ON ST. SOLINA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR, AT CHARTRES,
ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF THE 3RD CENTURY.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The memory of St. Solina in the sacred calendars; the time of her passion; various proofs of her cult.
Solina, virgin and martyr, at Chartres in Gaul. (S.)
J. V. H.
Of St. Solina, the various names derived from whom are set out: What we are about to say of St. Solina we have for the most part excerpted from a dissertation which was most kindly communicated to us by the Illustrious Lord Édouard Pie, then vicar general of the bishop of Chartres, now bishop of Poitiers, a man who by his learning and kindness has deserved exceedingly well of us. The name of St. Solina undergoes various inflections when pronounced in French: Solenne was formerly a frequent given name among the women of Chartres; indeed, according to the Paris Ritual, the French given names Zélie and Zéline are derived from our holy virgin and martyr. Her cult was confined almost wholly within the limits of the diocese of Chartres and the church of St. Hilary at Poitiers, as Castellanus notes in his Additions to the Roman Martyrology: "Of St. Solina," he says, "who is venerated as a virgin and martyr in the church of St. Hilary at Poitiers, and in the monastery of St. Peter in the Valley at Chartres, where her body rests." Our Sollerius cites among the Usuardine Auctaria various ones which mention our saint, but, as he himself remarks on the Greven Martyrology, he marks the eulogy of St. Solina as excerpted from the Chartres Propers. But although the cult of the holy martyr was circumscribed within narrow bounds, yet, as we shall show below, her celebrity was very great at Chartres.
[2] the Acts are examined, No other Acts of St. Solina come before us than the lessons of the second Nocturn which used to be recited on the 16th day of October (the following day being, as I suppose, impeded by the feast of the Dedication of the cathedral church of Chartres) by the monks of St. Peter. These lessons, composed in the year 1741, do not seem of themselves to be of great authority: but their writer professes in a certain foreword that he applied a severe criticism in composing the eulogies of the saints: "Therefore," he adds, "let our new Lectionary, purged of every fable and trifle, now come forth." For the rest, the lessons on St. Solina have this much authenticity, that they were extracted from the ancient liturgical books of the monastery of St. Peter of Chartres. We shall therefore give them below as the Acts of St. Solina, written by Dom Alexandre, a monk of St. Peter of Chartres, as the Most Reverend Lord Pie thinks: his name does not occur in the Literary History of the Congregation of St. Maur.
[3] and a compendious Legend is handed down: In the liturgy of Chartres the feast of the dedication of the cathedral church had effaced the memory of St. Solina, as is shown by the Breviary published in the year 1633 by order of Léonor d'Estampes, the bishop; but in the year 1783, when a new Breviary had been compiled at the command of Jean-Baptiste de Lubersac, the festival of St. Solina was restored, but transferred to the 18th day of October, sacred to St. Luke the Evangelist, on which her commemoration is made at the first Vespers of the preceding day, in the ninth lesson of Matins, and finally at Lauds and at Mass, which, as I see in the liturgical directory for the year 1829, is still observed today. We give the ninth lesson here, so that nothing may be lacking of the things that can illustrate the deeds of our saint. "Celebrated at Chartres in the monastery of St. Peter in the Valley is the memory of blessed Solina. She is said to have gathered the double palm of virginity and martyrdom about the end of the third century. In that place where the basilica of St. Peter now stands, the Christians secretly buried her sacred body. Such is the devotion of the clergy and people of the neighbourhood of Chartres toward the holy martyr that, whenever in unseasonable weather the reliquaries of St. Piat or St. Taurinus are exposed in the greater church, after prayers have been poured out to God before them, they at once proceed in supplication with great confidence to the church of the aforesaid monastery."
[4] the time of her martyrdom seems The lesson recited in the Breviary assigns the end of the third century as the time of the holy virgin's passion: and not indeed undeservedly, insofar, however, as it is established that SS. Sabinian, Potentian and their companions fell as martyrs at Sens at about the same time: for that both martyrdoms, that of St. Solina at Chartres and that of SS. Sabinian and his companions at Sens, fell in the same times is indicated by the Lectionary of St. Peter of Chartres, no. 3, in these words: "A persecution having arisen against the worshippers of Christ, Quirinus, prefect of the city, who had driven out of the region SS. Savinian, Potentian and other heralds of the evangelical truth, after afflicting them with various torments, having heard the report which was resounding of the holiness of the virgin Solina, etc." Whatever, therefore, was the epoch of the martyrdom of St. Sabinian, the same must be assigned to St. Solina also: for all the notices concerning our saint agree in this, that they point to her as contemporary with the holy martyrs of Sens.
[5] about the middle of the third century, But here the hinge of the difficulty turns: for various writers hold various opinions about the age of the martyrs of Sens. Some, among whom is also St. Ado of Vienne in his Martyrology, refer the coming of the holy martyrs into Gaul to apostolic times Ado on the 31st day of December., but others, chiefly more recent writers, with whom the Martyrology of Usuard agrees Usuard on the same day., celebrate Roman pontiffs as the authors of the mission. It is better, however, to put off this controversy to the 31st day of December, when SS. Sabinian, Potentian and their companions, and so the time at which they lived, will be treated expressly. Meanwhile the opinion of the authors of Gallia Christiana Volume XII, p. 3. pleases us well enough, although they too stumble, saying that the opinion of those who make the holy martyrs contemporaries of the Apostles is more recent than the Martyrologies of the 9th century, when they themselves had cited Ado, older than Usuard, as the patron of this view. But in my judgment they put forward truer arguments when, from the very Acts of St. Sabinian building basilicas, which began to be erected only in the third century, they show that he belongs to this century rather than to the first or second: then they say: "The chief peoples of the province of Sens, namely those of Auxerre, Troyes, Orléans, Chartres and Meaux, to whom the companions of St. Savinian are reported to have delivered the first teachings of the faith, did not begin to have their first bishops before the reign of Decius, as is known to any fair judge of affairs from the very series of the bishops which is read in the archives of these churches. Finally, the short total of the bishops down to Severinus, who is known without doubt (namely to the year 347), forbids us to extend the time further. It is better, therefore, until a clearer light shines, to stand with Usuard… Unless someone should prefer to refer the mission of Savinian to Sixtus II, by whom Peregrinus also, the first bishop of Auxerre, was sent (about the year of Christ 259); which things seem to agree well enough, since Auxerre is, after Agedincum, the other chief town of the Senones." Led by these reasons, I believe that the passion of St. Solina can be placed somewhat after the middle of the third century.
[6] when St. Sabinian preached at Chartres, The Sampetrine lessons to be recited below relate that St. Solina was of the Aquitanian race and indeed born of illustrious parents: but although the saint sprang from heathen parents, she seems nevertheless to have been converted to the Christian faith from her tender years. Whence it is given us to understand that the Gospel, although it was first preached by St. Sabinian and his companions to the people of Chartres and the neighbouring peoples, had already before this penetrated into Aquitaine: which agrees, moreover, with the testimony of the bishops writing to St. Radegund, as we have it from St. Gregory of Tours in the History of the Franks, book IX, chapter 39 Dom Bouquet, volume II, p. 355.: "When," they say, "with the very rise of the Catholic religion the first beginnings of the venerable faith had begun to breathe within the Gallic borders, and the ineffable sacraments of the Lord's Trinity had as yet come to the knowledge of only a few." Of this number of the few I suppose our Solina also to have been; who afterwards, the report of the preaching of St. Sabinian having spread, came to Chartres in order to elude the arts of her heathen kindred, who desired her to depart from the purpose of virginity which she had vowed to God.
[7] is to be fixed. Our Legend has at no. 3 that Quirinus, prefect of the city, drove SS. Sabinian and his companions out of the region, and then afflicted our saint with martyrdom: which things indeed do not agree with another Chartres tradition. For this relates that Quirinus blazed so fiercely against the Christian religion, in the reign of Claudius, the predecessor of Nero, that he wished all the Christians to be done away with to the point of extermination, and did not spare even his own daughter Modesta: all of whom he ordered to be thrown headlong into a well Rouillard, Parthénie, volume I, folio 118., which is preserved to this day in the crypt of the cathedral church, filled up and closed with gratings. The same tradition adds that Quirinus by no means wished SS. Sabinian and his companions to be punished with exile, but that they were reserved for more atrocious torments, when the tyrant himself, by his sudden death, delivered the holy confessors, snatched from the present danger. But that popular tradition is overgrown with not a few fables, such as above all the very antiquity of the mission to Chartres, which would go back to the first years of St. Peter's sitting at Rome, and then would present to us the emperor Claudius as the first who stirred up a general persecution against the Christians: and these two things rest on no suitable document, but rather contradict history. I prefer, therefore, to retain the fact as it is offered to us in the Sampetrine Lectionary.
[8] The threefold celebration of St. Solina, The remaining things that are contained in the Lectionary are of themselves clear enough not to need illustrating by a special commentary. Yet to the kind reader
I think I shall do a pleasing thing if I set out the rites with which the memory of St. Solina was once celebrated. First of all, a threefold festival of the holy martyr was celebrated: namely, on the 17th day of October, which she adorned with her blood; and it was the custom that during the solemn Mass, before the incensing of the altar at the Offertory, the steward of the land called Preaux, situated in the parish of Vert (Vert, department of Eure-et-Loir, arrondissement of Chartres), led in by the beadles of the church, offered a white goose, from whose neck there hung by means of a red silk thread a stalk or head of garlic. The second festival, which fell on a day unknown to us, commemorated the translation of the body of St. Solina and was frequented with particular devotion, inasmuch as in ancient times it was continued through an octave. The translation in question would perhaps more correctly be called the Invention of the body of St. Solina. For from our Legend, no. 4, we have: "The Christians, secretly gathering her (Solina's) pure remains, buried them with spices in the place where afterwards the abbey of St. Peter in the Valley of Chartres was built." "Namely," says Gallia Christiana Volume VIII, column 1214., "in that place where for the most part were buried the bodies not only of the bishops and clergy, but also, as has been handed down to memory, of the rest of the faithful from the first cradle of the Christian religion among the Carnutes (and there St. Solina, virgin and martyr, had been buried, whose body the monks of St. Peter still preserve in a most beautiful reliquary), the monastery was founded either in the sixth century or at least at the beginning of the seventh, which kings and certain nobles enlarged with both farms and estates." Most probably, after an interval of three centuries, the memory, if not of the holy martyr herself, at least of her burial, had been effaced; and it was at length revealed on the occasion of the building of the monastery. For, says St. Augustine, Sermon CCCXVIII, no. 1 Volume V of his Works, column 1271., "the bodies of the holy martyrs are wont to appear by the revelation of God, when it has pleased the Creator." And this may perhaps have been the beginning of the annual festival.
[9] whose third, with Finally, the third celebration, recurring on the 3rd day of March, is indicated as the Feast of the Return, or, as the old parchments relate, the Feast of the Re-deposition of St. Solina and of other relics, and also the restoration of the monastic state in the basilica of St. Peter of Chartres. From these words it is altogether clear that the relics of our saint were wont to be venerated in the church of St. Peter as the most precious treasure of all; since they are announced as recorded by name before all the others. This festival draws its origin from the restoration of the monastic state in the church of St. Peter of Chartres. The matter is accurately narrated by the Cartulary of St. Peter, which in the year 1840, by command of the king of the French, the distinguished Mr. Guérard, member of the French Institute, edited most learnedly. "But first," says Paul, monk and notary Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Père de Chartres, p. 9 and following., who compiled the Cartulary in the course of the 11th century Ibid., Prologue, p. CCLXXIII., "it has pleased me to touch summarily upon what I have learned from the truthful assertion of our elders: how by a certain bishop Elias (who sat from 840 to 849) it (the church of St. Peter) fell from its ancient nobility or very great honour; who, having obtained power over it by royal authority, which he had perhaps bought with money, did not fear to usurp it with arms, much blood being shed on the very thresholds of the church, while the monks clung to their former state and abhorred the bishop. Whence it came about that very many of the monks deserted the place to which they had devoted themselves, and, dwelling in the parts of Burgundy at St. Germanus of Auxerre, there finished the course of the present life.
[10] the restoration of the monastic state, almost destroyed by bishop Elias "The aforesaid prelate, therefore, having found his opportunity, carried off and dispersed the precious ornaments which he found there and various vessels of gold or silver which he coveted; the lands of the sanctuary also, which the munificence of religious men had given, wherever he could stretch out his hand, he did not fear to make over to his own stipendiary uses, and with rash daring he presumed to divide them among his household in benefice. And the feeble crowd of monks which had remained there, not knowing whither to go, was sparingly and harshly fed by the prelate. Meanwhile the place, once famous and most renowned, decreasing little by little, bereft indeed of its former dignity and its accustomed office, was held by the people worthy of no regard. But not long afterwards, bishop Elias being dead, who, kindled by the torch of the devil, had brought to nothing this place, distinguished by royal titles, and had destroyed to the ground another convent of nuns elegantly situated on the hill of Leugae not far from the city of Chartres (Lèves, arrondissement of Chartres), a hostile band took the city by siege, and, as we have said before, set it on fire. Then indeed the often-mentioned place, profaned by the enemy, was also burned by fire.
[11] and restored by Hagano "But peace having been restored by divine propitiation, it is said to have been rebuilt by a certain bishop, by divine inspiration, though on a small scale, and handed over to the offices of clerics with a modest revenue. Nevertheless, the sins of the citizens demanding it, the city was again laid waste by pagans from over the sea, and the place itself was destroyed from its foundations, and it remained so until the time of Hagano, the glorious prelate. He, famous for the nobility of his birth and abounding in the resources of human goods, and shining with good virtues, grieved for the place, once venerated by men, but now utterly neglected and reduced to solitude. Kindled with zeal for the divine virtue, he summoned stonecutters and masons, supplied the expenses, ordering the place itself to be greatly restored, and determined to consecrate it, when restored, with the pontifical blessing. Establishing also an order of clergy which should render there day and night the praises due to God; and, granting it for its necessary uses an enclosure of vineyard and the adjoining land, which his predecessors had stolen for themselves with sacrilegious intent, he also bestowed by perpetual gift the farms which he believed sufficient for the number of the clerics. He, as long as he lived, wished to watch over it keenly with the gaze of his heart, intent on the advantages and advancement of the place.
[12] is joined: "He having been carried by angels, by a happy death, from the sea of this world to the fellowship of the saints, the venerable Ragenfred succeeded him in the episcopate, with how great love he loved the place can easily be known from the following work. For by his shrewd mind and urgent suggestion Alveus, famous in birth and in deed, abbot of the same place, together with the canons over whom he was seen to preside, desiring to enter the narrow way by which one goes to God, adorning the order of clergy with the religious habit in the monastery of Fleury, for three years learned with diligent attention the rule of blessed Benedict through the good of obedience, and thence, recalled by the often-mentioned bishop Ragenfred, instructed with his men in the regular disciplines, returned to his own place at Chartres, taking with him also twelve other monks whom he chose to select from the congregation of the above-mentioned monastery, that he might have them as helpers in the new contest against the ancient enemy, like most sturdy recruits. The bishop, therefore, throughout the interval of the whole three years during which they were being formed in holy religion, with urgent labour built dwellings to live in and a cloister suitable for monks. When they had been received with great joy, and, with the consent of the whole people assisting, the above-mentioned abbot Alveus had been consecrated, he provided them generously with food and all necessaries, etc."
[13] [because then, about the middle of the 10th century, the relics of St. Solina were re-deposited.] Bishop Ragenfred, who is in question, having obtained the see of Chartres in the year 942, died according to Mabillon [Annales Ordinis S. Benedicti, book XLVI, §3, volume III, p. 510.] about the year 960, and indeed on the 15th or 16th day before the Kalends of August Gallia Christiana, volume VIII, column 1110.. And although in the history of the restored monastery of St. Peter not a word touches on the re-deposition of the relics of St. Solina, it seems to me that this celebration is to be referred to that period. For while the robberies of bishop Elias are described accurately enough, there is deep silence about any profanation of the sacred relics. We know, further, that about the same time the Normans laid waste the city of Chartres; and, as Ermentarius says in the History of the Translation of St. Philibert Dom Bouquet, volume VII, p. 343., that very many ashes of the saints were carried away: wherefore it is easy to judge that the monks of St. Peter, fugitives in the monastery of St. Germanus of Auxerre, withdrew their chief treasure, the body of St. Solina, from the rapacity of bishop Elias and the profanations of the Normans. This is also confirmed in some measure by the silence of Paul the chronicler, who would certainly not have omitted the plundering of the sacred relics, he who had so accurately described the dispersal of the vessels of gold or silver and the usurpation of the estates.
[14] In 1325 the remains of the saint were placed in a new reliquary, From that time the memory of St. Solina grew more celebrated: several women of Chartres are found distinguished by her name already at the beginning of the twelfth century Cartulaire de Saint-Père, pp. 318, 370 and 388., and thereafter in public calamities the people frequently ran to her sacred remains. The devotion flourishing thereafter is shown to us by the money contributed by the people, not only of Chartres but also from elsewhere, to make a reliquary worthy of St. Solina. Dom Aubert, a Benedictine monk, narrates the matter thus in chapter CIX of the manuscript History of the monastery of St. Peter, which is preserved today in the library of Chartres and ends in the year 1674: "On the 11th day of March" (we render the French words into Latin) "of the year 1325, in the time of abbot Philippe de Cereis (who occupied the seat from the year 1311 to 1329 Gallia Christiana, volume VII, column 1229.), the body of St. Solina, virgin and martyr, was translated from the old reliquary into a new one, in which it rests to this day in the church of the abbey of St. Peter. In the same reliquary are enclosed various relics, such as those of St. Scholastica and of other saints, whose names are inscribed there. This reliquary, made of gilded bronze and patterned with lilies, presents the form of a church with its apse and transept: the building is surrounded by columns ending in a pyramid: in the spaces between the columns are fifteen images of saints, of St. Solina and others as well as of the Apostles. Over the doors of both arms of the transept and of the front stand out rose windows of blue enamel interspersed with lilies. On the gable of each arm of the transept is an angel, and from the middle of the crossing rises a windowed tower. To make the said reliquary the monks collected alms in various places, and there is found in it the licence given by the bishop of Orléans to collect the gifts of the faithful throughout the whole diocese, so that the body of St. Solina might be placed in a more fitting reliquary. On the same reliquary is the following inscription: HERE IS THE BODY OF THE MOST SACRED VIRGIN AND MARTYR SOLINA, WHICH WAS TRANSLATED FROM ANOTHER OLD RELIQUARY INTO THIS NEW ONE TOGETHER WITH THE RELICS OF THE SAINTS CONTAINED HERE. IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD 1325, ON THE FIFTH DAY BEFORE THE IDES OF MARCH, PHILIPPE DE CEREIS BEING ABBOT OF THIS MONASTERY, IN WHOSE TIME THIS NEW RELIQUARY WAS MADE."
[15] they were dispersed in 1790. This reliquary, two and a half feet long, one wide, and one and a half high in the Chartres measure (all of which by today's decimal standard are equivalent to about 0.52 m, 0.21 m, 0.32 m), remained intact, as the inventories succeeding one another show, until the end of the 18th century. For then, namely in the year 1790, by order of the French Republic, the commissioners Coubré-Saint-Loup and Claude Jumentier, parish priest of St. Hilary at Chartres, the reliquary in
transferred to the ownership of the Republic: which thereafter vanished Archives of the department of Eure-et-Loir: historical box of Saint-Père.. The relics of St. Solina too seem to have been dispersed at that time, and down to this day nothing has been found. This reliquary was formerly exposed in the choir of the church of St. Peter on the more solemn days. But after, in the year 1552, by virtue of the reform that had been introduced, all access of women to the choir of the monks had been forbidden, the said reliquary was carried to the altar of the Crucifix beneath the rood-loft, so that satisfaction might thus be given to the devotion of the people Dom Aubert, chapters 127 and 143..
[16] The saint is invoked especially for obtaining rain. For there was a frequent concourse of the people to our saint: wherefore votive Masses were often requested to be celebrated in her honour, as is clear from the Lectionary of St. Peter Lectionary of St. Peter, p. 348.. The monks too made memory of St. Solina both in the common suffrages and in the Litanies and in the prayer A cunctis. But her patronage was invoked chiefly in public calamities, and most of all in time of drought. For then, when in the cathedral church the relics of St. Taurinus, bishop of Évreux, were set out for public veneration, the body of St. Solina was exposed in the church of St. Peter, and each of the two saints was called the Aqueduct of the country of Chartres: whence too the opinion had arisen among the common people that St. Solina was the sister of St. Taurinus. To obtain seasonable rain, solemn supplications were often instituted, such as are read to have been celebrated in the years 1636 and 1681 La Beauce desséchée, p. 4 and following, 59, 99 and following.. In the manuscript History of St. Caraunus in the library of Chartres it is read under the year 1775 Histoire de S. Chéron, year 1775. that on account of a ruinous drought the parishioners of St. Caraunus went in a suppliant procession to the cathedral church, and to St. Peter's. And the maidens of Saint-Chéron, running ahead, had placed the bier of St. Solina on their shoulders; but the canons regular of Saint-Chéron forbade this, thinking it unfitting that women should carry the relics of saints, especially when clerics were present arrayed in sacred vestments. Wherefore, after a slight hesitation, the devout maidens acquiesced in the better counsel. When the monastery was destroyed, the church of St. Peter was preserved, which today is the second parish church of the city of Chartres: in it, however, no other memory of St. Solina survives besides that which we recited above at no. 3 from the Breviary of Chartres.
PASSION OF ST. SOLINA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR.
From the Lectionary of St. Peter of Chartres for the 16th day of October.
Solina, virgin and martyr, at Chartres in Gaul. (S.)
From a manuscript.
St. Solina, providing for her virginity by flight, Solina, a virgin and renowned martyr, born in Aquitaine of illustrious parents, but parents living in the error of heathenism, was converted from her tender years to the Christian faith a, and gave herself wholly to the service of Christ, making him a promise with her whole heart that she would admit no spouse on earth besides him, but would cleave always, even with integrity of the flesh, to him whom she worshipped in her mind. And this she in fact performed: for she could never be moved from her resolve of preserving virginity, although she was solicited by many on account of the nobility of her family and the elegance of her face, and was harassed again and again by her parents, and at times afflicted with blows. Judging, however, that she must yield to their persecutions and rages, fearing with good reason parents who were all too cruel to her on the way of salvation, she resolves to elude all their wiles by flight.
[2] comes to Chartres, The prudent virgin, therefore, kindled with the love of Christ and illumined by faith, leaving her parents and her very ample riches, alone and eager commits herself to an uncertain journey, and, stirred by the divine prompting of the Holy Spirit, passes over to the city of Chartres, where there was a famous shrine of the most holy Virgin Mother of God, whom the Druid priests had worshipped as she who was to bring forth, that she might consecrate the course of her chaste purpose under so noble a title of virginity.
[3] where, tempted in many ways, But a persecution having arisen against the worshippers of Christ, Quirinus, prefect of the city b, who had driven out of the region SS. Savinian, Potentian and other heralds of the evangelical truth, after afflicting them with various torments, having heard the report which was resounding of the holiness of the virgin Solina (for she displayed nothing but the ardour of piety), sent lictors and ordered her to be set before his tribunal, to give account of why she was spreading the faith of the Crucified and turning the minds of girls away from marriage out of attachment to the new religion. She comes, and, scarcely questioned, frankly and bravely confesses that she is a Christian, and moreover bound to Christ by the faith of betrothal. The governor marvels at the manly spirit in a woman's body, and first indeed urges her with flattering words to change her resolve; then he strives to shake her constancy with threats and terrors.
[4] at length she dies by martyrdom. But the virgin of Christ is neither seduced by blandishments nor shaken by terror; but she persists with the same countenance and spirit, and with the same serenity of mind laughs at him threatening and flattering alike. The governor, blazing up, orders her at once to be thrust into the public prison. Brought out on the next day, she is again set before the court, where, found more constant in the faith than before, sentence being given, she willingly submitted her neck to the sword for the assertion of the divine truth and the cultivation of chastity, on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of November, at the beginning of the third century c. Thus slain, the little sheep of Christ happily carried off a double laurel, of faith and of chastity bravely defended. The Christians, secretly gathering her pure remains, buried them with spices in the place where afterwards the abbey of St. Peter in the Valley of Chartres was built; where even now, with the immortal glory of her name, she rests honourably in a gilded reliquary, and is venerated with the religious veneration of the whole city, and is invoked, not without the timely help of God, in various calamities of the air and of bodies d.