed before all things to be taken care that the French writing should be made Latin almost word for word; whence the reader will be willing to excuse the difficult style. Moreover, since that memorandum was sometimes somewhat obscure on account of immense intervening clauses, it was thought good to interpose some parentheses which are lacking in the French exemplar, and even to repeat certain things, which, lest they be confused with the genuine text, have been printed here in another type.

[65] made in the year 1795. Here at length is that instrument: In the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five, on the twenty-third day of August, at the eleventh hour in the morning, we, Charles-Louis-François Fremont, priest, and Joseph-Gaspard Catrieres, likewise priest, invited by four ecclesiastical men, priests, namely Pierre-Armand Richousftz, Charles-François Lejeune, Louis-Charles-François Dautrevaux and Antoine Despreaux, discharging the offices of pastoral ministry in the church of Noyon; (invited also) by the commissioners on whom lies the temporal administration of the said church as regards the cult of the building and providing for its repairs, namely Charles-François-Denis de Mory, Jacques-Maurice-Antoine Reneusve (?), Pierre-Eloi Pluche, Maurice-Denis-Louis-Aignan Cerdougnon, Étienne Liegoux, Claude-Joseph Lessertisseur, Jean-François Trousselle, François Ramboux, Jean-Baptiste Vatin, François Le Mesnil, Jean-Baptiste Mozet, Charles-Dominique Sezille d'Armancourt, François Du Jourdan, Jean-Baptiste Guilbert, Louis Cremery, Louis-Jacques-François Le Moumier, Joseph-Denis-Florent Beaudoux, Jean Beaudoux, Louis Pluche, and Charles-François-Joseph Sauvel, and (complying with) the wishes of the catholic faithful of the city and the environs of Noyon, made our way to the greater sacristy of the above-said church; whither when we had come about the eleventh hour in the morning of the said day, we conferred with the aforesaid named priests and commissioners (who subscribe the present instrument, written and composed by Charles-François-Joseph Sauvel, one of the said commissioners, designated and chosen by us for the drawing up of these letters, in the presence of the rest of the clergy of the said church and of a multitude of citizens of the said city and suburbs, who also subscribed with us) concerning the present state of the Relics of the Holy patrons of this church and of other Saints, who have always obtained veneration in it, and the deposit of which it has always kept.

[66] The sacristan of Noyon testifies, At the end of the said conference it appeared to us that it had been made certain by public notice that, at the time of the despoiling and carrying off of the cases made of gold, silver, other metals and wood (in which the Relics had been laid), various bones and precious Relics of these Saints had for the most part remained in the hands of Eustache Rohault, sacristan of the said church, who, to withdraw them from plundering and greater violation, had buried them in the precinct of the said church, arranged as a cemetery and surrounded by cloisters, characteristic signs being set beside them to be indicators to posterity. Wherefore, having taken the counsel of the subscribing priests and commissioners, we demanded that the said Rohault, sacristan, should appear before us and the subscribers, to be questioned on facts and articles: whom, when he had come in to us, we invited to answer according to the truth to all the things asked and inquired to be put by us; since it was a question of the greater glory of God and the honour of his Saints.

[67] the despoiling made in the year 1793, seen by him; And when he had answered affirmatively that several men had been seen by him entering the said church about the first days of the month of November of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three (though he could not altogether certainly determine the day), going to the treasury and the other places in which the said cases had been deposited, and the keys of which he had been compelled to hand over; that these precious Relics had been extracted entire by these men from the places in which they had hitherto been kept, that the cases had been opened and torn apart by them, and the gold, silver and other metals in which these precious remains were enclosed had been carried away; and as regards these sacred remains, bones and Relics, that they had been left by them separately according to the order of the despoiling; that he had noticed that during and under the carrying off of the said cases some small particles of the bones were taken away by certain persons; that the men who had in their orders the despoiling had carried and caused to be carried to the place where the council of the district (district) met the gold, silver and other metals coming from the said cases and reliquary boxes;

[68] [that the Relics of SS. Eligius, Medard, Godeberta, Acharius, Mummolinus, Albinus, etc., were buried by him;] And that he, struck at seeing the aforesaid Relics in such a state, and not knowing what to do to prevent all plundering and violation, seeing moreover that the aforesaid church was bereft of wise and enlightened (éclairés) priests who could direct him, had determined to follow the counsel indicated and suggested to him by the citizen Prus, at that time mayor (maire) of the city; which was such that he should bury the aforesaid Relics and place sepulchral stones over the Relics of St. Eligius, St. Medard and St. Godeberta; (which put it into the said sacristan's mind to place likewise signs of some kind over the other Relics;) wherefore that all the bones and precious Relics of St. Eligius, St. Medard, St. Acharius, St. Mummolinus, St. Godeberta, who are all patrons of the said church, of St. Albinus, and of another holy bishop and martyr whose name he could not disclose to us, were transferred by the said Rohault, sacristan, into the aforesaid precinct of the church; and 1° that a pit was made by him in the said precinct of the church opposite the third arch of the outermost cloisters, as one goes from the chapels of St. Andrew and St. Catherine to the chapter-house; that the Relics of St. Eligius, St. Medard and St. Godeberta were placed by him in the said pit, by no means confused, and that the said pit was covered by him first with an oval sepulchral stone of black marble, then with earth thrown on the said stone; not far from the said pit, towards the base of the column (en tirant vers

le pied, I judge it is lacking: du pilier): that another pit was dug by him, in which he placed the Relics of St. Mummolinus, and that it was at once covered by him with stones placed immediately upon it as signs, and then with earth; and that in the space which stretches from the column (separating the fourth and fifth arches of the said cloisters), opposite the said chapels of St. Andrew and St. Catherine, three small pits were made by him; in the first of which, towards the church, he placed the Relics of St. Albinus; in the middle one after it he laid the Relics of the holy bishop and martyr whose name, as above, he could not indicate to us; and in the third, finally, following the same line, he put the Relics of St. Acharius; and lastly, that stones were placed by him over the said three Relics, and earth was added on top.

[69] two priests were informed by him shortly after, and the place indicated to them; 2° The said Rohault being then asked whether he had informed anyone after this operation and burial, he answered that some time after (though he could not assign a certain day), fearing lest he should die before these sacred Relics could be placed in an honourable place, he had earnestly asked … Hallu and François Montjoye, both priests, to go to the said precinct of the church, to see and recognise the various places of burial and the signs set there. 3° Being asked whether the said Hallu and Montjoye had in fact recognised the said burials and signs, he answered affirmatively: They recognised them.

[70] the smaller boxes taken away before the said despoiling seen by him; 4° Being asked whether he had seen other smaller reliquaries and reliquary cases carried off, of which part had always been in the keeping of the said church, and others belonging to suppressed churches had been brought hither, he answered that before the carrying off of the reliquaries of St. Eligius, St. Medard, St. Godeberta, St. Mummolinus, St. Acharius, St. Albinus and the holy bishop and martyr whose name is hidden from him, he had seen several of these smaller cases and reliquaries snatched and carried off, and that he did not know what had become of the small particles of bones which they contained.

[71] 5° Being asked whether he had seen instruments of authenticity added to the said Relics, he answered that he had seen two parchments, the instruments of authenticity of the Relics of Medard, seen and kept by him; fortified with seals, that he had obtained possession of them, and had handed them both to Charles-François Lejeune, one of the four aforenamed priests; who, being present here, at once exhibited these two instruments, regarding the Relics of St. Medard, the former beginning with these words: Jacobus de Rucheze, and ending with these others: called for that purpose, given on 1 July 1650 and fortified with the seals of the bishop of Chalon and of his chapter; the other regarding the same Relics, beginning with these words: Nous, Doyen, Chanoines, and ending with these others: les jour et an que dessus, given on 1 July 1650, fortified with the seal of the chapter of St. Étienne of Dijon.

[72] [and likewise the wrappings of the Relics; the two priests indicated testify that the place was shown to them.] 6° Being asked whether he had noticed the cloths in which the aforesaid Relics were wrapped, he answered that each of the Relics had its wrapping woven of red silk (so far as he remembers), and that most of these wrappings were placed by him with the said Relics in the pits. 7° Being asked whether he could inform or teach anything besides, he answered that he knew nothing besides. The reading of these questions and answers being made, the said Rohault declared that he persisted in his statements, and that the truth was contained in these writings, and subscribed the present instrument with us. — Signed: Rohault. — And since the aforesaid Hallu and Montjoye have knowledge useful and profitable to the present operation, we at once took care that they should be invited to communicate it to us: wherefore they affirmed that they had not long since seen the said burials and signs, such as are related above, since both at the aforesaid time went to the said precinct of the church with the said Rohault. — Signed: Montjoye. — The signature of Hallu is lacking in our copy.

[73] They go to the place of burial; Furnished with all these notices, informations and instructions, all being well weighed, and the holy name of God being invoked, we invited the four priests, the commissioners recorded above, the said Rohault, the said Hallu and Montjoye, Jacques-Marie-Louis Dufour, physician, Jean-Dominique-Damien Boulongne, surgeon, the rest of the clergy of the said church and the multitude of citizens, to accompany us to the said precinct of the church, either as men necessary to the recognition and exhumations of the above-said Relics, or as witnesses of the said exhumations and translations. All, entering by the door of the cloisters by which one goes to the chapels of St. Andrew and St. Catherine, we made our way, thus attended and clothed in ecclesiastical vestments, to the quarter which is opposite the third arch of the outermost cloisters, of which it was spoken in the present instrument, and indeed to the edge of the pit in which the said Rohault again declared that he had buried without confusion the Relics of St. Eligius, St. Medard and St. Godeberta; and the said Hallu and Montjoye recognised that this was the place and the distinctive signs which they had already seen; and at once we ordered the earth to be dug out until the sepulchral stone and then the bones should appear; wherefore, the earth being dug out one foot, there appeared to us a sepulchral stone of blue (bleu) and black marble, two feet long and ten inches wide, which we at once ordered to be lifted; which being done, there appeared to us a cloth of red silk, divided into two bags.

[74] the Relics of St. Eligius are dug up and reviewed, And when the said Rohault, being present, had told us that the purple bag of the darker colour, lying nearer to the said arch, contained the bones and Relics of St. Eligius, we ourselves forthwith lifted the said bag in the presence of the whole assembly, and found it almost entire. When we had opened it, and had called Dufour, physician, and Boulongne, surgeon, aforenamed, these indicated to us the following names of the bones which we found there in fairly great number, namely: two tibiae, two femurs, a humerus, two smaller bones (which, since their upper part was lacking, could not be named), a fibula, two innominate bones or bones of the ilium, the sacrum, and three lumbar vertebrae, two heel-bones, an astragalus, a double cuboid bone, one scaphoid, and one cuneiform, a kneecap, a phalanx of a finger, part of a rib, the lower jaw and several particles of bones which could not be named; all which bones, with the said wrapping, we at once placed on a linen cloth in an oval basket, entrusted for the time of the said operation to the four priests already named in the present instrument.

[75] of St. Medard, Then we lifted from the ground another bag of a less dark colour, in which the said Rohault at once declared to us that he had deposited and enclosed the Relics of St. Medard and St. Godeberta. When we had opened these said bags and wrappings, found by us almost entire, the said Dufour and Boulongne distinguished by their names the various bones found in them in fairly great number, namely: a left femur, which the said Rohault declared to us and recognised had been extracted from the reliquary case of St. Medard, and had been deposited as such by himself in the said bag; on which femur, as one of the bones of St. Medard, we at once placed a strip of white paper with the inscription: femur bone of St. Medard, and it was without delay handed to the said priests.

[76] of St. Godeberta, When the said Rohault had again told and affirmed to us that the remaining bones enclosed in the said bag were taken from the case and reliquary called the herm of St. Godeberta (in French chef de sainte Godeberte), the said Dufour and Boulongne called them by their names, namely: the whole upper part of the cranium, two tibiae, two parts of a humerus, a right femur almost entire, a left femur divided into two parts, three vertebrae of the back and several parts of the said vertebrae, seven little bones both of the upper and of the lower parts, two heel-bones, two astragali, a double scaphoid bone, a double cuboid, five cuneiforms. Then came Joseph-Félix Apoix, physician, whom we asked to be willing to join himself to the said Dufour and Boulongne. Continuing the description of the bones, the said physicians and surgeon indicated to us the following bones, namely: three bones of the metatarsus, part of the first rib, and several little bones. Having found in the said bag a whole seal and five fragments of seals, we placed them with all the aforesaid Relics of St. Godeberta on a linen cloth in an oval basket, which we entrusted to the said priests to be kept.

[77] of St. Mummolinus; Then we ordered to be opened the pit in which the said Rohault continues to affirm that the Relics of St. Mummolinus were placed by him. The earth being dug out eight inches and the stones lifted, there appeared to us a fairly great multitude of bones with small parts of a cloth of red silk: wherefore the said physicians and surgeon at once indicated these bones to us thus, namely: two femurs, two tibiae, two parts of a fibula, part of the bone of the forearm (or radius: avant-bras), two parts of a humerus, two parts of the bone of the ilium, the greatest part of the sacrum, the first rib, six vertebrae, part of the upper jaw, two astragali, two heel-bones, two parts of a kneecap, and several little bones both of the metatarsus and of the metacarpus, a double scaphoid bone and several other little bones; all which aforesaid Relics we at once placed on a linen cloth in a square basket, entrusted as above.

[78] Thence we went to the three aforesaid smaller pits recorded in the present instrument; we ordered the three said pits to be opened, that it might be permitted to distinguish them better; [The Relics of SS. Albinus, Acharius and the Anonymous, as having been moved from their place and being suspect, are buried again.] we noticed at one of the three places (designated by the said Rohault), and the said Rohault, Hallu and Montjoye noticed with us, that the earth seemed to have been moved after the time designated in the present instrument. And when we had ordered the earth to be dug, we saw three divisions of bones, but by no means arranged according to the line according to which, however, the Relics of St. Albinus, St. Acharius and the bishop martyr, whose name, as above, is unknown to him, were placed by him. And when we had caused the earth to be dug a little deeper, there appeared to us there a great heap of bones belonging to very many human bodies. Since, therefore, we could neither recognise the manner indicated to us, and which the said Rohault continues to affirm to us is true, nor distinguish the said three kinds of Relics, different from all these bones, we asked that all those said bones, of whatever kind they were, should be buried again in the same place, but a little deeper than before; which was at once done in the presence of the assembly, and we demanded of the said assembly that it provide a way of placing a characteristic sign in the place of the said burial, since the aforesaid Relics were placed there, though they cannot today (I know not what that interposed phrase comme Dieu est may mean) be distinguished from the other bones: which the said assembly promised it would do.

[79] [The former Relics are solemnly carried into the choir, and announced to the people;] All the exhumations, the raisings from the earth

and recognitions of the Relics of St. Eligius, bishop and patron of Noyon, of St. Medard, likewise bishop and patron, of St. Godeberta, virgin and patroness of Noyon, and of St. Mummolinus, bishop of Noyon, being thus made in the aforesaid precinct of the church, the four aforesaid priests reverently carrying the aforesaid Relics in the presence of all those assisting, we returned first to the greater sacristy, whence we had set out. Having gone thither and entered, and having inquired whether all things pertaining to the remaining ceremonies and the making of the translation and the discharging of the divine office as on the feast of the Relics were prepared, and having received an affirmative answer, we went out from the aforesaid sacristy in the order of a procession about the second hour in the afternoon (while hymns proper to the circumstances were being sung, and the sacred Relics were being carried as above), proceeding to the sanctuary of the said church; arriving at which we found a great table adorned, on which the said Relics were at once placed beside the cases prepared for receiving them. A prayer suited to the present ceremony being made by ourselves, we blessed the cases, described below and judged by us to be seemly; and since the Church exhibits no Relics to the veneration of the faithful without having first recognised them as authentic and obtained perfect knowledge of them, the said Dautrevaux read with a loud and intelligible voice before the assembly the acts of the present proceeding; which reading being completed, we put our hand to transferring the aforesaid Relics into the cases destined for each.

[80] the Relics of St. Eligius are placed in a reliquary, which is described; First, after we had placed all the Relics of St. Eligius, as they are indicated and described in the present instrument, together with the said instrument itself, in a bag of watered silk, green, sprinkled with gold and silver flowers, whose edges we at once ordered to be sewn up, we ordered to be applied in four distinct places of the seams, in red wax, the seal of this church, consisting of a monogram composed of these letters, Ave. M., a cross standing above and the circumscription: Ecclesia Noviomensis; then we transferred and deposited the said Relics, thus wrapped and sealed, in a wooden case, in which lay a cushion (coussin de Dauphine) dotted with purple flowers, as long and wide as the said case, which is inside twenty-six inches long, twelve wide, and ten and a half high, supported by eight gilded little balls, with a base sixteen and a half inches wide and thirty-one inches long; the circuit of which base is adorned by a reversed ogee moulding (talon renversé) and a semicircular moulding (quart de rond) gilded with burnished gold; and on which base rest eight twisted columns, eleven and a half inches high, gilded with burnished gold, and crowned with a Doric entablature, likewise gilded with burnished gold, except that the frieze (frise) imitates the colour of red and veined marble. Further, this case has three panes of glass fixed in each side, of which two (counting a broad border gilded with burnished gold) are six inches wide and nine inches high; the third, which is in the middle, is ten and a half inches wide and nine high; and the ends of the case are closed by a pane of glass nine and a half inches wide and ten and a half high: all which panes run out in four lines both on the sides and at the ends; and the four corners of the entablature are adorned with four wooden vases three inches high, and the case is closed by a French roof, painted for the time being in saffron colours, seven inches high and furnished with two hipped ends (croupe); which roof, as the opening of the case, was closed and at once made fast with nails, and sealed with the said seal in sealing wax in four places. (Which things were done) that the said Relics of St. Eligius, translated, enclosed and sealed as has been said, may in future, as formerly, be exhibited to the veneration of the faithful in the said church of Noyon.

[81] likewise the Relics of SS. Medard and Mummolinus; Then, when we had placed the Relics of St. Medard, as they are described in the present instrument, together with the instrument itself, in a bag of watered silk, green, sprinkled with gold and silver flowers, whose edges we at once ordered to be sewn up, we ordered the said seal to be applied with sealing wax in four places of the seams of the said bag, and we enclosed the said Relics, with the Relics of Saint Mummolinus likewise placed in a bag of similar cloth, sewn up and likewise sealed with similar wax in four places (the instrument enclosed in the bag containing the Relics of St. Medard is common to the Relics of St. Mummolinus), in a wooden case, in which was spread a cushion (coussin de dauphine) dotted with purple flowers, as long and wide as the said case, which extends two feet in length and eleven and a half inches in width, and, painted in blue colour, has red ornaments gilded with unburnished gold, and which is supported by little balls gilded with burnished gold; at one of its ends it is furnished with a little door six inches wide and seven and a half high, and fortified with three arched panes of glass, of which two are seven and a half inches high and five and a half wide, and the third, which occupies the middle, is seven and a half inches high and ten wide. The roof of the case is a French roof consisting of two hipped ends seven inches high, and the whole case is painted red inside. And in two places of the little door we ordered the said seal to be applied with sealing wax. (Which things were done) that the said Relics of Saint Medard and Saint Mummolinus may in future, as formerly, be exposed to the veneration of the faithful in the said church of Noyon; and we inserted in the said case the letters of authenticity of the bishop of Chalon and of the chapter of Dijon, already related in the present instrument.

[82] likewise the cranium, Moreover, after we had placed the cranium of Saint Godeberta, as it is described and designated above, on a cushion (coussin de dauphine) dotted with purple flowers, on which it is fixed and made firm by means of a white ribbon distinguished with silver flowers, arranged in a cross, and whose ends were sealed with sealing wax, we transferred, no less than above, and placed the said cranium or head (with the present instrument placed under the said cushion) in a wooden case, gilded through its whole circuit with burnished gold, fourteen and a half inches long, eleven wide, and nine high, supported by a base and then by four little balls, adorned with four pilasters distributed to the four corners, two inches wide, covered by a Doric entablature round the circuit of the case and running out in a fourfold line, furnished on each side with two arched panes of glass four inches long, three high, roofed with a vaulted gable five inches high, and with four flames (a word rather difficult to read) at the four corners, and painted red inside. (Which things were done) that the said cranium or head, thus translated, placed and sealed, may in future, as formerly, be exhibited to the veneration of the faithful in the said church, especially in public calamities, against which our forebears particularly experienced the happy effects of her patronage; and we sealed the said vaulted gable at its two ends as above.

[83] and the other Relics of St. Godeberta; the end of the solemnity. Lastly, when we had placed the other Relics of Saint Godeberta, as they are described above, together with the present instrument, in a bag of watered silk, green, sprinkled with gold and silver flowers, whose edges we ordered to be sewn up as above, and had ordered the seal of this church to be applied likewise as above in four places of the seams of the said bag, we transferred and placed the aforesaid Relics, thus wrapped and sealed, in a wooden case covered with blue papers, twenty-two inches long, ten wide, roofed with a French roof six inches high, furnished with two hipped ends; which roof, as the opening, we ordered to be sealed as above in four places, first depositing in the said case the whole seal and five parts of a seal of which it was spoken in the present instrument. (Which things were done) that the aforesaid Relics, thus translated, placed and sealed, may in future, as formerly, be exhibited to the veneration of the faithful in the said church of Noyon; and we closed the present ceremony with a procession made within the church with all the aforesaid Relics; returning from which we intoned and sang the hymn Te Deum; which was followed by the hours at vespers, sung as on the feast day of the Relics, and during which the said holy Relics remained exposed to the veneration of the faithful. — Done in the said church, where we subscribed the present instrument with all the men named in it and with many citizens, after we had ordered the seal of the said church to be applied. — One hundred and ten subscriptions follow.

[84] [other miracles formerly wont to occur in the Church of St. Mummolinus are explained, and his cult at Saint-Omer, Boulogne, Saint-Quentin, Bruges, Ghent, Ypres,] To close at length this Commentary on St. Mummolinus, a few things seem worth recording concerning his invocation, both private and public. Malbrancq, after he had recorded the dead man recalled to life by St. Mummolinus (of which matter we spoke above), proceeds in these words De Morinis, book IV, chapter 24, vol. I, p. 502: There is no need to go outside our own borders: sufficiently in that place which, its ancient name being now almost blotted out, is no longer called the Old monastery but, from the sacred church itself, Mommolinus's, traces bearing witness to his sanctity remain to this day. For in Belgium the place itself is most celebrated by this name to strangers; who there make Mommolinus propitious to children of three or four years, almost dumb, or, with tongue hindered, not knowing how to break out into articulate sounds: as is usual, they are brought home by their parents all chattering. Master Eustache Thery, chief treasurer of the monks of St. Bertin, while he was staying there, testified to me that even strangers from Paris had been endowed with that benefit. (It is clear that this piety arose from the name of St. Mummolinus, or Mommolenus, near to the Theotisc word Mommolen, in Latin to mutter, to murmur, in French grommeler.) Among the people of Saint-Omer his memory is more celebrated, and particular prayers are devoted to him. In the Litany of the Saints he is invoked among the Confessors between Eligius and Erkembodo, as one who succours the dying. As regards this order of invoking, however, in the Breviary of Saint-Omer of the year 1518 and in the renewed one of the year 1785 I find two other orders, each entirely different. The name of St. Mummolinus is absent, not indeed from the ancient Breviary, but from the old Litanies of Saint-Quentin, likewise from the old and most ample ones of St. Donatian of Bruges and from the Proper of Bruges. At Ghent St. Mummolinus seems never to have been venerated, although formerly the greatest part of the city was subject to the diocese of Tournai. Among the Atrebates the festivity of St. Mummolinus is more recent, and seems to have arisen from the joining of the dioceses of Saint-Omer and Boulogne with that of Arras. At least in the year 1632 no memory was made of him there, as becomes known to us from the proper Offices printed in this year. But in the Offices published in the year 1817 his feast occurs under semi-double rite: the lessons are the same as those which exist in the renewed Breviary of Saint-Omer. And at Ypres, which formerly with

the castle of the Menapii the diocese of Tournai contained, until in the middle of the sixteenth century a bishop was established among the people of Ypres themselves, St. Mummolinus was venerated with double rite at least from the year 1629, as we understand from the Proper.

[85] at Tournai and Noyon above all; Until the beginning of the seventeenth century, at Tournai, where neither formerly nor now have any Relics of St. Mummolinus been kept (so far as I can gather from the older writings of Cousin and the recent ones of the distinguished Le Maistre d'Austaing Recherches sur … l'église cathédrale de Tournay, vol. II, p. 19, who discourse at length on the deeds of St. Mummolinus, nothing on his relics), the sanctity of this bishop of Tournai seems to have been obscure; indeed in the proper Offices of Tournai printed at Douai in the year 1591 the name of St. Mummolinus is absent from the calendar; but in others published at Tournai in the year 1626 St. Mommolebius, confessor and pontiff, is marked: the cause of which is that only in the year 1600, as Cousin relates in the History of Tournai Histoire de Tournay, book II, p. 123, Michael II, of the family of Esne, bishop of Tournai, in a synod held in the cathedral church, ordered the feast of St. Mummolinus to be celebrated throughout the whole diocese. Which still obtains. But nowhere did St. Mummolinus formerly have greater cult than at Noyon, where chiefly he lived, died and was committed to the earth. For in the Breviary of Noyon of the year 1630 his feast occurs not only among the doubles of the third class, which are preferred to the other lesser doubles, but also among the feasts to be observed by all in the diocese of Noyon by precept of the Church, on which it is not permitted to do servile work. He was also invoked there in the Litanies which are part of the Order of the commendation of the soul. To pass now to the Offices of the dioceses themselves, these have scarcely anything proper besides the lessons. That of Noyon alone takes this antiphon at the Benedictus:

His sorrowing pupils accompany the obsequies of the Saint; The people in laments, the clergy cry out in hymns: With which din surely the slopes of heaven are filled.

And at the second vespers at the Magnificat this other:

O father and shepherd, O prelate and gracious priest, Mommolenus, offer to Christ the prayers which we render: That he may wash away our faults, wipe away our crimes, That after death we may live to him for ever. Amen.

The ancient Prayer is this: O God, who hast consecrated this day with the solemnity of Blessed Mommolinus, thy Confessor and Pontiff, grant, we beseech thee, that we may feel his suffrages with thee in heaven whose solemnities we venerate here on earth with pious love. Through. In certain dioceses, where either the cult is more recent or the breviary renewed, another may be read. But it has been enough for me to bring forward what savours of antiquity. I omit besides to speak of the frequent changes made in the lessons, especially at Saint-Omer, where in the year 1610 all was done from the Common of a Pontiff; at Tournai, where at the beginning almost the same was done, etc. Almost everywhere the Mass Statuit is read, as the Roman Missal presents it.

[86] [and, although it ascends at least to the tenth century, that cult does not seem to have existed at Constance, in St. Mummolinus's native country. Some days are reviewed on which St. Mummolinus is recorded in the sacred calendars.] The cult itself is to be referred at least to the tenth century; since even then there existed a basilica of St. Mummolinus; which is clear from the fact that the more recent biographer, who records this basilica, also speaks of the nuns of St. Godeberta; and we have already seen (although some, like Malbrancq, have entered another way in this matter) that these nuns existed only until the middle of the tenth century. So much of the cult in Gaul and Belgium. But in Germany, where he was born, no sacred memory seems ever to have been made of him. His deeds indeed the Helvetia Sancta sets forth p. 156, and Gabriel Bucelin in the Chronology of Rhenish Constance p. 116 also brings forward some things, mixed with errors: but both are entirely silent about the cult. At the beginning of this Commentary we said that the memory of St. Mummolinus occurs on other days than the 16th of October: first of all du Saussay announces among the pious and holy, in alphabetical order, St. Mummolinus, monk of Luxeuil, although he had already brought forward St. Mummolinus, bishop of Noyon, at the 16th of October: both are one and the same: he will without doubt have fished out this monk of Luxeuil from the Life of St. Audomar. I have already mentioned at no. 58 that the elevation of St. Mummolinus was formerly celebrated on the 27th day of April in the Martyrology of Noyon; moreover in a twofold Benedictine Martyrology, manuscript and unpublished, at the 18th of May is announced the feast of St. Mummolinus, bishop of Tournai and monk of St. Peter (the abbey of St. Bertin or of Sithiu originally bore this name) in the diocese of Boulogne (rather of the Morini or of Saint-Omer). Thence the Louvain editors of Butler's Lives of the Saints, who had found this announcement in our work at the 18th of May among those passed over, suspected that St. Mummolinus was translated on this day: but this conjecture does not please, since its foundation, namely that martyrological announcement, is of no value. For its author was skilled in no art of criticism; so much so that he at once subjoins: On the same day of St. Ebertramnus, disciple of the same (St. Mummolinus), who also himself was bishop after his master; which things are in every way erroneous. And indeed, since St. Ebertramnus, in the very few calendars which have his name, is announced at the 24th of January, but nowhere together with St. Mummolinus, I should gladly believe that they appear on one day in this calendar because St. Mummolinus and St. Bertrand, bishop of the Convenae, are venerated on the 16th day of October, and accordingly that the abbot of Saint Quentin was confused with the bishop of Comminges. Moreover we judge that St. Ebertramnus, whose cult seems most recent, has not yet been raised from the earth; then that calendar is more recent than the middle of the seventeenth century, inasmuch as it treats of the diocese of Boulogne; besides, it was not made in the district of Noyon but in Germany; and finally it omits the name of St. Mummolinus at the 16th of October; whence again it is clear that it is a mere transposition.

[87] Of the ancient image of St. Mummolinus. Ghesquière Acta SS. Belgii, vol. IV, p. 412 wished to pertain to the cult of St. Mummolinus also a certain image of this Saint, which, according to the copy inserted in the Annals of Mabillon Annales Ord. S. Bened. at the year 675, book XVI, he exhibited engraved on copper after the Commentary on St. Mummolinus. Ghesquière's plate came into our possession, and we ourselves have used it, however imperfect, since it did not seem worth while to procure a new one at new expense. Mabillon had found this image in a codex of Elnone with the figures of St. Amandus, bishop of Maastricht, and of the others who subscribed this prelate's testament, no less than of St. Aldegund, abbess of Maubeuge, to whom an angel indicates the heavenly glory of St. Amandus. And since the head of our Saint is shown there girt with an aureole, and the title of Saint is put before his name, and moreover St. Amandus has a square tablet at his head, which denotes a Saint still living, as Mabillon Ibid., §56, p. 487 with a good many others determined; Ghesquière wrote: How far from recent the veneration of our Saint is the ancient codex of Elnone abundantly attests, containing the testament of St. Amandus, which we have shown Mummolinus subscribed. But, to confess freely what I think, it is very doubtful to me whether that codex of Elnone is older than the Life of St. Mummolinus which we shall presently publish; and accordingly whether anything can be gathered from it concerning the antiquity of this Saint's veneration. For as regards the square tablet placed behind the head of St. Amandus, it seems to prove nothing here; since St. Amandus, who died in the year 679, could not be shown as living when St. Mummolinus, who departed this life in the year 683 or perhaps later, St. Bertin, who died about the year 700, and others who survived St. Amandus, had obtained ecclesiastical cult. Nor is it a new opinion that not all images showing square tablets at the head were painted while the Saints and others whom they represent were living. For, to pass over other examples, our Papebroch Propylaeum of May, p. 90* had engraved an image of St. Gregory the Great which he himself by no means thinks was painted while that Saint was living, although a square tablet is applied to the head. Moreover, the title of Saint and the aureole granted here to St. Mummolinus can prove nothing certain, since Baudemund, biographer of St. Amandus, writer of the testament and abbot of the monastery of Blandin at Ghent, is also surnamed Saint there and has the most ornate aureole of all; although his name occurs in no Martyrology that we know of, and the title of Saint is not given him in the Annals of Blandin lately published by the Reverend M. Vande Putte, at that time rector of the episcopal college of Bruges Compare p. 55. Wherefore, even if it were established that this codex belongs to the end of the seventh century (Mabillon, however, determines nothing concerning the antiquity of the painting and the writing), yet an uncertain argument concerning the antiquity of the cult of St. Mummolinus would be deduced from it. And as regards the garments and the rest of the habit of St. Mummolinus, worth noting is the half-moon tonsure on the front part of the head, which we have already often called Irish or Scottish. Concerning the other garments, Martin Gerbert is to be consulted above the rest, in the Vetus Liturgia Alemannica Chapter 3, part I, in which, excellently according to his custom, he wrote on the sacred vestments and exhibited very many ancient forms. These things being noted, it remains that we now publish the most ancient Life of St. Mummolinus, of which we have discoursed at length in §1.

LIFE OF ST. MUMMOLINUS, BISHOP OF NOYON AND TOURNAI, BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.

From an old manuscript codex of Noyon.

The Saint's native country; his novitiate of the religious life at Luxeuil; his preaching and stay at the court of Clothar II; his departure to St. Audomar; he founds the Old monastery and that of Sithiu; he is made bishop of Tournai and Noyon; he dies.

Mommolinus, bishop and confessor, at Tournai and Noyon. (S.)

BHL Number: 6025

BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.

In the time of Clothar III St. Mummolinus and many others flourish. In the time in which the most excellent king Lothar, son of Louis ^a, governed the kingdom of Francia by hereditary right, it befell the most beloved bride of Christ, namely holy Church, to be propagated with the manifold offspring of spiritual sons. For, the persecution ^b being calmed by the regard of divine grace, which had so long raged against the holy Martyrs of God, Christ gathered together to his Church very many Confessors, who, if it had befallen them to live under that tyrannical rage, we believe for certain would have been partners of those same Martyrs; since, although the persecution of the material sword had ceased, they nevertheless, for the grace of the divine majesty, tortured themselves with a much greater martyrdom of their bodies: for, persisting in inestimable fasts, they afflicted themselves with manifold want of food and manifold vigils, and, joyfully renouncing parents and friends, they panted only for the heavenly reward. At that time ^c a man of most holy religion, Mommolenus by name, having gone out from his own region, into

the Gauls came with two companions, and there preached the word of God earnestly. For, having gone out from the house of his fathers for the reward of divine grace, wherever he could he did not cease to evangelise the truth of the catholic faith. And, hastening with his whole effort to attain the palm of martyrdom, he boldly penetrated the borders of the Gauls, where he had learned that the sword of persecution had raged more fiercely against the Saints, not refusing * to the devil and the tortures of his ministers the material of his body, temporal as it is, if it should be necessary, so that he might be enrolled in the spiritual inheritance of the heavenly fatherland, which he ardently desired. For this cause, spurning the life of pleasure, he chose to suffer adversity for a short time, that he might merit to reign everlastingly with the Lord in heaven. For in comparison with the heavenly life, which will never end, it seems to the holy Confessors of God no trouble to suffer daily a bodily passion through the whole time of their life. For how is it to be thought that they dread the danger of death, when they themselves do not shrink from giving themselves the cup of death, even if a persecutor be lacking? For no one will doubt that to fast and thirst, to keep vigil also and to suffer nakedness, are deadly troubles of the body, which the servants of God reckon as least, while they pant for the promised rewards of heavenly joys.

[2] He preaches in Gaul, Inspired by the cause of this most kindly grace, this Saint of whom we treat, when he had preached from morning to evening, was refreshed only with barley bread made with ashy water. And afterwards, if any necessity of drinking had come upon him, a cup of pure water alone followed; and, for taming the allurements of the body, in his scant sleep he used the thinnest litter of grass for a bed. He preached unweariedly to the poor confession and penance, to the rich and those serving in the palace to deny worldly boasting; he preached to the impious and unbelieving irremediable punishment, but to those who fear God life and everlasting rest: he taught all universally that the world with all its concupiscence would perish, but that the kingdom of God, as he had learned from the mouth of Christ, would remain for ever; he confirmed his exhortation with the sentence of the evangelical preaching; to which, even if they were objected, no fictions of argumentation could stand. For if he perceived anything in his words ambiguous to anyone, in that same moment he brought forward an irrefutable testimony of the old or new law; and what he commended to others in preaching, he himself, not unmindful of the apostolic sentence, carried out with altogether all his strength, so that he who suggested to others the teaching of eternal reward might also afford an imitable example of his own conversation. There were with him two, namely Bertin ^d and Bertrand ^e, who had gone out with him from his region. These he inflamed earnestly and most honourably with the exhortation of his holy preaching. There stood by him also from morning to evening, with an innumerable concourse of people, the nobles of the royal court. Very many of whom the clemency of God itself afterwards gratefully enrolled, through his unwearied preaching, as his co-heirs of the heavenly reward.

[3] he is called to the court of Clothar II, and discloses his former life; The reputation of our most holy father was spread far and wide, and wherever it came, by the grace of God whom he served, it was cheerfully looked up to . It came at length to the ears of King Lothar ^f, who at that time vigorously ruled the citadel of the whole empire ^g. Having learned, then, by the testimony of religious men, the report of the holy man, he commanded him in friendly fashion to be present in his sight. And as soon as he saw him, with most kindly mind as he was, he began to inquire most diligently of him who he was, or whence, and also the course of his origin. And he, lest in recounting his lineage he should be moved by any haughtiness of pride, kept silent indeed about the original line of his birth. But whence he was born he humbly replied to the royal question: I am, he said, the servant of your dignity, sprung from the city of Constance, that Constance, namely, which is known to lie not far from the river Rhine; and from a boy I ran through the regular life under Saint Eustasius ^h, abbot; whose happy exhortation strengthening many for the everlasting reward. That Saint Eustasius, indeed, disciple of the most famous athlete of Christ Columbanus, with all earnestness of mind manfully carried out with every effort the office of preaching committed to him, which he had learned from that same master of his. When, therefore, under the mastership of that same abbot Eustasius I had come to a riper age, by the disposition of God and by his ordinance I undertook unworthily, with these two brethren of mine, this pilgrimage which you may see; and if we shall have been able to labour at anything in the vineyard of God, may it turn to us for the reward of eternal life. For he had heard what we also have seen from the evangelical promise: He who follows me, it says, does not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. He had heard also what we too hold in true faith: He who does not carry his cross, it says, and follow me, is not worthy of me. These and other things being most diligently set forth by the man of God, he was received by the king himself most familiarly, and lived within his palace for no small space of time with much reverence. Yet, although he had divinely obtained the royal familiarity, nevertheless, most cautiously avoiding the flatteries of the tumultuous people, he unceasingly solicited the royal dignity on behalf of the afflicted and the poor. Little or nothing of human pleasure infected this man in the palace that would have had to be pointed out by the rigour of any austerity in a monastery. He indeed loved all, and was loved by all; amid the very concourses of the world he carried out unshaken the ministry of the office committed to him. Holding also the seal ⁱ of the king, he did not much glory in the royal familiarity: but he succoured churches, widows and orphans with very many things, by the authority of his office, before that same Lothar; and although he had withdrawn bodily from the monastery, yet, placed in the palace, he did not neglect the purpose of his spiritual order. There was for the holy athlete of God a twofold torment of fasting in the palace, since he was both present at delicate feasts, as being in the house of the king, and estranged himself from the very use of delicacies.

[4] where, having stayed holily for some time, he departs to Saint Audomar, Some little ^k time, then, having been passed in living together in the royal house, he learned that Saint Audomar, who at that time presided over the Church of Thérouanne, was wearied with much preaching among the Morini. For the Morini ^l, trusting in the inaccessible fortifications of the marshes along the shores of the sea, do not fear assiduously to resist the neighbouring nations. For since they fear no incursion of enemies from the sea, they reckon as altogether nothing every indignation of the neighbourhood dwelling round about. Nor is it wonderful if they presume to resist those adjacent to them; whom, as we have learned from the poets ^m, even the invincible valour of Caesar ⁿ itself could in no way subdue. Accustomed, then, to the boldness of the strait, they raged with much madness against Saint Audomar whom we have named before; for at hearing the name of Christ they were exceedingly terrified; and like deaf asps, their hearing stopped, they all altogether abjured that they would receive the word of God. For the outermost of men ^o, and placed at the extremity of the world, they neither knew the Lord, nor at that time were subject to any princely power; but, prone in all things to their own pleasures, they carried out with impunity and irreverence what had seemed good to each. When, therefore, the blessed athlete of God had heard of the great ferocity of that people and the great rebellion of that nation against Saint Audomar, desiring with the whole affection of his mind a bodily passion for the remission of his sins, bidding farewell to the king and the royal princes, he gloried not a little in the secret of his heart that he had now almost obtained the palm of martyrdom. Girt, then, divinely * with the spiritual sword, he went with his brethren to Saint Audomar, that by the happy grace of divine preaching he might merit to be enrolled in the fellowship of holy souls. For they had heard that brother helping brother, both are comforted. They had heard also that he who bears another's burdens fulfils the law of God and merits divine grace. And therefore, because they had learned that that Saint was so much pre-occupied in the labour of preaching, they hastened with all speed to his support, not without much desire of the triumphal palm. There was added also another bond of charitable love, namely that the same Saint Audomar was their compatriot, a native, namely, of the city of Constance from which they had gone out. The holy pontiff of God, therefore, received the holy men on their arrival gratefully and kindly; and, not undervaluing them as sent by God to his help, after rendering much thanksgiving to God, he joyfully enrolled them as fellow-workers with him in the Lord's harvest.

[5] whom, when he had helped him somewhat by preaching, Saint Audomar himself, however, had already for the greatest part called back that nation of the Morini, though with much labour, from the worship of idols, and, their altars being overturned, he rejoiced not a little that they had received the orders of divine religion and ecclesiastical institution. At the coming, then, of the most Holy Mommolenus, delighted beyond what could be hoped, when he had kindly received him, he both gladly listened to him and was most gladly listened to by him. It is not to be doubted that the divine clemency was always present to so many and so great men, since we have heard from the very mouth of the Lord that where he knows two or three gathered together in his name, his presence without doubt is in their midst; for their discourse was always of the Lord and of the divine institutions. Little or nothing that could be charged as vain talk was discussed among them. From morning to evening they persisted untiringly now in mutual consolation in the Lord, now in the preaching of the evangelical institution, now in curing the sicknesses of the sick. And after the setting of the sun they refreshed their wearied bodies with bread only and water; and on the following night, lying down to a very short sleep in ash and hair-cloth, they somehow repaired, not without much difficulty, the great troubles of their bodies. Before, however, the aforesaid servant of God Mommolenus had come to the holy pontiff of God Audomar, the same Saint Audomar, for propagating the order of holy religion, had conceived in mind to build a certain monastery [p], where he might order a religious congregation of clerics, through whom the daily psalmody of prayers and the propitiation of holy victims might be kept up as a due to God for the universal salvation of all. The divine clemency did not fail him as he thought these things, which both inspired in him a more fervent devotion of kindliness, and brought what he had pre-thought from the Holy Spirit right to the effect of his desire.

[6] [and Adroald had given his estate, he first founds with SS. Bertin and Bertrand the Old monastery,] For there was in that region a certain man named Adrowald, most opulent in estates and money, full of the vain delights of this world, and much given to worldly boasting, and, according to the institutions of his predecessors, serving the fantastic worships of idols. This man, because he was not far from the Morini, and yet was the more honourable of the Morini, the most Holy Audomar, before the coming of the most Holy Mommolenus, had converted, not without much earnestness of preaching, to the catholic belief, and had already sanctified him with baptism by the imposition of his holy right hand. Having received, then, the seal of holy Christianity, Adrowald, suddenly animated by divine inspiration, both for mutual love of his preacher, and because he lacked the succession of sons, and above all for the remission of his sins, handed over all his hereditary possession [q] to God and to Saint Audomar, hoping and believing for certain that he would happily be enrolled for ever in return for the bestowal of a transitory inheritance. As, then, we have said before,

before the coming of Saint Mommolenus, on that estate which is called by the common name Sithiu, the holy pontiff Audomar himself had already, God disposing, built a certain church [r], in which he himself, afterwards released from human toils, obtained a glorious burial. And after he had been comforted for some little space of time by the most pleasant companionship of the holy athlete of God Mommolenus and his holy companions, namely Bertin and Bertrand, wishing them no longer to be separated from one another, he granted them to build at their pleasure a cenobitic monastery of brethren in the same inheritance which Adrowald had given him. The most blessed athletes of God, therefore, began to build their dwelling in that place which today is called the Old monastery.

[7] leaving which, he builds that of Sithiu, But staying there a few years, the divine clemency foreordaining, they determined to choose a more suitable place for themselves. And lest so sudden a change of their building should be imputed to foolishness or sloth, they committed what they had conceived in mind to the judgment of divine Providence. For, giving themselves up by boat to the lagoon which was below the aforesaid monastery, they commended themselves to divine providence without carrying any bodily substance, and with much compunction of heart they vowed that they would never go out of the boat until a place of habitation worthy of God should be designated for them. The little boat of the Saints, then, was carried about through the aforesaid river [s] without any rowing of sailors. It wandered round about, destitute of every temporal help, as one which the athletes of God had commended to the will of the supreme divinity alone; they, their faces bathed with a great outpouring of tears, entreated God with compunction, and with the most devout prayers greatly importuned the fatherhood of God, not without sighs from the heart, vowing that they would in no way go out from the lagoon, in no way take bodily food, until it should befall them to reach the place of prayer which God had foreordained for them, so that there, animated by the most holy inspiration of the Most Holy Spirit, they might merit to serve the divine precepts all the time of their life. The most holy kindness of God, therefore, having compassion on the devotion of his servants, when he had seen them worn out by such great labours for the sake of his service, by his own gratuitous kindness brought them over to the sure place of the desired dwelling, where on the river Agnio not long after they began earnestly to build the monastery which is called Sithiu. Leaving the little boat presently, the holy Confessor of God Mommolenus with the aforesaid brethren went out on to the land, and when they had surveyed round about a place suitable for themselves, they gave thanks to God with very great devotion, each saying according to that word of David: This is my rest, here will I dwell, for I have chosen it. A little time after (for the hand of the Lord is not weak) a glorious monastery was completed there: in which, when a great cenobitic congregation had flocked together, the holy pontiff Audomar foreordained [t] the most holy athlete of God Mommolenus over that very great multitude of monks.

[8] where he lives rigidly and piously. The care, then, of those being undertaken who had flocked thither in no small number, with how great parsimony the holy father Mommolenus wore himself down, with how great want of fasts, vigils and nakedness he restrained his body, would, if it must be related in full, altogether exceed human eloquence: for he so exercised himself in these and other virtues that both to those committed to him and to others to whom his name had come he seemed as it were a certain glorification of divine grace. He used a hair-shirt for a garment, he sustained his body with water alone and barley bread only, applying himself assiduously to prayer, he always rendered thanks with most devout tears to the divine majesty. The blessed man, not unmindful of the obedience committed to him, always watched over the advantage of the brethren in the brethren's cloister; outside the cloister he toiled for the necessities of the poor or of those arriving, and, according to what he had received from the holy canons, he cheerfully carried out hospitality. What more? In a little time he converted from the deceitful worship of idols many who still served the profane illusions of heathenism, whom, fortified with the seal of the most holy profession, Christ afterwards brought in to the everlasting rewards of eternal life. God, therefore, the most generous rewarder of good works, beholding the unwearied fight of the most blessed father Mommolenus against the diabolical resistances (for the eyes of the Lord are upon the just), rewarded him with gracious signs and mighty works. For to the blind he restored sight, to the deaf hearing, manifold health to the bodies of paralytics by the imposition of his sacred hand; he did not shrink from lepers or elephantiacs, nay rather, handling them as sons of his own womb, he kindly refreshed their wounded bodies with baths.

[9] When St. Eligius died, St. Mummolinus succeeds, It happened at that time that the most glorious Confessor of God, namely the Most Holy Eligius, pontiff of the Church of Noyon or Tournai, after the most happy completion of his office, departed from the world, and that the church committed to him, like a little boat which is without rowing, was tossed for some time amid worldly tempests. So great a shepherd being snatched away, the sheep wandered round about; the sons, their father departing, sighed and wept; all with one voice importuned the most loving kindness of God concerning their desolation: the mercy of almighty God being at length turned by their fasts and prayers (for God is near to all who call upon him), he deigned to console his people by the regard of his most holy grace. For he divinely delegated to the holy Church of Noyon or Tournai, as a provident successor, the most renowned shepherd, the holy father Mommolenus, drawn away, not without the imposition of obedience, from the church which we have named before. For this shepherd was gentle, provident in speech, devout in counsel, strenuous in prayers, vigils and fasts, kindly subject to his superiors, ruling his subjects in friendly fashion, persisting in good works, unweariedly resisting vices, and by the grace of the divine kindness alone he manfully withstood the tyrannical assaults of princes. So, then, that people, God disposing, unanimously both chose and merited to have as their pontiff, according to God, the athlete of God Mommolenus, both because he excelled in both Latin and Teutonic eloquence, and above all because they had heard that he was instructed in the teachings of the divine institutions. (For the Church of Noyon uses commonly the Roman tongue, that of Tournai for the greater part the Teutonic; and both are known to correspond fully to the more learned speech of the Latins, as this grace may have been granted [u].) Because, therefore, it knew him skilled in so many and so great tongues, and because it had heard of the conversation of his most glorious life, but above all because it had found him unwearied in the office of the pastorship committed to him, that people received him as their shepherd, drawn away from the monastery not without much imposition of obedience, rejoicing not a little that their most holy predecessor had provided for them an honourable successor in God.

[10] [skilled in the Latin and Teutonic tongues; and when for twenty-six years he had fulfilled all the duties of a bishop] Having undertaken, then, the prelacy of the church, the most Blessed Confessor of Christ Mommolenus manfully carried out the regular tenor of the ecclesiastical order; walking the royal way of the divine institution, he rarely or never turned aside from it; he persevered always unwearied and cheerful in the office undertaken; modest with the modest, he did not neglect to correct the wicked and rebellious with the rod of just severity. The very dreadful day of the future judgment was always before his eyes; he pondered with himself and preached to others that the grace of the divine retribution was to be embraced. To the impenitent, and to those whom he knew to be rebels to God, he threatened for certain the punishment of eternal damnation. By unwearied preaching he strengthened the unbelieving and incredulous unto faith, and by the good example of his conversation he strenuously formed them to merit the remission of sins. The prudent of the world wondered that so great a grace of divine inspiration had rested on him; his rivals and detractors, when they had heard him, were either converted or fled away confounded with much ignominy; whence it came about that many through his most earnest preaching were converted from the worship of idols, and, having renounced the error of profane heathenism, rejoiced not a little that they had been sanctified in the laver of most holy baptism through the imposition of his holy hands; for no one could resist his wisdom, nor the spirit which spoke in him. He had an unspeakable diligence concerning the monasteries, an inestimable compunction concerning the poor and needy; concerning guests and strangers he used abundantly a very charitable affection of mind; humble with the humble; to the proud (because he manfully confuted their pride) he seemed exceedingly proud. To the irreverent, indeed, he seemed obstinate with a certain stiffness of countenance; but the unfeigned serenity of his heart, at whatever hour they groaned, gently soothed and consoled them; and although by the kindly affection of his mind he was very lovable to those who feared God, yet to heretics and unbelievers he seemed in look and gait not a little to be feared and terrible.

[11] amid every kind of virtue Setting aside every pleasure of carnal delights, he had poured himself wholly into the desires of eternal recompenses. You would have judged the very appearance of this outward man to be the expressed image of true sanctification; for, lavish in humanity, pre-eminent in doctrine, ready in speech, he was adorned with the manifold honour of uprightness. In this priest of God, of whom the present discourse treats, I behold the very form of our father Abraham; for Abraham, according to the divine promise, having gone out from his father's house and his kindred into the land which God had shown him, was made into a great nation. But this man, putting aside his paternal inheritance, in voluntary exile prepared for God a great Church of the Christian religion. Abraham, according to what we have heard of the Virgin Mary: And a sword shall pierce through thy own soul, offered himself to God (because in his son, if not in act, yet in mind) on the mountain which God had designated for him. But Saint Mommolenus, foreordained in spiritual sublimity, sacrificed himself to God as a sacrifice of justice. When Abraham returned home after the victim had been offered, the servants of his house and all his neighbourhood ran to meet him rejoicing; but this athlete of God, after his course happily completed, the holy Angels received into their fellowship.

[12] [and when near to death he had admonished the clergy, he dies piously and is buried.] For when twenty-six years had been completed after he obtained the pontifical cathedra, having heaped up in the divine treasury of his preaching a great spiritual wealth of souls, weighed down by a very grievous infirmity of body, as soon as he felt that the term of his obsequies was at hand, he bade his disciples stand by him: I know, he said, little sons, that my last day is imminent, and since at present I must be separated from you, I must henceforth admonish your charity the more diligently. If, then, you repay love in return to my littleness, have always before your eyes the most just examination of the future judgment, because there both the just are to receive the rewards of their merits and the wicked their condemnation. We must, therefore, brethren, prepare ourselves most diligently for that same discussion, lest that day of supreme vengeance find us unprepared; for from that hour no one may presume on the mercy of God: for thereafter no indulgence can be hoped for by the condemned. Most cautiously, therefore, and diligently ponder the last admonition of your father, that in that trembling examination you may merit from God the most happy reward of perennial life. To him I commend the care of our souls; may his saving passion loose the bonds of our sins; and behold, you being present, into the hands of our Redeemer I commend my spirit. These things being thus set forth, when he had received the most holy Eucharist of our universal redemption, bidding a last farewell to the people amid thanksgivings, he breathed out his spirit. So, then, his happy soul, loosed from the corruptible body, called from the earth, was placed in heaven, and, associated with the Saints, praises God with the angels. But because it is called the city of the living, not of the dead,

[x] he was buried by his disciples, after much shedding of tears, outside the walls before the water-gate in the church of the Holy Apostles [y]. There many benefits are frequently bestowed on the troubles of the wretched, the sick are many times healed there through the most loving intercession of this our father, and sinners are loosed from the bonds of their offences, to the praise and glory of Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, through infinite ages of ages. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

… the conquered nations march in long order, As various in their tongues as in their habit of dress and arms. Here Mulciber had fashioned the race of the Nomads and the ungirt Africans, Here the Leleges and Carians and the arrow-bearing Geloni. The Euphrates went now gentler in its waves, And the Morini, outermost of men, and the two-horned Rhine, And the untamed Dahae, and the Araxes indignant at its bridge.

p. These and the following things are in conformity with the Lives of St. Audomar published by Stilting, and with others, fragments of which the defender of the church of Saint-Omer cites Vérité de l'église de S. Omer, p. 393 and following. What is above all to be noted, all these Lives agree in the order of the deeds; which order, attacked by Mabillon and others, was restored by Stilting in the Commentary on St. Bertin Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 559 and following. The distinguished Guérard Cartulaire de S. Bertin, Preface, p. 32 hesitates between Mabillon and Stilting; but if the authority of both yields, and only the testimonies of the ancients remain, there is no doubt that the opinion of Stilting prevails.

q. The second donation of Adroald has already suffered assaults of every kind from the mentioned writer of Saint-Omer Vérité de l'église de S. Omer, p. 71 and following, straining every sinew to shake this donation. I omit what he himself calls reasons for suspecting, thinking it enough to dissolve three certain arguments of falsity, as he puts it. The first is that by the diploma of this donation the donation already made to St. Audomar is destroyed; but the conclusion ought to be altogether the contrary, since the blamed instrument has: I give to you the whole property of the portion of my inheritance in the district of Thérouanne, which we wished to give to the lord father Audomar, an apostolic man, for building his hospice: but he himself gave us the salutary counsel that I should delegate that property to you, that there a monastery, etc.; the second exception is sought from these words: But he himself gave us the salutary counsel. To found a monastery, namely, is not a salutary counsel, whereas a hospice is reckoned useful: which objection is too foolish to deserve refutation. The third argument is put together roughly thus: it is certain that St. Mummolinus was the first abbot of the monastery of Sithiu; which proposition he establishes with many invincible proofs; but the conclusion which he draws from it no one will admit: for from the fact that the abbatial dignity would have demanded that St. Mummolinus be named first in this diploma, and not second (which, however, is done in Folquin's cartulary), it follows that the beginning of the diploma was changed, not that the diploma itself is supposititious.

r. It is the church of St. Mary of Saint-Omer: see more about it in Stilting in the Commentary on St. Bertin Acta SS., vol. II of September, p. 565 and following.

s. The Agnio, in French l'Aa; which word signifies water.

t. In the Preliminary Commentary, §3, we spoke at length with Stilting of the office of abbot which St. Mummolinus bore in the monastery of Sithiu.

u. What is enclosed in the parenthesis seems to be an interpolation.

x. Where this is said I do not know, unless this phrase, one word being changed, reflects verse 38 of chapter 20 of the Gospel according to Luke: But God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to him. For the rest, the law of the Twelve Tables: In the city do not bury, nor burn, is very well known. Compare the Council of Braga of the year 561, canon 18, with the Annotations of Giuseppe Catalani De Aguirre, Concilia Hispaniae, vol. III, pp. 181 and 187, Rome edition of 1753, and the Preliminary Commentary, §1, no. 8. In Gaul these laws were first of all weakened in favour of the kings of the Franks; and indeed, to say nothing of those of whom it may be doubted whether they were in fact buried in cities, Chilperic II was laid in the earth at Noyon, as may be read in several early historians; whom see in D. Bouquet Recueil des Historiens de France, vol. III, pp. 572, 655, 671 and 698. But nothing can be concluded from this, not even in favour of bishops.

y. Compare the Preliminary Commentary, no. 55.

* read propagari

* supply futuros

* in place of recusans

* read suscipiebatur.

* in place of colfortavit

* perhaps divinitus