ON SS. ODA AND POMPEIUS: ODA, WIDOW, AND POMPEIUS, PRESBYTER AND CONFESSOR, AT AMAY IN THE DIOCESE OF LIÈGE,
PROBABLY IN THE YEAR 722 OR 723.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
Oda, widow. (S.)
Pompeius, presbyter and confessor, at Amay in the diocese of Liège. (S.)
BY J. V. H.
§ I. The holy widow distinguished from the Virgin of the same
name; her biographers ancient and recent; Childebert, as is
said, her father; the year of the Saint's birth.
St. Oda, widow, died at Amay, which is described St. Oda the widow, whose Acts we present, is not to be confused with her namesake, contemporary and, if you look to death and burial, compatriot, St. Oda the virgin. The latter, freed from blindness through St. Lambert, bishop of Tongres, after various pilgrimages found the end of her life in Belgium, and having obtained a sepulchre at Rode, is venerated with an annual celebration on the 27th day of November, on which her Life, already edited in the Acta Sanctorum of Belgium, will be elucidated. Rode, moreover, the place of death of St. Oda the Virgin, formerly of the diocese of Liège, was in the year 1559, when the new bishoprics were erected in Belgium, assigned to the diocese of 's-Hertogenbosch, and still exists in the deanery of Eindhoven under the same bishop, by the name of Sint-Oedenrode Compare Acta SS. of Belgium, vol. VI, p. 587. But our Oda the widow, having ended her life at Amay, also rests there. Now Amanium or Ammanium, in the vernacular Ama, or more frequently Amay, is a village on the left bank of the Meuse, through which a Roman road was laid for crossing the river, fordable at that spot, in which there was also a bridge, of which the ruins are still seen [Mémoires des savants étrangers de l'Académie de Bruxelles, vol. XXVI, Grandgagnage, Mémoire sur les anciens noms des lieux de la Belgique orientale, p. 130]. It stands seven kilometres to the east of Hoyum (Huy). The place was above all made illustrious by St. Oda the widow through her life, death and burial, and through the sacred college of nine canons under a provost founded there. But the chapter having been extinguished by the vicissitudes of the close of the past century, the church of Amay is today a succursal church under the deanery of Huy.
[2] she is celebrated in the Belgian Martyrologies; The Martyrologies which we commonly call classical keep a profound silence about our Saint; indeed the Auctaria of Usuard, generally rich, are very sparing about St. Oda. Molanus adds to his Usuard these words: On the same day (the 23rd of October), of Oda, widow, aunt of Saint Hubert, in the township of Anania on the river Meuse. There is certainly an error either of the writer or of the typesetter in the name Anania; and this was corrected in the later edition of Molanus, writing: In the township of Amania, on the river Meuse, of Saint Oda, widow, aunt of Saint Hubert. Fuller, but more faulty, as will become clear below, is what the Brussels Auctarium in Du Sollier has, namely: Likewise of Oda, widow, daughter of the duke of Lotharingia and relict of Count Lambert, our founder; who was a faithful helper to her husband in the translation of the body of Blessed Gudula and the institution of this church, as much by counsel as by aid. In which announcement there are as many errors as words. For apart from the fact that our St. Oda probably died before St. Gudila, and so could in no way have taken counsel about her translation, whatever is reported belongs to Oda, wife of Lambert, prince of Brabant, who flourished in the middle of the eleventh century. Lambert had the body of St. Gudila transferred from the church of St. Géry at Brussels to the temple of St. Michael, and in the same temple, which thereafter acquired by the more common appellation the name of St. Gudila, founded a chapter of canons, with the aid, says Haraeus [Annals of the Dukes of Brabant, vol. I, p. 175. Compare Acta SS. of Belgium, vol. V, p. 678], and the favour in such matters of his excellent wife Oda, who was the daughter of Gozelo, duke of Lotharingia. Accordingly, by an extravagant anachronism, the Brussels martyrologist carried over his elogium from Oda of Lotharingia to St. Oda the widow, or from the eleventh century to the eighth.
[3] more or less accurate: Truer things about St. Oda, though not in every part corrected, Molanus has in his Natales of the Saints of Belgium at this day: In the township of Amania, on the river Meuse, the natal day of Saint Oda, widow of Boggis, duke of the Aquitanians. Whom Sigebert, the chronographer of Gembloux, writes to have been renowned in Gaul in the year seven hundred and eleven. She was the aunt of St. Hubert, bishop; and she, after the death of her husband Boggis, a Catholic prince, content with her dowry, busied herself to serve God and the poor. She loved priests and the sacred ministers of the Church in the Lord. From her goods she founded churches, especially that of Amay, in which she rests. From her too the church of Liège, which is that of St. Lambert, under which prelate she flourished, has many things. And St. Florbert, son of St. Hubert and his successor in the episcopate, translated her Relics from the ground, on the seventh before the Ides of July. She rests at Amay, in the collegiate church of St. George and of her own name, one mile from Huy. To the elogium of Molanus the Breviary of Liège of the year 1766 adds certain things to be read, namely, that St. Oda, most noble by birth, after the death of her husband withdrew to the parts of Austrasia, where she had ample possessions of patrimony; that she built hospices and churches in various places; and that at last she received Christ the Lord, under the appearance of a beggar asking for shelter, and received the promise of eternal goods in return for temporal ones.
[4] the Saint's biographers; St. Oda has been treated by Barthélemy Fisen in his Sancta Legia Vol. I, p. 81 and Flowers of the Church of Liège P. 458, and by Jean Foullon in the History of Liège Vol. I, p. 109, both of them our own men; Jean Chapeaville, in the Deeds of the Pontiffs of Tongres, nearly copied out Molanus Vol. I, p. 115 and following. Most splendidly of all has the praised Foullon written about the Saint, who in the work just cited says that at the request of the canons of Amay he published the Life of St. Oda in the French language under the title: The most perfect image of holy matrimony and widowhood displayed in the Life of St. Oda Modèle tres-parfait du saint mariage et viduité dans la vie de Ste Ode: in which lucubration, since he had reported certain things relying on the common tradition alone, he retracts them in his History of Liège. Among the more ancient writers I find only one, an anonymous biographer, of whom a copy exists in a parchment codex under the name of a Passional, transferred from the library of the house of St. Jerome at Utrecht formerly to the Bollandian Museum; from which it migrated to the royal library of Brussels under number 7,917. In the same library there is also another codex, under no. 858, formerly belonging to the monastery of Korsendonk; each supplies the defects of the other, as will appear from our text. The former, or Utrecht, codex contains Lives of Holy Virgins and Women, without any Life of a man being reported in the codex. After the Life of St. Elisabeth of Hungary, which is the second-last, the following is read on fol. CXCV: Thanksgiving of the editor of this book. Thanks be to God, through whom I have finished this composition of the life of Blessed Elisabeth, widow, in the year of the Lord 1297, on the ninth before the Ides of May. Let her pray for me to our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose sight her prayer suffers no repulse. Amen. For my part, at first glance I believed that the time of writing was indicated by these words; but afterwards I began to doubt whether the thanksgiving should not rather be referred to the Life of St. Elisabeth alone: both because the words indicate only the composition of the Life of Blessed Elisabeth; next because, if it were a question of the writing of the whole codex, the said thanksgiving should have been placed after the Life of St. Cecilia, which is the last in the codex; and finally because the kind of script seems rather to smell of the fifteenth century; which indeed
time is marked both in the catalogue of manuscripts of the royal library and on the spine of the book. So that the thanksgiving has as its author the biographer of St. Elisabeth, and not the scribe of the Passional codex.
[5] the age of the more ancient Life: Further, the Life of St. Oda which we edit below has an anonymous author; and indeed, if we attend to certain genealogical errors, of such an age that he stands off one or two whole centuries from the things he narrates. But since he presents St. Oda, through St. Arnulf, bishop of Metz, as the mother of the Carolingian family, I consider that the Life, such as we have it, was composed in the tenth century, at whose close the Carolingian stock ceased to reign. For one nearer to the times of which he treats would have avoided the historical errors; and one more remote would not have cared about a kinship with the Carolingian family. But let these things be held in the place of conjecture; this however is certain, that St. Oda drew her origin from a most noble family: of which the testimony, beyond every objection, is her kinship with St. Hubert the bishop, about the splendour of whose descent nobody doubts, and her marriage to a prince of the Aquitanians. We must come, then, to the genealogy of St. Oda, which, since it touches St. Hubert's family, can be taken up again at the 3rd day of November, when the Acts of the holy prelate will be given and weighed on the balance.
[6] whether she had as father Jean Foullon in the French Life of the Saint says that she was born of her father Childebert, king of the Franks Vie de Ste Ode, p. 168; in his History of Liège Vol. I, p. 109, with his pen somewhat suspended, he does not so much bring forward his own view as report things narrated by others: Oda, he says, the early writers make the widow of Bogo, duke of Aquitaine, the daughter of King Childebert; and I have followed them in her Life (namely, the French one), which, formerly unpublished, I once gave out to the public at the request of the canons of Amay. Yet he himself, in the Annotations placed at the end of the French Life, professes that the matter is doubtful. Nevertheless he holds that St. Oda sprang from royal blood, both because she is constantly depicted with royal insignia, and because her body, found in the year 1635, was wrapped in a cloth adorned with the French lilies Vie de Ste Ode, p. 254. Although the argument is not peremptory: for, setting aside the question of the antiquity of the French lilies, the right to royal insignia belonged to St. Oda on account of her husband Bogo, who certainly, as will be shown below, belonged to the Merovingian family. For the rest, there were two kings of the Franks of the name of Childebert, neither of whom can be fitted to the age of St. Oda. Childebert indeed, son of Sigebert I, king of Austrasia, and his heir in the kingdom, born about the year 570, ceased to live in the year 596. If therefore our Saint was the daughter of this man, she would have come into Belgium as a nonagenarian, since she would have left Aquitaine when her husband Boggo died, that is in the year 688; indeed, dying, as we shall see below on the testimony of Sigebert of Gembloux, in the year 711, she would have died having become at least one hundred and fifteen years old; an extraordinary thing, which the authors would have indicated by some word. There is no reason for us to treat of Childebert, king of the Parisians, son of Clovis I, who died in the year 558, since this man's age agrees even less with the years of St. Oda.
[7] the Merovingian Childebert: There is, however, another Childebert, whose age agrees most aptly with the Acts of St. Oda, namely the son of Theodoric, king of the Burgundians. For when in the year 613 the sons of Theodoric were slain by order of Clotaire II, Childebert, says Fredegar Migne, Patrology, vol. LXXI, col. 632, mounting (a horse) in flight, never afterwards returned; which reading a second hand rendered thus: Childebert, taking to flight, having mounted a horse, was never afterwards seen. And indeed Thierry Ruinart in his edition of Fredegar judges that it is this man who is treated when, in the Life of St. Rusticula, abbess of Arles, at the 11th day of August, she is said to have been accused before Clotaire Acta SS., vol. II of Aug., p. 660 of secretly rearing King Childebert, the fugitive. To this man, I say, the Acts of St. Oda fit most aptly: we have a king Childebert; we have the age; for that fugitive prince in the year 613 had scarcely passed the limits of infancy, since his father at his death was only 26 years old. St. Oda could thus have been born of this King Childebert when the seventh century was already advanced, so that it is in no way necessary to make her more than a hundred years old in order that she should die in the year 711. Thus far the chronological matters go forward well; but two things stand against this solution. First, the second reading of Fredegar, cited above, has it that this Childebert was never afterwards seen; whereas if some years later he had placed his daughter in marriage with Bogo, duke of Aquitaine, his wife would have been known, and at the nuptials of his daughter the name of the father could not have been kept silent. But to this difficulty, of no slight moment, it can be answered that the time at which Fredegar ceased to live is uncertain; and Thierry Ruinart in his Preface to the Works of St. Gregory of Tours Migne, Patrology, vol. LXXI, col. 112 judges that he died about the middle of the seventh century; for which reason he could have been ignorant of the further fortunes of the fugitive Childebert. Finally, one must not omit the blunder of St. Oda's biographer at num. 3, by which he says that Childebert, father of St. Oda, was brother of King Dagobert. Clotaire II certainly had another son, Charibert, to whom, the kingdom of the Franks having devolved on Dagobert, his first-born son, the father left Aquitaine. But this Charibert could in no way be the father of our Saint: the age of one who died in the year 631 prevents it, since, as we shall presently show, St. Oda was scarcely born before the year 650; and, what is more, Charibert was the father of Bogo, the husband of St. Oda. In weaving Genealogies our biographer often stumbles.
[8] by what means she had great estates in Austrasia: There is also another difficulty: namely, how so many great estates situated in Austrasia could have fallen to St. Oda, since she, the daughter, as is supposed, of Childebert, ought rather to have had her patrimonial goods in Burgundy, whence she drew her origin. But it would be a greater wonder that anything of the Burgundian patrimony should have remained to her father Childebert, a fugitive and in hiding. And certainly King Clotaire, the victor, after the slaying of Childebert's two brothers, made their goods and those of the fugitive his own. But that some goods could have fallen to the unhappy family in Austrasia, history teaches; since Theodoric, father of Childebert, having thrust his brother Theodebert into a monastery, reigned for some time in Austrasia. Next, the great estates of St. Oda situated in Austrasia could have come to her through her mother. For the law of that time did not bar women from all inheritance, as is established from the instrument to be cited below, when we treat of the family of Duke Bogo, the husband of our Saint. And indeed the Salic Law, title LXII, On Alod, orders the succession of goods in the following way Lindenbrog, Ancient Laws, p. 340: If any man shall have died and shall not have left sons, if his father or mother shall have survived, they shall succeed to the inheritance. If father or mother shall not have survived, and he shall have left brothers or sisters, let them obtain the inheritance. But if these too shall not have existed, let the sisters of the father succeed to his inheritance. And if the sisters of the father shall not have existed, let the sisters of the mother claim his inheritance for themselves. And if there shall have been none of these, whoever shall have been nearest of the paternal generation, let them succeed to the inheritance Eichhorn, Deutsche Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte, § LXV. Further, the following § will supply us with several testimonies of such female inheritance. It could easily happen, then, that some Austrasian inheritance fell to St. Oda or to her mother, though perhaps they were foreigners. And let these things be said by way of conjecture: for there is not sufficient evidence of the Childebertine origin of St. Oda for us to determine anything certain.
[9] an age of seventy years Since most biographers made St. Oda the daughter of King Childebert, who died in the year 596, they were obliged to attribute to her an extraordinary longevity. But if we inspect the course of her life more closely, it will have to be said that she was scarcely born before the middle of the seventh century. For, to omit Childebert the father, of whom we spoke above by way of divining, who, born at the beginning of the seventh century, could have begotten a daughter in the middle of the same century, there is a stronger argument at hand, namely the marriage of St. Oda with Bogo, prince of the Aquitanians. For, as the Benedictine authors of the History of Occitania have it Hist. du Langued., vol. I, p. 332, in the year 631 Bogo and his brother Bertrand, sons of Charibert, king of Aquitaine, had scarcely been torn from the breast; whence one may conjecture that the nuptials of Bogo with St. Oda were arranged about the year 660. To this also tends what her Life reports at num. 2, that Oda remained in holy widowhood, and having made a vow, was zealous to live in perpetual continence; and moreover that she, her husband having died, had a son under age, to whom, when he had reached the years of puberty, she handed over the principality of the province to govern. If St. Oda had already been fifty or sixty years old in the year 688, the vow of perpetual continence would not be greatly to be praised; nor would she have had children below the years of adolescence. For which reason I judge that our Saint, who ended her life in the year 722 or 723, as we shall show below, was seventy years old, and thus born about the middle of the seventh century.
[10] she seems not much to have exceeded. Richard de Wassebourg, archdeacon of Verdun, reports various things about St. Oda which are not found in other writers Antiquitez de la Gaule-Belgique, fol. LXXXII verso. Thus he makes the Saint the daughter of Gunzo, duke of Swabia. Of this Gunzo, duke of the Alamanni, treatment was made in the Commentary on St. Gall at the 16th day of October Acta SS., vol. VII of Oct., p. 877; and from his age we are brought back to a decrepit old age for St. Oda, which cannot be sustained. Next, he consigns the death of Bogo, whom he himself calls Buggisus, to the year 609; so that St. Oda would have remained in widowhood until the year 711, or for one hundred and two years. Finally, he ascribes various offspring to these spouses: Arnulf, duke of Moselle Gaul or Lotharingia, Modoald, Brunulph, by others called Sigilphus, Basinus, bishop of Trier; Severa, Afra, Gunza, mother of Lutwinus, bishop of Trier, and lastly Oda, who bore her mother's name, and who persevered in virginity. And indeed that Lutwinus succeeded Basinus in the see of Trier he has rightly; but since Basinus subscribed the testament of St. Irmina in the year 704 Gall. Christ., vol. XIII, col. 387, we again have a centenarian, since his father Bogo, according to Wassebourg, withdrew into the desert in the year 601 and lived there for 8 years. Of this withdrawal there is no record in others; indeed, if Bogo had begun a more perfect life before his death, St. Oda need not have awaited the death of her husband in order to live in perpetual continence by a vow she had made. But enough now of these things, which Jean Foullon reckons as fables Vie de Ste Ode, p. 255.
§ II. The most noble descent of the Saint is shown with the aid of the diploma
of Alaón, whose genuineness is vindicated; her migration into
Austrasia.
The nobility of St. Oda from the diploma of Alaón, That St. Oda had as her husband Bogo, whom
others call Boggus and Boggisus, we consider to be placed beyond controversy, since nobody who has treated of the Saint by even one word passes over her marriage with Bogo in silence. Although, then, the royal origin of St. Oda can be called into doubt, certainly nobody will deny her affinity with the Merovingian kings through her nuptials with Bogo. There exists, namely, the charter of foundation of the monastery of Blessed Mary of Alaón, in which the genealogy of Bogo is displayed. Now the monastery of Alaón (today Nuestra Señora de la O), founded in the year 835, is situated on the right bank of the river Noguera of Ribagorza (Ribagorza), which forms the boundary between Aragon and the principality of Catalonia; and so it is located within the limits of the Kingdom of Aragon. What the fortunes of this ascetery may be after the more recent vicissitudes of Spain I do not know; this is certain, that in the ecclesiastical Calendar of Madrid of the year 1817 there is still numbered among the abbots of the Benedictine congregation the Rev. Isidoro Santa Creu, as head of the monastery of St. Mary of the O Guia del estado eclesiastico de España, 1817, p. 394. Mabillon, book XXXI, §33, erroneously says that it no longer exists. Now there are some who call back into doubt the genuineness of the Alaón charter; they are refuted by the Benedictine writers of the History of Occitania Hist. du Langued., vol. I, p. 688, José de la Canal, the continuator of Hispania Sacra España sagrada, vol. XLVI, p. 207, and the celebrated Fauriel in the History of Southern Gaul Hist. de la Gaule méridionale, vol. III, p. 513. For the things objected to the diploma of Alaón are plainly negative arguments: namely that Pierre de Marca makes no mention of this charter. Indeed, if Pierre was ignorant of the charter, the reason for his silence is open; and if he knew it and omitted it as suspect, we have indeed the judgement of a most weighty and most learned man, which however is overthrown by that of other men distinguished by equal weight and erudition.
[12] whose genuineness A second argument, although negative, is of greater weight. Namely, the silence of the cartulary of Alaón, which was written out at the end of the eleventh century: for the diploma of foundation would seem to have had to be placed at the head of the book. The difficulty is met by the praised José de la Canal, saying España sagrada, vol. XLVI, p. 208 that the cartulary was compiled under the pontificate of Raymond Dalmatius, bishop of Roda (Roda), who, since he was a man of the greatest dexterity in political matters, did not wish to bring into the cartulary an instrument by which the monastery of Alaón was assigned to the see of Urgel. Although it could also have happened that the said instrument perished among the monks by the injury of the times. José de Aguirre transcribed it from the archive of the Church of Urgel in the Councils of Spain Vol. IV, p. 129 and following, Rome edition 1754. Strength is added to the diploma by nine letters by which it is confirmed: for it was afterwards praised and held firm in the year 862, that is seventeen years after the date of the charter, by Asinarius, count of Sola and Loupiac; in the year 883 by a second Asinarius, son of the preceding; in the year 911 by Lupus, son of the preceding; in the year 973 by Atho, son of the preceding; in the year 1007 by a second Atho, son of the preceding; in the year 1015 by Garseanus, tutor of William of Sola, who in the year 1034 praised the deed of his tutor; in the year 1041 by Asinarius, son of Atho II, and finally by Regimundus William in the year 1040 (unless perhaps an error has crept in and some years should be added to the number forty, since he seems to follow the preceding Asinarius). Either then all these instruments must be rejected as spurious, or it will have to be shown that something false is contained in them, in order that they may be repudiated. Now the praised writers of the History of Occitania show that everything, whether we inspect the style, or the marks of time, or the very facts reported, concurs in strengthening its genuineness; which the confirmations continued through the two following centuries also approve. Finally, the learned add their vote, of whom very many have received this diploma by citing it Compare Bréquigny, Table chronologique des diplomes, vol. I, p. 216. Nevertheless the unusual face of the diploma will perhaps raise a scruple for someone, in that, beyond the ordinary form of confirmation, it recounts, in the manner of a chronicle, the genealogy and fortunes of the founders. I indeed confess that this is unusual. And from this I deduce that the diploma is genuine. For a forger is for the most part wholly occupied in following the customary formulas as scrupulously as possible, rightly fearing lest, by deserting the beaten way, he should fall into errors. Next, this was not for Charles the Bald an ordinary confirmation of the kind for which the customary formulas could suffice. It was a question of the ratification of a foundation made by rebels, all of whose goods had been assigned to the royal fisc: and if he confirmed this in the usual manner, the king would seem in some way to annul the acts of his predecessors. For which reason he enumerates the genealogy and the repeated rebellions of the Hunaldine family, so as to preserve the acts of the preceding kings intact, and to show that out of regard for religion he makes and holds valid what from the beginning was forfeit and void Fauriel, Hist. de la Gaule méridionale, vol. III, p. 519. We now present the instrument itself, so far as it bears on our matter.
[13] is shown: In the name of the holy and undivided Trinity. Charles, by the grace of God king of the Franks. It is fitting to establish the places of the holy Church by royal authority and to favour the just prayers of monks who journey to us out of love of divine worship. Therefore let it be known to the faithful of the holy Church of God, as well present as future, that the religious man Abbot Obbonius, coming from the parts of Spain, namely from that march of the Gothic kingdom formerly subject to the kings of the Franks and to our precept, and purged of the filth of the Saracens under the auspices of our father the August Louis, came before our sight; our venerable and faithful Berarius, archbishop of the city of Narbonne, the first see, leading him to the serenity of our presence; and he made it plain to us that the illustrious Count Vandregisilus, now deceased, our kinsman and liegeman, whom after the death of his father, Count Altargarius , our father established as march-warden over Gascony, which is across the river Garonne, when with the aid of God and of his soldiers he snatched from the Saracens, and from Amarbanus, duke of Saragossa, among other things that whole territory situated in the mountainous places of the said Gascony, which is beyond and about the river Baliera , by name Alacroon *. And that the said Count Vandregisilus with his illustrious wife, Countess Maria, ten years ago built a monastery at his own expense in the aforesaid place in honour of the Mother of God, by the counsel and consent of his sons, namely of Bernarthus, at present count of the same Gascony and warden of the whole frontier, with his wife, Countess Theuda; and of Atho, now count of Pallars, with his wife Eynzelina; and also of Anthonius, today viscount of Béziers, with his wife Adoira; and likewise of Asinarius, now also viscount of Loupiac and Sola, with his wife Gerberga.
[14] for in it is proved, All of whom raised up the monastery from the spoils of the infidels, and brought to it from the monastery of St. Peter the Apostle at Siresa clerical monks, living according to the Rule of St. Benedict, with the same Abbot Obbonius. And that the monastery was built and dedicated with the licence and consent of the venerable Bartholomew, now deceased, then archbishop of the first see of Narbonne; and the venerable Sisevotus , bishop of Urgel, to whose spirituality the place belongs according to the ordinance of our most pious father the august Louis, praised the work and blessed the church of the aforesaid monastery, there being present the venerable Ferreolus, bishop of Jaca, and Involatus, bishop of Comminges; and also Oddoarius, abbot of Siresa (there follow the names of various abbots, and finally) Stolidus, abbot of St. Arodius of Attane, who then carried from the basilica of St. Saviour at Limoges to the new church of Blessed Mary the relics of Htthonis *, formerly duke of Aquitaine, and of his son Count Altargarius, namely the father and grandfather of the aforesaid Count Vandregisilus, with the other faithful: of all of which things he gave an autograph. And similarly he offered to our serenity the testament or placitum of the aforesaid Count Vandregisilus and his wife Countess Maria, in which, with the consent of all his sons, the said Vandregisilus left to the same monastery and to the clerical monks living in it according to the Rule of St. Benedict, as well present as future: first, all the right which he said belonged to him over the monastery of the island of Rodi, which Eudo, duke of Aquitaine, formerly built in honour of Blessed Mary, with his wife Valtruda of good memory, daughter of Duke Valchigisus, of our progeny; and where the aforesaid Eudo is buried: and all the lands, churches and rights which he asserted belonged to the aforesaid Count Vandregisilus from his patrimony in all Aquitaine, and especially in the districts of Toulouse, Cahors, Poitiers, Agen, Arles, Saintes and Périgueux, which belonged to the said Eudo, duke of Aquitaine, and his brother Imitarius, and which King Dagobert granted to their father Duke Boggisus after the death of his brother Ildericus, king of Aquitaine…
[15] Bogo, husband of St. Oda, And likewise all the monasteries in all Aquitaine and Gascony, or the rights of all those which belonged to Eudo, duke of Aquitaine, and which King Dagobert granted to his father Duke Boggisus after the slaying of his brother Ildericus, king of Aquitaine, as was said above. And also all the goods which Duke Amandus gave in Gascony to his daughter Queen Gisela, and afterwards left to his grandsons, Duke Boggisus and his brother Bertrand, whom King Haribert had by his wife Gisela. Similarly he bequeathed to the aforesaid monastery the rights which he said he had in the district of Limoges, at Parciacum, Nulliacum, Podentiacum and others, which belonged to Iadregisilus, formerly duke of the Aquitanians, ancestor of Countess Vandrada, his mother, and pertained to her by right of blood. Finally, with the principal consent of his son Asmarius *, viscount of Loupiac and Sola, who had obtained the territory of Alacon, he gave to the aforesaid monastery and monks the churches of the places of Arennus… And near by he donated the church of the fort by name Vandres, which he himself built against the Moors of Jaca, for his redemption, and the houses of Jaca, and all the inheritances and estates which Countess Maria had from her father, the late Count Asinarius, after the capture of the city, with other fields and districts named and contained in the aforesaid testament or placitum, and possessed by the aforesaid monastery after the death of the already mentioned Count Vandregisilus and his wife, Countess Maria, who are entombed in the same church.
[16] of the Merovingian stock Concerning all of which the aforesaid Abbot Obbonius requested that a decree of royal authority be made for his monastery and for him: that, inserting the already mentioned estates, churches, monasteries and other inheritances under the conclusion of one precept, we should confirm * them in perpetuity; that we should make it stand, with all its properties, both those now subject and those to be subjected at the present time, under our defence and the protection of immunity. Concerning all of which, counsel having been held with the nobles of our court and with the archbishops, bishops, abbots and dukes and counts, gathered with us then at Quierzy on account of the solemnity for honouring our most happy nuptials with the glorious lady Ermentrude, sublime queen,
we recognised that we cannot altogether lend our ears to the prayers of the same abbot, since they run counter to our royal highness and to the right of many. Because the aforesaid Count Vandregesilus by no means had the faculty of bequeathing or donating estates, churches, monasteries and other inheritances established throughout Aquitaine and Gascony, because he was of the later line or generation of the Dukes Boggisus and Eudo. For the things which King Dagobert once gave to his own and to his brother Haribert's nephews, Boggisus and Bertrand, after the slaying, as is said, of their brother Ildericus, king of Aquitaine, were possessed by hereditary right by Eudo, son of Boggisus, and after his death by the first-born Hunald and the grandson Vifarius *, who obtained the duchy of Aquitaine, yet in the name of the kings of the Franks. But since Duke Vifarius so many times violated his oaths of fidelity to our renowned great-grandfather King Pepin, he was more often defeated by him, and after him the apostate Hunald, while he attempted to seize Aquitaine by a new rebellion, they were defeated and declared rebels by Charles the Great, our grandfather. On which account the whole of Aquitaine with Gascony and with all its rights devolved, according to the laws of the Franks, upon the august Charles, who with the royal title gave it to the most excellent Louis, our father. From whom all right and royal dominion over the whole of Aquitaine came to us; and with God's help the like was done concerning the whole of Gascony.
[17] through Charibert; For our great grandfather Charles left, by right of benefice, the whole part of Gascony to the most faithful Duke Lupus, who was the first-born of the second line or generation of Eudo, the elder namely of Duke Nattio , and who subjected himself once more to the rule of Charles the Great; and he, worst of all the wicked and most perfidious above all mortals, in works and in name Lupus, the Wolf, to be called a robber rather than a duke, clinging to the wicked footsteps of Vifarius his most criminal father and of his apostate grandfather Hunald, seized it by right, as he said, of his mother Adela, the daughter of our most faithful duke. Yet while the savage grandson feignedly swore manifold oaths to our glorious grandfather Charles, the latter experienced his and his ancestors' accustomed perfidy on his return from Spain, when with a scara of robbers he sacrilegiously butchered the counts of the army: on which account the already mentioned Lupus was taken, and ended his life wretchedly in the noose, a portion of Gascony being mercifully left to his son Adalaric for living decently. And he, abusing the mercy, like his father, taking up arms with his sons Sciminus and Centullus against our most pious father, and attacking his host * in the mountains, fell in battle with his son Centullus. But our father with his accustomed piety again divided Gascony between the said Sciminus and Lupus son of Centullus, son of the deceased Centullus. And both Lupus son of Centullus and Garsimirus, born of Sciminus, lost it on account of infidelity, Garsimirus, like his father Sciminus, being slain in rebellion, and Lupus son of Centullus being exiled on account of tyranny and removed from the principality; for then our most exalted father, the whole of Gascony being again vindicated and joined to the royal dominion, plucked it for ever from the hands of the descendants of Eudo, and committed it to the governance of others of our own blood. These things suffice for showing the origin of Bogo or Boggisus, the husband of St. Oda. Most editors of this instrument wrote Luto in place of Eudo; but Cardinal de Aguirre seems to have read the name less correctly Councils of Spain, vol. IV, p. 129, whom Hispania Sacra copied out España sagrada, vol. XLVI, p. 330. But others, following the collectors of the Writers of Gallic Affairs, better put Eudo in place of Luto Dom Bouquet, Recueil, vol. VIII, p. 470.
[18] descended; The instrument of Alaón, which we have recited in part, contains, as the collector of the councils of Spain has it De Aguirre, Councils of Spain, vol. IV, p. 135, great treasures of antiquity, which you would seek in vain elsewhere. Thus Jaime Villanueva in his liturgical excursions through Spain is at length Viage literario, vol. X, p. 62 in settling the time at which Bishop Sisebutus held the see of Urgel, and he determines from the diplomas brought forward that his pontificate must be defined within the years 833 and 840. But from our instrument, in which mention is made of Sisebutus or Sisivotus, as can be seen above at num. 14, he is supposed to be still living; for when King Charles had named Bartholomew, he subjoins that he was THEN archbishop of the first see of Narbonne; but treating of Sisebutus, he says absolutely that he is bishop of Urgel, since, speaking of the monastery, he adds, to whose spirituality the place belongs, and not belonged or was belonging. And the praised Villanueva himself, treating of Beatus, the successor of Sisebutus, says that he stood forth in the year 850, without being able to define anything else about his pontificate Ibid., loc. cit.. Now that Clotaire II, of whom our instrument makes no mention, had a son Charibert or Haribert (compare above, num. 16), Fredegar teaches us, § LVII Migne, Patrology, vol. LXXI, col. 642, and he adds that the region between the Loire and the Pyrenees was granted to him, and that his son Chilperic or Ildericus was slain as an infant Ibid., col. 648. Since, then, the princes of Aquitaine belonged to the royal stock of the Merovingians, and had been despoiled of their ancestral kingdom even by their own kinsmen, the reason for the manifold wars or rebellions which blazed up between them and the Carolingian house is plain enough: for what to the Carolingians was rebellion and continued perfidy, that among the princes of Aquitaine was reckoned a lawful vindication of an ancestral right, which frauds and deceits had snatched from the legitimate heirs. And that Hunald is called apostate (above, num. 17), this is the cause: having established his son Vaifarius as duke of Aquitaine, Hunald withdrew into the monastery of the Isle of Rhé; but on the death of Vaifarius in the year 768 he took back the kingdom and resumed his wife; but being conquered and captured by Charlemagne, he at last perished at Pavia, as an ally of Desiderius, king of the Lombards Hist. du Langued., vol. I, p. 409 and 427.
[19] as is clear from the genealogical table. Further, from the instrument brought forward the writers of the History of Occitania have drawn up a genealogical table, which we have thought should be displayed in part in this place Ibid., p. 689.
In the instrument from which this table was drawn, nothing indeed is said of St. Oda, nothing of St. Hubert; and as regards St. Hubert, we postpone the examination of his kinship with the princely family of Aquitaine to the 3rd day of November. But if the table reports true things, it follows that St. Hubert was related to St. Oda by blood through his father Bertrand, brother of Bogo, and through his mother Phigberta, sister of St. Oda, and that the Saint was therefore at once paternal and maternal aunt of St. Hubert.
[20] The time and reason of the Austrasian That St. Oda spent part of her life in Austrasia, or in our Belgium, and obtained her sepulchre there, is beyond controversy, as will be shown in the following §. It must however be inquired at what time and on what occasion, having left Aquitaine, she began to dwell among the Condrusi (Le Condroz). In the first place, if, as is commonly determined Hist. du Langued., vol. I, p. 369, Bogo, the Saint's husband, ended his life in the year 688, her arrival among the Condrusi will have to be put off to some years later. For in the Life at num. 2 one reads: After the death of her husband … she governed the province of her principality excellently through faithful men … until her son, the venerable Arnulf, reached the years of puberty, and his mother, by the counsel of the magnates, left him the principality of the province to govern, with the patrimony from his father. Leaving aside the manifest error in the name of Arnulf, bishop of Metz, seeing that he was born in the year 582 and died in 641 Acta SS., vol. V of Jul., p. 424; if it be admitted as true that St. Oda administered Aquitaine for some years on behalf of her son under age, in the name of a guardian, it will be necessary that she emigrated into Belgium a little later, and scarcely reached the Condrusi before the year 690. But if anyone wishes to join St. Oda's withdrawal to Belgium with the year 688, then the death of her husband Bogo will have to be anticipated by some years. For although our biographer went astray in the name of Arnulf, I do not however consider that this temporary rule of Aquitaine, during the son's minority, should be adjudged away from the Saint. That the biographer erred in the name I will readily concede; but that he fabricated an administration of a province which he never entered, and which contributed not a whit to increasing the fame of her sanctity, I see no cause for a fiction of this kind. Since, then, set at a parting of the ways, which path we ought to follow, that St. Oda arrived in Belgium about the last decade of the seventh century and there closed her life.
[21] migration is set forth. As regards the cause or occasion of this transmigration, we are able to divine it to some extent. Jean Foullon indeed alleges the tyranny of Ebroin, mayor of the palace of Theodoric III, king of Neustria and Burgundy Vie de Ste Ode, p. 205; but the chronotaxis stands against it: for Ebroin was killed out of private hatred in the year 681 Migne, Patrology, vol. LXXI, col. 669, as the continuator of Fredegar has it, writing a few years after, or in the year 735 Ibid., col. 667. But since St. Oda did not come into Belgium before the year 688, it is clear that the tyranny of Ebroin, whatever it was (which Le Cointe strives to excuse or lessen at the year 681, § LXII), was not the cause of the migration. This, however, one may conjecture, that it was advised to the holy woman, following the path of a more perfect life, that, having left her house, she should go into another region, in order to pass her days more tranquilly. And that she should leave Aquitaine was urged by the guardian administration of the province carried on for some years, by which, necessarily entangled in manifold business, she could hardly avoid the gathering of men; it could also happen that the new rule of her son did not please his mother in every respect. And that Belgium was preferred among various provinces, the cause was the wealth acquired there by her own right, which shone forth when she established very ample pious foundations in that place. For the episcopal see of the Tungri, recently transferred, or even about to be transferred, to Liège owes much to St. Oda; whether she herself conferred the gifts after the death of St. Lambert, or St. Hubert, the heir of his aunt, endowed the new church in her name. Some call either opinion into controversy. Yet the Lessons of the Breviary of Liège of the year 1766 favour the former view, for they have: Especially did the most pious woman donate rich great estates to the nascent church of Liège, which she cherished with signal munificence. And indeed that St. Oda lived on to survive St. Lambert and his elevation, we shall show in the following §.
Annotations* B.: Adalgarius
* B.: Balicra
* B.: Alacoon
* B.: Sisebotus
* B.: Aredius
* B.: Hatthonis
* B.: Asinarius
* B.: we should confirm
* B.: Vaifarius
* B.: Hatthonis
* a troop
* army
§ III. The year of the Saint's death; the burial and
elevation of the body; various visitations of the Relics, of which the greatest part
has always remained at Amay.
From the Lambertine chronotaxis The reason which probably the biographer Jean Foullon
moved to write that St. Oda died before St. Lambert was this, that the daughter of King Childebert would have been more than a hundred years old if she had not preceded St. Lambert, who suffered within the first decade of the eighth century. But we have shown above at num. 9 that if we hold as true her nuptials with Bogo, her widowhood at a youthful age, and the administration of Aquitaine carried on in the name of a ward, the Saint was scarcely born before the middle of the seventh century. And so nothing presses us to hurry her death to before the passion of St. Lambert. Sigebert of Gembloux indeed has in his Chronicle under the year 711 Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, vol. VIII, p. 329: Saint Oda, wife of Boggis, duke of the Aquitanians, is renowned for holiness in Gaul, who enriched the churches of God by her munificence, and dying rested in the diocese of Liège. These words, if they stood by themselves, would rightly remove all doubt; but there stands against them the fact that the same Sigebert wrongly ties the passion of St. Lambert to the year 698 Pertz, loc. cit., p. 323. For most of the learned, among them also our predecessors, writing of St. Lambert at the 17th day of September, determine that he met his death more probably in the year 709, although they do not oppose the year of death 708 Acta SS., vol. V of Sept., p. 536. But if Sigebert anticipated the slaying of St. Lambert, who is far more celebrated than Blessed Oda, by ten or eleven years, what credit is to be given him when he says that she met her day in the year 711? Indeed the authority of a writer very often stumbling in chronological notes is suspect. Yet I will remark one thing, that the Sigebertine chronotaxis proceeds rightly if eleven years are added to his reckoning.
[23] the time of St. Oda's death is determined: Sigebert, then, places the slaying of St. Lambert in the year 698, but at the same time also he assigns his translation by St. Hubert to the year 710, in these words Pertz, vol. VIII, p. 329: Saint Hucbert, admonished from heaven, brings back the body of St. Lambert from Maastricht to Liège with great glory of miracles, and transfers the episcopal see into the same city: to which words the Gembloux Auctarium adds Ibid., p. 391: From then on Liège was exalted and enlarged into a city. And in the Acts of St. Lambert at the 17th of September Acta SS., vol. V of Sept., p. 551 Constantine Suyskens shows that the translation was celebrated in the thirteenth year of St. Hubert's prelacy. Which indeed is correct to this extent, that, according to the Sigebertine chronotaxis, twelve years run between the year 698 and 710, and so the body of St. Lambert would have been brought to Liège in the thirteenth year of St. Hubert's prelacy. Further, having entered upon a reckoning of the years, the praised Suyskens determines that the said translation should be tied to the 24th day of December of the year 721 or 722, according as the ordination of Hubert preceded or followed the 24th day of December of the year 709. As regards St. Hubert, one will be able to weigh that more scrupulously in his Acts at the 3rd of November. It suffices us to have shown that an error of eleven years crept into the Sigebertine chronotaxis, but that nevertheless the interval of years from the slaying of St. Lambert to his translation to Liège was accurately preserved. And since Sigebert determines the death of St. Oda not only after the slaying of St. Lambert, but also after his carrying over to the city of Liège, I consider that the same remedy should be applied to the year of death of our Saint; and so if to Sigebert's year 711 we add eleven others, we arrive at the year 722, indeed even at the year 723, so that we may say that St. Oda ended her life one year after the translation of St. Lambert and the erection of the episcopal cathedra at Liège, which she endowed with her great estates. Until, then, we obtain a more certain document, we judge it should be determined that the year of the holy matron's death is 722 or 723, which on that account we have noted at the head of this Commentary. And since we have shown above at num. 9 that St. Oda was scarcely born before the middle of the seventh century, if she closed her day in the year 722 or 723, she went beyond the age of seventy by not many years: by which reckoning we ascribe to her neither an extraordinary old age nor an untimely death.
[24] whose body, first committed to the earth, And the priests, the Life to be edited has at num. 5, and the other ministers of Christ carried the little body of the Blessed matron, placed on a bier, to the church which she had built with her own means to the praise of her Maker and the honour of the most excellent Martyr George … with psalms and prayers; and, the office of the funeral being fulfilled and the people of the province called together, they most worthily laid the little body of the handmaid of such great faith in a sepulchre constructed of stones. Jean Foullon writes that St. Hubert the bishop probably attended this funeral Vie de Ste Ode, p. 243: which must altogether be admitted, whether we consider the bond of blood or that of benefits, and the text just brought forward confirms it to some extent. For an abundance of priests and of the other ministers of Christ conducted the funeral and, the people of the province having been called together, committed her to the earth. The office of the funeral was therefore discharged with a great gathering of priests and peoples; and, unless an insuperable impediment stood in the way, St. Hubert did not suffer his presence to be missed in the last service to his dearest aunt. The same biographer further says that St. Oda's body was laid in a magnificent jasper sarcophagus raised above the ground, and that many spices were poured over it Ibid., p. 244. But in a double conjecture the praised Foullon seems less happy. Let the sepulchre have been of jasper, which the Anonymous at num. 7 calls a stone mausoleum, solid and whole. This however is certain, that the sacred remains were at first laid under the ground, since a little below the Anonymous to be edited teaches at num. 6 that it pleased the Most High, after the fame of her sanctity and miracles had been widely spread, that her sacred body should be raised from the ground and honoured in the sight of the people and the Church with due dignity, which St. Florebert accomplished, the son of St. Hubert, carnal or spiritual, and his successor in the see of Liège. The body of St. Oda, therefore, laid at first under the earth, was later honoured in the sight of the people and the Church. As regards the pouring of spices, the Anonymous contradicts this luxury at num. 5. Her body, he says, honourably laid out by the hands of the faithful, appeared not as if dead but as if sleeping, and, fragrant as cinnamon and balsam, it gave forth a most excellent odour. Which words would be plainly ridiculous if spices had been poured over the body by the work of her dependents.
[25] is elevated by St. Florebert: We have from the Anonymous, in the Life to be edited at num. 7, that the elevation of the body of St. Oda was celebrated on the 6th before the Ides of July, or on the 9th day of the same month; and the Breviary of Liège adds that this took place in the thirty-second year after her death; that is, if according to Sigebert the death of St. Oda is tied to the year of Christ 711, the elevation was made on the 9th day of July of the year 742. Bishop Florebert, who showed this veneration to the most holy woman, as the Anonymous notes at num. 7, was frequent in raising sacred remains Foullon, History of Liège, vol. I, p. 134, and besides our St. Oda he also solemnly carried the bodies of St. Landoald and his companions, and especially the remains of St. Hubert to the monastery of Andage in the year 743. There is thus no doubt about the author of the elevation of St. Oda, who is certainly Florebert; but the year is rightly called into controversy. For if, according to our chronotaxis, by which we have tied the Saint's death to the year 722 or 723, we add thirty-one years, we arrive at the year 753, by which time, St. Florebert having already died in the year 746 Acta SS., vol. III of April, p. 377, Fulcarius had succeeded. If therefore the tradition of the cited Breviary of Liège has anything certain about the elevation of the sacred body, it will have to be said that the body of St. Oda was elevated in the twenty-first year from her happy death, by which reckoning we arrive at the year of Christ 742 or 743. Jean Foullon in the French Life says prudently that all this happened some years after the Saint's death Vie de Ste Ode, p. 249.
[26] In the year 1634, by authority of the apostolic nuncio Although we do not doubt that from the time of Bishop Florebert the Relics of St. Oda were rather often visited, yet we have nothing discovered about the more ancient times. For the cartularies of the chapter of Amay which existed have either been dispersed, or exist in the hands of those who have occupied the goods of the extinct chapter. But in the year 1634, by mandate of the apostolic nuncio Pier Luigi Carafa, bishop of Tricarico, Bartholomew Ladson, rector of the house of the Society of Jesus at Huy, visited the Relics of Amay, of which recognition we display the instrument below. On this occasion a new distribution of the Relics was made, of which some part fell to the College of the Society of Jesus at Huy, while another was shared with the monastery of Liessies and certain churches. And indeed the Canons of Amay handed over the sacred remains to the College of the Society at Huy on this condition, that a Life of St. Oda should be edited in the French language. This pledge was discharged by Jean Foullon in his lucubration edited at Liège in the year 1665 Vie de Ste Ode, in the Preface; in which he so follows the common traditions that yet in the Appendix or Annotations placed at the end of the book he brings them back to a sounder criticism, and shows that some things are found rather light on the historical balance. Behold the instrument, extracted from an ancient manuscript codex, communicated to us by the Rev. Dotrewe, the present parish priest of Amay.
[27] the Relics of St. Oda are visited, The Canons of Amay, the cited codex has, had the Relics which they possessed laid up in a silver bier: of which the visitation was made in the year 1634, as is seen in the following instrument. To all and each who shall see the present letters, greeting in the Lord, I, Bartholomew Ladson, rector of the house of the Society of Jesus at Huy. On the tenth of March, in the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-four, by deputation of the most illustrious and most reverend lord Pier Luigi Carafa, bishop of Tricarico and apostolic nuncio to the regions of the Rhine with the power of a legate a latere, I visited the holy Relics of St. Oda in the church of Amay near Huy, resting in a silver bier, in which I found a notable part of the skull, likewise eight larger bones, about thirty smaller ones, and finally a great deal of dust, with about twelve fragments of some round staff. From the skull I took off a certain part, to be given to the aforesaid most illustrious lord nuncio, and from the larger bones one, though diminished, for the house of the Society of Jesus at Huy; and of the smaller ones the lord canons of the church of Amay took away nine or ten, to be distributed to the churches subject to them. Given at Huy on the sixth of April 1634. So it is, Bartholomew Ladson, Thomas Bettan, missionary of the Society of Jesus in the same place. The round staff which is recorded in the shrine more probably gave rise to the popular invention by which it is reported that St. Oda, seeing from the right bank of the Meuse the pleasantness of the left bank, threw her staff across and vowed that where it fell she would build a church there; and the same tradition points out the hill from which the staff was thrown.
[28] which again in the year 1848, with the permission of the bishop of Liège, The silver bier, in which the body of St. Oda
was laid, was held in esteem not only for its material but above all for its art, and it presented a specimen of ancient skill perfect in all its measures. Happily, when at the close of the century just past the churches and monasteries were being stripped of all their goods, and every precious thing was being turned into money, the reliquary of St. Oda was withdrawn from the rapacity of the impious and preserved for better times. But although by lapse of time or even by neglect the reliquary had not only lost its former splendour but had been mutilated of various ornaments, its workmanship was nevertheless so great that experts in antiquities desired to buy it, and judged that it should be assigned to the public museum of the arts. There was therefore offered to the parishioners of Amay a sum of money not to be despised, that they should yield their right; but they by no means suffered the precious bier, made by the piety of their forefathers, to be turned aside to profane uses and to the mere feeding of public curiosity. So, in order that the reliquary's beauty should be restored, it was resolved to cleanse it of dirt at public expense, to repair what was mutilated, and to supply what was lacking. For which reason it was necessary, before it was sent to Brussels to be adorned, to extract the remains of St. Oda; and this indeed was done before invited witnesses on the 28th day of December 1848, as the following instrument teaches, communicated to us by the Rev. Doutrewe, parish priest of Amay.
[29] and an instrument being drawn up, they are examined, Instrument of the opening of the reliquary of St. Oda, made on the 28th day of December by the churchwardens of the succursal church of Amay with the licence of the most illustrious and most reverend lord bishop of Liège. The undersigned set forth, in view of the proposal made on the 27th day of November 1847 of selling the reliquary of St. Oda or of restoring the same, of which the latter was preferred by the churchwardens, that this, being brought before the council of the fabric of the said church in the session held on the 2nd day of April 1848, was approved. For which reason a reply was written to Count de Beaufort, president of the commission set over the preservation of public monuments; who, while promising his work and aid, yet asked that the reliquary, the Relics first being extracted, should be sent to Brussels for inspection, so that it might be examined how much of ancient art it displayed. The necessary faculty having therefore been obtained from the most illustrious and most reverend lord bishop of Liège, the 28th day of December of the year 1848 was assigned for opening the reliquary. There were present Messrs. Victor Doutrewe, parish priest of Amay, G. Jamotte, G. Depart, churchwardens, J. Romous, burgomaster of Amay, J. Knaden, parish priest of St. Peter's at Huy, and G. Janssen, vicar of Amay. And so the reliquary was taken from the chapel situated opposite the sacristy, where it had been placed above the altar of St. Oda, was set down in the sacristy, and was turned on its side. Thus turned over, there was to be seen in the bottom a square opening, closed by a small board with nails easily drawn out: no seal or binding was to be found, by whose aid its genuineness and integrity could be confirmed; indeed, there are various indications by which it is established that it had been opened, though investigations revealed nothing further. The reliquary having been opened, the following were extracted: 1° three bluish linen bags (slate colour), which are of more recent weave, and indeed seem new. Now one of the three bags contains a silk cloth, in the form of a fragment of a priestly vestment, marked with red and yellow flowers: we conjecture that the bones had been wrapped in a cloth of this kind. The second bag contains fragments of bones, among which a quite long fragment of the tibia and the neck of the femur. The third contains the skull, without the lower jaw, nearly whole, three fragments of bones as long as the measure of an arm, one astragalus and various smaller fragments of bones. 2° A paper bag, containing a fragment of a femur. This bag was glued together from a funeral notice of the 15th day of August 1833: by which indication it is known for certain that the reliquary was opened either in that year, or at least at some later time. 3° A small paper bag containing wood shavings, among which rounded fragments, as of a staff. Are they to be held as remains of the staff of St. Oda, of which tradition treats? 4° Some dust, contained in a small bag, which is supposed to be all sweepings collected at some earlier visitation. 5° Lastly, three cuttings of cloth, of which one seems quite ancient, the second of silk of more recent work, the third striped with white and blue, which are supposed to have been wrappings, since they seem to have been unable to have any other use. All these things were provisionally placed in a case, until either the reliquary shall have been renovated, or, if it be sold, another shall have been made. Concerning the things set forth above the present instrument has been written, placed in the said case; of which a transcript has been entered in the cartulary of the church of Amay. Done at Amay on the 28th day of December 1848. There follow the subscriptions.
[30] and are shown to be genuine: From the instrument brought forward it is manifest that the reliquary of St. Oda was opened about the year 1833, without its being known by any indication hitherto who made the opening and by whose authority. There also survive two men who preceded the present parish priest at Amay with the title of curate: but both are ignorant by whom and on what occasion the reliquary was opened; whence no slight suspicion is aroused that this took place secretly and by stealth, and therefore that the Relics which are stored in the bier today must be held doubtful. And certainly if the opening had been so great that all the bones could have been extracted, there would be no slight foundation for suspicion and fraud. But when the present reverend parish priest was asked whether the opening in the bottom of the bier was so great that the skull, for example, could have been snatched out, he denied that it was so great: whence it is now gathered that this was not done with evil intent, since nothing stood in the way of making a larger opening; for if anyone had intended to falsify the Relics by impious violation, he would by an easier business have despoiled the bier of all the bones, to be stored in secret, and leaving no trace of the violation, would have cheated the faithful of their piety. Next, the bones which had been found in the visitation of the year 1634, and their number, were recognised anew in the year 1848; it would therefore have been necessary for a forger to have at hand bones the same in number, the same in sex, the same in age as those which had formerly been stored in the reliquary, which could not have been done without great industry. And if we attribute such great dexterity to the forger, how did it happen that he left behind him such clear traces of the opened bier? Finally, as we have said, some bones, for example of the skull, could not be extracted through the opening made: therefore it would be necessary to hold a part of them, at least, as true Relics. Let us say, then, that this was done rashly, but without malice; and that the remains of St. Oda, such as are held in honour today at Amay, are not to be deprived of their due cult.
[31] it is also shown that St. Oda But a greater difficulty takes up from the one discussed, when it is called into controversy whether the body of St. Oda truly rests at Amay, and whether the Saint's remains should not be sought in present-day Lorraine. From a letter of the Rev. Dotrewe, parish priest of Amay, I am informed that the question is set up in about this manner. Namely, that in the seventh century there was no collegiate chapter at Amay, unless perhaps at the beginning there was an ascetery of nuns. And if a collegiate church was erected at Amay in that century, it is not likely that the holy widow selected for herself a place destined for men; rather, her son St. Arnulf, bishop of Metz, would have led his mother into the mountains of the Vosges, to the convent of Remiremont founded by St. Romaric. Before we go further, we reply that St. Oda was not the mother of St. Arnulf of Metz, who died in the year of Christ 640, since we tie the Saint's death to the common year 722 or 723, and determine that she was scarcely born before the middle of the seventh century. As for what the causes were that the holy widow did not join herself to nuns, even if we were ignorant of them, there is yet no reason why we should call the stay at Amay into doubt, especially since many have followed a kind of life of this sort. And to bring forward domestic examples, that is, of the same sex, century and region, these lived holily in secular dress: St. Aldegund, venerated at Trazegnies, daughter of St. Basinus the Martyr Acta SS. of Belgium, vol. V, p. 226; St. Dympna, Martyr, with St. Gerebernus, whom it nevertheless concerned that the holy virgin should be hidden in a monastery Ibid., p. 301; St. Bertilia, Virgin Ibid., p. 233; St. Framechildis, mother of St. Austreberta Ibid., p. 448; St. Gudila, Virgin Ibid., p. 667; St. Oda, Virgin Ibid., vol. VI, p. 587; St. Amalberga, Virgin of Temse, on an estate of her own right Acta SS., vol. III of Jul., p. 72. For the rest, there is a special reason why St. Oda followed this kind of life, namely the care which she bore for her nephew St. Hubert, for which reason she also endowed with great estates the Church of Liège when it had been made a cathedral. No consideration presents itself, therefore, why the holy matron should betake herself into the Vosges. And if the Saint had wished to give herself to an ascetery of nuns, she need in no way have sought it outside Belgium.
[32] lived and died at Amay, This difficulty which we have washed away was aimed, further, at this: that the place of her death, and therefore of her burial, at least her first, should be established in Lorraine. The Lorraine writer, namely, does not grasp that St. Oda, having died at Amay, was translated; and accordingly he considers that the place of death should be sought elsewhere. This difficulty is met by the very Life to be edited below. For when St. Oda, in the manner of other faithful people, had been laid in a sepulchre, some years after St. Florebert elevated the body of the Saint; by which deed, according to the custom of those times, he permitted cult to be shown her. The Life at num. 6 has the following: When therefore in the surrounding provinces of the lands the fame of her name became celebrated by frequent miracles of power, it pleased the Most High that, for celebrating the ecclesiastical solemnity of her name, her sacred body should be raised from the ground and honoured in the sight of the people and the Church with due dignity. For because this handmaid of God, Oda, had in her life caused various churches to be built for the divine service, the Lord willed that the churches endowed with her possessions should preserve the glorious Relics of her body, translated from the earth, and should render thanks to their Creator for the faith and knowledge of those to come… And so, with Florebert, venerable pontiff of the Church of Liège, ordering it, the ecclesiastical persons being gathered at his trumpet, the people of the whole province flowed together from every side, to receive the blessing of the holy fathers and to honour with worthy veneration and reverence the holy Relics to be translated from the ground. So the Fathers, giving the blessing to the people, coming with prayer and psalmody to the sarcophagus, take down the upper stone placed over the holy body; and thus in a stone mausoleum, solid and whole, they find the sacred and venerable Relics, giving forth a most sweet odour of pleasantness. This translation took place on the seventh before the Ides of the month of July… But the Fathers of ecclesiastical dignity made the churches built by the industry and labour of the glorious handmaid of God Oda with the same woman's Relics at the greater altar of the church of Amay, where she had been buried: and in each place to increase the divine service and to sing from memory praises to God in the churches of the saints throughout the surrounding provinces for the memory of St. Oda. And so the Relics were stored away with great devotion, most honourably, in other churches. Thus far our biographer.
[33] and her body, except for certain small particles, It is plain enough that the text displayed
near the end, where the Relics are treated, is mutilated. And since we know of no sound exemplar of this Life, by which other codices could accordingly be emended, and we have already warned above that the writer here and there omitted certain words, we judge that the gap should be filled in this way, enclosing the supplements in parentheses: But the Fathers of ecclesiastical dignity made the churches built by the industry and labour of the glorious handmaid of God sharers (and the body) in the same woman's Relics, (placed) at the greater altar of the church of Amay, where she had been buried, and in each place (ordered) the divine service to be increased and praises to God to be sung from memory in the churches of the saints throughout the surrounding provinces for the memory of St. Oda. And that this is the sense of the mutilated text (for one may substitute words for words) is shown sufficiently by the very sequence and ordering of the words of the codex; for why, while the Saint's Relics are treated, would mention be made of other churches built by the industry and labour of the glorious handmaid of God Oda, unless the discourse were about a distribution of the sacred remains to be made to other churches? Next, since a little below the Relics are said to have been stored away with great devotion, most honourably, in other churches, no doubt can remain that the Relics of St. Oda were then distributed to various churches. This sense is also given us by Jean Foullon, when he says that St. Flodebert sent some particles to the churches built by the Saint Vie de Ste Ode, p. 249.
[34] was never removed. But let us return from the digression to the question. From what has been reported it is plain enough what is to be understood here by the name of a translation made on the 7th before the Ides, or the 9th day, of July; that is, as the Breviaries of Liège have it, that St. Florebert, bishop of Liège, raised to the altar the Relics of Blessed Oda, illustrious by her miracles. Moreover, there still survive the stones of the sepulchre in which the body of St. Oda was first laid, and they have been built into the wall beside the altar of the church of Amay as a memorial of the matter Ibid., p. 244. To the constant tradition, therefore, is added the palpable argument of the sepulchral stones, by which it is placed beyond all doubt that St. Oda both closed her life at Amay and, having obtained a sepulchre there, has remained there unmoved perpetually down to our times. But what then? At Dommartin near Toul of the Leuci (Dommartin-lez-Toul), in the present diocese of Nancy, notable parts of the body of St. Oda are preserved to this day, and her sepulchre is shown. Certainly, if the discourse were of Relics alone, even larger ones, it could be replied that the church of Dommartin, perhaps built by St. Oda, had a share in her Relics, especially since present-day Lorraine belonged to Austrasia, which the holy matron endowed by her liberality, or else that by lapse of time the relics came down from another church to that of Dommartin. But since there is shown in that place an ancient sepulchre as well, it seems likely to me that some other St. Oda must be sought. Now opportunely there occurs the St. Oda who was said to be the sister of St. Eliphius, Martyr, whose Acts we gave at the 16th day of October Acta SS., vol. VII of Oct., p. 804. And indeed our colleague Ibid., p. 304 and Dom Calmet in the History of Lorraine Hist. de Lorr., vol. I, col. 200 do not admit the kinship of this Oda with St. Eliphius, without on that account denying either her sanctity or her martyrdom. For the praised Dom Calmet a little below reports her passion at the year 450, and calls the Saint Hoilda, Hilda, Othilda, in French Ste Houx; and he adds that she remained buried in the district of Perthes until the year of Christ 1159, in which Henry, Count of Champagne, ordered the Saint's body to be exhumed and transferred to Troyes Ibid., col. 283. It must then be seen whether the Relics of Dommartin, and indeed the sepulchre, of this Oda do not rather belong to the district of Toul than to that of Perthes. Finally, it could be that a certain namesake, celebrated more by the fame of sanctity than by knowledge of her deeds, buried at Dommartin for centuries, obtained some cult which, scarcely going beyond the bounds of the parish at first, perished; but that later a desire was roused of inquiring into her Acts, and when nothing was found in the place itself, the story came to St. Oda of Amay. For the Acts of saints of the same name are often mingled together. But let these things be said by way of conjecture. One thing we hold: that the body of St. Oda the Widow, aunt of St. Hubert, was both buried at Amay and remains there to the present day.
[35] A brief account of St. Pompeius. To the Acts of St. Oda we subjoin what we learn from her Life about her, as it seems, confessor, Blessed Pompeius; who, although he seems never to have had a properly liturgical cult, that is, an Office and Mass, yet is held in veneration among the people of Amay, as we shall explain below. The things narrated about the blessed man have been gathered by Molanus in his Natales of the Saints of Belgium under this very 23rd day of October. Blessed Pompeius the priest, he says, St. Oda loved especially, a man so proved in life and morals that, although the stroke was absent, he is not believed to have lost the palm of martyrdom in the maceration of his body. He was buried at Amay in the crypt of a chapel which is dedicated to God on the hill in honour of St. Catherine; yet it is more usually called after Blessed Pompeius, in French “Saint Pope.” The altar of his little church has three statues, the middle one of the Mother of God, the left of Catherine, and the right of Pompeius, sitting in priestly dress with a chalice in his hand. He is similarly depicted on the wall, but standing and blessing brute animals. And when the country people seek the sacrifice of the Mass in that place, the priests read according to custom from the common of a Confessor not a Pontiff, but because he has not been canonised, the Collects of a Confessor being omitted, they read others against plague among animals. In a most courteous letter given to me on the 6th of January of this current year 1858, the Rev. Victor Doutrewe writes that the oratory of Blessed Pompeius no longer exists, but that the little church of St. Catherine has survived, although reduced to profane uses. The intercession of Blessed Pompeius is earnestly implored not only for brute animals, especially pigs, but also for infants labouring under some disease. The gathering of the people venerating the holy priest is especially celebrated on the Kalends of May and on the Monday of Pentecost. To this day his image, engraved on copper, is carried around, showing the Blessed man holding up a chalice in his right hand and surrounded by pigs. And these are the things which the monuments, both ancient and more recent, have handed down about Blessed Pompeius.
LIFE OF ST. ODA, WIDOW, BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR,
From the parchment Utrecht codex of the royal library of Brussels under no. 7917, collated with the Korsendonk Codex of the same library under no. 858.
Oda, widow. (S.)
Pompeius, presbyter and confessor, at Amay in the diocese of Liège. (S.)
BHL Number: 6259
BY AN ANONYMOUS AUTHOR.
SOLE CHAPTER.
The rise of the Saint; migration into Austrasia; pious works; holy death; elevation of the body by St. Florebert, bishop of Liège.
St. Oda, widow of Boggo of Aquitaine, The glorious handmaid of Christ Oda, daughter of the most powerful king of the Gauls a, by happy auspice worthy of such a name, which signifies the praise of God or a hymn, was the wife of Boggis, the most noble duke of the Aquitanians b. She, following the vow and example of the parents of the glorious Virgin Mary, Mother of the Lord, namely Joachim and Anna, divided all the temporal goods which she had into three parts. One part she abundantly furnished for building churches and for those serving God; from the second she ministered to the sick and needy; the third she reserved for her own uses c. She sewed the clothing of the poor with her own hands; having them baptised, drawing them out of the holy font, and being joined with them by motherhood *, she did good to them the more gladly. For the burial also of the dead poor she made clothing with her own hands d, and touching them with her own hands, she handed them over to burial. The little lodgings of the poor, however distant they were and however muddy or rough the way, she most kindly visited with saving consolation. And thus she sought a threefold reward: from the labour of the journey, from the compassion of her soul, and from the bestowal of temporal things e. Beloved by God and men for these and other pious and good works, she was venerated by all her household, was loved by all the faithful, and was praised as a mother and nurse by all who were placed in tribulation.
[2] came into Austrasia, After some years her spouse, the glorious duke, in the confession of true piety, fortified with the life-giving bread, departed from this light and arrived at the dwelling of perpetual life with the just f. After the death of her husband Blessed Oda remained in holy widowhood; and having made a vow, she was zealous to live in perpetual continence. But she governed the province of her principality excellently through faithful men; to her subjects, in every time and place, in every strait and necessity, she brought the helps of salvation. And she ordered a hospital to be made beside her dwelling, in which she restored the poor and the sick with the full affection of charity. She visited the poor of her hospital in person twice a day, morning and evening, and with cheerfulness ministered to them the necessities of life. While therefore she shone with these and other insignia of virtues, her beloved son, the venerable Arnulph, reached the years of puberty; and his mother, by the counsel of the magnates, handed over to him the principality of the province to govern, with the testimony left to him by his father. Blessed Arnulph, then, in his youth begot Duke Ansigisus, and afterwards was elected bishop of Metz g. Duke Ansegisus, having betrothed to himself Bogga , daughter of Prince Pepin h, the most beloved sister of the glorious Virgin Gertrude i, begot of her Duke Pepin; and Duke Pepin had Charles; Charles had Pepin, at first duke, but afterwards anointed as king k. King Pepin begot Charlemagne, who was consecrated by Pope Leo as emperor of the Romans.
[3] and intent on holy works, Thus then Blessed Oda shone adorned by great kings, worshippers of the Christian faith; namely Clovis her forefather, Childebert her father, Dagobert her brother; but by her most holy son Arnulph and by the most holy emperors and kings begotten of her stock she stood forth still more glorified before God and men l. Blessed Oda was also the aunt of Blessed Hubert, bishop of Liège m. When then on a certain day she had paid out all her food to the poor, the Lord came in the form of a poor youth, with a cheerful and pleasant face, asking that shelter be given him for the name of Christ. She, having heard the sweet-sounding name of Christ, rejoiced on looking at the youth, and most kindly received him into her hospitality. And the youth, sitting beside the venerable matron, asked her to rise and to minister food to him. So rising she went to the basket n, which the servants had said beforehand was emptied of food, and she found it filled to the very top with loaves and other nourishment. And the youth, taking the food from the devout matron, gave thanks, and addressed her most sweetly in these words: “Because today you have refreshed me in myself, and on other days in my members, know that the joys of eternal life are being prepared for you, and that the helps of the present life are furnished to those who ask them of you, and abundance to those placed with you, by the grace of your Redeemer.” These things said, the youth from her eyes
vanished. And when the meal was finished, the menservants and maidservants, coming to the storerooms, lofts and barns, saw them so filled with crops, flour, loaves and other food that it seemed no more could be stored there o.
[4] and foreknowing her approaching death, After some years, when her little body was wearied with excessive sickness from her excessive abstinence and the keeping of vigils, she learned by divine revelation that her departure was imminent. By the counsel, then, of the servants of God she changed entirely all her honour and the means of temporal things into purely spiritual goods for the love of Christ, and she appointed menservants and maidservants fervent with divine love, obedient to the sacred institutions, to minister to the needy and to serve God in her place. And after she had loosed the bond and care of the burden of earthly things from her conscience, as one free for God, for the space of life that she thereafter lived she prayed unceasingly, and walking round the sacred buildings of the churches, preaching with exhortations and honeyed words, she did not cease to meditate on the law of the Lord. Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, with unconquered mind and serene countenance she exulted in the Lord. She awaited with patience the last day of her passing also, which had been divinely revealed to her; from prison to the kingdom, from grief to gladness, from darkness to light, from death she hastened to life; and though she was in the world in body, in mind she was daily zealous to pass over to the eternal virtues. She advanced by continual prayers, she devoted herself singularly to affliction and abstinence; moreover, harsh in her dress, she clothed her little body in a garment of haircloth, and she had in this life no refreshment of holiness [p], but was always intent on eternal things. And when she had come to the last day, she had priests and other faithful people called to her; and having made her confession, with pure faith she most devoutly received the Lord's body, and being anointed with the holy oil, she asked from all those sitting around the aid of their prayers, that she might come from this life to the kingdom of heaven. Then she ordered all her substance and furnishings and everything she had to be distributed to the poor of Christ, except a cheap tunic, in which she wished to be buried.
[5] she dies holily; After this, the Lord's prayer and the Apostles' creed having been said [q], she lay exulting; and with her eyes intent on heaven she saw Jesus Christ in the midst of the holy Angels, calling her most sweetly to everlasting refreshment. And so with thanksgiving she commended to the Lord all who were sitting by her, with most devoted voice and mind; and handing over her spirit into the hands of the Lord, as if sweetly falling asleep, she expired on the tenth before the Kalends of November. And many who dwelt round about, hearing of her death, came to her funeral, and the feeble and the poor, whom she had been accustomed to feed while living, weeping, grieved that they had lost as it were a most sweet mother. Her body, honourably laid out by the hands of the faithful, appeared not as (dead, but as) sleeping, and fragrant as cinnamon and balsam it gave forth a most excellent odour. And the priests and the other ministers of Christ carried the little body of the blessed matron, placed on a bier, with psalms and prayers, to the church which she had built with her own means to the praise of her Maker and the honour of the most excellent Martyr George, whom in many places, by a privilege of love, she venerated in like manner, and in which she was resplendent *; and the office of the funeral being fulfilled and the people of the province called together, they most worthily laid the little body of the handmaid of such great faith in a sepulchre constructed of stones.
[6] and her body some years after And after her death the Lord of all, whom she sincerely loved and for love of whom she did not cease to feed the crowd of the poor, glorified his handmaid in this world for his own praise and for the consolation of his faithful, when he restored remedies to the sick, weighed down by various sickness. Thence Christ is worthily praised by all, who gloriously crowns his Saints in heaven and frequently makes them wonderful on earth by prodigies of power and signs of miracles. For the Lord deigned to work such great signs and powers through her merits that he gave back sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, restored walking to the lame and the use of the tongue to many; and every feeble person also, having obtained his health, rejoiced in the divine consolation, strengthened both in body and in soul. Whence not undeservedly she is believed to have been crowned with a perpetual and immortal crown, who, placed in the profession of widowhood, serving the Lord frequently in the temple by the seed of almsgiving, by vigils and prayers, shone proved in every good work. When therefore in the surrounding provinces of the lands the fame of her name became celebrated by frequent miracles of power, it pleased the Most High that, for celebrating the ecclesiastical solemnity of her name, her sacred body should be raised from the ground and honoured in the sight of the people and the Church with due dignity. For because this handmaid of God, Oda, had in her life caused various churches to be built for the divine service, the Lord willed that the churches endowed with her possessions should preserve the glorious Relics of her body, translated from the earth, and should render thanks to their Creator for the faith and knowledge of those to come, and should frequent devout odes to the name and memory of Oda.
[7] is elevated by St. Florebert. And so, with Florebert, pontiff of the venerable Church of Liège [r], ordering it, the ecclesiastical persons being gathered at her tomb, the people of the whole province flowed together from every side to receive the blessing of the holy fathers * and to honour with worthy veneration and reverence the holy Relics to be translated from the ground. So the Fathers, giving the blessing to the people, coming with prayer and psalmody to the sarcophagus, take down the upper stone placed over the holy body; and thus in a stone mausoleum, solid and whole, they find the sacred and venerable Relics, giving forth a most sweet odour of pleasantness. This translation took place on the seventh before the Ides of the month of July, to the praise and honour of our Lord Jesus Christ. But the Fathers of ecclesiastical dignity caused the churches built by the industry and labour of the glorious handmaid of God Oda to be adorned with the same woman's Relics, and the body to be (placed) at the greater altar of the church of Amay, where she had been buried, and in each place the divine service to be increased and praises to God to be sung from memory in the churches of the Saints throughout the surrounding provinces for the memory of St. Oda [s]. And so the Relics were stored away with great devotion, most honourably, in other churches, and the God of gods is praised in the odes of St. Oda, with glory and honour, who magnified her with virtues and crowned her in perpetual brightness.
ANNOTATIONS.
p. The Korsendonk codex lacks the pericope: These things said … stored there. Similarly in the following number: to affliction and abstinence … intent.
q. It will be worthwhile to have remarked that no mention is made here of the angelic salutation, whose formula certainly did not exist in the age of St. Oda, seeing that it is older than the eleventh century, when among the Latins the use of such a prayer began to be more frequent,
which at length passed into an ecclesiastical precept, as was shown in the commentary on the Acts of St. Gauderic at the 16th day of October Acta SS., vol. VII of Oct., p. 1108. Hence too we confirm once more that the Life which we edit was written, as we said at num. 4 of the Preliminary Commentary, in the course of the tenth century. For if the writer had been more recent, he would certainly have reported these things according to the custom of his own time, and so would not have omitted the angelic Salutation.
r. Of St. Florebert treatment was made at the 25th day of April Ibid., vol. III of Apr., p. 377. He is said to have died about the year 746, from which year of death we have shown at num. 25 of the Preliminary Commentary that the Breviary of Liège is mistaken in saying that the body of St. Oda was elevated in the thirty-second year after her death, which σφαλμα indeed the Proper of Liège edited in the year 1857 corrected, in which is read simply, without any indication of years: Saint Floribert, bishop of Liège, raised to the sacred altar the Relics of Blessed Oda, illustrious by her miracles.
s. We do not judge that one should omit the letter given by the canons of Amay on the 4th day of July 1446 to the monks of St. Arnulf of Metz; for although certain things occur in it which, as we have shown in the course of the commentary, are by no means consistent with the critical art, yet it contains others which illustrate the cult of St. Oda, and especially it attests in writing that even the people of Lorraine were persuaded that the body of the holy matron had always been at Amay. The letter was edited by Dom Calmet in the History of Lorraine among the Instruments, and it is of the following tenor Hist. de Lorr., vol. I, Preuves col. CIX:
The provost and the whole chapter of the collegiate church of Blessed Oda, widow, of Amay, of the diocese of Liège, your humble friends, to the venerable and religious lords the abbot and convent of the monastery of Saint Arnulf the Confessor, situated near the city of Metz, due reverence and honour, and everlasting salvation in the Lord. We desire to make known to you and to your kind grace that your letter, sent to us on your behalf by the religious and circumspect lord Simon de Charisey, abbot of your aforesaid monastery, sealed and confirmed with the seal of your aforesaid abbot, and at first sight it appeared that you had most kindly received, through those two men sent to you on our behalf; which men you kindly and laudably received in your monastery for love of our most holy aforesaid patroness and of us, as they have said: for which we render you thanks by these presents; so that if we can do anything in the parts of Liège which may please your wishes, you may delight us with your commands, as we are ready with all diligence to expend our power on everything that regards your advantage and honour, on account of the most holy Arnulf, your kind patron, son of Blessed Oda, widow, his mother, our foundress and patroness; and we have very well understood all the contents of the aforesaid letter sent to us on your part. Whence we report to you that, according to what you desire, we send you the whole History and Legend, the Chant and Office of the Mass and of the Hours of Blessed Oda, Widow, our foundress and patroness, as you will find in the volume of the bearers to the bearer? of these presents, delivered in parchment, written according to the size of the volume written for us by you, as your letter asserted: which bearer has promised us to deliver to you the aforesaid History with the present letter. Moreover we humbly beseech you that you deign to send back to us by the bearer of these presents the History, Legend, Chant, and Office of the Mass and Hours of the feast of Blessed Arnulf the Confessor, your patron, son of Blessed Oda, and the History of the Translation of the same St. Arnulf, and also the Chronicle of Blessed Arnulf: which Chronicle we promise you by these presents to send back, after we have copied it, by the bearer or by another faithful man. Likewise deign to know, venerable Religious, that we solemnly celebrate annually three feasts in our collegiate church of Amay in honour of Blessed Oda, widow, our patroness. Namely the feast of her death, when she departed from this world, on the 23rd day of the month of October; likewise we celebrate a second feast, namely the feast of the Translation of Blessed Oda on the 9th day of July; likewise we celebrate a third feast, namely the feast of the Exaltation of Blessed Oda, always on the Sunday after the feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist, in the month of September; and then a solemn procession is made around the township of Amay, carrying a most beautiful silver bier, gilded in part, in which bier the bones of the kindly body of most blessed Oda are placed. Of which three feasts the first aforesaid feast, namely of her death, is the greater; because it is celebrated through all the churches of the whole bishopric and diocese of Liège with nine lessons at Matins, according to the ordinary of Liège. And we also celebrate concerning St. Arnulf, your patron, in our church of Amay, on the 16th of the month of August, a feast with nine lessons, according to the Ordinary of Liège, as of one Confessor, for lack of a proper History. Also, venerable lords, you make complaint about the name of the father of St. Arnulf, your patron. Concerning this we write back to your reverences that the father of St. Arnulf was called Boggus, who was duke in Aquitaine, as you will find in the Legend of Blessed Oda sent by us. Also, if it should happen that any of yours come to visit our church of Amay in future times, you will find it situated below the town of Huy, at one great mile, near the river Meuse between Huy and the city of Huy Liège?, and our church has two bell-towers, in which church Blessed Oda rests, and it is a college of canons, and we are of the consortium and fraternity of the holy churches of Liège. Likewise it is found in the Chronicles that Blessed Oda, our patroness, founded the township and church of Amay in honour of Blessed George, and endowed our church with many goods which we possess, as well in tithes as in hereditary pennies, and she further founded four parish churches in the bishopric of Liège, all in honour of St. George at her own expense; and she instituted in our church of Amay eight canons, and when she departed, all the other possessions, estates and allods which she possessed in the land of Liège she bequeathed to St. Hubert the Confessor, at that time bishop of Liège, her kinsman, for the work of his churches, which St. Hubert himself was then founding, as well in the city of Liège as in the Ardennes; because the aforesaid St. Hubert was the son of a sister of Blessed Oda, and the father of St. Hubert was a son of the aforesaid Boggus; because Boggus had two wives: of the first he begot a certain Bertrand, and that Bertrand of his wife, called Phigberta, begot St. Hubert, which Phigberta was the legitimate sister of Blessed Oda, widow. After the death of his first wife, the same Boggus betrothed Blessed Oda, of whom he begot Blessed Arnulf, your patron; and Blessed Oda was the aunt of St. Hubert, and Blessed Arnulf, son of Blessed Oda, was the uncle of St. Hubert on the side of Boggus, his father, because Bertrand and St. Arnulf were brothers, not of one mother, but of two mothers and of one father, namely Boggus. Likewise St. Arnulf betrothed to himself a noble lady, of whom he begot Duke Angisus, which Angisus had to wife Blessed Begga of Andenne, sister of St. Gertrude, Virgin; of which Begga he begot Pepin, just as we find these things in the Chronicles of Liège. Also you will find something, and many things, in the Legend of Blessed Oda about her progeny, rise, life and sanctity. The Most High knows, who deign to preserve you in holy Religion for very long times. In testimony of all the foregoing things, we have seen fit to have the seal for causes of our aforesaid church of Amay appended to the present letters. Given in the year of the Lord's Nativity one thousand four hundred and forty-six, on the fourth day of the month of July. There is no reason why we should show in more words that there are many errors in the genealogical description of the canons of Amay; the chief of the errors lies in this, that they attribute St. Arnulf of Metz as a son to St. Oda, whose origin we have illustrated in § II of the Preliminary Commentary, so that there is no need to refute these things anew.
* C.: contracted with them
* C. adds: destined to live
* C.: patrimony
* C.: had
* C.: Begga
* C.: to be buried
* C. adds: to those flocking together for health, of health
* C. lacks: frequently
* C. lacks: holy